Browse Articles

Liquid water shows anomalous behaviour, which is expected to be related with critical phenomena below its melting temperature. Taschinet al.experimentally identify two intermolecular vibrational modes that provide evidence for the coexistence of high-density and low-density water forms.

Control of active sites of heterogeneous catalysts can lead to enhanced product selectivity. Here, the authors use self-assembled alkanethiolate monolayers with varying surface densities to tune the selectivity of hydrogenation and hydrodeoxygenation of furfural on supported palladium catalysts.

Radiation sources driven by laser-plasma accelerators have the potential to produce shorter bursts of radiation at lower cost than those based on conventional accelerators. Schnell et al.demonstrate the ability to control the polarization of the bursts of hard X-rays produced by such a source.

Graphene-like materials with pseudocapacitive characteristics are desirable for flexible solid-state pseudocapacitors. Here Wu et al. report such a graphene analogue, vanadyl phosphate ultrathin nanosheets, which exhibits excellent pseudocapacitive properties, leading to a high energy density.

In microscopy, the standard quantum limit represents the best achievable signal-to-noise ratio for a given light intensity. Here, the authors build an optical microscope that uses entanglement between photon pairs to overcome this barrier.

Methane is a major constituent of planetary interiors, yet phase relations in the C–H system are poorly understood. This work documents the chemical reactivity of the C–H system over a wide range of temperatures and pressures, and sheds light on the chemical composition of Earth and icy giants.

Transport of DNA molecules across lipid membranes requires protein conduits such as the nuclear pore complex. Franceschiniet al.engineer an artificial sequence-selective DNA transporter by attaching gating oligonucleotides to a bacterial nanopore.

Mutually exclusive splicing of genes is a mechanism for generating proteome diversity. Here Kollmar et al. determine the mutually exclusive spliced exome of Drosophila melanogaster and reveal insights into its evolutionary history within the Drosophilagroup.

Calculations suggest that ion transport through nanochannels is significantly modified as the diameter approaches molecular dimensions. Choi et al.introduce a single-nanotube platform to demonstrate this effect and find a maximum ion transport rate at a diameter of approximately 1.6 nm.

The mechanical properties of brittle materials are largely determined by how cracks propagate through them. Contrary to expectations, Kermodeet al.show that a crack propagating below a critical speed through a silicon crystal can be scattered by a single isolated boron impurity.

Although it has been possible to calculate the conditions for exerting complete control over a directed complex network, for undirected and weighted networks this calculation is inexact. Yuan et al. develop a general framework for determining the controllability of any complex network.

Colorimetric differentiation of solvents is difficult as many solvatochromic molecules exhibit broad overlaps in their absorption and emission bands. Here, the authors present a ‘turn-on’ type sensor in which the colorimetric sensor responds only when its protective layer is disrupted by a specific solvent.

The accumulation of superoxide in mitochondria is counteracted by superoxide dismutase 1 and its activating chaperone CCS1. Suzuki et al.show that in human cells, mature CCS1 itself mediates CCS1 import and helps to oxidize CCS1 and SOD1 in the mitochondrial intermembrane space.

Knowing how moving droplets dissipate energy is important for designing superhydrophobic surfaces, but measuring such small energy losses is challenging. Timonen et al.develop a technique to do this, which monitors freely decaying and resonant oscillations of moving magnetic droplets.

SIRPα is an anti-inflammatory signalling receptor expressed on neutrophils. Here Zenet al.show that during inflammation, SIRPα signalling is inhibited by cleavage of its intracellular signalling motif.

The coherence time describes the timescale over which particles can still display wave-like interference and is important for quantum optics. Using multi-photon interference experiments, Ra et al. show that the multi-photon coherence time depends on both the number of photons and the detection scheme used.

Prion protein has been suggested to bind toxic amyloid-ß oligomers. Nicollet al.demonstrate that binding to prion protein and prion protein-dependent synaptotoxicity correlate with the presence of a tubular form of amyloid-ß with a defined triple helical structure.

Mouse models of influenza infection that permit monitoring of infection in living animals are scarce. Here Pan et al. describe an engineered influenza virus expressing luciferase, which enables real-time in vivovisualization of viral infection and assessment of antiviral drugs.

Hyperpolarization of chemical nuclei is known to greatly increase sensitivity to characterization by magnetic resonance imaging. Here a new platform that allows for the design of a number of hyperpolarized probes for chemical sensing applications is demonstrated.

In bulk materials crystal lattices typically have a limited resistance to elastic strain, beyond which yielding and plastic deformation occur. Here, usingin situtransmission electron microscopy, a continuous elastic lattice deformation is observed in nickel nanowires, up to a strain of 34.6%.