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Relating the degree of network crosslinking as a descriptor to the desalination performance of crosslinked polymer membranes remains challenging. Here, the authors introduce a parameter based on distinct amide bonds per unit mass of polyamide, to unravel the relationship between the crosslinked networks of polyamide membranes and their desalination performance.

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.

Entanglement was observed in top–antitop quark events by the ATLAS experiment produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s  = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 fb⁻¹.

A consensus cell type atlas for the fly brain provides both an intellectual framework and open-source toolchains for brain-scale comparative connectomics.

Psoriasis is a skin disease associated with neurogenic inflammation. Here, the authors activation of ASIC3 on sensory neurons that leads to the release of CGRP, which triggers inflammation through dendritic cells and drives psoriatic inflammation.

Perovskite manganites exhibit intriguing but poorly understood properties, including multiferroicity. Here, the authors synthesize a Ce₃Mn₈ cluster that structurally resembles a perovskite repeat unit, and use this molecular analogue to elucidate mechanisms driving bulk perovskite properties.

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.

Sustainable management of soil organic carbon (SOC) in farmland is critical for mitigating climate change and improving soil health. Degradable film mulching is a promising alternative to plastic film mulching, sequestering SOC and reducing C loss in dryland agroecosystems under climate change.

Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction into multicarbon products offers a means to close the anthropogenic carbon cycle using renewable electricity. Here, the authors report a cascade AgCu single-atom and nanoparticle electrocatalyst with favorable properties to improve the selectivity of multicarbon products.

The collective-flow-assisted nuclear shape-imaging method images the nuclear global shape by colliding them at ultrarelativistic speeds and analysing the collective response of outgoing debris.

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.

Developing planar phononic circuits analogous to photonic circuits are of interest to provide scalable advantages and complex manipulation of phonons. Here, the authors realize a phononic integrated circuit with a Gallium Nitride-on-sapphire platform, which provides strong confinement and control of phonons.

Photonic circuits often require separate components to manipulate light with orthogonal polarization, but this increases the chip size. Here, the authors create a polarization-dependent beam-splitter that uses dielectric loaded plasmonic waveguides to handle both polarizations in the same component.

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.

Investigating the inner structure of baryons is important to further our understanding of the strong interaction. Here, the BESIII Collaboration extracts the absolute value of the ratio of the electric to magnetic form factors and its relative phase for e + e − → J/ψ → ΛΣ decays, enhancing the signal thanks to the vacuum polarisation effect at the J/ψ peak.

Observations of γ-rays with energies up to 1.4 PeV find that 12 sources in the Galaxy are PeVatrons, one of which is the Crab Nebula.

A key challenge in robotics is leveraging pre-training as a form of knowledge to generate movements. The authors propose a general learning framework for reusing pre-trained knowledge across different perception and task levels. The deployed robots exhibit lifelike agility and sophisticated game-playing strategies.

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.

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.

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.

Zhaonella formicivorans produces methanol, for a novel syntrophic interaction, without requiring methylated compounds as an input.

The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.

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.

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.

Evidence of quantum phase transitions is normally difficult to be detected. Here, Liu and Wang et al. report divergent critical exponent in ultrathin Pb films with superconducting fluctuations and spin-orbit interaction, indicating an anomalous quantum Griffiths singularity of superconductor-metal transition.

We find that 2D–3D perovskitoid passivation applied to perovskite solar cells impedes cation migration and decreases carrier recombination at the interface, providing enhanced operating stability at elevated temperatures and increased power conversion efficiencies.

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.

The shuttling effect in Li–S batteries can be drastically suppressed by using a single-atom Co catalyst and polar ZnS nanoparticles embedded in a macroporous conductive matrix as a cathode. Using this strategy, Li–S pouch cells show stable cycling and high energy performances.

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.

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.

The poor structural stability of cathode materials is responsible for the rapid capacity loss of sodium-ion batteries during cycling. This work addresses the instability by introducing vacancies into the transition metal layers and realize long-life pouch cells.

A Type II Weyl fermion semimetal has been predicted in Mo_xW_1−xTe₂, but it awaits experimental evidence. Here, Belopolski et al. observe a topological Fermi arc in Mo_xW_1−xTe₂, showing it originates from a Type II Weyl fermion and offering a new platform to study novel transport phenomena in Weyl semimetals.

The high cost of Pt severely limits fuel cell deployment, but alternative Pt-free catalysts suffer from a low activity and, especially, durability. Now, a low-Pt-content catalyst consisting of Pt and Fe single atoms, dispersed on a nitrogen-doped carbon matrix, and Pt–Fe nanoparticles is shown to exhibit excellent activity and durability in fuel cells.

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.

Human RNA binding protein Musashi-1 binds various host transcripts as well as Zika virus RNA in neural progenitor cells. Here, Chen et al. characterise the interactions between Musashi-1 and its binding site using a combination of molecular and biophysical methods to shed light on its role in viral neurotropism.

Variant-to-gene-to-program is a new approach to building maps of genome function to link risk variants to disease genes and to convergent signalling pathways in an unbiased manner; its strength is demonstrated in coronary artery disease.

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.

The most up-to-date combination of results on the properties of the Higgs boson is reported, which indicate that its properties are consistent with the standard model predictions, within the precision achieved to date.

Fibers derived from non-silk proteins hold potential for various biomedical applications, but mechanically-balanced and highly-biocompatible regenerated protein fibers are elusive. Here, the authors report an entanglement-reinforced strategy to fabricate keratin/albumin bio-fibers that show high strength and toughness, along with favorable biocompatibility, degradability and immunocompatibility.

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.

A micronuclear battery is built based on an autoluminescent americium–terbium compound that couples radioisotopes with energy transducers at the molecular level, resulting in an 8,000-fold enhancement in energy conversion efficiency.

Recently, clathrate superhydride superconductors have garnered significant attention. Here the authors measure the electron-phonon coupling strength and superconducting gap of an ultrahigh pressure superconductor LaH_10±δ by ultrafast spectroscopy, revealing a strong coupling nature of the superconductivity.

An optical-imaging instrument that integrates a visible multispectral imaging system with the detection of near-infrared fluorescence in the first and second windows aids the fluorescence-guided surgical resection of liver tumours in patients.

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.

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.

Molecular systems with rigid macrocyclic backbones self-assemble into synthetic nanopores that mimic the mass-transport characteristics of biological channels. Zhouet al. produce self-assembling hydrophobic nanopores that mediate highly selective transmembrane ion transport and highly efficient transmembrane water permeability.