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Zero-field mobility has been an unreliable indicator to predict thick-film organic solar cell performance. Here, authors reveal that critical length is a decisive factor governing thick-film device performance and achieve maximum efficiency of 19.0% in 300-nm thick-film D18:L8-BO:BTP-eC9 devices.

Differentiating the structural order of the commensurate modulated antiferroelectric can double the energy storage density of ceramics to over 23 J/cm³ while maintaining their efficiency.

Engineering the perovskite–electrical contact interface with sodium heptafluorobutyrate reduces interfacial defects and improves charge transport in perovskite solar cells. Functionalized devices deliver a certified power conversion efficiency of 26.96%, which is fully retained after 1,200 h of continuous operation under 1-sun illumination.

Perovskite solar cells with carbon electrodes offer advantages in terms of stability and manufacturing cost, but their performance remains limited. Now Wang et al. report an efficiency of 23.6% by doping the hole transport layer with graphene oxide.

Metabolic compartmentalization changes are common in cancer, but their mechanisms remain unclear. Here, the authors show that low expression of the integral membrane protein SMIM4 in pancreatic cancer reshapes malate metabolism and promotes survival under glucose deprivation and RSL3-induced toxicity.

Natural disasters induce power outages with unequal impacts on poverty and non-poverty counties in China. Climate change will further exacerbate this disparity.

Single atoms trapped in optical tweezers offer a promising route to quantum computing, but large-scale individual qubit control remains challenging. Here the authors propose and realize a fiber array architecture that enables independent and highly parallel control of single qubits in a neutral atom array.

All-solid-state batteries offer high energy density and safety but face interfacial and mechanical challenges. Here, authors present a dispersed defect toughening strategy for halide electrolytes, improving mechanical robustness without sacrificing conductivity, advancing practical use of all-solid-state batteries.

Data heterogeneity presents a challenge in distributed artificial intelligence (AI) for medical imaging across diverse clinical settings. Here, the authors develop HeteroSync Learning, a privacy-preserving distributed learning framework that mitigates data heterogeneity and outperforms classical, state-of-the-art, and foundation models.

This study reveals a broken age–frequency relation of hot Jupiters, which simultaneously constrains the tidal factor of host stars and indicates different timescales in hot Jupiter formation, with ~40% forming late on billion-year timescales through secular chaos.

RNA base editing offers promise for treating genetic diseases but has faced efficiency limits. Here, authors developed AI-engineered APOBEC enzymes (ProAPOBECs) that enable precise RNA editing in mice, lowering cholesterol and improving autism-like behaviors.

The senescence of vascular endothelial cells leads to initiation and progression of cardiovascular diseases. Here, the authors show that elevating NADPH by genetic or pharmacological therapy alleviates vascular aging.

Genome-wide CRISPRi screens for modulators of androgen receptor (AR) protein levels using live-cell quantitative endogenous AR fluorescence reporters identify PTGES3 as a new regulator of AR stability and function in prostate cancer.

Aberration of chromatin organisation is linked to cancer progression and cancer cell plasticity. Here, the authors investigate changes in chromatin state during the transition of cancer cells to cancer stem cells and, using a CTCF-cohesin contact reporter CRISPR screen, identify TLK2 as a driver of plasticity via regulation of chromatin loop formation.

High-power, tunable accelerator-based terahertz radiation is demonstrated. By electron-beam manipulation through laser heater beating, tunable capability from 7.8 to 30.8 THz, narrow spectral bandwidths (ranging from 7.7% to 14.7%) and pulse energies up to 385 μJ are obtained.

This study reports that the gene SMPED1, located in a previously identified dichogamy-determining region in Alpinia species, controls the timing of sex-organ synchrony, improving our understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms of plant sexual diversity.

Toxicity of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) is often caused by off-target shedding of therapeutic payloads due to linker instability. Here, the authors demonstrate that site-specific ligase-dependent conjugation of therapeutic payloads to engineered trastuzumab via a ring-opening linker improves stability compared to conventional HER2- targeting ADCs.

Here the authors report that genetic or pharmacological inhibition of phosphoglycerate kinase 1, an enzyme involved in glycolysis, attenuates acute kidney injury in mouse models of acute kidney injury via inhibition of ferroptosis.

Conventional design of perovskite heterojunctions face challenges in precisely controlling interfacial phase purity at nanoscale. Here, the authors introduce dimethyl sulfide as a soft Lewis base additive in organic cation solution, achieving certified efficiency of 26.48% in stable solar cells.

The development of macrocyclic hosts with high-affinity 1:2 recognition capabilities is crucial for its applications. Here, the authors introduce enantiopure chiral macrocycles with remarkable 1:2 recognition properties in water comparable to those of cucurbit[8]uril.

Thick electrodes can increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries but often face charge transport limits and degradation. Here, authors develop thick, dense electrodes with synthetic boundaries, improving mechanical robustness and specific, areal, and volumetric capacities as high as 497 mAh cm⁻³.

Nitrogen promotes wheat’s recovery after drought stress through the TaSnRK2.10-TaNLP7 module. This breakthrough connects drought-stress signalling with nitrate response pathways, providing a genetic framework for developing climate-resilient crops.

