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The quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories is anticipated to be an important scientific application of future quantum computing capabilities. This work elaborates on a formulation of lattice gauge theory quantum simulation that aims to require quantum computing techniques akin to those for simulating ϕ⁴ scalar field theory by utilizing non-compact continuous variable quantum degrees of freedom.

In maize, ZmDapF1 suppresses the activity of ZmMDH6 in chloroplasts, exacerbating oxidative damage under drought. Knocking out ZmDapF1 or using its favourable allele with lower gene expression enhances drought resilience without yield penalty.

The mediobasal hypothalamus plays a central role in integrating nutritional and sex-related signals to regulate energy homeostasis. Here, through snRNA-seq of the mediobasal hypothalamus in female and male mice across nutritional states, authors show that Agrp neurons are nutrition-sensitive, DA neurons exhibit transcriptional differences in a sex-dependent manner, and KNDy neurons are responsive to both sex and nutrition.

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.

Tunnel oxide passivating contact silicon solar cells are a promising next-generation photovoltaic technology. Yang et al. engineer the front and back contact, further increasing the power conversion efficiency to 26.66%.

Talin has been believed to be indispensable for integrin activation. Here, the authors show that the curvature-sensing protein FCHo2, not talin, enables inside-out activation of integrin ɑvβ5 in curved adhesions formed at curved membranes.

The authors demonstrate that targeted protein degradation of the dengue virus capsid suppresses infection through capsid-dependent pathways rather than classical inhibition, revealing a new antiviral strategy effective against resistant viral variants.

Extracellular electron transfer (EET) in bacteria requires the spatiotemporal coordination of many proteins. Here, authors show that the inner-membrane protein CymA reorganizes spatially into condensates and drives the colocalization of partner proteins to enable EET in Shewanella.

Researchers report a solid that is amorphous in two dimensions but crystalline in the third, made of stacked disordered atomic layers. This shows that crystalline and amorphous order can coexist within a single material depending on direction.

Verhaege et al. identify a conserved fibroblast barrier population at the base of the choroid plexus that compartmentalizes brain–CSF interfaces and is disrupted by inflammation, revealing a new site of central nervous system immune entry and barrier regulation.

Many vascular‑disease risk loci lack defined causal genes. Here, the authors integrate functional genomics and CRISPR screens to identify genes influencing smooth muscle cell behaviour, validating roles for FES, BCAR1, CARF and SMARCA4, with Fes loss promoting atherosclerosis and hypertension.

Femtosecond X-ray solution scattering reveals how solvent environments direct the outcome of ultrafast roaming reactions in bromoform, determining whether transient hot isomers undergo rapid solvolysis or rearrange into long-lived isomeric products.

A genetically engineered pig model carrying the human huntingtin mutation with an expanded cytosine–adenine–guanine repeat reveals microglia-driven recruitment of T cells that accelerates striatal neurodegeneration in Huntington’s disease.

Zhang et al. show that the activation of RIPK1 is suppressed by acetylhypusination in a spermidine-dependent manner. Disruption of this axis contributes to RIPK1-mediated vascular pathology to promote insulin resistance and diabetic kidney pathology.

The relocalization of the vacuolar calcium pump Cdt1 to the plasma membrane contributes to fluconazole adaptation in Candida auris.

In vivo base editing of a causative mutation that leads to the neurodevelopmental disorder Snijders Blok–Campeau syndrome restores protein dosage and ameliorates molecular and behavioural deficits in a humanized mouse model of the condition.

A human spinal cord organoid model can replicate two different types of spinal cord injury and can be used as an in vitro system to evaluate therapeutics and inflammatory reactions to treatments.

KRAS is an oncogene that switches between a GDP-bound inactive state and a GTP-bound active state. Recently developed KRAS G12C inhibitors are specific to the GDP-bound inactive state. Here, the authors develop a class of covalent KRAS G12C inhibitors capable of targeting both states for the treatment of KRAS-driven cancer.

Subcellular compartmentalization of the glycolytic enzyme PFKM regulates cell fate and metabolic switch during skeletal muscle differentiation.

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.

A quasi-melting transfer technique enables clean, sequential transfer of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride monolayers from germanium substrates under vacuum conditions. Controlled lattice alignment yields atomically precise, wrinkle-free superlattices with tunable stacking and twist angles, enabling scalable fabrication of high-quality 2D heterostructures for advanced electronics.

Patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) have limited therapeutic options. Here the authors show that functionally impaired NK cells contribute to immune escape of pre-malignant clones in early stage MDS and that NK adoptive cell therapy can be considered to prevent or delay the development of MDS.

Trimodal single-cell analysis reveals gene-regulatory architecture in complex tissues.

O’Shea and colleagues establish that optimisation of charge and stability is sufficient to enable any single-chain variable fragment intrabody to function within the cell. The authors use AI-led inverse folding to optimise intrabody characteristics, and they present hundreds of intrabody sequences targeting sixty cytoplasmic proteins.

The vacuum process is scalable and solvent free, yet all-vacuum-deposited perovskite solar cells still trail solution-processed counterparts. Facet-directed co-evaporation yields (100)-oriented mixed-halide wide-bandgap films for efficient, stable single-junction cells and perovskite–silicon tandem cells.

