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Conventional optical readout limits the sensitivity of solid state spin sensors due to photon shot noise and poor contrast. Here, the authors demonstrate room-temperature microwave detection of an ensemble of NV centers embedded in a microwave cavity, which offers high-fidelity readout without time overhead.

Lightning Pose is an efficient pose estimation approach that requires few labeled training data owing to its semi-supervised learning strategy and ensembling.

Evading infection in Cellulophaga baltica comes with cellular changes that alter carbon cycling, metabolite secretion and sedimentation rates.

TssA is an important component of the bacterial type VI secretion system (T6SS). Here, Dix et al. integrate structural, phylogenetic and functional analysis of the TssA subunits, providing new insights into their role in T6SS assembly and function.

Gold nanostructures have shape-dependent properties, making synthetic control over their morphology critical. Here, the authors use dynamic compression to obtain a variety of gold nanoarchitectures, which are formed at very fast timescales by the controlled coalescence of spherical particle arrays.

Mussels produce a dynamic bio-interface between their living tissue and their non-living byssus attachment, relevant for design of implant devices. Here, authors discover a mechanoresponsive protein that may mediate mechanosensing at the interface.

A single nuclear spin is detected at a distance of ∼3 nm from a nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond.

Polymers cross-linked with dynamic bonds can switch the phase from solid to fluid upon stimulus but return quickly to the solid state once the stimulus is removed. Here the authors report a light triggered permanent solid to fluid transition at room temperature with inherent spatiotemporal control in either direction

The evolutionary diversification of an exocyst subunit was enabled by electrostatic shifts leading to its dissociation from the ancestral complex.

Scaling Si spin qubits relies on the uniform control of qubit-host interactions. This work finds correlations in qubit energy levels across a manufactured device arising from placement of Ge in the quantum well, consistent with atomistic modeling.

Centromeres play an essential function in faithful chromosome segregation. Here, the authors demonstrate the mechanism by which human cells dynamically modulate the activity of the Bloom’s syndrome helicase complex to safeguard centromere integrity throughout mitotic progression.

This study shows how pressure induces local disorder and partial amorphization in CsPbBr₃, using total X-ray scattering and big-box modeling to reveal reversible structural changes at the atomic scale.

Here, the authors examine the mechanisms behind cheatgrass’s successful invasion of North American ecosystems. Their genetic analyses and common garden experiments demonstrate that multiple introductions and migrations facilitated cheatgrass local adaptation.

This study reveals that an outer membrane protein from the predator Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus forms a pentameric assembly that traps a lipid monolayer within. This allows the discovery of two superfamilies, distributed across a wide range of bacteria, likely to adopt a similar architecture.

PU.1^low CD28-expressing microglia may act as suppressive cells in Alzheimer’s disease, mitigating its progression by reducing neuroinflammation and amyloid plaque load, indicating potential immunotherapeutic approaches for treatment.

TaS₂ can be synthesised in the 4Hb stacking, a natural heterostructure of “H" and “T"-type layers, which exhibits several unusual phenomena in its low temperature superconducting phase. Here, its layer-dependent electronic properties are explored, revealing the T layers are effectively insulating in the bulk, though not at the surface.

The use of cavity optomechanics for optical information processing is hindered by mechanical dissipation and the difficulties in stored signal control. Here, the authors improve performances on both fronts using time-varying parametric feedback through an additional optical field in a multi-mode cavity.

This work reports the metallothermic production of rare earth (RE) Nd metal using NaNdF₄ as an alternative fluoride salt, without HF use or generation, enabling safer, scalable production of critical RE metals for advanced technologies and industry

Electrochemical acid-base production has attractive applications in mineral recovery and CO₂ removal, but current membrane-based designs are plagued by resistive losses. The authors report a membrane-less system generating useful acid and base solutions at high rates with less energy.

The SARS-CoV-2 main protease is an important target for the development of COVID-19 therapeutics. Here, the authors combine X-ray crystallography and mass spectrometry and performed a large scale fragment screening campaign, which yielded 96 liganded structures of this essential viral protein that are of interest for further drug development efforts.

Through direct visualization of how the moiré potential enhances and modulates the topological flat band in rhombohedral graphene superlattice, this work provides key insights into the microscopic mechanism of the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect

It is important to understand how much long-term sea-level rise is already committed due to historical and near-term emissions. Here the authors use a modelling framework to show how decisions on global emissions reductions in the coming decades alter multi-century sea-level rise projections.

Biology has often served as the inspiration for the design of body armor; one common limitation is the flexibility of the resultant armor. Here, the authors examine the armour of chiton and use the observed design principles to 3D print flexible armor.

The continual growth of the solid electrolyte interphase on sulphide solid electrolytes is an impediment to solid-state battery adoption. Here, the authors reveal the role of phosphorus in the continual growth and give insights into how to prevent it.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Efficient switching and routing of photons of different wavelengths is desirable for future quantum information applications. To this end the authors demonstrate interference in a multimode system between two optomechanically induced transparency processes in a diamond on-chip cavity.

