Search

Complex networks interact with their environment through input and output nodes. Here, authors show how network structure and the choice of input-output nodes determine whether signals are suppressed or amplified, revealing how topology shapes signal transmission

In birth-death models, the evolution of spatially structured populations is impacted by the order of birth and death events. Here, the authors demonstrate that moving the parent to a vacant site leads to new update rules where mutants have a higher probability of fixation.

Tau protein has been observed to form condensates in various contexts. Here, the authors show that tau can form DNA-anchored droplets that organize nearby microtubules, pointing to a role in mitosis.

Tiny airborne particles play a critical role in two major environmental issues: climate change and air pollution. Our study highlights the important, yet often overlooked non-linear interaction of organic compounds on the formation of such particles.

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.

With rich, multi-layered baseline data and long-term follow-up through linkage, the HELIOS Study provides a resource to investigate the behavioural, environmental, genomic, and molecular factors impacting health in Asian populations.

Extrachromosomal circular DNAs (ecDNAs) are prevalent in human cancers and are thought to drive tumor evolution and drug resistance by amplifying oncogenes. Here, authors develop ec3D to reconstruct three-dimensional ecDNA structures, revealing how their spatial organization rewires regulatory circuits.

Fractal analysis of structural MRI captures the formation of brain shape in human newborns and outperforms other morphological measures in predicting infant age and genetic similarity, including the identification of twins from their brain data.

Active fluids, such as bacterial suspensions, exhibit chaotic flows at low Reynolds number - a phenomenon known as active turbulence. Here, the authors show a discontinuous transition from laminar to chaotic flows in unconfined active nematics.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

Graph Neural Networks achieve accurate predictions of optical spectra after finetuning on only a few hundreds of spectra from a higher rung on Jacob’s ladder of optoelectronic properties, offering an efficient route towards experimental accuracy.

Turbulent flows are observed in atmosphere, ocean, and technology, with turbulent mixing due to stretching and folding of material elements. The authors analyze a geometric perspective of this process and uncover statistical properties of an ensemble of material loops in a turbulent environment.

Recently, chiral superconductivity has been observed in rhombohedral tetralayer graphene under electron doping, arising from a spin- and valley-polarized normal state. Here, the authors propose a superconducting mechanism based on over-screening of Coulomb interaction due to charge fluctuations.

High-depth sequencing of non-cancerous tissue from patients with metastatic cancer reveals single-base mutational signatures of alcohol, smoking and cancer treatments, and reveals how exogenous factors, including cancer therapies, affect somatic cell evolution.

The burial of organic carbon in marine sediments regulates Earth’s carbon cycle and climate. Here, authors present ‘transfer efficiencies’ as a new framework for quantifying the sedimentary portion of the marine organic carbon cycle.

The dynamics of most nanomachines are stochastic, activated by thermal fluctuations. Here, authors find that, when two such nanomachines are mechanically coupled to each other, their dynamics can become almost deterministic, as they activate each other without the need for thermal fluctuations.

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.

A study reporting optical and near-infrared observations of quasars at redshifts 5.8–6.6 shows that about half have strong winds, up to 17% the speed of light, suppressing black-hole growth.

Biomolecular phase separation arises from collective molecular interactions and is emerging as a key theme for biological function. Here the authors propose a broadly applicable method to quantify these interactions based on compositional and energetic parameters.

EHBP1 is an adaptor protein that regulates vesicular trafficking and links endosomes to the actin cytoskeleton. Here, authors show that both termini of EHBP1 have membrane targeting potential and that in the absence of its binding partner Rab8, the bMERB and CH domain of EHBP1 form an intramolecular complex which auto-inhibits actin binding.

Cellular senescence is an underlying mechanism of aging. Among older Americans, higher expression of genes linked to cellular senescence is seen in women and those with class II obesity, and is associated with worse health outcomes.

Examining human brain organoids and ex vivo neonatal murine cortical slices demonstrates that structured neuronal sequences emerge independently of sensory input, highlighting the potential of brain organoids as a model for neuronal circuit assembly.

It is challenging to reduce the size of untethered swimming robots whilst keeping their multiple manipulation and other functions. Ren et al. achieve this goal using a jellyfish-inspired soft millirobot design in an oscillating magnetic field, which can be operated in fluids with moderate Reynolds numbers.

In silico models of cells can provide insight into the causes and effects of disease states and reduce the need for in vivo studies. Here, the authors present a kinetic model of hepatocyte metabolism including energy, carbohydrate, lipid and nitrogen metabolism and hormonal and allosteric regulation of enzymatic activity.

