Real world networks, as physical systems, are large-scale assemblages of interacting entities—such as infrastructure components, biological units, or technological devices—whose connections and dynamics are instantiated in material space and time. They are typically represented as graphs in which nodes correspond to physical objects (e.g., routers, power substations, neurons, or transportation hubs) and edges represent actual physical or functional interactions (e.g., cables, transmission lines, synapses, or routes). Their structure often exhibits nontrivial properties such as heterogeneity, modularity, and small-world or scale-free characteristics, which critically influence robustness, failure propagation, transport efficiency, and collective dynamical behavior.
A leaf may appear to be one of the simplest structures in nature, thin, delicate and easily overlooked. At first glance, it seems far removed from the complex systems that scientists usually describe as networks. Yet, as ...
Like people, nonhuman primates live in groups that vary in size and shape depending on the species. Some primate groups are small and simple; others are large and more layered. Over the decades, primatologists have observed ...
Plants & Animals
May 5, 2026
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68
Researchers at the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) and the University of the Ryukyus have developed a new imaging method that makes it possible to see, in real time, how food is distributed and ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 29, 2026
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20
When humans are moving as a crowd, their movements tend to be highly coordinated, similarly to the collective motions of bird flocks or other groups of animals. These group behaviors can limit collisions in dynamic environments, ...
At first glance, the world of ants may seem far removed from our everyday lives. Yet, on closer inspection, they often face surprisingly similar challenges. They live in complex societies where the functioning of a colony ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 14, 2026
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12
Due to climate change, extreme weather events such as flooding are expected to increase in Germany in the future. This poses hidden risks to the health care system that have hardly been the focus of resilience planning to ...
Environment
Feb 18, 2026
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16
Quantum technologies, systems that process, transfer or store information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could tackle some real-world problems faster and more effectively than their classical counterparts. In recent ...
The global climate is in an imbalance. Potential "tipping elements" include the Greenland ice sheet, coral reefs, and the Amazon rainforest. Together they form a network that can collapse if just one individual component ...
General Physics
May 6, 2025
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27
Data security on the internet is under threat: in the future, quantum computers could decode even encrypted files sent over the internet in no time. Researchers worldwide are, therefore, experimenting with quantum networks ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 11, 2025
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98
An international research team led by QuTech has demonstrated a network connection between quantum processors over metropolitan distances. Their result marks a key advance from early research networks in the lab towards a ...
Quantum Physics
Oct 30, 2024
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