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The design of metal-free carbon catalysts is limited by unclear active sites and defects. Here, the authors combine statistical analysis with theoretical calculations to identify effective sites, guiding the synthesis of nitrogen and fluorine co-doped carbons for efficient hydrogen peroxide production.

Understanding interfaces at sub-nanometer scales is vital for complex chemical reactions. Here, the authors advance Pattern-enhanced Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering, enabling efficient operando probing of chemical and structural dynamics at solid-liquid interfaces.

Coronary artery disease has several genetic risk factors. Here, the authors develop a model that combines germline and somatic genetic drivers to predict coronary artery disease risk, identifying high-risk individuals not detected by polygenic risk scores alone.

High-latitude soils are future soil organic carbon loss hotspots, with losses dominated by particulate organic carbon (POC). The fraction of POC in total SOC (f_POC) is a key indicator, emphasizing the climate importance of preserving POC.

Imaging strain in large catalytic particles with high precision remains a challenge. Here, the authors apply four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy to map strain in perovskite-type hydroxides, revealing correlations that enable high-performance nitrate reduction to ammonia.

Metal–halide complexes are central to light emission in halide perovskites, but their bottom-up spatial arrangement is difficult to control. Now a crown-ether-assisted supramolecular strategy has been shown to enable the synthesis of one-dimensional metal–halide molecular wires with high photoluminescence efficiency and strong nonlinear optical responses.

A large-scale study on the replicability of claims from social and behavioural science journals reports that about half of the results replicate in the same patterns as the original study.

Photochargeable semiconductors offer a promising route to overcoming efficiency limits in photocatalytic transformations. Now it has been shown that zinc indium sulfide nanocrystals with a high charge storage capacity, combined with a nickel cocatalyst, enable highly selective and scalable amine dehydrogenative coupling with hydrogen evolution.

Aqueous two-phase systems have potential as biomimetic materials, but often lack stability and are prone to collapse. Here, the authors use interfacial assembly of chitin nanofibres and cellulose nanocrystals to prepare a biobased system with permeability and switchable motility.

Most advanced triple-negative breast cancers remain resistant to immunotherapy. Here, the authors discover that RIPK1-driven necroptosis in both tumor and stromal compartments is essential for effective immunogenic cell death-based therapy and immune checkpoint blockade.

The authors from the ALICE collaboration identify multiple species of mesons and baryons and measure the anisotropic flow with non-flow removal techniques in pp and p-Pb collisions at the LHC, identifying the hallmark of quark flow associated with an expanding quark-gluon plasma.

The response of soil carbon to warming is critical feedback that has been difficult to constrain. This study uses a long-term experiment to show that precipitation modulates microbial and therefore carbon dynamics; drought leads to carbon loss with warming, but wet conditions increase soil carbon.

Mechanical response of semiconducting polymers affects their electrical properties, yet the detail remains elusive. Zhong et al. examine the multiscale structural evolution of conjugated polymer thin films during uniaxial deformation and link it to mechanical resilience and solar cell performance.

Radical Fe^II/α-ketoglutarate-dependent halogenases are powerful biocatalysts for C–H functionalization. Here, the authors reveal the mechanistic basis for chemoselectivity in a lysine halogenase.

The growing demand for rare earth elements (REEs) underscores the need for sustainable recovery methods and a reliable supply. Here the authors establish a platform using a yeast to produce bio-oxalic acid for REE recovery, achieving 99% REE recovery from low-grade ore.

Ionic liquid additives increase the power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells, but their effect on perovskite crystallization remains unclear. Xu et al. provide mechanistic insights and demonstrate improved operational stability under continous illumination and 90 °C thermal stress.

Two-dimensional metal halide perovskites exhibit diverse structures, but tuning their intralayer structure is challenging. Now, ammonium-terminated bidentate linkers have been used to develop 2D perovskites. These materials exhibit superior thermal resistance and improved photovoltaic performance compared with their Ruddlesden–Popper and Dion–Jacobson counterparts.

Identifying jets originating from heavy quarks plays a fundamental role in hadronic collider experiments. In this work, the ATLAS Collaboration describes and tests a transformer-based neural network architecture for jet flavour tagging based on low-level input and physics-inspired constraints.

The CMS Collaboration reports the measurement of the spin, parity, and charge conjugation properties of all-charm tetraquarks, exotic fleeting particles formed in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.

The formation of exciton crystals is challenging because excitons possess short lifetimes and exhibit weaker interactions than electrons. Now, an exciton Wigner crystal is observed in a moiré electron–hole bilayer.