Many organisms, including moths, use pheromones to attract mates. A study using multiple genomic tools and gene editing identifies a new, neuronal gene underlying mate preference and shows that signal and response loci are in linkage disequilibrium despite being physically unlinked.

Using tweets in over 100 countries, Wang et al. examine evidence of global sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic. They find that COVID-19 outbreaks caused a decline in sentiment worldwide, and the effects of lockdowns differed across countries.

It was predicted that complex thermalizing behaviour can arise in many-body systems in the absence of disorder. Here, the authors observe non-ergodic dynamics in a tilted optical lattice that is distinct from previously studied regimes, and propose a microscopic mechanism that is due to emergent kinetic constrains.

How genetic information in the germinal zone determines neuronal cell types is unclear. Here the authors show that MEIS2 plays an important role in determining GABAergic neuron diversity during development.

In order to predict the behaviours of self-propelled particles it is important to understand the fluid disturbances they generate. Here the authors measure the flow-fields around active particles and show that they are in agreement with theoretical predictions which take into account electrokinetic effects.

Synaptic inputs on neuronal dendrites exhibit remarkable organization at different spatial scales, which emerges during the early postnatal development. Kirchner and Gjorgjieva propose a biophysically motivated computational model to explain the different types of organization in mouse and ferret.

Planning effective urban network infrastructure often involves optimization principles that use a backbone network as a starting point. The authors propose an approach based on optimal transport theory to simulate real urban rail networks structure without need of initial backbone knowledge.

Analogue quantum simulators have looser requirements than digital ones, but rigorous results on their usefulness in the noisy case are few. Here, the authors conclude that analogue quantum simulators are robust to errors and can provide superpolynomial to exponential quantum advantage when used to compute relevant many-body observables.

CHD4 is an essential chromatin remodelling enzyme in complex organisms. Here the authors demonstrate that CHD4 activity is regulated both positively and negatively by distinct auxiliary domains, revealing parallels with other chromatin remodellers.

Fibroblast-like synoviocytes are important mediators of joint pathology in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Here the authors show that Lasp1 is epigenetically regulated and highly expressed by these cells in RA and its deletion can limit joint pathology in a mouse model of inflammatory arthritis.

Synthetic receptors are a powerful approach for engineering cell-based therapies that can sense and respond to their environment. Here cytokine receptor domains have been repurposed to develop engineered T cells that can sense and respond to cues associated with cancer or immune dysfunction.

Non-reciprocal interactions in active matter systems can lead to nontrivial types of collective behaviour. The authors describe the emergence of a dynamical state, termed effervescence, characterized by spatiotemporal chaos manifesting as a coexistence of unstable droplets and oscillating densities.

Superconductivity is studied in the molecular solid K₃C₆₀ when it is pressurized and illuminated with short laser pulses. Similarities with the non-illuminated case show that superconductivity exists at higher temperatures than previously thought.

By combining bioorthogonal metabolic labelling and resolution enhancement through sequential imaging of DNA barcodes, the molecular organization of individual sugars in the native glycocalyx has been resolved at a spatial resolution of 9 ångström.

Filamin C is a key actin-binding protein involved in cardiomyopathies and musculoskeletal disorders. Here, Wang et al reveal that it interacts with the heat shock protein HSPB7 under biomechanical stress, forming a stable hetero-dimer which is regulated by phosphorylation.

In mice, prolonged consumption of a high-fat diet decreases interest in calorie-rich foods as a result of reduced neurotensin expression and signalling, which uncouples hedonic feeding behaviour linked to neurons projecting from lateral nucleus accumbens to ventral tegmental area.

The dynamical phases of out-of-equilibrium Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer superconductors have been simulated using cold atoms levitated inside an optical cavity.

An evolutionary model of the solar protoplanetary disk that includes the decrease of its viscosity with time and the accretion of gas from the interstellar medium shows that planetesimals formed simultaneously in two locations: at the water snowline (~5 au) and at the silicate sublimation line (~1 au), explaining the observed isotopic dichotomy of iron meteorites.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

The complex processes guiding mammalian cortical folding are incompletely understood. Here authors report that cortical folding was enhanced in mice by combining mutations affecting neuron adhesion and progenitor expansion, producing both sulci and gyri.

Magnets with frustrated interactions are predicted to form quantum entangled states that feature measurable plateaus in their magnetization. Evidence for one of these plateau phases has now been found in a kagome lattice antiferromagnet.