In the late 1700s, rural France experienced a wave of rumours accusing aristocrats of plotting to suppress revolutionary ideas. Modern epidemiological modelling indicates that high wheat prices, local income disparities, and levels of literacy combined to accelerate transmission of those rumours, producing the phenomenon known as the Great Fear. Separate research highlights present an unconventional proposal linking dark energy to black-hole-related processes and document a tiny Australian marsupial predator recovering from near-extinction after drought. A reader quiz reveals wide disagreement among physicists and readers about quantum interpretations, with many favoring realist accounts despite philosophical and physical tensions.
In the late 1700s, rural France was beset with rapidly spreading rumours of aristocratic plots to suppress revolutionary ideas. But how, and why, these rumours were able to spread so quickly has puzzled historians. Now, using modern epidemiological modelling, a team suggests that a combination of high wheat prices, income and literacy level drove this period of French history known as the Great Fear.
Physicists differ widely in their interpretations of quantum mechanics, and so do Nature readers, according to our Cosmo-inspired quiz. The quantum world is notoriously difficult to explain, with interpretations of the mathematical foundations ranging from the epistemic, which only describes information, to the realist, where equations map onto the real world. The quiz suggests that many readers prefer the realist, even if that is difficult to mesh with the physics itself.
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