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Combined behavioural, circuit-level and cellular approaches are used to demonstrate how hypothalamic neurons integrate hunger and oestrous state to drive a switch in how female mice interact with pups.

Previous studies have suggested that being hungry causes people to make more selfish and less prosocial decisions. Here, the authors carried out a series of studies to test this claim and found that the effect of acute hunger was very weak at best.

Animals alternate between active periods and periods of rest or sleep. This study in fruit flies points to brain metabolism as a cause for this and shows that a network of glial cells interacting with neurons links brain function with the need for rest and sleep.

Urgent action is needed to ensure food security and mitigate climate change. Through a multi-model comparison exercise, this study shows the potential negative trade-offs between food security and climate change mitigation if mitigation policies are carelessly designed.

The substitution of the (2S,4R)-hydroxyproline (4R-Hyp) residue in collagen by its diastereomer 4S-Hyp reduces triple-helix thermal stability and impairs collagen function, a phenomenon that has been mostly ascribed to stereoelectronic effects such as the gauche effect and n → π* interactions. Here, the authors use infrared spectroscopy aided by density functional theory calculations to dissect the role of different stabilizing interactions, showing that while stereoelectronic effects indeed influence molecular conformation, n → π* interactions alter conformational equilibria only moderately, with hydrogen bonding being a key determinant of hydroxyproline conformation at the single-residue level.

Oxytocin promotes social behaviors, but its cortical targets remain unclear. Here, authors show that oxytocin activates local interneurons in the rat prefrontal cortex, enhancing sociability through top-down control of the basolateral amygdala.

Delaying climate mitigation requires large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of this century, with possible adverse effects. Under scenarios with no dependence on CDR technologies, this study examines the short- and long-term implications of climate mitigation for land-use and food systems.

Gastrointestinal motility disorders affect over 20% of the population, yet current therapies provide limited relief. Here, the authors show that in a swine model a closed-loop GI neuroprosthesis restores peristalsis and enhances metabolic responses via targeted electrical and chemical stimulation

This study shows that activation of cannabinoid type-1 (CB1) receptors in the olfactory bulb increases odor detection and food intake in hungry mice. The authors show that this function is mediated by CB1-dependent attenuation of excitatory corticofugal synaptic transmission onto inhibitory granule cells and disinhibition of mitral cells in the main olfactory bulb.

Hypothalamic AgRP neurons are shown to control peripheral and central levels of lysophospholipids in association with food deprivation, which leads to cortical excitability, hyperphagia and body weight gain.

In Drosophila, a subpopulation of reward-encoding dopaminergic neurons antagonizes punishment-encoding neurons and can override punishment or hunger cues in favour of reward-seeking behaviour.

Existing ingestible electronics suffer from poor tissue contact, short dwell time, and limited battery life. Here, the authors report an ingestible, battery- free, and tissue-adhering robotic interface for non-invasive and chronic electrostimulation of the gut.

The scale and nature of energy investments under diverging technology and policy futures is of great importance to decision makers. Here, a multi-model study projects investment needs under countries’ nationally determined contributions and in pathways consistent with achieving the 2 °C and 1.5 °C targets as well as certain SDGs.

The VGLUT3-p.T8I mutation was identified in patients with SUDs and EDs and introduced in a mouse line. Here, authors show that mutant mice have an imbalanced DA signaling in the dorsal striatum associated with maladaptive cocaine and food consumption.

Case studies of patients with anorexia nervosa revealed psychological improvements upon treatment with recombinant human leptin, including an alleviation of the entrapment in this eating disorder. Hypoleptinaemia induced by loss of adipose tissue mass might trigger psychological changes observed in starvation. Accordingly, leptin analogues might prove beneficial for treatment of anorexia nervosa.

Current action is insufficient to meet both the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. Integrated model-based analysis shows that strong interventions across many dimensions, together with ambitious lifestyle change, are needed to enable real progress towards the UN Agenda 2030.

Micronutrient deficiency in a cereal-based human diet can have grave consequences. Combining genetics, grafting and multi-elemental image analysis, the authors show how two maternal P1B-ATPases export zinc to the developing seed in Arabidopsis.

Clusterin is widely distributed in tissues and body fluids, and is implicated in various physiological processes. In this study the authors investigate the role of hypothalamic clusterin, and find that clusterin regulates energy metabolism and body weight through the lipoprotein receptor LRP2.

Seiler et al. use machine learning to model hemoglobin distribution at high spatial resolution and map anemia risk in children across low- and middle-income countries. Substantial subnational disparities are revealed.

