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Chromatin heterogeneity in the cell nucleus modulates the size, mobility, and formation of biomolecular condensates; decreasing chromatin heterogeneity correlates with decreased mobility of both endogenous and engineered condensates, revealing a key role for nuclear organization in cellular function.

A scalable silicon quantum processor unit cell made of two qubits confined to quantum dots operates at about 1.5 K, achieving 98.6% single-qubit gate fidelities and a 2 μs coherence time.

A large nuclear spin has been successfully placed in a Schrödinger cat state, a superposition of its two most widely separated spin coherent states. This can be used as an error-correctable qubit.

How cells actively change their shape is an open question. Now, a reconstituted minimal cytoskeleton composed of microtubules and molecular motors is shown to produce membrane fluctuations that drive active shape changes in synthetic cells.

In the canonical model of auditory processing, thalamocortical inputs to the primary auditory cortex initiate a hierarchical transmission to higher-order cortices. Here, authors reveal alternative auditory pathways that bypass the primary auditory cortex and directly activate higher-order cortex within <10 ms in mice, enabling parallel and distributed processing of fast sensory information across cortical areas.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of DNA helicases in various conformations provide insight into an ATP-hydrolysis-dependent ‘entropy switch’ that drives unwinding of DNA for replication, with probable conservation across viral and eukaryotic systems.

The study of insulating material by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is limited by charging artefacts. Here, the authors report an interleaved scanning approach on frozen-hydrated biological samples that fosters charge dissipation and attenuates artefacts.

Biased noise qubits, which can selectively suppress certain types of noise, are advantageous for quantum error correction of bosonic codes. Here the authors make an important step in this direction by demonstrating quantum control of a harmonic oscillator with a biased noise qubit.

Ruggeri et al. find in a study of 61 countries that temporal discounting patterns are globally generalizable. Worse financial environments, greater inequality and high inflation are associated with extreme or inconsistent long-term decisions.

A brain-to-voice neuroprosthesis enables a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to synthesize his voice in real time by decoding neural activity, demonstrating the potential of brain–computer interfaces to enable people with paralysis to speak intelligibly and expressively.

Public untargeted metabolomics data hold great promise for discovery but are difficult to access across repositories. Here, the authors develop universal identifiers and harmonized metadata to integrate major databases, enabling streamlined analysis and expanded research possibilities.

In this Review, Kennel and Greten highlight the role of immune cells in colorectal cancer (CRC) development, progression and metastasis as well as the impact of therapies on the immune microenvironment. They emphasize the need for novel strategies to enhance immunogenicity and CRC patient stratification to improve outcomes.

A coupled-oscillator-based all-to-all-connected Ising machine manufactured using 65-nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology and operating at room temperature can efficiently solve dense combinatorial optimization problems that cannot be effectively mapped or solved by quantum annealers.

Naturalistic communication is an aim for neuroprostheses. Here the authors present a neuroprosthesis that restores the voice of a paralyzed person simultaneously with their speaking attempts, enabling naturalistic communication.

A luminescence cascade system achieves 500-fold higher intensity and 8-fold longer signal persistence than conventional bioluminescence assays, enabling reliable and effective use of bioluminescence for point-of-care diagnostics.

Superfluid ³He appears to be composed of two independent superfluid subsystems. Here the authors discuss diffusion of quasiparticles in the two-dimensional boundary superfluid.

Qubit-cavity entanglement can be used for quantum information processing and for investigating the quantum-to-classical transition with high control. Here, the authors characterize the entanglement between an artificial atom and a cat state and its susceptibility to decoherence through Bell test witnesses.

A tomography protocol that exploits the control offered by optical tweezers allows the reconstruction of motional states of a single trapped atom. This has implications for the study of non-classical states of massive trapped and levitated particles.

Electron charge and spin shuttling is a promising technique for connecting distant spin qubits. Here the authors use conveyor-mode shuttling to achieve high-fidelity transport of a single electron spin in Si/SiGe by separation and rejoining of two spin-entangled electrons across a shuttling distance of 560 nm.

Medium- and branched-chain diols and amino alcohols are important industrial feedstocks, but they are biosynthetically challenging to produce. Here the authors introduce a modular polyketide synthase platform for the efficient production of these compounds.

Chromatin structure is thought to regulate transcription factor access by modulating DNA accessibility. Here, the authors show that in living human cells, euchromatin and heterochromatin are fully accessible, while centromeric chromatin remains partially inaccessible.

At present, there are no countermeasures against the GI genogroup of noroviruses. The authors characterize a protective human antibody that broadly recognizes this genogroup.

First-instar orchid mantis nymphs avoid predators by mimicking black-red assassin bugs, whereas those in later instars avoid predators and attract prey by camouflaging themselves as lighter-coloured flowers. Here the authors use developmental transcriptomics, evolutionary genomics and predation experiments to reveal that this ontogenetic colour change is regulated by a pigment transporter called Redboy that emerged in Polyneoptera 284–197 million years ago.

Interpreting bone metastases (BMs) from computed tomography (CT) images remains challenging. Here, the authors develop an AI-based Bone Lesion Detection System - BLDS - and validate it in a cohort of 2,518 patients across five hospitals, showing highly sensitive and accurate performance for BM detection from CT scans.

Zorya uses a membrane-anchored H⁺-driven rotary motor ZorAB to sense phage invasion and to recruit the intracellular effectors ZorC and ZorD that execute anti-phage defence.

This study reports unexpected structural diversity in computationally designed protein assemblies due to subunit flexibility. Fixing flexibility in one design restores the intended architecture, suggesting a strategy to design dynamic assemblies.

Pump-probe techniques—where a system is driven into a nonequilibrium state and then studied as a function of time—provide rich information about the behaviour of charge carriers and their interactions. Here, Yoo et al extend this class of techniques by injecting electrons at a selected energy and observing their decay in energy and momentum space.

Using an autonomous underwater vehicle, this study presents an integrated biogeochemical and multiomic analysis of microbial eukaryotes from the North Atlantic Ocean. The work highlights diverse communities that shift through depth zones, with signatures of nutrient biomarkers changing across a coastal-offshore spatial gradient.

Electron spin qubits in semiconductors show great promise, but fast, high-fidelity readout remains challenging. Here, by precisely engineering the location of two multi-donor quantum dot qubits in silicon, the authors demonstrate high-fidelity latched parity readout with reduced integration time, even at elevated temperatures.

High luminescence efficiency is difficult to achieve in metal nanoclusters. Here, the authors add multiple metal cations to gold nanocluster which suppress structural motions and manage electron transfer dynamics, realizing near-unity efficiency.

Fibertrodes enable the integration of optical and electrical signals in a tapered optical fiber-based implantable neural probe for optogenetic stimulation and simultaneous artifact-free electrophysiological recordings in mice.

Spin-orbit coupling in gate-defined quantum dots in silicon metal-oxide semiconductors provides a promising route for electrical control of spin qubits. Here, the authors demonstrate that intervalley spin–orbit interaction enables fast singlet–triplet qubit rotations in this platform, at frequencies exceeding 200MHz.

Potential ligand class-dependent differences in STING activation have both evolutionary and therapeutic implications. Here, the authors observe a unique oligomerization state of STING with an open-LBD ligand, suggesting additional regulatory mechanisms involved in activation by this ligand class.

By engineering an exceptionally controlled environment using rotationally magic optical tweezers, long-lived entanglement between pairs of molecules using detectable hertz-scale interactions can be achieved.