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Heating and cooling are shown to happen along distinct thermodynamic pathways, which makes the former faster than the latter. This finding calls for a rethink of the fundamentals of thermalization processes at the microscale and of devices like Brownian heat engines.

Analysis of a continuous record of water-isotope ratios from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core reveals a dominant role for annual maximum insolation in determining West Antarctic summer temperature during the Holocene.

The proposed basal magma ocean within the early Earth may have been contaminated by oxides exsolved from the core that can explain seismic velocity anomalies observed in the lowermost mantle, according to thermodynamic and geodynamic modelling.

Observations of SN 2021yfj reveal that its progenitor is a massive star stripped down to its O/Si/S core, which remarkably continued to expel vast quantities of silicon-, sulfur-, and argon-rich material before the explosion, informing us that current theories for how stars evolve are too narrow.

The early stages of a lensed supernova at redshift 3 are found in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, with observations beginning from around 5.8 hours after the explosion.

Measurements of the conformations adopted by isolated proteins at low temperatures show remarkable plasticity including substantial cold induced restructuring and complex frozen conformational landscapes for disordered proteins in the absence of solvent.

Collisions of dust particles with a planet’s atmosphere lead to the accumulation of metallic atoms at high altitudes. MAVEN spacecraft observations reveal a persistent—but temporally variable—metal layer of Mg⁺ ions in the Martian atmosphere.

Superfluids experience drag from container walls and dissipate energy because of quantized vortices and turbulence. Hosio et al. find that in a ³He superfluid at temperatures approaching absolute zero, friction with the walls disappears like in an ideal liquid, while energy dissipation remains finite.

Next-generation radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometre Array, will be able to reveal the mass distribution of the first stars in the Universe by detecting their impact on a faint radio signal of hydrogen atoms from Cosmic Dawn.

Nano-mechanical resonators improve with high-Q factor and light mass, but this leads to the onset of nonlinear behaviour. Here the authors demonstrate precise control of the non-linear and bistable dynamics of a levitated nanoparticle in vacuum, using it as model system to study stochastic bistable phenomena.

Group-IV color centers in diamond show promise for spin-photon interfaces, but precise positioning and activation are challenging. Here the authors combine site-controlled ion implantation with laser annealing and in-situ photoluminescence monitoring to create and tune individual tin vacancy centers in diamond.

By controlling oxygen partial pressure, this study coerces Mn and Fe into divalent states, stabilizing seven new high-entropy rock salt oxides, and introduces oxygen chemical potential as a key design axis for predictive synthesis.

Glass forming liquids near the glass transition exhibit spatially heterogeneous dynamics, but it remains challenging to study their dynamics and structural origin on an atomic scale. Zhang et al. visualize liquid dynamics at a sub-nanometer and millisecond resolution using electron correlation microscopy.

The Moon may have accreted from a disk of debris after a giant impact. Simulations suggest that part of the Moon derives from volatile-poor melt in the hot inner disk, with most of the volatile elements condensing later and accreting to Earth.

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms whose high electron mobility offers potential for cheap, high-speed opto-electronic devices. Docherty et al.show that the terahertz frequency photoconductivity in graphene depends crucially on the type and density of environmental gas adsorbed.

High-surface-area corundum are used in ceramics and catalyst supports, yet the synthesis is hampered by high energy barrier and aggregation. Here the authors report the ultrafast synthesis of corundum nanoparticles via the resistive hotspot triggered phase transformation in electric heating process.

A state-of-the-art simulation reveals that the long-lasting 10 MK plasma in solar active regions can be heated by magnetic reconnections driven by continuous flux emergence that repeatedly deposit impulsive heating into the coronal plasma.

The mechanism of contact formation during the firing of screen-printed contacts to Si solar cells remains elusive. Here, Fields et al. use in situ X-ray diffraction during firing to reveal the reaction sequence, thus suggesting approaches for development of inexpensive, nontoxic solar cell contacting pastes.

Gradual cooling or warming of the atmosphere, combined with strong ocean-driven basal melt, could have led to major changes in the periodicity, phasing, and asymmetry of past ice sheet growth and decay, according to an ensemble of 500-kyr long ice sheet simulations.

When cooled to the millikelvin scale, nanoelectronic structures can become thermally detached from their environment, limiting nanoscale electronic thermometry. Here, the authors demonstrate the robust cooling of optimally-designed Coulomb blockade thermometer devices down to the millikelvin scale.

