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An optically addressable fluorescent-protein spin qubit is realized using enhanced yellow fluorescent protein; the qubit can be coherently controlled at liquid-nitrogen temperatures and the spin detected at room temperature in cells.

van Lengerich et al. developed a human TREM2 antibody with a transport vehicle (ATV) that improves brain exposure and biodistribution in mouse models. ATV:TREM2 promotes microglial energetic capacity and metabolism via mitochondrial pathways.

This work introduces DeepTernary, a deep learning method for rapid and accurate prediction of PROTAC and molecular glue-induced ternary complex structures, achieving state-of-the-art results by learning from a curated dataset, TernaryDB.

Brain age gaps (BAGs) highlight deviations from healthy brain aging, yet their biophysical underpinnings in aging and dementia are not well understood. Here, the authors use EEG connectivity and generative modeling across diverse populations to reveal that BAGs are influenced by geography, income, sex and education, with implications for understanding accelerated aging and dementia.

Using a grating-based mode-splitting and reflector approach, a bidirectional chip-scale nanophotonic Kerr-resonator circuit that consumes 97% of the pump power to generate a soliton frequency comb at approaching unit efficiency with 65% conversion efficiency is reported.

DeepCellMap, a deep-learning tool, maps microglial organisation in the developing brain, revealing their spatial diversity, clustering patterns, and associations with blood vessels. DeepCellMap is available as an open-source software.

The magnetocaloric effect could allow for more efficient refrigeration compared to traditional vapour compression, however, it requires materials with large magnetocaloric coefficients, and these typically require rare-earths. Herein, Levinsky et al. demonstrate a large magnetocaloric effect in a rare-earth free layered coordination polymer.

For archival pathogens, like pH1N1 Influenza A virus the causative agent of 1918/19 pandemic, only few whole genome sequences exist. Here, Patrono et al. provide one complete and two partial genomes from Germany and find variation in two sites in the nucleoprotein gene in pandemic samples compared to pre-pandemic samples, that are associated with resistance to host antiviral response, pointing at a possible viral adaptation to humans.

Diffusion models excel at molecular generation. Here, authors present SiMGen, a complementary local similarity-based approach. SiMGen offers more control over the generation process and can guide existing models to generate specific fragments.

Virus-host competition drives evolution of diverse antiviral defences in bacteria and antidefense systems in their viruses (phages). Here, Silas et al. use a functional screen of phage accessory genes to show how bacterial cell-surface sugars can be major determinants of phage host-range, and how some phage proteins injected into bacterial cells inhibit host immunity.

The ability to resist compaction has widespread implications for reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technology. Here the authors present a class of thin-film crosslinked composite reverse osmosis membranes that resist physical compaction at ultrahigh pressures.

Precise control of charge and spin states in quantum dots is often challenging. Here, the authors show systematic manipulation of the electron occupation in graphene nanoribbons laying on MgO.

The opioid system modulates ketamine’s effects in major depressive disorder, with naltrexone reducing acute glutamatergic activity and acute antidepressant effects.

Federated learning (FL) algorithms have emerged as a promising solution to train models for healthcare imaging across institutions while preserving privacy. Here, the authors describe the Federated Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) challenge for the decentralised benchmarking of FL algorithms and evaluation of Healthcare AI algorithm generalizability in real-world cancer imaging datasets.

A three-site Kitaev chain, constructed from three semiconducting quantum dots coupled by superconducting segments in a hybrid InSb/Al nanowire, shows enhanced robustness of edge zero-energy modes against variations in the coupling strengths or electrochemical potentials compared with a chain containing only two quantum dots.

A fluidic system with spatially reconfigurable hot spots generated by optical pumping of plasmonic nanorods is demonstrated, creating virtual barriers by generating local heating via photothermal conversion, for potential applications in chemical synthesis, lab-on-chip devices and microbiology.

Viscoelasticity is a universal mechanical feature of the extracellular matrix. Here the authors show that the extracellular matrix viscoelasticity guides tissue growth and symmetry breaking, a fundamental process in morphogenesis and oncogenesis.

A new model merges behavioural science and machine learning to predict choice under risk and uncertainty. Tested on multiple large datasets, it outperforms top psychological and AI models, enabling accurate, interpretable forecasts of human decisions.

Neel domain walls are typically stabilized by an interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, with a chirality that is fixed by the sample materials. Here, Song, Huang and coauthors demonstrate the existence of two bistable Néel domain wall states with opposite chiralities, and the switching between these via magnetic field pulses

Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin textures, most notably occurring in magnetic materials. So far, the skyrmions that have been reported correspond to topological textures of magnetic dipole moments. Zhang et al show theoretically that quantum effects can lead to a distinct type of skyrmion that combines dipolar and quadrupolar moments, proposing a variety of materials, including magnets and quantum paramagnets, where such textures can be stabilized.

Learning-to-learn refers to progressive speedup in solving a series of problems with shared structure. This study shows that it emerges in recurrent neural networks from the reuse and refinement of a neural state subspace underlying schema formation.

The superconductivity in Bernal bilayer graphene that emerges from the spin–orbit coupling induced by proximal tungsten diselenide can be tuned by modulating the twist angle between the two materials.

This study introduces the Cattle Cell Atlas, a single-cell expression resource including 1,793,854 cells from 59 tissues. Integrative analyses leveraging this atlas provide insights into the biology underlying bovine monogenic and complex traits.

