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Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

Selective chemical upcycling of polyolefin mixtures remains challenging due to the structural similarity of their backbones. Now it has been shown that a single-site nickel catalyst can preferentially and efficiently cleave branched C–C bonds, enabling the hydrogenolytic separation of isotactic polypropylene from mixtures containing both isotactic polypropylene and polyethylene.

Better understanding the synergy between radiation and corrosion is necessary to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. Here, the authors contradict the misconception that radiation always results in deleterious effects and show that proton irradiation slows the corrosion of Ni-Cr alloys in 650 °C molten salt.

The authors combine multiscale simulations with electrochemical and surface characterization to investigate the formation and dissolution kinetics of passivating oxides on Ni-Cr alloys, probing the interdependent effects of alloy composition, temperature, pH, and applied voltage.

CURT1/CurT proteins, known for shaping thylakoid membranes in photosynthetic organisms, play a newly found role in coordinating cell division and symmetry. Being shared in cyanobacteria and green algae this role is likely phylogenetically ancient.

Genome-wide association analyses identify new risk loci for heart failure and its subtypes, extending understanding of the underlying biological pathways and disease mechanisms.

The influence of Li occupancy on electro-chemomechanical stability in Co-free Ni-rich layered oxides for Li-ion batteries has been overlooked. Here, authors investigate different Li structural units in the oxide lattice and show that tuning the Li occupancy improves battery cycling stability.

The Zika viral protease NS2B-NS3 is a crucial target for antiviral drug development due to its role in processing viral polyproteins. Here, the authors utilize crystallographic fragment screening and deep mutational scanning to identify binding sites for resistance-resilient inhibitors.

Enhanced polyamine depletion in neuroblastoma models decreases translation of mRNA codons with adenosine in the third position, reprogramming the tumour proteome away from cell cycle progression and towards differentiation.

Artificial photosynthesis systems offer a sustainable solution to energy and environmental challenges, with significant improvements in efficiency. Here, the authors report a single light absorber system that achieves a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.7 %, with potential for future improvements.

Predictive electrocatalyst design is challenged by uncontrollable precatalyst reconstruction during operation. Here, informed by operando spectroscopies, activation protocols are developed to stabilize surfaces and improve catalyst reliability.

Klein and colleagues characterize 04_A06, a new V_H1-2-encoded broadly neutralizing antibody that has marked breadth and potency against extended multiclade HIV-1 pseudovirus panels and can maintain full viral suppression in HIV-1-infected humanized mice.

The instability of contact layers for perovskite solar cells under operating conditions limits the deployment of the technology. Now, Lin et al. develop a Cu–Ni electrode sandwiched between in situ-grown graphene protective layers, enabling solar cells with improved stability under light, humidity and high temperature.

Bacterial ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters can be utilized and engineered to transport non-canonical amino acids into Escherichia coli for highly efficient synthesis of proteins with novel functions.

Improving the creep response of superalloys used in turbine engines is key to improving fuel efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Here, stress-induced localized phase transformations, creating nano-laths, are found to immobilize planar defects, enhancing creep performance. Peer Review Information: Communications Materials thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: John Plummer. A peer review file is available.

Introduction of structured neutron waves carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) in small-angle neutron scattering experiments provides novel approaches to the characterisation of material properties. Here the authors demonstrate the retrieval of phase information in far-field intensity profiles by means of an interferometric technique using helical neutron waves.

Electric vehicles rely on batteries that use elements like nickel and cobalt, usually sourced through mining, which raises ecological and ethical concerns. Now, a new cathode design replaces 35% of the nickel with abundant manganese, easing raw material demand without compromising energy density or lifetime.

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

The MRN complex plays a key role in detecting, signalling, and processing DNA double-strand breaks. This study reports the cryo-EM structures of human MRN bound to DNA, alone and with telomeric protection factor TRF2, revealing MRN’s structural transitions and regulatory mechanisms.

Exactly how hydrogen renders metals brittle is still unclear, and it remains a challenge to predict component failure due to hydrogen embrittlement. Here, the authors identify a class of grain boundaries in a nickel superalloy that deflects propagating cracks and improves alloy resistance to hydrogen.

There is considerable interest in transitioning industrial thermocatalytic reactions to renewable-driven processes, but the electrification of such reactions has been challenging. Now, it has been shown that bridging non-aqueous chemistry with aqueous electrochemistry through aqueous–non-aqueous interfacial proton-coupled electron transfer can enable electricity-driven hydrogen peroxide production.

Additive manufacturing promises a major transformation of the production of high economic value metallic materials. Here, the authors describe a new class of 3D printable superalloys that are amenable to crack-free 3D printing via electron beam melting as well as selective laser melting.

The high-voltage oxygen redox activity of Li-rich layered oxides enables additional capacity beyond conventional transition metal redox contributions. Here, authors investigate the correlation between oxygen redox activity and superstructure units. They prove that an excess of LiNiMn5 hinders the extraction/insertion of lithium ions.

