Articles in 2021

Long-distance magnon transport is highly desired for magnonics. Here, the authors demonstrate a millimetre-long magnon decay length in multiferroic heterostructures, which is attributed to magnon-polarons induced by the magnetoelastic coupling.

Vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 are allowing the progressive release of physical distancing restrictions in many countries. Here, the authors assess the impact of the vaccination program in Italy and evaluate possible prospects for reopening the society while at the same time keeping COVID-19 under control.

Climate and tectonics control the distribution of trench sediments which in turn exerts a strong influence on tectonics by controlling the coupling strength of plate interface. This process could have caused the southward growth of the Andes.

Chemical heterogeneities in Apollo sample 76535 constrain the magmatic cooling history of the lunar Mg-suite to <~ 20 My. Such rapid cooling is inconsistent with a large intrusive magma body and suggests formation by reactive melt infiltration.

Fibroblast growth factors are involved in systemic glucose homeostasis and of interest for developing therapies for type 2 diabetes and associated metabolic diseases. Here the authors identify paracrine FGF4 as an anti-hyperglycemic FGF, which targets skeletal muscle to upregulate the glucose transporter GLUT4 cell surface abundance.

Double membrane vesicles (DMV) are used as replication organelles by several RNA viruses. Applying proteomics and lipidomics, Tabata and Prasad et al. find that two cellular acyltransferases (AGPAT1/2), responsible for synthesis of phosphatidic acid, play a role in the DMV-biogenesis of HCV and SARS-CoV-2, highlighting a common biogenesis mechanism for evolutionary distant positive-strand RNA viruses.

Coral reefs face both local and global stressors. Here, the authors show how a positive relationship between distance from human settlements and ecological specialisation makes remote coral reef fish communities more vulnerable to coral loss.

The amphiphilic low-molecular-weight protein hydrophobin (HFBI) can self-assemble into a crystalline monolayer film. Here, the authors present a cryo-EM support film using such 2D crystals of hydrophobin HFBI and show that it protects specimen from the air-water interface and can help to overcome the preferred orientation problem of particles in cryo-EM.

RNA therapeutics have benefited significantly from decades of research on lipid nanoparticles, specifically its key component—the ionizable lipid. This comment discusses the major ionizable lipid types, and provides perspectives for future development.

A solid hitting a liquid surface normally creates a region of high pressure at the solid-liquid contact area. Now, it is shown that for a flat-bottomed cylinder hitting a liquid at low-enough impact speed, the local pressure is sufficiently low to cause the liquid to cavitate.

Mechanical logic, while slower than its electronic counterpart, has the potential to be integrated into mechanical devices and a robustness in extreme environments. In this manuscript, Mei et al demonstrate reprogrammable mechanical logic which can perform combinatorial and sequential logic.

In the U.S. today nearly no surface waters are drinkable without treatment. Here, the authors demonstrate that four-fifths of cities that withdraw surface water are supplying water that includes a portion of treated wastewater, concentrated in the Midwest, the South, and Texas.

EF-G drives ribosomal translocation along mRNA. Time-resolved cryo-EM captured translocation with EF-G•GTP—without inhibitors—revealing how EF-G uses ribosome fluctuations to drive translocation and GTP hydrolysis to leave at the right moment.

Understanding the mechanism of the formation and rupture of conductive filaments in HfO₂-based memristors is essential to solve the problem of scalability of the devices. Here, Zhang et al. visualize this process by tracking atomic-scale evolution of conductive filaments during resistive switching cycles.

This study provides evidence for a continental-scale river system that existed in eastern Tibet before the India-Asia collision. The river system developed an extensive low-relief landscape, which was uplifted and dissected during the late Cenozoic.

Individual studies have been underpowered to draw clear associations between clonal heterogeneity and response to therapy in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Here, the authors aggregate multiple AML cohorts and are able to correlate the clonal abundance of somatic mutations with clinical outcomes and drug sensitivity.

Spinach is a nutritious leafy vegetable growing worldwide. Here, the authors report a high-quality chromosome-scale reference genome assembly of spinach and genome resequencing of 305 accessions, and provide insights into spinach domestication and the genetic basis of agronomic traits.

The involvement of nuclear pore proteins in cellular mechanosensing and metastasis is unclear. Here the authors identify that nuclear pore protein NUP210 promotes metastasis through the interaction with mechanotransducer LINC complex protein and chromatin to regulate mechanosensitive genes.

Climate change does not only increase mean temperatures, but also the magnitude of year-to-year temperature variability. Here, the authors use large model ensembles to show that these changes can be statistically distinguished from the baseline variability in most regions of the world during the 21st century.

Broadband hyperbolic mediums are essential building blocks for several photonic applications. Here the authors show how nonlinearity, based on a giant electro-optic response, transforms a bulk KTN perovskite into a 3D hyperbolic material