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Diastereoselective hydrogenation of multi-substituted (hetero)arenes provides an efficient and industrially valuable route for transforming these compounds into diversified 3D building blocks, with broad applications such as drug discovery. Here, the authors demonstrate that a rationally designed Pt catalyst enables general diastereoselective hydrogenation of a wide variety of multi-substituted and functionalized arenes and heteroarenes under mild conditions.

Porous liquids show potential as material for carbon dioxide capture but their controlled synthesis remains challenging. Here the authors report a controlled in-situ transformation strategy to fabricate distinct types of porous liquids from one type of supramolecular framework.

Researchers developed a porous material ZU-921 that solves a key challenge in removing multiple different types of impurities through fine-tuning pore chemistry, enabling the one-step production of high-purity propylene.

Selective paraffin capture to afford high-purity olefins directly is critical but still challenging. Herein, the authors discover a distinctive ultramicroporous material featuring closely packed and linearly-extended isophthalic acid units and thus serving as a paraffin nano-trap for the efficient production of ultra-high purity olefins from paraffins.

The mechanism of how different anion dopants influence the catalytic performance for sulfur species is currently lacking systematic theoretical studies. Here, an accurate p-p-s electronic coupling descriptor was proposed as a criterion to guide the design of anion-doped Li-S catalysts.

Organic materials potentially offer a low-cost, flexible and environment-friendly route to spintronics. Here, the authors demonstrate an organic spin-valve device in which an electric field can control both the magnitude and the sign of magnetoresistance.

In oxide materials, cation doping strongly influences the electronic correlations which promote diverse phenomena such as colossal magnetoresistance and superconductivity. Here, the authors use magnetic microscopy to image the effects of spatially ordered doping on electronic phase separation in oxide superlattices.

Laser plasma instabilities are the main factors contributing to degradation of hohlraum performance in inertial confinement fusion experiments. Here, the authors show asymmetric backscattering within the same laser cone at the SG-100kJ laser facility, unveiling the role of crossed-beam energy transfer and laser polarization.

Hanging Coffins were a mortuary tradition practiced in southern China and Southeast Asia. Here, the authors show that different groups of ancient Hanging Coffin practitioners are genetically related, and that they are ancestors of present-day Bo people.

A radical-mediated dynamic remedial strategy based on bio-inspired disulfide metathesis has been developed to construct metal–organic frameworks with crystalline dynamicity. The disulfide exchange-based crystal dynamics of the metal–organic frameworks allows for sustained gas separation.

Observing the Peltier effect, e.g. cooling/heating at material junctions due to current flow, in organic thermoelectric films remains a challenge due the inherent properties of these materials. Here, the authors use IR imaging to experimentally observe the Peltier effect in poly(Ni-ett)-based films.

Stem cell therapies face immune rejection risks with allogeneic ESCs. Here, the authors establish genetically matched autologous ESCs in monkeys via embryo splitting, showing potentially superior genomic stability over iPSCs and ntESCs.

Coronavirus main protease is essential for viral polyprotein processing and maturation. Here Fu et al. report efficient inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 replication using two inhibitors - Boceprevir and GC376 - targeting the active site of the main viral protease.

Enhanced polyamine depletion in neuroblastoma models decreases translation of mRNA codons with adenosine in the third position, reprogramming the tumour proteome away from cell cycle progression and towards differentiation.

Accurate end-to-end deep learning models for adsorption prediction in porous materials would help its discovery. Here, the authors present DeepSorption, a spatial atom interaction learning network to predict structure-adsorption from atomic coordinates and chemical element types.

An efficient and durable alternative catalyst to iridium oxide is essential for acidic oxygen evolution. Here, the authors report a catalyst based on RuO₂ co-doped with tantalum and boron, creating Ru-O-Ta frameworks and Ru-O-B active sites that stabilize the catalyst and enhance performance.

This study proposes a new concept, housing utilization efficiency (HUE), to assess urban housing supply and demand. It found that the overall HUE in China has decreased since 2010, coupled with an over-supply of housing in most cities and processes of depopulation in others.

Single-cell RNA sequencing technology offers a unique opportunity to dissect cell heterogeneity of animals. Here, the authors construct a Xenopus cell landscape including larval and adult organs to dissect cell heterogeneity of the amphibian.

pH sensation is critical for survival of vertebrates. Here, authors found six vertebrate OTOP1 channels that were highly conserved and directly activated by extracellular alkali. Key mutations of OTOP1 reduced alkali affinity without affecting acid activation.

Examining the interplay of environmental exposure with the airway microbiome provides insights for possible intervention in lung health.

Polyene is a segment of polyacetylene, a conductive polymer. Here, the authors measured the conductance of single molecular chain of trans-polyene and found a high conductivity and low decay constant, attributed to the alignment of the energy levels.

The distinction of liver lesions is critical for the accurate diagnosis and treatment of liver cancer. Here, the authors develop LiLNet, a deep learning-based system to identify focal liver lesions as well as benign and malignant liver tumours from CT images with high accuracy across multiple patient cohorts.

Diazo compounds, such as kinamycin, are rare bioactive natural products whose assembly has been extensively studied, but the formation of the diazo group is elusive. Here, the authors report O-methyltransferase-like protein, AlpH, which is responsible for the l-glutamylhydrazine incorporation in kinamycin biosynthesis.

