Search

Thiophene S,S-dioxides are excellent substrates for cycloaddition reactions, but underused in target-oriented synthesis. Here the authors show how these heterocycles enable the asymmetric synthesis of tricyclic indolines, as well as the collective synthesis of the iconic Strychnos alkaloids. Computational studies rationalize the source of asymmetry and reveal a spontaneous SO₂ extrusion pathway.

Temporal processing and robustness to noise are challenges in current spiking neural networks. Drawing on principles of neural oscillations, the authors introduce Rhythm-SNN, which enhances temporal processing and robustness while significantly reducing energy consumption.

Engineering human microglia with a Down-syndrome-linked myeloid gene variant resists tau-induced dysfunction and protects neurons in chimeric brains, offering proof of concept for transformative microglial replacement therapies in Alzheimer’s disease.

Accurately describing and tuning active sites remains a major challenge. Here, the authors introduce an effective metal-ion chelation strategy—guided by DFT predictions and in situ Raman measurements—to structurally engineer and quantitatively link the electronic properties of active sites in an ionic liquid.

A PICALM allele associated with increased risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease has a microglial-specific role in lipid droplet accumulation.

We develop a method for high-density vertical stacking of active-device multi-layers, implementing memory and logic functions, using unique VIP-FETs where a van der Waals intercalation layer modulates the p- or n-type nature of the FETs.

Photonic memristor arrays fabricated from hexagonal boron nitride/silicon heterostructures provide a scalable, silicon-compatible solution for artificial vision systems, featuring broad spectral reconfigurability and promising performance characteristics.

Commercial live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIVs), usually contain a high proportion of defective interfering particles (DIPs), are not sufficiently protective. With mice models, the authors here reveal that LAIV with low DIPs replicates better, enhances immune response and facilitates cross-neutralization protection against lethal challenge of influenza strains.

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the leading cause of end-stage kidney failure. This study shows that prolonged glucagon exacerbates lipid accumulation, promoting renal injury in early DKD, rather than lipid oxidation. Targeting glucagon signaling significantly inhibits DKD progression.

This study presents the difference in oxidation potential between metals and carbon as a thermodynamic factor for designing multielement heterostructures. A roll-to-roll carbothermal shock technology is developed to achieve one-step synthesis and continuous manufacturing of the multielement heterostructures.

FinFETs are an evolution of metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) featuring a semiconducting channel vertically wrapped by conformal gate electrodes. Here, the authors use a two-dimensional semiconductor to push the FinFET width to sub-nm whilst achieving a 107 ON/OFF ratio.

Foundation models enable rapid adaptation to various downstream tasks and are hence about to become a new paradigm in biomedicine. Here, the authors develop LLaVA-Rad, a small AI that bests larger models in chest X-ray interpretation, and CheXprompt, a radiologist-aligned factuality metric, to enable scalable, privacy-preserving image analysis.

The quasi-two-dimensional antiferromagnet Co_1/3NbS₂ was recently reported to have a significant anomalous Hall effect. However, its controversial spin configuration has presented challenges in understanding the physical mechanism behind the AHE. Here, through an array of experimental probes, Gu, Peng and coauthors verify an intrinsic k-space Berry curvature as origin of the spontaneous Hall effect, and elucidate the domain-related magnetic reversal behaviours.

This work proposes a zirconate titanate-based optical memristor that integrates non-volatility and ultrafast modulation within a single device, bridging the gap between high-speed photonics and nonvolatile memory, demonstrating the potential applications in a broad spectrum of scenarios.

Here, the authors fabricate hybrid van der Waals heterostructures based on 2D tessellations of DNA origami thin films, graphene and boron nitride, showing that the DNA films can induce periodic superlattices at the interface and modulate the electronic properties of the samples.

Continuous industrialization and human activities have led to severe water quality deterioration. Here, a structure-function integrated system is developed by Douglas fir wood inspired metamaterial catalysts with robust and high throughput water purification performances.

Ecological restoration in China’s Mu Us Sandyland reverses decades of water loss, indicating early depletion followed by recovery after 2011, with climate-driven gains up to 351% projected by 2100, as revealed by satellite, hydrological modelling, and machine learning analyses.

Macrophage TP53-induced glycolysis and apoptosis regulator (TIGAR) is implicated in a range of immunopathology. Here the authors show TIGAR drives inflammation and sepsis via activation of TAK1 and that disruption of TIGAR-TAK1 interaction in a murine model of sepsis reduces immunopathology.

Some atomically thin crystals feature crystallographic anisotropy, but demonstrations of electrical anisotropy are scarce. Here, the authors show that the electrical conductivity of few-layered GaTe along the x and y directions can be widely gate tuned up to 10³, and demonstrate anisotropic non-volatile memory behavior.

Prov-GigaPath, a whole-slide pathology foundation model pretrained on a large dataset containing around 1.3 billion pathology images, attains state-of-the-art performance in cancer classification and pathomics tasks.

