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This study uses an X-ray free-electron laser to study transient highly strained structural states in individual palladium nanocrystals, which precede their uniform thermal expansion.

Observations of γ-rays with energies up to 1.4 PeV find that 12 sources in the Galaxy are PeVatrons, one of which is the Crab Nebula.

Non-Annex I countries—mostly developing countries under the UN climate framework—excluding China accounted for approximately 61% of hydrofluorocarbon emission growth during 2011–2020, while China’s emissions have been overestimated since 2017, according to atmospheric observational data and inverse modelling.

The transcription factor ATF4 and its effector lipocalin 2 (LCN2) have a key role in immune evasion and tumour progression, and targeting the ATF4–LCN2 axis might provide a way to treat several types of solid tumour by increasing anti-cancer immunity.

The STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory demonstrates evidence of spin correlations in \(\Lambda \bar{\Lambda }\) hyperon pairs inherited from virtual spin-correlated strange quark–antiquark pairs during QCD confinement.

Replacing animal feathers and wool with synthetic materials can ameliorate the ethical and environmental issues associated with the production of clothing designed to retain warmth. Here the authors present synthetic nanofibre textiles that combine wearability, comfort, lightness and thermal insulation.

The authors demonstrate strain-induced morphotropic phase boundary-like nanodomains in lead-free NaNbO₃ thin films, enabling multi-state switching and large enhancements in dielectric susceptibility and tunability over a broad frequency range.

Industrial hydrogen production in acidic media is constrained by high overpotential and poor durability. Here, the authors report plasma-enhanced deposition of nanoedge enriched molybdenum oxycarbide electrocatalysts that enable efficient, durable, and high throughput hydrogen evolution.

The coexistence of frustrated magnetism and bond order is demonstrated in a family of antiferromagnets. Layers of dual frustrated orders are interleaved in the same crystal lattice, which presents an exciting possibility for engineering new responses.

Cooperative paramagnetism refers to a strongly correlated state without long range magnetic order that occurs in frustrated magnetic systems between the Neel temperature and Curie-Weiss temperature. Here, using resonant elastic magnetic and inelastic x-ray scattering, Terilli et al find a spectrally sharp gapped magnetic excitations that persists above the Neel temperature in Y₂Ir₂O₇, implying a cooperative paramagnetic phase.

Functional materials that act as bio-sensing media when interfaced with complex bio-matter are attractive for health sciences and bio-engineering. Here, the authors report room temperature enzyme-mediated spontaneous hydrogen transfer between a perovskite quantum material and glucose reactions.

A wearable human–machine interface combines inertial and electromyography sensors with deep learning to robustly extract gesture signals and enable real-time robotic control under diverse motion artefacts in dynamic environments.

Here, the authors sample air and surfaces in hospital rooms of COVID-19 patients, detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in air samples of two of three tested airborne infection isolation rooms, and find surface contamination in 66.7% of tested rooms during the first week of illness and 20% beyond the first week of illness.

Hydrogen-doping driven metal to ferroelectric phase transition in a complex oxide NdNiO₃ is demonstrated. Transient negative differential capacitance and implementation of polarization decay into neural network for learning are then presented.

Battery cathodes tend to degrade severely during high-voltage operations. Here the authors present a cathode design with a structurally coherent architecture, ranging from ordered to disordered frameworks, that addresses this issue.

Sodium layered metal oxides suffer from irreversible structural deterioration at high voltage in sodium-ion batteries. Here, authors develop a magnesium ion and vacancy dual-doping strategy to enhance the anionic redox reversibility and structural stability of layered oxides.

Pyrochlore iridates have been studied for their potential to explore novel phases due to the interplay of correlations, spin-orbit interaction, and more recently dimensionality. Here the authors report a chiral spin-liquid-like state in (111)-oriented Y₂Ir₂O₇ thin films which emerges at a reduced thickness.

Sensitive, biocompatible and stable contrast agents for MRI are in demand. Here, the authors combine gadolinium ions with amorphous calcium carbonate to make stable paramagnetic amorphous carbonate nanoclusters with high MRI contrast and significantly improved biocompatibility over commercial gadolinium-based agents.

Despite the growth in science spending and research output in China, young researchers are struggling to prosper, says Chuan-Chao Wang.

The high cost of Pt severely limits fuel cell deployment, but alternative Pt-free catalysts suffer from a low activity and, especially, durability. Now, a low-Pt-content catalyst consisting of Pt and Fe single atoms, dispersed on a nitrogen-doped carbon matrix, and Pt–Fe nanoparticles is shown to exhibit excellent activity and durability in fuel cells.

A compositionally complex (high-entropy) doping strategy is proposed to fabricate zero-strain high-Ni and Co-free layered cathodes with superior structural and mechanical stabilities and long cycle life.

The 4D Nucleome Project demonstrates the use of genomic assays and computational methods to measure genome folding and then predict genomic structure from DNA sequence, facilitating the discovery of potential effects of genetic variants, including variants associated with disease, on genome structure and function.

Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction into multicarbon products offers a means to close the anthropogenic carbon cycle using renewable electricity. Here, the authors report a cascade AgCu single-atom and nanoparticle electrocatalyst with favorable properties to improve the selectivity of multicarbon products.

The red fluorescent protein mScarlet3-H is bright, photostable and very robust to high temperature, chaotropic conditions and oxidative environments. mScarlet3-H works well in correlative light and electron microscopy, tissue clearing and time-lapse super-resolution microscopy.

Beam oscillation is an attractive method to achieve melt pool and microstructure control in laser powder bed additive manufacturing. Here, in-situ X-ray imaging and high-fidelity modeling reveal the unique keyhole dynamics in a kHz laser oscillation mode.

A vanadium-based lithium-rich disordered rock salt oxide is shown to work as a low-potential anode with rapid intercalation kinetics for lithium-ion batteries.

Systems comprising water and hydrophobic cavities, with scales ranging from nanometres to millimetres, are shown to expand upon compression, an unusual mechanical property of technological and biological relevance known as negative compressibility.

Layered Ni-rich oxide cathodes are susceptible to challenges with surface reconstruction and strain propagation, limiting their cyclability. The authors propose a solution involving oriented attachment-driven reactions, utilizing Wadsley–Roth nanocrystals and layered oxide to induce an epitaxial entropy-assisted coating, effectively addressing these issues.

Iron oxides prevail in the deep Earth, at extreme pressures and temperatures, with different stoichiometries than in ambient conditions. Here, high-pressure synchrotron X-ray spectroscopic measurements reveal the oxidation states of Fe and O in iron superoxide, shedding light on the puzzling chemistry of iron and oxygen in the deep Earth

Diffractive imaging of an important class of battery electrodes during cycling shows that lattice strain is a crucial yet overlooked factor that contributes to voltage fade over time.

The battery performance at the cell level is an integration of contributions from many active particles. Here, the authors present a direct visualization of the active cathode particles that react heterogeneously and asynchronously by using coherent multi-crystal diffraction and optical microscopy.

Electrochemical degradation is the most critical challenge for Li-rich materials. Here, the authors reveal that manganese related phase reaction inhomogeneity coupling with transition metal rearrangement triggers electrochemical degradation in lithium-rich layered cathode.

The ferroptosis suppressor protein FSP1 has a critical role in ferroptosis protection of tumours across multiple in vivo models and is linked to worse prognosis in human lung adenocarcinoma, suggesting its potential as a therapeutic target in lung cancer.

Dissolution of manganese from the cathode in lithium manganate based batteries is a major cause for the capacity decay. Here, the authors show a nanoscale surface-doping approach to mitigate the problem and to improve the battery capacity and cycleability.

Whether a polymorphic transition exists in high entropy alloys or not remains unclear since discovery of these alloys more than a decade ago. Here authors report an irreversible polymorphic transition fromfcc to hcp in the prototype FeCoCrMnNi high entropy alloy and provide evidence for fccphase being more stable than hcp phase only at high temperatures.

A low-potential dual-side hydrogen production system is more efficient than water splitting but suffers from stability issues. Here, the authors report a self-reactivating PdCu catalyst that operates stably for 120 h, offering an alternative solution for energy-efficient hydrogen production.

Understanding mesoscale structure and dynamics in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors is crucial. Mesoscale strain kinetics and structural hysteresis have been studied, and they uncover the coupling between charge carrier dynamics and mesoscale order in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors.

To unlock the potential of Mn-based cathode materials, the fast capacity fading process has to be first understood. Here the authors utilize advanced characterization techniques to look at a spinel LiMn₂O₄ system, revealing that a combination of irreversible structural transformations and Mn dissolution takes responsibility.

This paper shows that even a pure compound, in this case lead titanate, can display a morphotropic phase boundary under pressure. The results are consistent with first principles theoretical predictions, but show a richer phase diagram than anticipated; moreover, the predicted electromechanical coupling at the transition is larger than any known.

An antiviral and antibacterial cotton textile based on a fundamentally different principle of incorporating copper ions into the cotton structure at the atomic level is fabricated with excellent air/water retainability and superior mechanical stability.

The introduction of a coherent perovskite phase into the layered structure of a lithium-ion battery reduces lattice strain and stress to produce a robust crystal structure.

Gamma-ray emission up to and above 100 TeV is detected from the supernova remnant G106.3+2.7. The emission above 10 TeV is associated with a molecular cloud rather than the pulsar PSR J2229+6114, favouring a hadronic origin via the π⁰ decay caused by accelerated relativistic protons.

The joint analysis of datasets from NOvA and T2K, the two currently operating long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, provides new constraints related to neutrino masses and fundamental symmetries.

Nitrate, a common pollutant in wastewater and groundwater, has been efficiently converted into valuable ammonia products via an electrochemical method using Ru-dispersed Cu nanowire as the catalyst.

The process of protein crystallization is poorly understood and difficult to program through the primary sequence. Here the authors develop a computational approach to designing three-dimensional protein crystals with prespecified lattice architectures with high accuracy.

A repeated on–off high-temperature shockwave is shown to be a generalizable way of efficiently synthesizing and stabilizing single atoms at high temperatures.