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Splitting water using sunlight is a promising route to green hydrogen, yet inefficient charge carrier utilization in photocatalysts limits their solar-to-hydrogen efficiency. Here the authors introduce excitonic quantum superlattices to prolong exciton lifetimes and optimize charge steering, achieving a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 3% under ambient conditions.

Identifying jets originating from heavy quarks plays a fundamental role in hadronic collider experiments. In this work, the ATLAS Collaboration describes and tests a transformer-based neural network architecture for jet flavour tagging based on low-level input and physics-inspired constraints.

Kim, Wang, Clow and colleagues show that long-range chromatin loops bringing distal enhancers or super-enhancers together with promoters are cohesin dependent and cell type specific, whereas most short-range and promoter-centric transcriptional loops are cohesin independent and constitutive.

The authors demonstrate enhancement by nearly two-orders of magnitude of the optical Stark effect in WSe₂ embedded into a Fabry Perot cavity, and use this mechanism to obtain an effective magnetic field of over 200 T and implement a XOR switch.

Generalised pustular psoriasis (GPP) is a severe type of psoriasis characterized by epidermal neutrophil infiltration and potentially life-threatening flares. Here the authors use single cell and spatial transcriptomic analysis of skin samples implicating contact between IL36G+ keratinocytes and neutrophils as well as ligand-receptor interactions of fibroblasts with T cells, neutrophils or macrophages.

Stable adipocytes resist lipolysis in healthy states but are highly susceptible to a catecholamine-independent, neurosystemic pathway-driven catabolic state.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can greatly improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, but potential embedded biases can affect fairness in clinical deployment. Here, the authors develop a simulation-based approach to explore which formalisations of AI algorithmic fairness translate into long-term outcome fairness, with a focus on breast cancer.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

3.4-million-year-old hominin fossils discovered in Ethiopia provide insight into the diet and locomotion of Australopithecus deyiremeda.

In this work, Manenti et al. present measurements of a device in which a tuneable transmon qubit is piezoelectrically coupled to a surface acoustic wave cavity, realising circuit quantum acoustodynamic architecture. This may be used to develop new quantum acoustic devices.

Rydberg atoms can have sizes similar to the wavelength of near-infrared light, yet the electric dipole approximation – in which spatial variations of the light-field phase are ignored – remains valid. Anderson and Raithel explain this by measuring that photoionization of such atoms occurs near the nucleus.

High-energy interlayer excitons in van der Waals semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides lie far above the bandgap and emit in the ultraviolet range.

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.

TIRTL-seq is a high-throughput method for paired T cell receptor sequencing at the cohort scale.

A transverse Peierls transition can occur when transverse acoustic phonons couple with conducting p-orbital electrons. Here, the authors observe an incommensurate transverse Peierls transition and signatures of a chiral charge density wave in EuAl₄.

A tri-omic atlas of the mouse brain from postnatal day 0 to P21 reveals that layer-specific projection neurons have a role in coordinating axonogenesis and myelination.

Atharva Deo and colleagues present a Super-Turing synaptic resistor circuit to control a morphing wing in complex aerodynamic environments. The circuit features high-speed concurrent learning and inference, ultra-low power consumption, and agile adaptability for AI systems.

JWST data show that the exoplanet WASP-18b has thermally distinct regions of its dayside. The authors mapped the sizes of these regions, measured their temperatures and potentially identify water destruction in the hottest region.

Cells must coordinate cell division with genome replication. Here, the authors combine rapid protein depletion, clinical CDK4/6 inhibitors, and genome-wide EdU sequencing to reveal that the CDK4/6-RB axis ensures timely loading of DNA replication factors in G1 phase in human cells.

Eusociality evolved independently in Hymenoptera and in termites. Here, the authors sequence genomes of the German cockroach and a drywood termite and provide insights into the evolutionary signatures of termite eusociality.

Pathogenic variants in UNC13A underlie a novel neurodevelopmental syndrome, with three subtypes defined by distinct genotypes with varying clinical and functional impacts characterized in cellular and animal models.

The authors identify pathogenic variants in the SMARCA1 gene as the cause of a variable neurodevelopmental disorder. Mouse studies suggest diverse genetic mechanisms related to NURF complex composition mediate the phenotype.

Observed 730 Myr after the Big Bang, a little red dot is found to anchor an overdensity of eight galaxies and seems to be embedded in a massive host dark matter halo.

A quantum simulator can follow the evolution of a prescribed model, whose behaviour may be difficult to determine. Here, the emergence of magnetism is simulated by implementing a quantum Ising model, providing a benchmark for simulations in larger systems.

