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Breeding crops with delayed senescence could plausibly increase grain yield. Here the authors show that variation at the rice SGR locus contributes to differences in senescence between indica and japonica subspecies and show that introgression can increase yield in an elite indica rice variety.

Optogenetic manipulation of spindle dynamics reveals that microtubule shortening at kinetochores limits spindle elongation rather than moving chromosomes, revealing local chromosome–spindle interactions.

Quantum error correction codes protect quantum information, but running algorithms also requires the ability to perform gates on logical qubits. A lattice surgery scheme for fault-tolerant gates has now been demonstrated in a quantum repetition code.

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.

A vagal reflex to blood volume changes in the heart involves PIEZO2 and helps to stabilize blood pressure in an upright posture and after blood loss.

MedHELM, an extensible evaluation framework including a new taxonomy for classifying medical tasks and a benchmark of many datasets across these categories, enables the evaluation of large language models on real-world clinical tasks.

Transcription factor osr2 is identified as a specific marker and regulator of mural lymphatic endothelial cell (muLEC) differentiation and maintenance, and muLECs and border-associated macrophages share functional analogies but are not homologous, providing an example of convergent evolution.

T-cell–mediated rejection (TCMR) remains a major cause of kidney transplant failure with incompletely understood mechanisms. Here the authors use single-nucleus RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics and immunofluorescence to show that injured kidney epithelial cell states associate with poor transplant outcomes after T-cell–mediated rejection.

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.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

A platform using matched patient-derived lung tumouroids and healthy lung organoids enables accurate examination of patient responses to CAR T therapy and offers a faithful framework for improved CAR T design.

Floquet engineering is often limited by weak light–matter coupling and heating. Now it is shown that exciton-driven fields in monolayer semiconductors produce stronger, longer-lived Floquet effects and reveal hybridization linked to excitonic phases.

Newly developed mouse models that enable cell-specific analyses of proteostasis dynamics across the lifespan of the mice reveal key aspects of neuronal proteostasis with ageing.

Crystal structures of HIV Env trimer with native glycosylation in complex with neutralizing antibodies reveal a glycan shield of high-mannose and complex-type N-glycan and indicate a path for germline-targeting vaccine design.

Natural products inspire the development of pseudo-natural products through combinations of fragments of compound classes that are chemically and biologically distinct. Here, the authors report a library of 244 pseudo-natural products, evaluate them in the cell painting essays and identify the phenotypic role of individual fragments.

Large-effect variants in autism remain elusive. Here, the authors use long-read sequencing to assemble phased genomes for 189 individuals, identifying pathogenic variants in TBL1XR1, MECP2, and SYNGAP1, plus nine candidate structural variants missed by short-read methods.

Superlubric arrays of double-bilayer graphene enable elastically coupled switching between Bernal and rhombohedral graphene polytypes under shear forces below 1 nN with an estimated energy cost of less than 1 fJ per switching event.

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.

This study finds that crowd-sensed plants as living sensors uncover climate and soil patterns in 326 European cities; extend the urban heat island effect to moisture, pH, salinity and disturbance; and show built-up areas homogenize whereas urban forests preserve environmental diversity.

Large-scale computational and in vitro analyses identify commensal type III secretion systems and substrates in the human gut microbiome that can interact with human proteins to modulate immune pathways.

Using a non-human primate model, the authors identified the tissue sites of initial viral rebound after discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy, demonstrating that such rebound preferentially occurs in the gastrointestinal tract-associated lymphoid tissues.

The Neurospora circadian clock keeps time through a negative feedback loop involving a protein complex of FRQ bound to FRH. Here, the authors show that slow, stochastic phosphorylation of these proteins dissociates and activates them via two precisely timed switches.

Roßmann and colleagues report a simple strategy to generate a panel of fluorescent HaloTag Ligands that enable visualisation of cell surface proteins at low concentrations and with brief incubation times. They use these probes to label neuromodulatory receptors in neurons, allowing for the distinction of surface versus internal receptors of the presynaptic terminal.

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

The distinct architecture of the Escherichia coli membrane transporter LetA mediates lipid trafficking across the bacterial envelope in partnership with the tunnel-like complex LetB.

The existing ENCODE registry of candidate human and mouse cis-regulatory elements is expanded with the addition of new ENCODE data, integrating new functional data as well as new cell and tissue types.

Projected impacts of climate change on malaria burden in Africa by 2050 highlight the urgent need for climate-resilient malaria control strategies and robust emergency response systems to safeguard progress towards malaria eradication.

