Search

Here, the authors provide evidence that the renal microbiome can be disrupted by antibiotics, leading to differential effects on anti-lithogenic taxa like Lactobacillus and pro-lithogenic bacteria such as Enterobacteriaceae.

Strontium isotope analysis can be applied to animal and plant tissues to help determine their provenance. Here, the authors generate a strontium isoscape of sub-Saharan Africa using data from 2266 environmental samples and demonstrate its efficacy by tracing the African roots of individuals from historic slavery contexts.

Optics that have no rotational or translation symmetry, termed freeform, have the potential to make well-corrected compact optical systems. Here, Bauer et al. approach the design of freeform optics with aberration theory and present general guidelines to design and optimize physically realizable systems.

Analysis of the antiferromagnetic ordered phase of kagome lattice FeGe suggests that charge density wave is the result of a combination of electronic-correlations-driven antiferromagnetic order and instability driven by van Hove singularities.

Tunable coupling between magnetism and the lattice is important for on-demand manipulation of magnetic phases. Here, the authors demonstrate that lattice vibrations can coherently modulate the interlayer magnetic exchange coupling in the magnetic topological insulator MnBi₂Te₄.

The extraembryonic yolk sac is a major location for developmental hematopoiesis, but it is unclear whether non-bone marrow sources contribute during adulthood. Here they show that embryonically derived endothelial-macrophage progenitor cells located in the aorta are a bipotent source of macrophage and endothelial cells later in life.

Glutathione has pleiotropic functions in different organs. Here the authors specifically examine deletion of a glutathione synthetic enzyme in the liver of adult mice and show that lack of glutathione affects lipid abundance through repressing NRF2.

p53 is shown to have a pivotal role in the differentiation of alveolar type 1 cells in cancer and alveolar repair after injury, and loss of this governance can promote diseases such as lung adenocarcinoma.

Two crystalline nanocrystals with superparamagnetic and plasmonic properties form mechanically strong hybrid nanorods with dual functionality.

Pro-regenerative biomaterials for the treatment of muscle injury induce the proliferation of a dendritic cell population associated with cross-presentation and self-tolerance, promoting a pro-regenerative immune environment to aid muscle wound healing.

Magnetic order in a manganite can be switched during femtosecond photo-excitation via coherent superpositions of quantum states; this is analogous to processes in femtosecond chemistry where photoproducts of chemical and biochemical reactions can be influenced by creating suitable superpositions of molecular states.

As indicated by direct band-structure measurements and calculations, tiny native imperfections in bilayer graphene are sufficient to cause the generation of coexisting massive and massless Dirac fermions. The massless spectrum is robust against strong electric fields and has a closed-arc topology consisting of a unique chiral pseudospin texture.

Abdominal fat has been shown to increase cardiometabolic disease risk. In this study, the authors report that loss-of-function variants in the gene INHBE associate with lower BMI-adjusted waist-to-hip ratio, a surrogate measure of abdominal fat.

In South Africa, GM white maize has been grown for direct human consumption, whereas GM yellow and conventional hybrid maize have been cultivated primarily for livestock feed. Across 106 locations, 28 years, 491 cultivars, and 49,335 dryland and 9,617 irrigated observations in South Africa, GM maize showed increased mean yields over conventional hybrid maize, and GM white maize showed higher increased yields than GM yellow maize.

Inflammasomes are multiprotein complexes, including the protein ASC, that assemble in response to inflammatory stimulation. Here the authors characterise the regulation of ASC during inflammasome formation and show the involvement of SUMOylation and zinc-finger and BTB domain-containing protein 16 (ZBTB16).

Stannous fluoride (SnF₂) is a common fluoride source and antimicrobial agent used in commercial toothpaste products. Here, the authors show how dynamic nuclear polarization can be used to perform ¹¹⁹Sn nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy experiments that probe the molecular structure of tin ions in commercial toothpastes.

Magnons are collective excitations that dictate many of a magnet’s low-temperature properties. By means of Raman scattering, the magnon spectra of CrI₃ are measured in the monolayer limit.

Integration of the unique advantages of the fields of drug discovery and drug delivery is invaluable for the advancement of drug development. Here, the authors generate single-drug nanoparticles by hybridising lysomotropic detergents and the bisaminoquinoline-based autophagy inhibitor, and show their therapeutic potential as autophagy-inhibition based combination therapy.

There is a pressing need to develop representative organ-like platforms recapitulating complex in vivo phenotypes to study human development and disease in vitro. Here the authors present a method to generate human heart organoids by self-assembly using pluripotent stem cells, compare these to age-matched fetal cardiac tissues and recreate a model of pregestational diabetes.

Splice sites must be correctly identified for introns to be removed from pre-mRNAs and for expression of the correct mRNA isoforms. Here, the authors elucidate how the human U1 snRNP splicing factor recognizes 5′ splice sites and how a splicing modulating drug can enhance splice site recognition.

