Was art key to ancient humans' success? The secrets of Hohle Fels cave
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02359-xNew discoveries at famous archeological site add to mystery of ancient human culture.
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The piezochiral effect
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10845-5The piezochiral effect, a new member of the family of strain-responsive functionalities alongside piezoelectricity and piezomagnetism, is introduced, enabling control of chirality through mechanical strain, with future applications in photonics, spintronics, biosensing and quantum information.
Diverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the core phage proteome
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10852-6Systematic analysis of prokaryotic STAND NTPases — relatives of animal and plant immune receptors — uncovers diverse antiviral sensors that detect most of the core structural and replicative proteins of bacteriophages.
Mitochondrial metabolism and epigenetic crosstalk drive SASP
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10791-2In senescent cells, mitochondria-derived acetyl-CoA promotes histone acetylation and increases chromatin accessibility at inflammatory gene loci. Inhibition of SLC25A1 attenuates these effects, underscoring the therapeutic potential of targeting mitochondrial metabolism and its epigenetic crosstalk to delay age-related functional decline.
Alternating CO<sub>2</sub> and bicycloalkane copolymerization to circular polyesters
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10848-2A simple organic catalyst enables direct alternating copolymerization of CO2 with bicycloalkanes to produce high-performance polyesters that can be selectively depolymerized and recycled in a closed-loop lifecycle.
Avalanche-like intercalation and intraparticle correlations in graphite
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10862-4Operando optical microscopy shows avalanche-like lithium deintercalation (intercalation) processes as the dilute stages of graphite are emptied (filled), showing how local disorder governs phase-transition dynamics and ion transport in lithium-ion battery electrodes.
Sequential reading of a stepwise-shortened peptide immobilized on nanopore
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10881-1A nanopore-based ‘chop and measure’ method sequences peptides at single-amino-acid resolution by using enzymatic digestion to progressively shorten the N terminus one residue at a time, together with repetitive N-terminus re-reading.
Perpendicular switching of polarization in layered ferroelectrics
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10839-3Perpendicular switching of the polarization state in the layered ferroelectric Bi4Ti3O12 is demonstrated by means of trilinear coupling, allowing manipulation of the in-plane polarization component with an out-of-plane electric field.
New-deal mortgage programmes benefited white borrowers disproportionately
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10850-8New data on homebuying loan records around the Second World War in the USA, linked to race and immigration status, show that Black borrowers were disproportionally excluded from mortgage programmes.
Weight-four parity checks in a spin-shuttling architecture
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10766-3A silicon spin-qubit device comprising a shuttling bus for transporting qubits is used to achieve parity checks up to weight four, highlighting the feasibility and benefits of incorporating shuttling into semiconductor quantum processors.
Enzymatic glycosylation and amidation reshapes polyene bioactivity
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10834-8Pathways to previously undescribed polyenes, including unusual enzymes that introduce more sugars onto polyene scaffolds, are discovered, and their accessibility through clean and efficient fermentation and potential for safe use as antifungal treatments is described.
A digitally controlled silicon quantum processing unit
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10754-7A silicon quantum processing unit executes high-fidelity multiqubit circuits, with all time-varying control signals generated by a digitally programmed cryogenic complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor controller and delivered to the low-noise, exchange-only qubit device through a high-density superconducting ribbon cable.
A global view of human centromere variation and evolution
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10841-9Complete sequencing of more than 2,000 centromeres from diverse humans reveals structures and elevated mutation rates that shape the evolution of these critically important regions.
Rational design of disordered proteins for sequence–function investigation
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10849-1GOOSE enables the design and testing of thousands of disordered protein region sequences to reveal distinct sequence-to-function relationships.
In situ structure of the poxvirus portal complex
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10856-2Cryo-electron tomography uncovers the structure of a conserved hexameric ‘portal complex’ that spans the core wall in vaccinia virus, and shows how it is associated with viral functions such as assembly, mRNA release and genome uncoating.
Plasmonic metamaterial time crystal
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10825-9A plasmonic metamaterial driven at terahertz frequencies achieves strong, ultrafast temporal modulation and shows a transition to the photonic time crystal regime with reduced plasmonic losses.
Earliest siphuncle-bearing cephalopod from the early Cambrian
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10868-yEarly Cambrian Eoceras shaanxiense gen. et sp. nov. preserves septa and a segmented tube resembling a primordial siphuncle, extending cephalopod origins and revealing early assembly of chambered shells used for buoyancy regulation.
Octahedral-coordinated Co<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub> for water electrolysis in acid
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10851-7A new trigonal-phase Co3O4 manufactured using a vacuum-mediated molten-alkali mechanochemical method is described, demonstrating edge-shared octahedral coordination and achieving lower overpotential than spinel-type Co3O4 in the acidic oxygen evolution reaction, with reduced dissolution of cobalt.
In situ structures of plant photosystem supercomplexes
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10847-3The cryo‑EM structure of the Oryza sativa photosystem II–light harvesting complex II supercomplex in its native membrane reveals the intact plant photosystem architecture, retaining physiologically relevant proteins and lipids that are otherwise lost during purification.
Photocatalytic water splitting by 2D polymer with out-of-plane carrier flow
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10866-0A strategy using polymeric carbon nitride crystals induces out-of-plane carrier migration by means of internal electric fields applied on facet-selective nanofilms placed on polymer photocatalysts, increasing the apparent quantum efficiency for overall water splitting.