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Gold has a vital role in human society and the global economy, but its production currently causes high levels of environmental pollution. This work reports an approach that can effectively produce gold from both primary and secondary resources without the use of toxic substances such as mercury or cyanide.

Gold samples can be heated to more than 14 times their melting point while retaining their crystalline structure, far surpassing the predicted entropy catastrophe threshold and suggesting a substantially higher or potentially no limit for superheating.

Gold redox catalysis is an attractive synthetic method but challenging due to the high redox potential of Au(I)/Au(III). Now, a bidentate N-ligand-assisted gold redox catalysis using H₂O₂ as oxidant has been developed. It can be applied to various coupling reactions, including C(sp)–C(sp) cross-coupling, alkynylative cyclization and bicyclization coupling.

Plasmonic effects can turn reflective metals into strong absorbers, although this is usually realized within narrow wavelength ranges near resonances. Using arrays of ultra-sharp convex grooves, Søndergaardet al. show that nonresonant absorption can lead to effective broadband light absorption.

The transfer of chirality from surfaces to molecular species may have implications in areas from the origin of homochirality to heterogeneous catalysis. Here, the authors show that a chiral gold cluster can transfer its inherent chirality to adsorbed, achiral molecules, causing them to adopt chiral conformations.

The force required to break a chemical bond is related both to the bond strength and the rate at which force is applied, however recent experiments on gold nanowires have challenged this view. Here, the authors perform breaking experiments on single gold-gold bonds and propose a solution to the apparent paradox.

Spin-enhanced lateral flow tests use nanodiamonds for the sensitive, robust detection of disease biomarkers. Here, authors report a clinical evaluation of a test for SARS-CoV-2 antigen, finding 95.1% sensitivity (Ct ≤ 30) and 100% specificity, with detection 2.0 days earlier than conventional tests.

High gold concentrations in ore deposits associated with potassic magmas are likely due to selective precipitation of gold during hydrothermal processes, according to low gold concentrations measured during in-situ analyses of melt inclusions.

Wastewater surveillance for disease outbreaks currently requires lab testing which causes delays. Here, authors develop ultra-sensitive quantum sensors enabling 2-hour near-source pathogen detection from raw wastewater with high sensitivity and specificity, creating a portable “lab-in-a-suitcase” system.

Implant-associated infections with Staphylococcus aureus pose serious clinical challenges. Here, the authors develop a biosensor based on toxin-responsive liposomes encapsulating gold nanoclusters, providing a non-invasive, colourimetric diagnostic tool for bacterial infection detection with urinary readout.

Hidden catalysis plagues catalyst development and occurs when an impurity or species generated in situ facilitates the reaction instead of the intended catalyst. Current methods to identify hidden catalysis require time-consuming, labour-intensive mechanistic analyses, so limiting widespread use. A colorimetric indicator has been developed that enables rapid, visual detection of hidden borane catalysis.

Dual catalysis is widely employed by natural metalloenzymes to functionalize challenging substrates. Now, this concept is applied to artificial metalloenzymes by designing a hydroaminase with two biotinylated gold cofactors enabling an unnatural σ,π-activation mechanism of terminal alkynes.

In an integrated analysis of transcriptomic data from the SUBSPACE consortium and public datasets of patients with sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, trauma and burns, dysregulation within four consensus molecular clusters related to myeloid and lymphoid cells is associated with mortality and illness severity.

The products and dynamics in mutual neutralisation of \({{{{\rm{O}}}}_{2}}^{+}\) with O⁻ occurring in atmospheric sprites are unknown. Here, the authors reveal a dissociative two-step mechanism via intermediate Rydberg states and a dependence on the \({{{{\rm{O}}}}_{2}}^{+}\) vibrational state.

The electrochemical transformation of CO₂ into liquid fuels is a major challenge. Now, Jaramillo, Hahn and co-workers present a Au/Cu catalyst highly active to C₂₊ alcohols at low overpotentials as a result of a tandem mechanism where CO₂ is reduced to CO on Au and further reduced to C₂₊ alcohols on nearby Cu.

Integrating computational methods with brain-based data presents a path to precision psychiatry by capturing individual neurobiological variation, improving diagnosis, prognosis, and personalized care. This Viewpoint highlights advances in normative and foundation models, the importance of clinically grounded principles, and the role of robust measurement and interpretability in progressing mental health care.

Using two wavelengths to activate different photoreactions in a resin system has attracted attention in the scientific community. Here, the authors use wavelength orthogonal photochemistry to spatially control the curing kinetics of a thiol-ene photopolymerization reaction.

Artificial cilia array devices are developed for sound frequency decoding and executing tasks such as drug release.

Electrochemical CO₂ reduction is a potential route to the sustainable production of valuable fuels and chemicals. In this joint experimental-theoretical work, the authors address the issue of the rate-limiting step on Gold and present insights from multi-scale simulations into the importance of the electric double layer on reaction kinetics and mass transport.

Kinesin, a motor protein, moves along filaments in a walk-like fashion to transport cargo to specific places in the cell. Here, the authors developed an analogous, artificial system consisting of nanoparticles moving along DNA filaments.

