Reviews & Analysis

A soft sheet has been constructed that can be driven by electromagnetic forces to continuously change its shape, mimicking the behaviour of soft tissues in living organisms. The control system uses imaging data and an optimization algorithm to enhance the material’s morphing ability.

After around 780 years without volcanic activity, Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula sprang to life in 2021, when magma breached the surface at the Fagradalsfjall volcano. Observed changes in the lava composition have provided an unprecedented record of the supply and mixing mechanics of deep magma at the base of the crust.

A diverse range of marine predators — including tunas, billfishes and sharks — in the North Pacific Ocean cluster together in clockwise-rotating eddies, seemingly to hunt deep-ocean prey, which are unusually abundant there. This suggests that there is a relationship between the foraging opportunities of predators and the energetics of this marine biome.

We genetically reprogrammed yeast to produce the alkaloids vindoline and catharanthine — the longest biosynthetic pathway to be transferred from a plant to a microorganism. In principle, similarly engineered yeast strains could produce more than 3,000 other monoterpene indole alkaloids and unnatural analogues.

Investigation of sensory neuronal cells in structures called dorsal root ganglia reveals that these cells project into fat tissue, and act as brakes on the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. Thus, the sympathetic nervous system and sensory neurons work together to control the function of fat.

Myocardial infarction, or heart attack, is one of the world’s biggest killers. An analysis of spatial and single-cell changes to human tissue after a heart attack provides insights into disease mechanisms and builds a resource for the discovery of therapeutics.

Microglia are immune cells that regulate the function and activity of the nervous system. Detailed molecular and spatial studies in mice reveal that different types of neuron govern the density and states of nearby microglia, interactions that can shape local neural circuits.

A newly discovered population of white-spruce trees is advancing northwards in Arctic Alaska, driven by ecological factors that are associated with climate change at this latitude — including stronger winter winds, deeper snow and greater nutrient availability in the soil.

Microscopic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have applications ranging from augmented-reality displays to large-screen products, but their brightness typically decreases as their size is reduced. A solution to this problem has now been found and used to manufacture bright blue nanoscale LEDs.

Cooling molecular gases to nanokelvin temperatures is challenging because the molecules start to stick together when they reach the microkelvin range. Using a strong, rotating microwave field, a gas of sodium–potassium polar molecules has been stabilized and cooled to 21 nanokelvins — opening up many possibilities to explore exotic states of quantum matter.

We determined the whole-genome sequences of 150,119 individuals from the UK Biobank and identified more than 600 million sequence variants. The comprehensive data identify novel associations with human traits and show the functional importance of sequence variants inside and outside protein-coding regions.

Tuning the resonances of an object is crucial in many settings, from musical instruments to ultrasensitive detectors for electromagnetic and gravitational waves. This task might seem straightforward but its mathematical description has been shown to involve rich topological structures known as knots and braids.

State-of-the-art computer simulations show that the first supermassive black holes were born in rare, turbulent reservoirs of gas in the primordial Universe without the need for finely tuned, exotic environments — contrary to what has been thought for almost two decades.

Quantum entanglement has been generated between two single-atom quantum memories over a 33-kilometre optical-fibre link. The wavelength of the photons emitted by these quantum memories was converted to one that works in telecommunications without altering the polarization of the photons, paving the way for the long-distance links of future quantum networks.

Swirling vortices have been directly observed in a flow of electric current for the first time. Unlike conventional viscous fluids, collective fluid-like behaviour in this case is not caused by particle–particle collisions, but results from a previously unidentified mechanism involving single electrons scattering from material surfaces at small angles.

Adolescence is an intensely stressful life stage. We developed a brief online training module to help young people to understand stress and to respond to it constructively. The module improved their psychological and physiological responses to stress and boosted academic performance.

We charted the genetic history of the grey wolf over the past 100,000 years by analysing 72 ancient genomes. Placing dogs into this history, we found that they derive ancestry from at least two separate wolf populations.

DNA from more than 1,000 marine microbial communities around the world was used to reconstruct around 26,000 genomes. The analyses identified a highly biosynthetically diverse family of bacteria in the open ocean, as well as new enzymes and biochemical compounds.

Membranes made from metal–organic frameworks contain modular pores that can separate mixtures of gas. By changing the shape of these pores to improve molecular separation, we produced a membrane that could remove nitrogen and carbon dioxide from natural gas in an energy-efficient and cost-effective way.

Continuous amplification of coherent matter waves has been demonstrated, allowing an exotic state of matter called a Bose–Einstein condensate to be maintained indefinitely. This set-up is the matter-wave analogue of an optical laser enclosed by fully reflective mirrors, and it could have uses in both applied and fundamental physics.