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Neural crest cells have been implicated in heart development, yet the mechanisms by which they act have remained elusive. Here, the authors show neural crest cells modulate Wnt signalling in cardiac progenitors, providing new insight into the mechanisms underpinning congenital heart defects.

The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 62 studies, including more than 4,400 participants across 21 countries, to investigate the effects of nature exposure on self-reported pain.

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.

Radiation reaction (RR) on particles in strong fields is the subject of intense experimental research, but previous efforts lacked statistical significance due to the extreme regimes required. Here, the authors report a 5σ observation of RR and obtain strong, quantitative evidence favouring quantum models over classical, using an all-optical setup where electrons are accelerated by a laser in a gas jet before colliding with a second, intense pulse.

Non-equilibrium two-dimensional melting is less understood than its equilibrium counterpart. Now it is shown that topologically driven melting in a two-dimensional crystal of charged colloids is the same irrespective of the mechanisms that generate the defects

A global synthesis of >600 studies finds that across agro-ecosystems, grasslands and forests in temperate and tropical zones, increasing plant diversity has a consistently positive effect on plant performance and the suppression of antagonists.

Disease heterogeneity complicates precision medicine, which focuses on single conditions and ignores shared mechanisms. Here the authors introduce ‘pan-disease’ analysis using a deep learning model on multi-organ data, identifying 11 AI-derived biomarkers that reveal new therapeutic targets and pathways, enhancing patient stratification for disease risk monitoring and drug discovery.

De novo domestication was performed on the brassica Thlaspi arvense (pennycress) by identifying and stacking CRISPR-induced mutations to create a new intermediate oilseed crop that can be grown in the off-season, with seed compositions similar to canola (low erucic acid and reduced glucosinolate).

By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previous global assessments based on remote sensing.

A prospective nationwide genomic screening pilot for ten genes in young adults in Australia detected pathogenic variants in 2% of the population, most of whom were ineligible for government-funded genomic testing.

Demand-side food policies show small average effects, with effectiveness varying across intervention types. Targeted strategies and a better understanding of how context and population influence outcomes can advance food system sustainability.

The study reports the discovery of a persistent bow shock around a diskless magnetic accreting white dwarf, revealing a powerful energy-loss mechanism that challenges current models of accretion and compact binary evolution.

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.

The authors conduct a national inventory on individual tree carbon stocks in Rwanda using aerial imagery and deep learning. Most mapped trees are located in farmlands; new methods allow partitioning to any landscape categories, effective planning and optimization of carbon sequestration and the economic benefits of trees.

Applications of optical laser-based techniques are limited by the long wavelengths of the lasers. Now, observations of phonons and thermal transport at nanometre length scales are reported with an all-hard X-ray transient-grating spectroscopy technique.

Kinematic measurements of the Perseus galaxy cluster reveal two drivers of gas motions: a small-scale driver in the inner core associated with black-hole feedback and a large-scale driver in the outer core powered by mergers.

Mixed cubic B20 helimagnets are famous for pronounced tunability of their properties with the alloy composition. In the present study, we show that it can have important drawbacks. Using experimental techniques - spin wave small-angle neutron scattering and X-ray circular magnetic dichroism – and analytical calculations, we show that B20 skyrmion host Cr_0.82Mn_0.18Ge does not possess well-defined magnons in its field-polarized phase. Minority Mn ions strongly scatter spin waves, so the elementary excitations become overdamped. This leads to diffusive noisy spin wave small-angle neutron scattering maps observed experimentally which reflect the disordered nature of the studied material.

The authors demonstrate dual-probe multi-messenger imaging of high-energy-density plasmas based on laser-wakefield-accelerated electrons. This enables spatiotemporally resolved simultaneous probing of plasma hydrodynamics and electromagnetic field evolution with both x-ray and electron beams.

Approved antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) remain constrained by a limited repertoire of payloads with restricted modes of action. Here, the authors present phosphoramidate-based self-immolative linker units that facilitate stable attachment in serum and traceless drug release in the target cell from aliphatic and aromatic alcohols with various modes of action.

Research in the tropics is unevenly distributed across regions and biomes. Here, the authors find that moist broadleaf forests account for 73% of all tropical citations but cover 29% of the land area, while drier, climate-vulnerable areas with fewer trees remain under-sampled and under-cited.

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.

Using whole-brain MRSI, this study builds a metabolic connectome derived from five metabolite signals. It reveals a network topology balancing local similarity and global diversity, mirroring structural, cytoarchitectonic and genetic organization.

