Browse Articles

Hox gene expression is induced upon cellular differentiation and is inhibited in pluripotent cells. Bocker and colleagues show that the maintenance of induced transcription depends on Tet2 mediated hydroxylation of 5-methylcytosine at theHoxagene locus, indicating that this epigenetic switch is required for an active chromatin state and gene expression.

Electronic and optoelectronic devices based on gallium nitride suffer from self-heating arising as a result of their operation. This study presents and demonstrates a strategy for managing this problem that relies on graphene quilts which dissipate the heat away.

Ocean circulation moves heat and gases between the ocean and atmosphere, impacting the carbon cycle at decadal timescales. Here, a radiocarbon coral record of ocean mixing from Bermuda suggests that the formation of mode water, and thus carbon uptake, have been more stable over the past 200 years than previously thought.

Quantum phase transitions are generally associated with many-body quantum systems undergoing changes between different phases. This study examines the connection between such phase transitions and quantum information processing, and finds that different quantum phases can have different computational power.

Micromechanical oscillators present a route to miniaturisation of devices and may be used as frequency references or sensitive sensors, but their small size means that they often behave nonlinearly. Antonioet al. demonstrate frequency stabilisation of nonlinear resonators by coupling two vibrational modes.

Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago due to volcanism and a bolide impact, but whether their numbers were already declining is still not clear. This study calculates the morphological disparity of seven dinosaur subgroups, showing that at least some groups were in a long-term decline before the extinction.

InArabidopsis the photoperiod pathway promotes flowering in response to longer days, but during short days flowering depends on gibberellin accumulation. This study shows that TEMPRANILLO downregulation is required to induce flowering, as TEMPRANILLOgenes repress floral induction in the photoperiod and gibberellin pathways.

The manipulation of domain walls in magnetic nanodevices is a topic of increasing technological relevance. This study examines the interactions that occur between vortex domain walls in permalloy nanowires, and finds that bound states occur between domain walls with opposite magnetic charge.

Broadband coherent light sources are crucial for numerous applications, such as imaging and spectroscopy. Using filamentation of mid-infrared laser pulses in bulk crystals, Silvaet al. generate supercontinuum spectra over three octaves, from 4.5 μm to 450 nm, with carrier-envelope phase stability.

Studying the structures of dense colloidal systems of anisotropic Brownian particles provides insight into fundamental processes like protein crystallization. Zhaoet al. study the phases of two-dimensional triatic liquid crystals and find that one of them exhibits local chiral-symmetry breaking.

Flow lithography is used to synthesize microparticles but relies on polydimethylsiloxane microchannels for oxygen to permeate and inhibit polymerization near channel interfaces. Now, non-polydimethylsiloxane devices have been developed, which allow oxygen-free lithography, increasing the capabilities of flow lithography.

Adaptive mutations in the avian influenza virus permit replication in mammals but how these mutations enable this effect is unclear. In this study, mutations found in the nuclear export protein of human isolates of H5N1 are shown to enhance the replication of viral RNA in human cells in culture.

Humans and rodents normally store more urine in the bladder when fast asleep than when awake. In this study, the production of the gap junction protein connexin43, a regulator of bladder capacity, is shown to oscillate in mouse urinary bladder muscle in synchrony with the circadian clock.

The detection of subclonal variants in heterogeneous cancer specimens is a challenge due to errors that occur during sequencing. In this study, a statistical algorithm and a sequencing strategy are reported that circumvent this issue and can accurately detect variants at a frequency as low as 1/10,000.

Electrochromic materials reversibly change their colour upon application of an electric field. Seidelet al. measure the optical properties of doped bismuth ferrite and report the largest electrochromic response for an inorganic material, which they attribute to the melting of oxygen-vacancy ordering.

Clusters of gold atoms protected with achiral thiolates can display chirality, and such chiral nanoparticles could open new possibilities in catalysis and sensing. Here, the first separation of the enantiomers of a gold cluster, protected by achiral thiolates, Au₃₈(SCH₂CH₂Ph)₂₄, is achieved.

Adars are adenosine deaminases that act on RNAs, including those encoding proteins involved in neuronal transmission and also Adar RNA. Here, Savvaet al. engineered knock-in Drosophila mutants with altered Adar autoediting and found that this changed the spectrum of adenosine deamination and Drosophilabehaviour.

Sodium channel Nav1.7 is essential for acute human pain but its role in chronic neuropathic pain is unclear. Minett and colleagues show that Nav1.7 expression specifically in sympathetic neurons, rather than sensory neurons, is required for the development of chronic neuropathic pain after injury.

Many channels have cytosolic domains which regulate channel function. Irieet al. show that the cytosolic C-terminal region of NavSulP, a prokaryotic voltage-gated sodium channel, forms a four-helix bundle which stabilises the tetrameric channel and accelerates channel inactivation.

Conjugated polymers are promising materials for organic photovoltaic solar cells. By usingin situgrazing incidence wide-angle X-ray diffraction, Ocko and collaborators report the formation of a new type of crystalline arrangement in a conjugated polymer material known as PCDTBT.