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Neural mechanisms underlying high visual acuity are not fully understood. Here the authors show that high resolution visual information is transmitted from the retina to the brain by neurons in the parvocellular geniculate pathway in macaques, where signals are now shown to most often originate from single cone photoreceptors, establishing the neural mechanism that limits resolution acuity prior to cortical processing.

Media representations depict cities in illuminating ways. This study finds that representations of cities in Soviet-era newsreels grow more than expected with city size and are further biased in favor of some specializations and geographical locations.

Saccadic eye movements during free viewing exhibit patterns that reflect a strategy to increase neural responses by matching motor behavior with the statistics of the natural world and with the processing limitations of sensory systems.

Using 63 globally distributed grassland and shrubland sites from the International Drought Experiment, this study identified plant traits linked to drought resistance after 1 year of extreme drought across growth forms, lifespans and climate.

By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previous global assessments based on remote sensing.

Natural scenes sparsely activate V1 neurons. Here, the authors show that a small number of active cells reliably represent visual contents of a natural image across trials regardless of response variability, due to the diverse and partially overlapping representations of individual cells.

JWST’s COSMOS-Web survey is used to create an ultra-high-detail dark matter map, revealing hidden filaments, clusters and distant structures. By tracing features out to z = 2, this map shows how dark and luminous matter build the cosmic web across cosmic time.

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.

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.

In this study, the authors model the current mechanical properties of the seafloor of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, and find those rocks to be too strong to allow the kind of fracturing that, on Earth, enables rock–water chemical reactions on which chemosynthetic life relies.

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.

Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is a widespread herpesvirus linked to cancer and autoimmune disease. The authors in this work design and characterize a stabilized prefusion form of gB, an essential viral fusion protein, advancing EBV vaccine and therapeutic development.

This study examines long-term changes in species richness across tropical forests in the Andes and Amazon. Hotter, drier and more seasonal forests in the eastern and southern Amazon are losing species, while Northern Andean forests are accumulating species, acting as a refuge for climate-displaced species.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

Using cryo-EM, the authors identified 42 MIPs, including outer junction protein CFAP77 and outer dense fibers, in native doublet microtubules of Tetrahymena thermophila. Knockout of CFAP77 reduced ciliary beat frequency and led to outer junction damage.

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.

Here they combine in vivo imaging with proteomics to characterize a protein complex comprised of Ccdc78 and Ccdc33 that acts at the extreme distal tip of 9 + 2 motile cilia to control tip architecture, cilia length, and cilia beating.

A large brain imaging study of over 2000 people worldwide shows that fear conditioning engages brain regions linked to emotion and attention, with differences in individuals with anxiety or depression and strong influences from task design.

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.

Researchers analyzed 5,279 plasma proteins in 40 people undergoing feminizing gender-affirming hormone therapy over 6 months, revealing significant changes in 299 proteins. Such changes could have implications for reproductive capacity, immune regulation and long-term health.

The highest-quality JWST spectra reveal that little red dots are young supermassive black holes shrouded in dense cocoons of ionized gas, where electron scattering, not Doppler motions, broadens their spectral lines.

The ~500-metre-thick Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland completely deglaciated 7,000 years ago, highlighting the sensitivity of the ice sheet to mid-Holocene warming, according to luminescence and geochemical data from sub-ice sediments and ice cores.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet responded to different natural forcing mechanisms than the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the mid-Pliocene due to a greater sensitivity to oceanic feedbacks, according to iceberg-rafted debris records and ice-sheet modelling experiments.

The mechanisms generating the head direction cell signal in rats are not fully understood. Here, two distinct types of head direction cells in the lateral mammillary and dorsal tegmental nuclei were identified: one type is angular head velocity independent, while the second type depends on the animal’s angular head velocity.

The authors study epitaxial thin films of the pyrochlore-sublattice compound LiTi2O4 by RIXS and ARPES. They observe cooperation between strong electron correlations and strong electron-phonon coupling, giving rise to a mobile polaronic ground state in which charge motion and lattice distortions are coupled.

Bacteria produce antibacterials to aid competition in complex communities. Here, the authors show that class II microcins, an understudied group of secreted antibacterials, are abundant, with diverse sequences and antibacterial characteristics.

Ohenhen et al. used space geodetic measurements to rigorously quantify land subsidence in the 28 most populous US cities. They find that over 20% of the area in each city is sinking, affecting approximately 34 million people and placing more than 29,000 buildings at high risk of damage.

Glioblastoma is characterised by high levels of intratumoural heterogeneity and plasticity, hindering treatment. Here, the authors develop an analytical framework, scFOCAL, to predict the sensitivity of glioblastoma cell subpopulations to therapies based on reversal of disease transcriptional signatures to identify synergistic therapeutic combinations.

The mechanism by which sulfur is incorporated into the furanose ring in albomycins—a group of natural nucleoside antibiotics—remains unclear. Now, this work explains how twitch radical S-adenosyl-l-methionine enzyme AbmM catalyses sulfur-for-oxygen replacement in the biosynthesis of albomycin δ₂.

Glycans regulate cells via glycosylation, and aberrant glycosylation is linked to disease initiation and progression. Here, the authors present GlycanDIA, a DIA-based workflow enabling sensitive, precise glycan analysis, revealing low-abundant modifications and profiling distinct RNA glycan patterns with biological relevance.

The authors detail human antibodies that neutralize all three serotypes of poliovirus and mimic poliovirus receptor binding, accelerating antiviral development to further efforts to eradicate poliovirus.

The authors report superconducting topological surface states (TSS) on MBE-grown Fe(Te,Se) films by high-resolution laser-ARPES. Near the FeTe limit, the surface state disappears due to an electron-correlation-driven topological transition associated with decoherence of the d_xy-orbital-derived bands.

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.

GRX-810, an oxide dispersion strengthened alloy, shows excellent structural performance above 1100°C and stability up to 1300 °C. Grain-size effects, additive manufacturing–induced anisotropy, and fine trigonal Y₂O₃ particles enhance creep resistance.

Chronic inflammation hinders the repair of muscle injury, and macrophages are known to play roles in reparative processes. Here the authors show in an nlrc3l-mutant zebrafish model, chronic inflammation drives repression of a mannose-receptor-dependent reparative pathway in macrophages and results in the loss of discrete macrophage states.

Urban water hazards like flooding and contamination are worsening due to climate change, and their risks are deeply influenced by historical oppression and inequitable infrastructure decisions. This Perspective examines how urban flood risk is inequitably distributed and argues that climate adaptation should prioritize systemic, justice-focused reforms to address both resilience and historic social injustices.

Here the authors show that tissue-resident memory and exhausted T cells in tumors are distinct populations that are shaped by relative presence or absence of TCR signals, suggesting that a tailored therapeutic strategy is needed to target each subset.

A transverse Peierls transition can occur when transverse acoustic phonons couple with conducting p-orbital electrons. Here, the authors observe an incommensurate transverse Peierls transition and signatures of a chiral charge density wave in EuAl₄.

C–H activation in long-chain organic molecules remains largely unexplored. Here, the authors report light-driven C–H activation mediated by 2D TMDCs and the resultant synthesis of luminescent carbon dots.