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The performance of devices based on fully non-fused ring electron acceptors has been limited due to the low acceptor crystallinity. Here, authors report these acceptors with peripheral substituents that guarantee the planarity of the skeleton, achieving efficiency of 18.04% in organic solar cells.

The synthesis of atom-thin amorphous films remains challenging as their thermodynamically favourable grains are neither two dimensional nor layered. Here a droplet-driven nanoribbon-to-film growth strategy is reported to achieve amorphous metal chalcogenides at the single-layer limit.

Although Cas12f proteins benefit from compact size for delivery, their gene-editing activity remains limited. By adding an N-terminal α-helix to Cas12f, we created hpCasMINI, hpOsCas12f1, and hpAsCas12f1 variants that show improved gene activation and DNA cleavage in mammalian cells and mice.

Cryo-ET elucidates in situ assembly of MacAB-TolC efflux pump in E. coli, revealing antibiotic-induced formation of MacA-TolC subcomplexes and dynamic MacB binding, which provides structural insights for developing targeted efflux pump inhibitors.

Wastewater treatment plants are important reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Here, the authors analyze ARGs in a global collection of samples from wastewater treatment plants across six continents, providing insights into biotic and abiotic mechanisms that appear to control ARG diversity and distribution.

The compact Cas12f enzyme exhibits obvious delivery advantage for gene editing, but its activity remains suboptimal. Here, the authors have designed and optimized circular guide RNA (cgRNA) for Cas12f, which significantly improves the efficiency of gene activation and adenine base editing.

Multidrug efflux pumps actively expel a wide range of toxic substrates from bacteria and play a major role in drug resistance. Here authors show the in situ structure of the efflux pump AcrAB-TolC obtained by electron cryo-tomography and subtomogram averaging.

Common photovoltaic effect is across the interface of heterojunctions. Here, the authors find that scanning a light beam can induce a persistent in-plane photoelectric voltage along silicon-water interfaces, due to the following movement of a charge packet in the vicinity of the silicon surface.

Conventional dealloying methods to produce bicontinuous open nanoporous structures for catalysis are limited to very few alloys and produce chemical waste. Here, the authors develop a green process, vapor-phase dealloying, to selectively remove high partial vapor pressure components and create nanoporosity in a wide range of alloys.

Although the hetero-Diels–Alder reaction is a staple of organic chemistry, catalytic asymmetric versions of the inverse-electron demand variant often require specially engineered substrates for the reaction to work. Here the authors cyclize non-activated alkenes with α,β-unsaturated ketones or aldehydes to form chiral fused heterocycles using a chiral phosphoric acid catalyst.

Native core microbiomes are often neglected when developing synthetic microbial communities to support plant health and growth. Here, the authors show that native core microorganisms have greater potential to support plant growth than both native non-core and non-native microorganisms.

Senescent melanocytes of skin nevi drive hyperactivation of hair growth through the signalling factor SPP1.

Transition metal dichalcogenides demonstrate fascinating capabilities for electrocatalytic H₂ evolution, although the activities vary widely depending on nanomaterial sites available. Here, authors show the grain boundaries of atomically thin MoS₂ to be especially active sites for H₂ evolution.

SBayesRC integrates genome-wide association summary statistics with functional annotations to improve polygenic prediction of complex traits. Functional partitioning highlights a major contribution of evolutionarily constrained regions to prediction accuracy.

Rosacea is a common, multi-factorial chronic inflammatory skin disorder. Here authors provide evidence of genetic predisposition by whole genome sequencing and whole exome sequencing of samples from familial cases, and by recapitulating a recurrent mutation in the LRRC4 gene in a mouse model, they find that neuron-derived vasoactive intestinal peptide is an important pathogenic factor for neurogenic inflammation in rosacea.’

Gas-evolving catalysts suffer from severe mass transport limitations under industrial conditions. Here, the authors report an interfacial metal-layer engineering strategy to separate bubble nucleation from active sites, enabling transfer-resistance-free electrocatalytic interfaces.

Strigolactone agonists could potentially help control noxious weeds by promoting suicidal germination. Here the authors describe a series of small molecule agonists that stimulate germination via the Striga ShHTL7 receptor and show that stereochemistry and hydrolysis-independent signalling mediate potency.

Quantitative phosphoproteome analysis reveals cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase acting as an essential signalling hub to govern the egress processes in Neospora caninum.

