[link to www.nature.com]

David Toms, a theoretical physicist at Newcastle University, UK, has found that gravity seems to calm the electromagnetic force at high energies. The finding could make some calculations easier, and is a rare case in which gravity seems to work in harmony with quantum mechanics, the theory of small particles. His paper is published today in Nature1.

But don't get too excited: that elusive theory of everything is not just around the corner. Not everyone thinks that the calculations will stand up to scrutiny. Given physicists' "dicey" understanding of the relationship between gravity and other forces, it is too early to draw any deep conclusions, says Stanley Deser, a theoretical physicist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow-up studies are needed to put Toms's calculations on solid ground. ....

....There are signs that an even more fundamental theory may be out there. At high energies, electromagnetism and the weak force merge into a single 'electroweak' force; and, at even higher energies, some as yet untested theories known as supersymmetry combine the electroweak and strong nuclear force. Theorists hope that the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, will provide evidence for this combined strong and electroweak force.

But gravity remains a stubborn holdout against efforts to create a theory of everything. The force is too weak at low energies to fit with the others, and it becomes too strong at high energies to be included in a single theory.