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Polyamines prevent the action of kinases on acidic phosphorylatable motifs in spliceosomal proteins, thus providing a mechanism for metabolite-mediated regulation of alternative splicing in cells.

The authors show that structured optically driven cavities can recreate Moiré-like exciton localization and that cavity vacuum fluctuations induce long-range exciton interactions, modifying exciton masses and optical properties without twisting.

Here, the authors demonstrate that intense laser pulses drive electrons across the full Brillouin zone in monolayer WS₂, producing quantum interferences that control high harmonic generation.

Anisotropic hybridization between conduction and unpaired f electrons is rarely observed. Now, a lanthanide-based two-dimensional compound exhibits nodal hybridization, giving rise to heavy-fermion behaviour.

The second plateau in high-harmonic generation from liquids is due to off-site recombination of electrons, facilitated by the spatial delocalization of electron–hole wavefunctions.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Femtosecond photoexcitation drives a coherent twist–untwist motion of the moiré superlattice in 2° and 57° twisted WSe₂/MoSe₂ heterobilayers.

Water vibrational motion, which occurs on the few-femtosecond timescale and underpins energy transfer within the hydrogen bonding network, has remained challenging to observe in real time due to constraints in time resolution. Here, the authors investigate the ground state vibrational dynamics of liquid water using a sub-5 fs near-infrared pump pulse and few-fs ultraviolet probe pulses, observing rapid dephasing of the OH stretch mode that precedes its relaxation via coupling to the bend modes.

Integrating an electronic device with a cavity can cause the electrons to couple to photons strongly enough to form hybrid modes. Now, the cavity effects induced by intrinsic graphite gates are shown to modify the low-energy properties of graphene.

Bound states in superconducting vortices are expected to exhibit an electron-hole asymmetry, but it is usually tiny and can be easily washed out. Here, the authors show that the vortex bound states coupling to magnetic impurities provides an axial electron-hole asymmetry on a much longer scale, and that the direction of the asymmetry depends on the band character of the superconducting material.

The authors present electrical transport-based evidence of generalized Wigner crystal states in twisted bilayer MoSe₂ at fractional electron fillings ν = 2/5, 1/2, 3/5, 2/3, 8/9, 10/9, and 4/3, together with a Mott state at ν = 1. They further demonstrate continuous quantum melting transitions in a multi-parameter space of electron density, displacement and magnetic fields.

The authors use time-resolved scanning near-field optical microscopy to probe the ultrafast excitonic processes and their impact on waveguide operation in transition metal dichalcogenide crystals. They observe significant modulation of the complex index by monitoring waveguide modes on the fs time scale, and identify both coherent and incoherent manipulations of WSe₂ excitonic resonances.

One-dimensional linear carbon chains reaching a length close to 800 nm have been synthesized at high temperature and high vacuum using double-walled carbon nanotubes as nanoreactors.

It is generally assumed that modulating magnetic properties via linear excitations of Raman-active phonons is forbidden in inversion symmetric magnets. Here, Luo, Ning, Ilyas, von Hoegen, and coauthors demonstrate a linear excitation of Raman-active lattice vibrations, via magnon-polaron excitation.

Observations of an electronic nematic phase in twisted double bilayer graphene expand the number of moiré materials where this interaction-driven state exists.

Nonlinear optical processes like higher-order harmonic generation in solids depend on several factors. Here the authors explore the optical nonlinearity of hexagonal boron nitride and find that enhanced nonlinearity is due to electron-phonon and phonon-polariton couplings.

Precision measurement of the dynamical magnetoelectric coupling in an exfoliated van der Waals multiferroic shows a giant natural optical activity at terahertz frequencies.

Strong light-matter interactions are a pathway to chemical control at the molecular level. Here, authors theoretically show that an optical cavity allows to control catalysis, inhibition, and endo/exo stereoselectivity in Diels-Alder reactions.

Interaction of strong laser fields with matter provides powerful tools to image transient dynamics with high spatiotemporal resolution. The authors investigate strong-field ionisation of laser-aligned molecules showing the effect of molecular alignment on the photoelectron dynamics and the resulting influence of the molecular frame in imaging experiments.

Here, a combined experiment-theory framework based on different nano-imaging techniques and first-principle calculations is used to analyse the shapes of moiré patterns in twisted van der Waals structures, enabling an accurate description of the coupling between the atomically thin layers.

The hybrid behavior of strongly interacting light and matter in cavities can be engineered by tailoring the cavity parameters, but simulating such systems is hard due to the complexity of the matter and quantum light. In this work, the authors derive an effective ab-initio theory reducing the light description to a single degree of freedom while ensuring finite light-matter coupling even in macroscopic systems.

