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The development of complex molecular machinery requires a detailed appreciation of the factors that control energy pathways through the nanoscale scaffold. Here, the authors demonstrate that hetero-rotaxanes can be employed to create assemblies of different redox and photo-active components that enable selective tuning of energy transfer pathways.

There is a clinical need to monitor immune-related toxicities of immune checkpoint blockade therapy. Here, the authors develop a digital SERS platform for multiplexed single cytokine counting to track immune-toxicities and demonstrate the ability to use pre-screening to identify patients at higher risk.

In the first part of the review, continuous and length-controllable discrete one-dimensional channels, two-dimensional sheets, and three-dimensional vesicles, bulk-state complexation based on the versatile functionalization of pillar[n]arenes are discussed. In the second part of the review, functionalized pillar[n]arene crystals showing guest-responsive changes in color, state, and water contact angle, as well as serving as reaction media for the spontaneous polymerization of cyclic monomers are discussed.

Solid-state pressure sensors have performance limitations in liquid environments. Here, the authors design a pressure sensor using solid–liquid–liquid–gas multiphasic interfaces where a trapped air layer modulates capacitance changes with pressure to achieve near-friction-free contact line motions for near-ideal pressure sensing.

The shape of a droplet is governed by the interaction between the liquid and contact with the surface. Here, the authors present a method to tune this droplet–surface interaction via the design of structure or chemical heterogeneity to produce various droplet shapes.

Quantum information processing requires a system in which a single photon controls a single atom and vice versa. Here, the authors demonstrate such reciprocal operation and achieve coherent manipulation of a quantum dot by a few photons sent on an optical cavity.

Optical tweezers are well known for being able to control and move microscopic objects with high precision using focused laser beams. Alexander Grigorenko and colleagues report three-dimensional tweezers based on coupled pairs of gold nanodots in standard tweezer set-ups, which offer improved trapping efficiencies and reduced trapping volumes. Their tweezers could pave the way to improved manipulation of fragile, tiny biological objects.

Flash sintering allows for rapid ceramic processing, but the mechanical behavior of such ceramics remains poorly understood. Here, the authors compress micropillars of yttria stabilized zirconia to show flash sintering promotes outstanding plasticity.

A single photon with near-unity indistinguishability is generated from quantum dots in electrically controlled cavity structures. The cavity allows for efficient photon collection while application of an electrical bias cancels charge noise effects.

Blake Smith and colleagues propose an innovative approach to pencil beam scanning proton arc radiotherapy using customized range compensators. These devices were optimized to omit energy changes while improving treatment deliverability and efficiency.

Based on optically breaking time-reversal symmetry by spin polarizing a gain medium with a circularly polarized optical pump, an integrated scheme for controlling the chirality of orbital angular momentum lasing is demonstrated.

KNM-ER 2598 is one of the oldest known Homo erectus fossils but there are doubts about its age. Here, Hammond et al. trace the original location of the specimen, confirming an age >1.85 million years, and locating additional hominin fossils situated in a paleohabitat dominated by C₄ grazers.

A material’s internal structure is known to dictate its macroscopic properties through structure-dependent particle dynamics, as exemplified by the so-called de Gennes narrowing. Through experiments and simulations on soft colloid suspensions, the authors reveal a breakdown of this correlation, showing that the q-dependent relaxation time remains unchanged across length scales and that single-particle elasticity facilitates structure-independent relaxation.

Giant effective photon–photon interactions are achieved by hybridizing light with excitons in an InGaAs-based quantum well micropillar cavity. Cross-phase modulation of up to 3 mrad per polariton is observed at the laser intensity below the single-photon level.

Under certain conditions, such as those found in low-dimensional systems, materials can show quantized behaviour based only on universal constants. Here, the relative optical transparency of gold nanopillar arrays is shown to change solely in units of the fine structure constant on adjusting array parameters.

Zhang et al. design a nanostructure which activates an adaptive martensitic transformation mechanism in a nuclear grade austenitic stainless steel, achieving extraordinary radiation resistance with non-degraded mechanical properties.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

In a tiny chip-based particle accelerator, phase-space control of the emerging electron beam demonstrates guiding over a length of nearly 80 micrometres and an indispensable prerequisite to electron acceleration to high energies.

