You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. The more than €30-million Choose France for Science initiative, launched last April, is just one of a slew of European initiatives that aim to bring in research talent disaffected by changes elsewhere. These include the European Union's Choose Europe initiative, which is currently supported by nearly €900 million (US$1.1 billion) in research funding. Previously at the University of California, Berkeley, Tao has now taken up his grant at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques or IHES) in Paris. Astrophysicist Kartik Sheth, who was associate chief scientist at NASA until he was fired by the agency during mass layoffs last year, has also been funded by the initiative. He will take up a three-year position at Aix-Marseille University in France. Under Trump's second presidency, US researchers have experienced grant cuts, the dismantling of science-funding agencies and increased federal control over universities. US foreign aid and awards to international collaborators have also been terminated. When announcing the call last year, Élisabeth Borne, then French minister for higher education and research, said that France would offer a “refuge” to researchers as “science and research face unprecedented threats worldwide”. Yet a few dozen vacating scientists are unlikely to make a large dent at US academic institutions, which altogether have more than 1.5 million faculty members, she says. France and other countries hoping to lure US scientists face an uphill battle: funders such as the NIH, with their multibillion-dollar budgets, are irreplaceable, Milgram adds. Tens of thousands of scientists, rather than dozens, would need to relocate for it to have a big long-term impact on US science, she says. LINK: US grant applicants surge at prestigious European research agency LINK: US grant applicants surge at prestigious European research agency But it did reveal that almost half of the awardees are headed to higher-education institutions in and around Paris. Meanwhile, Tao says he decided to move to France because the IHES is “a world-leading institute of mathematics” and he will be surrounded in Paris by a strong maths community. How Europe aims to woo US scientists and protect academic freedom Europe must become a research epicentre as US system gets undermined Europe can capture the US brain drain — if it acts fast Epstein files reveal deeper ties to scientists than previously known Marine protection in the Azores: a triumph for conservation and sustainability What can I do if my idea has been plagiarized? Nu Quantum are seeking applications for a Senior AMO Physicist How Europe aims to woo US scientists and protect academic freedom Europe must become a research epicentre as US system gets undermined Europe can capture the US brain drain — if it acts fast An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, delivered to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 10, pages 193–202 (2026)Cite this article The evolution of herbivory is one of the most important ecological events in the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates and impacted the ecosystems they inhabited. Herbivory independently developed in a number of tetrapod clades during the Late Carboniferous and Permian, eventually leading to the establishment of the basic structure of modern terrestrial ecosystems. Here we describe a Late Carboniferous pantylid ‘microsaur', Tyrannoroter heberti gen. et sp. nov., with expansive occluding palatal and coronoid dental batteries. The shape of the teeth, as revealed by high-resolution micro-computed tomography data, indicates wear from both shearing and grinding motions consistent with herbivory. New data from historical pantylid fossils show that similar adaptations can be traced back as far as the Bashkirian (~318 million years ago), indicating that terrestrial herbivory was already widespread within this group, and originated rapidly following the terrestrialization of tetrapods. The placement of recumbirostran ‘microsaurs' on the amniote stem suggests that terrestrial herbivory is not an amniote innovation, although the phylogenetic position of ‘microsaurian' tetrapods remains uncertain. Under any phylogenetic scenario, the data presented here reveal that pantylids acquired adaptations to herbivory independently, probably via durophagous omnivory, feeding on insects, shelled animals and tough plant material. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription cancel any time Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles only $9.92 per issue Buy this article Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout All fossils contained within this paper have been accessioned into the public repository of the Nova Scotia Museum. The data matrix used in the phylogenetic analysis is available in Supplementary Information. This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the proposed online registration system for the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The ZooBank life science identifiers (LSIDs) can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix ‘http://zoobank.org/'. The LSID for this work is urn.lsid:zoobank.org:pub:6B83ED3E-37FC-483E-8857-7F44E25FD170 (article); LSID for the nomenclatural acts is urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:869B27EE-DF04-426A-BAE2-D8BB9D8A9210 (genus and species). The original image stack of the HRμCT data is available online at Morphosource, Media ID 000765660. Reisz, R. R. & Sues, H.