Activation of natural gas alkanes using main-group systems typically requires heating or photo-irradiation under high atmospheric pressure with low regioselectivity. Here the authors report Lewis acid-carbene adduct activation of C–H bonds in ethane, propane and n-butane under one atmospheric pressure and at room temperature with high selectivity.

2D π-conjugated systems incorporated with heteroatoms can suffer from stability issues and aggregation-induced quenching effects. Here, the authors develop a methodology for the synthesis of cluster-ring-fused 3D aromatic heterocycles, which could find use in functional materials, via the palladium-catalyzed B–H activation of boron clusters.

Advancing single-atom quantum information processing necessitates a deep understanding of electron and nuclear spin dynamics. Here, using pump-probe spectroscopy, the authors detect the coherent dynamics of a nuclear and electron spin of a single hydrogenated Ti atom on MgO surface.

Chemical language models are deep learning models trained with molecules in string representation. They enable data-driven de novo design of molecules with tailored features. Here, the authors used chemical language models to design multi-target ligands.

A bottleneck in solid-state batteries is the solid electrode-electrolyte interface being maintained over repeated cycles. Here, the authors use an epitaxial model system to probe and control the interface in real time.

The Southern Ocean ecosystem is recovering from 20th-century industrial whaling, while the krill fishery in this region has grown rapidly and may expand further, driven by demand for supplements and aquaculture feed. This Perspective discusses how current krill biomass is unlikely to support both a growing krill fishery and rebounding whale populations in the Southern Ocean.

This study provides the longest annually resolved records of deoxygenation and productivity in the tropical Pacific and highlights the importance of North Atlantic climate oscillations on Pacific oxygen via its impact on the Pacific equatorial shallow overturning.

To address substrate inhibition in wastewater treatment, the authors propose a non-lethal high substrate environment to enhance microbial community resistance. Testing this on anammox systems, they find increased nitrite tolerance and stability, with a shift to the dominant genus Candidatus Jettenia.

Through fluid-injection fault-reactivation experiments and analysis, the authors here define and report the relationship between the maximum seismic magnitude and injection volume for fluid-injection triggered earthquakes.

The silica cell wall of unicellular algae has intricate architecture unattainable by current technology. In this work it is shown that membrane contact sites are the biological morphogenesis handles to shape such intracellular mineralization.

Early environmental factors, like disadvantage, are associated with neurocognitive development. Here, the authors find that neonates and toddlers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds show accelerated brain development, with implications for language abilities in toddlerhood.

The transcription factor SRF, together with its co-factors MRTF-A and MRTF-B, controls cytoskeletal gene expression. Here authors show that MRTF/SRF inactivation leads to decreased IL-2 mediated CD8 + T cell proliferation during infection, resulting from disrupted homotypic cell clustering and reduced retention of IL-2.

The regulatory mechanisms governing peptidoglycan-degrading autolysins remain poorly understood. In this work, Alvarez et al. show that lytic transglycosylase activity is inhibited by LD-crosslinks in Vibrio cholerae and other bacteria, providing resistance against predatory enzymes of both bacterial and viral origin.

Changes in semen quality over the last 50 years correspond with increasing environmental stressors. Here, Moon et al. causally identified stress-mediated changes in secreted extracellular vesicles as regulators of sperm motility in mice and men.

Traditionally, bacteriostatic antibiotics were thought to simply arrest bacterial growth. In this work, the authors explore the dynamics of Escherichia coli when exposed to bacteriostatic antibiotics, finding that long-term exposure to bacteriostatic antibiotics favors the evolution of heteroresistant small colony variants.

The role of coagulation factor FXII in diabetic kidney disease (DKD) remains unknown. Here, the authors show that zymogen FXII induces kidney injury via receptor (uPAR)-mediated signaling by inducing oxidative DNA damage and senescence, identifying new potential therapeutic targets for DKD.

The consequences of postprandial IL-1β surges in white adipose tissue are unknown. Here the authors show IL-1β regulates WAT remodelling by promoting adipogenesis and energy storage, which is blocked by chronic elevation of this cytokine (as in obesity).

Gene therapy using adeno-associated virus (AAV) has shown promise for treating genetic diseases yet limited by inefficient delivery. Here, the authors develop an AAV variant targeting specifically the skeletal muscle and enabling effective gene therapy for muscle diseases at significantly lower doses.

This paper demonstrates that an algorithm designed for video augmentation can be efficiently used for 3D tomography reconstruction across the materials science and medical domain, namely across disciplines and length-scales.

Using a new computational pipeline for identification of drug-selective transcriptomic responses and FAERS data, the authors identified potential pathways and genomic variants indicative of cancer drug cardiotoxicity in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.

Rickman and colleagues explore scenarios for phasing out lending to fossil fuel firms. They analyse over $7 trillion of fossil fuel debt and show that financial regulation and international co-operation will be critical for a timely and just phase-out of fossil fuel finance.

Dissecting the associations between exposure to environmental pollution and cancer risk remains crucial. Here, the authors evaluate the impact of air and water pollution on cancer incidence in China using a spatial evaluation system and show that most excess cancer cases occurred in areas with the highest level of co-pollution.

This paper proposes storing hydrogen in pipes filled with gravel in lakes and reservoirs. Results show the levelized cost of hydrogen storage to be 0.17 USD kg−1 at 200 m depth, which is competitive with other hydrogen storage options.

Exploratory behaviours involve a trade-off between exploration and exploitation. Here the authors investigate exploration behaviour across different domains and whether tendency to explore is stable over time.

This study quantifies the economic impacts of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) on nearby businesses in California, finding that installing one EVCS boosts annual spending at a nearby business by 1.4% ($1,478) in 2019 and 0.8% ($404) from January 2021 to June 2023.