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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.

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.

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

The hydrovoltaic effect offers a promising route for ion sensing but is limited by a long response time. Here, the authors leverage rapid ion transport within nanochannels to achieve a high voltage output of 4.0 V with a response time of just 0.17 s.

By doping ice with NaCl, it is shown that a flexoelectric coefficient of up to 10 μC m⁻¹ is generated, enabling effective piezoelectric coefficients that are comparable to those of ceramics. This arises from the streaming current of quasi-liquid flow through grain boundaries from one side of the sample to the other.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The synthesis of atom-thin amorphous films remains challenging as their thermodynamically favourable grains are neither two dimensional nor layered. Here a droplet-driven nanoribbon-to-film growth strategy is reported to achieve amorphous metal chalcogenides at the single-layer limit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wafer-scale 3R-MoS₂ with high phase purity is achieved through a homoepitaxy strategy, which demonstrates ferroelectricity and holds promise for multifunctional integration.

Whether superconductivity coexists or competes with other types of order in unconventional superconductors is a question that has been hotly contested. An ARPES study reported by Yi et al. suggest that superconductivity and spin-density wave orders coexist and compete dynamically in Ba_1−xK_xFe₂As₂.

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.

Electron doping is a powerful way to induce quantum phase transitions in materials and explore exotic states of matter. Here, Wen et al. present carefully-controlled potassium dosing in FeSe films and FeSe_0.93S_0.07bulk, which enhances superconductivity and induces other anomalous phases, revealing a complex phase diagram.

Crystallization of noble metal atoms usually leads to the thermodynamically stable face-centred cubic phase. Sunet al. show that internal strain in silver nanoparticles leads to lattice distortion and a stable body-centred tetragonal phase.

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.

Hydrogel materials have emerged as versatile platforms for biomedical applications. Here this group reports an mRNA lipid nanoparticle-incorporated microgel matrix for immune cell recruitment/antigen expression and presentation/cellular interaction thereby eliciting antitumor efficacy with a single dose.

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.

The 4Pi-SIM microscope combines the benefits of structured illumination microscopy with 4Pi geometry for improved axial resolution, offering isotropic, multicolor super-resolution imaging of dynamic processes in living cells.

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.

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.

High-enthalpy elastic metamaterials constructed from freely rotatable chiral metacells have high stiffness, large recoverable strain and improved buckling strength.

Continuous shape morphing for small robots can offer advantages, but it is difficult to perform tasks if they are not stiff enough. Xu et al. present here a design combining liquid crystal elastomers and shape memory polymers to lock morphable elements in place.

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.

A genome-wide study by the Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative identifies an association between the FOXP4 locus and long COVID, implicating altered lung function in its pathophysiology.

Resonant X-ray excitation of the  ⁴⁵Sc nuclear isomeric state was achieved by irradiation of a Sc-metal foil with 12.4-keV photon pulses from a state-of-the-art X-ray free-electron laser, allowing a high-precision determination of the transition energy.

Iron pnictide compounds have recently been shown to have superconducting properties. Xuet al. show that the superconducting gap of underdoped pnictides scales linearly with the transition temperature, and that a pseudogap develops with underdoping.

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.

The recently discovered kagome metal AV₃Sb₅ is a new playground to study the interplay between superconductivity and charge-density-wave (CDW) state. Here, the authors report pressure-dependent evolution of CDW and superconductivity in CsV₃Sb₅, suggesting an unusual competition between the two phases.

Transcription termination or pausing during DNA replication in bacteria and humans results in DNA damage with exposed 3′ single-stranded DNA ends and mutations.

Ultrathin films of gallium oxide with a dielectric constant of around 30 can be formed on the surface of molybdenum disulfide using a liquid metal-based approach and used as the gate insulator in transistors.

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.

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.

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.

Effective band-gap engineering of armchair graphene nanoribbons calls for control over both width and edge structure. Here, the authors report a modular synthesis of narrow N = 6 armchair graphene nanoribbons whose edges can be unsymmetrically modified with heteroarenes, introducing a simple way to tune band gap.

The authors find the magnon spin transport in CrSP₄/Pt (Ta) can be effectively modulated through adjustments in temperature and applied magnetic field, particularly at the spin-flip field.

Pyrochlore iridates have been studied for their potential to explore novel phases due to the interplay of correlations, spin-orbit interaction, and more recently dimensionality. Here the authors report a chiral spin-liquid-like state in (111)-oriented Y₂Ir₂O₇ thin films which emerges at a reduced thickness.

Ferroelectric field-effect transistors based on molybdenum disulfide can be used to build an in-memory sparsity architecture in which index memory is moved next to individual synapses, creating a sparse neural network without external memory indexing.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

The CMS Collaboration reports the study of three simultaneous hard interactions between quarks and gluons in proton–proton collisions. This manifests through the concurrent production of three J/ψ mesons, which consist of a charm-quark–antiquark pair.

Recently, signatures of quantum spin liquid have been reported in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides. Here the authors report evidence of such state in 1T-NbSe₂ via the measurements of the Kondo effect in a 1T-1H heterostructure, further supported by measurements for magnetic molecules on 1T-NbSe₂.

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.

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.

Transmission electron microscopy is used to observe three-dimensional topological solitons known as hopfions that in a chiral magnet are found to form rings around skyrmion strings, and a nucleation protocol for these rings is provided.

Light-harvesting applications require dyes with efficiently formed long-lived charge separated electronic states. Here the authors achieve this through aggregation in fullerene dyads and reveal their excited-state dynamics mechanism.

The interaction between antiferromagnetic magnons and electrons sits at the heart of many strongly correlated systems, however, investigation has been hampered by a lack of clear-cut examples. Here, Yu et al directly observe a kink in the dispersion, a result of renormalization due to the electron-antiferromagnetic magnon interaction.