-D. in Evolution of Herbivory in Terrestrial Vertebrates: Perspectives from the Fossil Record (ed. Sues, H.-D.) 9–41 (Cambridge Univ. Brocklehurst, N., Kammerer, C. F. & Benson, R. B. J. The origin of tetrapod herbivory: effects on local plant diversity. Sues, H.-D. & Reisz, R. R. Origins and early evolution of herbivory in tetrapods. Reisz, R. R. Origin of dental occlusion in tetrapods: signal for terrestrial vertebrate evolution?. Ponstein, J., MacDougall, M. J. A comprehensive phylogeny and revised taxonomy of Diadectomorpha with a discussion on the origin of tetrapod herbivory. Hotton III, N., Olson, E. C. & Beerbower, R. in Amniote Origins: Completing the Transition to Land (eds Sumida, S. & Martin, K. L. M.) 207–264 (Academic Press, 1997). Reisz, R. R. & Fröbisch, J. The oldest caseid synapsid from the Late Pennsylvanian of Kansas, and the evolution of herbivory in terrestrial vertebrates. Modesto, S. P., Lamb, A. J. & Reisz, R. R. The captorhinid reptiles Captorhinikos valensis from the lower Permian Vale Formation of Texas, and the evolution of herbivory in eureptiles. Lucas, S. G., Rinehart, L. F. & Celeskey, M. D. The oldest specialized tetrapod herbivore: a new pelycosaur from the Permian of New Mexico, USA. Davies, N. S. & Gibling, M. R. Evolution of fixed-channel alluvial plains in response to Carboniferous vegetation. Davies, N. S. & Gibling, M. R. The sedimentary record of Carboniferous rivers: continuing influence of land plant evolution on alluvial processes and Palaeozoic ecosystems. Bell, W. A. Fossil Flora of Sydney Coalfield, Nova Scotia (Canada Department of Mines and Resources, 1938). Bell, W. A. Carboniferous Rocks And Fossil Floras of Northern Nova Scotia (Canada Department of Mines and Resources, 1944). Zodrow, E. L. & McCandlish, K. Upper Carboniferous Fossil Flora of Nova Scotia, with Special Reference to the Sydney Coalfield (Nova Scotia Museum, 1980). Zodrow, E. L. Summary of macrofloral biostratigraphy of Sydney Coalfield, Nova Scotia, Canada (Carboniferous, Westphalian/Cantabrian age). Brocklehurst, N. & Benson, R. B. J. Multiple paths to morphological diversification during the origin of amniotes. Carroll, R. L. The postcranial skeleton of the Permian microsaur Pantylus. Mann, A., Henrici, A., Sues, H.-D. & Pierce, S. E. A new Carboniferous edaphosaurid and the origin of herbivory in mammal forerunners. Jaekel, O. Über die klassen der tetrapoden. Anderson, J. S. in Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution (eds Anderson, J. S. & Sues, H.-D.) 182–227 (Indiana Univ. Carroll, R. L. & Gaskill, P. The order Microsauria. A. et al. The recumbirostran Hapsidopareion lepton from the early Permian (Cisuralian: Artinskian) of Oklahoma reassessed using HRμCT, and the placement of Recumbirostra on the amniote stem. Mann, A. Cranial ornamentation of a large Brachydectes newberryi (Recumbirostra: Lysorophia) from Linton, Ohio. Berman, D. S. Origin and early evolution of the amniote occiput. Klembara, J., Ruta, M., Hain, M. & Berman, D. S. Braincase and inner ear anatomy of the Late Carboniferous tetrapod Limnoscelis dynatis (Diadectomorpha) revealed by high-resolution X-ray microcomputed tomography. A New Species of Pantylid ‘Microsaur' From the Carboniferous of Nova Scotia and Implications for its Ecology. MSc thesis, Carleton Univ. Romer, A. S. The cranial anatomy of the Permian amphibian Pantylus. Modesto, S. P. & Reisz, R. R. Restudy of Permo-Carboniferous synapsid Edaphosaurus novomexicanus Williston and Case, the oldest known herbivorous amniote. Evans, A. R., Wilson, G. P., Fortelius, M. & Jernvall, J. High-level similarity of dentitions in carnivorans and rodents. Christensen, K. & Melstrom, K. M. Quantitative analyses of squamate dentition demonstrate novel morphological patterns. Melstrom, K. M. The relationship between diet and tooth complexity in living dentigerous saurians. Melstrom, K. M. & Irmis, R. B. Repeated evolution of herbivorous crocodyliforms during the age of dinosaurs. Montanucci, R. R. Comparative dentition in four iguanid lizards. Throckmorton, G. S. Oral food processing in two herbivorous lizards, Iguana iguana (Iguanidae) and Uromastix aegyptius (Agamidae). Mahler, D. L. & Kearney, M. The palatal dentition in squamate reptiles: morphology, development, attachment, and replacement. Berman, D. S. & Sumida, S. S. New cranial material of the rare diadectid Desmatodon hespersis (Diadectomorpha) from the Late Pennsylvanian of central Colorado. Estes, R. & Williams, E. E. Ontogenetic variation in the molariform teeth of lizards. Pardo, J. D., Szostakiwskyj, M., Ahlberg, P. E. & Anderson, J. S. Hidden morphological diversity among early tetrapods. Romer, A. S. The nature and relationships of the Paleozoic microsaurs. Carroll, R. L. & Baird, D. The Carboniferous amphibian Tuditanus [Eosauravus] and the distinction between microsaurs and reptiles. Laurin, M. & Reisz, R. R. A reevaluation of early amniote phylogeny. Simões, T. R., Kammerer, C. F., Caldwell, M. W. & Pierce, S. E. Successive climate crises in the deep past drove the early evolution and radiation of reptiles. Swofford, D. L. