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Bacterial attachment on implanted medical devices depends on surface topography. Here, the authors screen combinatorially generated shapes embossed into polymers to investigate topographical control of bacterial responses to surfaces.

A rare case of a quasar acting as a gravitational lens allows a precise determination of the mass of the quasar’s host galaxy and offers a new path to studying the connections between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies.

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved in rule-coding and long-term memory. Here, the authors identified a stably active neuronal ensemble in the mouse medial PFC in an olfaction-guided spatial memory task, which showed stable tuning to task features across time, rule-reversal, and context changes.

REDEFINE is a label-free approach for characterizing biomolecular condensates based on NMR diffusion experiments, determining parameters of biphasic condensates, namely partitioning, diffusion coefficients, droplet size, permeability, and chemical exchange.

Few methods can produce orbital angular momentum beams in the extreme ultraviolet or X-ray, and controlling orbital angular momentum on these beams remains challenging. Here the authors apply wave mixing to a tabletop high-harmonic source and control the topological charge of extreme ultraviolet beams.

Low amplitude noise on an otherwise constant-intensity wave can grow exponentially and induce nonlinear dynamical behaviour. Here, the authors present time-___domain measurements of a phenomenon arising from such modulation instability: the emergence of highly localised breathers in an optical fibre.

The use of PET for detection of Aβ in the brain in AD has limitations; studies also indicate that retinal changes, including Aβ deposition, occur in AD. Here the authors demonstrate the potential to use in vivo retinal hyperspectral imaging as a surrogate for brain accumulation of Aβ.

Membrane fusion is a complex biological process. In this protocol, asymmetric membranes derived from cultured cells or prepared synthetically, are suspended across micrometer -sized holes on a silicon chip to allow proteins to move freely in the bilayer.

Atmospheric Walker circulation results in a two-way interaction between decadal-scale sea surface temperature variability in the Atlantic and Pacific, according to pacemaker climate modelling experiments.

Existing methods of characterizing electron beams carrying orbital angular momentum are inefficient as they allow measuring one OAM state at a time. Here the authors demonstrate an OAM spectrometer capable of analysing multiple OAM states and a potential tool for probing magnetic materials.

Tearing tough soft solids is harder than cutting them with a sharp blade. Here, the authors determine the reasons by synthesizing PDMS elastomers labeled with mechanically sensitive fluorophores to quantify the extent of bond scission resulting from cutting pre-stretched samples.

Sample orientation is crucial to ensure optimal image quality in light microscopy. Here the authors enable multi-axis orientation of fixed mouse embryos and shrimp, and live zebrafish embryos and larvae by introducing magnetic beads and rotating the sample with a magnetic field in a microscope.

Formation of urate and calcium pyrophosphate micro-crystals is responsible for painful inflammatory flares in gout and chondrocalcinosis. Here the authors show that the osmo-sensitive LRRC8 anion channel is involved with macrophage inflammasome activation by crystals involving cell volume regulation and ATP release leading to P2Y receptor activation.

Microtubule tracks are important for the transport of molecules within axons. Here, the authors show that ATAT1, the enzyme responsible for acetylating a-tubulin, receives acetyl groups from ATP citrate lyase whose stability is regulated by Elongator, a protein mutated in the neuronal disease Familial dysautonomia.

By coupling plasmonic resonators with a semiconductor heterostructure, researchers control the nonlinear response by a bias voltage, thereby enabling spectral tuning, dynamic intensity modulation and dynamic beam manipulation for second-harmonic generation.

Compact, tunable terahertz sources are highly desired for sensing and imaging applications. Here Vijayraghavan et al. demonstrate room-temperature quantum cascade laser sources based on the non-linear optical conversion of mid-infrared light that provide a tunable output over a 3.5-THz bandwidth.

Sanfeliu-Cerdán et al. show that an SH3-___domain-induced rigidity transition of MEC-2/stomatin condensates enables mechanotranduction of external forces in C. elegans touch receptor neurons.

Experiments in infected mice and tissue-mimicking chemostats show that resilience of Salmonella against antimicrobial compounds is largely a result of starvation-induced general resilience rather than survival of a small subset of hyper-resilient cells.

The precise regulatory mechanisms controlling ciliary Hedgehog signaling remain incomplete. Here, the authors use ciliary proteomics to reveal that Numb facilitates the endocytosis of the receptor Ptch1 from the ciliary pocket, thereby enabling activation of Hedgehog signaling.

Editor summary: A native-mass-spectrometry-based approach analyzes integral membrane protein–lipid complexes directly from near-physiological membrane conditions, providing information about protein oligomeric states, lipid identities, and membrane properties.

Beyond high resolving power, electron microscopy can be used to study both the electronic and magnetic properties of a sample. Here, Grillo et al. combine electron vortex beams with holographic detection to measure out-of-plane nanoscale magnetic fields.

