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National parochialism is the tendency to cooperate more with people of the same nation. In a 42-nations study, the authors show that national parochialism is a pervasive phenomenon, present to a similar degree across all the studied nations, and occurs both when decisions are private or public.

Quantum sensors can have exceptional properties but the limits on their performance involve nonclassical effects such as quantum backaction. Here the authors show how to mitigate the effects of backaction on the spectral resolution of an NV centre nuclear spin sensor by controlling the measurement strength.

Entanglement between photons and stationary quantum nodes is a fundamental resource for quantum communication, but typical transition wavelengths are far from the telecom band. Here, the authors deal with the problem using polarisation-independent, entanglement-preserving frequency conversion.

During atherosclerosis, endothelial cells release purines in response to oxidized phospholipids. Here, Hitzel et al. show that oxidized phospholipids activate an MTHFD2-regulated gene network in endothelial cells which reprograms amino acid metabolism towards production of purines and thus compensates for their loss.

Elucidating the formation of quasicrystals, which have long-range orientational order but no translation periodicity, remains a challenge. Here, the authors track and geometrically describe how a decagonal nickel–zirconium seed grows into a tenfold twinned dendritic structure.

Human brain morphodynamics are explored using organoids.

Ossenkoppele, Coomans and colleagues analyzed the tau PET data of 12,048 individuals from 42 cohorts worldwide. They found that age, amyloid-β status, presence of an APOE ε4 allele and female sex are key contributors to tau PET positivity, which should aid clinical decision-making and trial designs.

The motion of microparticles suspended in liquids is assumed to be dominated by viscous forces. Here, Berner et al. challenge this consensus by observing underdamped particle oscillations in a viscoelastic fluid and attributing it to the non-equilibrium fluctuations of liquid excited by particles.

Laser fields can be tuned to probe electronic motion in atoms and molecules. Here the authors ionize Na atoms using bichromatic pulses to generate electron wave packets of crescent-shaped and 7-fold rotational symmetry which do not follow the field symmetry but are determined by multiphoton interference.

Accelerating electrons to high energy and controlling their properties on ultrafast timescales is challenging. Here the authors show controlled acceleration of electron bunches using forward scattering in the resonantly enhanced polarization field of silver clusters driven by a phase-tuned two-color laser field.

Photobiodevices use photosynthetic proteins such as those of the photosystem 1 (PS1) to enable light-induced charge separation, but they suffer from limited long-term stability. Here authors employ scanning photoelectrochemical microscopy on a PS1 biocathode and find that several pathways generate oxygen radicals.

Measuring nuclear radii with different methods (e.g. electron scattering, laser spectroscopy) often leads to inconsistencies. Carbon isotopes provide exceptional accuracies among elements in the second row, facilitating nuclear structure theory benchmarks. Here, the authors provide laser spectroscopic measurements of the nuclear charge radius of ¹³C, improving previous uncertainties.

The spins of single molecules and defect centres possess properties which can be strongly influenced by their material contacts in electrical junctions. Here, the authors study the coupling between cobalt hydride complexes and a Rh(111) contact, mediated through a hexagonal boron nitride layer.

Spin-spin correlation is fundamental to many material properties but challenging to measure in nanomagnetic systems. Muenkset al. show that correlations between a localized spin and the electrons of its hosting bath can be quantified when coupled to another spin by an asymmetry in the differential conductance.

Strong lasing effects similar to those in the optical regime can occur at 1.5–2.1 Å wavelengths during high-intensity XFEL-driven Kα₁ lasing of copper and manganese.

The connection between the topological properties of the ground state and non-equilibrium dynamics remains obscure. Here, Tarnowski et al. define and measure a linking number between static and dynamical vortices, which directly corresponds to the ground-state Chern number.

It is a challenge to measure changes in the crystal structures in picometer scale and the associated phase. Here the authors demonstrate the lattice expansion and polar distortions of oxygen deficient SrTiO₃ using a resonance X-ray scattering technique.

Dissipation of the sensor is a limiting factor in metrology. Here, Pfender et al. suppress this effect employing the nuclear spin of an NV centre for robust intermediate storage of classical NMR information, allowing then to record single-spin NMR spectra with 13 Hz resolution at room temperature.

Neurodegenerative diseases are linked to changes in the immune system and inflammation. Here, the authors studied immune cells from healthy individuals and neurodegenerative diseases and identified sex-specific disease-associated changes.

