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Spin–orbital quantum liquids are exotic quantum phases in frustrated magnets that arise if frustrated spin and orbital degrees of freedom are coupled. Here, the authors find a dynamical spin–orbital state in the frustrated magnet Ba₃CuSb₂O₉, which indicates the formation of a spin–orbital quantum liquid.

Applying high pressures to a crystalline material usually dramatically alters its properties. Feng et al.now demonstrate, however, that antiferromagnetism in gadolinium-silicon is robust even under pressures that are large enough to compress the volume of the crystal by one seventh.

A new artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek-R1, is introduced, demonstrating that the reasoning abilities of large language models can be incentivized through pure reinforcement learning, removing the need for human-annotated demonstrations.

Evolution of improper ferroelectricity within the confinement of ultrathin films is essential for their successful implementation in nanoscale applications. Here, the authors show thickness dependence of the improper polarization originating from the strong modification of the primary order at epitaxial interfaces.

The nature of unconventional charge density wave in kagome metals is currently under intense debate. Here the authors report the coexistence of the 2 × 2 × 1 charge density wave in the kagome sublattice and the Sb 5p-electron assisted 2 × 2 × 2 charge density waves in CsV₃Sb₅.

Reducing non-radiative recombination at the perovskite/electron transport layer interface remains a critical challenge for achieving efficient perovskite/TOPCon silicon tandem solar cells. Here, authors employ bilayer passivation using AlOx/PDAI2 treatment, achieving device efficiency of 31.6%.

Systems with strong photon-photon interactions enable advanced quantum optical applications as well as the study of highly correlated light-matter states. Here the authors report strong coupling between single- and two-photon states in a superconducting circuit, enabling a new regime of nonlinear quantum optics.

The ALICE Collaboration provides details on the microscopic mechanism that ends up creating antideuteron in high-energy proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.

The study provides observational evidence of energy transfer in space plasmas, showing hydrogen and helium ions interact differently with ion-scale waves. Despite helium’s low abundance, they show their interaction can excite electrostatic waves, facilitating energy transfer across scales and challenging traditional models.

’Systems with long coherence times are extremely important for the processing of quantum information. To this end the authors present a system able to cool down a resonator to its quantum mechanical ground state harnessing the large coupling between an ultra-coherent mechanical resonator and a superconducting circuit.’

Transition metal oxides with 5d ions present novel emergent behaviour based on the enhanced coupling of material properties compared to those with 3d ions. Here, the authors demonstrate a large spin-phonon coupling in NaOsO₃which results from a large Os–O electronic orbital overlap.

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.

Organisms vary in their nitrogen and phosphorus content, shaping ecological and evolutionary processes. This study shows that nitrogen deposition is a consistent global factor associated with plant and animal stoichiometry.

Allergen specific immunotherapy (AIT) is both, safe and effective in reducing systemic symptoms of venom allergy in individuals. Here the authors examine the underlying immune cell changes after venom specific AIT in early time points after therapy initiation showing indicative changes in specific immune cell populations.

Data provided by Amazonian peoples are used to estimate the value of wild animals as a source of food, including its spatial distribution and nutritional value, providing information that will be key for improved management of forest ecosystems in the region.

By controlling the flow or composition of liquids, optofluidics provides numerous possibilities for devices, and so has great potential for transformation optics. Here, a multi-mode optofluidic waveguide is presented, which manipulates light to produce controllable chirped focussing and interference.

Thermal lepton pairs are ideal probes for the temperature of quark-gluon plasma. Here, the STAR Collaboration uses thermal electron-positron pair production to measure quark-gluon plasma average temperature at different stages of the evolution.

Charge quadrupole order was predicted in several 5d¹ and 5d² double perovskite systems, but experimental verification has been challenging. Here the authors provide experimental and theoretical evidence of simultaneous charge quadrupole order and local structural distortions in Ba₂MgReO₆.

Covalent polymers with helical conformations offer an adaptive scaffold for smart materials, but polymer-to-monomer deconstruction is inhibited by the covalent backbone. Now it has been shown that poly(disulfide)s can be folded into helices driven by side-chain hydrogen-bonding self-assembly, resulting in a synthetic helical polymer that can be fully recycled.

A high-confinement plasma that is potentially useful for controlled fusion has now been sustained for over 30 s. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in Hefei, China, achieved this record pulse length by first confining the plasma using lithium-treated vessel walls, and then maintaining it with a so-called lower hybrid current drive.

Ice is not piezoelectric, despite the polarity of water molecules, but bending ice may produce electricity. This has now been experimentally demonstrated, with a flexoelectric coefficient comparable to that of common ceramic materials.

