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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.

Abiogenic methane was generated in the mantle and brought to the surface in the Emeishan large igneous province magmas. Release of this magmatic methane could have induced strong warming and contributed to the end-Guadalupian mass extinctions.

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.

Arabidopsis metacaspase 9 (AtMC9) regulates plant development and immunity via pH-dependent activation. Here, the authors use crystal structures, simulations, and assays to show glutamate and histidine residues control AtMC9 activity, providing insights for enhancing crop immunity and yield.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.’

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.

A genome-wide association study of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates finds mutations in prpR that alter propionate metabolism and mediate multidrug tolerance.

Genetic methods are useful to test whether risk factors are causal for or consequence of disease. Here, Zhu et al. develop a generalized summary-based Mendelian Randomization (GSMR) method which uses summary-level data from GWAS to test for causal associations of health risk factors with common diseases.

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 genome-wide association study suggests 41 previously unreported loci on top of the 23 known loci that influence the disease risk for lumbar disc herniations. Many of these loci harbour genes implicated in disc structure and inflammation, as well as genes related to the nervous system and nerve function.

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.

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.

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.

This study shows that greenhouse warming intensifies mesoscale thermal coupling in western boundary currents, primarily driven by large-scale sea surface temperature and its warming rate, with key implications for ocean circulation and climate variability.

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.

The use of tumour exosome-activated dendritic cell (DC) immunotherapy shows promise for the treatment of large established tumours. Here, the authors generate alarmin HMGN1-attached tumour exosomes which significantly improve therapy efficacy by boosting DC activation in several preclinical mouse models.

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.

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.

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.

To comprehend the genetic regulatory mechanisms underlying brain-related traits in humans, Qi et al. estimate the correlation of expression and DNA methylation QTL effects in cis between blood and brain and show that using blood eQTL/mQTL data of large sample size  can increase power in gene discovery for brain-related traits and diseases.

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

Human complex traits and disorders often show differentiation among populations. Here, the authors analyze SNPs associated with 10 complex traits using data of large sample size from African, East Asian and European populations, and find significant genetic differentiation among global populations shaped by natural selection.

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.

A trispecific antibody targeting HER2 and T cells stimulates CD4 T cell-dependent inhibition of of breast cancer cell proliferation in vitro and tumor regression in a humanized mouse model.

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.

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.

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.

Analyses of summary statistics from GWAS are subject to biases due to errors in the discovery GWAS or linkage disequilibrium reference data set or heterogeneity between data sets. Here, the authors propose a quality control method to be added to analysis of GWAS summary data that can reduce such biases.