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.

Efficient and stable water adsorbents are essential for removing moisture from natural gas and olefins during their production, but industrial desiccants require high regeneration temperatures, while metal-organic frameworks often suffer from limited long-term stability and reusability. Here, the authors introduce a new type of molecular coordination complex desiccants.

A significant barrier to the mass adoption of electric vehicles is the long charge time (>30 min) of high-energy Li-ion batteries. Here, the authors propose a practical solution to enable fast charging of commercial Li-ion batteries by combining thermal switching and self-heating.

Global Burden of Disease estimates show that between 1990 and 2023, the prevalence and burden of drug use disorders, inclusive of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and opioid use, have been increasing in high-income countries, particularly in the USA.

Modulation of random heteropolymers results in globular polymer clusters with catalytic activity mimicking proteins.

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.

Here the authors report the synthesis of defect-rich boron nitride by flux reconstruction method, which exhibited good reactivity for semihydrogenation of low concentration acetylene in ethylene-abundant gas stream.

Better understanding the synergy between radiation and corrosion is necessary to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. Here, the authors contradict the misconception that radiation always results in deleterious effects and show that proton irradiation slows the corrosion of Ni-Cr alloys in 650 °C molten salt.

The STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory demonstrates evidence of spin correlations in \(\Lambda \bar{\Lambda }\) hyperon pairs inherited from virtual spin-correlated strange quark–antiquark pairs during QCD confinement.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

By inducing a transformation in a manganese-rich cation-disordered rocksalt, partially ordered spinels with nanomosaic domains of 3–7 nm in size can be obtained, which exhibit high energy density and rate capability at an average particle size of 3–5 µm.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

The molecular-level mechanism by which manganese enhances cobalt catalysts for Fischer−Tropsch synthesis (FTS) of long-chain hydrocarbons from syngas is not well understood. Here, the authors demonstrate that manganese promotes long-chain hydrocarbon production in Co-based FTS catalysts by binding H at basic O sites on MnO, reducing chain termination on Co and thus promoting C₅₊ products.

Insufficient electron injection remains a limiting factor for the performance of stretchable organic light-emitting diodes. Here designs for both electron transport layer and cathode in stretchable organic light-emitting diodes are reported to achieve efficient electron injection.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

The kinetic pathways driving morphological changes in core-shell metallic nanowires are crucial for their functional properties. Here authors reveal a three-step deposition process, and influence nanoparticle size and surface roughness.

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.

Water can behave in unexpected ways at high pressure and temperature. Simulations of the detonation of a high explosive show that ‘extreme’ water can act as a chemical catalyst that promotes the transport of oxygen between reactive sites — contrary to the current view of water as a stable final product.

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.

Skyrmions—vortex-like spin textures—are conventionally only seen in materials that exhibit the right magnetic properties. Li et al.now create so-called artificial skyrmions using a cobalt disk embedded in a magnetized nickel film, thus presenting a platform for controlling skyrmions.

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.

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 mechanism underpinning the frequency mismatch between THz magnons and the GHz spin currents observed in antiferromagnetic insulators remains unknown. Here, the authors demonstrate that, in a Py/Ag/CoO/Ag/Fe₇₅Co₂₅/MgO(001) heterostructure, a GHz spin current transmits coherently across the antiferromagnetic CoO insulating layer to drive a coherent spin precession of the ferromagnetic Fe₇₅Co₂₅ layer.

Pt-based catalysts are the state of the art for the oxygen reduction reaction. Now the three-dimensional local atomic structure of PtNi and Mo-doped PtNi nanoparticles is revealed via atomic electron tomography, and a local environment descriptor of catalytic activity is put forwards.

The ALICE Collaboration provides details on the microscopic mechanism that ends up creating antideuteron in high-energy proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.

Large-effect variants in autism remain elusive. Here, the authors use long-read sequencing to assemble phased genomes for 189 individuals, identifying pathogenic variants in TBL1XR1, MECP2, and SYNGAP1, plus nine candidate structural variants missed by short-read methods.

Topochemical polymerization (TCP) emerges as a leading approach for synthesizing single crystalline polymers, but the untapped potential of performing TCP in a liquid medium with solid-state structural fidelity presents unsolved challenges. Here, the authors reveal details of single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation during the TCP of chiral azaquinodimethane monomers through in situ crystallographic analysis while spotlighting a rare metastable crystalline phase.