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Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in van der Waals materials are promising for nanophotonic applications, but they are normally limited to the mid-infrared range. Here, the authors report the observation of long-lived and highly confined HPhPs in the deep THz range in layered PbI₂.

Liu et al. report Chinese normative lifespan brain charts showing later neurodevelopmental milestones than those detected in Western cohorts. Individual deviations from these norms are valuable in assessing clinical risk and outcomes.

Optical switching of a moiré Chern ferromagnet is demonstrated in twisted molybdenum ditelluride bilayers using continuous-wave circularly polarized light, paving the way for dissipationless spintronics and quantized Chern junction devices.

Jahn-Teller distortions alter molecular structures, but are usually only probed on the basis of electronic signatures. Here, the authors demonstrate that tip-enhanced Raman imaging in real space can map the associated vibrational changes in a single molecule.

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.

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

Liu et al. reveal that m⁶A RNA modification enhances plant antiviral defense against Cucumber mosaic virus, while the virus counters by suppressing m⁶A deposition, highlighting a molecular battleground in plant–virus interaction.

Nitrogen-fixing bacteria offer a promising route to reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers, but their effectiveness is hindered by environmental stresses that limit survival on leaf surfaces. This study introduces a nanocoating strategy that enables robust foliar colonization of Klebsiella variicola, enhancing nitrogen fixation and improving rice yield under low-fertilizer conditions.

Morkovin’s hypothesis establishes a comparison between incompressible and compressible flows and is essential for understanding supersonic and hypersonic turbulence. In this work, the authors present the measurements of wall-normal fluctuations that support the hypothesis proposed in 1962.

Despite recent advances with trappedion-based platforms, achieving quantum networks with link efficiency greater than unity on metropolitan scales is still a challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate a multiplexed quantum network generating heralded entanglement at a rate faster than local decoherence.

Lee et al. use an aggregation-prone CLN4 mutant that causes lysosomal damage in neurons and show that in non-neurons, the ubiquitin ligase CHIP prevents CLN4-dependent lysotoxicity via microautophagy.

In this study, the authors present an fMRI‑based signature of corticospinal connections, which predicts individual pain sensitivity, generalizes to patient cohorts, and tracks changes after brain stimulation, suggesting a biomarker to guide personalized pain care.

An analysis of rare genetic variants identifies three genes—MAP1A, ANO8 and ANK2—that have a role in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and investigates the potential underlying biological mechanisms.

Profiling transcriptional crosstalk between promoters and cell-type-specific enhancers allows large gene cargo delivery.

It is unclear how early-life urbanicity influences adult neurobehavioral traits. This study reveals that earlier menarche mediates the relationship between early-life urbanicity and adult neurobehavioral traits associated with mental disorders.

Here the authors reveal how replication stress in BRCA2-deficient cells triggers a mutagenic cycle of APOBEC3B upregulation, uracil accumulation at stalled forks, and DNA damage, uncovering a self-reinforcing loop that fuels genomic instability.

Breakthrough metasurfaces generate “perfect” optical vortices with an unchanging size over distance, charge, and wavelength—a key benefit for robust optical communications and imaging systems.

Real-time PRS-CS (rtPRS-CS) is a polygenic prediction method that can incorporate streaming data for updating single-nucleotide polymorphism weights in real time, thereby maximizing the prediction accuracy of polygenic risk scores over time across various traits.

A cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of brainstem structures identify 713 associations. It reveals shared/distinct genetic architectures across ancestries/substructures and overlaps with neuropsychiatric disorders and physiological functions.

Inter-individual differences are often viewed as obstacles to flocking and coordination. Here, the authors show that tuning heterogeneity in agent parameters can lead to faster and more robust flocking, even in the presence of communication delays and complex tasks

Quantum entanglement — used for quantum key distribution, communication and teleportation — is a fragile resource. Researchers investigate the conditions under which optical loss destroys entanglement, and report states that are particularly robust to such losses.

Current estimates of dissolved CO₂ in subduction-zone fluids based on thermodynamic models rely on a very sparse experimental data base. Here, the authors show that experimental graphite-saturated COH fluids interacting with silicates at 1–3 GPa and 800 °C display unpredictably high CO₂ contents.

Photon-upconverted circularly polarized luminescence from triplet-triplet annihilation has potential in applications, but tunable emission and high dissymmetry factor are challenging to achieve. Here, the authors report the development of stretchable photonic films with both properties.

It is uncertain how much life expectancy of the Chinese population would improve under current and greater policy targets on lifestyle-based risk factors for chronic diseases and mortality behaviours. Here we report a simulation of how improvements in four risk factors, namely smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and diet, could affect mortality. We show that in the ideal scenario, that is, all people who currently smokers quit smoking, excessive alcohol userswas reduced to moderate intake, people under 65 increased moderate physical activity by one hour and those aged 65 and older increased by half an hour per day, and all participants ate 200 g more fresh fruits and 50 g more fish/seafood per day, life expectancy at age 30 would increase by 4.83 and 5.39 years for men and women, respectively. In a more moderate risk reduction scenario referred to as the practical scenario, where improvements in each lifestyle factor were approximately halved, the gains in life expectancy at age 30 could be half those of the ideal scenario. However, the validity of these estimates in practise may be influenced by population-wide adherence to lifestyle recommendations. Our findings suggest that the current policy targets set by the Healthy China Initiative could be adjusted dynamically, and a greater increase in life expectancy would be achieved.

