Reviews & Analysis

Integrin-mediated substrate-rigidity sensing triggers microtubule acetylation, modulating mechanosensitive cellular responses and focal adhesion dynamics, subsequently promoting actomyosin organization and collective cell migration.

The processes of metallic asperities moving across each other, which are decisive in most machinery, have been visualized at the atomic scale, revealing unexpected behaviour especially when under tensile stress.

A seemingly disordered network of nanowires governed by thermodynamics is used as the physical ‘reservoir’ in a memristive implementation of reservoir computing to process spatiotemporal information.

Scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments reveal a chiral charge density wave order underpinning the anomalous Hall effect in kagome lattice materials. Under pressure this charge order is suppressed, while superconductivity gets a boost.

Amorphous silicon shows abnormal tension–compression asymmetry, with much higher tensile yield strength than compressive yield. This discovery advances our understanding of plasticity in this and other similar amorphous materials.

A nanosensor probe that combines a tumour-targeting peptide, a diagnostic reporter and an imaging contrast agent enables early diagnosis, precision imaging, disease stratification and downstream therapeutic response monitoring of metastatic cancer.

The non-collinear spin structure and nontrivial Berry curvature of Mn₃Ge give rise to a long-range supercurrent in superconductor–Mn₃Ge–superconductor lateral Josephson junctions.

Metallic behaviour from a two-dimensional hole gas has been observed in solution-processed organic crystals, giving hope for this state of matter to be used in next-generation large-area soft electronics.

Passivation of traps via site-specific surface doping allows access to the intrinsic properties of organic semiconductors and leads to the observation of electron atmospheres in organic crystals.

Using atomic-resolution electron microscopy to observe ion-exchange processes in atomically thin layered and restacked clays, substantially larger ion diffusion constants and moiré effects on ion dynamics are seen.

Centimetre-scale few-layer black phosphorus films have been grown on a mica substrate by pulsed laser deposition. The high crystalline quality and homogeneity of these films are promising for device applications.

Elaborately designed DNA icosahedral shells cage intact virions to effectively protect host cells from viral infections.

A substantial spin–orbit interaction is introduced in a purely silicon heterostructure and can be tuned through an applied gate voltage.

Data-encoded DNA sequences have been encapsulated in barcoded silica beads for a random access storage system without PCR amplification.

Through meticulous care for detail, researchers have now shattered the ceiling on thermoelectric performance, achieving a figure of merit above 3 for bulk SnSe polycrystalline powder.

Light-activated protein actuators composed of bioengineered motors and molecular scaffolds achieve millimetre-scale mechanical work, which holds promise for microrobotics applications.

A singlet-triplet hole spin qubit in a Ge quantum well is demonstrated to be fast, coherent, and compatible with operation at magnetic fields below 10 mT, opening the door to integration with superconducting technologies.