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The electron transfer from aluminum to hematite in a thermite reaction is investigated here using femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet spectroscopy, offering insights into charge flow in energetic materials and laying the basis for studying chemical reactions in the solid state at the femtosecond timescale.

2D superlattices of colloidal quantum dots are challenging to fabricate over large areas without cracks. Here, Pinna et al. demonstrate how applying lateral pressure during self-assembly of PbS quantum dots improves order and coverage, enabling large-area, crack-free films with high electron mobility.

The Arctic winters are changing fast. In February 2025, Svalbard endured rain, thawing tundra, and pooling meltwater. The Comment by Bradley and coauthors describes how winter warming is reshaping polar ecosystems—and why this resembles the new Arctic.

Non-covalent interactions are very diverse, and they are generally difficult to investigate through experimental methods. Here tailored metal–organic frameworks serve as a platform for the systematic generation of a variety of non-covalent interactions, which can be studied through the electric fields produced by the charges and dipoles involved in the interactions.

Despite considerable technological advancements in solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS), commercial platforms are limited in flexibility and chemical capability. Here, the authors present a fully automated programmable platform that combines the efficiency of SPPS with the chemical flexibility of a Chemical Processing Unit (Chemputer), enabling synthesis of peptide substrates with subsequent chemical modifications.

Modularity in food webs can be caused by spatial and temporal mismatches in interactions. Here, Jacopo Grilli, Tim Rogers and Stefano Allesina show that modularity, contrary to expectations, does not generally help stabilizing ecological communities.

The development of a universal protein coarse-grained model has been a long-standing challenge. A coarse-grained model with chemical transferability has now been developed by combining deep-learning methods with a large and diverse training set of all-atom protein simulations. The model can be used for extrapolative molecular dynamics on new sequences.

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka, driven by adaptation to diverse habitats.

Understanding the dynamics of empirical food webs is of central importance for predicting the stability of ecological communities. Here Allesina et al.derive an approximation to accurately predict the stability of large food webs whose structure is built using the cascade model.

Analysing a model of randomly interacting species, the authors show that stable, biodiverse communities can be achieved in which network structure has little influence.

The authors report the photometric detection of the distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at z > 14 with JWST/MIRI. The inferred properties suggest rapid mass assembly and metal enrichment during the earliest phases of galaxy formation.

Understanding species’ spatiotemporal dynamics is key to predicting their responses to climate change. Here, the authors combine landscape genomics, demographic reconstructions, and species distribution models to assess lineage-specific responses to past and future climate in a migratory raptor.

Spectroscopy from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey of a galaxy at redshift 13 shows a singular, bright emission line identified as Lyman-α, suggesting the onset of reionization only 330 Myr after the Big Bang.

Microbes interact in different ways than macro-organisms, but their interactions can still form the basis for broader macroecological patterns like the Species Abundance Distribution. Here, the author shows that thre general ecological patterns can be found in microbes, within and across biome types.

This study presents a method to create nanoscale polarization transient gratings in the EUV range. Unlike intensity gratings, it reduces thermal effects, revealing hidden material dynamics. This enables new insights in chiral materials and ultrafast magnetism.

Membrane permeability of small molecules depends on the composition of the lipid bilayer. Here, authors compare permeability measured on membranes in different physical states and conclude that the yeast membrane exists in a highly ordered phase.

The real-time updating of Probabilistic Tsunami Forecasting improves accuracy and reduces uncertainty by continuously integrating newly available seismic and tsunami data, according to its retrospective application to the 2010 magnitude 8.8 Maule earthquake event and various synthetic and real scenarios in the Mediterranean Sea.

The cryo-EM structure of the bovine rod CNG channel, isolated from retina, sheds light onto the structural basis for the subunit stoichiometry and reveals an additional gate within the ion conduction pathway contributed by the CNGB1 subunit.

Splicing is a vital biological reaction and a druggable pathway to treat infection, genetic diseases and cancer. Here, the authors describe how splicing is modulated by small molecules that target the conserved splicing active site in the group II introns.

Colloidal quantum wells have great potential as solution-processed light sources. Here, Lorenzon et al. demonstrate that such colloidal quantum wells can also be exploited as luminescent-sensing varnishes capable of detecting chemical agents through their reversible emission response.

A massive galaxy hosting an accreting supermassive black hole two billion years after the Big Bang shows fast neutral-gas outflows that are capable of stopping star formation by removing its fuel while the stars keep rotating in a disk.

An extensive analysis of the JWST-NIRSpec spectrum of GN-z11 shows a supermassive black hole of a few million solar masses in a galaxy 440 million years after the Big Bang.

