Search

Neural mechanisms underlying circadian photoentrainment are not fully understood. Using in vivo two-photon imaging with a GRIN lens, this study reveals a dynamic bi-stable circuit in the suprachiasmatic nucleus that regulates light-driven circadian clock shifts, providing insight into mechanisms of circadian photoentrainment.

Recently, it has been shown that Co1/3TaS2 hosts a four-sublattice ‘3Q state’, which has a sizable scalar spin chirality and thus a large anomalous Hall effect. Here, Kim et al demonstrate electrical control of this 3Q state via ionic gating.

High-quality, non-layered 2D β-Bi₂O₃ crystals are grown using a vapour–liquid–solid–solid growth technique. These crystals demonstrate promising properties for p-channel field-effect transistors.

Photocorrosion limits the efficiency and stability of gallium arsenide photoanodes. Here the authors report crystalline TiO2 passivation with Ni-phosphate hole-sink layer which enables rapid charge transport for enhanced photostability of 110 h.

Lactobacillus-based probiotics have been reported to be beneficial for colitis through incompletely understood mechanisms. Here the authors identify an uncharacterized secreted enzyme named LPH from multiple probiotic Lactobacillus strains, which protects female mice from chemically induced colitis and colorectal cancer via NOD2 signalling.

There is an intensive effort in developing grid-scale energy storage means. Here, the authors present a liquid metal battery with a garnet-type solid electrolyte instead of conventional molten salt electrolytes and report promising electrochemical properties at a modest temperature of 240 °C.

Authors realize simultaneous high thermoelectric performance and high plasticity in Mg-based semiconductors at room temperature, demonstrating their great potential for use in flexible thermoelectrics.

The methanol oxidation reaction is crucial for direct methanol fuel cells but is hindered by CO poisoning of Pt-based catalysts. Here, the authors report high-entropy alloyed single-atom Pt catalysts that resist CO poisoning, achieving a mass activity of 35.3 A mg^-1 and maintaining high durability.

Ethanol electrosynthesis from CO reduction is achieved using an oxygen-affinity-engineered copper alloy catalyst. Unlike conventional CO dimerization pathways, which yield diverse products, this catalyst selectively promotes the CO–CH_x coupling route, enabling selective ethanol production.

Dual cyclin A/B RxL inhibitors selectively kill small cell lung cancer cells and other cancer cells with high E2F activity.

Conventional wet chemistry method represents an inefficient way for bulk crystal synthesis. Here, the authors report a universal approach using electrical and mechanical field-assisted sintering technique to generate halide perovskites from solid precursors into large bulk crystal within minutes.

Van der Waals (Cr,Bi)₂Te₃, synthesized by non-equilibrium molecular beam epitaxy, is characterized by magnetotransport measurements and shown to be a semimetallic Weyl ferromagnet, with Fermi surface composed of two Weyl points and no irrelevant electronic states.

Acidic CO₂ electroreduction enables high CO₂ utilization but suffers from competing hydrogen evolution. Here, the authors present selective CO₂ conversion on asymmetric C₃-Ni-Cl single-atom sites, which achieves carbon-efficient CO production in strong acid.

A summary of CAR T-cell engineering approaches, including functional screening methods, gene editing and delivery advances, and optimization of metabolic fitness.

A new artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek-R1, is introduced, demonstrating that the reasoning abilities of large language models can be incentivized through pure reinforcement learning, removing the need for human-annotated demonstrations.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) electroreduction is a sustainable way to reduce the carbon footprint of producing carbon-based chemicals. This work analyses voltage distributions within CO₂ electrolysers, identifies the sources of inefficiencies and highlights opportunities for system optimization.

Fabricating wide-bandgap perovskite films with a thickness of 1 μm on nano-textured silicon substrates remains a formidable challenge. Here, authors design an amphoteric coplanar conjugated molecule for improve bulk and interfacial properties of perovskites for high-efficiency tandem solar cells.

Printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cells are a promising device design, yet their efficiency is limited by charge collection. Ma et al. use hexamethylene diisocyanate to eliminate unreacted organic cations at grain boundaries, enhancing hole collection.

Paired electrosynthesis is an efficient green process that minimizes resource and energy consumption as well as waste generation. The authors demonstrate an electrolysis system that pairs CO₂ reduction to CO at the cathode with allyl alcohol oxidation to acrolein at the anode.

[6,6]-Phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), a star molecule in the fullerene field, has found wide applications in materials science. Here, the authors demonstrate the synthesis of buckyballs with fused-ring systems via electrosynthesis through radical α-C−H functionalization of the side-chain ester for both PCBM and its analogue.

