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Japonica subspecies has a lower nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) than that of indica rice. Here, the authors show that natural variations in the NIN-like protein 4 (OsNLP4) encoding gene are responsible for the divergence and introgression of the indica OsNLP4 allele into elite japonica cultivar can increase NUE and grain yield.

Most kiwifruit species are vulnerable to high levels of heat stress. Here, the authors report natural variation at the GATA transcription factor binding site of EGY3 gene mediates chloroplastic ROS homeostasis to confer kiwifruit thermotolerance.

Virtual nature exposure reduces self-reported pain and is associated with decreased brain responses linked to somatosensory and nociceptive processing, providing new insights into the underlying mechanisms of nature-induced analgesia.

Native top-down proteomics reveals epidermal growth factor receptor–estrogen receptor-alpha (EGFR–ER) signaling crosstalk in breast cancer cells and dissociation of nuclear transport factor 2 (NUTF2) dimers to modulate ER signaling and cell growth.

Animals are often thought to follow simple alignment rules, but this study explores how collective behavior could instead emerge from neural ring-attractor networks encoding allocentric and egocentric bearings. The results show that group motion arises spontaneously when allocentric bearings are used, with rapid switching between the two representations further boosting coordination.

The authors significantly enhance the high-temperature energy storage performance of bismuth sodium titanate-based relaxor ferroelectric multilayer ceramic capacitors via entropy modulated strain heterogeneity.

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.

The experimental demonstration of many-body signal amplification in a solid-state, room-temperature quantum sensor is reported.

The electronic ground state of a correlated oxide interface is reversibly switched by light. Stemming from interfacial reconstructions, electrostatic confinement and photodoping, this effect opens a path towards engineering the optical response of oxides.

How the brain supports speaking and listening during conversation of its natural form remains poorly understood. Here, by combining intracranial EEG recordings with Natural Language Processing, the authors show broadly distributed frontotemporal neural signals that encode context-dependent linguistic information during both speaking and listening..

The magnetoelastic coupling at a ferroelectric-ferromagnetic interface is shown to be dominated by shear-strain effects. Using polarised x-ray microscopy to simultaneously image the ferroic domain structures, the authors demonstrate an anomalous coupling in the ultrathin film limit.

Limited diagnostic capacity for asymptomatic individuals hinders malaria elimination efforts in Africa. Here, the authors present a near point-of-care method based on colorimetric LAMP detection that outperforms expert microscopy and commercial rapid diagnostic tests for Plasmodium detection in asymptomatic and submicroscopic individuals.

An ultra-wide-field imaging Mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry system with a 20 mm × 20 mm field of view was developed for semiconductor metrology. Over 10 million spectra were analyzed with machine learning, allowing wafer-scale variations to be identified and yield gains demonstrated.

The underlying physics of the strange metal phase observed in many strongly correlated materials is not well understood. Now, evidence emerges that antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations play an important role.

In this study, the authors present optimization and efficacy testing of apolipoprotein-based lipid nanoparticles for delivering various nucleic acid therapeutics in vivo to immune cells and their progenitors in the bone marrow.

Near-infrared mechanoluminescence can be used in biostress imaging, but is subject to limitations in terms of the pre-irradiation process and low intensity. Here, the authors have circumvented these limitations by constructing an MgO/MgF₂:Cr³⁺ heterojunction piezo-photonics system.

The high-contrast dielectric boundary between a gold–air hybrid structure and its sharp spatial features are exploited to provide the momentum required for the excitation of higher-order hyperbolic phonon polaritons.

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.

Tests of the predictions of the renormalization group in biological experiments have not yet been decisive. Now, a study on the collective dynamics of insect swarms provides a long-sought match between experiment and theory.

The meningeal compartment communicates with the brain to modulate homeostatic functions. Here, the authors demonstrate that natural killer (NK) cells and innate lymphoid cells (ILC) 1 shape synaptic neuronal transmission and affect mouse behavior.

By exploiting an optical thermodynamic framework, researchers demonstrate universal routing of light. Specifically, light launched into any input port of a nonlinear array is universally channelled into a tightly localized ground state. The principles of optical thermodynamics demonstrated may enable new optical functionalities.

Loretan and colleagues present a low-cost smartphone-based microscope capable of detecting single-molecule fluorescence. This approach opens doors to personalised and widely distributed applications in diagnostics, biosensing, and science education.

The interplay between chirality, light and spin is an emerging frontier with broad impact. This study reveals chirality-induced spin polarization and ultrafast dynamic chirality in semiconductors, unlocking new pathways for coherent spin manipulation.

Scalable platforms for non-invasive action potential recording are needed. Here, the authors present a reliable method to capture APs with patch-clamp-like fidelity from stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes using an Electrolyte-Gated Polymer Field-Effect Transistors.

Encoding quantum information in qudits instead of qubits allows for several advantages, but scalable native entangling techniques would be needed. Here, the authors show how to use light-shift gates to perform entangling operations on trapped ion systems, with a calibration overhead which is independent on the qudit dimension.

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.

Pl@ntBERT is a language-based AI model that learned the ‘syntax’ of plant assemblages, predicting likely species and inferring habitats by modelling biotic relationships.

The authors report on the implementation of a data-efficient machine learning approach to predict plasma dynamics. This enables offline design of robust trajectories to terminate the plasma without disruptive instabilities. Experimental results at the TCV tokamak show statistically significant improvements in key figures of merit and the ability to a priori predict the dynamics of key plasma properties.

The temporal characterization of few-femtosecond vacuum ultraviolet pulses bring new opportunities for investigating ultrafast light-matter interactions.

Precise separation of ions with similar valence and size is critical. Here, authors designed a selective membrane that precisely extract Li+ from Na+ and Ca²⁺ interferences. The high selectivity and permeability enable energy-efficient, precise, and chemical-free lithium extraction using the electrodialysis process.

The electronic behaviour of complex oxides such as LaNiO₃ depends on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, making it challenging to identify microscopic mechanisms. Here the authors demonstrate the influence of oxygen vacancies on the thickness-dependent metal-insulator transition of LaNiO₃ films.

Imaging through complex media is challenging because scattering results in image blurring. By introducing a fingerprint operator and applying it to the measured reflection matrix, information on a target within a complex medium becomes accessible.

The author demonstrates that laser-driven ultracold Fermi gases can exhibit color-orbit-like coupling with SU(3) symmetry. This leads to color-like oscillations and other quantum-chromodyamics-like phenomena in an atomic physics laboratory.

Mirror image peptides are of interest for a range of biotechnology applications. Here, the authors report on the creation of fully functional mirror-image transmembrane pores made of D-amino acid peptides, which have potential in nanopore sensing technologies and cancer therapies.

Cells struggle to migrate on soft substrates, which don’t provide enough traction. Here, the authors show that rapid, cyclic changes in substrate rigidity allow cells to overcome this limitation and move quickly.

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.

Liang et al. estimate the prevalence of text modified by large language models in recent scientific papers and preprints, finding widespread use (up to 17.5% of papers in computer science).

Cavity phonon-polaritons are a potential platform for controlling phonons. Here, the authors demonstrate multimode ultrastrong coupling between two optical phonon modes embedded in terahertz nanoslot cavities.

A comprehensive phylogeny and taxonomy for the medically and ecologically important genus Artemisia remain unavailable. Here, the authors combine genomic data with morphological analyses to reconstruct the most comprehensive phylogeny and taxonomy of global Artemisia.