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Raman spectroscopy measurements of water at the interface with oil droplets show a perturbed hydrogen-bond network and evidence for a strong interfacial electric field.

How TNF regulates NK cell function and homeostasis is not fully understood. Here the authors investigate conditional knock out mice with TNFR1 and/or TNFR2 deficiency in NK cells upon bacterial infection, and identify that TNFR1 promotes cell death and impairs immunity while TNFR2 increases NK accumulation and enhances immunity.

Solving partial differential equations is the cornerstone of scientific and engineering development. Here, authors show a high-performance optical neural engine architecture, combining diffractive optics and optical matrix multipliers, to solve a variety of equations in broad scientific domains.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Time- and momentum-resolved spectroscopy gives dynamical information on complex materials, enabling disentanglement of their coupled degrees of freedom. Using time-resolved X-ray diffraction at a free electron laser, Leeet al. investigate the charge order parameter in a striped nickelate.

Development of efficient yet durable photoelectrodes is of paramount importance for deployment of solar-fuel production. The photoelectrochemically self-improving behaviour of a silicon/gallium nitride photocathode highly efficient for hydrogen production is now reported.

Individual electrons trapped on the surface of solid neon can operate as charge qubits with very long coherence times.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

The study of rare isotopes is hampered by their scarcity, cost and sometimes toxicity. Now polyoxometalate ligands have been shown to facilitate the capture of f-block elements and their characterization. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction structures have been obtained for several molecular complexes, including three of the rare curium-248, from minute amounts (micrograms) of material.

Temperature sensitivity of bulk soil carbon stocks is controlled by the compositional distribution between mineral-associated and particulate carbon, according to analyses of global soil carbon pools.

The APC/C ubiquitylates histones to regulate gene expression in pluripotent cells. Here, the authors pair cryo-EM and biochemical and biophysical assays to show that instead of modifying nucleosome-incorporated histones, the APC/C ubiquitylates extranucleosomal histone complexes through a mechanism that bypasses canonical substrate degrons.

It is generally believed that fast Li-ion transport in batteries can only be achieved when the host material does not change much with the Li movement. Here the authors show that controlled and reversible changes in host structures upon cycling can actually be used to improve the battery kinetics.

Due to the crystal symmetry of single-layer transition metal dichalcogenides and the fact that the conduction and valence band edges are at the zone-edge K points, the 2p exciton states are split. A two-colour pump–probe scheme is used to drive the 1s–2p exciton transition, and then probe the changes in absorption near the spectral position of the 1s line to measure the splitting energy.

Lithium-rich nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathodes are widely explored due to their high capacities related to their anionic redox chemistry. A compositional optimization pathway for these materials investigating the variation of using cobalt and nickel now provides valuable guidelines for future high-capacity cathode design.

Several recent works have demonstrated current based control of antiferromagnetic order, with the potential that such switching could be used for information processing and storage. Here, Haley et al demonstrate that in Fe_xNbS₂, this switching is non-local, with magnetic order changing due to an applied current at distances much larger than the spin diffusion length in the material.

In an application of terahertz phonon engineering, terahertz phonons were generated, detected and manipulated through precise integration of atomically thin layers in van der Waals heterostructures.

The effect of blackbody radiation is expected to be very weak. The acceleration due to the attractive optical forces from blackbody radiation is measured in an atom interferometer and, surprisingly, it dominates gravity and radiation pressure

The nature of defects in transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors is still under debate. Here, the authors determine the atomic structure and electronic properties of chalcogen-site point defects common to monolayer MoSe₂ and WS₂, and find that these are substitutional defects, where a chalcogen atom is substituted by an oxygen atom, rather than vacancies.

The authors use time-resolved metabolomics and microfluidics to characterize enhanced heterotroph chemoattraction to metabolites released from cyanobacteria during early stages of phage infection.

The authors introduce a new approach to microwave impedance microscopy, eliminating once-indispensable specialized probes and cancellation circuits. Using monolithic silicon probes and a streamlined architecture, they achieve 0.26 zF/√Hz sensitivity and 15 nm resolution with drift-free operation.

The unusual electronic properties of graphene can be modified by placing it on a boron-nitride substrate with a small crystallographic alignment angle. Chen et al.now reveal that such heterostructures grown by epitaxy have a large bandgap, useful for applications using magneto-optical spectroscopy.

