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The fragility describes the degree of slowdown in material dynamics as approaching glass transition temperature, but its molecular origin remains unclear. Here, Yildirim et al.show a strong correlation between temperature-dependent spatial distribution of molecular rigidity and the fragility index.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

Origin of genes in non-coding DNA is assumed to be rare because random combinations of DNA are not expected to be functional. Here, the authors show that random peptides can affect fitness in E. coli, which suggests that random parts of the genome have the potential to become functional.

Using a computational model to quantify difficulty in reconstructing images from compressed codes, Lin et al. show that reconstruction errors interface perception and memory by modulating how well images are encoded.

Here the authors investigate the functional relevance of X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) regulator Xist in hematopoiesis. They find that Xist loss leads to changes in the ratio of hematopoietic progenitor cells and results in chromatin accessibility and transcriptional upregulation on the inactive X chromosome, including XCI escape genes known to be associated with cell cycle and immune response.

Blockade of lymphotoxin β-receptor (LTβR) signalling restores WNT signalling and epithelial repair in a model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Difference-in-differences analysis indicates that the decision by Twitter to deplatform 70,000 users following the events at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 had wider effects on the spread of misinformation.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a progressive and incurable chronic condition that involves accumulation of inflammatory macrophages in the lung tissue. Authors here show in mouse models of lung disease that PRMT7, a protein arginine methyltransferase, is an important regulator of recruitment and the pro-inflammatory phenotype of macrophages.

Batch-to-batch reproducibility of device performances is crucial for perovskite photovoltaics moving towards industrialization. Here, the authors show that commercial as-received C₆₀ source materials may coalesce during repeated thermal evaporation processes, jeopardizing such reproducibility.

Targeted nanodrug delivery is crucial to treat respiratory diseases, but profiling the delivery and dynamics of nanoparticles (NPs) within the lung is a challenging task. Here, the authors present LungVis 1.0, an AI-driven 3D imaging ecosystem to profile inhaled substances in distinct lung regions while uncovering the role of tissue-resident macrophages in the fate of NPs.

Immune analyses against circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants show that mRNA vaccination induces robust neutralizing antibodies and boosts cross-variant neutralizing antibodies elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Excess macrophage elastase MMP-12 is a major driver of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Here the authors show that the endolysosomal ion channel TRPML3 is a regulator of the cellular reuptake of MMP-12, thus neutralizing harmful MMP-12 in the lung.

A photonic processor capable of running advanced artificial intelligence models with near-electronic precision is introduced, marking a substantial step towards post-transistor computing technologies.

The Candida albicans toxin, candidalysin, is embedded in an unusual conserved precursor peptide sequence (Ece1). The precursor is not required to block premature pore-forming toxicity, but rather to prevent candidalysin auto-aggregation.

Influenza infection during pregnancy can affect health of offspring but it is not clear how this affects immune responses. Here the authors use a mouse model to show that influenza infection during pregnancy can increase susceptibility to secondary infection and alter immune cell function in offspring.

New antimalarials are urgently needed. Here, the authors identify Open Source Malaria compound, OSMS-106, as a reaction hijacking inhibitor of the malaria parasite protein synthesis machinery, with potential use for treatment and prophylaxis.

Individuals with long COVID show marked biological changes in cortisol and immune factors relative to convalescent populations.

A longitudinal analysis of humoral immune responses in patients with COVID-19 with varying disease severities reveals that mortality does not correlate with antiviral antibody levels but, instead, with slower seroconversion.

The CMS Collaboration reports the study of three simultaneous hard interactions between quarks and gluons in proton–proton collisions. This manifests through the concurrent production of three J/ψ mesons, which consist of a charm-quark–antiquark pair.

The most up-to-date combination of results on the properties of the Higgs boson is reported, which indicate that its properties are consistent with the standard model predictions, within the precision achieved to date.

The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.

Steve Brown and colleagues report an analysis of 20 phenotyping tests, including 413 data parameters, across 449 mutant mouse alleles. They identify widespread pleiotropy and assign putative functions to genes that lacked previous phenotypic annotation.

Streptococcal siglec-like binding regions (SLBRs) selectively bind cell surface glycans, but the basis for this selectivity is not understood. Here, the authors identify selectivity-modulating SLBR regions and study how changes in SLBR glycan selectivity affect interactions with human glycoprotein receptors.

Domestication reduces genetic diversity and constrains crop improvement. Here the authors identify factors that shaped species diversity in the wild progenitors of chickpea, and produce wild introgression populations that increase diversity for breeding by ~100-fold, including traits of agronomic relevance.

Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is caused by defects in the alternative splicing of pre-mRNA. Childs-Disney and colleagues report two small molecules that either induce or reverse DM1-associated splicing defects by modulating the binding of pre-mRNA to muscleblind-like 1 protein.

Two-photon microscopy is a powerful tool for studying neuronal activity but cannot easily image deeper cortical layers. Here, the authors design a custom microscope for three-photon microscopy and use it to reveal response properties of layer 5, 6, and subplate visual cortical neurons.

Chiea Chuen Khor, Tin Aung, Francesca Pasutto, Janey Wiggs and colleagues report a global genome-wide association study of exfoliation syndrome and a fine-mapping analysis of a previously identified disease-associated locus, LOXL1. They identify a rare protective variant in LOXL1 exclusive to the Japanese population and five new common variant susceptibility loci.

Novel protein-coding genes can arise either from pre-existing genes or de novo; here it is shown that functional genes emerge de novo through transitory proto-genes generated by widespread translational activity in non-genic sequences.