The authors use atomistic calculations with machine-learned interatomic potentials to show that dislocation motion in metals like iron and tungsten involves a nearly constant activation entropy, challenging prior models and improving strength predictions.

Understanding phylogenetic relationships among species is key to studying evolutionary transitions, but the growing scale of sequence data poses challenges for current methods. This study presents PhyloTune, a fine-tuning approach using DNA language models to enable efficient phylogenetic updates.

This study demonstrates dark-mode engineering as a powerful tool to achieve switchable topological phonon transfer and blockade, offering a versatile approach to robust, scalable phononic control for quantum information processing.

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.

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.

Mepolizumab (anti-IL-5 therapy) has been shown to reduce type 2 inflammation in asthma. Here the authors use bulk transcriptomics from nasal samples before and after mepolizumab treatment to assess the changes and associations with treatment outcomes.

A quantitative fluorescence-activated cell sorting method for generating fully human conformational antibodies against amyloid aggregates associated with neurodegenerative disorders—without the need for immunization—has now been developed. Engineered antibodies obtained using this approach show properties rivaling those of clinical-stage antibodies specific for tau and α-synuclein amyloid aggregates.

Stratified medicine promises to tailor treatment for individual patients, however it remains a major challenge to leverage genetic risk data to aid patient stratification. Here the authors introduce an approach to stratify individuals based on the aggregated impact of their genetic risk factor profiles on tissue-specific gene expression levels, and highlight its ability to identify biologically meaningful and clinically actionable patient subgroups, supporting the notion of different patient ‘biotypes’ characterized by partially distinct disease mechanisms.

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 ultrastrong coupling regime in circuit QED allows to observe puzzling phenomena such as multiphoton exchanges between qubits and resonators. Here, the authors use two flux qubits ultrastrongly coupled to a common LC resonator to verify an earlier prediction of avoided crossing between a single photon state and a state with both of the qubits being excited.

Due to the crystal symmetry of single-layer transition metal dichalcogenides and the fact that the conduction and valence band edges are at the zone-edge K points, the 2p exciton states are split. A two-colour pump–probe scheme is used to drive the 1s–2p exciton transition, and then probe the changes in absorption near the spectral position of the 1s line to measure the splitting energy.

An oral inulin allergen gel restores the microbiota of allergic mice and suppresses undesired immune responses to achieve allergen-specific oral tolerance, effectively overcoming food allergy.

The primary energy conversion step in photosynthesis, charge separation, takes place in the reaction center. Here the authors investigate the heliobacterial reaction center using multispectral two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, identifying the primary electron acceptor and revealing the charge separation mechanism.

Mapping higher order chromatin architecture is important. Here the authors use long sequencing reads to map genome-wide multi-way contacts and investigate higher order chromatin organisation; they use hypergraph theory for data representation and analysis, and apply this to different cell types.

Here, the authors present the structure of inactive methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, revealing linker-mediated allostery coupled with dual SAM binding and revealing distinct domain rearrangements.

Double-strand breaks (DSBs) in DNA are challenging to repair. Here, the authors show that transcript RNAs impact the DSB repair outcomes in human and yeast cells by promoting NHEJ or MMEJ in a sequence-specific manner, suggesting a direct role for RNA in modulating genome stability and evolution.

The tooth root is a critical component of the tooth. Here they identify root-forming CXCL12+ apical papilla progenitor cells that provide odontoblasts and cementoblasts in a Wnt-dependent manner, with plasticity to form alveolar bone osteoblasts during regeneration.

The alveolar bone supports the tooth’s lifelong functionality. Here, the authors identify a tooth-specific mechanism of bone formation in which the Hedgehog–Foxf pathway regulates the alveolar bone osteoblast fates of DF progenitor cells.

The stimulation of interferon genes (STING) pathway with STING agonists such as cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) has emerged as a promising immunotherapeutic approach. Here, the authors show that Mn²⁺ can amplify the STING-promoted anti-tumour immune response in challenging murine tumour models by coordinating with CDNs and self-assembling into nanoparticles that can be delivered locally and systemically.

In the layered magnetic semiconductor CrSBr, emergent light–matter hybrids (polaritons) increase the spectral bandwidth of correlations between the magnetic, electronic and optical properties, enabling largely tunable optical responses to applied magnetic fields and magnons.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

Semiconductor quantum dots that simultaneously support blue and yellow emission offer a route to realizing efficient white light-emitting diodes.