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Aqueous two-phase systems have potential as biomimetic materials, but often lack stability and are prone to collapse. Here, the authors use interfacial assembly of chitin nanofibres and cellulose nanocrystals to prepare a biobased system with permeability and switchable motility.

The electronic behaviour of complex oxides such as LaNiO₃ depends on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, making it challenging to identify microscopic mechanisms. Here the authors demonstrate the influence of oxygen vacancies on the thickness-dependent metal-insulator transition of LaNiO₃ films.

Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.

A complementary analysis of DESI DR2 distance measurements along with supernova and CMB data shows consistent, moderate evidence that dark energy changes over time rather than behaving as a simple cosmological constant.

Benchmarking greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants is an essential step in developing mitigation strategies. This is now achieved for the USA by modelling over 15,000 facilities using Monte Carlo simulations to obtain a national baseline.

Myeloperoxidase, a highly expressed neutrophil protein, disassembles nucleosomes, facilitating neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation, and binds stably to NETs extracellularly.

Polymer thin films that emit and absorb circularly polarised light are promising in achieving important technological advances, but the origin of the large chiroptical effects in such films has remained elusive. Here the authors demonstrate that in non-aligned polymer thin films, large chiroptical effects are caused by magneto-electric coupling, not structural chirality as previously assumed.

Ricca et al discover a new family of tubular pili in Microcystis aeruginosa, a harmful algal bloom-forming cyanobacterium. These pili are crucial for buoyancy by forming cell micro-colonies, which increases drag and prevents sinking. The pili also enrich microcystin and co-localize with iron-enriched extracellular matrix components, suggesting a vital role in bloom proliferation.

Li, Burgos-Bravo and colleagues report that NDF phase separation regulates FACT condensation, which enhances transcription by generating a localized biochemical environment that promotes nucleosome disassembly while preserving chromatin integrity by retaining histones.

Interpreting spectroscopic data in real time remains a challenge in chemical characterization. Here a digital twin framework is developed that links first-principles theory and experimental data via a bidirectional feedback loop, enabling on-the-fly decision-making and insights into reaction mechanisms based on measured spectra during chemical experiments.

Using data from the CoVPN 3008 study, the authors show that the neutralizing antibody correlate of risk holds in people living with HIV. However, the nAb correlate was weaker and shorter-lived in a vaccine-immunity versus hybrid-immunity population.

Fan et al. describe DF-003, an alpha-kinase 1 (ALPK1) inhibitor that targets the root cause of the rare genetic disease ROSAH syndrome, demonstrating the ability of DF-003 to inhibit ocular inflammatory pathology in ROSAH model mice.

Polar skyrmions are nanoscale topological structures of electric polarizations. Their collective modes, dubbed as “skyrons”, are discovered by the terahertz-field-excitation, femtosecond x-ray diffraction measurements and advanced modeling.

Gallium is used as a sacrificial agent and mixing medium for the isothermal solidification synthesis of high-entropy alloy nanomaterials with diverse crystallinities and morphologies.

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

A fresh approach to protein design that incorporates excited intermediate states enables precise control over the lifetime of protein interactions, with potential applications in cell-signalling modulation and in biosensors and synthetic circuits.

Controlling nanoscale colloidal crystallization is not straightforward. Such control is now achieved by leveraging a metastable liquid phase of charged nanocrystals.

The development of highly stable and functional carbon–carbon bonded covalent organic framework (COF) linkages is desirable but challenging. Now a postsynthetic modification strategy has been applied to olefin-linked COFs, resulting in the synthesis of coumarin-linked COFs with high crystallinity, good porosity, outstanding stability and interesting photoluminescence properties.

The lack of reliable coating methods for amorphous zeolitic imidazolate framework (aZIF) materials hinders their development for applications such as photolithography and separation membranes. Supported by computational fluid dynamics modeling, the authors develop a spin-coating technique to deposit aZIF films from dilute precursors and demonstrate their wafer-scale use in advanced lithographic processes.

Natural products and their synthesis have always fascinated organic chemists, frequently providing the inspiration and testing ground for new synthetic methods. This Review considers examples of natural products that were prepared first synthetically and predicted to be natural products prior to their isolation from nature.

Samples returned from asteroid Bennu largely comprise hydrated sheet silicates with sulfides, magnetite and carbonate that indicate alteration by a fluid that evolved from neutral to alkaline, according to a micro- and nanoscale mineralogical study.

