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Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

The polarity separation within the carbon-metal bonds of traditional organometallic reagents that endows them with exceptional reactivities also imposes limitations, such as air and moisture sensitivity, and flammability. Here, the authors demonstrate that stable and easily accessible benzylic (or allylic) boronate with mild alkali-metal alkoxide as the activator can act as organometallic reagents.

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.

Phytochrome photoreceptors are master regulators of plant development. This paper describes 3D structures of soybean phytochrome A in both Pr (inactive) and Pfr (signalling) states, revealing changes that might transmit the light signal to the cell.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

A comparison of alpha diversity (number of plant species) and dark diversity (species that are currently absent from a site despite being ecologically suitable) demonstrates the negative effects of regional-scale anthropogenic activity on plant diversity.

Automated organic synthesis is often limited to making simple molecules, requiring a small number of synthetic steps, because of the complexity and variety of organic molecules. Now, a robotic platform has been instructed to build complex structures, such as the core fragment of (+)-kalkitoxin, in a stereochemically controlled and iterative manner.

Current theories of bacterial growth physiology often lack mechanistic detail. Here, Droghetti et al. present a theoretical framework that includes sensing and regulation of protein synthesis at the mRNA level, showing that the sensing-regulatory interplay gives rise to oscillatory responses to external changes.

The addition of magnetic dopants to semiconductor quantum dots can enhance the quantum efficiency of photon-to-exciton conversion through spin-exchange carrier multiplication. Here, the authors show that this effect can be utilized to boost photocurrent in films of Mn-doped CdSe/HgSe quantum dots with an inverted band structure.

Using hard X-rays for transient grating (TG) spectroscopy, fundamental excitations can be followed with femtosecond temporal and nanometer spatial resolution, selecting momenta, chemical elements and their chemical environment. The authors demonstrate the first experiment of all X-ray TG on an amorphous film of FeGd and on a silicon single crystal.

A new non-destructive spectroscopic method, ptychographic X-ray linear dichroic orientation tomography, is described, allowing the intragranular and intergranular characterization of extended polycrystalline and non-crystalline materials in three dimensions with nanoscale spatial resolution.

In acoustic systems, quantum spin Hall physics is rarely observed because the crucial ingredient spin-orbit coupling is missing. Here, the authors construct an acoustic crystal with synthetic spin-orbit coupling and observe gapless helical boundary states as well as spin flipping effect.

Although the photocycle of the photosensory core module of the Stigmatella aurantiaca bacteriophytochrome 2 (SaBphP2) has been extensively studied, its early dynamics have not been fully resolved. Here, the authors use time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography to probe the associated picosecond events and report on the relative population of Z and E isomers after light activation.

Computational approaches to predict water’s role in host-ligand binding attract a great deal of attention. Here the authors use a metadynamics enhanced sampling method and machine learning to compute binding energies for host-guest systems from the SAMPL5 challenge and provide details of water structural changes.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

The factors that limit the nutrient flexibility of cells remain largely unknown. Here, the authors identify the glutamate/cysteine antiporter xCT in a genetic screen for glucose dependency and show it determines the ability of cells to survive under conditions of low glucose by limiting the utilization of glutamine.

Behavioural experiments to study decision-making in response to context-dependent accumulation of evidence provide testable models that are consistent with the heterogeneity in neural signatures among rats that perform well in trials.

The enzymes that link bacterial capsule polymers to the outermembrane glycolipids, termed transition transferases, are identified, enabling reconstruction of the entire capsule biosynthesis pathway.

Liquid lasers based on solutions of colloidal quantum dots exhibit a trion-like optical gain state with suppressed Auger recombination, which combined with a Littrow optical cavity enables stable and tunable liquid-state lasing.

Simultaneous magnetic resonance optoacoustic readings reveal a high correspondence between BOLD and hemoglobin signals in mouse functional connectivity. Total and oxygenated hemoglobin exhibit stronger correlations with BOLD than deoxygenated hemoglobin.

Bacterial two-component systems (TCSs) consist of a sensor histidine kinase (HK) and a response regulator that modulate gene expression. Here, the authors generate phosphatase-deficient HK mutants, with constitutive TCS activation, to characterise the regulatory networks of 14 TCSs in the human pathogen Streptococcus agalactiae.

Tonic and burst-like locus coeruleus firing distinctly tune brain topology toward associative and sensory regions, recruiting both astrocytic and neuronal inhibitory activity.

EGFRvIII-targeted CAR T cells have been proposed as a therapeutic option for patients with glioblastoma (GBM), however, clinical responses remain suboptimal. Here the authors engineer anti-EGFRvIII CAR T cells to secrete an optimized SIRPγ-derived CD47 blocker, showing that combining CAR T cell effector functions with enhanced macrophage-mediated tumor cell phagocytosis improves anti-tumor efficacy in preclinical models.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

The sea floor at the easternmost Southwest Indian mid-ocean ridge is smooth, unlike that at other mid-ocean ridges. Sonar imaging and analysis of rock samples show that the sea floor here is composed almost entirely of sea-water-altered mantle rocks that have been brought to the surface by large faults on both sides of the ridge axis over the past 11 million years.

This study uses transfer learning to identify seismic eruption precursors shared among volcanoes, enabling accurate forecasting even at data-scarce sites. Results show that seismic patterns exhibit ergodicity, supporting scalable models to improve volcanic monitoring and risk mitigation.

Functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity are expected to be positively correlated. Here the authors show that the covariation between these metrics in vascular plant communities around the world is often either inconsistent or negative.

This Brain Somatic Mosaicism Network analysis of 283 cases of malformations of cortical development identifies 69 candidate and known genes in 76 patients. Single-nucleus RNA sequencing and mouse modeling implicate radial glia and daughter excitatory neurons.

Focal therapy is an emerging treatment option that involves the focal ablation of prostate cancer with preservation of surrounding healthy tissue, which might result in reduced morbidity. In this Review the authors discuss the controversy surrounding optimal patient selection, preoperative tumour localization strategies and the lack of long-term oncological data for focal therapy modalities.

Ehret et al. uncover neural activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex that link sensory stimuli to learned behavioral responses by isolating interpretable activity patterns that are shared among mice performing the same task.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

Here, the authors introduce a constant light-induced magneto-transport method which seamlessly integrates light, current, and a magnetic field to characterize electron and hole properties across an expansive array of materials.

The use of deep neural networks for the automated analysis of behavioural videos has emerged as a tool in neuroscience, medicine and psychology. Marks and colleagues present a pipeline capable of tracking and identifying animals, as well as classifying individual and interacting animal behaviour in video recordings and even in complex environments.

Clinical benefit or intestinal toxicity resulting from combined immune checkpoint blockade in patients with melanoma associates with prevalent commensal bacteria and can be decoupled by IL-1R inhibition.

Colloidal quantum dot devices demonstrating electrically pumped amplified spontaneous emission are described, showing strong, broadband optical gain and bright edge emission, opening the path to solution-processable laser diodes.

Fluctuations of atomic positions are related to several materials properties. Here the authors measure the photon number statistics via a non-equilibrium optical experiment and provide a quantum description of the interaction between photonic and phononic fields to reveal lattice dynamics fluctuations in quartz.