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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.

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.

Identifying jets originating from heavy quarks plays a fundamental role in hadronic collider experiments. In this work, the ATLAS Collaboration describes and tests a transformer-based neural network architecture for jet flavour tagging based on low-level input and physics-inspired constraints.

Affinity-proteomics platforms often yield poorly correlated measurements. Here, the authors show that protein-altering variants drive a portion of inter-platform inconsistency and that accounting for genetic variants can improve concordance of protein measures and phenotypic associations across ancestries.

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.

The MICrONS mouse visual cortex dataset shows that neurons with similar response properties preferentially connect, a pattern that emerges within and across brain areas and layers, and independently emerges in artificial neural networks where these ‘like-to-like’ connections prove important for task performance.

Quantum lock-in detection (QLID) is crucial for extracting oscillating signals from noise, while quantum entanglement is vital to surpass the standard of quantum limit in precision measurement. Here, the authors experimentally realise entanglement-enhanced QLID using two trapped ions, achieving frequency measurement precision at the Heisenberg limit and demonstrating an improved inverse-quadratic temporal scaling.

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.

Here, the authors reveal how twisting MoSe₂/WS₂ layers controls exciton behaviour. Combining theory and ultrafast spectroscopy, they show that lattice reconstruction creates distinct bright and long-lived excitons without hybridization effects.

Pretrained using 335,645 whole-slide images, a foundation model is developed to provide representations for slide- and patient-level tasks. It is capable of performing clinical tasks and generating reports even in data-scarce scenarios, such as rare cancer diagnosis and survival prediction, without requiring further fine-tuning.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

A foundation model trained on neural activity of visual cortex from multiple mice accurately predicts responses to video stimuli and cell types, dendritic features and connectivity within the MICrONS functional connectomics dataset.

Emerging applications of steam electrolysis and electrochemical synthesis for future hydrogen technologies at intermediate temperatures set stringent requirements on the stability of protonic ceramic cells. Now a sintering approach enables densified Ce-free protonic zirconate cells with enhanced Faradaic efficiency and exceptional stability under harsh operating conditions.

The semileptonic decay channels of the Λc baryon can give important insights into weak interaction, but decay into a neutron, positron and electron neutrino has not been reported so far, due to difficulties in the final products’ identification. Here, the BESIII Collaboration reports its observation in e+e- collision data, exploiting machine-learning-based identification techniques.

Whether superconductivity coexists or competes with other types of order in unconventional superconductors is a question that has been hotly contested. An ARPES study reported by Yi et al. suggest that superconductivity and spin-density wave orders coexist and compete dynamically in Ba_1−xK_xFe₂As₂.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

In most collinear antiferromagnets, PT symmetry leads to a lack of spin-polarization. Here, Gurung et al show that a noncollinear antiferromagnets can exhibit an extremely high degree of spin polarization over a large area of its Fermi surface and propose using this feature for the development of antiferromagnetic magnetic tunnel junctions.

Finite momentum superconducting pairing refers to a class of unconventional superconducting states where Cooper pairs acquire a non-zero momentum. Here the authors report a new superconducting state in bulk 4Hb-TaS₂, where magnetic fields induce finite momentum pairing via magnetoelectric coupling.

‘Ultrathin’ gold interlayers are shown to form nanoparticles that balance optical losses and electrical contact, enabling efficient perovskite–perovskite integration for scalable and durable triple-junction photovoltaics.

While Bell inequalities have been violated several times—mostly in photonic systems—their violations within particle physics experiments are less explored. Here, the BESIII Collaboration showcases Bell-violating nonlocal correlations between entangled hyperon pairs.

A smartphone-based system, designed to induce a steady gaze in children using cartoon-like video stimuli, can identify visually impaired children across a wide range of ophthalmic disorders, based on analysis of gazing behaviors and facial features.

Iron pnictide compounds have recently been shown to have superconducting properties. Xuet al. show that the superconducting gap of underdoped pnictides scales linearly with the transition temperature, and that a pseudogap develops with underdoping.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

The joint analysis of datasets from NOvA and T2K, the two currently operating long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, provides new constraints related to neutrino masses and fundamental symmetries.

The origin of superconductivity enhancement in FeSe monolayer grown on SrTiO₃ compared to bulk FeSe is still a debated issue. Here, Shi et al. report a further 15 K jump of T_c accompanying a second Lifshitz transition triggered by electron doping in FeSe/SrTiO₃monolayer films.

