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Lipid flipping across membrane leaflets are vital yet enigmatic biological processes. Here, five cryo-EM structures provide snapshots to delineate a mechanism of omega-3 fatty acid flipping across the blood brain barrier.

Large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or nanographenes have huge potential for organic electronics applications, but it is challenging to synthesize them in a controlled way. Now, a surface chemical route has been used to produce tailored nanographenes with atomically precise control over the final structure.

A population of Saturn's small moons orbiting outside the main rings are less than 10⁷ years old, which is inconsistent with the formation timescale for the regular satellites. They may have accreted at the rings' edge, but hitherto it has been impossible to model the accretion process. Here a simulation is reported in which the viscous spreading of Saturn's rings beyond the Roche limit gives rise to the small moons.

A statistical approach to designing and predicting the fusion yield of cryogenic deuterium–tritium implosions leads to tripled yield in direct-drive laser fusion of deuterium–tritium layered targets.

Measurements of the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect for the ultra-short-period super-Earth 55 Cancri e reveal a signal with a semi-amplitude of 0.41+0.09-0.10 m s⁻¹, in close alignment with its star and potentially misaligned with the other planets in the system. Such a configuration favours a non-violent migration pathway for 55 Cnc e.

Analyses of histone acetylation in Drosophila wing imaginal discs reveal distinct patterns of acetylation and cellular metabolism that affect gene expression and cell specification.

Active matter composed of filaments and molecular motors can contract. Here, the authors report the spontaneous out-of-plane buckling of reconstituted contracting poroelastic actomyosin sheets in the absence of external cues.

Mechanisms that regulate epithelial bending mainly link to cell shape changes, for example, the formation of wedge shaped cells. Here, the authors identify a different cell behaviour in the salivary glands and teeth where initial invagination arises by a coordinated vertical cell movement.

Vessel elements arise from cambium stem cells and support plant growth by supplying water and nutrients. This study reveals that strigolactone signalling inhibits vessel formation in response to drought, affecting transpiration and drought resistance.

The precise cell dynamics of early development have not yet been visualized. Here, the authors use custom 4-lens light sheet microscopy to image and analyze the dynamics of all three fluorescently labeled germlayers, yielding a comprehensive, pan-embryo description of early zebrafish gastrulation.

The appearance of a third radiation belt in the Earth’s Van Allen belts is difficult to explain using existing models for two belts. However, a model based on ultra-low-frequency waves agrees quantitatively with measurements of the third belt.

Ali and Shin et al. have characterized the cellular dynamics of coenocytic endosperm development in Arabidopsis thaliana. They demonstrate the role of actin filaments in controlling the final seed size.

A quantum gas trapped in an optical lattice of triangular symmetry can now be driven from a paramagnetic to an antiferromagnetic state by a tunable artificial magnetic field.

Skyrmions are topologically protected field configurations that appear as solutions of continuous quantum-field theories. Recently, they have been observed in magnetic bulk alloys, where a lattice of skyrmions is stabilized by an external magnetic field. In contrast, this study finds evidence for a skyrmion lattice as a spontaneous ground state, encoded into a magnetic spin texture on the atomic scale.

Previously documented record values of the fusion triple product in the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X are shown to be evidence for reduced neoclassical energy transport in this optimized device.

Radial diffusion is the only mechanism considered to accelerate trapped electrons to relativistic energies in Saturn’s magnetic field, forming radiation belts. Here the authors show another mechanism, electron acceleration via Doppler shifted cyclotron resonant interaction with Z-mode waves, which can form radiation belts inside the orbit of Enceladus.

In the southern part of the South American continent a marginal basin opened behind an active andesitic island arc in the earliest Cretaceous. The basin closed again in the middle Cretaceous, during the period of fast seafloor spreading, causing the penetrative deformation of the southern Andean Cordillera.

Moghe et al. show that mouse embryonic primitive endoderm cells migrate towards the inner cell mass-cavity interface, depositing an extracellular matrix gradient that may guide migration. Primitive endoderm to epiblast ratios may enable robust patterning across embryos and sizes.

Prime editing enables the introduction of precise point mutations, small insertions, or short deletions without requiring donor DNA templates. Here the authors develop a co-selection strategy to facilitate prime editing in human cells and provide design principles to prevent the formation of undesired editing byproducts at the target site.

A modelling analysis shows that an unusually long gamma-ray burst gave rise to a lanthanide-rich kilonova following the merger of a neutron star–neutron star or of a neutron star–black hole.

Neutron scattering measurements of spin fluctuations in hole-doped high-Tc copper oxides have revealed an unusual 'hour-glass' feature in the momentum-resolved magnetic spectrum. There is no widely accepted explanation for this feature. One possibility is that it derives from a pattern of alternating spin and charge stripes. Many copper oxides without stripe order, however, also exhibit an hour-glass spectrum. This paper reports the observation of an hour-glass magnetic spectrum in a hole-doped antiferromagnet from outside the family of superconducting copper oxides. The system has stripe correlations and is an insulator, which means its magnetic dynamics can conclusively be ascribed to stripes. The results provide compelling evidence that the hour-glass spectrum in the copper-oxide superconductors arises from fluctuating stripes.

Mapping the operational chemical, physical and electronic structure of an oxygen evolution electrocatalyst at the nanoscale links the properties of the material with the observed oxygen evolution activity.

The magnetic excitation spectra of all cuprate superconductors exhibits an hour-glass shape that is widely believed to be caused by either charge stripe or band structure effects. Drees et al.observe the same spectral shape in a cobalt oxide that supports neither effect, suggesting a different origin entirely.

Using viral capsid architectures as template for design, higher triangulation number nanocages that require symmetry breaking offer potential advances in targeted delivery and antigen-displaying vaccines.

Some rockfalls occur without obvious triggers such as seismicity or freeze–thaw conditions. Temperature and deformation patterns on a granite cliff suggest that cyclical thermal forcing can progressively open fractures and trigger rockfalls.

Auxin is a key regulator in vascular cambium development. This study shows that gibberellins promote polar auxin transport along the root, which leads to broadening of high auxin signalling domain in cambium, and thus, to increased xylem formation.

According to astrophysical and geological models, cosmic dust rich in bioessential elements could have accumulated on the surface of early Earth in arid environments (such as glaciers), potentially helping to foster the chemical origins of life.

It is now revealed, using cell cultures and in silico models, that weakening intercellular contacts is a fundamental process essential for switching from extensile to contractile tissue behaviour.

Single-cell gene expression analysis reveals phenotypic heterogeneity to enable bacterial specialization over the course of plant colonization.

A programmable quantum simulator based on Rydberg atom arrays is used to study the collective dynamics of a quantum phase transition and observe the phenomenon of quantum coarsening.