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Castellani, Zhang and colleagues found that centromeres and (epi)genetic features influence local crossover positions during meiotic recombination in a plant with diffused centromeres, whereas chromosome synapsis dynamics seems key to broad-scale crossover patterning.

This protocol describes a suite of lentiviral transfer plasmids that can be used for high-yield, time- and cost-efficient, and constitutive or inducible production of soluble and membrane proteins in mammalian cell lines.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of three different serotonin receptors in complex with serotonin and other agonists provide insights into the role of lipids in regulating these receptors and the structural basis of ligand recognition.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere declined as the Earth entered the last glacial period. Estimates of deep carbonate ion concentrations suggest that a substantial amount of carbon was sequestered in the deep Atlantic Ocean.

Schrodinger’s cat states constitute an important resource for quantum information processing, but present challenges in terms of scalabilty and controllability. Here, the authors exploit fast Kerr nonlinearity modulation to generate and store cat states in superconducting circuits in a more scalable way.

Converting solar energy to hydrogen fuel requires light-absorbers that well-match the wavelengths of incoming sunlight. Here, authors prepare a broadband visible-light-absorbing molecular complex that efficiently produces hydrogen from water.

Phase separation is essential for various physiological processes. Feng et al. propose PSMutPred, a machine learning approach to predict impacts of missense mutations on phase separation and aid in understanding the pathogenesis of disease variants.

Biocompatible rare-earth nanoparticles with an emission maximum at 1,600 nm enable sensitive in vivo imaging.

The overlap of different crystal lattices can give rise to a Moire structure with long range periodicity. While this feature has been heavily exploited in twisted van der Waals heterostructures, here, Yao et al find the telltale signatures of Moire magnetism in CrBr3 multilayers induced by differential strain, in the absence of twisting.

Scanning probe microscopy is widely used to characterize material properties with atomic resolution, yet electronic property mapping is normally constrained by slow data acquisition. Somnath et al. show a current–voltage method, which enables fast electronic spectroscopy mapping over micrometer-sized areas.

Vertical motions of Earth’s crust had the greatest effect on regional spatial differences in relative sea-level trends along the eastern coast of the USA during 1900–2017, explaining most of the large-scale spatial variance in regional rates of sea-level rise.

Cloudinomorphs were one of the few groups to survive from the Ediacaran into the Cambrian, but they are known only from their external tubes. Here, Schiffbauer et al. report soft-tissue preservation of cloudinomorphs; the internal structures are interpreted as guts characteristic of bilaterians.

This overview of the ENCODE project outlines the data accumulated so far, revealing that 80% of the human genome now has at least one biochemical function assigned to it; the newly identified functional elements should aid the interpretation of results of genome-wide association studies, as many correspond to sites of association with human disease.

Polarization observations of the fast radio burst FRB 180301 with the FAST radio telescope show diverse polarization angle swings, consistent with a magnetospheric origin of the emission.

Quantum electrodynamics predicts a rare process in which light is scattered by light. The ATLAS Collaboration reports signs of this elusive effect in the collisions of ultra-relativistic lead ions.

A screening approach finds VH-domain antibodies that bind the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein receptor-binding domain at its interface with host ACE2. Bi-paratopic and multivalent binders have high affinity and potency.

Controlled growth of heterostructures within 10 nm scale is crucial for potential applications of transition metal dichalcogenides. Here, the authors report strain-driven synthesis of ultra-long MoS₂ nano-channels having several micrometers length and 2–30 nm width embedded within MoSe₂ monolayer.

It is challenging to characterize diverse transcript isoforms by short-read sequencing. Here the authors report full-length transcriptomes in rat hippocampus by hybrid-sequencing, predict isoform-specific translational status, and reconstruct open reading frames validated by mass spectrometry.

Hongbing Shen, Zuomin Zhou, Yijiang Chen, Zhibin Hu and colleagues report genome-wide association analyses of sporadic non-syndromic congenital heart malformations in Han Chinese populations and identify two risk loci at 1p12 and 4q31.

The unconventional superconductivity associated with iron pnictide materials has been the subject of intense interest. Using an annealing procedure to control the charge-carrier concentration, the behaviour of an FeSe monolayer deposited on SrTiO₃ is now investigated, and indications of superconductivity at temperatures up to 65 K observed.

Transition metal nanoparticle-MOF systems have promising hydrogen storage properties but the nature of the interfacial interaction remains ambiguous. Here, the authors use computational and spectroscopic methods to investigate the electronic structure and charge transfer processes in a palladium nanocube-MOF system.

Precisely controlled growth of oxide interfaces at the atomic layer level is critical for device applications but quite challenging. Here Sun et al. show real time monitoring and control of the surface composition of epitaxial strontium titanate perovskite films by analysing the Kikuchi lines.

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.

Wenchao Zhang et al. developed a tool for analyzing traits using data generated from genome-wide, transcriptome-wide, and metabolome-wide association studies. They test their approach in rice, providing a systems biology view of identified traits.

A quantized plateau is typically considered to be the feature of a fractional quantum Hall state. Yan et al. report a series of plateaus quantized at unusual fractions in a confined two-dimensional electron gas, which is attributed to enhanced density in the confined region.

This protocol describes how to coat polymeric nanoparticles (e.g., bare poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (50:50, acid terminated) Resomer 504H nanoparticles) with ionic liquids to improve their circulation half-life and biodistribution after intravenous injection. This is achieved via red blood cell hitchhiking in whole blood.

Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) maintains intestinal homeostasis by restricting its hyperproliferation but whether it directly regulates the stem cells is unknown. Here the authors show that BMP constrains the Lgr5⁺stem cell expansion under both homeostatic and injury conditions through Smad-mediated repression of stem cell signature genes.

Spikes on the surface of TiO₂ microparticles, mimicking the nanotopological structures found on pathogens, boost the immune response in animal models and can be used to enhance the immunogenic effect of vaccines and adjuvants.

The inorganic procoagulant polymer polyphosphate participates in thrombosis via factor XII. Here the authors use recombinant probes that specifically bind or degrade circulating polyphosphate to protect mice in arterial and venous thrombosis models without an increased bleeding risk, the primary complication of all currently used anticoagulants.