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Natural variation in the promoter of OsTPS8 contributes to differences in grain chalkiness and seed vigor between indica and japonica rice subspecies by altering trehalose-6-phosphate biosynthesis and α-amylase levels.

High sugar intake is a potential risk factor for heart failure, but there is insufficient evidence for the benefit of restricting sugar intake during pregnancy or early life. Using the end of UK sugar rationing as a natural experiment, this study shows that lower sugar intake early in life is linked to lower risk of heart failure and later disease onset.

Phase transitions in Na layered transition metal oxide materials involving slab gliding and considerable lattice parameter changes limit the battery cycling life, especially at high voltages. Here, authors pre-engineer 15.8% O-type stacking faults to a P-type Na0.7Mn0.8Ni0.2O2, improving stability and enabling an electrode specific energy of 635 Wh kg-1 with 600-cycle life.

Drug-resistant bacterial infections hinder tissue repair and regeneration. Here, authors present a lysozyme nanofibril-based hydrogel that mimics neutrophil extracellular traps, enabling pathogen elimination and promoting tissue regeneration.

The work highlights the role of solvent-mediated ionicity in modifying surface hardness of Mg-Ni-Y alloy, which facilitates the production of nanoparticles ~88 times smaller than milled powder without solvent processing, resulting in a scalable production method for metallic nanoparticles.

Gravitationally induced stratification during self-assembly often leads to density driven vertical segregation limiting the synthesis of metastable nanofilms. Here, the authors address this limitation with an antigravity confined interfacial self-assembly synthesis where capillary forces dominate and enable precise molecular organization resulting in ordered and stable nanofilms.

Using pear as a study system, the biosynthetic pathway of acetophenones has been elucidated: naturally impaired side-chain shortening of aromatic 3-ketoacyl-CoAs leads them to undergo hydrolysis, followed by decarboxylation, to yield acetophenones.

Adaptable control is essential for metasurfaces. Xingqi Xuan and colleagues propose a cyber-managed system with energy harvesting modules, offering a flexible solution for closed loop electromagnetic field manipulation and sensing.

The detailed mechanism of how hypoxia and acidity promote immune exclusion remains unclear. The authors here identify that GPR4, a proton sensor, induces immune exclusion by facilitating collagen alignment via upregulating LOXL2. Furthermore, inhibiting LOXL2 or GPR4 signal pathway alleviates immune exclusion.

In a cluster-randomized trial including 84 schools in China, schools that received the Life Gatekeeper Training Program for suicide prevention saw significantly reduced suicide stigma and improved willingness of teachers to intervene, compared to schools without the training.

Hong-Xuan Lin, Ji-Ping Gao, Jun-Xiang Shan and colleagues show that natural variation in a proteasome α2 subunit gene contributes to thermotolerance in African rice. Their follow-up studies suggest that the variant allele protects cells from heat stress by enhancing the elimination of cytotoxic denatured proteins and maintaining heat-response processes.

Single-cell RNA sequencing and assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing profiling of human retinal samples from diverse ancestries create an epitranscriptomic atlas characterizing over 130 cell types. Integration with genome-wide association study and expression quantitative trait loci data provides further insights into gene regulation and disease etiology.

Arginine addiction induced by argininosuccinate synthase (ASSN1) deficiency has been exploited to treat ASS1-deficient cancers. Here, the authors show an alternative therapeutic approach where ASS1 activity is increased by the pesticide spinosyn A and is shown to inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation.

PMAK integrates pre-trained enzyme and reaction representations with residue-aware attention to improve kcat prediction, demonstrating robust generalization under warm- and cold-start settings and highlighting the value of full reaction context for unseen enzymes.

Parasitoid wasps are reared and released as biocontrol agents to manage aphids and protect crops. Here, the authors use genomes from 542 wasps to show that, in spite of wide scale release of low-diversity captive individuals, diversity in wild populations is maintained.

Non-steady-state chemical dynamics offer a powerful tool for neuromorphic computing by harnessing nonlinear, collective, and time-evolving behaviours. Coupled with frameworks such as reservoir computing, these systems enable trajectory-based information processing at the molecular scale through concepts from chemical kinetics and far-from-equilibrium dynamics.

Insights from surface science studies on model catalysts very often do not translate to practical catalytic systems due to the so-called pressure and materials gaps. Now, a combination of in situ microscopy, spectroscopy and computational modelling is used to bridge the knowledge from surface science and powder catalysts for FeO–Pt during CO oxidation.

Cascaded nonlinear optics has long enabled advances in short-wavelength generation, but equivalent approaches for long wavelengths remain underdeveloped. Here, the authors demonstrate a chip-based lithium niobate platform that delivers tunable mid-infrared light, opening new possibilities for sensing, spectroscopy, and communications.

