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It is uncertain how much life expectancy of the Chinese population would improve under current and greater policy targets on lifestyle-based risk factors for chronic diseases and mortality behaviours. Here we report a simulation of how improvements in four risk factors, namely smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and diet, could affect mortality. We show that in the ideal scenario, that is, all people who currently smokers quit smoking, excessive alcohol userswas reduced to moderate intake, people under 65 increased moderate physical activity by one hour and those aged 65 and older increased by half an hour per day, and all participants ate 200 g more fresh fruits and 50 g more fish/seafood per day, life expectancy at age 30 would increase by 4.83 and 5.39 years for men and women, respectively. In a more moderate risk reduction scenario referred to as the practical scenario, where improvements in each lifestyle factor were approximately halved, the gains in life expectancy at age 30 could be half those of the ideal scenario. However, the validity of these estimates in practise may be influenced by population-wide adherence to lifestyle recommendations. Our findings suggest that the current policy targets set by the Healthy China Initiative could be adjusted dynamically, and a greater increase in life expectancy would be achieved.

A gallium-based, iron-embedded liquid metal catalyst enables reversible, magnetic-field-controlled switching between atomically dispersed and clustered iron states, achieving tunable production of CH₃OOH and CH₃COOH under ambient conditions.

An electrolyte design using small-sized fluoroacetonitrile solvents to form a ligand channel produces lithium-ion batteries simultaneously achieving high energy density, fast charging and wide operating temperature range, desirable features for batteries working in extreme conditions.

Planar oxygen-doped carbon quantum rings (OD-CQRs) are prepared through one-pot solid-state reactions. The synthesized OD-CQRs exhibit a fluorescence peak centre at 393 nm, a full-width at half-maximum of 18 nm and a photoluminescence quantum yield of 95%. Electroluminescent light emitting diodes based on OD-CQRs demonstrate high-colour-purity violet emission.

A tri-omic atlas of the mouse brain from postnatal day 0 to P21 reveals that layer-specific projection neurons have a role in coordinating axonogenesis and myelination.

In this study, the heterodimeric GABA_B receptor, a class C G protein-coupled receptor for the neurotransmitter GABA, is found to be allosterically activated by mechanical forces in a GABA independent manner through a direct interaction with integrin.

Cities often manage food waste and wastewater separately, missing recovery synergies. Across 29 cities, urban biowaste flux identifies an ~50 kg of moisture per person per year threshold above which sewer integration lowers the net costs. Optimized city-specific strategies, including integration where beneficial, can cut emissions by up to 69% versus current separate systems.

The genetic basis underlying resistance to Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR) in oilseed rape remains elusive. Here, the authors identify BnaA07.MKK9 as a pivotal regulator of SSR resistance in oilseed rape by GWAS, providing new insights into plant defense mechanisms against necrotrophic pathogens.

Qifa Zhang and colleagues report the map-based cloning of the quantitative trait locus GS5, which regulates grain size and yield in rice. GS5 encodes a putative serine carboxypeptidase and increased expression is associated with larger grain.

Using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics on muscle samples from non-ischemic patients and patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD), Turiel et al. identify cellular and molecular changes in the muscle microenvironment during PAD, focusing on endothelial cell–macrophage interactions.

In this study the authors present SWITCH, a deep learning model that integrates unpaired spatial multi-omics data and enables unsupervised cross-modal prediction, aiding spatial domain identification and downstream biological analysis.

Here, the authors fabricate hybrid van der Waals heterostructures based on 2D tessellations of DNA origami thin films, graphene and boron nitride, showing that the DNA films can induce periodic superlattices at the interface and modulate the electronic properties of the samples.

Shoot branching is critical in determining soybean yield. Here, the authors report natural variation of Dt2 in controlling soybean branching number and the interaction of Dt2 with GmAgl22 and GmSoc1a to activate transcription of GmAp1a and GmAp1d.

Evaluation of medical LLMs’ reasoning process in professional medicine remains underexplored. Here, the authors present MedR Bench, which evaluates LLMs’ medical reasoning across exam recommendation, diagnosis, and treatment. They find that models excel at diagnosis but struggle with exams and treatment.

Molecular organometallic catalysts typically struggle to activate only one of two identical C–H bonds in arenes for mono-selective C–H activation. Now mono-selectivity has been achieved for Pd(II)-catalysed ortho- or meta-C–H activations using commercial proteins or designed peptides as ligands.

Gao, Bai and colleagues identify peroxisomal MFE-2 as an essential regulator for microglial homeostasis in Alzheimer’s disease, showing that maintaining MFE-2 reduces neuroinflammation and slows Alzheimer’s disease progression, making it a potential therapeutic target.

One-dimensional axial heterostructures were created by combining hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) through the control of different chemical bond characters. The MOF | HOF | MOF crystals showed interface-controlled gas diffusion and spatially-resolved fluorescence.

This study reports DLFea4AMPGen, a peptide design strategy that leverages deep learning to identify and extract key features for the generation of new antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which allowed for the identification of 12 AMPs with bioactivity.

The authors present a ligand-anchoring strategy for fabricating oriented MOF membranes, enabling precise He/CH₄ separation and concentrating He from 0.3% to 99.9%. This approach highlights the design of efficient MOF-based separation materials.

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.

