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An intravenous needle that is sufficiently stiff for insertion into soft tissue yet becomes irreversibly flexible after insertion offers similar fluid-delivery performance and causes less inflammation than commercial devices for intravenous access.

Huang et al. show that 3D hydrogel embedding supports more organotypic kidney development in culture. Matrix stiffness and adhesion properties were found to regulate nephron formation, highlighting the intervention potential of physical boundary conditions.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a multi-drug-resistant pathogen of urgent international concern. Here, the authors develop a protein subunit vaccine which prevents A. baumannii catheter-associated urinary tract infections in mice by inhibiting Abp2D, a key adhesive virulence factor.

The field of cellular agriculture has relied on 3D bioprinting for the generation of sophisticated products. Here, the authors employ chaotic bioprinting to create plant and animal cell-based hybrid noodles, thereby opening avenues to produce complex culinary designs and to explore diverse nutritional alternatives.

Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is a severe brain disorder caused by autoantibodies that trigger NMDA receptor loss. Here, the authors show that ART5803, a monovalent antibody, blocks this process and restores function in cell and primate models.

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.

Analgesia from the expectation of pain relief is mediated by rostral anterior cingulate cortex neurons that project to the pontine nucleus.

Reverse electron transport is the mechanism behind excess mitochondrial reactive oxygen species in the livers of obese mice, which has implications for developing therapeutics for fatty liver disease in humans.

The electrostatic interactions in aqueous ionic media are screened by mobile charge carriers, limiting device design and operation speed. Here the built-in electric field is leveraged to dope ions into vanadium dioxide, triggering a surface insulator-to-metal transition, further enabling high-speed in-memory sensing in aqueous solutions.

The transportation sector is gradually evolving to become independent of fossil fuels. Here, the authors report a metal-based monolithic solid oxide fuel cell with a power density of 5.6 kW/L suitable for transport applications.

Heathcote et al. show that enzymes catalysing N-terminal cysteine oxidation and acetylation have distinct substrate preferences. The modifications are mutually exclusive in vitro, with implications for protein stability and the hypoxic response.

Protein synthesis is required in distinct populations of inhibitory neurons in the mouse amygdala to store memories of danger and safety.

Electrodes available for deep brain recording and stimulation have a number of limitations. Here the authors describe a thin-film depth electrode that may offer improved spatial and temporal resolution for recording brain activity.

The full extent of the genetic basis for hearing impairment is unknown. Here, as part of the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium, the authors perform a hearing loss screen in 3006 mouse knockout strains and identify 52 new candidate genes for genetic hearing loss.

Karen Steel and colleagues report that the mouse diminuendo mutant, which shows progressive hearing loss, carries a mutation in the seed region of mouse miR-96. In an accompanying paper, Miguel Moreno-Pelayo and colleagues report similar mutations in the seed region of human miR-96 segregating with progressive hearing loss in two families.

Miguel Moreno-Pelayo and colleagues report mutations in the seed region of human miR-96 segregating with progressive hearing loss in two families. In an accompanying paper, Karen Steel and colleagues show that the mouse diminuendo mutant, which also shows progressive hearing loss, carries a similar mutation in the seed region of mouse miR-96.

Synthesis of heterostructures of magnetic intercalation compounds in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) via directed topotactic reactions enables the creation of multi-component magnetic architectures, overcoming limitations of crystallographic incommensurability

Transcriptomic analysis following epidural electrical stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord during neurorehabilitation in mice identifies a population of neurons that orchestrates the restoration of walking following paralysis.

Polymer synthesis can provide control over chain microstructure and conformation. Well-controlled chain folding in sulfonated polyethylene, leading to highly uniform hydrated acid layers of subnanometre thickness with high proton conductivity, is demonstrated.

Activity-dependent oligodendroglial plasticity contributes to neuronal functions. Here the authors show that adaptive oligodendrocyte progenitor cell responses are disrupted in neurofibromatosis 1, impairing oligodendroglial dynamics and resulting in motor learning deficits in Nf1-deficient and Nf1-mutant mice.

