News & Views

Blocking the growth of new blood vessels has been shown to alter fibrosis in livers in a disease stage-specific manner. In vitro models of fibrosis were developed to understand this process, highlighting the role of environmental mechanics.

The Hall effect with excitons is observed in monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides.

Compositional grading of colloidal quantum dots enables electrically driven amplification of light, bringing electrically driven lasers from these materials very close.

Cysts were generated from organoids in vitro and the removal of adherent cues was shown to play a key role in polycystic kidney disease progression. These cysts resembled those of diseased tissue phenotypically and were capable of remodelling their microenvironment.

Energy-favoured grain rotation in nanocrystalline metals is shown to cause surface roughness at the atomic scale, providing fundamental insight for grain boundary engineering in materials design.

Fragments of DNA that are derived from dead tumour cells and shed into a patient's blood have been utilized as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of liver cancer.

An artificial spin ice array exploits two-dimensional chirality to take a step towards technology.

Resistive switching memories based on organic materials are closing the performance gap with their inorganic counterparts.

Diffraction and simulation studies reveal the presence of significant porosity in both the glass and liquid phases of a metal–organic framework.

The spin Nernst effect — a spin accumulation in a ferromagnet in the direction normal to an applied thermal gradient and external magnetic field — has been experimentally demonstrated.

DNA origami nanostructures were utilized to replicate a seed pattern that resulted in the growth of populations of nanostructures. Exponential growth could be controlled by environmental conditions depending on the preferential requirements of each population.

Quantitative analysis of colliding cell monolayers reveals surprising wave phenomena involving contractility, jamming and activation of epithelial cells.

High-mobility molecular crystals can be identified by considering only the sign and relative magnitude of the electronic coupling between neighbouring molecules. A map helps to explain experimental mobilities and to design promising materials.

A study demonstrates that controlled integrin binding on a biomaterial was capable of promoting vascular cell sprouting and formation of a non-leaky blood vessel network in a healthy and diseased state.

A pure electrical generation of magnetization through electrons' valley magnetic moment has been observed in a strained two-dimensional semiconductor.

In contrast with protocols reporting self-assembly of nanocrystals after synthesis, Pd nanocrystals rapidly form 3D micrometre-size superlattices during growth. The nanocrystals keep growing after assembly, tuning the size of the lattice.

Nanostructured films of organic semiconductors are now shown to enhance the Raman signal of probe molecules, paving the way to the realization of substrates for Raman spectroscopy with molecular selectivity.