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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.

The electronic behaviour of complex oxides such as LaNiO₃ depends on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, making it challenging to identify microscopic mechanisms. Here the authors demonstrate the influence of oxygen vacancies on the thickness-dependent metal-insulator transition of LaNiO₃ films.

In this work, a scenario-adaptive hierarchical optimisation framework is developed for the design of hybrid energy storage systems for industrial parks. It improves renewable use, cuts energy costs and carbon emissions, and offers a scalable pathway for the low-carbon energy transition of these parks.

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.

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.

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.

Polymer thin films that emit and absorb circularly polarised light are promising in achieving important technological advances, but the origin of the large chiroptical effects in such films has remained elusive. Here the authors demonstrate that in non-aligned polymer thin films, large chiroptical effects are caused by magneto-electric coupling, not structural chirality as previously assumed.

The authors demonstrate dual-probe multi-messenger imaging of high-energy-density plasmas based on laser-wakefield-accelerated electrons. This enables spatiotemporally resolved simultaneous probing of plasma hydrodynamics and electromagnetic field evolution with both x-ray and electron beams.

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.

Kinematic measurements of the Perseus galaxy cluster reveal two drivers of gas motions: a small-scale driver in the inner core associated with black-hole feedback and a large-scale driver in the outer core powered by mergers.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

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

Twisted bilayer (tb) MoTe₂ is an ideal platform for investigating the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect but issues related to air sensitivity make the study of its electronic structure experimentally challenging. As a solution, the authors prepare hBN encapsulated tb-MoTe₂ and using micro-angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy determine the band structure. Furthermore, through in-situ alkali metal deposition, they obtain evidence indicating a direct band gap.

Cornell et al. show that target cells with low cortical tension induce macrophages to preferentially trogocytose, or engulf in small fragments, whereas target cells with high cortical tension tend towards phagocytosis.

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.

Water-vapor interfaces have been studied with many techniques, yet open questions persist about their electronic and molecular structure. Here, the authors demonstrate the application of soft x-ray second harmonic generation to study the water surface by leveraging attosecond pulses at the LCLS and a flat liquid sheet microjet, providing insights on the H-bond structure.

Tree cover gains in the moist tropics (1982–2015) were 56% naturally regenerated forests and 27% managed tree systems, with forest type influencing carbon recovery. Effective forest restoration requires robust tracking of forest types established by restoration efforts.

This Consensus Statement presents the standards for technical reporting in environmental and host-associated microbiome studies (STREAMS) guidelines.

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.

Reported detections of gases in exoplanet atmospheres, including claims of biosignatures on K2-18 b, disappear when broader models are tested, revealing that such detections often reflect modelling limits rather than real signals.

FACED 2.0 builds on and expands the capabilities of the free-space angular-chirp-enhanced delay microscopy approach. Its high speed, large field of view and volumetric coverage enable two-photon voltage imaging of hundreds of neurons or calcium imaging of thousands of neurons in the mouse or zebrafish brain.

A 580,000-year cave record from southern Nevada reveals how temperature, ice sheets, and summer insolation influenced the southwest United States’ unique climate history over the last six glacial-interglacial cycles.

An Fe^III/V redox mechanism in Li₄FeSbO₆ on delithiation without Fe^IV or oxygen formation with resistance to aging, high operating potential and low voltage hysteresis is demonstrated, with implications for Fe-based high-voltage applications.

This study reveals dissociating methane hydrate mounds on the seafloor at more than 3600 m deep in the Greenland Sea. This gas hydrate cold seep supports chemosynthetic fauna similar to Arctic hydrothermal vents at similar depth, consistent with an overlap between vent and seep fauna in the region.

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.

Whether electron–phonon coupling is a generic feature in FeSe/SrTiO₃ to enhance superconductivity remains unclear. Here, Zhang et al. report replica bands in FeSe/SrTiO₃(110), suggesting a common mechanism in FeSe on SrTiO₃with different surface terminations.

Evolutionary patterns of virus replication and distribution in lymphoid tissue during the early phases of HIV infection have not been delineated. Lymph node (LN) biopsies were excised from patients at different times after the estimated time of primary infection. Within 3 months of the acute viral syndrome, HIV was mostly present in individual virus-expressing cells in LNs; trapping of virions in the follicular dendritic cell (FDC) network was minimal or absent, but was the predominant form of HIV detected in LNs of subjects with chronic infection, either recent (4–20 months after primary infection) or long-term (>2–3 years after primary infection). Plasma viremia was significantly higher in patients during the first 3 months than in those recently infected; however, there were no significant differences in the number of virus-expressing cells per square millimeter of LN tissue in these two groups. Numbers of virus-expressing cells in lymphoid tissue were significantly lower in the subjects with long-term infection than in the other two groups. Therefore, during the transition from primary to chronic HIV infection, the level of HIV replication in lymphoid tissue remains elevated despite the fact that viremia is significantly downregulated. These findings have implications for therapeutic strategies in primary HIV infection and in recent seroconvertors.

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.

Here, the authors create a high-quality-factor chiral metasurface that enables record-high room-temperature valley-selective emission in MoSe₂ monolayers, independent of excitation polarization.

CAR-T cells engineered with αPD-L1–IL-12 fusion proteins show antitumour activity in mouse models of prostate and ovarian cancer.

All-solid-state batteries face complex chemo-mechanical degradation. Here, authors reveal how interfacial chemical reactions in Ni-rich oxides govern reaction dynamics and microstructural changes and unveil that coatings enhance uniformity and durability.

Few aerobic hyperthermophilic microorganisms are known to degrade polysaccharides. Here, Nou et al. use genomic information to enrich and optical tweezers to isolate an aerobic hyperthermophilic bacterium that can grow at 65–87.5 °C using polysaccharides as sole carbon sources.

Sodium-ion batteries are promising low-cost alternatives to lithium-ion systems yet limited by underperforming anodes. This Review highlights advances and challenges in hard carbon and alloy-based anodes, outlining design strategies to boost capacity, stability and commercial viability of next-generation high-energy sodium-ion batteries.

XRISM observations show the presence of odd-numbered elements chlorine and potassium in Cas A. These findings suggest that stellar activity plays an important role in cosmic chemical evolution, enriching space with elements vital for planets and life.

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.

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.

Analysis of the virus community associated with red algal mats in Yellowstone National Park shows it to be dominated by Megaviricetes, with resident virus lineages being of ancient origin and encoding genomic footprints of adaptation to thermophily.

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.

Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior has been observed within 1D defects in transition metal dichalcogenides. Here, using complementary experiments and engineered defects, the authors demonstrate the importance of graphene as a substrate and its role in the formation of this quasiparticle excitation in 2D WS₂.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).