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The Zwicky Transient Facility has observed a transitioning white dwarf with two faces, with one side of its atmosphere dominated by hydrogen and the other by helium.

Top down atmospheric measurements reveal a large difference between observed methane emissions and those reported from bottom up estimates of natural gas leakage for California.

The microvasculature is critical for delivery of oxygen and metabolites throughout tissues. Here they use human blood vessel organoids to show that CTGF is a critical paracrine regulator of microvascular integrity that can restore pericyte coverage and vessel structure.

MaxFuse enables data integration between modalities even when features are weakly correlated.

Urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UCAR) is associated with various clinical outcomes such as kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. Here, the authors report genome-wide meta-analysis in over 500,000 individuals and find 68 UACR loci, followed by statistical fine-mapping, gene prioritization and experimental validation in flies.

Fast all-electrical switching of magnetic tunnel junctions is required to improve the next generation of non-volatile memory. The combination of spin–orbit torques, spin-transfer torques, and the voltage control of magnetic anisotropy permits switching latency smaller than 0.2 ns as unveiled by real-time observation of the switching dynamics.

Reversible high-voltage redox is a key component for electrochemical technologies from electrocatalysts to lithium-ion batteries. A point defect explanation for why anion redox occurs with local structural disordering and voltage hysteresis is proposed.

Generics contribute to increased availability of antibiotics, benefiting healthcare systems but potentially leading to increased consumption with implications for antibiotic stewardship and resistance. Here, the authors found no consistent changes in prescribing patterns of the 13 antibiotics that entered the US market as generics from 2000–2012.

Mutations in RAS-MAPK pathway genes are implicated in Noonan-spectrum, yet up to 20% of cases have unknown cause. Here, the authors identify RREB1 underlying a 6p microdeletion RASopathy-like syndrome and show that RREB1, SIN3A and KDM1A form a transcriptional repressive complex to control methylation of MAPK pathway genes.

Multiangle projection imaging accelerates volumetric imaging by up to two orders of magnitude and is readily implemented on diverse microscopes, including spinning disk confocal and light-sheet microscopes.

Human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) is a protein commonly forming aggregates in islet cells of those afflicted by type II diabetes. New structures of fibrils seeded with patient-derived material reveal a diverse repertoire of structures, some of which may resemble those appearing in vivo.

Analysing global high-resolution three-dimensional maps of forest structure, the authors show that only half of the world’s remaining moist tropical forest has both high structural integrity and low human pressure, and they outline a framework for its conservation and restoration.

The large-scale assembly of asymmetric colloidal particles is used in creating high-performance fibres and two-dimensional materials. Here, the authors present a spray-coating process for the fabrication of thin, flexible nanoplatelet/epoxy films and study their gas barrier properties.

Contact tracing is critical to controlling COVID-19, but most protocols only “forward-trace” to notify people who were recently exposed. Using a stochastic branching-process model, the authors show that “bidirectional” tracing to identify infector individuals and their other infectees robustly improves outbreak control.

A dual-layer encapsulation approach provides physical containment of genetically modified bacteria (especially when combined with chemical containment) while also protecting them from environmental stressors and maintaining their sensing functions.

Soderberg et al. asked scientists to peer review registered reports and standard articles post-publication, after information explicitly identifying the article type had been removed. Registered reports scored higher on some dimensions, including quality and rigour.

Performing multiple histological stains on a biopsy can be costly and time consuming. Here the authors present a method for the digital transformation of H&E stained tissue into special stains (e.g., PAS, Masson’s Trichrome and Jones silver stain), and demonstrate that it improves diagnoses over the use of H&E only.

For genetically engineered circuits, the movement of RNA polymerase across the DNA during transcription needs to be tightly controlled. A large library of strong terminators will make circuit design easier and more efficient.

Thin samples CrI₃ exhibit a phase transition under an applied magnetic field from layered antiferromagnetism to ferromagnetism. Here the authors observe an associated abrupt change in the magneto-Raman spectra, illustrating the sensitivity of Raman spectra to magnetic ordering.

Topoisomerase 3β (Top3β) solves topological stress in DNA or RNA metabolism and its mutations are linked to mental disorders. Here, the authors describe transcriptional and behavioural impairments in Top3β-knockout mice and show that these are linked to impaired neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity.

Controlling self-assembly of nanoparticles into superlattices is an important approach to build functional materials. Here, Lu et al. use directional binding provided by DNA-encoded polyhedral blocks—cubes or octahedrons—to guide spherical nanoparticles into clusters and three-dimensional lattices.

The authors report subatomic precision in measuring the displacement of a nanowire. Such precision is achieved by employing deep-learning enabled analysis of single-shot scattering of topologically structured superoscillatory illumination.

In this alternative approach to quantum computation, the all-electrical operation of two qubits, each encoded in three physical solid-state spin qubits, realizes swap-based universal quantum logic in an extensible physical architecture.

