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A 3D soft electronic mesh allows high-resolution electrical recording and stimulation across the full surface of neural organoids, enabling long-term studies, drug testing and optogenetic control without compromising their viability owing to its porous design.

Although widely used, television is underexplored in climate communication. Here analysis of German television programmes and audience perceptions shows that climate change coverage is concentrated in news formats and engages climate supporters, but misses climate-distant audiences drawn to entertainment.

The authors realize two- and three-site Kitaev chains in semiconducting quantum dots coupled via superconductors and tune them to the sweet spot where zero-energy Majorana modes appear at the chain ends. To assess Majorana localization, they couple the system to an additional quantum dot.

A molecular-level understanding of structural evolution upon electrochemical doping in organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors is required. A pronounced reduction in mass and thickness is observed in an n-type ladder polymer upon doping with protic cations owing to water expulsion.

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.

Two main acceleration mechanisms in the auroral acceleration region are electric potential and Alfvénic acceleration but associated energy dynamics are not completely resolved. Here, the authors show that Alfvén waves power the Earth’s auroral arc through a static potential drop in the auroral acceleration region.

Reliably probing rejuvenation and memory effects in spin glasses by means of simulations is difficult. Now, a state-of-the-art numerical study shows that at least three different length scales play a crucial role in aging dynamics of spin glasses.

Nonreciprocal photonics often relies on the use of external magnetic fields. By combining atomistic simulations based on tight-binding with a mean-field approach, here, the authors demonstrate nonreciprocal plasmon propagation in electrically biased one-dimensional carbon nanostructures, including graphene nanoribbons and carbon nanotubes.

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.

Juno radio occultations precisely redefine Jupiter’s shape, measuring a polar diameter of 66,842 km and an equatorial diameter of 71,488 km, both smaller than long-used values, bringing models of the planet’s interior into better agreement with observations.

Optical switching of a moiré Chern ferromagnet is demonstrated in twisted molybdenum ditelluride bilayers using continuous-wave circularly polarized light, paving the way for dissipationless spintronics and quantized Chern junction devices.

Colloidal quantum dots are promising, low-cost materials for infrared technologies, but rarely comply with the EU directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances (RoHS). Here, the authors present the synthesis of large, near-bulk RoHS-compliant quantum dots, operating deep in the infrared.

Oxytocin promotes social behaviors, but its cortical targets remain unclear. Here, authors show that oxytocin activates local interneurons in the rat prefrontal cortex, enhancing sociability through top-down control of the basolateral amygdala.

Humans alter the daily timing of animal activity, potentially reshaping predator–prey interactions. This meta-analysis reveals that larger species tend to “lose” under human disturbance, with large predators overlapping less with their prey, and large prey overlapping more with their predators.

A genetic study in over 300,000 males reveals that Y chromosome loss affects type 2 diabetes risk differently in East Asians and Europeans. Multi-omics data suggest that this may be due to impaired glucose metabolism in Y-deficient pancreatic β cells.

Emissions from croplands are an important source of GHG emissions that can be shaped by management. This study presents maps of emissions globally for different crops, showing that drained peatlands, rice paddies and fertilizer were the main drivers, and highlights differences in emission intensity.

Mucosal administration of a multivalent, adjuvanted vaccine against Clostridioides difficile promoted bacterial clearance and protected against morbidity, mortality, tissue damage and recurrence in mice.

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.

Yu et al. develop a platform to model genetic diversity in drug treatment at the single-cell level. Using KRAS-G12C inhibitors as a proof of concept, they identify the pathway driving cell death and potential resistance mechanisms.

An outbreak of MPXV in sooty mangabeys in Côte d’Ivoire was linked to MPXV-infected fire-footed rope squirrels, providing direct evidence of interspecies transmission and indicating risk for zoonotic transmission of MPXV from both hosts.

Crystalline materials for optical applications are synthesized in living dinoflagellates.

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.

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.

This study of magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene moiré superconductors using scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy identifies two energy gaps that develop from many-body resonance in this highly tunable class of materials.

The authors describe a stacked generalization approach to predicting missing links in food webs that considers both species traits and network structure, achieving near-perfect performance on many empirical food webs.

A lab-scale proof-of-principle demonstration of a quantum network comprising one server chip and 20 client photonic chips implementing twin-field quantum key distribution shows excellent scalability and reliability and yields a pathway towards future large-scale networks.

