Search

Lillianite materials usually have low thermoelectric efficiency due to the inherently inferior electrical properties. Here, the authors evaluate thermoelectric performances in Pb₇Bi₄Se₁₃ based lillianites enabled by convergence of nested conduction bands.

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

The Kondo effect has been observed in a variety of systems, including carbon nanotube quantum dots and graphene in the presence of impurities. Here, the authors report the observation of the Kondo effect in bilayer graphene quantum dots and study its interplay with weak spin-orbit coupling.

As nature’s most important enzyme, Rubisco fixes carbon dioxide in the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle. Its lesser-known side job is supplying pyruvate in the chloroplast, an observation that solves a long-standing paradox of central metabolism.

A tunable quantum dot device in Bernal bilayer graphene possesses a spin–valley relaxation time of 38 s at millikelvin temperatures.

Even simple periodic mechanical lattices can exhibit exotic topologically protected modes. Incorporating defects into the mix makes things more interesting — revealing modes whose characteristics depend on properties of both the lattice and the defect.

Tilgner et al. demonstrated the formation of the quantum spin Hall insulator bismuthene on SiC, intercalated underneath a protective graphene layer. A hydrogen-induced orbital filtering effect is the driving force behind this reversible phase transition.

The interaction between proximal 2D materials can lead to fundamental changes in electronic properties. Here, the authors provide evidence of two distinct types of spin-orbit coupling induced in bilayer graphene through the presence of a proximal MoS₂ layer.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

The North Water polynya is a unique but vulnerable ecosystem, home to Indigenous people and Arctic keystone species. New palaeoecological records from Greenland suggest human abandonment c. 2200–1200 cal yrs BP occurred during climate-forced polynya instability, foreshadowing future ecosystem declines.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Using microcosms, stable isotope probing, genome-resolved metagenomics and NanoSIMS, the authors identify diverse bacterial taxa that can degrade extracellular DNA in marine sediments, including ‘Candidatus Izemoplasma’, which encode numerous extracellular nucleases.

Flores et al. show that brain-penetrant eIF2B agonists suppress ISR activation in cellular and mouse models of ALS and reduce ISR biomarkers in humans, enabling further clinical studies of ISR inhibition in individuals with neurological diseases

Understanding the induced and cross reactive immunity to sarbecoviruses is an important step in rationale and widely applicable vaccine design. Here the authors use a multivalent S2 subunit vaccine and demonstrate protection in female mice against SARS-CoV-2-like and SARS-CoV-1-like coronaviruses.

A single electron quantum dot in bilayer graphene is a candidate for a spin-valley qubit, however its excited state spectrum has not been determined under relevant conditions. Here the authors accomplish this using time-resolved charge detection technique and set the new upper bound on the inter-valley mixing.

Using data from a single time point, passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate (PACER) estimates the fitness of common driver mutations that lead to clonal haematopoiesis and identifies TCL1A activation as a mediator of clonal expansion.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

Loss of PP2A activity is often associated with cancer but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Here, the authors show that decreased methylation of PP2A catalytic C subunit caused by loss of LCMT-1 in prostate cancer abrogates the tumor suppressor activity of PP2A on AR/MED1-dependent gene expression, proposing decreased methyl-PP2A-C as a prognostic marker for prostate cancer progression.

The radial-velocity technique could detect a small gas giant orbiting a binary star and determine its mass: 65.2 ± 11.8 Earth masses. The system also hosts a smaller inner planet, making it one of the few known multiplanetary circumbinary systems.

Graphene nanoribbons are potential systems for engineering topological phases of matter, but the pre-required gapped phases are difficult to find. Here, the authors show that chiral graphene nanoribbons undergo a transition from metallic to topological insulators, and then to trivial band insulators as they are narrowed down to nanometer widths.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

Transferrin receptor (TfR) and CD98hc are increasingly used to enable more effective drug delivery to the central nervous system. Here, the authors reveal comprehensive and distinct brain cellular and whole body biodistribution patterns of TfR- and CD98hc-binding molecules.

Using the valley degree of freedom in analogy to spin to encode qubits could be advantageous as many of the known decoherence mechanisms do not apply. Now long relaxation times are demonstrated for valley qubits in bilayer graphene quantum dots.

Obtaining data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from healthy human populations is difficult. Here, Hendriksen et al. use metagenomic analysis to obtain AMR data from untreated sewage from 79 sites in 60 countries, finding correlations with socio-economic, health and environmental factors.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.