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Water interactions with cerium dioxide surfaces are central to hydrogen production and catalytic redox reactions. Here, atomic force microscopy with oxygen-terminated probes and first principles calculations provide detailed mechanistic insight of the interactions at play.

Complete sequences of chromosomes telomere-to-telomere from chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan and siamang provide a comprehensive and valuable resource for future evolutionary comparisons.

Reading out the state of quantum bits is an essential requirement that any quantum computer implementation must satisfy. Gonzalez-Zalba et al. now show that in situresonant gate-based detection can be a more sensitive approach than external electrometers while reducing the qubit architecture’s complexity.

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

A comparison of alpha diversity (number of plant species) and dark diversity (species that are currently absent from a site despite being ecologically suitable) demonstrates the negative effects of regional-scale anthropogenic activity on plant diversity.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

Managing power exhaust in fusion reactors is a key challenge, especially in compact designs for cost-effective commercial energy. This study shows how alternative divertor configurations improve exhaust control, enhance stability, absorb transients and enable independent plasma regulation.

The social exposome—lifelong social and economic adversity—can shape brain health and dementia risk. Here, the authors show that an adverse social exposome is linked to poorer clinical, cognitive, and brain changes in Latin American older adults.

The authors report a new genus and species of titanosaurian sauropod, Abditosaurus kuehnei, from the Late Cretaceous (ca. 70.5 Ma) of Spain. A. kuehnei groups phylogenetically with South American and African taxa, suggesting geographical connectivity between Africa and Europe at this time.

The ocean carbon sink strengthened in previous warm El Niño years due to reduced CO₂ outgassing in the tropics. Here the authors show that the ocean carbon sink declined in 2023 despite record-high sea surface temperatures (SSTs), primarily due to SST-driven outgassing of CO₂ in the subtropics.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

An investigation using various methods reports an association between adeno-associated virus 2 and paediatric hepatitis of unknown aetiology.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

A major goal of spintronics is to manipulate magnetic order with electric fields. The typical approach is to use a material with spin-orbit coupling, and the resulting Edelstein effect. Here, González-Hernández et al. show theoretically that non-collinear magnets can also host an Edelstein effect, even in the absence of spin-orbit coupling.

Few aerobic hyperthermophilic microorganisms are known to degrade polysaccharides. Here, Nou et al. use genomic information to enrich and optical tweezers to isolate an aerobic hyperthermophilic bacterium that can grow at 65–87.5 °C using polysaccharides as sole carbon sources.

This study discusses polygenic, omnigenic and stratagenic models developed to explain multigenic disease risk. It proposes means to test their validity, which has implications for research, drug development and precision medicine.

External Control Arm methods for clinical trials were developed to compare the efficacy of a treatment to a control group that is built with data from external sources. Here, the authors present FedECA, a privacy-enhancing method for analyzing treatment effects across institutions, streamlining multi-centric trial design and thereby accelerating drug development while minimizing patient data exposure.

Environmental fluctuation is known to promote biodiversity on ecological timescales, but its consequences for the evolution of biodiversity are unknown. Here, the authors report that alternations in environmental conditions help maintain evolved biodiversity in rapidly diversifying bacterial populations.

Microglia are proposed to have a role in brain development through synaptic engulfment and paracrine signaling. O’Keeffe et al. show that certain neurodevelopmental processes attributed to microglia can proceed normally even in the absence of these cells.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

The transcription factors TCF1 and LEF1 promote self-renewal and regulatory functions in B-1a cells.

Ultra-high-energy gamma-ray emission from the microquasar V4641 Sagittarii is reported, suggesting that large-scale jets from microquasars could be more common than previously thought and also could be a notable source of galactic cosmic rays.

The dorsal peduncular area of the mouse brain functions as a network hub that integrates diverse cortical and thalamic inputs to regulate neuroendocrine and autonomic responses.

The role of the complement system (CS) - part of the immune system - in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains underexplored. Here, the authors evaluate the association of genetic variants in CS-related genes with PDAC risk, and explore their potential role in prognosis and immune infiltration.

DNA circulating in the plasma of cancer patients carries features of the primary tumour, however such DNA is found in low levels in brain cancer patients. Here, the authors show that circulating tumour DNA can be detected in the cerebral spinal fluid of cancer patients and that this better recapitulates the primary tumour compared to DNA from the plasma.

The pupil is known to assist retinal adaptation to light level changes. Here, the authors find a mechanism for how the pupillary light reflex drives monocular and binocular retinal activity in mice and shapes conscious visual perception in humans.

Neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy against NSCLC has been tested in clinical trials. Here, the authors follow up longer-term survival and measure immune cell phenotype changes in a single-arm phase II clinical trial of neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy, indicating association of intratumoural TCR diversity and CD8 T cell positioning.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide association study for age at menarche followed by fine mapping and downstream analysis implicates 665 pubertal timing genes, such as the G-protein-coupled receptor 83 (GPR83) and other genes expressed in the ovaries involved in the DNA damage response.

The measurement of the total cross-section of proton–proton collisions is of fundamental importance for particle physics. Here, the first measurement of the inelastic cross-section is presented for proton–proton collisions at an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

Edge-localized plasma modes in a tokamak can damage its innermost wall. Simulations now show that fast ions can modify the spatio-temporal structure of these modes. These effects need to be considered in the optimization of control techniques.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Polygenic risk scores for Alzheimer’s disease derived from individuals of European ancestry can show improved performance in multiancestry settings after incorporating genome-wide association summary statistics from diverse populations.

Olfactomedin-2 is a pleiotropic glycoprotein emerging as a regulator of energy homeostasis via the hypothalamus. The present findings functionally connect adipose-specific OLFM2 to obesity, and highlight its significance in maintaining adipocyte commitment to avoid metabolic disease.

Blue phases are a liquid crystalline state with attractive optical properties but their use in devices can be hindered by their polycrystalline nature. Here the authors create monocrystalline blue phase domains by designing substrates with patterns which are determined by field-theoretic simulations.

Combining molecular dynamics, in vitro assays, and subcellular analyses in mouse brains reveals that the α-SNAP M105I mutation conceals a hydrophobic loop and reduces its affinity for plasma membrane lipids, uncovering the basis of the hyh phenotype.

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori, often found in the human stomach, can be classified into distinct subpopulations associated with the geographic origin of the host. Here, the authors provide insights into H. pylori population structure by collecting over 1,000 clinical strains from 50 countries and generating and analyzing high-quality bacterial genome sequences.

Charge-to-spin conversion, where a charge current generates a spin-current, is critical for spintronic devices. Usually efficient charge-to-spin conversion relies on heavy metals with large spin-orbit interactions, but here, Chakraborty et al show that high efficiency charge-to-spin conversion can be achieved without spin-orbit coupling using recently identified p-wave magnets.

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.

Available wheat genomes are annotated by projecting Chinese Spring gene models across the new assemblies. Here, the authors generate de novo gene annotations for the 9 wheat genomes, identify core and dispensable transcriptome, and reveal conservation and divergence of gene expression balance across homoeologous subgenomes.

Researchers observe directional strong coupling on the nanoscale between hyperbolic phonon polaritons and pentacene molecules.

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.

Degraders of SMARCA2/4 have so far relied on bivalent designs. Here, a targeted discovery campaign identified the first monovalent degraders, revealing a highly potent, selective compound that recruits FBXO22 through a covalent mechanism.

The authors investigated associations of brain-derived-tau (BD-tau) with Aβ pathology, changes in cognition and MRI signatures. Staging Aβ-pathology according to neurodegeneration, using BD-tau, identifies individuals at risk of near-term cognitive decline and atrophy.