The Radiative‐Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP) is an intercomparison of multiple types of numerical models configured in radiative‐convective equilibrium (RCE). RCE is an idealization of the tropical atmosphere that has long been used to study basic questions in climate science. Here, we employ RCE to investigate the role that clouds and convective activity play in determining cloud feedbacks, climate sensitivity, the state of convective aggregation, and the equilibrium climate. RCEMIP is unique among intercomparisons in its inclusion of a wide range of model types, including atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs), single column models (SCMs), cloud‐resolving models (CRMs), large eddy simulations (LES), and global cloud‐resolving models (GCRMs). The first results are presented from the RCEMIP ensemble of more than 30 models. While there are large differences across the RCEMIP ensemble in the representation of mean profiles of temperature, humidity, and cloudiness, in a majority of models anvil clouds rise, warm, and decrease in area coverage in response to an increase in sea surface temperature (SST). Nearly all models exhibit self‐aggregation in large domains and agree that self‐aggregation acts to dry and warm the troposphere, reduce high cloudiness, and increase cooling to space. The degree of self‐aggregation exhibits no clear tendency with warming. There is a wide range of climate sensitivities, but models with parameterized convection tend to have lower climate sensitivities than models with explicit convection. In models with parameterized convection, aggregated simulations have lower climate sensitivities than unaggregated simulations.

Morphogenesis allows millions of cells to self-organize into intricate structures with a wide variety of functional shapes during embryonic development. This process emerges from local interactions of cells under the control of gene circuits that are identical in every cell, robust to intrinsic noise, and adaptable to changing environments. Constructing human technology with these properties presents an important opportunity in swarm robotic applications ranging from construction to exploration. Morphogenesis in nature may use two different approaches: hierarchical, top-down control or spontaneously self-organizing dynamics such as reaction-diffusion Turing patterns. Here, we provide a demonstration of purely self-organizing behaviors to create emergent morphologies in large swarms of real robots. The robots achieve this collective organization without any self-localization and instead rely entirely on local interactions with neighbors. Results show swarms of 300 robots that self-construct organic and adaptable shapes that are robust to damage. This is a step toward the emergence of functional shape formation in robot swarms following principles of self-organized morphogenetic engineering.

The decisive feature of any material designed for photovoltaic applications is the dissociation efficiency of photogenerated excitons. This efficiency is essentially governed by the Coulomb attraction between electrons and holes. Because the dielectric constant in organic materials is rather low (ε r ≈ 3), the exciton binding energy is much larger than the thermal energy at room temperature, so that thermally governed dissociation seems improbable. Experiments show that while the dissociation probability for electron−hole pairs is indeed very low in the bulk samples, it becomes close to unity at intrinsic interfaces between two organic materials, an electron donor (usually a conjugated polymer) and an electron acceptor (usually a fullerene derivative). The driving force for this dissociation is still a matter of controversy. This Perspective provides a theoretical analysis of possible mechanisms for the efficient dissociation of electron−hole pairs at internal organic interfaces despite the strong Coulomb attraction between the charges. I t is one of the main challenges in the research on organic materials to reveal the mechanism responsible for the efficient dissociation of electron−hole pairs (EHPs) created by light. The interest of researchers in the dissociation problem is caused mainly by perspectives of photovoltaic applications of organic semiconductors. Such materials usually exhibit very high light absorption coefficients, which, combined with lowcost processing, makes them promising for applications in solar cells. 1,2 However, it is not the efficient light absorption itself but rather the combination of the efficient absorption with the efficient photocurrent generation that makes a material favorable for photovoltaic applications. The decisive step in photocurrent generation is the dissociation of EHPs created by light. In the dissociation process, the electron and hole must overcome their mutual Coulomb attraction, determined by the energywhere e is the elementary charge, ε r is the relative dielectric constant of the surrounding media, ε 0 is the permittivity of vacuum, and r is the electron−hole separation. While in inorganic semiconductors with ε r > 10 the binding energy of excitons is on the order of 10 meV, in organic semiconductors, in which ε r is typically between 2 and 4, 3 the binding energy of excitons is on the order of 1 eV. 4 The puzzling question arises then regarding the mechanism that could provide an efficient dissociation of EHPs with such a huge binding energy as compared to the thermal energy at room temperature, kT ≃ 0.025 eV.Numerous experimental and theoretical studies have been dedicated to the dissociation problem of EHPs in organic semiconductors. There is no chance to review all of them in the current report. Interested readers can find a comprehensive description of the research field in recent review articles. 1,3 Here, we only briefly describe the state of the research field.The first organic solar cells tested in the 1970s used a single material, sandwiched...