Empirically based models of disease progression in familial frontotemporal dementia reveal the relative ordering of clinical, neuroimaging, and fluid biomarker changes and facilitate novel clinical trial designs

Ojer et al. use data from the American National Election Studies to map US voters in a two-dimensional ideological space. Democrats and Republicans have grown more polarized over the past 30 years, while partisan sorting has declined since 2010.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports a measurement of the ratio of the decay rates of W bosons to τ leptons and muons, in agreement with universal lepton couplings as postulated in the standard model of particle physics.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by heterogeneous phenotypes. Disruption of the gut–brain axis (GBA) has been implicated in ASD although with limited reproducibility across studies. In this study, the authors propose a framework to leverage multi-omic datasets and investigate how the GBA influences ASD.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

Single-cell RNA-seq analysis is conventionally limited to gene-level quantification, missing transcript diversity. Here, authors present DOLPHIN, a deep learning method that enables exon- and junction-level analysis to improve cell representation and detect alternative splicing.

Genetic diversity and speciation rate support adaptability and species richness patterns, respectively. Here, the authors find a negative association between mitochondrial genetic diversity and speciation rate in 1897 mammals that is not explained by ecological attributes.

Direct human actions such as hunting and bird deterrence at aquaculture sites kill up to 10% of the populations of some shorebird species migrating along China’s coast each year, suggesting that this direct mortality is an overlooked threat to migratory populations.

Citizen-science data on bird observations from eastern North America show that the timing of spring arrival of migratory birds is broadly correlated with fluctuations in vegetation green-up but that the varying sensitivity of different bird species to this phenological event is linked to their different migratory strategies.

This work reports an inverse design approach that can spectrally shape Kerr microcombs by imprinting a nanophotonic dispersion filter to a microresonator to engineer solitonic frequency-comb states in the resonator with an optimization algorithm.

Coupling of ecology and evolution in microbiomes can lead to time-dependent community interactions. Here, the authors introduce Dynamic Covariance Mapping (DCM), an approach to quantify the community matrix and, with high-resolution lineage tracking, show how inter- and intra-species interactions shape the dynamics of mouse gut colonization.

It is unclear if rates of autism and other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses are elevated in transgender and gender-diverse individuals compared to cisgender individuals. Here, the authors use data from five different large-scale datasets to identify elevated rates of autism diagnoses, diagnoses of other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions, and elevated traits related to autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals, compared to cisgender individuals.

Inversion asymmetry imparts rich condensed matter phenomena in inorganic systems, and transmission of chirality across structural motifs is an attractive design strategy to break symmetry. Here, the authors use chiral organic cations to transfer structural chirality to inorganic layers in hybrid perovskites.

Proximity effects in molecule/metal heterostructures offer a promising route to control magnetic properties. Here, the authors report a light-controlled proximity effect at a Co/C₆₀ interface, where laser-induced excitons in C₆₀ alter interfacial interactions, leading to a 60% quenching of the ferromagnetic resonance frequency of Co.

SARS-CoV-2 variants with mutations in spike have emerged during the pandemic. Magaret et al. show that in Latin America, efficacy of the Ad26.COV2.S vaccine against moderate to severe–critical COVID-19 varied by sequence features, antibody escape scores, and neutralization impacting features of the SARS-CoV-2 variant.

Protected areas are meant to defend species from direct exploitation and habitat loss, but they might also reduce climate change impacts. Here, the authors show that marine protected areas mitigate the impacts of marine heatwaves on reef fish communities.

In genome-wide association meta-analysis, it is often difficult to find an independent dataset of sufficient size to replicate associations. Here, the authors have developed MAMBA to calculate the probability of replicability based on consistency between datasets within the meta-analysis.

Serino et al. studied the sense of agency for actions generated via a brain–machine interface. They show that primary motor cortex encodes not only motor and sensory signals, but also subjective agency signals, enabling improved brain–machine interface proficiency.

Opacities are considered to be the source of the disagreement between theoretical solar models and helioseismic data. Here, the authors show solar opacity profiles derived from seismic inferences, which differs from theoretical values used in the solar models.

Fine-scale geospatial mapping of overweight and wasting (two components of the double burden of malnutrition) in 105 LMICs shows that overweight has increased from 5.2% in 2000 to 6.0% in children under 5 in 2017. Although overall wasting decreased over the same period, most countries are not on track to meet the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025.

Ju et al. show that during three-dimensional cell migration, compression recruits cytoplasmic linker-associated proteins to microtubules; these stabilized microtubules then coordinate nuclear positioning and contractility in confined migration.

The authors analyze rare coding variants in 1990 individuals with congenital kidney anomalies, finding diagnostic variants in 14.1% of cases. They identify two new causal genes, ARID3A and NR6A1, along with 38 candidate genes, providing evidence for shared genetics with other developmental disorders.

Stratified medicine promises to tailor treatment for individual patients, however it remains a major challenge to leverage genetic risk data to aid patient stratification. Here the authors introduce an approach to stratify individuals based on the aggregated impact of their genetic risk factor profiles on tissue-specific gene expression levels, and highlight its ability to identify biologically meaningful and clinically actionable patient subgroups, supporting the notion of different patient ‘biotypes’ characterized by partially distinct disease mechanisms.