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Polarons play a crucial role in determining the (photo)electrocatalytic activity of semiconductors. Here, the authors report a reversible, potential-driven method to generate Ti³⁺ polarons on TiO₂, creating dynamic active sites that break the adsorption-potential linearity and boost hydrogen evolution.

Burns et al. introduce an unrolled, physics-informed machine learning method that speeds up blind structured illumination microscopy by orders of magnitude while preserving generalizability, enabling real-time superresolution imaging in live cells.

Van der Waals materials of the MB₂T₄ family (M = transition metal or rare-earth metal, B = Bi or Sb, T = Te, Se, or S) have attracted interest for their magnetic and topological properties, but their direct synthesis into 2D form remains challenging. Here the authors report a flux-assisted, phase-controlled growth strategy to directly grow six magnetic 2D MB₂T₄ crystals.

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.

Klebsiella pneumoniae clonal group 23 is a public health concern due to hypervirulence and carbapenem resistance. Here, the authors sequence 13 new isolates of the ST218-KL57 strain from China and conduct genomic analyses to investigate evolutionary divergence and resistance patterns.

Generation of orbital currents in a non-magnetic material can be useful to build efficient orbitronic devices. Now, the interplay of chiral phonons and electrons is shown to produce orbital currents in α-quartz.

The authors reveal that the ferroelectric to antiferroelectric phase transition in Pb(Zr_0.97Ti_0.03)O₃-1wt%Nb₂O₅ at low temperatures is an irreversible process exhibiting relaxation behavior and diffusional kinetics.

The detailed structure of the native dystrophin–glycoprotein complex provides mechanistic insights into mutations underlying muscular dystrophy.

The CMS Collaboration reports the measurement of the spin, parity, and charge conjugation properties of all-charm tetraquarks, exotic fleeting particles formed in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.

Female mosquitoes inject saliva into vertebrate hosts during blood feeding, transmitting mosquito-borne pathogens. Here, cryo-EM of mosquito salivary gland extract uncovers the native SGS1 structure and domains relevant to pathogen transmission.

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.

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.

Earth-abundant cobalt-based catalysts have shown promise to replace iridium as anode catalysts in proton-exchange-membrane water electrolysers, but unfortunately they exhibit high degradation rates. Now, a lanthanum and calcium co-modification of Co₃O₄ is presented, in which lanthanum tunes the water–surface interactions to suppress cobalt dissolution and improve stability, while calcium leaching creates coordinatively unsaturated cobalt sites, leading to enhanced activity.

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.

Unprotected β-fluoroamines are important motifs in synthetic chemistry, offering versatility for the development of β-fluorinated nitrogen-containing compounds. Here, the authors disclose an iron-catalyzed three-component aminofluorination of alkenes using a hydroxylamine reagent and Et3N · 3HF, offering a direct entry to unprotected β-fluoroamines.

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.

Photonic time crystals (PTCs) have unveiled unusual band structures and phenomena due to temporal modulation of optical properties. Here, the authors address non-Hermitian features of PTCs within a purely Hermitian Hamiltonian description, bridging classical and quantum approaches.

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.

Spectra decomposes gene expression data into interpretable programs using prior knowledge.

A new artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek-R1, is introduced, demonstrating that the reasoning abilities of large language models can be incentivized through pure reinforcement learning, removing the need for human-annotated demonstrations.

Here, the authors develop novel dynamical methods to model brain regions’ intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) from data, and find that they couple whole-brain structural connectivity to dynamic switching between brain activity states, and correlate with genetic markers.

Microwave observations of Jupiter’s moon Europa reveal subsurface properties of the ice shell covering a purported global ocean. The shell is 29 ± 10 km thick, with fractures or pores a few centimetres across that extend hundreds of metres deep.

The Einstein Probe has discovered a fast X-ray transient, EP240414a, associated with a broad-lined type Ic supernova. Its unusually soft spectrum and weak jet add to the diversity of stellar deaths and suggest a previously unknown Wolf–Rayet star explosion mechanism.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

A transverse Peierls transition can occur when transverse acoustic phonons couple with conducting p-orbital electrons. Here, the authors observe an incommensurate transverse Peierls transition and signatures of a chiral charge density wave in EuAl₄.