Timely identification and treatment of cerebral lesions in high-risk neonates are crucial. Here, the authors present a deep learning system that extracts multiple standard views from neonatal cranial ultrasound videos and diagnoses severe cerebral lesions with high accuracy, outperforming junior radiologists.

Spatial transcriptomic studies and lineage tracing reveal that, after brain injury, transient profibrotic fibroblasts develop from existing brain fibroblasts, infiltrate lesions, regulate the local immune response and lead to beneficial scar tissue formation.

With only a few known useful room-temperature multiferroics, other ways of achieving materials showing magnetism as well as electrical polarization are sought. The discovery that the ferroelectric BaTiO₃ also shows magnetism at room temperature at the interface with iron or cobalt marks a new approach to achieving multiferroic properties.

Controlled operation of individual molecular machines on a larger scale, 10-100 nm, remains challenging. Here, Kuzyk et al.demonstrate a light-driven plasmonic nanosystem that can amplify the molecular motion of azobenzene through a host nanostructure and translates it into reversible chiroptical response.

Copper-based organic light-emitting diodes are low-cost alternatives to precious metal-based counterparts. Here, the authors develop copper(I) thermally activated delayed fluorescent emitters with colors spanning from blue to near infrared, and achieve device lifetime close to 3700 h at 1000 cd/m².

By intercalating layered 2D atomic crystals with selected chiral molecules, a new class of chiral molecular intercalation superlattices is reported, demonstrating highly ordered structures and achieving high tunnelling magnetoresistance and spin polarization ratios.

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.

Protein kinase R-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase-phosphorylated adenylosuccinate lyase (ADSL) binds to Beclin1 upon lipid deprivation. ADSL-produced fumarate increases Beclin1 K117 dimethylation by inhibiting lysine demethylase 8 activity, resulting in disrupted binding of BCL-2 to Beclin1, enhanced autophagy and liver tumor growth.

In ferromagnetic thin films, spin torque applied to nanometre-scale areas excites localized magnetic self-oscillations, or reduces net magnetization if applied uniformly. Here, Duan et al.show how 1D geometrical confinement allows for coherent self-oscillations to be excited over extended length scales.

A transducer that generates microwave–optical photon pairs is demonstrated. This could provide an interface between optical communication networks and superconducting quantum devices that operate at microwave frequencies.

A fuzzy sequencer can exceed the current limit of information efficiency of DNA sequencers for resequencing applications.

The genetic basis of grapevine thermotolerance remains poorly understood. Here, the authors identify WRKY transcription factor TTC4 as a positive regulator of thermotolerance and reveal its possible upstream repressor SPL13 and downstream target genes HSP18.1 and APX3.

Rare-earth-doped crystals are prime candidates for qubit storage that could be easily interfaced with photonic systems. Towards this end, Siyushev et al.show the initialization, coherent manipulation and readout of single-electron spins on cerium ions embedded in YAG crystals.

A ferroelectric semiconductor field-effect transistor, which uses the two-dimensional ferroelectric semiconductor α-In₂Se₃ as a channel material, could offer enhanced capabilities compared with conventional ferroelectric field-effect transistors in non-volatile memory applications.

Existing computational approaches to predict long-range regulatory interactions do not fully exploit high-resolution Hi-C datasets. Here the authors present a Random Forests regression-based approach to predict high-resolution Hi-C counts using one-dimensional regulatory genomic signals.

Through direct visualization of how the moiré potential enhances and modulates the topological flat band in rhombohedral graphene superlattice, this work provides key insights into the microscopic mechanism of the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect

Chronic alcohol use in humans and mice downregulates small intestinal mAChR4 and reduces goblet-cell-associated antigen passage formation, disrupting antimicrobial immunity.

Duan et al. reveal circuit mechanisms of executive control in the midbrain superior colliculus (SC), where response inhibition and context-based vector inversion are instantiated by specific SC subpopulations.

Cell type labelling in single-cell datasets remains a major bottleneck. Here, the authors present AnnDictionary, an open-source toolkit that enables atlas-scale analysis and provides the first benchmark of LLMs for de novo cell type annotation from marker genes, showing high accuracy at low cost.

The controlled movement of optically active components represents a challenge for nanooptical applications. Here the authors demonstrate a gold nanorod walker that performs directional walking along a DNA origami track and where the individual nanoscale steps can be monitored by optical spectroscopy in real time.

Designing efficient AI hardware capable of creating artificial general intelligence remains a challenge. Here, the authors present an approach for the on-demand generation of complex networks within a single memristor by harnessing device dynamics with intrinsic cycle-to-cycle variability and demonstrate the effectiveness of memristive complex network-based reservoirs.

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.