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Z-lock is introduced as a new method to control protein activity with light. It relies on a steric block placed over important regions of the target protein that can be released reversibly. Z-lock was applied to regulate cofilin and αTAT activity.

Superconductivity in twisted bilayer WSe₂ evolves smoothly with twist angle and emerges near Fermi surface reconstruction, linking previously distinct phase diagrams and clarifying its correlated origin.

BaTa₂S₅, which consists of alternating layers of TaS₂ and Ba₂TaS₄, is shown to host a triplet superconducting phase at high magnetic field. This triplet phase emerges from another—more conventional—superconducting state.

Gallium arsenide photocathodes inside a superconducting radio-frequency gun are a promising source of polarized electrons for future colliders. Now the operation of such a source has been demonstrated.

The production of high-value chemicals can involve energy-intensive processes, necessitating sustainable production strategies. Here the authors present a circular bioeconomy approach, upcycling plastic waste through microbial conversion into levodopa, a medicine for Parkinson’s disease.

A chip-integrated laser with 7.5 × 10⁻¹⁴ fractional frequency instability is demonstrated by active stabilization to an on-chip 6.1-m-long spiral resonator. By using this laser to interrogate the narrow-linewidth transition of ⁸⁸Sr⁺, a clock instability averaging down as \(3.9\times 1{0}^{-14}/\sqrt{\tau }\) is achieved.

The mechanism of strange metallicity remains difficult to understand. Now it is shown that in a strongly correlated d-orbital kagome metal, compact orbitals created by destructive interference can produce the unusual electronic behaviour.

Slow light effects are interesting for telecommunications and quantum photonics applications. Here, the authors use coupled exciton-surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a hybrid monolayer WSe₂-metallic waveguide structure to demonstrate a 1300-fold reduction of the SPP group velocity.

Entangled quantum memories are used in a quantum network of silicon–vacancy centres in diamond nanocavities to experimentally perform non-local phase measurements.

Lateral-flow in vitro diagnostic assays based on fluorescent nanodiamonds, in which microwave-based spin manipulation is used to increase sensitivity, are demonstrated using the biotin–avidin model and by the single-copy detection of HIV-1 RNA.

Generation of orbital currents in a non-magnetic material can be useful to build efficient orbitronic devices. Now, the interplay of chiral phonons and electrons is shown to produce orbital currents in α-quartz.

New research finds that policymakers coleading energy scenario design has the potential both to better align scenarios with policymakers’ priorities and to question current policy, by substantially reducing energy use at half of the cost of technology-focused approaches.

Analysis of the atmospheric H₂ variability over the past millennium suggests that the sensitivity of H₂ to climate change should be considered in estimates of the radiative consequences of rising anthropogenic H₂ emissions.

The intrinsic Kerr nonlinearity in ring resonators is exploited to demonstrate passive isolation of a continuous-wave laser. Up to 35-dB isolation with 5-dB insertion loss was achieved on-chip.

An optically synchronized precision fibre link based on two independent chip-scale cavity-stabilized stimulated Brillouin scattering lasers is demonstrated. An ultralow 3 × 10⁻⁴ rad² residual phase error variance is achieved between the mutually coherent transmit and receive lasers.

Aperiodic composite crystals were discovered that emulate 2D moiré materials, demonstrating a potentially scalable approach for producing moiré materials for next-generation electronics and a generalizable approach for realizing theoretical predictions of higher-dimensional quantum phenomena.

An antiferromagnetic diode effect was observed in a centrosymmetric crystal without directional charge separation. This effect could be used to create in-plane field-effect transistors and microwave-energy-harvesting devices.

X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, structural modelling, biochemistry, cell biology, and evolutionary analysis enable characterization of ORF2p, the reverse transcriptase of the ancient ‘parasitic’ LINE-1 retrotransposon that has written around one-third of the human genome.

Enzymes are viscoelastic, deformable machines. Mutating high-strain regions in these machines affect their catalytic function.

Dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria produce saxitoxin (STX) congeners that block voltage-gated sodium channels. Here authors show how amphibians may sequester STX congeners using a ‘lock and key’ mode, expanding the understanding of toxic sponge action.

As presented at the ESMO Congress 2025: Results of the phase 2/3 AGITG DYNAMIC-III trial show that de-escalated chemotherapy based on ctDNA-negative status in patients with stage III colon cancer did not meet non-inferiority for 3-year recurrence-free survival when compared to standard of care, although it enables better informed treatment decisions.

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

A visible stimulated Raman scattering microscope with extensive pulse chirping in combination with a deep-learning-based denoiser and Fourier reweighting leads to highly sensitive, label-free imaging of cell metabolism at the nanoscale.

