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Thermal lepton pairs are ideal probes for the temperature of quark-gluon plasma. Here, the STAR Collaboration uses thermal electron-positron pair production to measure quark-gluon plasma average temperature at different stages of the evolution.

Engineering an immune receptor improves resistance to bacterial and fungal pathogens in a variety of plants.

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.

An ensemble of spins from nitrogen–vacancy centres in diamonds is prepared in a spin-squeezed state.

‘Ultrathin’ gold interlayers are shown to form nanoparticles that balance optical losses and electrical contact, enabling efficient perovskite–perovskite integration for scalable and durable triple-junction photovoltaics.

Control of quantum interference in engineered atomic-scale systems could enable precise manipulation of quantum states, however it has remained challenging. Here the authors demonstrate electrically tunable quantum interference in a system of Ti atoms on MgO surface, using a scanning probe microscope setup.

Developing high-current-density catalysts is key to efficient water splitting. Here, the authors report a single-atom Ru-doped amorphous Ni–Mo oxide that dynamically self-reconstructs to retain high activity at industrial current densities in an anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer.

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a versatile class of clinically approved drug delivery vehicles, particularly for nucleic acid cargoes, but they often suffer from instability issues. Here, the authors report that the room temperature stability of small interfering RNA LNPs formulated with unsaturated ionizable lipids can be improved by inclusion of mildly acidic, antioxidant-containing buffers.

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.

Federated learning (FL) algorithms have emerged as a promising solution to train models for healthcare imaging across institutions while preserving privacy. Here, the authors describe the Federated Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) challenge for the decentralised benchmarking of FL algorithms and evaluation of Healthcare AI algorithm generalizability in real-world cancer imaging datasets.

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

The authors report on a method for precise control of stoichiometry and surface termination during thin-film growth of a wide range of perovskite ABO₃ phases that exploits dynamic B-site layer inversion seen in the in situ electron diffraction.

Brain-wide recordings in mice reveal that prior expectations are distributed through recurrent loops across all levels of cortical and subcortical processing.

Over 20 species of geographically and phylogenetically diverse bird species produce convergent whining vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites. Model presentation and playback experiments across multiple continents suggest that these learned calls provoke an innate response even among allopatric species.

The role of the tumour microenvironment in the response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic melanoma remains poorly understood. Here, single cell profiling of metastatic melanoma samples identifies associations of the mature dendritic enriched in immunoregulatory molecules subtype with immunotherapy response.

Trained and validated on multimodal data from 14.5 million images from multicountry datasets, a foundation model is shown to increase diagnostic and referral accuracy of clinicians when used as an assistant in a trial involving 16 ophthalmologists and 668 patients.

Reverse osmosis (RO) membranes are widely used for seawater desalination. Here the authors apply plasmonic nanoheating integrated interfacial polymerization to create RO membranes that can remove a wide spectrum of contaminants in water in addition to efficient desalination.

In this Perspective, members of the Aging Biomarker Consortium outline the X-Age Project, an Aging Biomarker Consortium plan for building standardized aging clocks in China. The authors discuss the project roadmap and its aims of decoding aging heterogeneity, detecting accelerated aging early and evaluating geroprotective interventions.

Gut bacteria digest dietary fiber and release molecules as energy for the host. Here, Yu et al. find that the ability of certain gut bacteria to digest different fibers influences host consumption of food containing these fibers.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

The International Brain Laboratory presents a brain-wide electrophysiological map obtained from pooling data from 12 laboratories that performed the same standardized perceptual decision-making task in mice.

Cross-linkable co-SAMs improve hole-selective SAM stability, preventing defects and thermal degredation in perovskite solar cells, enabling 26.92% efficiency with high heat durability, and guiding the design of more efficient and durable solar cells.

Guard cells define microscopic stomatal pores for CO₂ uptake and water loss. Characterization of the extracellular metabolome revealed sugars as ‘mesophyll messengers’ from the leaf interior that enhance stomatal opening via regulation of the guard-cell H⁺-ATPase and anion channels.

The cortex fuels essential physiological processes with glucose-derived carbon, while gliomas fuel their aggressiveness by rerouting glucose carbon pathways and scavenging alternative carbon sources such as environmental amino acids, providing a potential therapeutic target.

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.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

Stable and robust topological edge modes are observed at finite temperatures in an array of 100 programmable superconducting qubits because of emergent symmetries present in the prethermal regime of this system.

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 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.

Antimicrobial resistance has evolved over decades due to widespread antimicrobial use, with resistance genes now circulating across humans, animals and the environment, creating complex cross-sector connectivity challenges. This Perspective advocates for genomics-based studies of AMR connectivity to enable coordinated global action and investment under the One Health framework.

Primary angle-closure glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness. Here, the authors identify rare deleterious variants in UBOX5 as risk factors and implicate BIP ubiquitination as a potential disease mechanism.

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.

Finite momentum superconducting pairing refers to a class of unconventional superconducting states where Cooper pairs acquire a non-zero momentum. Here the authors report a new superconducting state in bulk 4Hb-TaS₂, where magnetic fields induce finite momentum pairing via magnetoelectric coupling.

Accurately predicting the optimal pH level for enzyme activity is challenging due to the complex relationship between enzyme structure and function. Gado and colleagues show that a language model can effectively learn the structural and biophysical features to predict the optimal pH for enzyme activity.

Akincilar, Fidan et al. report a conserved role for telomerase reverse transcriptase in regulating inflammation via the cGAS–STING nucleic acid-sensing pathway in myeloid cells, independent of its telomerase activity.

Topological states are exploited based on crystalline symmetry, but under artificial gauge fields, symmetries may satisfy projective algebras, which remains less studied. Here, the authors reveal that projective symmetry algebra leads to momentum-space nonsymmorphic symmetry, resulting in new topological states over a momentum-space Klein bottle.

DeepRETStroke is a deep learning system using retinal photographs to detect silent brain infarction and predict future stroke events.

Heusler compounds have been predicted to host topological order with other emergent properties, which yet awaits for experimental evidence. Here, Liu et al. report a direct observation of topological surface states on half-Heusler compounds LnPtBi.

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.

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.

Altermagnets combine the rapid dynamics and zero magnetization of collinear antiferromagnets with the spin-splitting of ferromagnets, making them an idea platform for both fundamental research and applications. Here, Yang, Li and coauthors map the large altermagnetic spin-splitting in CrSb located near the Fermi level.

Li-rich oxides suffer from severe degradation in lithium-ion batteries. To investigate this, authors employ operando methodologies to follow microstructural changes and demonstrate that interlayer twinning structures and intralayer frustrations formed during cycling drive performance degradation.

A large language model designed for health monitoring provides personalized sleep and fitness predictions, insights and advice.

The authors analyze rare coding variants in 1990 individuals with congenital kidney anomalies, finding diagnostic variants in 14.1% of cases. They identify two new causal genes, ARID3A and NR6A1, along with 38 candidate genes, providing evidence for shared genetics with other developmental disorders.

Together with a companion paper, the generation of a transcriptomic atlas for the mouse lemur and analyses of example cell types establish this animal as a molecularly tractable primate model organism.

Achieving a balance between molecular packing density, charge transport efficiency, and defect passivation remains a challenge for perovskite solar cells. Here, authors synthesize self-assembled molecules with flexible head groups and rigid linkers, achieving maximum device efficiency of over 26%.

Humans have altered plant biogeography by introducing species from one region to another, but an analysis of how naturalized plant species affect the uniqueness of regional floras around the world was missing. This study presents an analysis using data from native and naturalized alien floras in 658 regions, finding strong taxonomic and phylogenetic floristic homogenization overall.