Stone tools illustrate behavioural complexities in Middle Pleistocene hominin populations. Here, the authors present small dimensional flakes and hafted tools from Xigou, central China, dated to ~160–72 thousand years ago that demonstrate early, complex technological advancements.

Wei et al. perform spatial transcriptomic profiling on synovial tissue biopsy samples from individuals with recent-onset rheumatoid arthritis, finding TGFβ signaling and fibrogenic fibroblast activation drive a treatment-refractory tissue phenotype.

Humans and monkeys integrated experiential and observational evidence during a two-player task, and the anterior cingulate cortex combined the information sources into a unified neural belief representation that explains behavioural asymmetries.

The impact of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) on protein function and cancer risk remain unclear. Here, the authors focus on the functional impact of VUS of the PALB2 gene and identify defects in DNA damage repair by homologous recombination associated with increased risk of breast cancer.

Genetic predictors of health outcomes often drop in accuracy when applied to people dissimilar to participants of large genetic studies. Here, the authors investigate the root causes and highlight open questions underlying this problem.

CURT1/CurT proteins, known for shaping thylakoid membranes in photosynthetic organisms, play a newly found role in coordinating cell division and symmetry. Being shared in cyanobacteria and green algae this role is likely phylogenetically ancient.

The Evaluation and Enhancement (EVEN) method optimizes automatically the quality of multichannel microscopy images affected by uneven illumination, enabling accurate visual interpretation and image analysis in challenging imaging scenarios.

Polyamines prevent the action of kinases on acidic phosphorylatable motifs in spliceosomal proteins, thus providing a mechanism for metabolite-mediated regulation of alternative splicing in cells.

The inability of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells to shift the circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus during daytime is caused by light-dependent depolarization block of these cells.

Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering interferometry reveals a highly entangled electronic phase in Nd₂Ir₂O₇, enabling extraction of its entanglement structure and confirming the cubic-symmetry-breaking order predicted from complementary Raman spectroscopy.

How inflammation spreads from the skin to the joints in psoriatic disease is unclear. Here, the authors show that joint-resident fibroblasts can control differentiation of infiltrating skin-derived myeloid precursors that can become inflammatory macrophages.

Using chemical photoswitchable reagents to exert purely wavelength-dependent control over biological systems in deep tissue and in vivo requires a concentration-independent design paradigm. Here, such photoswitchable ligands are realized by ensuring that E/Z isomers have opposing efficacies yet similarly high affinity, allowing them to probe transient receptor potential C4 and C5 channel functions up to the tissue level.

In this study, a post-hoc analysis of medical records for individuals being treated with Cobenfy investigates real-world effectiveness, identifying predictors of response and suggesting the existence of biologically distinct psychosis subgroups.

Genome-wide association studies incorporating data for populations of African ancestry provide an expanded view of the genetic basis of schizophrenia, which has previously been studied mainly in European and East Asian cohorts.

European regions with the highest life expectancy, located in central and northern Spain, northern Italy, and Switzerland, continue to push the boundaries of human longevity, suggesting that there is still room for further lifespan extension.

Climate change can alter when and how animals grow, breed, and migrate, but it is unclear whether this allows populations to persist. This global study shows that shifts in seasonal timing are key to helping vertebrate species maintain population growth under global warming.

The study presents a recyclable polymer system that stores solar energy and releases it as hydrogen on demand, offering an efficient and sustainable route for renewable energy storage and fuel generation.

In a phase 1b/2 trial, an off-the-shelf vaccine using gorilla adenoviral and modified vaccinia Ankara vectors with over 200 mutated peptides known to be present in persons with mismatch-repair-deficient tumors is safe and elicits neoantigen-specific T cells in individuals with Lynch syndrome.

Eight decades of forest plot monitoring show a pervasive increase in tree mortality across Australia’s forest biomes driven by climate change, jeopardizing their role as enduring carbon sinks.

Guided by density functional theory, a commercially viable refractory alloy is developed, which exhibits excellent room-temperature ductility and strength, and high strength at elevated temperatures.

In the phase 1/2 CASTLE basket trial, autologous CD19 CAR-T cell therapy in patients with treatment-refractory systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis or idiopathic inflammatory myopathy was safe, with improved disease activity and patient-reported global health in most patients.

Cells depend on early protein modifications for proper function. Here, the authors show that when Src-family signaling kinases lack their typical myristoylation, an alternative acetylated start is detected by DCAF10, directing them to degradation.