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and Other Methods) (Sinauer Associates, 2003). Melstrom, K. M. & Wistort, Z. P. The application of dental complexity metrics on extant saurians. Pampush, J. D., Winchester, J. M., Morse, P. E., Vining, A. Q. & Fuselier, E. Dental surface complexity measurement tools. Rstudio: Integrated Development Environment for R (Posit Software, 2020). Winchester, J. M. MorphoTester: an open source application for morphological topographic analysis. Berman, D. S. et al. New primitive caseid (Synapsida, Caseasauria) from the Early Permian of Germany. Brocklehurst, N. Rates and modes of body size evolution in early carnivores and herbivores: a case study from Captorhinidae. We acknowledge that fieldwork and collection of the fossil material presented in this paper were conducted on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq People. We would like to thank C. Sidor and K. Anderson for access to comparative material at the Burke Museum of Natural History. We thank D. S. Berman, A. C. Henrici and R. W. Hook, who provided access to comparative material and specimens at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. We thank S. Tessier and G. Poirier for access and help operating the SEM at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Furthermore, we thank R. W. Hook for discussion on the ages of coal-bearing rocks of the Carboniferous. We thank X. Jenkins and J. Pardo for discussion on early tetrapod phylogeny and systematics. We are deeply grateful to B. Hebert for his ongoing contributions to Nova Scotian palaeontology. We also thank T. Fedak, K. Ogden, S. Westlock and other staff of the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History (Halifax) for facilitating and supporting our research. Funding for this study was provided by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant (no. These authors contributed equally: Arjan Mann, Zifang Xiong. Negaunee Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Zifang Xiong, Ami S. Calthorpe & Hillary C. Maddin Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar conceived of and designed the study. and H.-D.S wrote and edited the paper, constructed figures and helped contribute to analyses. Correspondence to Hillary C. Maddin. The authors declare no competing interests. Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Keegan Melstrom and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. A, Tetrapoda; B, Temnospondyli; C, Lissamphibia; D and E, alternative proposed placements of the Recumbirostra node after Anderson20 (D) and Mann et al.18 (E); F, Amniota; G, Synapsida; and H, Reptilia. Values above 50% recovery are displayed above nodes, nodes with less than 50% support are rendered as polytomies. Character list used in the phylogenetic analysis. Character–taxon matrix used in the phylogenetic analysis, Nexus format. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. Reprints and permissions Mann, A., Xiong, Z., Calthorpe, A.S. et al. Carboniferous recumbirostran elucidates the origins of terrestrial herbivory. Nat Ecol Evol 10, 193–202 (2026). 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You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). Scientists don't need to be superstar public performers like Taylor Swift, but they can learn from show business.Credit: Carlos Alvarez/Getty for TAS Rights Management I research and teach immunology at Imperial College London and have also dabbled in public engagement as a popular-science author, so a chunk of my job focuses on public speaking. But the question is, what can researchers learn from performers to improve science talks? Conference talks are a key feature of scientific careers. The extent to which a person's ability to engage audiences is taken into account when selecting speakers is debatable — people are chosen for having ‘an interesting story', which isn't necessarily the same as the ability to tell an interesting story. Talks don't just raise an individual's profile; they can be a platform to highlight a team that also contributed to the work. A great talk will advertise your laboratory, department or institution. Scientific bedlam at the world's weirdest and wildest research conference Scientific bedlam at the world's weirdest and wildest research conference Beyond self-publicity, the point of science talks is to inform, educate and inspire others. In a research ecosystem that increasingly churns out overwhelming numbers of papers, scientific presentations are an important method of highlighting your work to a wider audience. And often, they can help you to engage with a broader circle than your own. Moreover, a good talk can advertise