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Shallow NV centers in diamond are promising quantum sensors but suffer from reduced coherence times due to surface spin impurities. Here the authors improve coherence times to over 1 ms through interface engineering by oxygen-terminating the diamond surface and patching it with graphene.

Chiral emission from collective guided modes is demonstrated within a photonic crystal slab, showing an example of collective oscillations in the momentum space.

Despite exhibiting ferroelectric features, SrTiO₃ fails to display long-range polar order at low temperatures due to quantum fluctuations. An ultrafast X-ray diffraction experiment now probes polar dynamics of this material at the nanometre scale.

An enantioconvergent approach for direct asymmetric insertion of racemic carbon-, oxygen-, nitrogen-, sulfur- and silicon-substituted carbenoids into carbon–boron bonds is reported, enabled by a class of chiral β-amino alcohol auxiliaries. In addition, iterative asymmetric homologation offered by this method simplifies syntheses of complex molecules containing multiple stereocentres.

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is assembled through liquid–liquid phase separation and directed phase transition. Now—inspired by tropoelastin—a designer minimalistic model incorporating alternating hydrophobic moieties and crosslinking domains can template the assembly of a biomimetic matrix that mimics the ECM, promoting the mechanosensing of stem cells.

P-selectin has been considered as a biomarker of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) aging. Here, Yang et al. uncovered a new functional role of P-selectin engagement in regulating HSC regeneration and driving stem cell aging when perturbed.

This study details a process of duplicated (homoeologous) chromosome ‘scrambling’ in newly formed rice polyploids, indicating the possibility of natural ‘allo-to-autopolyploid’ evolution, with implications for polyploid crop breeding.

Cryo-EM structures of circularly permuted group II introns determined at 2.5- to 2.9-Å resolutions reveal dynamic D6, unexpected interactions and metal ions for catalysis, which elucidate conserved mechanisms of back-splicing to generate circular RNAs.

Piracetam improves wide-bandgap perovskite crystallinity and uniformity, enabling monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells with efficiencies of 28.71% (0.07 cm²) and 28.20% (1.02 cm²), ensuring minimal efficiency loss during scale-up.

Mesenchymal condensation is essential for cartilage development. Here, the authors report on a cell-adaptable supramolecular hydrogel to replicate the hypoxic environment and structural support needed for cartilage organoid formation and study the metabolic reprogramming involved.

Molecular imaging holds promise for liver fibrosis grading but limited by a lack of effective biomarker. Here, the authors discover the grading potential of fibroblast activation protein alpha and design a responsive MRI nanoprobe that achieves fibrosis grading in mice models and clinical samples.

Ferroptosis and pyroptosis are emerging regulated forms of cell death promising for cancer therapy. Here this group reports fabricating folic acid and croconaine functionalized upconversion nanoparticles for mobilizing intracellular stores of endogenous iron, and spatiotemporally controlling lysosome-intrinsic Fenton chemistry, thereby triggering lysosomal membrane permeabilization-associated ferroptosis and pyroptosis dual-induction.

The Seebeck effect causes an electrical potential across a temperature gradient in a material, and is therefore useful for generating useful current from waste heat. Here, the authors show that the Seebeck effect can arise due to charge-carrier relaxation in addition to the conventional mechanism.

Neurogenic bladder often occurs after pelvic ganglia injury. Here, the authors designed a fiber-enhanced tissue bandage for injured pelvic ganglia that facilitates the delivery of growth factors essential for ganglia healing.

The incorporation of fluorine-doped tin oxide nanoplatelets on the substrate of perovskite solar cells contributes to uniform light harvesting across different incidence angles of sunlight. The best devices show a power conversion efficiency of 26.4% (certified 25.9%), 95% of which is maintained after 1,200 hours of operation.

Paeniclostridium sordellii hemorrhagic toxin (TcsH) targets TMPRSS2 to enter the host cells. Here, authors showed the cryo-EM structures of the TcsH-TMPRSS2 complex, providing a toxin-receptor interaction model for large clostridial toxins.

A high-sensitivity turn-on fluorescence H₂S sensor has been developed via hybrid molecule nano-array. This nano-array features a small reaction volume, enabling a broad detection range and a detection limit of 1 fM using a 10 μL solution.

The interconversion of spin and charge is fundamental to the operation of spintronic devices. Here the authors demonstrate spin-to-charge conversion in the correlated material vanadium dioxide, and show that the efficiency changes dramatically across the metal-insulator transition.

Developing Type I photosensitizers (PSs) is vital for tackling hypoxic intolerance of photodynamic therapy in the hypoxic microenvironment, but elusive due to the lack of a general molecular design strategy. Here the authors report a universal and simple method to covert traditional Type II PSs to Type I PSs.

