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Biomass DNA has potential in sustainable materials, but scalable production of robust DNA materials is challenging. Here, the authors report the development of a fast shrinking induced entanglement strategy for the preparation of rubber-like hydrogels composed entirely of DNA.

New-to-nature photometabolisms are highly intriguing for manufacturing but difficult to achieve. Now, Escherichia coli engineering integrates flavin-based photobiocatalysis with natural enzymatic reactions, achieving efficient semi- and complete photobiosynthesis of diverse unnatural products, demonstrating scalable manufacturing in bioreactors.

Artificial photobiocatalytic reactions are appealing but sometimes suffer from non-enzymatic side reactions. Now a photoenzyme for enantioselective [2 + 2] photocycloaddition of 2-naphthyl derivatives is reported and combined with designed quenchers that shut down the competing enzyme-free racemic reaction.

This study projects heat-related mortality in Europe across various adaptation scenarios by modelling humid and compound day-night heat, using a health-based heat definition. Without heat adaptation, mortality could rise by 103.7–135.1 deaths per million people per 1 °C of global warming.

The combination of a diverse selection of magnetic and semiconducting constituent materials makes van der Waals heterojunctions ideal for exploring effects associated with tunnelling magnetoresistance. Here, Zhu, Wen, Zhu, Cui, and coauthors report on a unusual bias dependence of tunnelling magnetoresistance, that they explain via a planar dependent tunnelling model.

Local structure control is challenging in high entropy alloy (HEA) catalysts. Here, the authors report finely tailoring the local clustering in HEA catalysts through rational composition design and sequential pulse annealing, achieving enhanced activity and stability for ethanol electrooxidation.

Memristor arrays based on molecular crystal with van der Waals-linked cages are fabricated, enabling ultralow energy switching, high endurance and seamless integration into neuromorphic computing hardware.

A new p-type small molecule enhances defect passivation and improves interfacial charge transport in perovskite solar cells, enabling devices with a certified power conversion efficiency of 26.72%, 97% of which is maintained after 2,500 h of continuous operation.

This study introduces mechanochemistry-mediated colloidal liquid metals to enhance interface thermal transport in scalable electronic systems, offering an efficient cooling solution for thermal management in devices operating at kilowatt levels.

This study designed a microsphere-constituted contact lens to provide ultralow-threshold infrared vision by directional photofield enhancement, demonstrating improvement in dark-light imaging and restoration of mammalian dark vision.

Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are nano-sized particles from Gram-negative bacteria, critical yet hard to identify in biological samples. Here, the authors show a method using a Polymyxin B-fluorescein probe to selectively label and quantify OMVs, distinguishing them from other vesicles for precise bacterial infection diagnosis.

High-quality diploid assemblies of potato genomes from 24 wild and 20 cultivated potatoes provide insights into the complex evolution and diversity of potatoes, and could have applications in the breeding of hybrid potatoes.

In this work, the authors unveil a mechanism where the Citron homology domain regulates HPK1’s kinase domain, shedding light on the relationship between HPK1’s structure and function. This enhances our understanding of HPK1, an intracellular target for cancer immunotherapy and provides a direction for immuno-oncology drug discovery.

A phased pangenome of potato constructed from 60 wild and cultivated haplotypes shows that substantial hybridization occurred during domestication and enables identification of many putative deleterious variants, providing a basis for the design of improved inbred lines.

China maintained a ‘zero-COVID’ policy from early in the pandemic until late 2022 that employed various public health interventions with the aim of COVID-19 containment. Here, the authors use data from 131 outbreaks in China to estimate the effects of a range of interventions against different SARS-CoV-2 variants in diverse settings.

Copy number alteration (CNA) analysis of single-cell and bulk tissue data of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients reveals potential false-positive CNAs in bulk samples and outlines the evolutionary trajectory of CNA signatures in HCC.

An alternative approach to physical vapor deposition is demonstrated here for accessing ultrastable metallic glasses via the glass-to-glass transition, a bulk transformation that is inherently free from size constraints and anisotropy.

Acidic electrochemical CO₂ conversion is a promising alternative to overcome low CO₂ utilization. Here, the authors report a robust carbon coated tip-like In₂O₃ electrocatalyst that demonstrates an enhanced activity for the direct production of HCOOH in a strongly acidic and low K⁺ electrolyte.