JWST’s COSMOS-Web survey is used to create an ultra-high-detail dark matter map, revealing hidden filaments, clusters and distant structures. By tracing features out to z = 2, this map shows how dark and luminous matter build the cosmic web across cosmic time.

Geochemical data from zircons show that subduction-like processes were operating contemporaneously with stagnant-lid-like processes at different locations as early as 4.4 billion years ago on the Hadean Earth.

Researchers used explainable AI to analyze pancreas tissue from living donors, revealing that changes in fat cell clusters, nerve structures, and islet proximity to fat cells distinguish people with type 2 diabetes from those without the condition.

Spin transport properties of magnetically ordered materials have been well studied. Here, the authors report an anomalous spin signal exhibiting spin transport over 480 microns in the frustrated hyperkagome magnetic insulator Gd₃Ga₅O₁₂.

Reconstructing microbial genomes from 820 reef-building corals collected at 99 reefs across 32 islands throughout the Pacific Ocean highlights the importance of conserving coral reefs as vital reservoirs of molecular diversity.

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.

Membrane ion channels can be responsive to a variety of stimuli such as pressure, temperature, or pH. Here, the authors show that simply shining 365 nm light activates a native potassium channel in rodent pain-sensing neurons, delivering powerful analgesia without drugs or genetic manipulations.

Polymer thin films that emit and absorb circularly polarised light are promising in achieving important technological advances, but the origin of the large chiroptical effects in such films has remained elusive. Here the authors demonstrate that in non-aligned polymer thin films, large chiroptical effects are caused by magneto-electric coupling, not structural chirality as previously assumed.

Rare coding variants that reduce the activity of a protein can have a beneficial impact on health. Here, researchers identify rare genetic variants in the CHRNB3 gene that associate with reduced cigarette smoking across diverse populations.

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.

Negative refraction—light bending opposite to conventional refraction—and a hyperlens effect is observed in an excitonic system in the two-dimensional magnet CrSBr. The effect is mediated by the magnetic order of the material.

This work reports optical studies of circular and linear dichroism to image, respectively, chiral and nematic spin ordering in the layered triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Co1/3TaS2. Phases with co-existing chirality and nematicity are revealed.

Using 63 globally distributed grassland and shrubland sites from the International Drought Experiment, this study identified plant traits linked to drought resistance after 1 year of extreme drought across growth forms, lifespans and climate.

Crohn’s disease is associated with disturbances in the B-cell compartment and secreted antibodies. Here, the authors reveal impaired colonic dimeric IgA responses in patients with Crohn’s disease and verify this phenotype in murine models, demonstrating that mitochondrial dysfunction drives defective mucosal humoral immunity.

Microbial colonization and biofilm formation drive persistent infections on medical devices, often under fluid flow. Here, the authors engineer buckling-induced wrinkled and folded patterns with precisely defined geometries, integrate them into microfluidic channels, and show how wrinkling instabilities can be exploited to mitigate bacterial colonization under dynamic conditions.

This study reveals how climate change altered storm dynamics during the 2024 Valencia floods. Warmer seas fueled stronger updrafts, increasing rainfall intensity by 20% and significantly amplifying flood severity.

Examples of materials with non-trivial band topology in the presence of strong electron correlations are rare. Now it is shown that quantum fluctuations near a quantum phase transition can promote topological phases in a heavy-fermion compound.

Authors study links between amyloid secondary nucleation and growth defects, demonstrating these sites on Aβ40/Aβ42 fibrils are rare compared to the number of protein molecules. Re-analysis of published data suggests that defects may also drive secondary nucleation generally.

The authors report on imaging developments of solid-density plasmas and the current filamentation instability by means of the LCLS-XFEL at SLAC. This offers insights on the instability in the solid density region, stimulating new modelling of laser-solid interactions.

There is a challenge of overestimation in figures of merit for organic electrochemical transistors due to a kink in the transistor current. Here, the authors investigate the origin of the kink and identify the charge transport phenomena that is impacted.

The bacterial flagellar MS ring is a core transmembrane complex within the flagellar basal body. Here, cryoEM analysis suggests that the MS ring is formed by 34 full-length FliF subunits, with 23- and 11-fold subsymmetries in the inner and middle M ring, respectively.

A spatial and single-cell transcriptomics study across multiple mammalian species identifies epidermal BMP signalling as a functional requirement for rete ridge formation, providing insight into mechanisms underlying hair density loss and wound healing.