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A new artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek-R1, is introduced, demonstrating that the reasoning abilities of large language models can be incentivized through pure reinforcement learning, removing the need for human-annotated demonstrations.

Model thiophene-decorated nickel porphyrins are synthesized to examine how sulfur promotes CO₂-to-CO conversion and tandem CO₂-to-C₂ product conversion in electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction. Combined theoretical and experimental analyses show that thiophene substituents generate a ligand hole character that modulates the nickel-centred electronic structure, enhancing overall catalytic performance.

Indonesian cattle are unique due to their history of admixture involving both zebu and banteng. Here, Wang et al. identify ~3.5 million novel introgressed SNP variants and provide a genomic map of banteng introgression within and across many cattle breeds, each with unique introgression histories.

An approach that integrates electrochemical CO₂ reduction and biological denitrification provides a new solution for nitrogen removal, where the formate obtained from CO₂ is used directly as the carbon source in the denitrification process in wastewater treatment.

JWST/NIRSpec observations of the 49 Ceti debris disk reveal spatially resolved, fluorescently excited CO emission, indicating a secondary origin of the gas in debris disks (that is, from the collision of volatile-rich bodies).

3D correlative nanoscale tomography on an Fe-W alloy shows that topology requires secondary grain boundary dislocations which strongly control patterned solute segregation, reshaping segregation energy spectra and opening routes for advanced alloy design.

Coastal settlement retreat reflects human behavioural adaptation to increasing coastal climate hazards. Using night-time light data over 1992–2019, this study finds that over half of global coastal settlements have retreated, driven by insufficient infrastructure protection and adaptive capacity.

Native crystallographic defects are often introduced during synthesis of battery materials, but has been overlooked. Here, using in situ synchrotron X-ray probes and electron microscopy, the authors have revealed their adverse effect during battery operation.

An ex vivo model and pre-clinical study in a brain-dead recipient provide enzyme-converted O organs to avoid hyperacute rejection in ABO-incompatible kidney transplant patients.

Managing power exhaust in fusion reactors is a key challenge, especially in compact designs for cost-effective commercial energy. This study shows how alternative divertor configurations improve exhaust control, enhance stability, absorb transients and enable independent plasma regulation.

Using extended-gate capacitive coupling and diode connection, stretchable biosensors with a built-in differential circuit design can be created that can offer low signal distortion under bias stress instability, uniaxial strain, compression and temperature variations.

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

The insertion of thin layers of cobalt can stabilize β-tungsten under back-end-of-line thermal constraints, allowing a 64-kb spin–orbit torque magnetic random-access memory to be fabricated that offers a spin–orbit torque switching of 1 ns, data retention of more than 10 years and a tunnelling magnetoresistance of 146%.

A combination of adenovirus-vectored and subunit protein intranasal vaccine enhances immune response against SARS-CoV-2 variants in animal models and humans.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

Zinc-ion batteries face challenges like dendrite formation, limiting their performance. Here, authors reveal that high-current deposition forms (002) textured Zn, enhancing cycling life, and propose guidelines for optimizing battery cycling protocols based on advanced in situ XRD analysis.

Pseudocapacitors are emerging as alternatives to conventional supercapacitors. Here, authors showed an uncommon charge storage mechanism in a high-rate conjugated polyelectrolyte and demonstrated practical pouch and solid-state pseudocapacitor devices with competitive energy up to 71 μWh cm⁻² and power performance up to 160 mW cm⁻².

The Einstein Probe has discovered a fast X-ray transient, EP240414a, associated with a broad-lined type Ic supernova. Its unusually soft spectrum and weak jet add to the diversity of stellar deaths and suggest a previously unknown Wolf–Rayet star explosion mechanism.

Through the sonochemical exfoliation of grown black phosphorus crystals, high-quality, narrow and clean black phosphorus nanoribbons with smooth edges and defined edge chirality are achieved, enabling the realization of high-performance transistors and photodetectors.

Long-lasting oxygen catalysts are crucial for rechargeable zinc-air batteries. Here, the authors report that placing tungsten atoms next to iron atoms within N₄ units creates durable Fe-N₄/W-N₄ diatomic sites, enabling a zinc-air battery to cycle reliably for more than 10,000 h.

In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Buchanan et al. show evidence confirming the phenomenon of semantic priming across speakers of 19 diverse languages.

Delayed femtosecond photoemission from a single-walled carbon nanotube enables pulsed electron beams with an unprecedented combination of pulse duration and energy spread.

This study introduces the Cattle Cell Atlas, a single-cell expression resource including 1,793,854 cells from 59 tissues. Integrative analyses leveraging this atlas provide insights into the biology underlying bovine monogenic and complex traits.

This work proposes a wet-chemical etching assisted aberration-enhanced single-pulsed femtosecond laser nanolithography, named “WEALTH”, for manufacturing small-size, large-area, deep holey nanostructures, promising for emerging nanophotonic devices.