Strong oxidative oxygen species generated at high voltage pose great challenges to positive electrode-side interface stability in lithium-based batteries. Herein, authors propose a robust gel polymer electrolyte with bifunctional additives for interface modification, achieving high-voltage ceramic solid-state lithium batteries.

PEGylated black phosphorus nanosheets boost mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, thereby modulating the survival and immune evasion in tumour cells, and further promoting the activation of immune regulation.

The immunomodulatory functions of mast cells (MCs) within the tumor microenvironment are elusive. Here, the authors present a transcriptomic characterization of LUAD-infiltrating MCs and identify a proinflammatory subset that contributes to the activation of cytotoxic MAIT cells by secreting IL-18 via NRLP3 activation and pyroptosis, ultimately boosting anti-tumor immunity.

Graphene systems have the potential to host Wigner crystal states at zero magnetic field. Here, the authors report transport signatures consistent with Wigner crystallization in AB-stacked bilayer graphene at both zero and finite magnetic fields.

CRISPR base editors directly modify the non-target strand (NTS). Here, authors reveal an activity by miniature Cas12f cytosine base editor (CBE) to also edit the TS, and next engineer a TS-preferential CBE. The work establishes a strand-selectable miniature CBE toolkit with therapeutic potential.

An EC-NBI-based CAD system with advanced multi-stage pre-training fills endoscopy’s real-time diagnosis gap for colorectal lesions. It was shown to outperform other supervised methods and guides real-time biopsies.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The spatiotemporal relationship between neuromodulator and neurotransmitter dynamics and neuronal activity remains unclear. Here, the authors performed dual-color imaging of calcium and ACh/5-HT signals across the fly brain, revealing a key role of ACh dynamics in stable odor representation.

Two phase 2 trials, along with translational analysis of prospective cohorts and experimental analysis, indicate that immunosenescence as a mechanism of resistance to immunotherapy can be overcome with the senolytics dasatinib and quercetin in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The authors develop drinkable nanomachines to deliver active hydrogen to intestinal injury sites in mice, enabling drug-free radiation enteritis therapy by scavenging reactive species, reducing inflammation, modulating gut microbiota, and improving survival

Integrated clinical and single-cell analysis of primary pancreatic tumor samples that later recur in the liver or lung shows that tumor cells at the primary site transcriptionally resemble the normal parenchymal epithelia of the liver or lung, respectively.

Traditional relaxor ferroelectrics are rooted in crystalline systems, motivating exploration of their fluidic analogues through engineered polar nanoregions in dielectric nematic environments. Authors report a nematic relaxor ferroelectric that shows field-induced polarization and tunable energy landscapes, revealing stable high-temperature relaxor behavior and low-temperature field-induced ferroelectric transitions.

In this Perspective, members of the Aging Biomarker Consortium outline the X-Age Project, an Aging Biomarker Consortium plan for building standardized aging clocks in China. The authors discuss the project roadmap and its aims of decoding aging heterogeneity, detecting accelerated aging early and evaluating geroprotective interventions.

This study presents prime-editing-based inversion with enhanced performance, a prime editing-based system that enables efficient and precise genomic inversions from kilobase to chromosome scale, offering a powerful tool for chromosomal engineering, disease modeling and studying three-dimensional genome architecture.

CELLECT learns contrastive embeddings to enable high-fidelity cell tracking.

Achieving generality in asymmetric catalysis with highly reactive radicals is a challenge. Now it is shown that a sequential copper-catalysed approach enables the efficient, enantioselective cross-coupling of over 50 diverse radicals, providing unified access to C-, P- and S-chiral products and advancing the asymmetric synthesis of challenging molecular architectures.

Fan et al. describe DF-003, an alpha-kinase 1 (ALPK1) inhibitor that targets the root cause of the rare genetic disease ROSAH syndrome, demonstrating the ability of DF-003 to inhibit ocular inflammatory pathology in ROSAH model mice.

Comparative analyses of rice centromeres from 70 high-quality genomes of the Oryza AA group provide insights into rice centromere evolution and genetic factors that shape these genomic regions.

DNA strand displacement reactions can be difficult to scale up for computational tasks. Here the authors develop DNA switching circuits that achieve high-speed computing with fewer molecules.

Researchers present a photon-recoil manipulation method using polarization-modulated flat-top beams, enabling tunable, reversible nanoparticle transport, trapping, and torque—expanding capabilities beyond traditional optical tweezers.

Ancient genomes from Neolithic rice-farming populations at Baligang reveal a demographic shift around 4,200 years ago and a 5,000-year-old patrilineal social structure, providing insights into the population history of East Asia.

A spatiotemporally adaptive targeting strategy ensures sequentially reprogramming metabolism of inflammatory macrophages and senescent stem cells via intracellular NAD⁺ replenishment, accelerating bone and skin tissue regeneration.

The Vesta anorthosite meteorite discovery suggests Vesta experienced a lunar magma ocean-like process. Anorthite formed during magma crystallization could have floated to the surface of Vesta, creating a primary anorthositic crust.

Recent studies integrating multi-omics data with cell atlases across development for brains of humans and model organisms are revealing conserved and divergent patterns of brain development at the molecular and cellular levels, and linking these to complex behavioural and neuropsychiatric phenotypes.

Lampreys are jawless vertebrates that can offer unique insights into vertebrate evolution. Here they generate a comprehensive cell atlas of the lamprey, uncovering 70 distinct cell types across 14 tissues, and identify pancreas-like cells in the lamprey small intestine.