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An integrated photonics scheme is presented for the manufacture of communication systems supporting the use of fibre and wireless infrastructures simultaneously, addressing the long-standing bandwidth mismatch between the two domains and demonstrating ultrahigh data rates.

The authors developed a highly sensitive skin-conformal NIR organic photodetector with fast photoresponse speed that achieves MHz-speed, angle-free, and long-range (100 m) wireless optical communication with stable performance under mechanical deformation.

Microscopic imaging and biochemical studies show that sinuses in mouse and human form a highly dynamic surface that regulates fluid movement and immune cell surveillance via RAMP1-dependent regulation of smooth muscle contraction and RAMP2-dependent regulation of the sinus endothelial barrier.

Multi-plane light converters (MPLCs) rely on complex nonlinear design optimisation and are challenging to physically realise with high fidelity. Here the authors develop a self-configuring free-space MPLC for linear optical information processing.

Zhou et al. develop PISA, an optimizer for deep learning models that supports heterogeneous data and various preconditions. It converges under minimal assumptions, while outperforming established methods for diverse tasks.

Optical encryption provides strong data protection but has been limited by the modulating bandwidth of spatial devices. Here, the authors demonstrate a spatiotemporal noise chaffing system using conjugated orbital angular momentum modes to achieve terabit-per-second secure transmission and expand the encryption key space beyond 10¹⁰.

Yoshioka et al. show that bacteria wrap their flagella to squeeze through near cell-width confinements, which allows symbiotic microbes to navigate constricted gut regions within insect hosts.

Many biological systems appear to organize their dynamics close to a critical point. Now it is shown that the protein array mediating Escherichia coli chemosensing is near-critical, enabling large signal amplification without compromising response speeds.

Vocal fold cancer tumours lose some of their malignant traits when mechanically stimulated by physiological stretch or vibrations, mimicking the opening and closing of vocal folds and phonation.

Human visual system relies on temporal attention to detect moving objects before high-level processing with large computational overheads. Wang et al. emulate this function in a neuromorphic hardware, showing a 400% speedup compared to algorithm-based visual perception and surpassing human capabilities.

Cytosolic ScURA uncouples de novo pyrimidine synthesis from mitochondrial electron transport, and rescues pyrimidine production and cell proliferation under pharmacological or genetic mETC disruption.

In this study, the authors reveal two hippocampal neuron subpopulations that encode time or distance via opposing ramping dynamics. These populations form parallel circuits controlled by distinct interneurons, PV for initiation and SST for maintenance of encoding.

Dual-mode ferroelectric transistors enable hardware-efficient analogue operations for generative-adversarial-network-inspired image processing in medical imaging applications.

This study shows how a simple voltage can repeatedly open and close nanoscale pores in a solid membrane, revealing new ways to control ion flow at the atomic scale for advanced nanofluidic technologies.

The authors combine tracking and body mass data from five migratory waterfowl species to understand their capacity to accelerate migration in response to earlier spring. They show considerable scope for faster migration by reducing the fuelling time before departure and subsequently on stopovers

In this work, Kanda et al. utilize heteroaryl additives to substantially improve thermal stability of perovskite solar cells, maintaining over 100% of initial efficiency after 2400 hours of aging at 85 °C, in addition to concurrently achieving 25% conversion efficiency and strong outdoor durability.

A solid hitting a liquid surface normally creates a region of high pressure at the solid-liquid contact area. Now, it is shown that for a flat-bottomed cylinder hitting a liquid at low-enough impact speed, the local pressure is sufficiently low to cause the liquid to cavitate.

Current mapping of fork progression in the human genome suffers from drastically low throughput. Here, the authors introduce ForkML, a nanopore sequencing-based method automatically positioning thousands of individual fork velocities by tracking BrdU incorporation into asynchronously growing cells.

Biogenic–anthropogenic interactions increase the formation and prevalence of secondary organic aerosol coatings on urban black carbon in Nanjing, China. These coatings amplify radiative effects, according to a model–data analysis for 2023.

Climate and land-use changes will redistribute fire across the planet. Larger, more frequent, and intense wildfires are projected in extra-tropical regions, while human-driven declines in fire activity are reversed under the highest degrees of warming.

It has been a challenge to characterize microscopic origins of friction at high velocities. Here authors extend atomic force microscopy to develop a dynamic technique combining force sensitivity and spatial resolution and able to probe, at each image pixel, frictional forces at velocities up to several cm per second.

Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell–cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as well as logic-gated signaling.

Transition metal-catalysed carbene reactions facilitate a number of transformations in organic chemistry. Here the authors report iron-catalysed cascade reactions—involving carbene and carbene radical intermediates—of alkyne-tethered diazo compounds for the construction of carbocyclic molecules.

This study identifies key neurocognitive domains that distinguish patients with schizophrenia from healthy individuals using machine learning. Analyzing data from 1,304 participants, it demonstrates that verbal learning and emotion identification effectively classify conditions, promoting efficient neurocognitive profiling strategies.

A follow-up analysis of a clinical trial that evaluated anti-PD-1 therapy in patients with cancer who are living with HIV provides mechanistic insights into transcriptomic, cellular and cytokine changes related to immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment and identifies a signature associated with clinical response.

Mechanosensitive PIEZO channels sense and open through membrane tension, but their dynamic gating mechanisms at the molecular level remain unclear. A hybrid all-atom and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation approach and electrophysiology reveal a clockwork mechanism for PIEZO2 involving two open states.

Oxytocin promotes social behaviors, but its cortical targets remain unclear. Here, authors show that oxytocin activates local interneurons in the rat prefrontal cortex, enhancing sociability through top-down control of the basolateral amygdala.

A lab-scale proof-of-principle demonstration of a quantum network comprising one server chip and 20 client photonic chips implementing twin-field quantum key distribution shows excellent scalability and reliability and yields a pathway towards future large-scale networks.

Authors study links between amyloid secondary nucleation and growth defects, demonstrating these sites on Aβ40/Aβ42 fibrils are rare compared to the number of protein molecules. Re-analysis of published data suggests that defects may also drive secondary nucleation generally.

Two main acceleration mechanisms in the auroral acceleration region are electric potential and Alfvénic acceleration but associated energy dynamics are not completely resolved. Here, the authors show that Alfvén waves power the Earth’s auroral arc through a static potential drop in the auroral acceleration region.

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.

By studying fossil corals on Ishigaki Island in Japan, Debaecker et al. find evidence of repeating megathrust earthquakes over the last 5,000 years, revealing long-term earthquake supercycles and highlighting significant future earthquake and tsunami hazards.

Across species, how aging leads to progressive spatial memory decline is not fully understood. This study reports dysfunctional spatial coding by aged entorhinal grid cells and networks related to impaired spatial memory and identifies implicated neuronal gene expression changes.

Functional studies of O-GlcNAcylation have often focused on individual modifications. Now, a systems-level approach has identified simultaneous O-GlcNAcylation events that coordinate cellular activities and tissue-specific functions.

Chen et al. developed a self-powered smart magnetoelastic stent for real-time hemodynamic monitoring and stenosis detection.

Smart microscopy is an emerging technology which integrates real-time analysis with adaptive acquisition to enhance imaging efficiency. Here the authors introduce “outcome-driven microscopy,” an approach that uses optogenetics and real-time feedback to control cell behaviour and protein dynamics.

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.

Aadvanced computer simulations of three-dimensional turbulence reveal that the ab initio generation of large-scale magnetic fields is driven by shear-flow-induced jets; an analytical model is derived which reproduces the essential features of the flow- and field-generation mechanisms.

The bacterial flagellar MS ring is a core transmembrane complex within the flagellar basal body. Here, cryoEM analysis suggests that the MS ring is formed by 34 full-length FliF subunits, with 23- and 11-fold subsymmetries in the inner and middle M ring, respectively.

FACED 2.0 builds on and expands the capabilities of the free-space angular-chirp-enhanced delay microscopy approach. Its high speed, large field of view and volumetric coverage enable two-photon voltage imaging of hundreds of neurons or calcium imaging of thousands of neurons in the mouse or zebrafish brain.

Inspired by thermal expansion and refractive index changes in the nanostructures of iridescent Morpho butterfly scales, scientists demonstrate upconverted mid-wave infrared detection with a temperature sensitivity of 18–62 mK and a heat-sink-free response speed of 35–40 Hz.

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.

Video-rate imaging of various types of biological tissue is reported using stimulated Raman scattering microscopy. The label-free scheme offers molecular specificity and frame-by-frame wavelength tunability allowing the creation of 2D and 3D images of samples showing different constituents.