We present comprehensive thermodynamic and spectroscopic evidence for an antiferromagnetically ordered heavy-fermion ground state in the van der Waals metal CeSiI.

Patching carbon and boron nitride nanodomains emerges as an efficient way to engineer bandgaps in graphene, opening a new avenue for optoelectronic devices.

The interplay between human diet and the gut microbiome is complex. Here, the authors present a model of human-microbiome interaction that can predict how phenolic compounds are metabolized by the human gut microbiome, identifying diet-specific metabolites in children of varied clinical conditions.

Γ and K valleys in twisted transition metal dichalcogenides have emerged as highly tunable knobs for accessing different correlated electronic states in solid-state devices. Here, the authors tune a Mott-Hubbard state to a charge-transfer insulator state in twisted double-bilayer WSe₂.

Phonons are the collective excitations of the lattice of a material, and can, in the case of chiral phonons, carry angular momentum, allowing for strong coupling to the magnetic properties of the material. Here, Cui, Bostrom and co-authors observe chiral magnon polarons, the hybridized quasiparticles of chiral phonons and magnons, in the van der Waals antiferromagnet FePSe₃.

Monolayer graphene has been long proposed as a candidate system for Floquet engineering. Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements now show the formation of Floquet–Bloch states in this material.

Creating and controlling topological states of matter has become a central goal in condensed matter physics. Here, the authors report a predictive Floquet engineering of various topological phases in Na₃Bi by using femtosecond laser pulses.

The molecular mechanisms underlying metastasis in pheochromocytoma/paraganglioma (mPPGL) remain to be explored. Here, the authors perform genomic and immunogenomic profiling of mPPGL tumors and suggest potential biomarkers for risk of metastasis and immunotherapy response.

Hybridization of dark optical cavity modes with vibrational states of molecules can alter chemical reactions. Here, the authors use ab-initio methods to shine light on the associated mechanism and highlight the role of the optical mode to redistribute the vibrational energy.

Distinct electronic and optical properties emerge from quantum confinement in low-dimensional materials. Here, combining optical characterization and ab initio calculations, the authors report an unconventional excitonic state and bound phonon sideband in layered silicon diphosphide.

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.

Twisted van der Waals systems are known to host flat electronic bands, originating from moire potential. Here, the authors predict from purely geometric considerations a new type of nearly dispersionless bands in twisted bilayer MoS₂, resulting from destructive interference between effective lattice hopping matrix elements.

A population of neutrophils in the skin produces extracellular matrix, providing a defence strategy by reinforcing the barrier properties of the skin and helping to block the entry of pathogens.

Plasmons depend strongly on dimensionality. Here the authors show that plasmons in atomically thin metals are qualitatively different from those in a 2D electron gas or metal slab: they are dispersionless at large wavevectors and, in systems such as monolayer TaS₂, long-lived enough to be observed experimentally as localized plasmon wave packets.

Tunable correlated states are observed in twist bilayer WSe₂ over a range of twist angles, with signatures of superconductivity for a twist of 5.1°.

The authors demonstrate a graphene/CrSBr heterostructure exhibiting anisotropic surface plasmon polariton (SPP) propagation in the mid-infrared and terahertz range. Charge transfer at the interface directs SPPs along the quasi-1D chains that compose each CrSBr layer, with propagation lengths varying by an order of magnitude between the two in-plane crystallographic axes.

The single-bond-resolved chemical structures of transient intermediates in a complex bimolecular reaction cascade were imaged by noncontact atomic force microscopy. Theoretical simulations reveal that the kinetic stabilization of experimentally observable intermediates is governed by selective energy dissipation to the substrate and entropic changes along the reaction pathway.

In 2H semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides the valley-selective excitation has been achieved with circularly polarized photons. Here, the authors show that circularly polarized phonons produce a valley-dependent dynamic spin state as a result of strong spin-phonon coupling.

Exercise modulates brown adipose tissue (BAT) metabolism in murine models. Here the authors report that there is no evidence that 24 weeks of supervised exercise training modulates BAT volume or function in young sedentary adults in the ACTIBATE randomized controlled trial.

Studies of twisted bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides have so far focused only on those containing group-VI metals. Here, the authors predict that twisted bilayers of ZrS₂, with the group-IV metal Zr, form an emergent moiré Kagome lattice with a uniquely strong spin-orbit coupling, leading to quantum-anomalous-Hall and fractional-Chern-insulating states.

Intense terahertz pulses are used to induce metastable magnetization with a remarkably long lifetime of more than 2.5 milliseconds in a van der Waals antiferromagnet, FePS₃.