Combining generative AI and one round of wet lab evolution generates high-affinity RNA aptamers.

Cobalt-based catalysts are regarded as a potentially cheaper alternative to platinum and chromium systems for the non-oxidative dehydrogenation of propane, although they often feature lower performance. Now mixed-valence Co^0/IIO_x clusters supported on silicalite-1 are identified as a competitive system for this reaction.

The S44 locus is a unique quadripartite (RID, RIR, RIA and RIS) distorter–restorer system governing reproductive isolation between O. longistaminata and other rice lineages, and knockout of RID can universally overcome S44-mediated reproductive barriers in the AA genome.

A shift in organic carbon to total phosphorus (C_org/P_total) ratios in marine siliciclastic strata from approximately 455 million years ago suggests an earlier-than-previously-thought spread of land plants and their impact on the Earth system, based on analogy with extant C/P ratios of terrestrial and marine organic matter.

Gao and colleagues describe the characterization of an erythrocyte–anti-PD1 conjugate, reporting antitumor activity in preclinical models and results of a first-in-human clinical trial in persons with advanced solid tumors resistant to anti-PD(L)1.

Newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants underscore the need for broad-spectrum antiviral solutions. This study shows a macrocyclic peptide inhibitor that locks the SARS-CoV-2 spike trimer into a “closed” conformation by engaging a conserved region, and demonstrates that intranasal administration of the peptide inhibitor protects against Omicron variants.

The inferior heterojunction quality and misaligned energy levels at the buffer/absorber layer hinders development of antimony selenosulfide solar cells. Here, authors introduce low-work-function tantalum pentoxide dielectric layer for field-effect passivation, achieving device efficiency of 10.95%.

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

In this randomized phase 3 trial, patients with treatment-naive stage III–IV nonsmall cell lung cancer who received sintilimab or pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy early in the day (before 15:00 h) experienced longer progression-free survival compared with those receiving late time-of-day infusions.

Seed size plays an important role in determining soybean yield. Here, the authors report GmSW17, encoding a homolog of Arabidopsis UBP22 that plays a role in deubiquitination, as a positive regulator of soybean seed width and seed weight through inhibition of the G1-to-S transition by interacting with GmSGF11 and GmENY2.

The fluorooxoborate crystal NH₄B₄O₆F shows promise as a nonlinear optical material for vacuum ultraviolet light sources through second-harmonic generation, demonstrating record output energy and efficiency resulting from optimized arrangements of fluorine-based units creating asymmetric sublattices.

Schizophrenia risk at 1p36.23 lacked functional insight. Here, the authors identify two enhancer variants that upregulate RERE, which disrupts neurogenesis and synaptic function by regulating Grin2a, linking genetic risk to neuronal development and excitatory signaling.

MiRNAs and natural antisense transcripts can both regulate gene expression and plant development. Here, the authors show that cis-NATs to MIR398 repress processing of pri-miR398 and that cis-NAT expression is downregulated at high temperatures, contributing to miR398 mediated thermotolerance responses.

Native crystallographic defects are often introduced during synthesis of battery materials, but has been overlooked. Here, using in situ synchrotron X-ray probes and electron microscopy, the authors have revealed their adverse effect during battery operation.

A strategy using simple one-step spin-coating to form 3D/2D vertically oriented perovskite heterojunctions is described, allowing the fabrication of perovskite light-emitting diodes with record-high green emission efficiencies of 42.9% (certified 42.3%).

Identifying jets originating from heavy quarks plays a fundamental role in hadronic collider experiments. In this work, the ATLAS Collaboration describes and tests a transformer-based neural network architecture for jet flavour tagging based on low-level input and physics-inspired constraints.

YTHDC2 is a promising therapeutic target, but lacks potent inhibitors. Yang et al. develop a deep learning-based molecule generator EPMolGen. Using this model, they discover a potent, selective, and cell-active small molecule inhibitor of YTHDC2.

The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative (TPMI) has built a cohort of more than half a million individuals with Han Chinese ancestry, providing a rich resource of genetic and medical data for this group.

The existence of a long-lived, prethermal regime in many-body systems with tunable heating rates, driven by structured random protocols, is observed using a 78-qubit superconducting quantum processor.

A flexible, floating microelectrode array that has a reconfigurable spiral thread design can be used to create large-scale, long-term brain–computer interfaces in the primate brain.

This study utilized a longitudinal cohort of adolescents to identify distinct brain signatures linked to ADHD symptom trajectories, revealing that specific cortical and subcortical changes correlate with symptom persistence, remission and emergence, enhancing predictive capabilities for ADHD outcomes.

In the phase 1/2 TRIDENT-1 trial, treatment of patients with NTRK fusion–positive advanced solid tumors with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor repotrectinib—selective for ROS1, TRKA−C and ALK—was safe and resulted in durable systemic and intracranial clinical response.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Genetic basis of the drought tolerance of upland rice is unclear. Here, the authors report the cloning of a COBRA-like protein encoding gene DROT1 and reveal that it is repressed by ERF3 and activated by ERF71 to help control the balance between growth and drought tolerance in upland rice.

Zinc-metal batteries are restricted by their inherent high activity of aqueous electrolyte. Here, authors report the design of a new class of zinc-based hybrid metal halide solid-state electrolytes, offering a promising avenue for all-solid-state zinc batteries.