Search

A probe with month-long molecular afterglow luminescence targeting a downregulated cancer biomarker detects small liver tumours for image-guided resection in mice and rabbits.

An abrupt drop in low-latitude mafic weathering flux amplified the Artinskian Warming Event, potentially constituted the most intense deglaciation interval within the Late Paleozoic Ice Age, according to geochemical analysis of proxies and simulations from the early Permian strata of the Naqing section in South China.

Two main acceleration mechanisms in the auroral acceleration region are electric potential and Alfvénic acceleration but associated energy dynamics are not completely resolved. Here, the authors show that Alfvén waves power the Earth’s auroral arc through a static potential drop in the auroral acceleration region.

Active matter systems, which include biological and synthetic components that consume energy to generate motion, exhibit complex behaviors influenced by their interactions with boundaries. This study reveals that surface-attached active drops can adopt a diverse range of stable shapes and internal flows, significantly expanding our understanding of their morphodynamics and providing insights for the design of advanced active materials.

Kim, Wang, Clow and colleagues show that long-range chromatin loops bringing distal enhancers or super-enhancers together with promoters are cohesin dependent and cell type specific, whereas most short-range and promoter-centric transcriptional loops are cohesin independent and constitutive.

Organic additives frequently shape crystallisation in natural and industrial settings, yet their precise influence on nucleation remains poorly understood. Here, Baken et al. investigate how additives affect the crystallization of the industrially relevant minerals portlandite and gypsum. Using controlled titration coupled with in situ synchrotron monitoring, the team demonstrates that both minerals form via intermediate steps: portlandite gradually becomes more ordered as it develops, while gypsum switches abruptly from a disordered to an ordered state. The study reveals that additives influence these pathways prior to nucleation by altering the nature of prenucleation clusters. How strongly an additive interacts with these clusters depends on its chemical state, which is controlled by the pH conditions specific to each mineral. These findings offer a starting point for creating an industrial “toolbox” to help select more effective additives, and they advance our understanding of biomineralisation processes.

Reconfigurable wavelength-selective devices are essential components of flexible optical networks. Here the authors show a silicon-photonic add-drop multiplexer meeting the strict requirements of telecom systems in terms of broadband operation range, hitless tunability and polarization transparency.

Molecular glue degraders have consistently been discovered retrospectively, despite their increasing importance. Herein, a high-throughput approach is described that modifies existing ligands into molecular glue degraders.

Electron transfer in molecular wires is typically dominated by tunnelling at short lengths. Now it is shown that conjugated molecular wires anchored to indium tin oxide electrodes exhibit a hopping mechanism even at 1-nm lengths, enabling charge extraction in tin perovskite solar cells and improved device performance.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of nucleotide excision repair complexes reveal the roles of the constituent proteins XPA, XPB, XPC, XPD, XPF, XPG and RPA in DNA bubble formation and excision of the lesion strand.

A vagal reflex to blood volume changes in the heart involves PIEZO2 and helps to stabilize blood pressure in an upright posture and after blood loss.

How the brain supports speaking and listening during conversation of its natural form remains poorly understood. Here, by combining intracranial EEG recordings with Natural Language Processing, the authors show broadly distributed frontotemporal neural signals that encode context-dependent linguistic information during both speaking and listening..

High energy use in controlled environment agriculture clouds its potential as a lower-carbon option for agri-food transformations. The authors find that using a Maximum Energy-use Threshold in specific contexts can provide a potential solution.

Currently many of the time resolved serial femtosecond (SFX) crystallography experiments are done with light driven protein systems, whereas the reaction initiation for non-light triggered enzymes remains a major bottle neck. Here, the authors present an expanded Drop-on-Tape system, where picoliter-sized droplets of a substrate or inhibitor are turbulently mixed with nanoliter sized droplets of microcrystal slurries, and they use it for time-resolved SFX measurements of inhibitor binding to lysozyme and secondly, binding of a β-lactam antibiotic to a bacterial serine β-lactamase.

Here the authors compare genetic testing strategies in rare movement disorders, improve diagnostic yield with genome analysis, and establish CD99L2 as an X-linked spastic ataxia gene, showing that CD99L2–CAPN1 signaling disruption likely drives neurodegeneration.

Compiling data on floral introductions and European colonial history of regions worldwide, the authors find that compositional similarity of floras is higher than expected among regions once occupied by the same empire and similarity increases with the length of time the region was occupied by that empire.

Two-dimensional perovskite phases at the bottom interfaces of solar cells improve performance, but their formation is challenging. To address this, Zhao et al. graft the 2D perovskite-phase precursor onto a functionalized SnO₂ electrode substrate.

The authors describe the discovery of a series of potent non-competitive allosteric inhibitors of the ZIKV NS2B-NS3 protease, which exhibit antiviral activity in vitro and robust oral efficacy against ZIKV infections in a mouse model.

This multicenter study demonstrates use of dried and capillary blood as a minimally invasive, scalable approach for Alzheimer’s biomarker testing in research, with potential as a widely scalable population-based research approach, especially in resource-limited settings.

