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Prevalent recycling technologies focus on processing only one type of spent cathode material, demanding high energy input and significant chemical consumption. Here, authors present a redox‑mediated flow‑cell strategy to recover multiple cathode types, generating electricity during the process, with >95% metal leaching efficiency.

Nitrogen enrichment reduces phyllosphere microbial diversity and network stability in grasslands and exerts a stronger effect than changing precipitation, based on precipitation gradient and nitrogen addition experiments on the Mongolian Plateau.

Direct observation of the Migdal effect in neutron–nucleus collisions is reported, which resolves a long-standing gap in experimental validation.

Degradation of cathode materials is a key factor hindering the long-term stability of lithium ion batteries. Here, the authors develop a high-throughput computational approach to design effective cathode coating materials, proposing a selection of candidate materials to help improve cathode lifetimes.

Flexible force sensors are limited in perceptive dimension and performance. Here, the authors report a flexible six-axis force/torque sensor, enabling human and robots to dexterously manipulate objects, play games, and achieve human-robot collaborative operations for housekeeping via fingertip-touch.

Solving a task of optimal route search may be challenging for conventional algorithms. Here, authors use tunable random signals from magnetic tunnel junctions to improve a probabilistic greedy Traveling Salesman Problem solver to better balance exploration and efficiency, and make it applicable for larger problems.

Jun Wang and colleagues report the genome sequence of the cucumber. The cucumber genome is the seventh plant genome sequence to be reported and was assembled with a combination of traditional Sanger and next-generation sequencing methods.

Piracetam improves wide-bandgap perovskite crystallinity and uniformity, enabling monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells with efficiencies of 28.71% (0.07 cm²) and 28.20% (1.02 cm²), ensuring minimal efficiency loss during scale-up.

This work introduces roll-to-roll fluidics, a method that enhances reagent efficiency and reduces turnaround time, enabling rapid and economical next-generation sequencing.

Using multistate models, the authors examine the effects of loneliness and social isolation on the transition from a healthy state to cardiovascular disease, subsequent depression and death.

Frost is typically seen as a threat to plants and is expected to lead to decreased ecosystem carbon uptake due to reduced photosynthesis. However, this research shows that spring frosts can actually enhance ecosystem carbon absorption, while autumn frosts behave as expected, prompting an increase in carbon emissions.

Ferromagnetism and superconductivity possess inherently incompatible electronic spin ordering, and their coexistence requires elaborate engineering of material components. Here, the authors induce ferromagnetism in a two-dimensional superconducting crystal by the adsorption of hydrazine molecules.

Long-term stability and stable efficiency are essential for large-area fabrication of perovskite solar cells. Here, the authors achieve in situ anion-fixation and undercoordinated-Pb passivation using amidino-based ligand, realizing maximum power conversion efficiency of 25.3% with T95 over 500 h.

Soft electronic probes for measuring neural activity can be made scalably in an initially planar form and turned into various three-dimensional geometries through a controlled rolling method.

Optogenetic tools allowing transcranial neural inhibition in treating seizures are limited. This study demonstrates that noninvasive transcranial optogenetic activation of a highly sensitive K + -conductive channelrhodopsin (HcKCR1-hs) silences neurons and suppresses seizures deep in the brain, alleviating epilepsy symptoms in mouse models, without intracranial surgery.

Single-atom catalysts can exhibit improved catalytic performance with respect to their bulk counterparts. Now, the authors introduce a yolk@shell catalyst with spatially separated Pd and Fe single sites that simultaneously catalyse nitroaromatic hydrogenation and alkene epoxidation reactions, leading to a cascade synthesis of amino alcohols.

Atomically intimate assembly of FeO_x-Rh-ZrO₂ dual interfaces by selectively architecting highly dispersed FeO_x on ultrafine raft-like Rh clusters supported on tetragonal zirconia enables highly efficient tandem conversion of syngas to ethanol.

Zhang et al. report that the long noncoding RNA KCNQ1OT1 binds to double-stranded genomic DNA and to the heterochromatin protein HP1α to induce and maintain epigenetic silencing at repetitive DNA elements and guard against genomic instability and senescence.

Infected bone defects are a major challenge in orthopedic treatment. Here, the authors develop an electroactive mineralized scaffold that achieves nearly complete in situ healing of infected bone in rats, rabbits and beagle dogs.

The computational complexity of deep neural networks is a major obstacle of many application scenarios driven by low-power devices, including federated learning. A recent finding shows that random sketches can substantially reduce the model complexity without affecting prediction accuracy.

Single-atom catalysts maximize metal atom efficiency and exhibit properties that can be considerably different to their nanoparticle equivalent. Now a general host–guest strategy to make various single-atom catalysts on nitrogen-doped carbon has been developed; the iridium variant electrocatalyses the formic acid oxidation reaction with high mass activity and displays high tolerance to CO poisoning.