Achieving cathodes with large areal capacities is crucial for advancing aqueous aluminum-based batteries. Here, authors report a hydrate-melt electrolyte based on AlCl₃ and organic halide salts that enables reversible Br⁻ /Br⁰ /Br⁺ chemistry with a high areal capacity of 5 mAh cm⁻².

The strength of water’s hydrogen bonds is not just statistically distributed. Using ultrafast spectroscopy of isotopically dilute water the authors show that each water molecules preferentially donates one short and one long hydrogen bond.

This carefully designed study demonstrates that CagriSema overcomes metabolic adaptation in response to weight loss in rats.

A combination of single-cell approaches, lineage tracing and metabolomics is used to characterize the changes to intestinal stem cell function in the small intestine that underlie intestinal maladaptation in mice fed an obesogenic diet.

Carbon nanotube-based single photon emitters allow for room-temperature operation, but suffer from vanishing indistinguishability due to strong dephasing. Following a theoretical proposal, the authors tackle the problem experimentally by using a cavity to enhance the photon coherence time and the emission spectral density in the regime of incoherent good cavity-coupling.

Parents are faced with the dilemma whether to invest in their current offspring, or potential future young. Here, Engel et al. show that nutritionally-dependent young induce temporary infertility in female burying beetles, which in turn is signalled to the male partner via a hormone-related anti-aphrodisiac.

Better analytical methods are needed to extract biological meaning from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of psychiatric disorders. Here the authors take GWAS data from over 60,000 subjects, including patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, and identify common etiological pathways shared amongst them.

While the development of weakly coordinating anions received much attention, the progress on weakly coordinating and inert solvents almost stagnated. Here the authors report that strategic F-substitution of fluorobenzene solvents strongly increases the redox potentials of Ag⁺ and NO⁺ salts and tolerates high potentials of perfluorinated radical cations.

Berghoff et al. discover that polycrystalline MAPbI₃ undergoes transient Wannier Stark localization at moderate field strengths, exhibiting substantial optical modulation with a fast response time. Since the polycrystallinity does not hinder the switching behaviour, this low-cost material is promising for light modulation and photonic applications.

Aberrant increased dopaminergic function results in impaired value-based decision making. Here the authors report pathway-specific effects of VTA activation on distinct aspects of flexible value-based decisions in rats.

Vibrational energy transfer in water involves intermolecular coupling of O-H stretching modes, but much less is known about the role of the bending modes. Here the authors, combining static and femtosecond infrared, Raman, and hyper-Raman spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, provide insight into the energy dynamics of the bend vibrations.

Polyethers are ubiquitous in our daily lives, and display counterintuitive solubilities in water. Here the authors show, by ultrafast spectroscopies and computations, that solubility does not depend on steric factors but on the interaction of water molecules with the polymer’s charge distribution

The ionic conductivity of an aqueous electrolyte has a great impact on the performance of devices such as batteries. Here, the authors advance our understanding by showing that a high macroscopic conductivity originates from the large-amplitude sub-picosecond motions of ions on a molecular scale.

Features of major depressive disorder including lack of motivation, sleep disruption and cognitive deficit have been modelled in rodents. Here, the authors develop a new method to elicit a depression-like state inDrosophila, and uncover separable roles for different serotonin receptors in depression-like behaviour.

The cytoplasm’s crowdedness leads one to expect that cell water is different from bulk water. By measuring the rotational motion of water molecules in living cells, Tros et al. find that apart from a small fraction of water solvating biomolecules, cell water has the same dynamics as bulk water.

The structural heterogeneity in liquid water is commonly believed to disappear beyond 50 fs due to the strong intermolecular interaction. Here, the authors show frequency-dependent vibrational relaxation, which indicates the persistence of structural heterogeneity on a picosecond timescale.

A German version of the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale shows similar psychometric properties to the original English version; interoceptive accuracy is negatively related to anxiety, depressive, and somatoform symptoms as well as neurotic traits.

In community and ADHD patient samples, lower information transmission, based on both external factors such as stimulus complexity and internal factors such as personality, was associated with higher levels of boredom.

Methylammonium lead iodide perovskite, a promising material for efficient photovoltaics, shows a unique temperature dependence of its optical properties. Kim et al. quantify the coupling between the optical gap and a lattice phonon at 1 THz, which favorably contributes to the thermal variation of the gap.

Simultaneous coherent control of internal and motional states of a Bose–Einstein condensate has been demonstrated on an ‘atom chip’. The method should provide a route to generating many-particle entangled states, which are needed for entanglement-based technologies such as quantum-information processing or quantum-enhanced metrology.