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Interactions between dark matter and neutrinos would leave observable imprints on cosmic structures. Combining cosmic microwave background and weak lensing data shows a nearly three-sigma preference for such interactions.

The neural substrates of time perception are still unclear. Here, the authors show that as rats judged tactile stimuli, optogenetic manipulation of somatosensory cortex systematically altered perception of stimulus intensity and of duration, unveiling a multiplexed code.

Cold ion traps have not previously been used to study sliding friction between crystal lattices. Here, Benassiet al. use simulations to show that cold ion traps could be used for detailed investigation of atomic scale friction.

Heat transport is well described by the Green–Kubo formalism. Now, the formalism is combined with density-functional theory, enabling simulations of thermal conduction in systems that cannot be adequately modelled by classical interatomic potentials.

Euglenids are unicellular swimmers that undergo striking cell body deformations, interpreted variously as locomotive or functionally redundant. Experiments now suggest that these deformations enable adaptation to a fast crawling mode when the cells are confined.

Identical physical inputs can evoke non-identical percepts. Here, the authors investigate the sources of such variability and find that rats and humans, trained to judge tactile vibration strength, express a robust sequential effect that could be modeled as the trial-by-trial incorporation of sensory history.

Antisense Uchl1, a long non-coding RNA that is an antisense transcript for the Uchl1 gene, upregulates UCHL1 protein levels through the combined action of an overlapping sequence at its 5′ end and an embedded SINEB2 element.

It has long been anticipated theoretically that semiconductors with small band gaps may form a correlated exciton insulator phase, but it has been difficult to find material realisations. Here, the authors predict numerically that zero-gap armchair carbon nanotubes could be exciton insulators.

Ultrafast photoexcitation stabilizes new states of matter with rich out-of-equilibrium behaviours. Here, Lantzet al. report a transient non-thermal phase developing immediately after photoexcitation in V₂O₃, shedding a light on optical manipulation of strongly correlated systems.

Experiments and theory show how superlubricity can emerge in large flakes sliding on a surface when the lattices of the flake and the surface are incommensurate.

A Mott insulator forms when strong interactions between particles cause them to become localized. A cold atom simulator has now been used to realize a selective Mott insulator in which atoms are localized or propagating depending on their spin state.

TMEM16F is a transmembrane protein that facilitates passive phospholipid transbilayer movement and ion conduction across membranes. Here, authors reveal a structural heterogeneity which is possibly linked to TMEM16F unique dual function.

The rigidity of solid nanocontacts formed when metals touch is apparently lost liquidlike under large mechanical oscillations. As we show theoretically, there is no melting but oscillated nanocontacts undergo a remarkable reversible stick-slip rheology.

Measurement-induced quantum phases provide prime examples of non-trivial many-body dynamics and collective phenomena, but their experimental detection is difficult due to the post-selection barrier. Here, the authors provide a spin-wave-based approach to monitored quantum dynamics in long-range interacting systems, overcoming this challenge.

A working memory task in rats demonstrates that the posterior parietal cortex is a critical locus for the representation and use of prior stimulus information.

Mammalian genomes are scattered with repetitive sequences, but their biology remains largely elusive. Here, the authors show that transcription can initiate from short tandem repetitive sequences, and that genetic variants linked to human diseases are preferentially found at repeats with high transcription initiation level.

Resistive switching is crucial for applications in advanced computing technologies, but its microscopic mechanism is not fully understood. Here the authors use operando X-ray nanoimaging to study early-stage insulator-to-metal transition in V₂O₃, revealing resistive switching seeded by topological defects.

Mott metal-insulator transition in real materials is characterized by complex lattice and electron dynamics involving multiple length and time scales. Here, by combining time-resolved experimental probe and coarse-grained modelling, the authors elucidate the nanoscale dynamics across the Mott transition in V₂O₃.

Friction between two surfaces is usually studied at low relative sliding speeds. A molecular dynamics study now explores friction at high speeds, showing the emergence of a ballistic friction regime, qualitatively different from standard drift friction. The findings might have important implications for applications in nanoelectromechanical systems.

Self-assembling of complex molecular structures with a target topology is of importance to design and synthesize functional materials. Here, Polles et al. demonstrate the spontaneous formation of closed knotted structures from simple helical building blocks with sticky ends in simulations.