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.

Endothelial injury drives vascular diseases like atherosclerosis, but key regulators are unclear. Here, the authors show that endothelial major vault protein (MVP) acts as an intracellular regulator promoting Parkin-mediated mitophagy, thereby antagonizing vascular remodeling and suggesting its role as a potential therapeutic target.

Here, the authors explore how Ni single-atom sites on carbon nitride evolve under photocatalytic conditions. They show that this evolution plays a pivotal role in enhancing photocatalytic H₂O₂ production.

LRRK2 variants are linked to Parkinson’s disease. Here, the authors solve the Cryo-EM structure of LRRK2 complexed to RAB12 and demonstrate that their interaction regulates cilia formation in astrocytes.

Ohmic contacts to n-type molybdenum disulfide can be created over a temperature range from millikelvins to 300 K using a window-contacted technique, which leads to evidence for fractional quantum Hall states at filling fractions of 4/5 and 2/5 in the lowest Landau levels of bilayer molybdenum disulfide devices.

Here, the authors report evidence of unconventional correlated insulating states in bilayer graphene/CrOCl heterostructures over wide doping ranges and demonstrate their application for the realization of low-temperature logic inverters.

Metabolic diseases are associated with chronic, low-grade inflammation. Here the authors show that major vault protein (MVP) suppresses NF-κB signalling in macrophages via an IRAK1–TRAF6 axis and that loss of MVP in myeloid cells exacerbates the inflammatory response in mice fed a high fat diet.

Designing promoters with desired properties is crucial in synthetic biology. Here, authors introduce DeepSEED, an AI-aided flanking sequence optimisation framework which combines expert knowledge with deep learning techniques to efficiently design promoters in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells.

Traditional machine learning methods for drug development struggle with bioactivity prediction due to the limited number of compounds in each assay and assay incompatibilities. Feng et al. developed ActFound, a bioactivity foundation model trained by pairwise learning and meta-learning, that improves the accuracy and generalization of bioactivity prediction.

Solid-state sodium batteries represent more sustainable options as they combine resource abundance with safety. This work advances their performance, particularly fast cycling lifespan, to an unprecedented level utilizing a hybrid electrolyte.

Few-layer semiconducting Cr₂Ge₂Te₆ shows bipolar gate-tuned magnetism below its ferromagnetic Curie temperature.

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.

The structural complexity of glycans seriously challenges the currently available analytical methods. Here, the authors report the identification of glycan isomers, glycans with varying chain lengths, and distinct branched glycans, via a glycan derivatization strategy and nanopore sensing.

Colloidal liquid crystals account for various applications due to the combination of characteristics relevant for liquid crystals and colloids. The authors elaborate the impact of concave geometry on the properties of colloidal liquid crystals for development of functional materials.

A magnetic spin Hall effect is reported in the collinear antiferromagnet Mn₂Au.

With increasing reliance on public data sources, researchers are concerned whether low-quality or even adversarial data could have detrimental effects on medical models. Yang et al. developed Scorpius, a malicious text generator, to investigate whether large language models can mislead medical knowledge graphs. They show that a single generated paper abstract can mislead a medical reasoning system that has read millions of papers.

The authors report a large-scale single-shot millimeter-wave imaging technique for low-cost high-fidelity security inspection. Experiments demonstrated successful detection of concealed centimeter-sized targets with order-of-magnitude cost reduction.

Modelling reactions in solution is challenging. Machine learning potentials offer promising alternatives but need large datasets. Here the authors report an automated active learning approach using descriptor-based selectors to model Diels-Alder reactions.

Current methods to construct helical chiral molecules for asymmetric catalysis almost entirely rely on catalytic enantiocontrolled fused-ring system extension. Herein, the authors report a direct terminal peri-functionalization strategy, which allows for efficient assembling of substituted carbohelicenes via an organocatalyzed enantioselective amination reaction.

Clean air actions affect air quality greatly. Here, the authors report widespread decreases in organic aerosol (OA) in China from 2013 to 2020 with primary OA decreasing more than secondary OA. However, further reductions are challenging.

China’s second phase of clean air actions proved less effective than the first, highlighting the need to adapt and update policies to enable continued progress, according to an assessment combining chemical transport modelling and emission inventories.

Surface superconductivity in a Dirac semimetal remains rarely studied. Here, Huang and Zhou et al. report the evidence of proximity-induced surface superconductivity in a superconductor/Dirac semimetal hybrid system Nb/Cd₃As₂.

The cryo-electron microscopy structures of the human noradrenaline transporter in both the apo state and bound to substrates or antidepressant drugs are resolved.

In China, land-use emissions account for 38 percent of the lifecycle carbon footprint for wind farms in forest ecosystems, but only 4 percent for grasslands and 1 percent for deserts, according to a life cycle assessment method that incorporates ecosystem carbon losses.