Reviews & Analysis

Stress responses protect cells from harmful conditions, but once the stress has resolved, these responses must be actively turned off to avoid cell damage that might lead to the development of neurodegenerative disease.

A combination of technical improvements in noise mitigation enabled the observation of the quantum force of light on a millimetre-scale drum at room temperature. This experimental system permits the drum’s position to be measured with an accuracy close to the quantum limit.

Nerve cells in the human brain take a remarkably long time to mature. This study identifies an epigenetic ‘barrier’ in neural precursor cells that determines the rate of neuronal maturation and is slowly released during the process. Inhibition of the barrier is shown to accelerate maturation in multiple human stem-cell-based models.

Agricultural fertilizers are the main global source of ammonia emissions, which harm human health and reduce farmers’ profits. An analysis using big data and machine learning reveals that locally optimized fertilizer-management and tillage practices could slash ammonia emissions from rice, wheat and maize cultivation by up to 38%.

An innovative high-strength ceramic consists of interlocked, nanometre-scale plates in which stacked layers of the material are twisted relative to each other. It can deform at room temperature without fracturing instantly — thereby achieving a long-standing goal for materials scientists.

The fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect occurs when the Hall resistance in a material is quantized to fractional multiples of the fundamental unit h/e² at zero magnetic field. Observing the effect in a system consisting of a combination of five-layer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride enriches the family of topological matter phases, and opens up new opportunities in quantum computation.

Human embryos are extremely difficult to study. This lack of samples limits our understanding of crucial developmental stages, such as the early formation of blood cells. A stem-cell-based model closely captures the development of human embryonic and key extra-embryonic tissues after implantation, as well as the formation of early blood cells.

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide holds promise for converting CO₂ into valuable products but is hampered by stability issues and wasted carbon. A proton-exchange membrane that uses lead as a catalyst demonstrates the feasibility of durable and efficient CO₂ reduction.

Tailoring symmetries in an innovative class of optoelectronic metasurface produces a rich landscape of tunable current patterns down to the nanoscale. These materials provide opportunities for ultrafast light-controlled charge flows that could have applications in terahertz science, information processing and other realms.

Non-Abelian anyons are emergent quasiparticles found in exotic quantum states of matter, which could have applications in fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. But performing the manipulations necessary to make these quasiparticles has proved a challenge — now overcome through a happy confluence of theoretical and experimental innovation.

Self-reinforcing light pulses known as solitons are fundamental structures in wave dynamics. Previously, solitons could be produced only by bench-top lasers, but they can now also be generated using chip-sized mid-infrared lasers. This innovation enables the development of portable, efficient tools for use in spectroscopy, environmental sensing and medical diagnostics.

Public repositories of metabolomics data are expanding rapidly and can be leveraged to uncover previously undescribed metabolites. Reverse metabolomics is a workflow in which thousands of small compounds are synthesized using combinatorial chemistry, and their molecular ‘fingerprints’ are then used to discover where they are localized in tissues and biological fluids and how they are associated with health and disease in humans.

Rapid communication between intracellular structures such as the endoplasmic reticulum and the mitochondria is crucial for the coordinated functioning of cells. Such interactions occur mainly at sites where the compartments are in direct contact, and are mediated by specific tethering machinery. High-speed single-molecule tracking reveals a well-regulated interface at which many rapid binding and unbinding events provide highly adaptable interactions.

Crystalline silicon solar cells have been brittle, heavy and fragile until now. Highly flexible versions with high power-to-weight ratios and power conversion efficiencies of 26.06–26.81% were produced by improving manufacturing and design technologies and by using thin wafer substrates.

Early embryonic development in humans remains poorly understood. A 3D cellular model called bilaminoids, generated using ‘naive’ pluripotent stem cells and derived cell types, successfully recapitulates early development and enables mechanistic studies to examine how various cellular components interact to regulate early embryogenesis.

Mass-mortality events of predators are becoming more common, but their precise effects on food webs remain unclear. Experimentally induced predator die-offs led both to reduced predation and to fertilization from the bottom up. Together, these effects stabilized food webs.

A comprehensive analysis of satellite data finds that the Greenland ice sheet has lost more ice in the past four decades than previously thought. Moreover, the glaciers that are the most sensitive to seasonal temperature swings will probably retreat the most in response to future global warming.

In heavy-fermion compounds, hybridization between mobile charge carriers and localized magnetic moments gives rise to exotic quantum phenomena. The discovery of heavy fermions in a van der Waals metal that can be peeled apart to a layer a few atoms thick allows these phenomena to be studied and manipulated in two dimensions.

Tracking the gene-expression profiles of individual cerebellar cells during development in humans, mice and opossums revealed evolutionarily conserved as well as species-specific cellular and molecular features.

This study reveals a distinctive network of lymphatic vessels at the back of the nose that serves as a major hub for the outflow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to deep cervical lymph nodes in the neck. These deep cervical lymphatics remain intact with ageing, and their pharmacological activation enhanced CSF drainage in mice.