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Plasma p-tau217 tests used to develop clocks that predict when cognitively unimpaired individuals would develop symptoms of Alzheimerʼs disease.

The locations of crossover recombination events along meiotic chromosomes are determined by a 1D-patterning process. Here, the authors find that this process establishes two interdigitated patterns, each composed of the same assembly of recombination proteins and chromosome structure components.

Melbournevirus encodes a conserved shorter H2B-H2A doublet variant. Here the authors report a cryo-EM structure of a nucleosome-like particle reconstituted with viral H4-H3 and the identified variant H2B-H2A doublet in Melbournevirus, and demonstrated that it is essential for viral fitness.

Reprograming the tumor microenvironment is a promising strategy to overcome resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in patients with malignant melanoma. Here, the authors report a phase 1/2 study evaluating the combination of LOAd703 (viral-vector encoding CD40L and 4-1BBL) with atezolizumab (anti-PD-L1) in patients with ICI-resistant, malignant melanoma.

Soft electrostatic actuators are crucial for advancing robotic systems that require adaptability and safety in unstructured environments. This study introduces ultralight soft electrostatic actuators utilizing solid-liquid-gas architectures, achieving significant improvements in power-to-weight ratio and actuation speed, exemplified by a 60% increase in jump height in a jumping robot compared to traditional designs.

Using nitrogen isotopes from ancient and modern fish otoliths and corals, the study shows Caribbean reef food webs are now 60–70% shorter and functionally less diverse, indicating human-driven trophic simplification and increased risk of collapse.

Natural rubber is a widely used biopolymer and further improving its resistance to crack growth will extend its service life. Here the authors show a strategy to amplify the resistance to crack growth in natural rubber by forming a tanglemer.

Energy deposition inside silicon with ultrashort laser pulses is intrinsically restricted. Here, authors demonstrate that this filamentation-driven ceiling is universal in semiconductors. Extreme nonlinearities are quantified to predict and optimize involume laser-semiconductor interaction.

The transcription factor ATF4 and its effector lipocalin 2 (LCN2) have a key role in immune evasion and tumour progression, and targeting the ATF4–LCN2 axis might provide a way to treat several types of solid tumour by increasing anti-cancer immunity.

Crystalline materials for optical applications are synthesized in living dinoflagellates.

HIV-1 integrase forms an RNA-binding module on the luminal side of the mature capsid lattice.

Population-level analyses and in vitro experiments show that a specific genetic variant of cyclin D3 inhibits the growth of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum in erythrocytes, and suggest that its high frequency in Sardinia was driven by past endemic malaria.

Scholl et al. show that PopZ forms filamentous condensates driven by its helical domain and inhibited by its disordered region. Phase-dependent conformations modulate client interactions and disruption of filamentation or condensation impairs cellular function and growth.

Performing pandemic-scale phylogenetic analysis poses multifaceted challenges. This study develops methods for identifying and accounting for mutation rate variation and recurrent sequence errors, leading to an improved global phylogenetic tree of >2 million severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 genomes.

Using 63 globally distributed grassland and shrubland sites from the International Drought Experiment, this study identified plant traits linked to drought resistance after 1 year of extreme drought across growth forms, lifespans and climate.

Growth of wind and solar energy share demonstrates different dynamics between the initial phases of adoption as compared with the advanced stages. Cherp et al. study the growth dynamics of renewable energy and show that laggards may continue to struggle to achieve high growth rates despite learning from early adopters’ experience.

Cue–reward learning rate scales proportionally with the time between rewards. Consequently, learning over a fixed duration is independent of the number of trials. This challenges trial-based dopamine learning models but supports retrospective learning.

Genome-wide analyses in the Norwegian HUNT study with replication in Swedish and Finnish cohorts identify host genetic variants associated with gut microbiome features and provide evidence of a causal effect of body mass index on gut microbiota composition.

Here the authors compare genetic testing strategies in rare movement disorders, improve diagnostic yield with genome analysis, and establish CD99L2 as an X-linked spastic ataxia gene, showing that CD99L2–CAPN1 signaling disruption likely drives neurodegeneration.

Rapid immune activation requires tight control of mRNA stability in CD8⁺ T cells. Here, the authors show that a compositive RNA motif – m⁶A sites positioned next to AU-rich elements - marks mRNAs for rapid decay during activation, revealing a coordinated mechanism that shapes T-cell immunity.

Alternative polyadenylation is involved in plant responses to various stresses. Here, the authors show how a cis-natural antisense RNA promotes proximal polyadenylation of its cognate SlSPX5 gene in response to phosphate starvation in tomato.

JWST imaged three of the gas giants orbiting the star HR 8799 to study their atmospheres. The uniform enrichment of heavy elements, including sulfur, indicates that they formed like Jupiter and Saturn by accreting a lot of icy and rocky solids.

Interactions between long RNA molecules play essential roles in shaping gene regulation. Here, the authors show that low-complexity repeats drive stable contacts between RNAs and present RIME, a deep learning model that improves the prediction of these interactions using sequence information.

Compiling data on floral introductions and European colonial history of regions worldwide, the authors find that compositional similarity of floras is higher than expected among regions once occupied by the same empire and similarity increases with the length of time the region was occupied by that empire.