Thermal lepton pairs are ideal probes for the temperature of quark-gluon plasma. Here, the STAR Collaboration uses thermal electron-positron pair production to measure quark-gluon plasma average temperature at different stages of the evolution.

Wildfire observations reveal that 21% of black carbon aerosols contain multiple cores, and accounting for this morphology increases global absorption by 19%, highlighting a missing source of radiative forcing in current models.

Determinants of WEE1 inhibitor sensitivity in cancer cells are largely undefined. Here, the authors show that WEE1 inhibitors beyond their cell cycle perturbing effects also lead to paradoxical activation of the integrated stress response kinase GCN2.

Itaconate is an airway metabolite released by phagocytes in response to infection. Here, the authors show that itaconate acts as a signal to simulate the adaptation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the lung by modifying RpoN through S-itaconation.

Monolayer amorphous carbon (a-C) has attracted attention due to its structural and electronic properties, but its synthesis has so far required the use of metal substrates. Here, the authors report the Te-assisted growth of large-scale 2D a-C patterns on various insulating substrates, confirming their insulating properties in quantum tunnelling devices.

The magnetic flux rope is a crucial structure in astrophysical and space plasmas. Here, the authors show how this structure rapidly contracts/expands and consequently how it accelerates/decelerates electrons, by using an advanced analysis technique.

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.

The irreversible sintering of Cu catalyst for deactivation remains a persistent challenge under thermal or photothermal reverse water-gas shift reaction process. Now, a hydroxyl-engineered CuNi nanocatalyst, derived from CuNiMgAl-LDH, achieves high and stable CO evolution under solar light by preventing sintering through dynamic hydroxyl anchoring of the nanoparticles.

Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals that iris muscle, derived from neuroectoderm, can form in stem cell–derived eye organoids – enabling the modelling of iris muscle pathologies like aniridia and proliferative vitreoretinopathy.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports the observation of the electroweak production of two jets and a Z-boson pair. This process is related to vector-boson scattering and allows the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking to be probed.

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.

Artificial intelligence-based detection of gastric cancer at different stages from noncontrast computed tomography is suggested to be feasible in a retrospective analysis of large and diverse cohorts, including real-world populations in opportunistic and targeted screening scenarios.

The death of massive stars has traditionally been discovered by explosive events in the gamma-ray band. Liu et al. show that the sensitive wide-field monitor on board Einstein Probe can reveal a weak soft-X-ray signal much earlier than gamma rays.

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

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b virus has caused outbreaks in dairy cattle and cases in humans in the United States. Here, the authors assess levels of pre-existing cross-reactive antibodies to the epidemic virus strain in human serum samples collected in the United States.

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.

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.

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.

Amorphous films with tunable thermal conductivity are needed for semiconductor/aerospace fields. Amorphous Al(Ti)N nanoparticles have negligible effect on thermal conductivity of Si₃N₄ 2 W m⁻¹K⁻¹, while incorporating crystal TiN phases increases to 15 W m⁻¹K⁻¹.

Atomically dispersed catalysts show promising activity for electrochemical reactions but often suffer from limited stability. Here, the authors report an atom-ordering strategy that forms triangular Co sites to activate the substrate for durable alkaline hydrogen production.

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider reports a search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in decays of Z bosons into a τ lepton and an electron or muon of opposite charge.

Starble, Sun, and colleagues identify an epigenetic priming mechanism that promotes oncogene amplification in acquired resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors and establishes a role of METTL7A in this process.

Mutations in elongation factor G protect bacteria from aminoglycoside antibiotics through unknown mechanisms. Here, the authors show that the mutations selectively slow the movement of antibiotic-bound ribosomes along mRNA, which prevents error-prone protein synthesis and thus membrane damage and antibiotic uptake.