Manipulating droplet morphology on surfaces is important for engineering applications such as thermal management and microfluidics. Adera et al. show a control strategy where non-wetting droplets are formed by mild heating superhydrophilic surfaces beyond the saturation temperature of the liquid.

Light-matter interfaces implementing arbitrary conditional operations on incoming photons would have several applications in quantum computation and communications. Here, the authors demonstrate conditional polarization rotation induced by a single quantum dot spin embedded in an electrically contacted micropillar, spanning up to a pi flip.

Here, the authors report that combining Army Liposome Formulation with QS21 saponin (ALFQ) and Alum to formulate the ΔV1gp120 boost decreases the risk of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) mac251 acquisition in female macaques.

A clinical review of all pediatric deaths in England from March 2020 to February 2021 attributes 25 deaths to SARS-CoV-2 infection and identifies risk factors to guide interventions.

The UK extended the interval until the second COVID-19 vaccine dose up to 12 weeks. Here, the authors show in a cohort of 750 participants aged 50–89 years that the extended schedule results in higher antibody titers and estimate a higher vaccine effectiveness for the extended schedule.

Traditional photonic crystals consist of periodic media with a pre-defined optical response. Here, the authors combine nanostructured back-gate insulators with a continuous layer of graphene to demonstrate an electrically tunable two-dimensional photonic crystal suitable for controlling the propagation of surface plasmon polaritons.

Sepsis is a potentially life–threatening complication of infection and diagnosis depends on rapid assessment of leukocyte count and CD64 expression. Here the authors present a microfluidic chip that can quantify these parameters from minimal amounts of whole blood with no manual processing.

A point mutation in the gap-junction protein connexin 30 stops early onset age-related hearing loss. Here, the authors show that gap junctions contribute to cochlear micromechanics and that cochlear amplification is likely controlled by extracellular potentials in vicinity of the cochlear sensory cells.

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same mother having distinct genomes and morphologies.

A comprehensive benchmark, called MaCBench, is developed to evaluate how vision language models handle different aspects of real-world chemistry and materials science tasks.

The spin texture of a magnetic system can host a variety of topological spin textures, the most famous of these being skyrmions. Here, Volkov et al demonstrate higher order vorticity in magnetic wireframe nanostructures and introduce a general protocol for the creation of arbitrary numbers of vortices and antivortices in such wireframe structures.

Removal of SO₂ from flue gas is of prime importance to avoid its poisoning of CO₂-seperating agents. Here, the authors demonstrate that two fluorinated metal–organic frameworks selectively remove SO₂ from synthetic flue gas and can sense SO₂ with p.p.m.-level detection using quartz crystal microbalance transducers.

Approaches for controlling surface wettability and liquid spreading are numerous and diverse, but introducing directionality to the control of these phenomena is far from trivial. Nanostructured surfaces are now used to allow the propagation of a liquid in a single direction, while constraining it in the other three directions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been characterised by periods of dominance of different SARS-CoV-2 variants. In this mathematical modelling study, the authors investigate the epidemiological properties of successive variants in England until early 2022 and quantify the impacts of control measures.

Using engineered cardiac tissues, Fleischer, Nash et al. found that patients with lupus-mediated cardiac damage have unique autoantibodies that can independently alter tissue function. They also identified autoantibodies associated with heart injury.

Here, the authors investigate the interaction of pigment distribution and cuticle density within butterfly wing scales. They use ptychographic X-ray computed tomography to find that pigments can impact cuticle properties and thus color in Junonia orithya and Bicyclus anynana.

Antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 may be important biomarkers for assessing the risk for viral transmission. Here the authors present serological antibody profiling results of COVID-19 patients using a new multiplex assay to show distinct kinetics and dynamics of IgG, IgM and IgA responses in patients with different disease severity.

A study showing high-quality container-based sanitation servicing improves the sanitation-related quality of life in informal settlements across Kenya, Peru and South Africa.