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Plasma turbulence is the main driver to deteriorate the performance of fusion power plants. This work presents an unprecedented comparison of plasma turbulence between experiment and simulation, proving that the gyrokinetic model GENE reached a high level of maturity to predict core turbulence.

High-pressure diamond anvil cell experiments reveal that compression strengthening of nanocrystalline nickel increases as its grain sizes decrease to 3 nanometres, owing to dislocation hardening and suppression of grain boundary plasticity.

Most genetic studies for prostate cancer have been performed outside the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Here, the authors interrogate 247,780 exomic variants for 798 Black South African men and identify genes associated with aggressive disease.

Biodegradable plastics usually have poorer mechanical or transport properties compared to conventional plastics. Here the authors show a class of biorenewable and chemically recyclable plastics based on copolymers of γ-butyrolactone and its ring-fused derivative, with competitive properties compared to conventional plastics.

Integration of data from single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq is achieved with transfer learning.

Edge-localized plasma modes in a tokamak can damage its innermost wall. Simulations now show that fast ions can modify the spatio-temporal structure of these modes. These effects need to be considered in the optimization of control techniques.

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.

Lithium-sulfur batteries promise high energy density, but polysulfide shuttling acts as a major stumbling block toward practical development. Here, a redox-active interlayer is proposed to confine polysulfides, increase the cell capacity and improve cell cycle life.

In topological insulators, studies have largely concentrated on the spin part of the wavefunction. But the spin–orbit coupling is strong, so the orbital components of the wavefunction need to be measured as well. Surprisingly, the orbital wavefunction turns out to be asymmetric about the Dirac point.

Projective representations of crystal symmetries are indispensable for understanding artificial crystals. Here, authors establish a unified theory of projective crystal symmetries with time-reversal invariance, and construct models for all 458 projective symmetry algebras for the 17 two-dimensional wallpaper groups.

Free-electron lasers are capable of high repetition rates and it is assumed that protein crystals often do not survive the first X-ray pulse. Here the authors address these issues with a demonstration of multi-hit serial crystallography in which multiple FEL pulses interact with the sample without destroying it.

Mixed halide perovskite undergoes halide segregation under illumination, which impairs its functionality as solar cells. Bobbert et al. present a unified thermodynamic theory to explain the phase separation behaviour that takes into account both ground state compositional and electronic part of free energy in the presence of photocarriers.

X-ray free electron lasers allow for studying the interaction of magnetic materials with intense X-rays beyond a linear response regime. Here, the authors demonstrate the onset of X-ray induced ultrafast demagnetization in Co/Pd multilayers via a redistribution of valence electrons on timescales shorter than 40 fs.

PRS-CSx is a polygenic risk score construction method that improves cross-population polygenic prediction by integrating GWAS summary statistics from multiple populations.

Lilies are perennial plants with ornamental flowers and large genomes. The authors assemble genomes of two Liliales species, analyze lily phylogeny, flower and stem development (bulbs in lilies, rhizomes in flame lilies), bulb growth transitions, and colchicine biosynthesis.

Africa will drive much future urbanization. Using data from 1950–2020 and techniques from urban science, this study finds increasing economies of scale in land use and increasing concentrations of people in larger cities, contributing to broader patterns of urban evolution.

An antimatter hypernucleus formed by an anti-lambda hadron, an antiproton and two antineutrons was observed through its two-body decay after production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.

By implementing random circuit sampling, experimental and theoretical results establish the existence of transitions to a stable, computationally complex phase that is reachable with current quantum processors.

A proof-of-principle study reports a complete photonic quantum computer architecture that can, once appropriate component performance is achieved, deliver a universal and fault-tolerant quantum computer.

Xie et al. present UnitedMet, a tool that leverages RNA–metabolite covariation to impute metabolite levels from transcriptomic data, and find oxidative phosphorylation associated with both BAP1 status and metastasis or therapy outcome in kidney cancer.

The role Tibetan Plateau uplift played in Asian inland aridification remains unclear due to a paucity of accurately dated records. Here, the authors present a continuous aeolian sequence for the period >51–39 Ma, analysis of which indicates that aridification was driven by global climatic forcing rather than uplift.

Quark–antiquark annihilation measurements provide a precise determination of the ratio of down and up antiquarks within protons as a function of momentum, which confirms the asymmetry between the abundance of down and up antiquarks.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

Bayati et al. discovered that sequential treatment of iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons with α-synuclein fibrils and proinflammatory cytokines leads to the formation of Lewy body–like inclusions, through the downregulation of lysosomal proteins.