Quantum electrodynamics predicts a rare process in which light is scattered by light. The ATLAS Collaboration reports signs of this elusive effect in the collisions of ultra-relativistic lead ions.

Only a few different types of supramolecular knots have been synthesized so far. Here the authors use Monte Carlo sampling, molecular dynamics and combinatorics to discover new knot types made of identical templates.

Photo-excitation in strongly correlated materials is usually modelled as an increase of electronic energy that is then transferred to other degrees of freedom. Contrarily, Novelli et al.show that in a charge-transfer insulator, sub-gap excitation forms electrons that are suddenly dressed by the boson field.

Temporo-occipital areas are involved in perceiving emotional faces. Here, the authors show that strengthening back-projections from temporal to occipital areas enhances visual cortex’s response to face stimuli and perception of emotions from them.

The auditory system adapts to properties of sounds reaching the ear, but it is unclear whether this affects the way sounds are perceived. Here, the authors found that auditory responses in the brain predict changes in the perception of sounds, suggesting that adaptation shapes the way we hear.

The collective nature of reorientational dynamics in water remains poorly understood. Here, the authors show that large angular fluctuations require a highly cooperative dynamics involving correlated motion of many water molecules in the hydrogen-bond network that form spatially connected clusters.

Stat3 depletion in pluripotent cells decreases α-ketoglutarate and increases the expression of Otx2 and its targets Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b, leading to global DNA hypermethylation.

Quantum correlated materials offer a promising platform for the study of unconventional heat transport. Here the authors theoretically investigate heat transport in a layered correlated material, triggered by an ultrafast excitation, and predict various transport regimes controlled by correlations.

Incidental memory is affected by retention delay, and by memory load. Here the authors show that female and male mice process high memory load through different activation of thalamic-cortical pathways, that makes their incidental memory resistant to distraction and to memory decay, respectively.

p53 mutants can promote tumorigenesis by affecting fundamental cellular pathways and functions. In this study, the authors demonstrate a novel mutant-p53/HIF1α/miR-30d axis that impacts Golgi structure, trafficking, and secretion of proteins essential for tumor growth and metastasis.

The critical Casimir force, rising from fluctuating field confined between surfaces, is predicted to be nonadditive, but there is no experimental verification to date. Here the authors provide data support by quantifying the forces between three interacting colloidal particles using holographic traps.

SREBP transcription factors activate lipid synthesis and generate raw materials to lipidate various proteins. Here, the authors show that a stiff cellular environment causes RhoA lipidation and acto-myosin contraction, which inhibits SREBP1 and connects the extracellular matrix to lipid metabolism.

By pushing both time and frequency resolution in optical spectroscopy it is now possible to resolve antiferromagnetic fluctuations in a copper oxide superconductor, which are believed to mediate the pairing of charge carriers.

The authors introduce a method to estimate the intrinsic dimension of a dataset, which quantifies the minimum number of independent coordinates needed to describe the data, when this is of binary type. The algorithm can be used to quantify global correlation in datasets with hundreds of thousands of features, with only a few thousand samples, for example in neural network representations.

Efficient theoretical methods for the structural analysis of nanoparticles are very much needed. Here the authors demonstrate the use of machine-learning force fields and of a data-driven approach to study the thermodynamical stability and elucidate the melting process of gold nanoparticles.

Carbon nanotubes can enhance the excitability of neurons by forming tight contacts with the cell membranes to favour electrical shortcuts between the distal and proximal compartments of the neuron.

A study from the FANTOM consortium using single-molecule cDNA sequencing of transcription start sites and their usage in human and mouse primary cells, cell lines and tissues reveals insights into the specificity and diversity of transcription patterns across different mammalian cell types.

There are a number of non-trivial integrable models in one-dimension, making them an attractive starting point for studying quantum dynamics. Biella et al. study transport between two semi-infinite solvable models and show that a slowly-relaxing region forms around the integrability-breaking junction.

Many animals use their whiskers to collect information about the environment. Diamond and colleagues explain how the brain creates a neuronal representation of the location and identity of objects from sensory signals and argue that this involves integration of knowledge about the self-generated whisker motion.