High-precision measurements could disclose fundamental dissimilarities between matter and antimatter, which are found imbalanced in the Universe. Here, the authors measure the magnetic moment of the antiproton with six-fold higher accuracy than before, finding it consistent with that of the proton.

The LHCb experiment at CERN has observed significant asymmetries between the decay rates of the beauty baryon and its CP-conjugated antibaryon, thus demonstrating CP violation in baryon decays.

Enfortumab vedotin (EV) is the current standard treatment for advanced bladder cancer, but resistance typically develops within a year, highlighting the need for new therapies. This study demonstrates that NECTIN4-targeting CAR T cells are effective against bladder cancer, including EV-resistant cells, and their potency can be further enhanced by using rosiglitazone to boost NECTIN4 expression.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide gene–smoking interaction study identifies 13 new loci associated with serum lipids.

The human host factors LSD1, CoREST and ZNF217 are important in maintaining Epstein–Barr virus latency, and the depletion of these factors or inhibition of LSD1 can trigger Epstein–Barr virus reactivation and sensitize infected cells to ganciclovir treatment.

Interface effects in complex oxides could have interesting technological applications. Ariandoet al. demonstrate electronic phase separation and rich physics at a complex oxide interface between the two non-magnetic insulators LaAlO₃ and SrTiO₃.

It remains to be seen if high-T_c superconductors rely on similar Fermi-surface instabilities as their BCS counterparts. Miao et al. study the high-T_c compound LiFe_1−xCo_xAs with high-resolution ARPES and find a robust gap with Co doping that suggests the order parameter is not tied to such instabilities.

Estimates from the Global Dietary Database indicated that 2.2 million new type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages worldwide in 2020, with the highest burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The collinear antiferromagnet ruthenium dioxide (RuO₂) can generate an electric-field-induced spin current with a well-defined tilted spin orientation that is approximately parallel to the Néel vector.

Excitatory neurons in the neocortex exhibit considerable morphological diversity, yet their organizational principles remain a subject of ongoing research. Here, the authors use unsupervised learning to show that most excitatory neuron morphologies in the mouse visual cortex form a continuum, with notable exceptions in deeper layers.

The authors address spin–orbit torques and magnetization switching in MnPd₃/CoFeB hetrostructures.

The authors develop a filter for oil cleaning in turbulent flows, inspired by the skeletal structures and filter patterns of deep-sea glass sponges. This filter could capture over 97% of floating and underwater oil, even under complex hydrodynamic conditions.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Managing power exhaust in fusion reactors is a key challenge, especially in compact designs for cost-effective commercial energy. This study shows how alternative divertor configurations improve exhaust control, enhance stability, absorb transients and enable independent plasma regulation.

Recent protein design methods rely on large neural networks, yet it is unclear which dependencies are critical for determining function. Here, authors show that learning the per residue mutation preferences, without considering interactions, enables design of functional and diverse protein variants.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Investigating the inner structure of baryons is important to further our understanding of the strong interaction. Here, the BESIII Collaboration extracts the absolute value of the ratio of the electric to magnetic form factors and its relative phase for e + e − → J/ψ → ΛΣ decays, enhancing the signal thanks to the vacuum polarisation effect at the J/ψ peak.

Despite the ease of fine-tuning their reactivity, high-performance homogeneous photocatalysts competent for acetylene semihydrogenation are scarce. Here the authors introduce an effective cobalt catalyst for the production of polymer-grade ethylene, which is amenable to scale-up in a continuous-flow photoreactor.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Hydrogen contamination in metals during sample preparation for high-resolution microscopy remains a challenge, especially when hydrogen itself is being investigated. Here, the authors show that using cryogenic milling significantly reduces hydrogen pick-up during sample preparation of titanium and titanium alloys.

Lasing in a hard-X-ray free-electron laser is typically seeded from noise due to the self-amplification of spontaneous emission, which limits temporal coherence and spectral characteristics. Researchers now demonstrate self-seeding using X-rays from the first half of the magnetic undulator to seed the second half via a diamond-based monochromator at ångström wavelengths.

The results of the Fifth RNA-Puzzles contest highlights advances in RNA three-dimensional structure prediction and uncovers new insights into RNA folding and structure.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.