When it comes to scientific conferences, we’ve all been affected by the restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic. But even when the pandemic is over, as it surely will be one day, I don’t think we’ll ever entirely go back to massive scientific conferences as we knew them.

Sending thousands of people halfway round the world at great expense to mix in stuffy rooms increasingly seems a thing of the past, not least on the grounds of cost and pollution. What’s more, we can do so much more online.

Sure, it’ll take time to figure out what works best, but there are some intriguing developments already under way. In the new issue of Physics World, for example, you can read about a recent online conference in attophysics that deliberately set out to create scientific “battles”. More importantly, online conferences can make physics meetings more accessible and open.

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For the record, here’s a rundown of what else is in the issue.

• US election focuses on science – from dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic to stimulating industries of the future, science policy will play a larger role than usual in next month’s US election, as Peter Gwynne reports

• Redefining the scientific conference – Eleanor S Armstrong, Divya M Persaud and Christopher A-L Jackson argue that the COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to start making scientific meetings more inclusive

• Courting controversy online – Carla Figueira de Morisson Faria and Andrew Brown say that academic debate can still be fostered in an online-only world

• Monumental mistake – Robert P Crease laments the disappearance of a landmark in US science history: the cooling tower at the Brookhaven National Laboratory

• Green strings attached – solving many of today’s environmental problems will require advanced technological solutions, says James McKenzie

• Eliminating the boundary between sky and space – reusable vehicles are vital to make access to space more affordable, but conventional rocket engines have their limits. Oliver Nailard describes how UK firm Reaction Engines hopes to revolutionize space access with a new class of propulsion system, the Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE)

• Stretching the limits – most materials get thinner when stretched, but “auxetics” do the opposite and get thicker. Helen Gleeson describes her group’s discovery of a material that is auxetic at the molecular level, which could be used in everything from body armour to laminated glass

• Optical microscopy – how small can it go? For centuries diffraction limited the resolution of optical microscopy. The past 50 years have, however, seen one limitation after another buckle under the ingenuity of a host of wide-ranging techniques, from lenses to tips, chips and doughnuts. Anna Demming reports

Read more

Doomsday Clock, COVID-19 and modelling in medicine: the September 2020 issue of Physics World is now out

• Age of cosmic explosion – Tushna Commissariat reviews Look Up: Our Story with the Stars by Sarah Cruddas

• Intrepid interstellar adventurers – Ian Randall reviews Spacefarers: How Humans Will Settle the Moon, Mars, and Beyond by Christopher Wan

• Path of least resistance – graduate student Rosemary Teague and undergraduate Amber Yallop share their non-traditional degree pathways, some difficult choices they made along the way, and what a future in physics looks like for them now

• Is anybody there? – Chris Holt on the physics of ghosts