Features based on peer-reviewed papers published in Nature Communications.
Dr. Fatih Evren's team developed a way to measure the radiant warmth people feel from room surfaces using low-cost thermal sensors, outperforming traditional black globe sensors in real rooms.
Professor Isak Pretorius's team built a fully synthetic yeast chromosome, traced its growth defects to design flaws near gene control regions, and fixed them so the yeast grew normally.
Professor Wu-Chou Su's team found that lung cancer cells whose interleukin-6 lacks its normal sugar tags spread more readily and resist targeted drugs, with patient samples supporting the link.
Professor Tao Li's team designed an optimized control path that lets topological light pumping work over much shorter lithium niobate chip waveguides, enabling more compact, stable optical devices.
Professor Jing Chen's team found that adding a phosphate at a single site on the protein Huluwa switches on signaling that sets up the body axis in fish and frog embryos.
Dr. Caghan Kizil and Dr. Konstantinos Ampatzis found that the zebrafish heart's own nervous system holds diverse nerve cell types, some firing rhythmically like pacemakers, suggesting it helps regulate heartbeat.
Dr. Xiangbing Qi's team developed a scalable chemical route to make the potent nerve toxin tetrodotoxin and a close relative from a common starting material, easing supply for medical research.
Dr. Nadia Izadi-Pruneyre's team found that the bacterial protein ExbD switches between open and closed shapes to power nutrient uptake by the Ton system, aided by the cell wall.
Professor Patrick Pausch's team mapped the structures of type IV-A CRISPR systems, showing how they lock onto DNA and recruit a helicase to block gene activity without cutting.
Dr. Qijun Chen's team found that parasites exploit the host protein SOD3, released by neutrophils, which binds T cells and blunts their early immune response to infection.
Professor Derek Lemoine and Dr. Sarah Kapnick found that financial markets respond to seasonal climate forecasts such as El Niño outlooks, showing that traders place real value on better predictions.
Professor Ralf Jauch's team found that Sox and POU proteins, key to animal stem cells, already existed in single-celled relatives of animals, and some ancient Sox versions could reprogram mouse cells.