Van der Waals crystals have recently been shown to exhibit ferromagnetism, however the Curie temperature is typically quite low. Herein, Wu et al succeed in producing mono and few layer crystals of CrTe, a non-van der Waals crystal, and demonstrate strong intrinsic room temperature ferromagnetism.

Chuanpeng Hou and co-authors report their findings on the origin of interplanetary switchbacks in solar magnetic reconnection at chromospheric network boundaries. This link between in situ and remote-sensing solar observations is a major step towards understanding coronal heating and solar wind acceleration.

Acorales is sister to all other monocots and contains only one family with just one genus, Acorus. Here, the authors assemble the genome of the diploid Ac. gramineus and the tetraploid Ac. calamus, reconstruct an ancestral monocot karyotype and gene toolkit, and discuss the origin and evolution of the two species and other monocots.

Regenerative heart valve prostheses rely on interactive materials that can adapt to the remodeling process, but these materials are often based on complex designs. Using 1,1’-thiocarbonyldiimidazole chemistry, the authors propose a double network hydrogel formulation for heart valve regeneration.

Supported metal catalysts suffer from rapid degradation under harsh conditions. Here, the authors report a hydrogenated borophene-triggered synthesis method to prepare carbon supported Pt and multielement Pt based intermetallic catalysts with enhanced catalytic activity and durability for oxygen reduction reaction.

We develop a proton-exchange membrane system that reduces CO₂ to formic acid at a catalyst that is derived from waste lead–acid batteries and in which a lattice carbon activation mechanism contributes.

2D AMX₂ compounds (where A is a monovalent metal ion, M is a trivalent metal, and X is a chalcogen) are a family of materials with coupled ionic-electronic properties. Here, the authors report a chemical vapor deposition strategy to fabricate 20 types of 2D AMX₂ flakes, exhibiting superionic conductivity or room temperature ferroelectricity.

Nanostructured design of mono- and multimetallic particles can be leveraged to achieve highly active catalysts. Now, a gas-balancing adsorption strategy is presented to prepare alloy nanowires with diameter of around 1 nm, whereby resulting catalysts achieve excellent performance for both anion- and proton-exhange membrane fuel cells.

Low ion conductivity, large interfacial resistance, and dendrite growth hinder the practical use of solid-state batteries. Here, the authors introduce a self-healing poly(ether-urethane)-based solid-state polymer electrolyte to address these issues, resulting in high performance solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries.

Designing efficient and scalable quantum dot LEDs meeting industrial requirements remains a challenge. Here, the authors, by leveraging the liquid phase exchange of d-MX₂ ligands, present printed quantum dot LEDs with external quantum efficiency over 16% and half lifetime of more than 1,721,000 hours.

In photovoltaics window electrodes must display uniform current transport, as well as high light transmission from the substrate. Here, Han et al.show that quasi-fractal metallic networks provide a practical realization of an electrode structure with an optimal surface coverage and a uniform current density.

In isotropic two dimensional systems, long range ferromagnetic order is supressed by thermal fluctuations, and it is due to magnetic anisotropy that van der Waals magnetic materials can have ferromagnetic ordering at finite temperatures. Usually this magnetic anisotropy is relatively small, but in this manuscript Zhang et al make a two dimensional van der Waals material with exceptionally large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and ferromagnetic ordering that exits up to 350 K.

Atom trapping is a well-established route to prepare single-atom catalysts. Here the authors propose a reverse atom-trapping strategy in which surface strontium atoms of LSCF fuel cell cathodes are extracted by MoO₃, forming single strontium vacancies on LSCF in a controllable manner and tuning its performance for the oxygen reduction reaction.

Non-density driven liquid-liquid transition has been predicted in theories, but direct experimental verification is challenging because liquid often remains metastable at transition temperature. Here, Xu et al.provide evidence in a lanthanum-based metallic glass above its liquidus temperature.

Photodetectors based on two dimensional (2D) materials still suffer from low performance. Here, the authors tackle this issue by introducing a reconfigurable design enabled by locally tuning the doping of a 2D molybdenum disulfide film through the polarization of an underlying ferroelectric material.

Haplotype-resolved assembly of a heterozygous diploid potato, RH89-039-16, and identification of deleterious mutations provide insights into the genome organization and breeding of a clonally propagated diploid species.