A synthesis of global change experiments that manipulated temperature, precipitation, carbon dioxide or nitrogen identifies a need to consider site-specific factors and interactions in Earth system models.

The electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction catalyzed by efficient and economical catalysts is critically important for sustainable energy devices. Here the authors report anchoring Pt atoms onto valence-adjustable CuO_x/Cu hybrid nanoparticle to dynamically tune the Pt 5d valence states at the initial reaction stage for optimizing oxygen reduction performance.

Aqueous Zn metal batteries are a promising system for high-power electrochemical energy storage. Here, the authors investigate a defective V₂O₃ cathode via neutron and X-ray techniques and test the material in Zn metal cell configuration for 30k cycles.

While Ru-based electrocatalysts are among the most active for acidic water oxidation, they suffer from severe deactivation. Now, Yuen Wu, Wei-Xue Li and co-workers report a core–shell Ru₁–Pt₃Cu catalyst with surface-dispersed Ru atoms for a highly active and stable oxygen evolution reaction in acid electrolyte.

This study analyses radio observations of the jet in galaxy M87, from which the existence of a spinning black hole that induces Lense–Thirring precession of a misaligned accretion disk is inferred.

The catalytic cycle of formate dehydrogenase is generally assumed to involve an apoenzyme state according to the Theorell–Chance mechanism. Now, based on single-molecule experiments and multiscale simulations of formate dehydrogenase from Candida boidinii, an alternative mechanism that bypasses the apoenzyme state is proposed.

The orientation of layered perovskites plays a crucial role in their charge transport behavior and hence, the efficiency of related solar cells. Here, the authors find that preformed 3D-like perovskites can efficiently template the growth of layered perovskites and determine their orientation.

Synergizing metal–support interactions and spatial confinement through atomic copper grippers boost the dynamics of highly loaded atomic nickel for high activity, high thermal/chemical stability and unprecedented coke inhibition in hydrogenation reactions.

Probing the direct effect of grain boundaries as active catalytic sites is very challenging. Here, the authors reveal that the d_z² orbital energy level of Mo atoms in grain boundaries exhibits an intrinsic relationship with the hydrogen evolution activity.

Strategies to improve the specificity of nuclease-based prime editor (PEn) are needed. Here the authors report a 53BP1-inhibitory ubiquitin variant-assisted PEn platform (uPEn) to inhibit NHEJ and enable precise prime editing for generation of insertions, deletions and replacements.

Global glacial chemical denudation is one of the largest contributors to global elemental cycles and, amplified by climate warming, will significantly impact nutrient loads in downstream ecosystems.

A free-swimming soft robot inspired by deep-sea creatures, with artificial muscle, power and control electronics spread across a polymer matrix, successfully adapts to high pressure and operates in the deep ocean.

The role of oxygen vacancies in carbon dioxide reduction remains somewhat unclear. Here, the authors fabricate vacancy-rich and vacancy-poor Co₃O₄single-unit-cell layers, and demonstrate by X-ray absorption and DFT that the material is a promising platform for mechanistic studies of carbon dioxide reduction.

Cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) is a cellular second messenger involved in many processes including regulation of neuronal excitability and vascular tone. Gao, Nagpalet al., employ a fungal rhodopsin to optogenetically control cGMP levels in multiple systems including C. eleganssensory neurons.

Sintering supported metal nanoparticles is the common route to the deactivation of industrial heterogeneous catalysts. Here, the authors report a carbon atomization process that allows one not only to redisperse metal nanoparticles, but also to recover deactivated catalysts.

Here, the authors identify a form of central iris hypoplasia affecting the pupillary zone. They suggest that noncoding structural variations can lead to Mendelian diseases by disrupting the 3D genome structure and resulting in altered gene expression.

Tailoring both the core size and shell thickness of core-shell bimetallic nanocatalysts to the dedicated geometrical and electronic properties are vital for catalytic performance optimization. Here the authors demonstrate such conjugated dual particle size effects on Au@Pd catalyzed benzyl alcohol oxidation.

Improving kinetics for electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction is relevant to important sustainable energy technologies. The authors propose an atomic-scale bimetal assembly consisting Pt and Fe dual sites to regulate the inherent scaling relationship between intermediates for fast kinetics.

2D chalcogenide semiconductors with luminescence and ferromagnetism (FM) are demanded in spintronics, valleytronic and photoelectric devices. Here the authors show such characteristics in monolayer MoS₂ by co-doping Co and Cr to build the FM interaction and cut-off the nonradiative recombination channels of excitons

Superlattices are made of alternating thin-film layers and offer a broader range of properties than natural materials. Here, the authors present a method for fabricating free-standing graphene–vanadium oxide superlattices, which could be used in smart windows or as temperature sensors.

Uncovering the dynamics of active sites in the working conditions is important yet challenging. Here the authors identify dynamic-coupling oxygen on atomically dispersed iridium sites during oxygen evolution reaction using in situ techniques.