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Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in van der Waals materials are promising for nanophotonic applications, but they are normally limited to the mid-infrared range. Here, the authors report the observation of long-lived and highly confined HPhPs in the deep THz range in layered PbI₂.

In this work, authors develop a “mini-bladder” model with a perfusable lumen that reveals how urine and its solute composition impact tissue resilience and enables cell-wall-deficient uropathogenic Escherichia coli to persist in tissues and drive recurrence in urinary tract infections.

Testi and colleagues introduce an enhanced Brillouin Microscope for user-independent and high-precision mechanical measurements. Using this approach, the authors obtained insight into the biophysical properties of protein condensates involved in severe neurodegenerative diseases.

Conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1) can boost the precursor exhausted T cell population thought to be essential for efficacy of immune checkpoint therapy. Here the authors enhance this cellular network using Flt3L to expand cDC1s and then map the movement of T cells and DCs between tumors and lymph nodes.

Proteomic data from natural isolates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae provide insight into how these cells tolerate aneuploidy (an imbalance in the number of chromosomes), and reveal differences between lab-engineered aneuploids and diverse natural yeasts.

Human exploration behaviour is studied using cognitive tasks where information seeking competes with reward seeking. Here the authors describe how humans discover the structure of new and uncertain environments outside this explore-exploit tradeoff.

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.

Keshishian, Mischler et al. report that a recurrent automatic speech recognition system aligns closely with brain organization: model layers map to distinct cortical regions and naturally learn to encode a parallel progression from acoustic to phonetic, lexical and semantic content.

This study shows that promoter and enhancer functions are often linked within the same DNA sequences. Using a dual-reporter assay, the authors reveal shared sequence features and co-dependent activities supporting a unified model of gene regulation.

Here authors show that the function of prefrontal cortex, an area that controls executive function and cognition, is impaired on a cellular and network level in mice born preterm.

Although antiretroviral therapies (ART) have expanded the life expectancy of patients with HIV, they are not curative due to the presence of latently infected cells. Here, the authors present IMC-M113V, a bispecific soluble TCR targeting the HIV peptide Gag_77-85 complexed to HLA-A*02:01 as an approach for targeting HIV reservoirs and test safety, tolerability and pharmacodynamics in a first-in-human clinical trial on 12 HLA-A*02:01-positive male individuals on ART.

Vestibular schwannomas that are caused by genetic mutations in the NF2 gene are hard to treat and lead to hearing loss. Here authors show in a mouse model that faithfully represents the human condition that combination therapy with anti-PD-1 and anti-VEGF inhibits tumor growth via normalizing the tumor vasculature and enhances T and NK cell antitumor cytotoxicity via upregulation of NKG2D.

CRISPR–Cas9 in Streptococcus pyogenes prevents self-cleavage through abasic CRISPR RNA oxidations that suppress off-target activity. Inspired by a natural mechanism, Gu and Kim et al. designed chemically modified abasic guide RNAs to enhance genome-editing specificity of SpCas9, suppressing off-target toxicity in in vivo applications.

Freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity are declining quickly. By integrating global environmental, socioeconomic, and biological data, this study identifies the key conditions associated with imperilment of freshwater fishes.

This study analyses whole-genome sequencing data of cancer samples from 10,983 patients and explores relationships among mutational signatures, various biomarkers and clinical outcomes.

Self-DNA has been implicated in the activation of cGAS/STING/IFN-I responses in autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases. Here the authors show that macrophage uses a process termed ‘nucleocytosis’ to extract nuclear DNA from lysosome-impaired, dying target cells, thereby activating downstream cGAS-STING signaling and IFN-I production.

Microscopic imaging and biochemical studies show that sinuses in mouse and human form a highly dynamic surface that regulates fluid movement and immune cell surveillance via RAMP1-dependent regulation of smooth muscle contraction and RAMP2-dependent regulation of the sinus endothelial barrier.

Boosting mitochondrial metabolism in neurons in central memory circuits by enhancing Ca²⁺ retention in the mitochondrial matrix is shown to improve long-term memory formation in flies and mice.

Structural variants are an underexplored source of genetic diversity. Here, the authors use phased pangenome graphs to improve detection of these variants in dairy cattle and link these variants to traits of economic importance.

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 58 independent risk loci for major anxiety disorders among individuals of European ancestry and implicates GABAergic signaling as a potential mechanism underlying genetic risk for these disorders.

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.

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.

A general protocol for high-dimensional entangling gates is developed and applied for two four-dimensional qudits encoded in orbital angular momentum (OAM). The phase-locking technique stabilizes OAM sorters, leading to a process fidelity within a range from 0.71 to 0.85.

In this study, the authors perform a comprehensive series of analyses to assess the role of disruptions in brain state dynamics in major depressive disorder, using data from the UK Biobank.

Hypothalamus is implicated in memory disorders but the neural mechanisms are unknown. Here, the authors report that MCH expressing hypothalamic neurons respond to novel object exposure, are inhibited by local GAD65 expressing neurons and these local circuit interactions are causally involved in object memory formation.

Mouse models demonstrate that vagal sensory neurons transmit signals from lung adenocarcinoma to the brain, increasing sympathetic efferent activity in the tumour microenvironment and thereby creating a immunologically permissive environment for tumour growth.