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.

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.

Tree cover gains in the moist tropics (1982–2015) were 56% naturally regenerated forests and 27% managed tree systems, with forest type influencing carbon recovery. Effective forest restoration requires robust tracking of forest types established by restoration efforts.

The XRISM Resolve spectrum of the galactic neutron star X-ray binary, GX 13+1, reveals one of the densest winds ever seen in absorption lines.

High-resolution 3D printing technology making use of two-photon polymerization instead of traditional machining is described, allowing low-cost and scalable production of large arrays of high-quality 3D Paul traps.

The noisy dynamics of biological neurons is vital for cognition, but artificial neurons failed to replicate it. Here, the authors show that neurons built with diffusive memristors can emulate the balance of stochastic and deterministic activity in biological neurons, while surpassing them in computational efficiency.

Dedicated wind-sourced hydrogen (H2) can decarbonize industries but requires thousands of tonnes of H2 storage. Storing H2 as methylcyclohexane can outcompete alternative aboveground solutions with modest effects on delivery costs.

A large-scale mouse study reveals that while existing epigenomic data detect many developmental enhancers, a substantial fraction is missed - highlighting the need for expanded resources to fully annotate enhancers genome-wide.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

U.S. market data from 2012 to 2022 show that increasing transmission capacity is cost-effective. Benefits are often balanced across regions and concentrated during peak periods driven by short-term events, yet major barriers still prevent grid infrastructure from being developed.

The cofactor iron is essential for cellular energy metabolism. Proteomics reveals how the interplay of iron limitation with glucose signaling underlies how a green alga turns off photosynthesis during lipid accumulation.

Unprecedented groundwater recovery ( ~ 0.7 m/yr) driven by water diversions, strict pumping regulations, and a wet climate occurred in the North China Plain after decades of depletion, showing large-scale recovery is possible under human intervention.

The REX element is associated with long-range enhancer–promoter interactions.

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.

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 shift in fluorescence lifetime of tumour tissue with respect to normal tissue after systemic injection of the near-infrared dye indocyanine green can be used to distinguish tumour tissue from normal tissue with high accuracy.

Addressing interdependencies between urban buildings and the urban environment for urban heat mitigation and energy conservation, this study models eight heat mitigation scenarios for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These heat mitigation scenarios use super-cool photonic materials combined with properly designed green infrastructure to lower peak temperatures by up to 4.5 °C, reduce cooling demand by up to 35%, and contribute to cooling energy conservation by up to 16%.

The authors highlight inconsistencies and divergencies in the literature reporting data on indirect calorimetry for studies on whole-body energy homeostasis, and propose harmonization of standards to facilitate data comparison and interpretation across different datasets.

Non-syndromic orofacial cleft is a relatively common congenital anomaly. Many non-coding genetic variants are associated with this disorder but only a subset is functional. Here the authors use reporter assays and stem cells to reveal members of this subset.

Bennu comprises components of intra- and extra-Solar System origins. The parent bodies of Bennu, Ryugu and CI chondrites likely formed from a shared but heterogeneous reservoir in the outer parts of the solar protoplanetary disk.

In this study, the authors assess the global response to the toxic aldehyde glyoxal (GO) in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, suggesting that GO controls quorum sensing during infection through a mechanism involving a novel protein, ArqI.

Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to physiological processes such as muscle formation and viral infection. Here, the authors show that the proteins embedded on the plasma membrane present a biophysical barrier that can regulate cell-cell fusion.

¹³⁴Ce and ¹³⁴La have great potential as companion diagnostic isotopes for radiotherapeutics labelled with α-emitting ²²⁵Ac and ²²⁷Th. Now, by controlling the Ce^III/Ce^IV redox couple, the large-scale production, purification and characterization of ¹³⁴Ce- and ¹³⁴La-based radiolabels has been achieved and their use for in vivo positron emission tomography is demonstrated.

This Primer offers a practical and rational introduction to macromolecular crystallography, whether to engage directly with or to critically assess results, with a focus on understanding the diffraction data, solving the phase problem, building and refining the atomic model, and interpreting the resulting atomic structure.

In Chinese residential buildings sector, avoid, shift and improve measures in demand-side solution will mitigate 47% of cumulative CO2 emissions and 16% of cost before 2060, and reduce the uncertainty of achieving carbon neutrality target.