In order to explore superconductivity in hydride materials, local magnetometry inside a diamond anvil cell is performed with sub-micron spatial resolution at megabar pressures using nitrogen-vacancy colour centres.

The demonstration of visible frequency metasurfaces with broadband optical response is challenging due to plasmonic losses and non-uniform nanofabrication. Here, Wenet al. demonstrate a helicity multiplexed metasurface hologram capable of achieving high efficiency and image quality in the visible and near infrared.

Rabi oscillations of magnons typically do not have few photon control of single spin quantum systems. Here, the authors use a feedback cavity architecture to increase magnon-photon cooperativity, enabling increased control of light-matter interactions in magnonic systems via cooperative polariton dynamics.

Singlet fission — the splitting of a singlet exciton into two triplets — is a process that could be exploited to improve the power conversion efficiency of solar cells. Spectroscopic data now suggest that coherent and incoherent mechanisms for singlet fission in crystalline hexacene coexist and occur on different timescales.

Surface of colloidal quantum dot is sensitive to water, and the interaction could potentially alter its chemical environments. Here, Shi et al. investigate how the interaction effects the nanostructures and carrier dynamic in CQDs, and subsequently introduce meniscus-guided coating technique to mitigate CQD fusion triggered by water adsorption.

Left- and right-handed snub cubes show photocontrollable elasticity and hardness, in addition to the ability to encapsulate different small molecules in distinct compartments simultaneously, with potential applications in the development of advanced biomimetic materials.

The February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake doublet reveals how pre-stress and local stress heterogeneity influence fault ruptures, with key insights into rupture kinematics, fault geometry, and stress interactions along complex fault systems.

Insight-HXMT detected a double-peaked X-ray burst from Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154, consistent with two fast radio bursts (FRBs) observed from the same object within seconds. This coincidence suggests a common physical origin, and gives insight into the mechanism behind the origin of FRBs.

The authors observe X-ray coherent scattering speckles from substrate-supported planar patterns in grazing incidence reflection geometry, which constitutes hard X-ray holograms revealing three-dimensional high-resolution structural information in a single image.

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.

ATP production by mitochondria requires the efficient flow of protons through the F₁F_O ATP-synthase complex. Jonas and colleagues show that Bcl-xL interacts with the F₁F_O complex in the mitochondrial matrix and increases the efficiency of this enzyme by decreasing proton leak.

In a meta-analysis of studies comparing monocultures to plant species mixtures, the authors show that mixtures increase three different variables related to the phosphorus cycle: soil total phosphorus, phosphatase activity and available phosphorus.

Combining expansion microscopy with super-resolution radial fluctuations captures the morphology of single proteins.

The first operation of the European X-ray free-electron laser facility accelerator based on superconducting technology is reported. The maximum electron energy is 17.5 GeV. A laser average power of 6 W is achieved at a photon energy of 9.3 keV.

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of CaNi₂ shows a band with vanishing dispersion across the full 3D Brillouin zone that is identified with the pyrochlore flat band as well as two additional flat bands that arise from multi-orbital interference of Ni d-electrons.

Wang et al. develop data-independent acquisition activity-based protein profiling, a quantitative chemoproteomic method to globally profile protein dopamination in the mouse brain, and identify a protective role of dopamine in regulating the function of microtubule-associated protein Tau.

Symmetry plays a crucial role in defining the band topology. Here, the authors experimentally demonstrate that spacetime inversion symmetry can lead to Stiefel-Whitney topological charges and protect hinge states in an acoustic nodal-line semimetal.

In situ synchrotron X-ray tools are used to perform microstrain screening during solid-state synthesis of battery materials, leading to fewer structural defects and improved performance.

Hybrid perovskites exhibit long carrier diffusion lengths and lifetimes. Here, Chen et al. show experimentally that carrier recombination in perovskites is far from Langevin and closer to the best direct-bandgap semiconductors, which can be explained by the dipolar polaronic nature of charge carriers.

Existing proposals of axion insulators are limited to spin-1/2 systems. Here the authors put forward a concept of a high spin axion insulator with several peculiar properties, such as the absence of gapless surface states and tunability of the axion field by an external magnetic field.

Here, the authors design NaNbO₃ based ceramics with the aim of enabling a field-induced reversible phase transformation between the antiferroelectric and ferroelectric phases, which manifests itself in a well-defined double hysteresis loop in the P-E hysteresis curve.

The making of mirror-image versions of naturally occurring cyclodextrins (CDs) is challenging and constitutes an untouched goal of the CD community. Now a concise approach is developed for the diastereoselective synthesis of three mirror-image CDs in an efficient and scalable manner.