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The gut microbiota can influence the severity of pneumonia through the production of metabolites. In this translational study, the authors investigate the effects of tryptophan metabolites, specifically indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), on pneumonia.

Managing power exhaust in fusion reactors is a key challenge, especially in compact designs for cost-effective commercial energy. This study shows how alternative divertor configurations improve exhaust control, enhance stability, absorb transients and enable independent plasma regulation.

A terahertz field exceeding 1 V nm⁻¹ induced a structural phase transition in the top atomic layer of a bulk WTe₂ crystal. Differential imaging revealed a surface shift of 7 ± 3 pm and an electronic signature consistent with a topological phase transition.

Reddy et al. used ancestral protein reconstruction, cryo-electron microscopy and functional assays to elucidate how a secondary active transporter evolved to harness the energy of sodium gradients to power the concentrative uptake of its substrate.

Construction of chiral nanostructures is impeded by the entropic barrier of dissymmetric blocks. Here, the authors report a dynamic assembly/disassembly strategy to yield single-unit organometallic helices for enantioselective amyloid inhibition.

The neuronal coding principles that underlie inter-individual perceptual similarities remains unclear. Here, the authors compared the stability of relational similarity versus activation patterns across brains and found that relational similarity was preferentially consistent across individuals, potentially underlying shared inter-subject perception.

The A3 adenosine receptor is a promising drug target for cancer, inflammation, and glaucoma. Here, authors determine atomic structures of the human A3 receptor, identifying a previously hidden binding pocket that will aid in the development of more effective A3 receptor-targeted medicines.

Previous research has suggested that pDCs are required for an effective antiviral immune response, but direct experimental evidence to support this is lacking. Here Ngo et al. develop a pDC knockin mouse model and find that pDCs are dispensable for an antiviral immune response to mouse cytomegalovirus and may be detrimental during influenza or SARS-CoV-2 infection.

A study showing high-quality container-based sanitation servicing improves the sanitation-related quality of life in informal settlements across Kenya, Peru and South Africa.

Monitoring T cell metabolism during chimeric antigen receptor T manufacturing using optical metabolic imaging enables fine-tuning of manufacturing conditions to increase T cell yield and fitness.

Realizing >5 V batteries is hindered by the instability of electrolytes. Here, a fluoride shielding layer, LiCl-4Li₂TiF₆, enables high-voltage, high-capacity all-solid-state batteries because of its combined oxidative stability and Li⁺ conductivity.

Comparative genomics and high-resolution mass spectrometry reveal the biosynthetic gene clusters, and vast chemical diversity of natural products that they encode, in Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus, bacteria that interact with hosts as symbionts and entomopathogens.

An approach combining bioorthogonal chemistry with genetically encoded fluorogen-activating proteins enables subcellular imaging of phospholipids and glycans, as well as the visualization of lipid transport between organelles and lipid asymmetry across membrane leaflets.

This paper presents TDAC-seq, a targeted chromatin-accessibility-profiling method using cytidine deaminases and long-read sequencing, to resolve the effects of CRISPR edits on single chromatin fibers.

National parochialism is the tendency to cooperate more with people of the same nation. In a 42-nations study, the authors show that national parochialism is a pervasive phenomenon, present to a similar degree across all the studied nations, and occurs both when decisions are private or public.

In this single-arm phase 2 trial in patients with HR⁺HER2⁻ advanced breast cancer, treatment with the HER3-targeting antibody–drug conjugate paritumab deruxtecan led to encouraging objective response rates, and comprehensive exploratory analyses indicate potential biomarkers of response.

Doping is used in p-n junction devices to partially mitigate nonradiative recombination losses. Here, authors use phosphorus dopants to reduce charge carrier trapping and electronic band tails in polycrystalline CdSeTe, achieving improved ambipolar mobilities, fill factor and solar cell efficiency.

Using mouse pancreatic cancer models, Tsanov et al. show that reactivation of SMAD4 at metastatic sites promotes tumor growth in the lung through RUNX1 but restrains metastatic growth through KLF4 in the liver, influenced by organ-specific epigenetic states.

The International Brain Laboratory presents a brain-wide electrophysiological map obtained from pooling data from 12 laboratories that performed the same standardized perceptual decision-making task in mice.

A purpose-built implantable system based on biomimetic epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord reduces the severity of hypotensive complications in people with spinal cord injury and improves quality of life.