The unusual radar properties of icy satellites appear to be correlated and distributed along a spectrum of values. Only modelling including the coherent backscatter opposition effect can reproduce this behaviour.

Populations of swarming coupled oscillators with inhomogeneous natural frequencies and chirality are relevant for active matter systems and micro-robotics. The authors model and analyze a variety of their self-organized behaviors that mimic natural and artificial micro-scale collective systems.

Designing efficient photonic neuromorphic systems remains a challenge. Here, the authors develop a new class of memristor sensitive to the dual electro-optical history obtained by exploiting electrochemical, photovoltaic and photo-assisted oxygen ion motion effects at a high temperature superconductor / semiconductor interface.

Here, the authors show the amyloid formation of a low-complexity ___domain of NCAP, and its potential for guiding the design of antiviral agents.

Integrating information from both the external environment and an organism's internal state is an important aspect of feeding-related decision making. Here, the authors identify a two neuron circuit within the mollusc Lymnaeathat adapts feeding behaviour according to food availability and motivational state.

An integrated nanoscale light-emitting diode is used as an electrically driven optical source for exciting two-dimensionally localized gap plasmon waveguides with a 0.016λ² cross-sectional area. Electrically driven subwavelength optical nanocircuits for routing, splitting and directional coupling are demonstrated in compact and relatively low-loss gap plasmon waveguide structures.

A chemical-vapour-deposition-based approach enables the phase-controllable synthesis of large-scale two-dimensional β-, β′- and α-In₂Se₃ films.

Senescence of mammalian cells is characterized by proliferative arrest and expression of an inflammatory phenotype. Here the authors show the H2A variant H2A.J, found only in mammals, accumulates following persistent DNA damage or natural aging.

Aifantis and colleagues report that FBXW7α controls the heat-shock response pathway by targeting HSF1 for degradation. In melanoma FBXW7α deficiency leads to increased nuclear HSF1, and induction of a pro-invasive gene expression program.

There is increasing evidence that highly dynamic, polydisperse peptide oligomers are the toxic species in amyloid-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Now, the secondary structure of individual amyloid oligomers has been analysed directly for the first time using a combination of ion-mobility spectrometry–mass spectrometry and gas-phase infrared spectroscopy.

The LARGE glycosyltransferase generates a repeating disaccharide on α-dystroglycan, an extracellular matrix receptor essential for muscle function. A structural study defines a unique binding mode between the LARGE-generated oligosaccharide and the matrix protein laminin.

A novel optical sensor for hydrogen peroxide, based on DNA-wrapped single wall carbon nanotubes, is developed and validated in plants. It can be used in non-model species to study the kinetics of systemic H₂O₂ propagation in response to wounding.

The role of gene expression noise in the evolution of drug resistance in mammalian cells is unclear. Here, by uncoupling noise from mean expression of a drug resistance gene in CHO cells the authors show that noisy expression aids adaptation to high drug levels, but delays it at low drug levels.

Whereas vertebrate genomes are highly methylated at CpG positions, invertebrate genomes are typically sparsely methylated. Here, the authors report a highly methylated genome in a marine sponge and show striking similarities with vertebrates.

The dynamics of HIV-1 DNA sequences early after HIV-1 transmission remains poorly characterized. Here, the authors perform a longitudinal evaluation of HIV-1 DNA sequences in subtype C-infected individuals during acute infection, providing a landscape of the nature and evolution of the very early viral genome.

The mechanisms of contextual modulation in direction selective ganglion cells in the retina remain unclear. Here, the authors find that that On-Off direction-selective ganglion cells are differentially sensitive to discontinuities of dark and bright moving edges in the visual environment and, using synapse-specific genetic manipulations with functional measurements, reveal the microcircuits underlying this contextual sensitivity.

Genome assembly of durum wheat cultivar Svevo enables genome-wide genetic diversity analyses highlighting modifications imposed by thousands of years of empirical selection and breeding.

Gallium arsenide holds record efficiency for single junction solar cells, but high production costs limit applications. Here Metaferia et al. show high quality GaAs and GaInP at rates exceeding 300 and 200 micrometers per hour by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy and > 25% efficient solar cells.

The scalable, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly production of solid-state materials is crucial for next-generation material synthesis. Now an efficient and gram-scale synthesis of transition metal dichalcogenides, group XIV dichalcogenides and non-transition metal dichalcogenides has been achieved using the flash-within-flash heating technique, a non-equilibrium, ultrafast heat conduction method.

An extensive analysis of the JWST-NIRSpec spectrum of GN-z11 shows a supermassive black hole of a few million solar masses in a galaxy 440 million years after the Big Bang.

Leveraging enzymatic selectivity, a single reaction stream provides a single diastereomer of the cyclic dinucleotide MK-1454, a promising immune-oncology drug candidate, without the use of protecting groups or chiral auxiliaries.

Defective DNA interstrand crosslink repair in Fanconi anaemia drives extensive genomic rearrangements, thereby substantially increasing the risk of cancer development.