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The lowest-frequency gravitational wave background may be shaped by supermassive black hole binaries that scatter nearby stars or dark matter. In this case, the NANOGrav 15-year dataset favours dense galactic centres with 10⁶ solar masses per cubic parsec.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Current lithium-ion batteries still rely heavily on nickel (Ni), whose growing demand raises serious economic and environmental concerns. This work now presents a cathode that delivers longer cycle life than high-Ni chemistry while substantially reducing Ni use.

The primary entry route of vanilloid ligands to the vanilloid-binding site in transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) is found to be a distinct and targetable hydrophobic pathway at the TRPV1–cell membrane interface rather than through direct membrane penetration.

This study elucidates nanoscopic strain evolution in single-crystal Ni-rich positive electrodes, demonstrating that mechanical failure results from lattice distortions, and redefines the roles of cobalt and manganese in battery cycling stability.

The study provides observational evidence of energy transfer in space plasmas, showing hydrogen and helium ions interact differently with ion-scale waves. Despite helium’s low abundance, they show their interaction can excite electrostatic waves, facilitating energy transfer across scales and challenging traditional models.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analyses of polycystic ovary syndrome in women of East Asian and European ancestries identify 94 independent susceptibility regions, including 73 novel loci.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

Layered positive electrode materials inevitably face air exposure during manufacturing. Here, authors show that single-crystalline Ni-rich layered oxides suffer greater performance degradation upon air exposure due to the defects and strain caused by surface lattice distortion and phase transition.

Spatial multiomics methods have deepened our understanding of cellular niches within the tumour microenvironment, but deriving clinical insights remains challenging. Here, the authors develop stClinic, a dynamic graph model that integrates spatial multi-slice multiomics data with phenotype data to reveal clinically relevant cell niches in cancer.

Tailored to provide diabetes management recommendations from large training and validation datasets, an artificial intelligence system integrating language and computer vision capabilities is shown to improve self-management of patients in a prospective implementation study.

The interfaces in perovskite solar cells are critical to the device performance. Li et al. tune the bond strength of the interfacial molecule with the perovskite and the electron transport layer, increasing the power conversion efficiency of the cells.

Acid-sensing ion channel 1a (ASIC1a) mediates acidic neuronal necroptosis via recruiting receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1). Here authors show that auto-inhibition of ASICa prevents RIPK1 recruitment and demonstrate that targeting the auto-inhibition has therapeutic potential to prevent acidotoxicity.

A trans-ancestry meta-analysis of GWAS of glycemic traits in up to 281,416 individuals identifies 99 novel loci, of which one quarter was found due to the multi-ancestry approach, which also improves fine-mapping of credible variant sets.

China’s dramatic demographic shift toward population aging raises challenges at the individual, familial and societal levels. Fang et al. review these challenges and emerging policies designed to promote healthy longevity in China.

Oxygen redox instability at high voltages hinders the application of high-energy battery cathodes. Here the authors report that elimination of domain boundaries in single-crystal cathodes improves the redox stability and consequently the electrochemical performance in extended high-voltage cycling.

Spin injection in pure topological surface states of topological insulators is challenging due to the coexistence of highly conducting bulk states. Here, Song et al. report spin injection and inverse Edelstein effect in the spin–momentum locked surface states of topological Kondo insulator SmB₆.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

Here, the authors develop an antiferromagnet/topological insulator heterostructure, MnSe/(Bi,Sb)₂Te₃, to obtain laser-induced transient magnetic moment and optically controllable circularly polarized ultrafast terahertz pulse generation, under zero external magnetic field.

Solar-driven carbon dioxide reduction has witnessed a renaissance in the past decades, but the system suffers from low reaction rates. Here the authors develop a copper/tin-oxide electrocatalyst, achieving a new benchmark solar-to-CO energy conversion efficiency in a flow electrolyzer.

Ytterbium oxide buffer layer for use in perovskite solar cells yields a certified power conversion efficiency of more than 25%, which enhances stability across a wide variety of perovskite compositions.

Here, a draft sequence of the giant panda genome is assembled using next-generation sequencing technology alone. Genome analysis reveals a low divergence rate in comparison with dog and human genomes and insights into panda-specific traits; for example, the giant panda's bamboo diet may be more dependent on its gut microbiome than its own genetic composition.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Solar water splitting is often performed in highly corrosive conditions, presenting materials stability challenges. Gu et al. show that an efficient and stable hydrogen-producing photocathode can be realized through the application of a graded catalytic–protective layer on top of the photoabsorber.

The semileptonic decay channels of the Λc baryon can give important insights into weak interaction, but decay into a neutron, positron and electron neutrino has not been reported so far, due to difficulties in the final products’ identification. Here, the BESIII Collaboration reports its observation in e+e- collision data, exploiting machine-learning-based identification techniques.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

While Bell inequalities have been violated several times—mostly in photonic systems—their violations within particle physics experiments are less explored. Here, the BESIII Collaboration showcases Bell-violating nonlocal correlations between entangled hyperon pairs.

Pressure-induced modulation of interlayer coupling and elastic constant in two-dimensional layered materials is quantitatively described through a unified chain model, offering insights into the tunable mechanical behaviors under extreme conditions.

In Li-ion batteries, single crystalline cobalt-free lithium transition metal oxides are less understood than their polycrystalline counterparts. Here, authors show that the absence of cobalt in single crystalline oxides results in structural degradation that ultimately degrades battery performance.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

Here, Shao et. al attribute the reduction in bone mechano-responsiveness seen in type 2 diabetes to abnormal osteocytic calcium dynamics. They identify reduced SERCA2 pump activity as a mediator of this process and show that rescuing SERCA2 significantly improves bone mechanical adaptation in this context.

A genome-wide association study including over 76,000 individuals with schizophrenia and over 243,000 control individuals identifies common variant associations at 287 genomic loci, and further fine-mapping analyses highlight the importance of genes involved in synaptic processes.

The formation of organelles was a pivotal point in eukaryotic evolution. Here they show that Archaea possess Arf-like GTPases that can perform key organelle-producing mechanisms when expressed in a eukaryotic cell, laying the foundation for the evolution of endomembrane organelles.

Chemical libraries with skeleton diversity are important for drug discovery. Here, the authors establish a synthetic methodology-based compound library (SMBL), and apply it to identify a small-molecule inhibitor to interrupt a challenging target:  the protein–protein interaction (PPI) of GIT1/β-Pix.

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.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Sparse labelling and whole-brain imaging are used to reconstruct and classify brain-wide complete morphologies of 1,741 individual neurons in the mouse brain, revealing a dependence on both brain region and transcriptomic profile.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

According to conventional wisdom, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) can only measure the magnitude of the superconducting gap but not its phase. Here, the authors propose a new method to directly detect the superconducting gap phase using ARPES and validate this technique on a cuprate superconductor.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.