Charron and colleagues describe a form of Sonic hedgehog–induced replicative stress through Cdc7-dependent origin firing that contributes to medulloblastoma tumorigenesis.

Photovoltaic devices suffer from unavoidable open circuit voltage losses. Here, authors design a photo-ferroelectric 2D/3D/2D perovskite junction with 2D ferroelectric single crystals in bulk, resulting in an electric field and achieving a net gain in device open circuit voltage reaching 1.21 V.

Mutations in the RNA binding protein FUS cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Here the authors characterize FUS-binding to U1 snRNP and show that ALS-associated FUS aberrantly contacts U1 snRNA which interferes with its biogenesis pathway.

Researchers demonstrate a laser-plasma accelerator-driven free-electron laser in a seeded configuration, where control over the radiation wavelength and longitudinal coherence are achieved.

Endocytosis typically directs proteins on a recycling route back to the plasma membrane, transport to the Golgi apparatus or delivery to the lysosome. Here Chaumet et al.describe a population of vesicles that can fuse directly with the outer nuclear membrane and deliver cargo into the nuclear envelope, where it can be translocated into the nucleoplasm.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis has been associated with aberrant expansion of KRT5-expressing basal cells. Here the authors show how changes in the ECM glycoprotein SPARC restrict the movement of KRT5+ cells, affecting their retention within fibrotic tissue.

Invadosomes degrade extracellular matrix and facilitate cell invasion but their molecular composition is not fully understood. Here, the authors combine laser capture and mass spectrometry to map the proteome of invadosomes, showing that they rely on internal translational activity to maintain their structure.

An imaging scheme that employs raster-scanned active focusing can image hidden, non-line-of-sight objects

Using a cohort of nearly 1,000 genetically diverse mice undergoing dietary restriction over the lifespan, the authors reveal numerous insights into the interactions between the gut microbiome, host genome, diet, health and longevity.

This Perspective discusses the development and applications of light-sheet-based fluorescence microscopy, a method with considerable advantages over confocal fluorescence microscopy.

Human TNF is required for respiratory-burst-dependent immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis in macrophages but seems to be largely redundant physiologically.

Brain vascular impairment may occur early in diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Here the authors longitudinally study brain vascular dynamics in mice using advanced optical coherence tomography and deep learning algorithms, which enables tracking of slow vascular decline in aging and models of disease.

Advancing the oxygen evolution reaction understanding requires probing catalysts’ microscale dynamics in operando but is highly challenging. Here, authors use compressive Raman imaging to unravel the charge compensation pathways in a crystalline oxygen evolution catalyst, α-Li₂IrO₃.

Ali and Shin et al. have characterized the cellular dynamics of coenocytic endosperm development in Arabidopsis thaliana. They demonstrate the role of actin filaments in controlling the final seed size.

Trypanosoma brucei parasites invade different organs, such as the central nervous system, adipose tissue, and skin in mammalian host. Here, Trindade et al. perform mathematical modelling to show that adipose tissue forms (ATFs) grow slower than the bloodstream forms and experimentally characterize the heterogeneous ATF populations and provide evidence that slow-growing forms are refractory to drug treatment.

By recording from hundreds of cerebellar granule cell axons with three-dimensional two-photon calcium imaging, Lanore et al. show that population activity is high-dimensional and that quiet wakeful and active states are orthogonally arranged in neuronal activity space.

A systematic analysis of a series of donor–acceptor organic blends shows that in solar cells based on low-bandgap non-fullerene acceptors an ionization energy offset of about 0.5 eV is required to ensure efficient charge separation.

Inborn errors of the alternative NF-κB pathway in humans impair the development of AIRE-expressing medullary thymic epithelial cells, thereby underlying the production of autoantibodies against type I IFNs and predisposition to viral diseases

During tumorigenesis, liposarcoma has been reported to develop a dependence on serine metabolism but it is unclear how this high energetic demand is met. Here, the authors identify a crosstalk mechanism between tumor and distant muscle cells wherein liposarcoma cell-derived IL-6 drives muscle cell release of serine, in turn accelerating tumor growth.

The vascular, cellular and molecular changes underlying sex differences in mood disorders are unclear. Here, the authors show that blood-brain barrier dysfunction modulates anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors in female mice and endothelium-specific changes associated with maladaptive responses compared to resilience to stress.

Aging dynamics of complex lipids are incompletely understood. Here Janssens and colleagues describe lipids that change with age across ten tissues in mice. Notably, bis(monoacylglycerol)phosphate accumulated with age. This lipid also accumulated in muscle of older humans, and reduced upon a short bout of exercise.

Photosynthetic activity is a key determinant of olive productivity in the eastern Mediterranean but may be threatened by intensifying water stress and decreasing solar radiation over the course of the twenty-first century, based on an 8000-year analysis of pollen records.