Articles in 2024

Rickettsiales encompass diverse host-associated bacteria, including pathogens, parasites, and mutualists. This study shows that obligate associations with their hosts likely evolved multiple times independently, thus providing an alternative, generalisable view, on evolution of intracellularity.

Variational autoregressive networks have been employed in the study of equilibrium statistical mechanics, chemical reaction networks and quantum many-body systems. Using these tools, Tang et al. develop a general approach to nonequilibrium statistical mechanics problems, such as dynamical phase transitions.

Restoring mitochondrial function has emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy for diabetic retinopathy. Here, the authors show that mitochondrial hyperfusion blunts mitophagy during the disease process, and that rescuing this process pharmacologically confers retinal neuroprotection independent of an improved glycaemic status in type-1 diabetic mice.

Shigella enters human cells in a phagocytic vacuole and then escapes the vacuole to colonize the cytosol. Here, Chang and coworkers show that Shigella uses a bacterial effector to subvert host Rab proteins, microtubules and molecular motors to provide mechanical force to facilitate Shigella escape.

The pursuit of all-solid-state batteries has motivated advancements in materials design. Here, the authors present a methodology demonstrating that ionic potential effectively captures crucial interactions within halide materials, guiding the design of the new materials with enhanced performance.

One of the ways excited-state atoms relax to ground state is by emitting radiation. Here the authors demonstrate sub- and super-radiant emission threshold from a cavity-mediated atomic ensemble of Sr atoms.

Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are characterised by relapsing-remitting flares, which are difficult to study due to their unpredictable nature. Here the authors use an experimental model of immunomodulatory drug cessation in RA patients combined with multi-omic analysis of circulating leukocytes to characterise the immune response for those with arthritis flare versus drug-free remission.

Aneuploidy is associated with cancer metastasis, but the causal relationship between them is unclear. Here the authors show that aneuploid murine embryonic stem cells lead to teratomas that can spread to multiple organs without requiring additional driver gene mutations and identify unique cell populations with high stemness in aneuploid teratomas.

The apparent electronic confinement at nanographene boundaries in scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy is often misinterpreted. Here, the authors explain this phenomenon in terms of the decay of frontier orbitals and confinement at the edges of graphene nanoribbons and pores in nanoporous graphene.

Stacking two-dimensional crystals creates a moiré superpotential that confines excitons. Here, temperature-/time- and magnetic field-dependent optical spectroscopy allows identifying the conditions under which excitons escape from the moiré potential

The Authors present a universal framework that utilizes photonic integrated circuits (PIC) to enhance the efficiency of reinforcement learning (RL). Leveraging the advantages of the hybrid architecture PIC (HyArch PIC), the PIC-RL experiment demonstrates a remarkable 56% improvement in efficiency for synthesizing perovskite materials.

While the number of chewing tobacco users is increasing in many countries, it is often under-emphasized in tobacco control. Here, the authors show that chewing tobacco is a risk factor for major causes of disease burden, including stroke and various cancers, meriting future research and policy attention.

After partial liver resection, the remaining liver blood vessels receive more blood flow and get mechanically stretched. Here the authors show that MYDGF is released from the stretched cells of these liver vessels, and that it is required and sufficient to promote liver regeneration and cell proliferation.

Trapped ion quantum systems based on sympathetic cooling use ions of different species. Here the authors demonstrate exchange cooling using two ions of the same species (⁴⁰Ca⁺) by taking advantage of the exchange of energy when the ions are brought close together.

Geographic location can be a key determinant of human health outcomes. Here, the authors show that in large-scale trials, randomization that is pair matched by geography can lead to substantial improvements in statistical efficiency and enable insights into spatially varying intervention effects.

Proteins often function by changing conformations upon ligand binding. Efficient structural modelling of these interactions, crucial for drug discovery, is limited: here the authors address this with DynamicBind, a diffusion-based deep generative model.

The ability to engineer novel protein structures has tremendous scientific and therapeutic impact. Here, authors develop a generative model acting upon an angular representation of protein structures to create high quality protein backbones.

By coupling a spin-qubit to a superconducting resonator, remote spin-entanglement becomes feasible. Here, Ungerer et al achieve strong coupling between a superconducting resonator and a singlet-triplet spin qubit, in an InAs nanowire.

Characterisation of monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 are useful for potential therapeutics or to understand more about the immune response to this virus. Here the authors characterise a monoclonal antibody that has a broad range of reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 variants and measure how it binds to its specific target region of the receptor binding domain.

Earlier methods for droplet network stabilization require extremely precise control and manipulation with considerable energy consumption, making them difficult to implement. Here, the authors present 2D interfacial networks, formed by irreversible interfacial interactions between polymer chains dissolved in one liquid and ligands dissolved in a second immiscible liquid at random points along the chains.