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Cell-penetrating peptides can deliver molecular cargoes into living cells, and cross biological membranes by transduction—a non-endocytic mechanism. Here, the transduction efficiency of cyclic arginine-rich peptides is shown to be higher than that of more flexible linear peptides.

Understanding how excited states behave at heterojunctions between polymers in blends is fundamental to designing better organic solar cells and light-emitting diodes. A quantum-mechanical molecular-scale model of how excitations behave at heterojunctions has been developed, showing an unexpectedly wide but specific range of excitonic states.

Plants use multiple cues to monitor seasonal temperatures. Here, the authors show that Arabidopsis requires not only prolonged cold, but the absence of temperature spikes above 15 °C to epigenetically silence FLC during winter.

The evolutionary reasons for the variation in silicon concentrations across plant families remain unclear. This paper provides new evidence that silicon variation is closely linked to global and long-term climate change, suggesting temperature could have driven the evolution of plant silicification.

Small CRISPR Cas9 proteins have potential in gene therapies but generally have poor editing efficiency or specificity and often recognize sub-optimal PAM sequences. Here the authors characterise four small nucleases and use protein engineering to create effective in vivo editors.

Here the authors characterize a single-domain antibody that broadly neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 variants with high potency by targeting the heptad repeat 2 (HR2) coiled coil, conserved in sarbecoviruses. Binding to its quaternary epitope blocks membrane fusion, by locking HR2 in its prefusion conformation.

A 50 microRNA-based dynamic risk score for stratifying individuals with and without type 1 diabetes was developed using samples obtained from multicenter and multiethnic cohorts.

Cryo-electron microscopy, in vitro reconstitution and molecular dynamics simulations provide insight into the architecture of a plasma membrane microdomain in yeast, the organization and dynamics of the membrane lipids within this microdomain and how it responds to mechanical stress.

The interconversion of spin and charge is fundamental to the operation of spintronic devices. Here the authors demonstrate spin-to-charge conversion in the correlated material vanadium dioxide, and show that the efficiency changes dramatically across the metal-insulator transition.

Allele-preferential transcription factor binding can influence pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma risk loci function. Here, the authors show allele-specific JunB and JunD binding at chr1p36.33 and propose a role for KLHL17 in protein homeostasis by mitigating inflammation.

Targeting cancer stem cells (CSCs) has great potential in anti-cancer treatment. Here this group reports the role of antibiotic Nifuroxazide as a potent anti-CSC compound and fabricates it into an anti-breast CSC prodrug using click chemistry strategy.

To perch safely, large birds minimize the distance flown after stalling when swooping up from a dive to a perch, but not the time or energy required.

Examination of archaeological pottery residues and modern genes suggest that environmental conditions, subsistence economics and pathogen exposure may explain selection for lactase persistence better than prehistoric consumption of milk.

The mechanisms underlying the regulation of the skin thermal barrier are poorly understood. Here the authors show that the thermal properties of the skin are reactive to diet and that skin is a target for dietary fat delivery.

Studies on the essentiality of Ku in human cells reveal that Ku interacts with diverse double-stranded RNA molecules, including antisense Alu, and enables tolerance of Alu sequence expansion in primates.

Some cancer cells exhibit high loads of reactive iron in lysosomes, and this feature is exploited by using fentomycin-1, a newly developed small molecule, to induce ferroptosis.

Patient-relevant in vitro models remain crucial to study lung cancer progression and heterogeneity. Here, the authors develop an in vitro model of lung squamous cell carcinoma using primary human bronchial epithelial cells from healthy donors, revealing signalling pathways that are critical for early tumour development and invasion.

If water exists in super-Earth and sub-Neptune exoplanets, it is expected to be hidden deep in their cores and mantles, rather than at their surfaces. Exoplanets considered to be relatively dry might actually have abundant water sequestered in their interiors.

Transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of blood samples from individuals with COVID-19 reveals immune cell and hematopoietic progenitor cell alterations that are differentially associated with disease severity.

The mechanisms of neurovascular adaptations underlying stress resilience remain unclear. Here the authors show that the astrocytic endocannabinoid system modulates the blood–brain barrier changes during stress in adult mice.

Differences in virulence across the Listeria monocytogenes species are determined by the fine-tuning of SigB pathway responsiveness and reflect host adaptation.

Biochemical characterization of glycogen-degrading enzymes in vaginal bacteria reveals that the vaginal microbiota possesses the ability to metabolize glycogen in this environment.

The authors find that slow plant growth at low temperatures during winter reduces dilution of the transcription factor NTL8, which allows slow accumulation of NTL8 and thus the gradual increase in transcription of VIN3—a gene involved in memory of cold exposure.

Cartron et al. report the results of a phase 2 trial of the CD20–CD3 T cell-engaging bispecific antibody glofitamab in refractory or relapsed diffuse large B cell lymphoma after failing chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy.

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.

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.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

Candida albicans, the most common human fungal pathogen, causes local and life-threatening systemic infection. Here, the authors show that absence of tyrosine kinase 2 protects from invasive cutaneous candidiasis.

Hunting styles and flight morphologies of aerial predators are adapted to their habitat structure and prey behaviour. Here, the authors reconstruct flight trajectories of Harris’ Hawks Parabuteo unicinctus and find that these follow a mixed guidance law that is not thrown off by erratic manoeuvres of prey.

This study reveals that population aging intensifies heat- and cold-related deaths, more so than climate change, in 50 countries. At 1.53 °C global warming, aging contributes to rising heat-related deaths, offsetting declines in cold related death.

In contrast to conventional thermal annealing approaches, the authors report on the self-assembly of complex mixtures of DNA at room or physiological temperature for generating user-defined programmable nanostructures capable of shape selection and transformation.

Genome-wide association analyses of prostate cancer in men from sub-Saharan Africa identify population-specific risk variants and regional differences in effect sizes. Founder effects contribute to continental differences in the genetic architecture of prostate cancer.

Antibody-mediated SARS-CoV-2 uptake by monocytes and macrophages triggers inflammatory cell death that aborts the production of infectious virus but causes systemic inflammation that contributes to COVID-19 pathogenesis.

Gene expression is inherently dynamic, due to complex regulation and stochastic biochemical events. Here the authors train a deep neural network to predict and dynamically control gene expression in thousands of individual bacteria in real-time which they then apply to control antibiotic resistance and study single-cell survival dynamics.

Using a range of laboratory and synchrotron techniques, Hickman-Lewis et al. show that some of Earth’s earliest siliciclastic microbial mat fossils (2.9 Ga) unexpectedly preserve biogeochemical signatures in nanoscale domains of organic material.

Animals respond rapidly and precisely to a variety of sensory stimuli, but the neural mechanisms supporting this flexibility are not fully understood. Here the authors describe a model of adaptive sensory processing based on functionally-targeted stochastic modulation, and find evidence for this co-variability in macaque V1 and middle temporal area.

Large language models can be manipulated to generate misinformation by poisoning of a very small percentage of the data on which they are trained, but a harm mitigation strategy using biomedical knowledge graphs can offer a method for addressing this vulnerability.

In Arabidopsis thaliana, downregulation of the floral repressor FLC in response to cold occurs through a mechanism in which the FLC activator FRIGIDA is sequestered into biomolecular condensates away from the FLC promoter.

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.

The medium-resolution transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-39b, described using observations from the Near Infrared Spectrograph G395H grating aboard JWST, shows significant absorption from CO₂ and H₂O and detection of SO₂.

Endosomal biogenesis is vital for eukaryotic cell physiology and relies on membrane fusion promoted by the CORVET tethering complex. Here, the authors solved the structure of CORVET by cryo-EM and reveal its minimal requirements for membrane tethering.