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The antibiotic polymyxin B requires bacterial metabolic activity to cause sufficient damage to the outer membrane to access the inner membrane, which it permeabilizes via an energy-independent mechanism to kill the cell.

The inter-individual variation of the immune system broadly impacts pathophysiology. Here, the authors use the hybrid mouse diversity panel as a surrogate for human natural immune variation and derive a macrophages gene signature robustly correlating with susceptibility to macrophage-related disorders in humans.

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a versatile class of clinically approved drug delivery vehicles, particularly for nucleic acid cargoes, but they often suffer from instability issues. Here, the authors report that the room temperature stability of small interfering RNA LNPs formulated with unsaturated ionizable lipids can be improved by inclusion of mildly acidic, antioxidant-containing buffers.

This study explores the complex dynamics of slow laboratory earthquakes, revealing how fault structures evolve and influence slow seismic slip. Using a transparent experimental setup and a high-speed camera, real-time deformation and stress redistribution are observed within simulated fault zones made of clay.

CAR-T cells engineered with αPD-L1–IL-12 fusion proteins show antitumour activity in mouse models of prostate and ovarian cancer.

Natural and sexual selection can be in opposition favouring different trait sizes, but disentangling these processes empirically is difficult. Here Okada et al. show that predation on males shifts the balance of selection in experimentally evolving beetle populations, disfavoring a sexually-selected male trait but increasing female fitness.

Membrane trafficking is essential for organelle biogenesis. Here, the authors discover an alternative assembly of the Commander trafficking complex and show its role in melanosome biogenesis and in a subtype of albinism.

Natural hydrogen is generated through chemical and radioactive processes in the Earth’s crust, and could be an important future clean chemical feedstock and energy resource. This Review examines the processes of geological hydrogen generation, migration, accumulation and preservation that enable the development of exploitable reserves.

EXO1 performs multiple roles in DNA replication and DNA damage repair (DDR), but its role in DDR-deficient cancers remains unclear. Here, the authors find EXO1 loss as synthetic lethal with many DDR genes involved in various cancers, including genes from Fanconi Anaemia pathway, BRCA1-A complex, and spliceosome factor ZRSR2; such interactions represent potential clinical targets.

In a prospective study enrolling 1,222 patients from 22 emergency departments, a device using a machine-learning-based signature of blood mRNAs demonstrated clinically acceptable performance to diagnose bacterial and viral infections and to predict the all-cause need for critical care interventions within 7 days, with benchmark to established biomarkers and risk scores.

The evolutionary origin of tumours remains largely unknown. Here, Domazet-Lošo et al. show evidence for naturally occurring tumours in the freshwater polyp, Hydra, and suggest that tumours have deep evolutionary roots.

This study finds a decrease in severe hail across Europe under a high emissions scenario using km-scale climate model projections. However, very large hail remains a threat, particularly due to the emergence of tropical-like thunderstorms around the Mediterranean coasts.

An approach combining bioorthogonal chemistry with genetically encoded fluorogen-activating proteins enables subcellular imaging of phospholipids and glycans, as well as the visualization of lipid transport between organelles and lipid asymmetry across membrane leaflets.

UTe₂ is a proposed intrinsic topological superconductor, but its quasiparticle surface band has not yet been visualized. Now this is achieved using quasiparticle interference imaging, revealing the symmetry of the superconducting order parameter.

CXCR4 is a less-studied co-receptor for HIV entry that also serves as the receptor for the chemokine CXCL12. In this study, the authors reveal how HIV-2 engages CXCR4 and how CXCL12 inhibits this interaction, uncovering structural features that underlie viral specificity and inhibition

This study examines how key inputs to a brain area vital for song production can interact cooperatively to change each other. The authors show that naturalistic stimulation patterns drive bidirectional in vitro plasticity in synaptic inputs to a song production area, and use this understanding to manipulate song plasticity in vivo.

Seismological and geodetic data are used together with a machine learning earthquake catalogue to reconstruct magma migration before and during the 2025 volcano–tectonic crisis at Santorini volcano, indicating a coupling between Santorini and Kolumbo.

Here, the authors provide molecular insight into the remarkable ability of Tardigrades to withstand high levels of radiation by demonstrating that their Dsup protein interacts with multiple surfaces of the nucleosome to protect the genome from oxidative DNA damage.

Natural products inspire the development of pseudo-natural products through combinations of fragments of compound classes that are chemically and biologically distinct. Here, the authors report a library of 244 pseudo-natural products, evaluate them in the cell painting essays and identify the phenotypic role of individual fragments.

The underlying physics of the strange metal phase observed in many strongly correlated materials is not well understood. Now, evidence emerges that antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations play an important role.

Comparative genomics and high-resolution mass spectrometry reveal the biosynthetic gene clusters, and vast chemical diversity of natural products that they encode, in Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus, bacteria that interact with hosts as symbionts and entomopathogens.