Treating Alzheimer’s disease, one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases, is of wide interest. Here, the authors report on the development of casein coated gold nanoparticles which were able to cross the blood brain barrier and protect against amyloid beta toxicity in a zebrafish model.

Efficient catalysts for the oxygen-evolution reaction, especially in alkaline media, are highly desired because of their application in various energy technologies. Now, a gold-supported NiCeO_x catalyst is shown to have excellent catalytic activity due to synergistic geometric and electronic effects.

DNA nanostructures are typically used as molecular scaffolds. Now, it has been shown that they can also act as reusable templates for ‘molecular printing’ of DNA strands onto gold nanoparticles. The products inherit the recognition elements of the parent template: number, orientation and sequence asymmetry of DNA strands. This converts isotropic nanoparticles into complex building blocks.

Imbalanced nucleotide metabolism leads to age- and mtDNA-dependent inflammatory responses and senescence-associated secretory phenotype in senescence.

High-density multimodal soft bioelectronic fibres provide a platform for minimally invasive implantable electronics, where diverse sensing and stimulation functionalities can be effectively integrated.

The performance of inverted perovskite solar cells has been limited by non-radiative recombination at the perovskite surfaces. Here, authors employ phosphonic acids and piperazinium chloride for homogeneous passivation, achieving certified efficiency of 28.9% for 60 cm² perovskite-silicon tandems.

Studies into gold-catalysed cross-coupling reactions have expanded over recent decades; however, oxidative addition to gold(i) complexes remains challenging. Now it has been shown that a dual catalytic transformation involving iridium photosensitization to trigger oxidative addition to organogold intermediates enables C(sp²)–C(sp) cross-coupling reactions that are useful for the alkynylation of benzofurans.

Kinetics for a multi-cleavage reaction of polyproteins and the viral protease from four human coronaviruses reveals that processing speed and order are not conserved. Moreover, full processing is not always a requirement for complex formation.

Previous research has suggested that pDCs are required for an effective antiviral immune response, but direct experimental evidence to support this is lacking. Here Ngo et al. develop a pDC knockin mouse model and find that pDCs are dispensable for an antiviral immune response to mouse cytomegalovirus and may be detrimental during influenza or SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The genetic distance between parents influences hybrid performance in plants. Here Miller et al. show that Arabidopsishybrids produced from diverse parental ecotypes have reduced expression of stress responsive genes at certain times of the day and this correlates with greater biomass production.

Van der Waals heterostructures can be combined with metallic nanostructures to enable enhanced light–matter interaction. Here, the authors fabricate a broadband mechanical electro-optical modulator using a graphene/hexagonal boron nitride vertical heterojunction, suspended over a gold nanostripe array.

Miyoshi and colleagues propose STELLA-SPIM microscopy to visualise single MYO7A molecules in live murine inner ear hair cells. Their data suggest that MYO7A traffics as a dimer within stereocilia to assemble the mechanoelectrical transduction machinery.

Targeted in situ sequencing directly maps editing rates at single-cell resolution in postmortem tissues to visualize base and prime editor delivery.

Opposing forces generated by exopolysaccharide trail binding versus type IV pilus retraction generate a high cyclic diGMP–high cyclic AMP state in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that promotes social motility.

To accelerate the design of plasmonic alloy nanoparticles for application in solar energy conversion devices, a detailed understanding of their electronic structure is required. Here, the authors use an atomistic modelling approach that combines a solution of Maxwell’s equations with large-scale tight-binding simulations to study the generation of hot carriers in large spherical gold-silver alloy nanoparticles.

Plasmonic nanostructures enable the concentration of large electric fields into small spaces. The classical analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency has now been achieved in such devices, leading to a narrow resonance in their absorption spectrum. This combination of high electric-field concentration and sharp resonance offers a pathway to ultracompact sensors with extremely high sensitivity.

The synthesis of crystalline 2D polymers typically relies on reversible dynamic covalent reactions, but achieving 2D polymers through irreversible carbon-carbon coupling reactions remains a formidable challenge. Here, the authors present an on-liquid surface synthesis method for constructing diyne-linked 2D polymers.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

A microfluidics- and electron-microscopy-based method enables the characterization of polyclonal antibody responses to infection and vaccination.

In this work, authors test Tip60 HAT activation as a therapeutic strategy for selectively restoring cognition-associated histone acetylation depleted in AD by developing compounds that bind to and enhance Tip60’s neuroprotective HAT function.

Clusters of gold atoms protected with achiral thiolates can display chirality, and such chiral nanoparticles could open new possibilities in catalysis and sensing. Here, the first separation of the enantiomers of a gold cluster, protected by achiral thiolates, Au₃₈(SCH₂CH₂Ph)₂₄, is achieved.

Surprisingly consistent replication failure of gray matter correlates of childhood maltreatment raises questions about publication bias in prior literature and about prevailing models linking maltreatment to brain structure in adult populations.

The regulatory landscape controlling Hoxd gene expression in tetrapod digit development was probably co-opted from a pre-existing cloacal regulatory mechanism, as evidenced by the effects of genetic deletion experiments in zebrafish fin, cloaca and mouse urogenital development.