Volume 637 Issue 8045, 9 January 2025

In a few decades, gene-editing technologies could reduce the likelihood of common human diseases. Societies must use this time to prepare for their arrival.

A battery-like technology uses a metal called tantalum to create an equivalent of digital 0s and 1s.

The use of shed skins might help to ward off predators, experiments suggest.

Proteins could serve as biomarkers for senescent cells, which have stopped dividing but have not yet died.

Models and experiments demonstrate what happens when a knitted fabric is deformed.

Anxiety, uncertainty and a renewed sense of purpose are surging in the community.

Two-year collaboration aims to create tools to help counter the tide of flawed research.

The open-access title’s bold publishing model has brought long-bubbling conflicts to the fore.

The finding could lead to the development of needle-free vaccines.

Around 6,000 years ago, a group known as the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture developed egalitarian settlements north of the Black Sea and created the region’s earliest urban centres. Then, after two millennia, they vanished.

Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents.

It began with concerns about the orbits used to explain the motion of electrons in atoms — but quantum theory ended up upending reality itself.

Those recovering from drug or alcohol misuse speak up — and say they wish more researchers could do so freely at work.

Seán Ronayne’s quest is to record all common bird species in Ireland, sharing both happy and sad stories about wildlife.

Pre-eclampsia is a common and dangerous pregnancy-related illness. Using tiny lipid particles to deliver messenger RNA directly to the placenta to boost blood-vessel function might prove to be an effective treatment.

Artificial intelligence is already used extensively to infer outcomes from tables of data, but this typically involves creating a model for each task. A one-size-fits-all model just made the process substantially easier.

During some types of cell death, cells rupture to release molecules that cause inflammation. This must happen at the right time and place to restore health. How is the protein NINJ1 regulated so that cells break open only when they die?

Electrochemical reactions for organic synthesis typically require intricate, specialized equipment, slowing progress in this field. Minuscule electric generators now enable faster reaction discovery and development.

A 1975 report sparks a debate about the place of sociology in human nutrition research, and a crystal-clear lecture on chemical morphology, in our weekly dip into Nature’s archive.

In medicine, a person’s blood-test results are compared with the average range in a population. But results are highly individual and tightly regulated around a person’s own stable values. Changes to these values can indicate disease.

This review highlights transformative advancements in computational microscopy, encompassing coherent diffractive imaging and ptychography, which unify microscopy and crystallography to achieve unparalleled resolution, precision, and large fields of view, enabling diverse applications and driving breakthroughs across multidisciplinary sciences.

This Review addresses the roles of type 2 immunity in cancer and the potential for cancer immunotherapies targeting this pathway.

This Perspective reviews the molecular and ecological factors that have driven the expansion in geographical distribution and host species range of H5N1 avian influenza viruses, leading to the current panzootic.

By developing a second quantization of paraparticles and constructing exactly solvable quantum spin models with emergent paraparticles, new theoretical evidence shows that non-trivial parastatistics inequivalent to either fermions or bosons can exist in physical systems.

Tabular Prior-data Fitted Network, a tabular foundation model, provides accurate predictions on small data and outperforms all previous methods on datasets with up to 10,000 samples by a wide margin.

Excitonic pairing in fractional quantum Hall states shows two new quantum phases, including a fractional exciton condensate and an unusual type of exciton that obeys fermionic or anyonic quantum statistics.

We find that if the thickness of a polycrystalline piezoceramic is reduced such that a large fraction of the grains are in the triaxial–biaxal crossover regime, the longitudinal strain is enhanced and the piezoceramic bends.

Adding excess m-Li₂ZrF₆ (monoclinic) nanoparticles to a commercial LiPF₆-containing carbonate electrolyte forms a stable interphase rich in t-Li₂ZrF₆ (trigonal), enhancing Li-ion transfer, suppressing dendrite growth and considerably improving the cycling stability of high-rate lithium metal batteries.

Left- and right-handed snub cubes show photocontrollable elasticity and hardness, in addition to the ability to encapsulate different small molecules in distinct compartments simultaneously, with potential applications in the development of advanced biomimetic materials.

A method to produce wireless microelectronic devices powered by light using standard nanofabrication techniques is described to convert any traditional 96-well or 384-well plate into an electrochemical reactor that can drive reactions in high throughput.

This study highlights an emergent mechanism in non-natural biocatalysis, showcasing the role of protein engineering in addressing challenges in chemical synthesis.

Experimental and theoretical evidence shows that incorporating finite interface widths extends fracture mechanics to include crack (and earthquake) nucleation; slow steady creep occurring at a well-defined stress threshold.

Crocodile head scales self-organize through purely mechanical compressive skin folding rather than a patterning process controlled by gene interactions.

The pan-genome of 17 wheat cultivars grown in China is explored, providing insights into the breeding history of wheat in East Asia.

Species-specific gaze shifts with natural stimuli drive correlated spiking in retinal ganglion cells.

A mechanism is uncovered that results in fetal hepatocytes having a paracrine role in providing genome protection to haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.

A platform for mRNA lipid nanoparticle delivery to the placenta to treat pre-eclampsia is shown to improve fetal and maternal health in mice and has potential clinical applications in obstetric disorders and women’s health.

Strain richness of gut microbiota ecosystems is a key characteristic underpinning engraftment in faecal microbiota transplantation, and could improve the design of defined live biotherapeutic products with predictable outcomes.

Complete blood count indices are tightly regulated around setpoints for decades in healthy adults, and represent a deep phenotype providing opportunities for investigating differential disease risks, improving clinical care and advancing precision medicine.

FastGlioma is a visual foundation model for fast and accurate detection of glioma infiltration in fresh, unprocessed surgical tissue.

Structure-function studies reveal that the plasma membrane rupture protein NINJ1 homodimerizes through its hydrophilic membrane-rupturing face, thereby rendering NINJ1 inactive in the resting state.

Biochemical and structural studies of the Fc immunoglobulin E receptor show that it exists as a homodimer on mast cell membranes, but dissociates upon IgE binding, exposing immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs that enable downstream effector activation.

The p53 target FBP1 is elevated in senescent-like metabolic-dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis hepatocytes but suppressed through promoter hypermethylation and proteasomal degradation in most human hepatocellular carcinomas.

We find that PTP1B and ABL1/2 reciprocally control RNF213 tyrosine phosphorylation and its oligomerization and RZ domain activation, and identify a unique PTP1B–RNF213–CYLD–SPATA2 pathway critical for the control of inflammatory cell death in hypoxic tumours.

A study in mice shows that learning induces c-Fos expression in a subset of astrocytes in the hippocampus, and that ensembles of these learning-associated astrocytes are involved in the recall of memories.

Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy experiments with a recombinant Escherichia coli transcription–translation system provides insights into the coordination of the transcription and translation machineries mediated by the intervening mRNA.

The molecular mechanisms of how small changes in the degree of inclusion of a neuron-specific microexon in CPEB4 lead to dominant-negative effects in the expression of genes associated with autism spectrum disorder are identified.