An integrated optical parametric amplifier on thin-film lithium niobate achieves more than 17 dB gain with less than 200 mW input power.

Neuroinflammation triggers DNA damage and subsequent parthanatos-mediated neuron death. Inhibiting parthanatos in a mouse model of autoimmune inflammation is neuroprotective and reduces disease-associated paralysis.

Large sequences are integrated site specifically into the human genome without double-strand DNA cleavage.

Despite high morbidity and mortality, there are currently no approved vaccines for protection against Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus. Here the authors develop a ferritin nanoparticle-based MERS-CoV vaccine that elicits high levels of neutralizing antibodies in mice, non-human primates, and alpacas and prevents infection in an alpaca challenge model.

Regrowth of lost enamel in tooth decay and sensitivity is a major obstacle to overcome. Here, the authors report on a protein-based material that mimics features of natural enamel formation, allowing for epitaxial growth of apatite nanocrystals to restore enamel structure and function.

Langstein-Skora, Schmid, Huth et al. propose that intrinsically disordered region functionality can be driven by the interplay between linear binding motifs and contextual chemical characteristics such as charge and hydrophobicity.

In this study, authors employ fragment-based lead discovery to identify WRN inhibitors. The fragment hits reveal an additional allosteric pocket and uncover a previously uncharacterized structural conformation of the WRN helicase domain with unique orientations of the ATPase domains

Battery electrode binders are hard to image but strongly affect battery performance. Here, authors use silver and bromine staining to reveal common cellulose- and rubber-based binders in graphite and Si negative electrodes and identify processing that reduces electrode resistance.

Prima is an AI foundation model for neuroimaging based on clinical magnetic resonance imaging that offers accurate and explainable diagnostics, worklist priority for radiologists and clinical referral recommendations with equitable performance on diverse groups.

Genome-wide association analyses using data from 19 biobanks identify variants influencing risk of thyroid diseases and yield polygenic risk scores associated with features of aggressive thyroid cancer.

Analysis of Babesia divergens egress from host cells reveals druggable targets and identifies compounds for potential babesiosis treatment.

A comparative analysis of trait data combined with a mathematical model suggests that dietary specialization drives selection towards the smallest and largest body sizes in terrestrial mammals, as generalists outcompete specialists at intermediate sizes.

Real-time lab analysis is key to support clinical research during space missions. Here, the authors show scant test samples can be measured in microgravity using a miniature cytometery-based analyzer, the rHEALTH ONE with specific spaceflight modifications.

Human impacts on marine ecosystems are increasing the likelihood of pathogenic outbreaks, harmful algal blooms and coral stress. Here the authors develop a CRISPR biomonitoring tool that can help detect key marine species that are important to public health, the aquaculture sector and marine ecosystems.

Maurice et al. examine how cytokines regulate antigen-independent activation of memory CD8⁺ T cells. They show that IL-4 signaling changes the quality of the bystander T cell response by antagonizing IL-18 sensing and subsequent IFNγ production, but increasing granzyme B expression without changing perforin, thereby limiting bystander-mediated protection.

Viral ribonucleoprotein–viral protein networks form pre-replication centres that nucleate viral factories and drive respiratory syncytial virus replication.

There is a need for an easy-to-use clinical tool, that could predict favorable early PSA response and subsequently enhance early risk stratification, as well as guide treatment planning. Here, the authors show that based on patient data from four phase III randomized trials, Nadir androgen receptor pathway inhibitor (APRI)- Derived Integrative Response (NADIR) model predicts favorable early PSA response to ≤0.2 ng/mL by 6 months in metastatic hormone sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) patients initiating treatment with an APRI.

This meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials indicates that social safety nets can improve women’s economic achievements and agency. Pooled treatment effects are largest for unconditional cash transfers, public work programmes, social care services and asset transfers.

Genetic predictors of health outcomes often drop in accuracy when applied to people dissimilar to participants of large genetic studies. Here, the authors investigate the root causes and highlight open questions underlying this problem.

Here the authors analyse genetic data for over 400,000 British and Irish people, showing that the frequency of the major genetic risk factor for haemochromatosis varies from a low of 1/212 in Southern England to 1/62-1/54 in Outer Hebrideans and Northwest Irish. Clinically diagnosed haemochromatosis varies 11- fold in frequency across England, emphasising the uneven risk landscape.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses are of global concern. This study shows that a low-dose H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b Alum/CpG-adjuvanted vaccine elicits broad, durable antibody and T cell responses and protects female mice against lethal homologous and heterologous H5N1 challenges.

A martensitic alloy with a tensile strength exceeding 3 GPa and a fracture elongation of 5.13% is developed. These mechanical properties arise from interface complexes interacting with dense dislocation networks, which is a mechanism shown to be applicable to other compositions.

It remains unknown why only some sickle cell disease (SCD) patients develop lung thrombosis. Here, the authors show that an extracellular vesicle-dependent mechanism prevents lung thrombosis in SCD and how a CD39 polymorphism impairs this protection to promote lung thrombosis in subset of patients.