Pump-probe spectroscopy is a versatile technique to explore ultrafast dynamics on the femtosecond timescale. Here the authors report a pump-probe experiment and quantum modeling combined study revealing dynamics of collective polaritonic states that are formed between a molecular photoswitch and plasmonic nanoantennas.

S-isotope and Hg geochemistry across the terrestrial Permian–Triassic mass extinction (252 Ma) provides evidence of repeated volcanic eruptions over ~300 kyr that drove acidification and poisoning of a palaeo-lacustrine ecosystem in northwest China.

Communities that are very rich in species could persist thanks to the stabilizing role of higher-order interactions, in which the presence of a species influences the interaction between other species.

The combination of adaptive optics with an improved isoSTED nanoscope allows imaging of cells and tissues with sub-50-nm isotropic resolution.

Tumor cells upregulate compensatory buffering genes following tumor suppressor loss. These genes may represent new synthetic lethal partners that could be harnessed therapeutically.

The environmental changes at the Permian–Triassic boundary are thought to have been caused primarily by volcanic eruptions. Here the authors develop a model to show that the loss of ecosystems on land and consequent massive terrestrial biomass oxidation triggered large biogeochemical changes in the oceans at the time of the marine mass extinction.

Despite the perception that plant science focuses on strictly scientific criteria, this analysis finds that there is an aesthetic bias in regards to which plants, based on certain traits, receive more research attention.

A central question in theoretical ecology is how diverse species can coexist in communities, and how that coexistence depends on network properties. Here, Grilliet al. quantify the extent of feasible coexistence of empirical networks, showing that it is smaller for trophic than mutualism networks.

Synaptic plasticity is the neuronal mechanism underlying learning. Here the authors construct biophysical models of pyramidal neurons that reproduce observed plasticity gradients along the dendrite and show that dendritic spike dependent LTP which is predominant in distal sections can prolong memory retention.

JWST–NIRSpec spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies is presented, proving that luminous galaxies were already in place 300 million years after the Big Bang and are more common than what was expected before JWST.

Systemic light chain amyloidosis (AL) is caused by the production of toxic light chains and can be fatal, yet effective treatments are often not possible due to delayed diagnosis. Here the authors show that a machine learning platform analyzing light chain somatic mutations allows the prediction of light chain toxicity to serve as a possible tool for early diagnosis of AL.

Home energy reports convey information about others’ energy use (descriptive norms) and social approval for energy saving behaviour (injunctive norms). This study shows that the combined effect of descriptive and injunctive feedback depends on their consistency and relative strength.

Cancer therapy using oncolytic virus has shown pre-clinical and clinical efficacy. Here, the authors report ExtraCRAd, an oncolytic virus cloaked with tumour cell membrane and report its therapeutic effects in vitro and in vivo in multiple mouse tumour models.

The manufacturing process for GRIN lenses causes a symmetric birefringence variation which is considered a deficiency. Here, the authors show how this birefringence can generate vector vortex beams and form the basis of a Müller matrix polarimeter with potential for endoscopic label-free cancer diagnostics.

It is shown that CsPbBr₃ nanocrystals exhibit good radiation hardness for high γ-radiation doses, as high as 1 MGy. Electron trapping in surface defects limits scintillator applications, but is shown to be suppressed by surface fluorination treatment.

As part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), NIRSpec has spectroscopically confirmed four young and metal-poor galaxies at redshift 10.3–13.2, from an early epoch of galaxy formation.

Cooling hot surfaces by boiling water is widely practiced, but the amount of heat transfer is normally constrained by vapour layer formation at sufficiently high temperatures. Here, the authors report the maximum in the critical heat flux on textured hydrophilic surfaces at an intermediate texture density.

The architecture of ecological interaction networks affects community dynamics. Here, Suweis et al.show that mutualistic networks are characterized by a high degree of localization, and that localization reduces perturbation propagation and attenuates its impact on species abundances.

Paul Pharoah and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association study of ovarian cancer. They identify new susceptibility loci for different epithelial ovarian cancer histotypes and use integrated analyses of genes and regulatory features at each locus to predict candidate susceptibility genes, including OBFC1.

Montesi, Costagli et al. use Machine Learning algorithms to develop a consensus based approach to dissect hybrid and vaccine-induced immunity following a third dose of mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. This method can be a valuable tool for estimating the true prevalence of infection, improving comprehension of immune responses elicited by vaccination alone or combined with infection, and tailoring public health interventions.

The physics of one-dimensional many-body systems is rich but still insufficiently understood. An ultracold atom experiment investigates the behaviour of one-dimensional strongly correlated fermions with a tunable number of spin components.