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A 16-year-old synthetic genetic circuit that produces gene-expression oscillations in bacterial cells has been given an upgrade, making it an exceptionally precise biological clock. See Letter p.514

A complete revolution of exo-Neptune LTT 9779 b was observed with the NIRISS/SOSS instrument onboard the JWST. The resulting full phase curve is indicative of an equatorial jet that transports heat from the dayside to the colder nightside, resulting in an asymmetric distribution of clouds on the planet.

Lava planets are tidally locked exoplanets with molten daysides. Simulations show that their interior state—fully molten or with a shallow magma ocean—affects the atmospheric composition and surface dynamics, and can be probed with JWST.

Silane, which is a precursor to the sandy surfaces of rocky planets and dusty clouds on gas giants, is seen directly in another world—a low-metallicity brown dwarf in which oxidation is slow and gas mixing is fast.

FRB 20221022A, detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst project, shows a pronounced change in polarization during the burst, providing important clues into the nature of the source.

Deep X-ray limits are placed on the source of the closest fast radio burst, FRB 20200120E, ruling out an ultraluminous X-ray source or a young extragalactic pulsar embedded in a Crab-like nebula as its origin.

Two ‘outrigger’ telescopes were added to CHIME, leading to the localization at detection of FRB 20210603A. The burst originated from deep within the star-forming disk of its host galaxy.

The detection of scintillation caused by inhomogeneous plasma near a fast radio burst indicates an emission process that occurs within or just beyond the magnetosphere of a compact object.

The dayside thermal emission spectrum and brightness temperature map of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-18b obtained from the NIRISS instrument on the JWST showed water emission features, an atmosphere consistent with solar metallicity, as well as a steep and symmetrical decrease in temperature towards the nightside.

A combined analysis of datasets across four JWST instrument modes provides a benchmark transmission spectrum for the Saturn-mass WASP-39 b. The broad wavelength range and high resolution constrain orbital and stellar parameters to below 1%.

Analysis of the pulse profile of a fast radio burst showed sub-second periodicity, providing evidence for a neutron-star origin of the event and favouring emission arising from the magnetosphere.

Quantum electrodynamics predicts a rare process in which light is scattered by light. The ATLAS Collaboration reports signs of this elusive effect in the collisions of ultra-relativistic lead ions.

The measurement of the total cross-section of proton–proton collisions is of fundamental importance for particle physics. Here, the first measurement of the inelastic cross-section is presented for proton–proton collisions at an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

ILT J1101 is a white dwarf–M dwarf binary that emits minute-duration radio pulses with a 2-h periodicity. The period of the radio pulses is linked to the orbital period of the binary, rather than the rotation period of the stellar components.

The Åsgardfonna ice cap in Svalbard did not melt entirely during the Holocene Thermal Maximum and possibly advanced despite the warmer-than-today climate, due to seasonal sea-ice loss enhanced snowfall, according to lake sediments records from glacial lakes fed by this ice cap.

Measurements of an intense radio burst from a Galactic magnetar provide evidence that magnetars are the probable source of some fast radio bursts.

The specific capacity of P2-type sodium-ion battery cathode is limited because full extraction of Na ions leads to structural degradation. Here authors report pillar-beam structured material to overcome this issue by using K pillar ions to uphold the transition metal layers upon extraction of Na ions.

Phase-resolved mid-infrared observations from JWST of the hot gas giant WASP-43b detect a day–night difference of 659 ± 19 K. Comparison with climate models shows that the observations are compatible with cloudy skies, at least on the nightside, and the lack of methane detection suggests the presence of disequilibrium chemistry.

Observations from the JWST MIRI/LRS show the detection of SO₂ spectral features in the 5–12-μm transmission spectrum of the hot, Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b, suggesting that photochemistry is a key process in high-temperature exoplanet atmospheres.

The authors report on a temperate Earth-sized planet orbiting the cool M6 dwarf LP 791-18 with a radius of 1.03 ± 0.04 R_⊕ and an equilibrium temperature of 300–400 K, with the permanent night side plausibly allowing for water condensation.

Magnetars sometimes exhibit mysterious ‘glitches’, during which angular momentum is transferred between the star’s outer and inner crusts, and involving a sudden spin-up of the star; here X-ray timing observations reveal a sudden spin-down, or ‘anti-glitch’ in a magnetar.

A periodicity of roughly 16 days is detected for the fast radio burst 180916.J0158+65, suggesting that the burst arises from a periodically modulated mechanism instead of a cataclysmic or sporadic process.

A comprehensive study of the Kepler-138 system reveals the twin nature of Kepler-138 c and d and the presence of a fourth planet. Remarkably, the warm-temperate planet Kepler-138 d is probably composed of 50% volatiles by volume, indicative of a water world, rather than a rocky world, despite its small ~1.5 R_⊕ size.

A spectroscopic thermal phase curve of GJ 1214b obtained with the JWST in the mid-infrared is reported and a planet with a high metallicity atmosphere blanketed by thick and reflective clouds or haze is found.

The fast radio burst FRB 20200120E is shown to originate from a globular cluster in the galaxy M81, and may be a collapsed white dwarf or a merged compact binary star system.

Only one repeating fast radio burst has been localized, to an irregular dwarf galaxy; now another is found to come from a star-forming region of a nearby spiral galaxy.

A second repeating fast radio burst is detected, showing behaviour similar to that of the first, and demonstrating that repeaters are unlikely to be rare.

Polarimetric observations of the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 121102 suggest that the bursts may originate from a neutron star in the extreme magneto-ionic environment of an accreting massive black hole or supernova remnant.

Thirteen fast radio bursts—astrophysical events that last on the order of a millisecond—have been discovered at frequencies as low as 400 megahertz, including only the second known repeating burst.

The JWST has the potential to increase our understanding of terrestrial exoplanets and their atmospheres, but the various signal contaminations need to be isolated and quantified. Using JWST Cycle 1 observations of TRAPPIST-1 as a benchmark, this Perspective proposes a series of steps to use future JWST data efficiently for this purpose.

Observations of repeated fast radio bursts, having dispersion measures and sky positions consistent with those of FRB 121102, show that the signals do not originate in a single cataclysmic event and may come from a young, highly magnetized, extragalactic neutron star.

Precision timing and multiwavelength observations of a millisecond pulsar in a triple system show that the gravitational interactions between the bodies are strong; this allows the mass of each body to be determined accurately and means that the triple system will provide precise tests of the strong equivalence principle of general relativity.