A stiff hydrogel gel is presented that encapsulates and stabilizes proteins without additives or excipients and uses mechanical strain to release them, offering low-cost and versatile delivery of therapies.

Covalent KRAS inhibitors show initial responses but resistance limits durability. Here drug-induced hapten peptides are identified and characterized, enabling production of high affinity, cross-HLA T cell engagers that stabilize low density hapten peptide MHCs to drive tumor-specific killing.

Variants in NOS1AP can cause monogenic nephrotic syndrome. Here, the authors show that disrupting the intergenic NOS1AP splice isoform that is more prevalent in podocytes leads to monogenic kidney disease responsive to RAAS inhibition.

Genome-wide analyses for 7,266 traits leveraging data from several genetic ancestry groups in UK Biobank identify new associations and enhance resources for interpreting risk variants across diverse populations.

Collagen VI microfibril cryo-EM structure resolves a cysteine-rich coiled-coil important for heterotrimerization and microfibril assembly, reveals a hotspot of collagen VI muscular dystrophy mutations and provides a template for therapeutic design.

HTLV-1 type-C causes more severe disease than type-A, but the underlying reason is unclear. Here the authors show in a macaque model how type-C orf-I affects lung pathogenesis and the immune response to HTLV-1, providing a model to test viral targets for disease prevention.

Diagnosing brain cancer is frequently difficult and requires specialist equipment. Here, the authors develop their previous attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy method and incoporate the use of disposable silicon wafers for diagnosing brain cancer using serum samples.

The nature of the ferryl intermediate generated in reactions catalysed by heme-containing enzymes is uncertain, due to the ambiguity of X-ray crystallography data. Here, the authors apply neutron diffraction, kinetics and other spectroscopy to directly observe a protonated ferryl intermediate in a heme peroxidase.

Crystal structures with two sublattice pairs per primitive cell can host so-called dark states which interact minimally with light due to destructive interference. Here, the authors reveal that in the semiconductor (NbSe₄)₃I these states lead to an indirect-gap optical behavior, despite the band structure displaying an almost direct band gap, having significant impact on its optoelectronic properties.

Our understanding of variation in monocyte context-specific splicing and transcript usage is limited. Here, the authors find genetic variants that affect gene splicing in monocytes in specific contexts, including several diseases, and in response to stimulants.

Pfs48/45, a surface protein of Plasmodium falciparum, is a promising anti-malarial vaccine candidate whose structure is not entirely resolved. Here, the authors present the structure of the full-length molecule, and characterise the binding and activity of transmission blocking antibodies.

RH5, which is part of the trimeric RCR-complex essential for invasion, is a vaccine candidate for malaria. Here, Williams et al. show that monoclonal antibodies targeting each of the three proteins in the RCR-complex can work together to more effectively block the invasion of red blood cells by Plasmodium falciparum and design a combination vaccine candidate.

TDP-43 dysfunction in ALS/FTD causes faulty splicing of the KCNQ2 ion channel, leading to toxic protein buildup, neuron hyperactivity and a potential new biomarker and treatment target using RNA-based therapies.

Many bacteria use the second messenger cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) to control motility, biofilm production and virulence. Here, the authors identify a thermosensitive enzyme that synthesizes c-di-GMP and modulates temperature-dependent motility, biofilm development and virulence in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Here the authors conduct a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of telomere length, used diverse approaches to identify genes underlying association signals, and experimentally validated POP5 and KBTBD6 as regulators of telomere length in human cells.

This study presents a BRET biosensor that measures how anticancer drugs cooperatively engage PRMT5 complexes in cells, revealing how cellular metabolites such as SAM and MTA enhance drug action and enable precision therapies for MTAP-deleted tumors.

This Perspective highlights advances in bioluminescence resonance energy transfer technologies for measuring intracellular drug–target engagement, expanding their use to analyze kinetics, permeability and complex mechanisms in chemical biology.

Negative thermal expansion—contraction upon heating—is an unusual process that may be exploited to produce materials with zero or other controlled thermal expansion values. Azumaet al. observe negative thermal expansion in BiNiO₃which is a result of Bi/Ni charge-transfer transitions.

The structures of amorphous MOFs are challenging to characterise. Here the authors use electron microscopy and pair distribution function methods, coupled with a polymerisation-based algorithm to determine the atomic structure of Fe-BTC, demonstrating the power of this computational approach.

Quantum sensors enable new possibilities in biomedical applications due to their high sensitivity. In this Review, the status of quantum sensing is presented, and the path towards real-world applications on the molecular, cellular and organism scale is evaluated.

Osteoderms are bones embedded within the dermis and are common in reptiles. Here, two osteoderms from the sauropod dinosaur Rapetosaurus indicate that the largest osteoderm known has an internal cavity equivalent to half its total volume and may have functioned as a mineral reserve in harsh environmental conditions.