Gold nanoclusters are known to grow stepwise from gold-thiolate monomers and oligomers. Here, the authors find that the evolution of silver nanoclusters differs completely from that of gold: rather than following a bottom-up pathway, the clusters evolve from similarly-sized Ag-thiolate cluster intermediates.

Embolization is one of the most promising strategies for clinical disease treatments, however, the existing embolic materials normally have poor embolization effectiveness. Here, the authors report Janus particle-engineered structural lipiodol droplets by programming the self-assembly of Janus particles at the lipiodol-water interface to achieve highly efficient renal embolization.

The authors report on a 2D anion-rich NaCl₂ crystal with a Na:Cl ratio of approximately 1:2, which exhibits room-temperature ferromagnetism originating from the spin polarization of electrons in the Cl elements of these crystals.

Broad-band emission of self-trapped exciton in low-dimensional perovskite is prospective for white LED, yet rational design new white perovskite remains challenge. Here, the authors develop an atom-substituting strategy to trigger exciton self-tapping in perovskites and reveal the mechanism behind.

Paeniclostridium sordellii lethal toxin (TcsL) is a potent toxin that can cause toxic shock syndrome. TcsL contains a unique CROPs ___domain with unclear functions. Here, the authors provide evidence of the CROPs ___domain’s role in stability and toxicity of TcsL.

Achieving propagating topological exciton polaritons at room temperature is challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate room-temperature valley-polarized topological polaritons with valley-dependent propagation in a perovskite lattice formed by two mutually inverted honeycomb lattices with a bearded interface.

High-quality genome of the modern soybean cultivar Nongdadou2 and deep resequencing of 547 accessions provide insights into the role of structural variations in soybean improvement.

A high-performance NO₂ gas sensor based on highly catalytic non-precious metal nitride TiN_x demonstrates excellent selectivity, sensitivity, and long-term stability, making it a leading candidate for environmental monitoring technology.

Dietary patterns have been linked to a limited number of major chronic diseases. Here, the authors show greater adherence to healthy dietary patterns, especially Alternate Mediterranean Diet, is associated with a lower risk of most of the 48 tested chronic diseases.

Cancer stem cells (CSC) are often responsible for tumor progression and metastasis and can overexpress aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs). Here, the authors develop a self-assembled nanoprodrug (PS-CHO@ATRA-SS-ATRA) composed of ALDH-activatable photosensitizer (PS-CHO) and disulfide-linked all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA-SS-ATRA) for diagnosis and targeted treatment of CSC-enriched tumors.

Sirenians are aquatic mammals that originated in Africa ~60 million years ago. Using comparative genomics of a new dugong genome, this study finds genetic adaptations shared by extant sirenians and assessed the diversity of dugongs in Australian waters and the functionally extinct Okinawan dugong.

Solid-state lithium batteries typically utilize heterogeneous composite cathodes with conductive additives, which limit energy density and cycle life. Here the authors present a cathode material that exhibits efficient mixed conduction and near-zero volume change during cycling, thereby improving battery performance.

A sulfur-rich covalent organic framework with low-valence Pt single atom sites is reported for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The material was stable under reaction conditions due to reduced hydrogen desorption barriers and enhanced charge separation.

The bilayer nickelate La₃Ni₂O₇ was recently shown to be superconducting at high-pressure. Here the authors reveal strong electronic correlations and the opening of a partial gap, providing key information for understanding the nature of the density-wavelike transition at ambient pressure and superconductivity in this compound.

Two draft sequences of Gossypium hirsutum, the most widely cultivated cotton species, provide insights into genome structure, genome rearrangement, gene evolution and cotton fiber biology.

Wearable sensors with edge computing are desired for human motion monitoring. Here, the authors demonstrate a topographic design for wearable MXene sensor modules with wireless streaming or in-sensor computing models for avatar reconstruction.

In the non-collinear antiferromagnet Mn₃Sn, a spin–orbit torque makes the collective octupole moment and individual moments rotate in opposite directions, leading to a sign-reversed switching polarity compared with collinear magnets.

Jiahao Zhang, Kaixiong Ma, and Bo Li et al. identify a variant of the H9N2 avian influenza virus within the hemagglutinin cleavage site required for viral infection. They show that this variant leads to higher viral replication in cells and more virulent disease in both chickens and mice.

Ferroptosis is involved in the pathogenesis of several human diseases and targeted inhibition of ferroptosis is promising for their clinical treatment. Here, the authors report the synthesis of ultrasmall poly(acrylic) acid coated Mn₃O₄ nanoparticles that can act as mimics of antioxidant enzymes and scavenge reactive oxygen species, as well as potently suppress ferroptosis.

This study demonstrates a role of cholesterol metabolism-related gene, Lrp3, in cartilage degeneration and osteoarthritis pathogenesis. LRP3 positively regulates cartilage extracellular matrix metabolism by targeting syndecan-4 via Ras signalling, implicating the cholesterol-LRP3-SDC4 axis in osteoarthritic cartilage degeneration.