Understanding transformations of non-equilibrium materials is a key open scientific question. Here the pathway by which different polar supertextures undergo dynamical correlations and collectively transform into a metastable supercrystal state is revealed experimentally and theoretically over seven orders of magnitude timescale.

Observations of ZTF SLRN-2020, a short-lived optical outburst in the Galactic disk accompanied by bright, long-lived infrared emission, show that the resulting light curve and spectra are consistent with the signatures of a planet being engulfed by its host star.

Lenses are well-understood optical instruments to focus light. The flame lens realized here by Michaelis et al. offers light focusing with a damage threshold several orders of magnitude higher than that of most conventional lenses.

JWST and Keck II spectral observations of Saturn’s moon Titan reveal methyl (CH₃) as well as non-local thermodynamic equilibrium emission bands of CO and CO₂. Imaging shows clouds in Titan’s northern hemisphere at several epochs, with some appearing to evolve in altitude.

Residual stress affects most manufactured goods and is prevalent in casting, welding, and additive manufacturing. Here, the authors use operando neutron diffraction to elucidate mechanisms for lattice strain evolution during printing of a low-temperature transformation steel.

The role Tibetan Plateau uplift played in Asian inland aridification remains unclear due to a paucity of accurately dated records. Here, the authors present a continuous aeolian sequence for the period >51–39 Ma, analysis of which indicates that aridification was driven by global climatic forcing rather than uplift.

Plasma fusion devices like tokamaks are important for energy generation but there are many challenges for their steady state operation. Here, the authors show that full divertor detachment is compatible with high-confinement high-poloidal-beta core plasmas and this prevents the damage to the divertor target plates and the first wall.

An abrupt slow-down in a magnetar’s rotation rate (a ‘glitch’) may be related to the subsequent emission of three radio bursts (resembling fast radio bursts) and a month-long episode of pulsed radio emission.

Hybrid perovskite is a promising class of material for optoelectronic applications due to the slow hot-carrier cooling, yet the process is not well-understood in material with Rashba band splitting. Here, the authors reveal spin-flipping and spin-dependent scattering of hot electrons are responsible for accelerating the cooling at longer delays.

Bimetallic wire arc additive manufacturing has traditionally been limited to deposition of planar interfaces. Here, the authors demonstrate deposition of complex radial interfaces with in situ mechanical interlocking, resulting in the prestressed compressive effect in the as-built parts.

Observations of the close gamma-ray burst GRB 060218 and its connection to supernova SN 2006aj reveal the break-out of a shock wave driven by a mildly relativistic shell into the dense wind surrounding the GRB progenitor. These observation catch a supernova in the act of exploding.

The front of the Getz Ice Shelf in West Antarctica creates an abrupt topographic step that deflects ocean currents, suppressing 70% of the heat delivery to the ice sheet.

The electronic band structure in silicon optical fibres can be engineered by continuous laser irradiation during the crystallization of the fibres. A reduction of the bandgap down to 0.59 eV is demonstrated.

Geometric phases in matter are of fundamental interest. Here the authors observe the Pancharatnam–Berry phase in matter waves by imaging light interference patterns from cold gases of indirect excitons and find long-range coherent spin transport in the system.

The successful transport of a trapped proton cloud from the antimatter factory of CERN using a transportable, superconducting, autonomous and open Penning-trap system that can distribute antiprotons into other experiments is reported.

An Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown drives widespread shifts in tropical rainfall through the propagation of high-latitude cooling into the tropical North Atlantic.

Spectral broadening generally conceals the signatures of rotational and translational motion in solution-phase spectra. Now, using highly inert perfluorocarbon solvents, spectral broadening has been minimized allowing the translational, rotational and vibrational relaxation dynamics of highly excited CN solute molecules to be observed simultaneously.

Emplacement of the north polar cap of Mars is investigated by combining viscoelastic deformation calculations and observations, showing that it formed over the last 1.7–12.0 Myr atop a stiff lithosphere and high-viscosity mantle (10²² Pa s), and that glacial isostatic adjustment could be further constrained.

Donors spins in silicon are coherent, high-performance qubits, but scale-up has been challenging. Here the authors present the first experimental demonstration of exchange-based, entangling two qubit gates between electrons bound to ³¹P donors in Si.