Disulfide-based dimerization of modified identical and heterologous nanobody scaffolds enables higher-order assembly for high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure determination that is widely applicable to small protein targets.

Some features resembling superconductivity at high temperature have been seen under pressure in La₃Ni₂O₇, but a transition to a zero-resistance state has not been observed. Now transport studies demonstrate this transition, along with strange metallicity.

Functional and structural characterization of PtmA2 reveals that it is an unusual non-adenylating acyl-CoA ligase and part of a system wherein the canonical acyl-CoA ligase reaction is separated into two half-reactions performed by distinct enzymes.

Although Fe doping boosts the electrocatalytic performance of NiOOH materials for the oxygen evolution reaction, the underlying mechanism has been not well understood. Here, the authors reveal Fe low-spin state configuration as a main driver of this electrochemical phenomenon.

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.

The enzyme ABHD18 is shown to have a key role in cardiolipin metabolism in mitochondria, offering a potential route for a small-molecule treatment of the rare genetic disease Barth syndrome.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) frequency and risk factors vary considerably across regions and ancestries. Here, the authors conduct a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study and fine mapping study of HNSCC subsites in cohorts from multiple continents, finding susceptibility and protective loci, gene-environment interactions, and gene variants related to immune response.

The authors here look into the phase transitions in Li-/Mn-rich layered cathode materials during synthesis and cycling. It is revealed that the Li-rich layered structure tends to transform to a Li-poor spinel phase via an intermediate Li-containing rock salt phase, with release of lithium/oxygen.

Some materials can display magnetic order despite having spin-singlet ground state on individual magnetic sites. This arises due to exchange interactions mixing excited crystal electric field states. Here, Gao et al study and example of such a system, Ni₂Mo₃O₈, and find that crystal electric field states in both the paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic states exhibit dispersive excitations.

Sperm–egg adhesion is crucial for mammalian reproduction. Here, authors report the human Izumo1:Juno complex, a key regulator of sperm-egg adhesion, forms an unusually strong bond through a secondary binding site, which is impaired in an infertility-associated Juno mutant.

Standard approaches for identifying pleiotropic genetic variants may lead to spurious results. Here the authors present a new statistical method and show that it uncovers five genes linked to metabolites in METSIM participants, which were previously undetected by existing methods.

In most metals the optical Hall effect is very small at visible wavelengths, and usually can only be observed at low frequencies. Here, Am-Shalom et al present a technique involving a large amplitude modulation of the external magnetic field, allowing for the measurement of the optical Hall effect in a range of metals at visible wavelengths.

The structure of crystalline materials plays a central role in materials science, but the disordered structure of metallic glass is difficult to characterize and describe. Here, the authors use diffusion maps on atomistic data to obtain general structural descriptors tied to atomic positions.

Dynamic control over protein function is a central challenge in synthetic biology. Here the authors present an integrated computational and experimental workflow for engineering reversible protein switches; metal-chelating unnatural amino acids genetically encoded into two conformationally dynamic enzymes to yield robust switches.

Heterogeneous catalysts are often dynamic under operation. Now, the mechanism of CH₄ dry reforming on Ni is studied by in situ microscopy and spectroscopy, revealing the formation of metastable surface nickel–oxygen structures from CO₂ dissociation that exhibit different catalytic properties and induce rate oscillations.

An integrated structural biology approach combining NMR, cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations is implemented to characterise the conformational dynamics and interactions of the eukaryotic RNA exosome complex.

Haldane topological solids usually have spin-1 chains in 3D structures. Here authors present Ni(4,4′-bipy)(ox) (NiBO), a planar MOF with Haldane topological properties and promising quantum applications, as shown by advanced techniques and quantum Monte Carlo studies.

Based on Bader charge descriptors, a Cu2ZnSnS4 nanosheet with S defects is developed for photocatalytic CO2 reduction. Under visible light irradiation, C2H4 is produced from CO2 with a yield of 25.16 µmol g-1 h-1 with ~50% selectivity.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

Self-organized criticality can occur in cellular systems, but its origins remain unclear. Now it is shown that cytoskeletal criticality is influenced by the F-actin architecture and myosin active stress.

Structural and morphological control of crystalline nanoparticles is crucial in heterogeneous catalysis. Applying DFT-assisted solid-state NMR spectroscopy, we determine the surface crystal and electronic structure of Ni₂P nanoparticles, unveiling NMR nanocrystallography as an emerging tool in facet-engineered nanocatalysts.

Strain engineering can be used to control spin and optical properties of defect centers. Xue et al. report an all-optical method to reconfigure and increase the local strain of color centers in diamond, which, unlike previous approaches, does not require external fields or nanostructure modifications.

Nasal colonization by Staphylococcus aureus is linked with depression in a human cohort and shown in a mouse model to cause decreased serotonin and dopamine in the brain.