The combination of within-species variation in pathogen load, the shape of the relationship between pathogen load and infectiousness, and vector feeding preferences shape transmission of multi-host vector-borne pathogens. Here, the authors use experimental and wild bird infection data to characterize the role of 17 host bird species in avian malaria transmission in Hawaii.

Genome-wide analyses in the Norwegian HUNT study with replication in Swedish and Finnish cohorts identify host genetic variants associated with gut microbiome features and provide evidence of a causal effect of body mass index on gut microbiota composition.

This study shows that contrail avoidance can recover 9% of the global temperature budget by 2050. For every year of delay, the recoverable warming will diminish by 0.6%. This makes inaction (not fuel penalties) the most significant climate risk associated with avoidance.

In this work, the authors present their Chloroalkane Azide Membrane Permeability (CHAMP) assay that measures cytosolic accumulation of small molecules in Escherichia coli, enabling rapid profiling of compounds, with the goal to simplify and accelerate antimicrobial drug discovery.

Aerial surveys over the Permian Basin found 500+ major methane leaks, many recurring. A few sites leaked continuously and offer quick mitigation wins. These super-emitters may produce ~50% of regional emissions, underscoring the need for frequent monitoring.

It is unclear whether the harsh abiotic conditions of drylands hinder biological invasions. This global analysis shows that drylands are vulnerable to non-native plants and are likely to become more so as native plant diversity declines and grazing pressure intensifies.

The authors released NSD-synthetic, a dataset of 7T fMRI responses from the same eight NSD participants for 284 out-of-distribution synthetic images, to facilitate the development of more robust models of visual processing.

Reprograming the tumor microenvironment is a promising strategy to overcome resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in patients with malignant melanoma. Here, the authors report a phase 1/2 study evaluating the combination of LOAd703 (viral-vector encoding CD40L and 4-1BBL) with atezolizumab (anti-PD-L1) in patients with ICI-resistant, malignant melanoma.

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.

Using artificial neural networks applied to human data, Eckstein et al. show that good models of reinforcement learning require memory components that track representations of the past.

Producing valuable hydrocarbons electrochemically from carbon monoxide (CO) is an energy-efficient pathway, but reliance on costly pure CO as a feedstock limits its economic viability. This article shows that abundant CO-rich syngas can be directly used to synthesize ethylene.

Arginine addiction induced by argininosuccinate synthase (ASSN1) deficiency has been exploited to treat ASS1-deficient cancers. Here, the authors show an alternative therapeutic approach where ASS1 activity is increased by the pesticide spinosyn A and is shown to inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation.

Mechanosensitive PIEZO channels sense and open through membrane tension, but their dynamic gating mechanisms at the molecular level remain unclear. A hybrid all-atom and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation approach and electrophysiology reveal a clockwork mechanism for PIEZO2 involving two open states.

Energy deposition inside silicon with ultrashort laser pulses is intrinsically restricted. Here, authors demonstrate that this filamentation-driven ceiling is universal in semiconductors. Extreme nonlinearities are quantified to predict and optimize involume laser-semiconductor interaction.

Greenwald, Nederlof and colleagues developed a computational pipeline analyzing multiplex imaging data and established spatial patterns within breast cancer microenvironment that are predictive of immune checkpoint blockade response across treatment time course.

Peroxidases have long been considered to use ferryl heme intermediates (Fe(IV) = O) to catalyze oxidative chemistries. Here, Williams et al. find that ferric-oxyl (Fe^III–O^•–) excited states exist along the catalytic reaction coordinate of a peroxidase.

Exposure to inflammation drives hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) aging, limiting their self-renewal capacity and differentiation. Here, the authors explore the mechanistic link between inflammation and HSC aging. Using mouse models, they identify the innate immune RNA sensor MDA5 as a key mediator of HSC aging and show that MDA5 loss ameliorates the aging phenotype by improving proteostasis in aged HSCs.

An integrated photonics scheme is presented for the manufacture of communication systems supporting the use of fibre and wireless infrastructures simultaneously, addressing the long-standing bandwidth mismatch between the two domains and demonstrating ultrahigh data rates.

Forests are essential for both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, yet how to balance these goals in managed forests remains unclear. Here, using a Europe-wide dataset, the authors find that biodiversity increases with carbon stocks, but mostly when deadwood is included.

In vitro methods for thymic organoid cultures are useful to examine requirements for T cell development and for generating large numbers of cells for therapeutic purposes. Here the authors use human induced pluripotent stem cells, differentiate these into thymic epithelial organoid cultures and utilise haematopoietic progenitors to show development of T cells in vitro.

A wearable that continuously measures the concentration of a drug is demonstrated in humans.

Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with retrotransposon-rich centromeres and that long-terminal-repeat retrotransposons are the genetic substrate.

Bright electron bunches power particle physics and photon science. Here, reproducible bunches were generated in a plasma with simultaneous high charge per unit energy and low emittance, advancing a scheme to produce ultra-bright bunches in future.

Vaziri et al. examined how humans detect changes in auditory pitch, revealing that listeners rely on correlations in sound intensity over frequency and time, processing that is reminiscent of visual motion detection.