What if you could create new materials just by shining a light at them? To most, this sounds like science fiction or alchemy, but to physicists investigating the burgeoning field of Floquet engineering, this is the goal. With a periodic drive, like light, scientists can “dress up” the electronic structure of any material, altering its fundamental properties—such as turning a simple semiconductor into a superconductor.

While the theory of Floquet physics has been investigated since a bold proposal by Oka and Aoki in 2009, only a handful of experiments within the past decade have managed to demonstrate Floquet effects...

Over the years, passing spacecraft have observed mystifying weather patterns at the poles of Jupiter and Saturn. The two planets host very different types of polar vortices, which are huge atmospheric whirlpools that rotate over a planet’s polar region. On Saturn, a single massive polar vortex appears to cap the north pole in a curiously hexagonal shape, while on Jupiter, a central polar vortex is surrounded by eight smaller vortices, like a pan of swirling cinnamon rolls.

Given that both planet...

Retinal vein occlusion (RVO) is a severe disease that occurs when a vein in the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye (i.e., the retina) becomes blocked, which results in a loss of vision. There are currently a few medical interventions that address RVO, including the periodic injection of medications that block the abnormal growth of blood vessels or of steroids, which reduce swelling and inflammation.

A promising procedure for the treatment of RVO is retinal vein cannulation (RVC)...

To reliably complete household chores, assemble products and tackle other manual tasks, robots should be able to adapt their manipulation strategies based on the objects they are working with, similarly to how humans leverage information they gain via the sense of touch. While humans attain tactile information via nerves in their skin and muscles, robots rely on sensors, devices that sense their surroundings and pick up specific physical signals.

Most robotic hands and grippers developed so far rely on visual-tactile senso...