In a multicenter, randomized trial of patients with atrial fibrillation and a low risk of thromboembolic events, treatment with the anticoagulant rivaroxaban showed no benefit in reducing cognitive decline, stroke or transient ischemic attack when compared to placebo.

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.

Chemist who launched the study of caged hydrocarbons.

The authors demonstrate the existence of chiral phonons in a non-chiral ferroelectric material, opening the possibility for phonon chirality control through ferroic switching of the electric polarization.

New hominin fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I (ThI-GH) in Casablanca, Morocco, dated to around 773 thousand years ago are similar in age to Homo antecessor, yet are morphologically distinct.

In an arm of an ongoing multicenter phase 2 trial testing different therapies in patients with genetically profiled grade 2 or 3 meningiomas, treatment with an oral CDK4/6 inhibitor met the primary endpoint for progression-free survival at 6 months in patients with CDK or NF2 alterations.

Men and women differ in their lipid biology. Here, the authors identify NCOA1 as a female-specific regulator that promotes the conversion of white fat into energy-burning fat, protecting women from obesity and metabolic disease by enhancing thermogenic activity in subcutaneous fat.

CFAP20 has a key role in rescuing RNA polymerase II complexes that have arrested during DNA transcription, limiting the accumulation of R-loops and preventing collisions between the transcription and replication machinery.

Moral-Sanz, Fernández-Carrasco and colleagues identify senolytic properties of sea anemone-derived pore-forming toxins, with selectivity mediated by senescence-associated lipid profiles. An optimized senotoxin improves the efficacy of chemotherapy in mouse models.

The ability to tune spin-orbit interaction is crucial for spintronic and quantum devices. Alarab and colleagues use soft X-ray ARPES to show that this interaction in MoSe₂ can be strengthened by a proximity induced spin-orbit field transfer from a Pb layer deposited onto the MoSe₂ surface.

Without key cell cycle control genes, SAR11 cells experience aneuploidy and growth inhibition when exposed to changes in nutrients, carbon sources or temperature stress, a vulnerability that may represent an evolutionary trade-off for adaptation to oligotrophic environments.

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.

One of three back-to-back papers to show that dosage of BACH2 can modulate T cell differentiation and function and how we might apply this to enhance CAR T cell therapies for cancer.

Addressing how the nitrogen-induced changes in plant diversity differ from those in soil organisms is critical. This global meta-analysis suggests that nitrogen enrichment has stronger negative effects on plant diversity but modest to negligible effects on soil bacterial and fungal diversity.

The systemic discovery of metal–small-molecule complexes from biological samples is a difficult challenge. Now, a method based on liquid chromatography and native electrospray ionization mass spectrometry has been developed. The approach uses post-column pH adjustment and metal infusion combined with ion identity molecular networking, and a rule-based informatics workflow, to interrogate small-molecule–metal binding.

The microbiomes associated with reef corals are complex and diverse. Here, the authors investigate fire coral clones naturally occurring in distinct habitats as a model system to disentangle the contribution of host genotype and environment on their microbiome, and predict genomic functions based on taxonomic profiles.

Citizens’ approval is crucial for maintaining aid to Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression. Here, the authors show that Western citizens back Ukraine’s fight, but moral and strategic concerns, as well as internal divisions, may impose restraints.

Array microscope with mirrored well plates enables automated, scalable 3D behavioral analysis of 48 zebrafish larvae in parallel, revealing complex kinematics and phenotypes missed by conventional 2D methods.

Thirty years of forest demographic data, combined with recent ecophysiological measurements, reveal that intense Amazon droughts sharply increase tree mortality once soil moisture falls below a threshold, and that these hot droughts will become more frequent and intense as Earth warms towards hypertropical conditions.

Using an advanced imaging system called EyeRIS, locomotion in deep-sea octopuses could be studied, revealing simplified crawling patterns that could inspire the design of robots.

In a magnetoelectric material, an applied electric field can drive changes in the magnetic order. This feature has profound technology prospects and here, Moody et al demonstrate deterministic control of the direction of magnetic spiral order via an applied electric field in Cu₂OSeO₃.

Using single broadband X-ray pulses from a free-electron laser on a gaseous neon target, coherent, nonlinear four-photon interactions with core–shell electrons is demonstrated, representing a strategy for multidimensional correlation spectroscopy at the atomic scale.

Daytime radiative cooling materials typically require high filler loading or porosity. Here, authors introduce rheology–optics coupling to control particle dispersion, enabling printable low-filler PDMS–ZrO₂ composites for scalable and durable radiative coolers with versatile architectures.