Classifying crystal structures using their space group is important to understand material properties, but the process currently requires user input. Here, the authors use machine learning to automatically classify more than 100,000 simulated perfect and defective crystal structures.

Biexcitons play an important role in determining the optical properties of transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers, but their precise structure is poorly understood. Using a combination of ultrafast spectroscopy and theory, the origin of their fine structure is revealed.

Combining X-ray structures, surface plasmon resonance and hydrogen-deuterium exchange–mass spectrometry, a class of highly selective inhibitors was found to bind to an active state of PI3Kγ breaking a conformational ‘lock’ important for activation of PI3Kγ.

Spin-crossover molecules offer a potential route towards molecular spintronics, but retaining the bistability of the spin state upon surface deposition is challenging. Here, the authors study the spin-crossover behaviours of an Fe(II) complex deposited on graphite, determining the scale limit at which cooperative spin switching becomes effective.

Tau pathology drives neuronal dysfunction in 4- repeat tauopathies. Here, the authors combine tau-PET, resting-state fMRI and histopathology data, to show that brain connectivity is associated with tau deposition patterns in 4-repeat tauopathies.

Noether’s Theorem relates symmetries to fundamental physical laws. Rather than applying the concept to an action integral in order to obtain conservation laws, here the authors consider Statistical Mechanical objects, such as the free energy and density and power functionals to derive exact force and torque sum rules.

Swarm Learning is a decentralized machine learning approach that outperforms classifiers developed at individual sites for COVID-19 and other diseases while preserving confidentiality and privacy.

Known genetic loci account for only a fraction of the genetic contribution to Alzheimer’s disease. Here, the authors have performed a large genome-wide meta-analysis comprising 409,435 individuals to discover 6 new loci and demonstrate the efficacy of an Alzheimer’s disease polygenic risk score.

Ibrutinib, a Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor, provides effective treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Here, the authors describe time-dependent molecular changes to malignant cells and to the immune system in patients undergoing ibrutinib therapy, with can be used for therapy monitoring.

A general theoretical picture regarding the generation and the detection of extremely short pulses of squeezed vacuum light is provided, allowing the treatment of arbitrary wavepackets of quantum light intrinsically in the time domain.

Müller-Tidow and colleagues perform a randomized clinical trial and show that administration of convalescent plasma improves COVID-19 outcome in patients with cancer who are unable to generate an adequate immune response.

Photosystem II (PSII) catalyzes the first light-dependent step in photosynthesis. An improved structural model of a cyanobacterial PSII provides complete assignment of all subunits in the complex and reveals possible channels used for the transport of protons, oxygen and water to the thylakoid lumen.

The nonlinear properties of photonic topological insulators remain largely unexplored, as band topology is linked to linear systems. But nonlinear topological corner states and solitons can form in a second-order topological insulator, as shown by experiments.

Microsecond infrared spectroscopy together with quantum chemistry reveal the rate-determining proton and electron movements and identify an oxygen-radical state of the manganese cluster as the S4 state.

The brown fat-derived neuregulin 4 regulates hepatic lipid homeostasis and whole-body insulin sensitivity

Aging is a key risk factor for chronic diseases of the elderly. Here the authors perform large-scale miRNA profiling of blood from individuals of a range of ages and show that common diseases alter the physiological age-related blood microRNA profile.

The tunnelling current in scanning tunnelling spectroscopy has often been treated by a continuous charge flow, which lacks proper treatment of charge quantization. Here, Ast et al. unveil the effects of granularity in the tunnelling current at extremely low temperatures by including P(E) theory, thereby reaching the quantum limit in scanning tunnelling spectroscopy.

Tracking of nanoparticle dynamics in solution often require labelling. Here, the authors use a high-finesse microcavity and simultaneously measure dispersive frequency shifts of three transverse modes, demonstrating 3D tracking of unlabelled single nanospheres, and quantitatively determine their physical properties.

The authors report on the radiative decay of a low-energy isomer in thorium-229 (^229mTh), which has consequences for the design of a future nuclear clock and eases the search for direct laser excitation of the atomic nucleus.

Bondareva and Rodríguez-Aguilera et al. use scRNA-seq to analyze transcriptomes of 375,000 endothelial cells from seven organs in male mice at various stages of obesity to identify organ-specific vulnerabilities.

Femtosecond X-ray pulses were used to obtain diffraction data on photosystem II, revealing conformational changes as the complex transitions from the dark S₁ state to the double-pumped S₃ state; the time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography technique enables structural determination of protein conformations that are highly prone to traditional radiation damage.