Autophagy is essential for cellular degradation, but it is unclear to what extent it is involved in plant development. Here the authors show autophagy is crucial for full male fertility in Arabidopsis and that impaired autophagy disrupts sperm cell biogenesis and pollen tube growth.

Radicals are expected to be inactive on metal surfaces. Here the authors describe general intermolecular radical transfer reactions on Ag and Cu surfaces and confirm the reaction mechanism by extensive control experiments.

Cancer cells need to reprogramme their metabolism to allow rapid cell proliferation. Here, the authors show that USP13is amplified in ovarian cancer and its protein product, a deubiquitinase, drives tumour progression by rewiring the metabolism of cancer cells by stabilising two critical metabolic enzymes.

Vibralactone is a strong lipase inhibitor and a bicyclic β-lactone containing an oxepinone ring, whose biosynthetic construction was unknown. Here the authors identify an oxepinone-building flavin monooxygenase VibO that is involved in the biosynthesis of vibralactone, and determine its X-ray crystal structure.

Hydroxide exchange membranes are desirable for water electrolysis but are limited by their instability under operational conditions. Here, authors find that the in-situ stability of the membranes is affected by the locally accumulated heat and can be enhanced by thermally conductive membranes.

Increased nutrient uptake of cancer cells offers a possible therapeutic target. Here, the authors designed a nanoparticle to deliver phenylboronic-acid-modified cholesterol which reacts in cancer cells to trigger Gaucher disease-like metabolic damage to tumour cells, demonstrating potential application.

Sequencing and analysing the diploid genome and transcriptome of Aegilops tauschii provide new insights into the role of this genome in enabling the adaptation of bread wheat and are a step towards understanding the very large and complicated hexaploid genomes of wheat species.

In this study, the authors present a genomic surveillance of avian influenza genomes sampled from live poultry markets in China. They report that a number of variants have emerged since 2016 that pose an increased risk to humans. They highlight the importance of continuous genome surveillance of circulating influenza strains.

The male-sterilems2 mutant has facilitated commercial production of wheat for over 40 years. Here, Xia et al. map Ms2and describe how a retrotransposon insertion event in the regulatory element of an orphan gene is associated with expression in anthers and development of male sterility.

A field trial succeeded in eliminating populations of the mosquito Aedes albopictus through inundative mass release of incompatible Wolbachia-infected males, which were also irradiated to sterilize any accidentally-released females, and so prevent population replacement.

The therapeutic approaches directly targeting activated β-catenin in liver cancers are restricted by toxicities. Here the authors identify that the solute carrier transporter SLC13A3 is upregulated by activation of β-catenin and silencing of SLC13A3 induces ferroptosis, which could be exploited as a therapeutic opportunity in β-catenin-driven liver cancers.

Cycloaddition reactions are among the most useful reactions in chemical synthesis, but biosynthetic enzymes with 2 + 2 cyclase activity have yet to be observed. Now it is shown that a β-barrel-fold protein catalyses competitive 2 + 2 and 4 + 2 cycloaddition reactions. This protein can be engineered to preferentially produce the exo-2 + 2, exo-4 + 2 or endo-4 + 2 product.

Organic materials hold great potential of for spintronic applications. Here the authors show electronic phase dependent magnetoresistance (MR) effect in LPCMO/Alq₃/Co junctions with large MR up to 440% at 10 K as well as electrical Hanle effect as the Hallmark of the spin injection.

Balancing the separation selectivity and regeneration energy of alkane isomers is a daunting challenge. Here the authors utilize flexible host-guest interactions to maximize the gas-framework interactions while achieving potential energy storage to set new benchmarks for alkane isomer separation.

The Mexican axolotl is a well-established tetrapod model for regeneration and development. Here the authors report a scRNA-seq method to profile neotenic, metamorphic and limb development stages, highlighting unique perturbation patterns of cell type-related gene expression throughout metamorphosis.

Iso-imaging integrates stable-isotope infusions with imaging mass spectrometry to enable quantitative analysis of metabolic activity in mammalian tissues with spatial resolution. IsoScope software facilitates analysis of iso-imaging data.

Ghergurovich, Xu and Wang et al. show that methionine synthase is important for tumour cell survival through the generation of tetrahydrofolate rather than methionine.

Aerobic glycolysis is a hallmark of fast-growing cells, but it is unclear whether glycolysis was selected for its speed. Glycolysis produces ATP slower than respiration (per protein mass) and is beneficial for rendering cells robust to hypoxia.

Artificial spin ices consist of small magnets arranged in a lattice. Their simplicity belies their rich behaviour; they allowed for the investigation of effective magnetic monopoles, and more recently have been suggested as promising platforms for neuromorphic computing. For this latter function, efficient readout of the artificial spin ice state is critical. In this manuscript, Hu et al succeed in distinguishing artificial spin ice states using simple transport measurements.

Ayoub et al. describe a structured clinical framework that guides large language models through stepwise diagnostic reasoning, mimicking real-world clinical workflows. This approach improves diagnostic accuracy, generates human-like explanations, and generalizes across models, datasets, and real-world hospital data.

Solar-driven hydrogen evolution coupled with organic synthesis is important but challenging. Here, the authors report an in-situ oxygen impregnation strategy to build a ruthenium-based amorphous hybrid-mixture with abundant atomic interfaces and show efficient hydrogen evolution with small molecule oxidation.