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Ironically, the closer we get to building a living cell, the less we are able to understand it. During the three-day virtual workshop “Reconstituting biology - charting the way to minimal cells”, cell-building researchers agreed this complexity is what makes cells so interesting.

Never before have technology and innovation been so central to our society. Physics allows us to understand both simple everyday phenomena and the latest technologies: from guitar music to the 5G network. Physics is therefore indispensable for many educational programmes and other disciplines.

The ability to precisely manipulate individual charge carriers is a cornerstone for single-electron transistors and for electronic devices of the future, including solid-state quantum bits (qubits). Quantum dots (QDs) are at the heart of these devices. In a recent Nano Letters paper, researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) present the first mechanically-tunable monolayer graphene QD whose electronic properties can be modified by in-plane nanometer displacements.

The first detector array for NASA's GUSTO mission has passed its pre-shipment review and is now shipping to the University of Arizona for integration into the balloon observatory. SRON together with TU Delft develops GUSTO's three 8-pixel-arrays, for the frequencies 4.7, 1.9 and 1.4 terahertz. They have now finished the array for the 4.7 terahertz channel—the most challenging part. GUSTO is a balloon mission that will measure emissions from cosmic material between stars.

NWO has announced that TU Delft's Nynke Dekker has been awarded an NWO Spinoza Prize. The Spinoza and Stevin Prizes are the most prestigious awards in Dutch science. Besides Nynke Dekker, prizes were also awarded to prof. dr. ir. Jan van Hest (TUE), prof. dr. Pauline Kleingeld (RUG) and prof. dr. Sjaak Neefjes (LUMC/UL). Prof. dr. Linda Steg (RUG) en prof. dr. Ton Schumacher (AVL/LUMC/UL) have been awarded a Stevinprize. Each of the laureates will receive 2.5 million euros to spend on scientific research and related activities.

How can artificial intelligence (AI) accelerate scientific progress? Delft scientists will investigate this question in eight new 'TU Delft AI Labs'.

Phase transitions play an important role in materials. However, in two-dimensional materials, the most famous of which is graphene, phase transitions can be very difficult to study. Researchers from Delft University of Technology and the University of Valencia have developed a new method that helps to solve this problem. They suspended ultrathin layers of 2D-materials over a cavity and tracked the resonance frequency of the resulting membranes using lasers. The results of their work have been published in Nature Communications.

Researchers at Delft University of Technology have developed a sensor that is only 11 atoms in size. The sensor is capable of capturing magnetic waves and consists of an antenna, a readout capability, a reset button and a memory unit. The researchers hope to use their atomic sensor to learn more about the behaviour of magnetic waves, so that hopefully such waves can be used in green ICT applications one day.

On April 29, Nature published the following statement regarding the 2018 article titled Quantized Majorana conductance: “The authors have alerted the editors of Nature to potential problems in the manner in which the raw data in this Letter have been processed, and these will have an impact on the conclusions that can be reliably drawn.”