Search

The Higgs mechanism is best known for generating mass for subatomic particles. Less well-known is that the idea originated in the study of superconductivity, and can be tested in the laboratory.

An analysis of skyrmion dynamics at different temperatures and electric drive currents is used to develop a complete description of the skyrmion Hall angle in ferromagnetic multilayers from the creep to the flow regime and illustrates that skyrmion trajectories can be engineered for device applications.

Small-angle twisted bilayer–bilayer graphene is tunable by the twist angle and electric and magnetic fields, and can be used to gain further insights into correlated states in two-dimensional superlattices.

The feasibility of Floquet engineering in graphene has been called into question due to its fast decoherence processes. Measurements of graphene’s photoemission spectrum now support the generation of Floquet states in this material.

Here the authors show a function for lymph nodes in the maintenance of effector T cell differentiation and function during chronic infection and checkpoint blockade, identifying a spatial component in the regulation of exhausted T cell fitness.

An unconventional chiral charge order is observed in a kagome superconductor by scanning tunnelling microscopy. This charge order has unusual magnetic tunability and intertwines with electronic topology.

Electrical readout of the state of an antiferromagnet is an important goal for spintronic applications. Now, detection of the electrical voltage created by a thermal gradient in a canted antiferromagnet suggests a route for achieving this goal.

African ancestry is a known risk factor for prostate cancer development, but the genetic determinants of this are incompletely understood. Here, the authors identify 172 potentially pathogenic variants which are enriched in an African population.

Structural variants in more than 17,000 human genomes are mapped and characterized using whole-genome sequencing, showing how this type of variation contributes to rare deleterious coding and noncoding alleles.

Measurements of the spin Seebeck effect, the generation of spin current in a ferromagnet due to a temperature gradient, are often hindered by parasitic effects. Here, the authors use ferromagnetic insulators to show how transverse spin Seebeck measurements can be explained by the longitudinal spin Seebeck.

The goals, resources and design of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) programme are described, and analyses of rare variants detected in the first 53,831 samples provide insights into mutational processes and recent human evolutionary history.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

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.

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.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

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.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

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.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Artificial photonic graphene, a honeycomb array of evanescently coupled waveguides, has proven to be a useful tool for investigating graphene physics in various optical settings. Here, Song et al.demonstrate pseudospin-mediated vortex generation and topological charge flipping in otherwise uniform optical beams.

Self-ordered heterogeneous nanostructures are of broad interest for both fundamental studies and technological applications. Here authors show that segregation in a multicomponent system during growth can yield highly strained germanium nanowire arrays embedded within a ternary semiconductor matrix.

Naturally occurring 2H-stacked bilayer WSe₂ enables the observation of exciton condensates in the strong coupling limit.

Broken symmetry phases may occur in 2D materials upon doping, yet introducing doping without inducing chemical disorder remains a challenge. Here, the authors use a modulation doping approach that unveils a hidden equilibrium phase involving spontaneous symmetry breaking in a hole-doped Sn bilayer.

A superconducting material containing a topologically non-trivial electronic band structure presents the possibility of realizing Majorana states as well as exotic excitations with potential in quantum computing. Here, the authors evidence the required ingredients in the noncentrosymmetric superconductor BiPd.

Experimental measurements of high-order out-of-time-order correlators on a superconducting quantum processor show that these correlators remain highly sensitive to the quantum many-body dynamics in quantum computers at long timescales.

There has been substantial interest in using magnons for information processing. At low magnetic fields, many magnets can form complex domain structures. Here, Li et al study how magnons propagate in a ferrimagnet with domains, finding that the passage of magnons is remarkably insensitive to this complex domain landscape.

Available wheat genomes are annotated by projecting Chinese Spring gene models across the new assemblies. Here, the authors generate de novo gene annotations for the 9 wheat genomes, identify core and dispensable transcriptome, and reveal conservation and divergence of gene expression balance across homoeologous subgenomes.

Whether topological semimetal states can emerge in two-dimensional magnetic materials remains less understood. Here, Niu and Hanke et al. propose the concepts of mixed Weyl and nodal-line semimetallic phases by including the magnetization direction into the topological analysis in two-dimensional ferromagnets.

Douglas Easton, Per Hall and colleagues report meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for breast cancer, including 10,052 cases and 12,575 controls, followed by genotyping using the iCOGS array in an additional 52,675 cases and 49,436 controls from studies within the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC). They identify 41 loci newly associated with susceptibility to breast cancer.

Frequency stabilized lasers are critical to precision applications including quantum, metrology, and sensing. A photonic integrated widely tunable external cavity laser and platform compatible coil resonator reference provide ultra-low linewidth and frequency noise over a record wide tuning range.

Our understanding of the phase diagram of twisted graphene structures is incomplete. Now, twisted trilayer graphene is examined using a technique that locally images quantum oscillations and shows that a nematic semimetal is favoured at low density.

Flexomagnetism refers to the modification of the magnetic properties of a material due to inhomogeneous strain, and offers a promising pathway to the control and manipulation of magnetism. Here, Makushko et al. explore flexomagnetism in antiferromagnetic thin films of Cr₂O₃, demonstrating a gradient of the Néel temperature as a result of an inhomogeneous strain.

Fine-mapping of causal variants and integration of epigenetic and chromatin conformation data identify likely target genes for 150 breast cancer risk regions.

Most studies of the genetics of the metabolome have been done in individuals of European descent. Here, the authors integrate genomics and metabolomics in Black individuals, highlighting the value of whole genome sequencing in diverse populations and linking circulating metabolites to human disease.

Formation of the energy-producing machinery in the proximal tubule of the nephron is an essential step in differentiation. The authors show that mitochondrial localization depends on LRRK2, the activity of which is modulated by fluid flow.

Bilayer beta tellurium dioxide nanosheets with p-type characteristics can be formed through the surface oxidation of a mixture of tellurium and selenium, and used to create transistors with performance that matches their n-type oxide counterparts.

Phase transitions during which electrons recover their Dirac nature are shown to produce a spin resonance response that allows the characterization of spin and valley couplings in twisted bilayer graphene.

A moiré quasicrystal constructed by twisting three layers of graphene with two different twist angles shows high tunability between a periodic-like regime at low energies and a strongly quasiperiodic regime at higher energies alongside strong interactions and superconductivity.