This Primer offers a practical and rational introduction to macromolecular crystallography, whether to engage directly with or to critically assess results, with a focus on understanding the diffraction data, solving the phase problem, building and refining the atomic model, and interpreting the resulting atomic structure.

The Yamaji effect is a modulation of the electronic transport as the angle of an applied magnetic field is changed. This has been observed in a model cuprate and sheds light on the geometry of the Fermi surface and the nature of the pseudogap.

In Drosophila, the cephalic furrow counteracts mechanical stress as the developing head and the trunk tissues meet, providing evidence for how mechanical forces influence the evolution of morphogenetic innovations in early development.

Metal–organic frameworks hold promise as electrocatalysts for water splitting, but their large-scale production remains a challenge. This study reports on a scalable synthetic approach to fabricate large-area metal–organic framework-based electrodes, achieving high catalytic activity and stability in practical alkaline water electrolysis.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

The authors provide a comprehensive characterization of how glutamine uptake and utilization regulate macrophage function in atherosclerosis.

A covalent organic framework-based type-II heterojunction (TpPa/TpDz) enables efficient photocatalytic H₂O₂ production in pure water. The highest and lowest occupied molecular orbitals are spatially separated, driving directional photogenerated carrier transport and minimizing recombination, therefore enhancing photocatalytic activity.

The traditional structural transformation narrative emphasizes intersectoral labour reallocation out of agriculture. This study presents ten stylized facts about how employment and compensation evolve within agrifood value chains amid structural transformation, offering insights into post-farmgate dynamics and gender pay inequality.

The authors achieve a high electrocaloric effect in barium titanate ceramics with a defect dipole engineering strategy. As a result, defect dipole engineering enables BaTiO₃ to achieve an electrocaloric effect over a wide temperature range.

Inhibiting AKT1 kinase can have potentially positive uses against many types of cancer. To find novel molecules targeting this protein, a graph adversarial network is trained as a generative model.

Topsoil nitrogen stocks declined over a ten-year field warming experiment in a permafrost ecosystem due to enhanced plant nitrogen uptake, nitrogen leaching and gaseous losses, suggesting that permafrost soil nitrogen stocks are vulnerable to warming.

This study explores the relationship between telomere length and clonal hematopoiesis. Splicing factor and PPM1D gene mutations are more frequent in people with genetically predicted shorter telomere lengths, suggesting that these mutations protect against the consequences of telomere attrition.

This study shows that epigenetic gene body DNA methylation regulates transcription and accounts for much of its variance in the Arabidopsis population, efficiently identifies genes regulating diverse traits and may facilitate local adaptation.

Owing to electron localization, two-dimensional materials are not expected to be metallic at low temperatures, but a field-induced quantum metal phase emerges in NbSe₂, whose behaviour is consistent with the Bose-metal model.

The axial Higgs mode is theoretically attributed to a hidden ferroaxial component of charge order. In rare-earth tritellurides, this ferroaxial order is now shown to be induced by intertwined orbital and charge orders.

Hepatitis C virus lacks an effective vaccine, partly due to the absence of suitable animal models for testing. Here, the authors develop a live-attenuated vaccine, using synonymous mutagenesis in rodent hepacivirus, and demonstrate induction of a protective T cell response and protection from chronic infection in rats.

The use of harmful solvents to fabricate stable devices hampers the commercialization of perovskite solar cells. Here, the authors introduce a biorenewable solvent system and precursor-phase engineering to realize stable formamidinium lead triiodide-based solar cells.

Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age dairy pastoralists in Mongolia are associated with diverse mortuary practices. Here, the authors analyze aDNA from 30 individuals and identify two genetic groups associated with distinct mortuary traditions that seem to have mixed rarely, pointing to complexities in these pastoralist societies.

The analysis of radial velocity variations of O-type stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud reveals a large fraction of close binaries, suggesting that binary physics also plays a prominent role in the low-metallicity environment of the distant Universe.

Polyamides (PAs) or nylons are types of plastics with wide applications, but due to their accumulation in the environment, strategies for their deconstruction are of interest. Here, the authors screen 40 potential nylon-hydrolyzing enzymes (nylonases) using a mass spectrometry-based approach and identify a thermostabilized N-terminal nucleophile hydrolase as the most promising for further development, as well as crucial targets for progressing PA6 enzymatic depolymerization.

The enzyme ABHD18 is shown to have a key role in cardiolipin metabolism in mitochondria, offering a potential route for a small-molecule treatment of the rare genetic disease Barth syndrome.