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.

A CRISPR knock-in strategy that uses endogenous gene regulatory mechanisms can engineer ‘armoured’ CAR T cells that secrete proinflammatory cytokines directly within a tumour without causing toxicity, leading to prolonged survival in mice.

Cryogenic electron microscopy structures and functional analyses reveal that NCLX functions as a H⁺/Ca²⁺ rather than a Na⁺/Ca²⁺ exchanger, and uncover its transport mechanism with implications for therapies treating cardiac and neurodegenerative disorders related to abnormal mitochondrial Ca²⁺.

Parity-time symmetry breaking and related non-Hermitian phenomena, such as high-order exceptional points, have attracted significant interest across various experimental platforms. Here the authors demonstrate a third-order exceptional point induced by parity-time symmetry breaking in a dissipative trapped ion.

Ice is not piezoelectric, despite the polarity of water molecules, but bending ice may produce electricity. This has now been experimentally demonstrated, with a flexoelectric coefficient comparable to that of common ceramic materials.

Combining atomic-scale imaging and density-functional-theory defect phase diagrams, this study shows that boron at steel grain boundaries rearranges iron atoms, triggers defect phase transformations, and greatly increases resistance to embrittlement.

Xue et al. report self-powered photoelectrochemical photodetectors based on CuOx decorated AlGaN nanowires with staggered energy band structure. High-energy photons can be absorbed by CuOx to trigger the multiexciton generation effect, enabling an external quantum efficiency of 131.5% at 255 nm.

The death of massive stars has traditionally been discovered by explosive events in the gamma-ray band. Liu et al. show that the sensitive wide-field monitor on board Einstein Probe can reveal a weak soft-X-ray signal much earlier than gamma rays.

A benchtop fusion reactor, called the Thunderbird Reactor, is described, showing that electrochemically loading a metal lattice with deuterium could enhance nuclear fusion rates when that metal is also bombarded by deuterium ions.

Here, the authors show that KDM2A regulates cell cycle progression, modulation of H3K36me2 and H3K27me3 chromatin states and gene repression which are critical for survival of differentiating spermatogonia. KDM2A regulates progression through meiosis as well.

Simulating molecular adsorption on surfaces presents considerable challenges, as computational methods typically suffer from either insufficient accuracy or prohibitive computational costs. Now, with an open-source multilevel embedding approach, adsorption processes on the surfaces of ionic materials can be modelled routinely with an accuracy comparable to that of experiments.

Interactive stressors influence microbial-regulated phosphorus cycling and availability in soil by changing the abundance and diversity of phosphorus cycling microorganisms and associated stoichiometric parameters, according to an analysis of soil samples from a large-scale survey across China

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.

Cooperative paramagnetism refers to a strongly correlated state without long range magnetic order that occurs in frustrated magnetic systems between the Neel temperature and Curie-Weiss temperature. Here, using resonant elastic magnetic and inelastic x-ray scattering, Terilli et al find a spectrally sharp gapped magnetic excitations that persists above the Neel temperature in Y₂Ir₂O₇, implying a cooperative paramagnetic phase.

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.

Authors use a high-entropy engineering approach to produce fully amorphous BiTO films by exfoliation and annealing, creating crystalline regions, leading to flexible ceramics with dielectric properties.

Replacing animal feathers and wool with synthetic materials can ameliorate the ethical and environmental issues associated with the production of clothing designed to retain warmth. Here the authors present synthetic nanofibre textiles that combine wearability, comfort, lightness and thermal insulation.

Finite momentum superconducting pairing refers to a class of unconventional superconducting states where Cooper pairs acquire a non-zero momentum. Here the authors report a new superconducting state in bulk 4Hb-TaS₂, where magnetic fields induce finite momentum pairing via magnetoelectric coupling.

This work develops dye-lanthanide tandem-sensitized perovskite nanocrystals that can harvest a broad range of infrared light, upconvert it to sensitize excitons, and generate multicolor band-edge exciton luminescence

Safe lithium-ion batteries require stable electrolytes with high chemical resistance and high thermal tolerance. Chen et al. find a solid lithium-salt electrolyte that is able to give rise to a prolonged battery life and a delayed decomposition of battery cathodes.

Solution-grown perovskite heterojunctions and quantum wells bring new opportunities for exploring semiconductor physics in a convenient manner

The authors advance the foundations of exciton-polariton transport based on a field-theoretical approach. This provides microscopic insight on the experimentally observed group velocity renormalization effect.

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.

Genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 screening reveals novel modulators of heparan sulfate proteoglycans that regulate cellular uptake of α-synuclein fibrils, including in human dopaminergic neurons.

Stereoselective synthetic routes use P3HB (a polyester produced by bacteria) as a chiral feedstock for related polymers that have properties more amenable to processing and use.