Adding tunable photon-photon nonlinearities to programmable photonic circuits would greatly extend their capabilities. Here, the authors demonstrate this by embedding a photonic-crystal waveguide nanostructure hosting an InAs quantum dot within a programmable linear optical circuit, and using it to realise a proof-of-concept quantum simulation of anharmonic molecular vibrational dynamics.

Reframing of arousal as a latent dynamical system can reconstruct multidimensional measurements of large-scale spatiotemporal brain dynamics on the timescale of seconds in mice.

Recently, an orbital Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state was predicted and identified in thin flakes of the transition metal dichalcogenide superconductor 2H-NbSe₂. Here, the authors present experimental evidence of the formation of this orbital FFLO state in bulk 2H-NbSe₂ samples.

Pcm1 bridges centrosome asymmetry and polarized endosome trafficking to regulate radial glia progenitor fate decisions, balancing self-renewal and differentiation in zebrafish and human cortical organoids.

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.

Functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity are expected to be positively correlated. Here the authors show that the covariation between these metrics in vascular plant communities around the world is often either inconsistent or negative.

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.

Together with a companion paper, molecular details of immune responses in a pig-to-human xenotransplantation are identified through dense longitudinal multi-omics profiling of the xenograft and the host recipient, across the 61-day procedure.

An ultra-low-loss integrated photonic chip fabricated on a customized multilayer silicon nitride 300-mm wafer platform, coupled over fibre with high-efficiency photon number resolving detectors, is used to generate Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill qubit states.

We demonstrate a 3D generalized vector vortex array generation with full polarization, phase, OAM, and spatial control, by using joint optimization in different diffraction orders based on a single-layer metasurface.

The composition of the Earth's core, particularly the light elements present, is not well constrained. Here, the authors report sound velocities of liquid iron-carbon alloy as measured at very high pressures using inelastic X-ray scattering and suggest that carbon cannot be predominant in the outer core.

A scanning tunnelling microscopy study of monolayer FeSe on strontium titanate reveals that this intriguing system has a plain s-wave pairing symmetry.

The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.

Quantum lock-in detection (QLID) is crucial for extracting oscillating signals from noise, while quantum entanglement is vital to surpass the standard of quantum limit in precision measurement. Here, the authors experimentally realise entanglement-enhanced QLID using two trapped ions, achieving frequency measurement precision at the Heisenberg limit and demonstrating an improved inverse-quadratic temporal scaling.

Efficient electro-optic conversion is central to photonic computing, and thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) offers this capability. Here, the authors demonstrate computing circuits on the TFLN platform, enabling the next generation of photonic computing systems featuring both high-speed and low-power.

Measurements of carbon fluxes and wood phenology are used to assess carbon sources from photosynthesis and their sink into woody growth along a thermal gradient. The authors show that stem growth advances slower than photosynthesis per degree Celsius, creating a phenological mismatch for carbon.

There are many quantum systems that act as high-quality quantum harmonic oscillators, and they can be used to store quantum information using the Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill code. Entangling gates have now been demonstrated between two of these qubits.

Despite recent advances with trappedion-based platforms, achieving quantum networks with link efficiency greater than unity on metropolitan scales is still a challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate a multiplexed quantum network generating heralded entanglement at a rate faster than local decoherence.

Excitonic pairing in fractional quantum Hall states shows two new quantum phases, including a fractional exciton condensate and an unusual type of exciton that obeys fermionic or anyonic quantum statistics.

Methane pyrolysis produces hydrogen and carbon materials, but some approaches based on chemical vapour deposition actually consume hydrogen to mitigate unwanted side reactions. Here Peden et al. use gas recycling in a multi-pass floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition reactor to produce hydrogen alongside carbon nanotube aerogels.

Using supramolecular chemistry principles, thermodynamically metastable, yet kinetically stable, poly(disulfide)s with tunable mechanical properties can be recycled into crystalline monomers with quantitative yields and monomer purity >90%.

Scalable fabrication of quantum emitters with precise spatial positioning remains challenging. Here the authors present a scalable method for the deterministic fabrication of high-quality single-photon emitter arrays in hexagonal boron nitride, using nano-indentation to enable site-specific impurity insertion.

Surfaces are the stage for vital catalytic reactions, but accurately simulating them is computationally expensive. Here, the authors introduce an efficient method using GPUs to model large, complex surfaces with exceptionally high, experiment-matching accuracy

Here the authors reveal how replication stress in BRCA2-deficient cells triggers a mutagenic cycle of APOBEC3B upregulation, uracil accumulation at stalled forks, and DNA damage, uncovering a self-reinforcing loop that fuels genomic instability.

There is a long-standing trade-off between piezoelectric coefficient and mechanical quality factor for piezoceramics. Here, authors embed local defect dipoles into phase boundary engineering to relieve this relationship in (K, Na) NbO3 piezoceramics.