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Impaired wound healing that leads to scar remains a clinical challenge. Here, the authors study the effects of hydrogel crosslinking on cellular behavior in skin wounds and its effect on immune and stromal cell activity.

Designing mechanical metamaterials is challenging because of the large number of non-periodic constituent elements. Here, the authors develop an approach to design arbitrarily shaped metamaterials that is more computationally efficient by six orders of magnitude compared to other approaches.

The prevalent fungal pathogen, Candida albicans, and the emerging multidrug-resistant superfungus, Candida auris, share the same initial cell wall architecture but remodel it differently in response to echinocandin-induced antifungal stress.

During development and pathologies of the central nervous system, blood vessels are closely connected with the innate immune cells, microglia. Here, the authors report that microglia adjust their angiogenic program to shape blood vessels and may depend on tissue stiffness.

Mesenchymal stromal cells singly coated with a soft conformal gel incorporating specific chemomechanical cues inhibit aberrant tissue remodelling in mice with fibrotic lung injury.

A polymer-like ultrahigh-strength TiNi alloy was fabricated by a simple three-step process to give a combination of a polymer-like ultralow elastic modulus and a steel-like ultrahigh yield strength over a wide temperature range, and such exotic properties arise from a unique strain glass state.

Helium is an atom of great scientific interest, yet much debate exists surrounding the shape its molecules form. Here Voigtsberger et al. present experimental results imaging the wavefuction of ⁴He₃ and ³He₄He₂ trimer systems, which suggest that ⁴He₃ is a random cloud while ³He₄He₂is a quantum halo state.

Anthers, the male reproductive organs in plants, are a model to explore the establishment of complex three-dimensional shapes. Live imaging, genetics and modelling reveal an active role for inner layers in driving morphogenesis.

In this work, Xu et al. established an in vitro model to assess the responses of astrocytes to the changes of matrix stiffness that may be related to pathophysiology. The investigated hydrogel backbones are composed of collagen type I and alginate. The stiffness of these hybrid hydrogels can be dynamically tuned through the association or dissociation of alginate chains, respectively. It was found that astrocytes obtain different phenotypes when cultured in hydrogels of different stiffness. The obtained phenotypes can be switched in situ when changing matrix stiffness in the presence of cells. Specifically, matrix stiffening reverts astrogliosis, whereas matrix softening initiates astrocytic activation in 3D.

This study reports a chiral instability topography in highly deformed core–shell spheres. A core–shell model and a scaling law are developed to understand its morphoelastic mechanism, which helps the design of a nature-inspired smart topographic gripper based on chiral localization.

The authors describe the mechanism of exo-endocytosis coupling at synapses. They find that actin forms a ring around the region of exocytosis. This ring conserves membrane area, allowing induction of inward membrane buckling following exocytosis.

Sheetz and colleagues use micropillar arrays to report that the regulation of rigidity sensing involves the tropomyosin-dependent control of the stepwise contractions needed to reach a force level sufficient for integrin adhesion reinforcement.

In this Review, Paterson and colleagues describe how bioelectronic approaches involving site-specific targeting of the autonomic nervous circuit could be used to treat cardiovascular disease, and reflect on current bioelectronic modalities, their limitations and future ways to improve therapeutic efficiency.

The involvement of nuclear pore proteins in cellular mechanosensing and metastasis is unclear. Here the authors identify that nuclear pore protein NUP210 promotes metastasis through the interaction with mechanotransducer LINC complex protein and chromatin to regulate mechanosensitive genes.

The neural crest of Xenopus laevis self-generates a stiffness gradient in the adjacent placodal tissue and follows this gradient by durotaxis.

It is desirable to have a microscopy technique that is non-invasive and able to provide high spatial resolution mapping of materials. Here Herruzo et al. develop a multifrequency force microscopy that enables simultaneous nanoscale mapping of mechanical spectra of soft matter surfaces.

The 3D/4D printing of shape memory polymers to create shape-morphing structures typically goes through a hot programming step possessing limited reconfigurability. Here the authors introduce a cold-programmed grayscale digital light processing-based 3D printing to encode different configurations during the 3D printing of shape-morphing structures.

Drops of liquid on a hot surface can exhibit fascinating behaviour such as the Leidenfrost effect in which drops hover on a vapour layer. Here Pham et al. show that when hydrogel drops are placed on a rapidly heated plate they bounce to increasing heights even if they were initially at rest.

Production of bulk bicontinuous materials is limited by the ability to make uniform microarchitectures across large volumes. Here elastic microphase separation is used to fabricate bicontinuous materials with a homogeneous microstructure, with feature sizes tuned by the matrix stiffness.

The glass transition temperature (Tg) is a key property that dictates the applicability of conjugated polymers. Here the authors use one adjustable parameter to build a relationship between the Tg and the molecular structure of semiflexible polymers that differ in aromatic backbone and alkyl side chain chemistry.

Continuous shape morphing for small robots can offer advantages, but it is difficult to perform tasks if they are not stiff enough. Xu et al. present here a design combining liquid crystal elastomers and shape memory polymers to lock morphable elements in place.

Seismological observations of the D′′ layer near the core–mantle boundary are difficult to interpret and the minerals present are unstable at ambient conditions. Yoneda et al.present experiments using analogues, suggesting the observations are due to preferred crystal orientations.

Characterization of seminal root number variation in the root systems of >9,000 global maize accessions and its wild relatives provides insights into root trait adaptation to environments during domestication and global expansion.

Conway et al. show that integrin β1 phosphorylation is regulated through balanced activities of tyrosine kinases, such as Src and Arg, and phosphatases, such as PTP-PEST and Shp2, facilitating invadopodia formation and invasion of breast cancer cells.

Spiracles are tubes that connect the buccopharyngeal cavity with the surface of the skull and are found in many early-diverging fish lineages. Here the authors provide evidence that polypterid fishes use their spiracles to breathe air, and suggest that stem tetrapods may have used them similarly.

A nanoscale tube-in-tube sandwich structure is generated by a two-step templating-pyrolysis process, which strengthens the log-pile carbon architecture and slows down the decrease of stiffness with decreasing density.

The mechanics of the migration of T cells into tumours is an important aspect of tumour immunity. Here the authors engineer complex 3D environments to explore functions of microtubules and cell contractility as strategies to enhance T cell migration in tumour microenvironments.

High-enthalpy elastic metamaterials constructed from freely rotatable chiral metacells have high stiffness, large recoverable strain and improved buckling strength.

Synthetic materials tend to excel in either stiffness or extensibility, whereas a combination of the two is necessary to exceed the performance of natural biomaterials. Here the authors present a bioinspired polymer consisting of cyclic β-peptide rings that is capable of transitioning between rigid and unfolded conformations on demand.