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

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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

Four receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases (RLCKs) phosphorylate guanine nucleotide exchange factors (RopGEFs), filling a critical gap in the signalling pathway connecting cell surface auxin and RHO GTPases (ROPs) in Arabidopsis.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The Patagonian ice sheet not only responded to climate change but also actively influenced it regionally, highlighting the role of topographic forcing in shaping atmospheric circulation during glacial-interglacial cycles, according to a modeling study.

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.

Functional roles of the parvicellular part of the ventral posteromedial nucleus/gustatory thalamus are not fully understood. Here authors found that gustatory thalamus mediates aversive behaviors and responds to noxious stimuli and fear memory. Gustatory thalamus receives input from the parabrachial nucleus and innervates neurons in the insular cortex and rostral lateral amygdala.

Enfortumab vedotin (EV) is the current standard treatment for advanced bladder cancer, but resistance typically develops within a year, highlighting the need for new therapies. This study demonstrates that NECTIN4-targeting CAR T cells are effective against bladder cancer, including EV-resistant cells, and their potency can be further enhanced by using rosiglitazone to boost NECTIN4 expression.

The soils of urban greenspaces are strikingly rich. This study finds that the variety of microbial life there is linked to acidic conditions and that this diversity is more homogenous than found in farmland soils.

Plasma proteomic analysis of presymptomatic individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis identifies novel disease-associated proteins and enables the development of an accurate diagnostic biomarker panel.

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.

Ferromagnetic systems produced by the transition metal doping of semiconductors may be used as components of spintronic devices. Here, a new ferromagnet, Li_1+y(Zn_1-xMn_x)As, is prepared in bulk quantities and shown to have a critical temperature approaching 50 K.

Colour code on a superconducting qubit quantum processor is demonstrated, reporting above-breakeven performance and logical error scaling with increased code size by a factor of 1.56 moving from distance-3 to distance-5 code.

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.

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.

Catalyst screening is an important process but it’s usually time-consuming and labor intensive. Here the authors report the prediction of oxygen vacancy for perovskites using machine learning techniques to develop suitable oxygen electrocatalysts for solid oxide fuel cells at reduced temperatures.

A hybrid analogue–digital quantum simulator is used to demonstrate beyond-classical performance in benchmarking experiments and to study thermalization phenomena in an XY quantum magnet, including the breakdown of Kibble–Zurek scaling predictions and signatures of the Kosterlitz–Thouless phase transition.

Lasing in a hard-X-ray free-electron laser is typically seeded from noise due to the self-amplification of spontaneous emission, which limits temporal coherence and spectral characteristics. Researchers now demonstrate self-seeding using X-rays from the first half of the magnetic undulator to seed the second half via a diamond-based monochromator at ångström wavelengths.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

The mechanism of macrophage cytotoxicity against cancer cells requires further illustration. By employing CRISPR screening in CAR-macrophage and cancer cell co-culture system, the authors identify depletion of ATG9A on cancer cells sensitizes them to macrophage-mediated killing, which can be synergic with CSF1R inhibition in cancer treatment.

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.

In ultrathin BiFeO₃ films on LaAlO₃, compressive strain of the substrate induces a polar skyrmion lattice with nanometre periodicity.

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.

Complete sequences of chromosomes telomere-to-telomere from chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan and siamang provide a comprehensive and valuable resource for future evolutionary comparisons.

Here, Cilleros-Portet et al. present a large placental methylation database as a tool to explore the genetic burden that acts in prenatal stages, giving insight into neuropsychiatric disorders, and with especial emphasis on schizophrenia.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have improved our understanding of the genetic basis of lung adenocarcinoma but known susceptibility variants explain only a small fraction of the familial risk. Here, the authors perform a two-stage GWAS and report 12 novel genetic loci associated with lung adenocarcinoma in East Asians.

Designing biodegradable plastics is highly desirable, though it has been a challenge to balance mechanical properties with biodegradability. Here the authors design a multilayered biodegradable composite without compromising the mechanical properties.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

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.