Real-time prediction of dynamic systems is a challenge in balancing accuracy and computational efficiency. Here, the authors propose a regional graph representation with a time-aware expert module, enabling scalable multi-scale modeling that improves both speed and long-term forecasting accuracy.

Saimi and colleagues present PKMDR, a mitochondrial probe whose fluorescence lifetime serves as an indicator to monitor mitochondrial membrane potential and respiration dynamics with high resolution across cells and tissues.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity and plasticity due to interplay with neural developmental programs. Here, the authors develop a model of GBM by introducing sequential oncogenic mutations in human neural stem cells and using this, identify INSM1 as a driver of a neural progenitor gene network promoting tumorigenesis.

A functional screening platform selects switchable aptamer beacons that undergo conformational changes and emit detectable signals when encountering target molecules.

The difluoromethyl group is a crucial fluorinated moiety, and the synthesis of chiral CF₂H-containing analogs is a powerful strategy in drug design and screening. Here, the authors report a strategy for the asymmetric construction of carbon stereocenters featuring a difluoromethyl group via nickel-catalyzed Negishi cross-coupling.

Circulating metabolites reflect key physiological states, but their genetic basis remains incompletely defined. Here, the authors show over 24,000 variant-metabolite associations and highlight rare coding variants and disease-linked metabolites through integrated analyses.

Chirality amplification and transfer strategies are powerful routes to endow covalent organic polymers with supramolecular helicity, expanding their structural and functional versatility. Here, the authors studied helical polyimines with uniform helicity but that displayed reversed chiroptical signatures upon subtle adjustments to a single polymerization parameter.

This work proposed a fully heterogeneous quantum network that connects diverse user systems and enables multiple quantum tasks. A software-defined quantum network structure is also proposed for coordinating network nodes and optimizing network performance. It paves the way for an open and versatile quantum internet.

Sea cucumbers are predominant deposit feeders in benthic ecosystems. This study elucidates the mechanisms within the sea cucumber digestive system and their symbiotic microbiome which enable them to efficiently utilize nutrients from seabed sediments.

Here, with multi-omics analyses of human cohorts and murine models, the authors identify Odoribacter splanchnicus depletion to impair intestinal P-glycoprotein function via loss of microbial, GDP-L-fucose, which in turn promotes eIF4E phosphorylation and c-Jun–driven ABCB1 expression, maintaining xenobiotic efflux.

Non f-electron systems containing narrow electronic band and localized moments are a useful platform to study the Kondo lattice problem. Here, by using scanning tunneling microscopy, the authors show a transition from the insulating gap to a tuneable Kondo resonance in 1T-TaS₂ by Pb intercalation.

This study identifies Smoc2 as a marker of mesenchymal stem cells in mouse incisors and shows that Smoc1/2 establishes stem cell quiescence by inhibiting Wnt signaling during development.

Using data from the UK Biobank, the authors develop a comprehensive human metabolome–phenome atlas, including a browsable web tool, to uncover unique metabolite–trait and metabolite–disease associations with time, and discuss potential causal relationships.

Aberration of chromatin organisation is linked to cancer progression and cancer cell plasticity. Here, the authors investigate changes in chromatin state during the transition of cancer cells to cancer stem cells and, using a CTCF-cohesin contact reporter CRISPR screen, identify TLK2 as a driver of plasticity via regulation of chromatin loop formation.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

By resonant excitation of an InAs quantum dot embedded in a microcavity, a deterministic single-photon source is demonstrated. Single-photon purity of 0.9795(6), photon indistinguishability of 0.9856(13), and an overall end-to-end efficiency of 0.712(18) are simultaneously obtained.

Enantioselective γ-lactonization of unactivated C(sp³)–H bonds is a challenge using chemical methods. Now the biocatalytic enantioselective synthesis of γ-lactones from aliphatic carboxylic acids is reported, using a reengineered fatty acid hydroxylase, P450_BSβ. Crystallographic and computational analyses show the observed γ-regioselectivity arises from the mutants introduced into P450_BSβ.

Shi, Zhou, Xuan, Jiang et al. identify a population of CD8⁺ T cells that migrate from bone marrow to the small intestine during leukaemogenesis and then traffic back to contribute to anti-leukaemia immune responses during chemotherapy treatment.

Water scarcity is a global challenge due to climate change and population growth. Here, authors developed an asymmetric tapered multistage solar still that optimizes mass transfer equilibrium, achieving ultrahigh water production and efficiency.

DISC1 attenuates Zika virus infection and congenital Zika syndrome by promoting autophagy via AMPK-mTOR signaling and is implicated in ZIKV-induced long-term neurological deficits.