Research articles

Magnesium is light but not very strong; here the addition of silicon carbide nanoparticles uniformly dispersed to 14 per cent by volume, achieved through a nanoparticle self-stabilization mechanism in a molten metal alloy, yields improved strength, stiffness, plasticity and high-temperature stability.

An epigenetic mechanism in which gain-of-function IDH mutations promote gliomagenesis by disrupting chromosomal topology is presented, with IDH mutations causing the binding sites of the methylation-sensitive insulator CTCF to become hypermethylated; disruption of a CTCF boundary near the glioma oncogene PDGFRA allows a constitutive enhancer to contact and activate the oncogene aberrantly.

Symmetric dimethylation of the human RNA polymerase II C-terminal ___domain residue R1810 by the protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) directly recruits the protein survival of motor neuron (SMN) and indirectly recruits the helicase senataxin to resolve R-loops and promote transcription termination.

A textural examination of volcanic ash erupted from Santiaguito volcano in Guatemala coupled with an analysis of the geophysical signals indicates that rapid heating during fault friction can cause melting and vesiculation (development of bubbles) of hydrated silicic magma, thus strongly affecting magma strength and eruptive behaviour.

Coronal mass ejections are driven by a sudden release of magnetic energy stored in flux ropes in the Sun’s corona, but when the ambient magnetic field that runs toroidally along an unstable flux rope is strong enough to prevent the flux rope from kinking, a dynamic magnetic tension force halts the eruption.

Matter-wave interferometers provide an opportunity to measure whether quantum superpositions exist at macroscopic length scales or only at microscopically small scales; now such instruments have demonstrated quantum interference of wave packets separated by 54 cm.

Monoclonal antibodies with broad reactivity against antigens on the parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, are isolated from two subjects and are found to have an unusual insertion of an immunoglobulin-like ___domain from a different chromosome, illustrating a new mechanism of antibody diversification.

An electronic–photonic microprocessor chip manufactured using a conventional microelectronics foundry process is demonstrated; the chip contains 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components and directly uses light to communicate to other chips.

The authors found that the key elements of plant form and function, analysed at global scale, are largely concentrated into a two-dimensional plane indexed by the size of whole plants and organs on the one hand, and the construction costs for photosynthetic leaf area, on the other.

To be able to control the properties of a system that has strong electron–electron interactions using only an external electric field would be ideal, but the material must be thin enough to avoid shielding of the electric field in the bulk material; here pure electric-field control of the charge-density wave and superconductivity transition temperatures is achieved by electrolyte gating through an electric-field double layer transistor in the two-dimensional material 1T-TiSe₂.

Antibody-mediated inhibition of R-spondin-3 in colorectal tumours decreases tumour growth and promotes differentiation—these effects are associated with a decrease in expression of genes associated with stem-cell function.

Data from millions of trees in thousands of locations are used to show that certain key traits affect competitive ability in predictable ways, and that there are trade-offs between traits that favour growth with and without competition.

The environmental and geopolitical problems associated with fossil fuels might be alleviated if it were possible to produce synthetic multicarbon fuels efficiently from single-carbon feedstocks; here, a molybdenum compound supported by a terphenyl–diphosphine ligand is used to convert carbon monoxide into a metal-free C₂O₁ fragment, with the ligand both serving as an electron reservoir and stabilizing the different intermediate species.

The X-ray crystal structure of a two-pore channel from Arabidopsis thaliana reveals the structure and the mechanism of voltage gating of this class of ubiquitous cation-selective ion channels.

An alternative material to activated carbon for water remediation is reported: a porous material based on crosslinked cyclodextrins that is better than activated carbons at adsorbing a range of pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other anthropogenic pollutants.

Web summaryHarnessing the entanglement of different ionic species could bring new flexibility in quantum computing, and now two groups independently demonstrate entanglement between different atomic species; Ballance et al. achieve entanglement between different atomic isotopes, whereas the related paper by Tan et al. shows entanglement between different elements, together demonstrating a first step towards mixed-species quantum logic.

Harnessing the entanglement of different ionic species could bring new flexibility in quantum computing, and now two groups independently demonstrate entanglement between different atomic species; Tan et al. achieve entanglement between different elements, whereas the related paper by Ballance et al. shows entanglement between different atomic isotopes, together demonstrating a first step towards mixed-species quantum logic.