stories to journal editors, who might be more open to a paper that is based on a talk than to one that lands in their inbox without context. On a selfish level, if you're an in-demand speaker, you are more likely to be invited to better conferences in nicer places. International travel, and the chance to meet other scientists and hear their research, is one of the great perks of a career in science. All of these benefits can be magnified if you knock the talk out of the park, and just as easily negated if you grind your way through your slides in a dull, monotone voice. So, are there some lessons that can be learnt from performance artists? My colleague Robin Shattock, a vaccine researcher at Imperial College London, listens to ‘pump up' music — such as ‘The Eye of the Tiger' by Survivor — before public speaking. One way to lose the audience before you've even begun is by fiddling with cables onstage. Check your set-up in advance and make sure that the IT works — fumbling around with HDMI cables and looking for an adaptor for your laptop is unlikely to endear you to the crowd. Sometimes we have the ‘advantage' of being introduced as a speaker. Actor and former stand-up comedian Ben Willbond told me that “the audience needs to know they are in a safe pair of hands. If you watch a nervous, novice stand-up, they almost always lose the audience members, who can sense the speaker is not comfortable. How to know whether a conference is right for you How to know whether a conference is right for you Come out and see how much better everything gets”. Movement and hand gestures can be important for this. I'm a fairly mobile speaker and have been known to knock things off lecterns, followed by the odd expletive. Tone of voice is also important — try to vary it. If you are excited about everything, then it's hard for people to re-engage with the talk if they lose the thread. For example, when listening to sports on the radio, I tune back in when the pitch changes because something noteworthy might have happened. In a perfect world, a talk would be written from scratch, with the narrative chosen first and then the slides created next. This is comparable to a band's set list: switching between crowd-pleasers and new songs. A long string of data-heavy slides might lose the audience, so throw in images, jokes, asides and remarks to keep people attentive. Subscribe to Nature Briefing: Careers, an unmissable free weekly round-up of help and advice for working scientists. Scientific bedlam at the world's weirdest and wildest research conference How to know whether a conference is right for you Sounds of science: how music at work can fine-tune your research What can I do if my idea has been plagiarized? Wikipedia is needed now more than ever, 25 years on AI chatbots can sway voters with remarkable ease — is it time to worry? See the Sun expand and contract like a pufferfish — January's best science images Wikipedia is needed now more than ever, 25 years on Nu Quantum are seeking applications for an AMO Physicist Nu Quantum are seeking applications for a Senior AMO Physicist Scientific bedlam at the world's weirdest and wildest research conference How to know whether a conference is right for you Sounds of science: how music at work can fine-tune your research An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, delivered to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). Lizzi C. Lee is a fellow on the Chinese economy at Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis (CCA), based in Washington DC, USA. Jing Qian is vice-president of the Asia Society and co-founder and managing director of Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis (CCA), based in New York City, New York, USA. But the nation is now a global leader when it comes to drug development and manufacturing. And it is becoming increasingly important in frontier science. How China is vying to attract the world's top scientific talent How China is vying to attract the world's top scientific talent Industry analysts estimate that China now accounts for 70–95% of the global supply chain for many essential pharmaceutical products, including ibuprofen and paracetamol. In 2024, Chinese biotechnology firms developed more than 1,250 new drugs, surpassing the European Union and approaching the US total of roughly 1,440 (see ‘A growing force in biomedical innovation'). Now, it is responsible for about one-fifth of such trials1 (see ‘Top contributors to commercial clinical trials'). And in the past few years, it has achieved several therapeutic milestones. As China's biotech industry gathers pace, however, so does geopolitical scrutiny. Last December, the US Biosecure Act was signed into law in response to concerns about national security. Such increased outside scrutiny, stemming from ongoing concerns about how genetic and clinical information is handled in China, has been prompting Chinese government officials, state-affiliated think tanks and industry stakeholders to advocate for building a closed ‘secure' biotech ecosystem in China. It would blunt China's momentum, restrict people's