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The alga Aureococcus anophagefferens can form dense brown-tide blooms partly because it adapts well to light changes. This study reveals two glutamate residues in its light-harvesting proteins as critical for dissipating excess light energy, supporting its survival and bloom formation.

The degradation of dead wood by basidiomycete fungi relies on Fenton chemistry under aerobic conditions. Here, Röllig et al. show that these fungi can also thrive and degrade wood in anoxia, switching from a Fenton chemistry-based process to the secretion of plant cell wall-active enzymes.

Here the authors report that brown adipocyte-derived vaspin reduces heat-producing activity in brown fat by blocking adrenergic signals, helping to regulate energy expenditure and maintain metabolic balance.

Grain chalkiness is an undesirable trait that severely compromises rice quality. Here, the authors report the cloning of an E3 ubiquitin ligase encoding gene Chalk9 and reveal its crucial role in regulating grain chalkiness through mediating the ubiquitination-dependent degradation of OsEBP89.

Genomes of nine brown algal species with different sex determination systems show that U/V sex chromosomes evolved 450–224 Ma and show remarkable conservation of genes within the sex-determining region despite independent expansions of the sex locus in each lineage.

Mangrove ecosystems are facing severe climate threats. However, this study shows that strategically expanding protected areas to include the most climate-resilient sites can safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services for the future, and this can be achieved with only a modest increase in protected area.

Silane, which is a precursor to the sandy surfaces of rocky planets and dusty clouds on gas giants, is seen directly in another world—a low-metallicity brown dwarf in which oxidation is slow and gas mixing is fast.

Non-shivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue (BAT) is tightly controlled by innervation. Here, the authors show that BAT-derived OLFM4 regulates Schwann cell differentiation through activation of the BMP7-MEK/ERK pathway, thereby modulating sensory and sympathetic innervation

The hepatitis B virus surface protein recognizes host entry receptor via its intrinsically disordered peptide. The authors reveal the dynamic process of the viral surface protein that involves a stepwise binding maturation for establishing high affinity and specific virus-receptor entry complex.

Johnson et al. link ARIA, a complication of anti-amyloid therapy, to clonal expansion of cytotoxic CD8 + T cells with glycolytic reprogramming and vascular trafficking potential, with implications for biomarker development and risk mitigation.

Many biological systems appear to organize their dynamics close to a critical point. Now it is shown that the protein array mediating Escherichia coli chemosensing is near-critical, enabling large signal amplification without compromising response speeds.

Brown dwarfs are small stars that are believed to be made of a warm dense plasma that cannot support hydrogen fusion as larger stars do. Here, the authors present a method for studying the properties, such as resistivity, of warm dense plasmas in the laboratory.

Engineered mucus-tethering bispecific nanobodies neutralize and entrap viruses to enhance mucosal immunity, preventing influenza infection and limiting SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

GDF15 has been associated with cancer-associated cachexia. Here, the authors show that STK11/LKB1 loss-of-function mutations in non-small cell lung cancer result in an exaggerated integrated stress response culminating in the tumor cell secretion of the cytokine GDF15 promoting cachexia.

A martensitic alloy with a tensile strength exceeding 3 GPa and a fracture elongation of 5.13% is developed. These mechanical properties arise from interface complexes interacting with dense dislocation networks, which is a mechanism shown to be applicable to other compositions.

Languages vary in how they carve time, space, kinsfolk, and many other domains into categories. Here, the authors show that languages tend toward symmetry in the number of categories used across domains.

Coherent spin waves—quantized into magnons—can be emitted as Cherenkov radiation, but their experimental realization is hindered by the lack of fast-moving magnetic perturbations. Now, a picosecond strain pulse is shown to induce this effect.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

This study detects Chlamydia pneumoniae in human retina and brain, increasing with AD severity. Retinal pathogen load with Aβ₄₂ may predict AD stage. In models, infection drives Aβ deposition and NLRP3 activation, worsening pathology and cognition.

A hidden quality-control system to filter out defective sperm during development is exploited by selfish genes to eliminate competing chromosomes.

Truncated version of adenylyl cyclase 3 acts as a cold-induced rheostat during long-term brown adipose tissue activation.

While the photoreceptor outer segments in the bird outer retina have access to oxygen, the inner retina operates under chronic anoxia, supported by anaerobic glycolysis in the retinal neurons.

Large-effect variants in autism remain elusive. Here, the authors use long-read sequencing to assemble phased genomes for 189 individuals, identifying pathogenic variants in TBL1XR1, MECP2, and SYNGAP1, plus nine candidate structural variants missed by short-read methods.

Producing isolated single-photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride with predefined spin transitions is challenging. Oxygen annealing enables the controlled fabrication of narrowband quantum emitters with optically active spin for quantum applications.

Symmetry breaking is key to tissue formation. Now it is shown that symmetry breaking of epithelial spheroids is controlled by an interplay of collective migration with curvature and matrix remodelling.

Creatine chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging is used successfully to measure brown adipose tissue activity in rats and humans, delivering data that are consistent with [¹⁸F]fluorodeoxyglucose PET and CT measurements.

This work finds that chromophores on conjugated polymer chains are very efficiently electronically coupled together. Fast exciton-exciton annihilation ensures that a single chain can only support one or two excitons after 100 ps.

A wide survey of pesticide effects on soil biodiversity across 373 sites in Europe reveals that pesticide residues occur in 70% of sites and have major effects on soil biodiversity and functional ecology.

A platform using matched patient-derived lung tumouroids and healthy lung organoids enables accurate examination of patient responses to CAR T therapy and offers a faithful framework for improved CAR T design.

Here the authors show that genkwanin glycosides from Phaleria nisidai leaf extract improve glucose homeostasis by enhancing glucose uptake into adipose tissue, with effects comparable to metformin in a study with male mice with obesity and insulin resistance.

Electrochemical CO reduction to multi-carbon products offers a carbon-negative approach to produce chemicals, but the intricate reaction pathways lead to a broad spectrum of products. Now it has been shown that alkali cations alter the mechanistic pathways that govern the reaction selectivity involved in the formation of hydrocarbons versus oxygenates.

Brown adipocytes contribute to energy balance, and adipocyte development and brown adipocyte thermogenesis are in part regulated by epigenetic modifications. Here the authors report that the histone demethylase Utx maintains brown adipocyte identity via demethylation of PRDM16, which in turn represses myogenic remodelling via DNMT1-mediated Myod1 promoter hypermethylation in mice.

Analysis of the cool brown dwarf Gliese 229 B suggests that it is actually a close binary of two less massive brown dwarfs, explaining its low luminosity and settling the conflict between theoretical predictions and measurements.

Lundgren et al. show that in response to transient cold exposure, a distinct subpopulation of brown adipocytes carries out a lipogenic response involving production of acylcarnitines, which enables an improved thermogenic response to secondary cold exposure.

Untargeted metabolomics demonstrate that apoptotic brown adipocytes release a specific pattern of metabolites with purine metabolites being highly enriched, and inosine is identified as a metabolite released during apoptosis regulating thermogenic fat and counteracting obesity.