Inspired by the art of kirigami, a haptic device based on a miniaturized electromechanical structure combined with skin as an elastic, energy-storing element demonstrates bioelastic state recovery and can be used in sensory substitution.

PetaKit5D offers versatile processing workflows for light sheet microscopy data including performant image input/output, geometric transformations, deconvolution and stitching. The software is efficient and scalable to petabyte-size datasets.

Biomedical image analysis challenges have increased in the last ten years, but common practices have not been established yet. Here the authors analyze 150 recent challenges and demonstrate that outcome varies based on the metrics used and that limited information reporting hampers reproducibility.

It is unclear how specific signalling pathways are coordinated to generate pathologically activated cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs). Here, Ferrari et al show that stromal expression of Dickkopf-3 (DKK3) associates with aggressive tumours. DKK3 is a HSF-1 effector that activates β-catenin and YAP/TAZ, and DKK3-driven YAP/TAZ activation regulates the pro-tumorigenic behaviour of CAFs.

Solid-state ionic conduction is a key enabler of electrochemical energy storage and conversion. A quantitative framework for ionic conduction between atomistic and macroscopic timescales in β- and β″-aluminas is now proposed for ‘atoms-to-device’ multiscale modelling and optimization.

Reduction of systemic autoimmunity using TNF blockers may also reduce inflammatory diseases in other organs. Here, the authors use a patient database and scRNA-seq to link autoimmune diseases to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and demonstrate that prostatic hyperplasia is reduced by TNF blockers in humans and mice.

Charge carriers in transition metal dichalcogenides have an extra degree of freedom known as valley pseudospin, which is associated with the shape of the energy bands. Experiments show that this pseudospin can be manipulated using magnetic fields.

Electric fields can break the structural inversion symmetry in bilayer 2D materials, providing a way of tuning the magnetic moment and Berry curvature. This effect can be probed directly in bilayer MoS₂ using optical measurements.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that could be applied to microbiome research. This Perspective discusses best practices and current limitations with the application of AI in microbiome data research, giving insights into future use and practical advice and recommendations on its use.

Measurements from the heavily shielded Orion spacecraft during the uncrewed Artemis I mission show dose-rate reductions due to shielding and orientation for Van Allen belt crossings and quantify the interplanetary cosmic-ray radiation in a human-rated spacecraft.

Self-amplifying mRNA vaccines offer the benefit of driving potent immune responses at low doses, as the mRNA replicates intracellularly. Here, the authors report the preclinical evaluation of a self-amplifying mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in non-human primates.

The prefrontal cortex is involved in goal-directed behaviour. Here the authors show that medial prefrontal cortex activates goal-directed motivation and dopamine neurons via a feedback loop with the anteromedial thalamus.

Antibiotic resistance and virulence factors are identified in Mycobacterium abscessus by integrating proteome-wide structural modelling, GWAS analyses and mapping gene interaction networks for 331 clinical isolates.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate key steps of cell division. Here, the authors perform a comprehensive RNAi imaging screen targeting more than 2,000 human lncRNAs, and suggest a role of chromatin-associated linc00899 in regulation of cell division by suppressing the transcription of microtubule-binding protein TPPP/p25.

Optical waveguides patterned with gradient metasurfaces have compact footprints and broad wavelengths of operation thanks to tight control of the scattered light.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is contributing to sea-level rise, but temperature trends in the region have remained uncertain. A complete temperature record for Byrd Station in central West Antarctica, spanning from 1958 to 2010, establishes West Antarctica as one of the fastest-warming regions globally.

Frogs are an ancient and ecologically diverse group of amphibians that include important model systems. This paper reports genome sequences of multiple frog species, revealing remarkable stability of frog chromosomes and centromeres, along with highly recombinogenic extended subtelomeres.

Remote-sensing estimates of fires and the estimated geographic ranges of thousands of plant and vertebrate species in the Amazon Basin reveal that fires have impacted the ranges of 77–85% of threatened species over the past two decades.

Films of the correlated oxide NdNiO₃ form a metallic antiferromagnetic phase that can be identified using electrical currents, raising the prospect of applications in spintronics.

Huebner et al. develop a 2D culture system to study gastric isthmus stem cells and identify a role for Sox2 in specifying enterochromaffin cells in the stomach.

Variant detection in problematic genes is facilitated with a curated benchmark.

The identification of dark states—quantum states that do not interact with photons—in real materials may help to address many unsolved issues in condensed-matter physics. Now, they have been identified in palladium diselenide.

The activity of engineered T cells within tumours can be controlled via the heat generated by pulses of focused ultrasound by modifying the cells to express a chimeric antigen receptor under the control of a promoter for the heat-shock protein.

Parasitoid flies eavesdrop on the mating songs of male Hawaiian crickets, creating conflict between sexual and natural selection. Here, the authors investigate the selection acting on a recently evolved male mating signal, a “purring” song, which appears to be undetected by parasitoids.