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Creative experiences such as dance, music, drawing, and strategy video games might preserve brain health. The authors show that regular practice or short training in these activities is linked to brains that look younger and work more efficiently.

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.

Alternative polyadenylation is involved in plant responses to various stresses. Here, the authors show how a cis-natural antisense RNA promotes proximal polyadenylation of its cognate SlSPX5 gene in response to phosphate starvation in tomato.

cfDNA fragmentomics is a potential clinically applicable method for identifying cancer. Here, the authors assess fragmentomics analysis methods and their application to commercial targeted sequencing panels.

Brain age gaps (BAGs) highlight deviations from healthy brain aging, yet their biophysical underpinnings in aging and dementia are not well understood. Here, the authors use EEG connectivity and generative modeling across diverse populations to reveal that BAGs are influenced by geography, income, sex and education, with implications for understanding accelerated aging and dementia.

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

Zhao et al. used single-cell and spatial multiomics data analysis of human and mouse lung adenocarcinoma tumors and cell lines to reveal TP53 mutation-associated changes in cancer cells and their microenvironment.

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.

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 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.

High-density multimodal soft bioelectronic fibres provide a platform for minimally invasive implantable electronics, where diverse sensing and stimulation functionalities can be effectively integrated.

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.

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.

Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 continue to evolve 6 to 12 months after infection in patients who have recovered from COVID-19, increasing in potency and breadth with time.

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.

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.

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.

Owing to electron localization, two-dimensional materials are not expected to be metallic at low temperatures, but a field-induced quantum metal phase emerges in NbSe₂, whose behaviour is consistent with the Bose-metal model.

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.

Here the authors show how the DNA-sensing cGAS–STING pathway activates NF-κB and inflammatory gene expression with delayed kinetics via post-Golgi endolysosomal signaling.

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.

GIANT, a genetically informed brain atlas, integrates genetic heritability with neuroanatomy. It shows strong neuroanatomical validity and surpasses traditional atlases in discovery power for brain imaging genomics.

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.

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.

Spin defects in 2D materials offer practical advantages for quantum sensing over their 3D counterparts. Here, the authors demonstrate quantum sensing under high pressure using boron vacancy centers in hBN placed inside a diamond anvil cell and use it to detect both stress gradient inside the pressure chamber and pressure-induced magnetic phase transitions.

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.

Bennu comprises components of intra- and extra-Solar System origins. The parent bodies of Bennu, Ryugu and CI chondrites likely formed from a shared but heterogeneous reservoir in the outer parts of the solar protoplanetary disk.

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

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.

Wearable sensors typically require innovative methods of energy harvesting for low-power electronics. Here, the authors present an adaptive power management system with a trimodal energy harvesting approach.

A high-bandwidth neuromotor interface offers performant out-of-the-box generalization across people.

Candida auris is a fungal pathogen notorious for persistent skin colonization and transmission in healthcare settings. Here, Zhao et al. explore the mechanisms driving pathogen’s adherence to skin, involving a conserved adhesin, as well as the potential of collagen coatings as a strategy to reduce C. auris adherence to abiotic surfaces.

The discovery of 2023 KQ₁₄, a Sedna-like object with a perihelion of 66 au, fills a gap in the known population. Its orbit does not align with other Sedna-like objects, shedding light on the diversity and dynamical history of the outer Solar System.

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.

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.

Here the authors report asperigimycins, fungal ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides with a heptacyclic scaffold. After chemically modifying them for nanomolar anticancer activity, CRISPR screening identifies SLC46A3 as a key transporter for their uptake in cells.

Whether multimorbidity accelerates brain Aβ deposition in humans remains largely unknown. Here, the authors demonstrate that higher self-reported multimorbidity burden predicts increased brain Aβ accumulation rates in the ADNI cohort.

Diluted magnetic semiconductors are promising spintronic materials, however the simultaneous doping of charge and magnetic moment has prevented synthesis of bulk samples. This work reports the synthesis of a bulk magnetic semiconductor (Ba_1−xK_x)(Zn_1−yMn_y)₂As₂with Curie temperatures up to 180 K.

By integrating single-cell transcriptomics and T cell receptor repertoire analyses of regulatory T (T_reg) cells in a cohort of patients with acute coronary syndrome from the LILACS trial, Case et al. show that low-dose interleukin-2 clonally expands T_reg cells and maintains their suppressive program by bypassing BACH2 downregulation.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

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.

Electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts can have energies in excess of 7 MeV, however, the energization mechanism is debated. Here, the authors show phase space density peaks in magnetic coordinate space as a way of analyzing satellite observations which demonstrates that local acceleration is capable of heating electrons up to 7 MeV.

Together with an accompanying paper presenting a transcriptomic atlas of the mouse lemur, interrogation of the atlas provides a rich body of data to support the use of the organism as a model for primate biology and health.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Three-dimensional optical metamaterials provide a range of exciting features, such as broadband circular dichroism, yet their fabrication is challenging. Here, a broadband optical circular polarizer is presented based on twisted stacks of metasurfaces, avoiding the issues of three-dimensional fabrication.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

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.

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.