Ultrathin films of gallium oxide with a dielectric constant of around 30 can be formed on the surface of molybdenum disulfide using a liquid metal-based approach and used as the gate insulator in transistors.

Inhomogeneous aerosol forcing in Eurasia dominates the recent decadal increase of summer water vapor budget over the Tibetan Plateau by decreasing the water vapor export from its eastern boundary.

Rosacea is a common chronic inflammatory skin disorder mainly affecting the central face. Here, a single-cell atlas of facial skin from rosacea patients and healthy individuals reveals the molecular and cellular changes in skin-resident cell populations and identifies fibroblasts as a determinant in rosacea development.

Analysis of whole-genome sequences of 25,465 individuals of European ancestry shows that rare variants contribute substantially to the heritability of height and body mass index.

In this work the authors investigate two types of secretins in Escherichia coli, GspD_α and GspD_β, and report the Cryo-ET in situ structures of their key intermediate states of during the translocation process. Yielding a resolution ranging from 9 Å to 19 Å, the structures allow the identification of different membrane interaction patterns and ways of transitioning the peptidoglycan layer. These results suggest two distinct models for the membrane translocation of GspD_α and GspD_β and provide insights into the inner to outer membrane biogenesis of T2SS secretins.

A newly described fossil mammaliaform from the Jurassic period of China shows that the shuotheriids are allied to the docodonts, and provides details on the processes of tooth evolution in early mammals.

Microneedle patches that can actively address individual needles are challenging to realize. Here, the authors introduce a spatiotemporal on-demand patch for precise and personalized drug delivery, utilizing electrically triggered control with drug-loaded microneedles and biocompatible metallic membranes.

Global sampling of microbial communities associated with wastewater treatment plants and application of ecological theory revealed a small, core bacterial community associated with performance and provides insights into the community dynamics in this environment.

Whole-genome sequencing of 175 Mongolians representing six tribes highlights population-specific genetic architecture and substantial gene flow among northern Eurasian populations, including derived alleles shared by Mongolians and Finns.

A field investigation at a former nuclear waste disposal site shows how environmental stress modulates subsurface microbial community assembly.

A proteomic aging clock, developed using data from the UK Biobank and validated using data from the China Kadoorie Biobank and FinnGen, predicts the incidence of 18 major chronic diseases, as well as multimorbidity and all-cause mortality.

In this study, the authors use eddy-resolving climate model simulations and project an almost linear increase of extreme atmospheric rivers with global warming and a doubling of their occurrence under a high emission scenario.

Achieving global carbon neutrality will lead to a low-warming future and impact renewable energy production. This study demonstrates that deep mitigation pathways can bring positive feedback that enhances and stabilizes solar and wind energy production.

Wild relatives of crop plants are invaluable germplasm for genetic improvement. Here, Xie et al. report a reference-grade wild soybean genome and show that it can be used to identify structural variation and refine quantitative trait loci.

Combination therapy for Buruli ulcer (BU) is suboptimal. Here, Liu et al. show that the candidate drug TB47 has potent bactericidal activity against Mycobacterium ulcerans in vitro and in a mouse model, which underscores its potential for shortening the course of BU and treating other mycobacterial diseases.

Non-invasive methods to predict treatment response are urgently needed. Here in lung cancer, the authors develop a single-cell on-chip cytometry method to metabolically phenotype disseminated tumor cells, revealing metabolic heterogeneity and predictors of therapy response and survival.

Deep methylation sequencing aided by a machine-learning classifier of methylation patterns enables the detection of early cancers from plasma samples at dilution factors as low as 1/10,000.

Analysing functional traits among plants, bacteria and fungi along a latitudinal gradient, the authors find evidence that microbial processes are tightly coupled to variation in plant traits via temperature.

Fibroblasts are found to be heterogeneous in multiple fibrotic diseases, but fibroblast heterogeneity in fibrotic skin diseases is not well characterized. Here the authors employ scRNA-seq to explore fibroblast heterogeneity in keloid, a paradigm of fibrotic skin diseases.

Promoter-anchored chromatin interaction (PAI) is a mechanism by which gene expression is regulated, but methods to measure PAIs are costly and currently not scalable. Here, the authors develop an approach by which PAIs can be predicted using summary-level data from methylation QTL studies.

Mechanisms and consequences of the acclimation of soil respiration to warming are unclear. Here, the authors combine soil respiration, metagenomics, and functional gene results from a 7-year grassland warming experiment to a microbial-enzyme decomposition model, showing functional gene information to lower uncertainty and improve fit.