Addressing the stability challenges from metal electrodes/perovskite components chemical interactions is essential for high-performance perovskite solar cells. Here, authors design a bilayer polymer buffer to mitigate metal/ion interdiffusion, realizing a certified efficiency of 26.46%.

Single-particle band theory is facing limitations in describing the physics of ultrathin topological insulator films. Here, the authors investigate the coupling between top and bottom surfaces of a topological insulator and analyse their interaction in the framework of screened Coulomb interactions.

Though low-dimensional (LD) materials are attractive for polarization-type photodetectors, their low anisotropic photocurrent rate hinders widespread application. Here, the authors report an amplification system for enhanced photocurrent in polarization-sensitive LD material-based photodetectors.

Cross-ancestry and sex-stratified genome-wide association analyses for 21 amygdala volumetric traits in East Asian and European individuals provide insight into the genetic architectures of amygdala and subnucleus volumes.

The design of effective photoelectrodes for solar energy conversion relies on optimizing charge separation and transfer, which remain a challenge. In this study, the authors demonstrate that an external poling treatment can create a built-in electric field in bismuth vanadate photoelectrodes, thereby facilitating efficient charge transport for water oxidation and methane conversion.

A noble-metal-free triazatriangulenium photosensitizer captures CO₂ as carbamic acid to boost local concentration to increase reduction efficiency. It achieves 51% quantum yield for CO, and forms amides with 85% atom efficiency even in the absence of solvent.

Moving beyond the widely studied (111)-oriented Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ films, the authors demonstrate purely uniaxial in-plane ferroelectricity in orthorhombic (100)-oriented Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ films, sustained even at a thickness of 1 nm.

The chemoselective hydrogenation of molecules containing multiple reducible groups using molecular hydrogen presents inherent challenges. Here, the authors synthesize a homoleptic gold nanocluster that demonstrates exceptional catalytic selectivity, activity, and yield for the hydrogenation of 4-nitroacetophenone in water under mild conditions.

Boundary effects play a strong role in the electronic properties of structured manganites. Here, Du et al. demonstrate the existence of ferromagnetic metallic edge states and an enhanced metal–insulator transition temperature in patterned strips of manganite which emerge because of broken symmetry effects.

Wafer-scale 3R-MoS₂ with high phase purity is achieved through a homoepitaxy strategy, which demonstrates ferroelectricity and holds promise for multifunctional integration.

Polyploidy and subsequent post-polyploid diploidization (PPD) contribute to evolutionary success of plant species. Here, using 11 genomes from all nine subfamilies of Malvaceae as an example, the authors provide evidence to support the “polyploidy for survival and PPD for success” hypothesis.

The band-edge optical response of transition metal dichalcogenides is dominated by tightly bound valley excitons. Here, the authors use optical two-dimensional Fourier transform spectroscopy to determine the exciton homogeneous linewidth in monolayer tungsten diselenide.

The coupling of ferroelectricity and magnetic order enables the tunability of material properties. Here, authors realize magnetic-field-enhanced ferroelectricity and electrical-field-controlled magneto-transport in non-magnetic moiré superlattices.

Electrosynthesis of n-propanol from CO has been limited by poor selectivity and low product concentration. Here a Sn–Cu catalyst/carbon/ionomer heterojunction is prepared where the adjacent atomic active sites favour the coupling of C₁ and C₂ intermediates to C₃ product with 47% Faradaic efficiency and the reversal of electro-osmotic drag concentrates the product to 30 wt%.

Ammonia and nitric acid are key platform chemicals to introduce nitrogen into organic molecules, however gaseous N₂ would be a more direct and available source of nitrogen. Here, the authors report a direct catalytic nitrogenation to afford valuable arylamines and N-heterocycles from organohalides using dinitrogen (N₂) as the nitrogen source.

Macrocyclic compounds hold promise as therapeutic agents, yet their structural optimization is hindered by a scarcity of bioactive candidates. Here, the authors present CycleGPT, a generative chemical language model that enhances macrocycle design through innovative transfer learning and sampling strategies, leading to potent JAK2 inhibitors with promising in vivo efficacy.

Symmetry considerations can give rise to various Hall effects in solid-state platforms. Here, the authors predict a half-quantized mirror Hall effect in a strong topological insulator.

DNA repair defects underlie many cancer syndromes. This study investigates whether parents with inherited problems of DNA repair pass on an increased number of de novo mutations to their children. The authors find that this does occur, but that clinical consequences are unlikely.

Detecting early allopolyploidy events and understanding the specific subgenomic evolution contributing to the origin of adaptive innovations for species radiation are challenging. Here, the authors address these problems by analyzing nine newly assembled genomes of Salicaceae species from different genera.