How conflicting contingencies between stimulus and outcome can be resolved by attention are not fully understood. Here authors, combining computational model and experimental approaches, show that mouse anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) effectively operates on low-dimensional neuronal subspaces to combine stimulus-related information with internal cues to drive actions under conflict.

Intravascularly infused extracellular matrix from ventricular myocardium binds to leaky vasculature and induces the regeneration of inflamed heart tissue, as shown in rats and pigs.

Transancestral GWAS meta-analysis in 160,420 individuals identifies 139 loci associated with refractive error, including myopia. Newly identified genes implicate pathways involved in eye growth and light signaling cascades.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have improved our understanding of the genetic basis of lung adenocarcinoma but known susceptibility variants explain only a small fraction of the familial risk. Here, the authors perform a two-stage GWAS and report 12 novel genetic loci associated with lung adenocarcinoma in East Asians.

The ability to maintain blood stem cells (HSCs) in vitro would allow us to provide better therapies for blood diseases. Here, the authors report that polymer-organised extracellular proteins, coupled to soft environments mimicking bone marrow stiffness, allow stromal cells to maintain HSCs in vitro.

PNMA-family genes are gag-like elements of ancient retrotransposon origin whose roles in mammalian genomes is incompletely understood. Wood et al. found that two retrotransposon-derived proteins, PNMA1 and PNMA4, support mammalian fertility in both sexes and become increasingly important during aging. These proteins assemble into capsid-like structures that contain RNA and exit human cells.

Electrical spinal cord stimulation interferes with natural proprioceptive information in humans. Ecological stimulation protocols that preserve limb position awareness and proprioceptive circuit dynamics facilitate walking after spinal cord injury.

Mechanochemistry is a method of forming chemical products through physical collisions between the milling media — such as small steel balls — and the reactants. Although small amounts of liquid can be added to modify the rheology of the reaction, mechanochemistry is typically a solventless technique, greatly reducing the amount of waste generated compared with traditional solvent-rich reaction conditions. This Primer describes variations in setting up a mechanochemical reaction, methods for measuring reaction progress in situ and recent applications — such as pharmaceutical production — in which mechanochemistry aims to serve as a greener alternative to traditional chemical manufacturing.

Sensory cortex has been primarily shown to represent environmental stimuli. Here, the authors find that the geometry of visual cortical activity permits the parallel representation of stimuli and task context in a format that prevents interference.

Systemic dissection of sexually dimorphic phenotypes in mice is lacking. Here, Karp and the International Mouse Phenotype Consortium show that approximately 10% of qualitative traits and 56% of quantitative traits in mice as measured in laboratory setting are sexually dimorphic.

The underlying transcriptional and cellular events mediating the reduction of dendritic spines on medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) remains unknown. Here, authors demonstrate that heroin self-administration negatively regulates the actin-binding protein drebrin in the NAc, which is shown to be transcriptionally repressed by the histone modifier HDAC2, and that overexpression of drebrin is sufficient to decrease drug seeking and increase dendritic spine density

New mutations and genes associated with malformations of cortical development keep being identified, yet there is little known about the underlying cellular mechanisms controlling these impairments. Here, authors generate and characterize a heterozygous TUBG1 knock-in mouse model bearing one of these known mutations and show that TUBG1 mutation leads to the miss-positioning of neurons in the cortical wall due to migration, because of defective microtubules dynamics, and not proliferation defects during corticogenesis.

Excavation in Island New Guinea reveals features associated with the Pacific Lapita cultural complex as well as sustained local cultural traditions from 3,480–3,060 years ago, contemporary with the earliest known Lapita settlements 700 km away. This supports New Guinea as a springboard for Lapita dispersal throughout the Pacific and illuminates their origins.

Steve Brown and colleagues report an analysis of 20 phenotyping tests, including 413 data parameters, across 449 mutant mouse alleles. They identify widespread pleiotropy and assign putative functions to genes that lacked previous phenotypic annotation.