Chlorine electrosynthesis from seawater is limited by poor selectivity and stability under industrial-scale conditions. Here atomic-step-enriched ultrafine high-entropy alloy nanowires enable highly efficient chlorine evolution at 10 kA m⁻² for over 5,500 h through dynamic Pt–O active sites, reducing electricity consumption and feedstock costs for next-generation chlor-alkali processes.

Aperiodic composite crystals were discovered that emulate 2D moiré materials, demonstrating a potentially scalable approach for producing moiré materials for next-generation electronics and a generalizable approach for realizing theoretical predictions of higher-dimensional quantum phenomena.

Amorphous sulfurized polyacrylonitrile suppresses polysulfide shuttling in Li–S batteries, enabling long cycle life, but the structural processes involved during synthesis and initial cycling remained unclear. An operando pair distribution function, wide-angle scattering and sulfur absorption spectroscopy reveal S–C bond formation, π–π stacking and sulfur-chain shortening, which enable reversible sulfur redox.

Here, the authors use a molecular epidemiological approach to investigate the frequency and intensity of clustering of HIV with different set-point viral loads and find that frequently transmitted strains in genetic transmission clusters have significantly higher viral loads than nonclustered viruses.

Proteomic data from natural isolates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae provide insight into how these cells tolerate aneuploidy (an imbalance in the number of chromosomes), and reveal differences between lab-engineered aneuploids and diverse natural yeasts.

The detection of forsterite and enstatite emissions in EC 53 during accretion bursts marks one of the first pieces of direct evidence of in situ silicate crystallization in young stars.

Systematic characterization of human lipid transfer proteins in complex with their lipid partners reveals the relevance of these interactions for lipid metabolism, identifies mechanisms that contribute to lipid binding selectivity and provides a rich resource for the study of these proteins.

A martensitic alloy with a tensile strength exceeding 3 GPa and a fracture elongation of 5.13% is developed. These mechanical properties arise from interface complexes interacting with dense dislocation networks, which is a mechanism shown to be applicable to other compositions.

Melting from the Greenland Ice Sheet triggers land uplift beneath the ice sheet and changes to Earth’s gravitational field and rotation axis, a process called Glacial Isostatic Adjustment. Lewright et al. find that this process will lead to a local sea level fall along Greenland’s coast over this century.

Boosting mitochondrial metabolism in neurons in central memory circuits by enhancing Ca²⁺ retention in the mitochondrial matrix is shown to improve long-term memory formation in flies and mice.

Astrocytes in the basolateral amygdala dynamically track fear state and support fear memory retrieval and extinction.

Kornfeld-Sylla et al reveal how alpha brainwaves are altered in children and adults with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) and find parallel changes in alpha-like rhythms in juvenile and adult FXS model mice, showing their use for testing potential therapies.

A generative AI approach is developed for predicting materials synthesis recipes—a complex challenge in materials science. Using this approach, the authors experimentally synthesized a material using AI-generated synthesis recipes.

Here, the authors develop fluorescent reporters to visualize heterogeneity in C. difficile toxin gene expression in situ during infection, showing that toxin gene expression is not spatially regulated, and visualizing unique cell morphologies.

The authors mapped spontaneous and choice activity across mouse prefrontal cortex. The activity maps aligned with intrinsic connectivity rather than anatomical subregions, suggesting that connectivity, not cytoarchitecture, organizes prefrontal function.

To humanize models of liver metabolic disease research, authors develop a microfluidic platform leveraging human hepatic spheroids integrated with microvasculature and circulating monocytes to model hepatic insulin resistance.

Using cryo-EM, the authors identified 42 MIPs, including outer junction protein CFAP77 and outer dense fibers, in native doublet microtubules of Tetrahymena thermophila. Knockout of CFAP77 reduced ciliary beat frequency and led to outer junction damage.

Electron transfer in molecular wires is typically dominated by tunnelling at short lengths. Now it is shown that conjugated molecular wires anchored to indium tin oxide electrodes exhibit a hopping mechanism even at 1-nm lengths, enabling charge extraction in tin perovskite solar cells and improved device performance.

Single iron atoms on nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts are a promising alternative to platinum for the oxygen reduction reaction on fuel cell cathodes, but commonly suffer from low stability. Here an in situ chemical vapour deposition synthetic approach is presented, enabling high iron active site dispersion and reducing surface porosity, which mitigates demetallation and carbon corrosion, ensuring high activity and stability.

Chang et al. found that nuclear reactive electrophile stress suppresses translation through HNEylation at C436 of NCBP1, triggering alternative splicing of S6K1, a key regulator of translation.

The meningeal compartment communicates with the brain to modulate homeostatic functions. Here, the authors demonstrate that natural killer (NK) cells and innate lymphoid cells (ILC) 1 shape synaptic neuronal transmission and affect mouse behavior.

Alternative splicing generates diverse protein isoforms, yet the functions of most exons remain unknown. Here, the authors introduce scCHyMErA-Seq, a scalable single-cell CRISPR exon-deletion platform that maps exon-specific transcriptional functions shaping gene expression and cell-cycle states.

WIN332 is an HIV-1 Env protein designed to elicit a new class of Asn332-glycan-independent antibodies (type II) to the V3-glycan site of Env. WIN332 immunization rapidly induces type-II V3-glycan antibodies with low inhibitory activity indicative of a neutralization activity in macaques.