A strategy to control HIV-1 infection is to stably repress HIV-1 and induce “deep latency”. Here the authors show that a recombinant anti-HIV-1-1 protein can be packaged as mRNA into exosomes and delivered systemically to repress HIV-1-1 within the context of virus infected mice and achieve long term silencing of HIV-1-1 expression.

Optomechanical systems could form logic gates, but key requirements are two stable static states and the ability to switch between them. Here, the authors observe radiation-pressure induced buckling transitions in an optomechanical system, and control this transition by varying laser power and detuning.

VARNAM is a red-shifted genetically encoded voltage sensor based on the Ace opsin. It is applied in Drosophila, mouse brain slices and behaving mice. It can be readily combined with blue-light-sensitive tools for dual-color applications.

Imaging heart development is challenging due to constant tissue movement and changing physical landmarks. Here the authors present an algorithm capable of maintaining phase-locked imaging throughout a 24 hour timespan, enabling long term timelapse imaging studies of zebrafish heart development, repair and regeneration.

Peng et al. identify a class of non-aromatic, chorismate-derived compounds, abundant in the roots of Arabidopsis thaliana. These compounds are made by a biosynthetic gene cluster comprising five adjacent genes encoding biosynthetic enzymes.

Frequency combs based on terahertz quantum cascade lasers, which combine the high power of lasers with the broadband capabilities of pulsed sources, are demonstrated. The frequency combs generate 5 mW of terahertz power covering a frequency range of almost 500 GHz and produce more than 70 lines at 3.5 THz.

It remains challenging to integrate topological insulators (TI) with magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) for spintronics applications. Here, the authors achieve a large tunneling magnetoresistance ratio and a low switching current density in a TI-MTJ device at room temperature, very promising for TI-driven magnetic memory.

Evidence of modulated metallic and superconducting states stemming from an incommensurate structural stripe motif is reported in the bulk van der Waals superlattice SrTa₂S₅.

The early genetic evolution of uveal melanoma (UM) remains poorly understood. Here, the authors perform genetic profiling of 1140 primary UMs, including 131 small early-stage tumours, finding that most genetic driver aberrations have occurred by the time small tumours are biopsied; in addition, the15-gene expression profile discriminant score can predict the transition from low- to high-risk tumours.

The authors report signal enhancements in high-resolution liquid-state NMR by a new setup for dynamic nuclear polarization. Two-dimensional NMR techniques are used to transfer hyperpolarization within the nuclei of molecules such as metabolites or drugs.

Previous investigations of Floquet states in solid state samples have been mostly based on ultrafast light excitations. Here, the authors report evidence of non-equilibrium steady states in graphene under continuous-wave mid-infrared irradiation, consistent with a long-lived Floquet phase physical picture.

A three-dimensional topological insulator nanowire is predicted to display gapped one-dimensional surface transport properties. Here, the authors demonstrate this experimentally, observing characteristic quantum oscillations in conductance in (Bi1.33Sb0.67)Se3 nanowires under an applied magnetic field.

Using two-point optical frequency division based on a frequency-agile single-mode dispersive wave, a microwave signal source with record-low phase noise using a microcomb is demonstrated, offering over tenfold lower phase noise than state-of-the-art approaches.

Phosphoinositide 3-kinase γ plays critical roles in neutrophil chemotaxis and cancer metastasis. Here, using cryo-EM and functional studies, the authors reveal how two molecules of a key activator, Gβγ, bind to and alter the conformation of the enzyme.

Electrical stimulation of cervical spinal circuits facilitates arm and hand movements in two participants with moderate and severe chronic post-stroke hemiparesis.

Using torque magnetometry, the thermodynamic signatures of bosonic Landau level transitions are observed in a layered superconductor, owing to the formation of Cooper pairs with finite momentum.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are involved in many physiological processes and are targets of intense drug discovery research. Here, the authors describe llama-derived nanobodies that allosterically modulate rhodopsin, a prototypical GPCR.

Understanding the ground state (GS) phase transitions in the quantum tunneling regime of a superconducting system is important for future qubit devices. Here, Shen, Heedt and Borsoi et al. report distinct types of fermion parity GS transitions as a function of magnetic field and gate voltages in a Coulomb-blockaded InSb–Al island.

Gauge fields in condensed matter give rise to nonreciprocal transport and topological non-trivial states. In an on-chip experiment, multi-mode optomechanical interactions generate a magnetic gauge field for nanomechanical motion and yield phonon transport with a nonreciprocal phase.

Electromagnetic devices involving a vibratory actuator and a soft strain-sensing sheet can dynamically measure the Young’s modulus of skin and of other soft biological tissues at depths of millimetres.

Alterations in the tumour suppressor genes STK11 and/or KEAP1 can identify patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer who are likely to benefit from combinations of PD-(L)1 and CTLA4 immune checkpoint inhibitors added to chemotherapy.