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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.

Delocalized radical systems are appealing for controlling stereoselectivity in organic synthesis. Here the authors report on a Co(II)-based enantioselective radical system for the dearomative 1,7-conjugate amination of readily available 4-vinylphenols with aryl azides.

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.

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.

Experiments under upper-tropospheric conditions map the chemical formation of isoprene oxygenated organic molecules (important molecules for new particle formation) and reveal that relative radical ratios control their composition

An EC-NBI-based CAD system with advanced multi-stage pre-training fills endoscopy’s real-time diagnosis gap for colorectal lesions. It was shown to outperform other supervised methods and guides real-time biopsies.

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.

African ancestry is a known risk factor for prostate cancer development, but the genetic determinants of this are incompletely understood. Here, the authors identify 172 potentially pathogenic variants which are enriched in an African population.

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.

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.

Tilt-corrected bright-field scanning transmission electron microscopy offers enhanced cryogenic electron microscopy contrast and substantial improvement in dose efficiency for thick samples such as bacterial cells and large organelles, while still being able to perform single-particle analysis.

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.

Red light- or ultrasound-controlled proximity labelling is engineered to stimulate clustering-induced receptor activation and downstream signalling amplification to promote antitumour immune responses.

The authors demonstrate strain-induced morphotropic phase boundary-like nanodomains in lead-free NaNbO₃ thin films, enabling multi-state switching and large enhancements in dielectric susceptibility and tunability over a broad frequency range.

Mixed matrix membranes capable of breaking the permeability-selectivity trade-off suffer from the inefficient and disconnected bulky transport channels as well as low compatibility between nanomaterials and polymers. Here the authors propose an original photothermally triggered in-situ gelation approach to elaborate a nanofiber-interwoven gel membranes with tunable 3D-interconnected ultrafast transport channels for highly-selective CO₂ separation.

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.

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.

Here, the authors use a simple equation to study how genes and their regulators switch on/off over time, across the whole genome in tissues and cells. Most changes are gradual, but some genes switch quickly. Their AI model can predict temporal gene activity directly from open DNA regions, with no extra data.

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.

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.

The dorsal peduncular area of the mouse brain functions as a network hub that integrates diverse cortical and thalamic inputs to regulate neuroendocrine and autonomic responses.

Weyl semimetals exhibit exotic properties owing to the presence of Weyl fermions. Here, Xu et al. show that tantalum phosphide is an ideal platform for studying the transport properties of these particles because its low-energy properties are dominated by a single type of Weyl fermion.

Authors demonstrate that Ig-like binders targeting the C-terminal of α-synuclein fibrils block fibrils-induced pathological activities, including neuronal aggregation and neuroinflammation, suggesting potential molecular avenues for future Parkinson’s disease intervention.

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.

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.

Arabzade, Shirnekhi, Varadharajan, Ippagunta and colleagues show that the zinc finger translocation-associated (ZFTA) fusion oncoproteins gain intrinsically disordered regions, inducing nuclear condensate formation and oncogenic activation.

The study and application of the conductive surface states of topological insulators are often restricted by the presence of bulk conduction states. Here, Xu et al. present evidence for such topological surface states with true bulk insulation in the strongly correlated Kondo insulator SmB₆.

The calorimetric determination of enthalpies of mixing in multi-component molten salt systems often relies on empirical models that lack physically interpretable parameters. Here, the authors use the molecular interaction volume model (MIVM) to integrate experimentally measured enthalpies and solvation structures from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to extrapolate excess Gibbs energy and determine the compositional dependence of La³⁺ activity in the LaCl₃-(LiCl-KCl) system.

The LHCb experiment at CERN has observed significant asymmetries between the decay rates of the beauty baryon and its CP-conjugated antibaryon, thus demonstrating CP violation in baryon decays.

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.

The study of isotopes away from the beta stability valley is crucial for the understanding of nuclear structure, especially for neutron-deficient heavy nuclei. Here, the authors report the observation of the alpha-decay isotope 210-protactinium (Pa), extending the alpha-decay systematics of underexplored regions of the nuclides chart.

Here, using a meta-analysis approach the authors compile a database of microbes hosted by insectivores, showing that a majority of them are viruses, that shrews and hedgehogs particularly contribute to the global virus sharing networks and that insectivores may spread of viruses of potential public health concern.

The neural circuits that transmit cool signals remain not fully understood. Here, authors identify a spinal circuit in mice that transmits cool sensations from the skin to the brain, revealing a dedicated neural pathway for detecting innocuous cool temperatures.

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.

A nano-optical probe of the Purcell effect in a van der Waals waveguide is demonstrated, exploiting its highly confined infrared waveguide modes and the capacity for infrared emission in the monolayer limit of atomically layered van der Waals materials.

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 variational-autoencoder-based diffusion architecture that enables topological controls on the diffusion-based protein structure generation is proposed. As a result, novel folds of mainly beta proteins can be designed with experimental validation.

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.

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.

Dislocations are materials defects that have a major influence on structural and functional properties. Here, Hofmann et al.quantify the strain field due to an individual dislocation using X-ray micro-beam Laue diffraction, validating textbook elasticity theories.

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.

The study of lattice vibrations coupled to electronic excitations may provide an avenue for exploring exotic physical phenomena. Here, Xuet al. observe a Fano resonance in the Weyl semimetal TaAs, revealing evidence for a strong coupling between phonons and Weyl fermions.

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.

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.

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.

It is extremely difficult to separate tritium from radioactively contaminated water. Here the authors introduce catalytic hydrogen isotope exchange to water distillation, realizing excellent detritiation performance.

In a quantum simulation of a (2+1)D lattice gauge theory using a superconducting quantum processor, the dynamics of strings reveal the transition from deconfined to confined excitations as the effective electric field is increased.