Ultrafast photoexcitation stabilizes new states of matter with rich out-of-equilibrium behaviours. Here, Lantzet al. report a transient non-thermal phase developing immediately after photoexcitation in V₂O₃, shedding a light on optical manipulation of strongly correlated systems.

Producing valuable chemicals from carbon dioxide, water and sunlight through artificial conversion schemes remains a challenging and ambitious goal in photocatalysis. Here, the authors introduce an effective approach for the synthesis of C₂₊ compounds using a binary AuIr catalyst in combination with InGaN nanowires.

Theoretical studies of the air-water interface of a water droplet show a wide distribution of strong electric fields at the surface that can make or break chemical bonds to accelerate chemical reactions over the bulk water phase.

Chiral domain walls in magnetic films can be electrically controlled, which makes them attractive for applications, but domain walls in ultrathin films are normally non-chiral. Here, the authors observe chiral domain walls in ultrathin Fe/Ni bilayers that are stabilized by the magnetic anisotropy.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

The large-scale production of CS₂ presents both environmental and biological hazards, yet adsorbents capable of CS₂ capture remain scarcely explored. Here, Long and colleagues demonstrate that CS₂ is adsorbed in diamine-appended metal–organic frameworks through a cooperative and chemically specific insertion process.

A family of host-derived bile acid–methylcysteamine conjugates functions as FXR antagonists, forming part of a microbiota-dependent metabolic network that regulates FXR-dependent physiology.

Developing highly efficient and reversible hydrogenation-dehydrogenation catalysts shows great promise for hydrogen storage technologies. Here the authors develop a highly efficient and reversible de/rehydrogenation single-site platinum catalyst which exhibits great promise for hydrogen storage technologies with cyclic alkanes/aromatics as liquid organic hydrogen carriers.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

The complex, multi-component environments found in enzymes induce high catalytic specificity, but are difficult to achieve in synthetic catalysts. Now, researchers report a catalyst comprising a dynamic, ordered layer of ligands above a nanoparticle surface that creates a pocket to facilitate CO₂ electroreduction.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

The F + para-H₂ → HF + H reaction is an important source of HF in interstellar clouds; however, its unusually high rate and its dynamics at low temperature are not fully understood. Now, quantum-state resolved crossed-beam scattering measurements and anion photoelectron spectroscopy have revealed that this reactivity is caused by a resonance-enhanced tunnelling effect involving a post-barrier resonance state.

K⁺ ions in sub-1-nm-diameter carbon nanotube pores are found to disobey the Nernst–Einstein relation by three orders of magnitude. This behaviour results from drastically different mechanisms for ion diffusion and electromigration inside these channels.

Reninomas are very rare kidney tumours of juxtaglomerular cells. Here, the authors analyse reninomas using whole-genome and transcriptome sequencing, and reveal the presence and functional effects of NOTCH1 rearrangements.

Electrochemical routes for the production of hydrogen peroxide would reduce the waste inherent in the current anthraquinone process, and also make distributed and on-site production more feasible. Here, inexpensive reduced graphene oxide is proven to be a stable and selective catalyst for oxygen reduction at remarkably low overpotentials.

Heavy metals and metalloids pose major threats to health and environmental ecosystems, thus systems for low-cost remediation are needed. Here the authors report the scalable design of a hydrogen-bonded organic–inorganic framework for selective removal of trace heavy metal ions from water.

Entanglement was observed in top–antitop quark events by the ATLAS experiment produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s  = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 fb⁻¹.

Oxygen capture is attractive for catalysis, sensing, and separations, but engineering stable and selective adsorbents is challenging. Here the authors combine metal-based electron transfer with secondary coordination sphere effects in a metal-organic framework, leading to strong and reversible O₂ adsorption that also exhibits negative cooperativity.

Supervised machine-learning models trained using Drosophila epigenetic and STARR-seq data can be transferred to predict mouse and human enhancers.

The use of high-energy-density lithium-rich layered-oxide electrodes in batteries is hindered by voltage decay on cycling. Improving the reversible cation migration by altering oxygen stacking is shown to suppress voltage decay and redox asymmetry in lithium-rich nickel manganese oxides.

This Review discusses single-photon detectors and quantum-light sources for super-resolution microscopy, measurements below classical noise limits and photon-number-resolved spectroscopy as emerging tools for nanoscale electronic materials characterization and bioimaging.