Literature mining, such as systematic review and meta-analysis, is crucial for discovering, integrating, and interpreting emerging research. This study presents a specialized large language model for literature that outperforms six general LLMs and helps clinicians in study selection and data extraction tasks.

Experiments and modelling unravel mechanisms of nitrous oxide production from nitrate, the primary nitrous oxide production pathway in oxygen minimum zones. Results highlight the critical role of microbial interactions in regulating this pathway.

The conventional implementation of parity-time symmetry relies on the interplay of gain and loss. Here, Bentzien et al. present a novel approach towards non-Hermiticity that leverages nonorthogonal modes in coupled waveguides explicitly avoiding the use of either gain or loss.

A decade of BGC-Argo and plankton records shows North Pacific heatwaves reshape food webs and trap small particles in midwater, slowing deep-ocean carbon export. Impacts vary by event, underscoring the need for sustained ocean monitoring.

Broad-spectrum vaccines have been proposed as a tool for rapid response to emerging infectious disease threats and are in pre-clinical development. Here, the authors use mathematical modelling to assess the potential impacts of broadly protective sarbecovirus vaccines for a hypothetical “SARS-X” outbreak.

In the double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2 ARGO trial, patients with active psoriatic arthritis treated with a nanobody targeting IL-17A and IL-17F showed substantially better disease response rates compared with those receiving placebo treatment.

Errors in oocyte division can cause infertility and birth defects. Here, authors combine a genetic strategy with a novel optochemical tool to show that spindle pole-localized F-actin is essential for proper meiotic spindle assembly and chromosome segregation.

Context counts, and not just for social and economic aspects of urban life. This study finds that, for 16 cities in the United Kingdom, the landcover of the rural surroundings is a better predictor of ticks and environmental Lyme disease hazard than the landcover within the cities themselves.

Dissociative recombination of electrons with molecular ions widely occurs in interstellar plasmas but laboratory studies are challenging. Here, the authors provide measurements of dissociative recombination with high-internal state definition for D₂H⁺ ions stored in the cryogenic storage ring.

Brain-wide recordings in mice reveal that prior expectations are distributed through recurrent loops across all levels of cortical and subcortical processing.

Phaeocystales are ecologically significant nanoplankton whose evolutionary history and functional diversity remain incompletely characterized. Here, the authors integrate genomic and transcriptomic data to reveal their lineage diversification, metabolic plasticity, and adaptation to polar and temperate regimes.

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.

Meteorite impacts can create long-lived hydrothermal systems that may spark onset of microbial life. At Finland’s Lappajärvi crater, minerals in fractures contain biosignatures of microbial life related to the hydrothermal circulation, offering clues to deep microbial colonization of Earth and beyond.

Targeted in situ sequencing directly maps editing rates at single-cell resolution in postmortem tissues to visualize base and prime editor delivery.

Genome-wide and targeted perturbation of DNA methylation at centromeres affects CENP-A positioning and centromere structure, resulting in aneuploidy and reduced cell viability.

This study reveals that interlayer exciton emission in MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterobilayers is shaped by phonon-dressed polarons, challenging the prevailing moiré-trapped model and highlighting strong exciton-phonon interactions.

Hachem et al. show that AMPAR signaling drives the acute activation of ependymal-derived neural stem/progenitor cells after spinal cord injury and that this mechanism can be targeted therapeutically to harness the endogenous regenerative potential of the spinal cord.

Bioactivity-guided isolation of specialized metabolites is an iterative process. Here, the authors demonstrate a native metabolomics approach that allows for fast screening of complex metabolite extracts against a protein of interest and simultaneous structure annotation.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

Owing to electron localization, two-dimensional materials are not expected to be metallic at low temperatures, but a field-induced quantum metal phase emerges in NbSe₂, whose behaviour is consistent with the Bose-metal model.

A rhynchocephalian skeleton around 3–7 million years older than the oldest currently known lepidosaur fossil provides important insight into the origin of lizards and snakes.

The International Brain Laboratory presents a brain-wide electrophysiological map obtained from pooling data from 12 laboratories that performed the same standardized perceptual decision-making task in mice.

The gut microbiota can influence the severity of pneumonia through the production of metabolites. In this translational study, the authors investigate the effects of tryptophan metabolites, specifically indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), on pneumonia.

African ancestry is a known risk factor for prostate cancer development, but the genetic determinants of this are incompletely understood. Here, the authors identify 172 potentially pathogenic variants which are enriched in an African population.

The Entelli-02 phage product containing five phages has frontline potential to address infections caused by the multidrug-resistant Enterobacter cloacae complex.

Initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) during primary HIV-1 infection (PHI) may influence long-term viral persistence, yet its enduring effects remain unclear. Here, Pasternak and colleagues demonstrate that temporary ART started early in infection reduces HIV-1 proviral diversity and monocyte activation, and sustains lower levels of viral persistence markers, suggesting a lasting suppressive impact on the HIV-1 reservoir.