Over 20 species of geographically and phylogenetically diverse bird species produce convergent whining vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites. Model presentation and playback experiments across multiple continents suggest that these learned calls provoke an innate response even among allopatric species.

Zhao et al. generated models from whole blood gene expression to predict amyotrophic lateral sclerosis case-control status and combined gene features with clinical variables to predict survival, both validated in an external independent dataset.

A domain-folding strategy is developed to assemble graphene into carbon fibres at room temperature, achieving ultrahigh strength and stiffness as well as greatly reducing energy consumption.

Achieving complete coverage of 2-4 μm pyramids on industrial fully-textured silicon with solution processed perovskite film remains challenging. Here, authors spray-coat alumina particles on silicon for near-conformal deposition of perovskites, achieving efficiency of 32.74% for tandem solar cells.

This work reveals critical role of R-Ras2 in abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) progression. R-Ras2 maintains VSMCs function via c-MET-TFII-I axis, with MEG3 stabilizing its mRNA stability. Findings identify R-Ras2 a potential AAA therapeutic target.

Cell type labelling in single-cell datasets remains a major bottleneck. Here, the authors present AnnDictionary, an open-source toolkit that enables atlas-scale analysis and provides the first benchmark of LLMs for de novo cell type annotation from marker genes, showing high accuracy at low cost.

Trained and validated on multimodal data from 14.5 million images from multicountry datasets, a foundation model is shown to increase diagnostic and referral accuracy of clinicians when used as an assistant in a trial involving 16 ophthalmologists and 668 patients.

Vasomotor function is regulated by the autonomic nervous system, but its electrophysiological basis remains poorly captured, especially post-stenting. Here, the authors develop a bioadhesive bioelectronic interface for precise monitoring and modulation of vasomotor activity.

Tandem electro-biocatalytic systems present a versatile platform for producing a variety of synthetic products using CO₂ as a starting material. Here direct ocean carbon capture is incorporated into an electrolysis scheme to produce formic acid from CO₂ dissolved in seawater that is subsequently converted to succinate in a bioreactor.

This work introduces GLORI 2.0 and 3.0, enabling sensitive m⁶A quantification from RNA inputs as low as a few hundred cells.

Quality control for epigenomic datasets requires robust ground truths. Here, authors generate genome-wide quantitative methylation reference datasets from the publicly available Quartet DNA reference materials, which could serve as a resource for the standardised benchmarking of emerging technologies.

A complementary analysis of DESI DR2 distance measurements along with supernova and CMB data shows consistent, moderate evidence that dark energy changes over time rather than behaving as a simple cosmological constant.

Metal–organic frameworks are typically assembled using discrete organic linkers and inorganic nodes. Now it has been shown that combining covalent organic chains and layers as infinite building units with metal clusters results in compartmentalized frameworks with well-defined pores.

Chen et al. report all-site alloying for 3D perovskites where B-site strontium doping retards the crystallisation and induces sequential A-site doping with annealing. The controllable crystallisation enables blue LEDs with peak efficiency of 23.3% at 487 nm and tuneable emission to 463 nm.

Self-assembled monolayer (SAM)-based hole transport layer often suffers from weak interfacial adhesion, poor film uniformity, and limited stability, constraining their scalability. Here, authors in situ anchor SAM during NiOx synthesis, achieving maximum efficiency of 20.21% for large-area modules.

Anti-TSLP biologics have shown promise for the clinical treatment of type 2 respiratory disease. Here the authors present a clinical trial of CM326, a monoclonal antibody against TSLP, and show the clinical effects in patients with eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (ECRSwNP), who present with type 2-dominant inflammation.

Wang and colleagues show that an AI-assisted designed peptide obstructs GSDMD pores and inhibits IL-1β and IL-18 release and pyroptosis.

Wu, Zhang and colleagues introduce ‘compare and contrast spatial transcriptomics’ (CoCo-ST), a graph contrastive learning-based method for spatial transcriptomics analysis that detects low-variance structures.

The potential of leveraging diverse geometric configurations of the catalysts to achieve divergent synthesis remains largely untapped. Here, the authors report a stereodivergent three-component borylfunctionalization of alkynes, enabled by ligand-modulated geometric variations in nickel catalysts.

Myocardial ischemia is a pathological condition where cardiomyocytes lack oxygen and energy supply. Here, Cheng et al. develop a photosynthetic system consisting of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (C. pyre) and upconversion nanoparticles encapsulated in a hydrogel, which upon exposure to near-infrared light, enables oxygen production by C. pyre to alleviate the hypoxic myocardial environment.

A solid-phase hot-pressing method is introduced, which can rapidly produce highly crystalline covalent organic framework platelets in a convenient, solvent-free manner. Fifteen platelets of various linkage types are produced, with a proof-of-concept demonstration of the resulting high-performing platelet type in an atmospheric water harvesting device.

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

Phenotype-based screening is a major bottleneck in the development of microbial cell factories. Here the authors build an AI-powered digital colony picker for single-cell-resolved, contactless screening and export of microbial strains, which identified lactate-tolerant Zymomonas mobilis mutants.

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

A genome-wide CRISPR screen helps to identify the Epstein–Barr virus receptor desmocollin 2 for primary epithelial cell infection. Additional infection assays revealed that desmocollin 3 also aids infection.