access to life-saving medications in nations around the world and stall innovation globally. Biomedical progress depends on shared knowledge, diverse patient cohorts and the development of regulations that aligns with global standards. Several domestic shifts have been driving China's biotech boom. China's contract-development and manufacturing organizations and genomics-service providers are continuing to underpin global pipelines for drug development — even amid increased US legislative scrutiny. Thanks to China's manufacturing efficiency, lower regulatory hurdles and ability to recruit large numbers of participants in clinical trials, these organizations can provide services more quickly and cheaply than equivalent ones elsewhere can. In addition, to better align the country's biotech and pharma sectors with global standards, the Chinese government launched a slew of regulatory reforms for medical products in 2015. These reforms have helped to make China an attractive option for pharma companies wanting to conduct early-stage clinical trials — particularly for drug development in oncology and immunology, and for trials needing participants from only one country. Although it is not without problems, China's National Reimbursement Drug List is another factor that has helped to keep the costs of the drugs developed and produced in China relatively low. Under the China Initiative, implemented by the US government in 2018, thousands of researchers and academics affiliated with China, but working in the United States, faced new restrictions and scrutiny — intended to safeguard US laboratories and businesses from espionage. Anyone receiving funds from China or involved in partnerships with institutions from China, for example, had to declare this to the US government. Many of these people have seeded Chinese biotech start-ups. Some Chinese government officials and industry stakeholders are arguing that, given all these developments, China could compensate for any tools, materials and knowledge lost as a result of the country cutting biotech and pharma ties with the United States or other countries. A State Council directive (a high-level administrative order) issued by the Chinese government in September 2025, for example, instructs government procurement offices, which manage the buying of goods and other services for government organizations, to prioritize domestic products. The electronics sector faced a similar challenge in 2022, when US export controls reduced China's access to materials, such as lithography tools, needed to make cutting-edge semiconductor chips. And China's response was to pour billions of US dollars into a workaround — chiplet technology. The Chinese government also supported developers of artificial intelligence in finding ways to work around computing limits, leading to home-grown successes such as the AI start-up Zhipu in Beijing. Several Chinese companies chasing the same leads amid a hypercompetitive corporate culture continues to result in inefficiencies and diminishing returns. A 2024 review showed, for example, that nearly 40% of registered clinical trials for cell therapies (which involve transferring cells into a person to treat or prevent disease) conducted in China between 2021 and 2023 focused on known molecular targets3. But, in part because of their long history of commanding science, the United States and the EU still lead when it comes to representation in high-impact journals and the discovery of genuinely new mechanisms. Besides all these challenges, a lack of international trust continues to be a problem, and tensions are sustained in part by events in China. In 2024, for instance, US intelligence officials reported that Chinese biotech firms had transferred intellectual property of US clients to Chinese authorities without the clients' consent (see go.nature.com/4twedie). AstraZeneca was not involved in any stage of the study design, data collection, analysis, manuscript drafting or the decision to publish.Non-financial competing interests: Jing Qian provides strategic advisory services to AstraZeneca's leadership. This relationship is disclosed in the interest of transparency. How China is vying to attract the world's top scientific talent Scalable and multiplexed recorders of gene regulation dynamics across weeks Innovative CAR-T therapy destroys cancer cells without dangerous side effects First ‘practical PhDs' awarded in China — for products rather than papers ‘It means I can sleep at night': how sensors are helping to solve scientists' problems Humanoid robots step up their game: how useful are the latest droids? Nu Quantum are seeking applications for an AMO Physicist Nu Quantum are seeking applications for a Senior AMO Physicist How China is vying to attract the world's top scientific talent An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, delivered to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. , Article number: (2026) Cite this article We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply. Soft and conducting organic materials are ideal candidates for stretchable bioelectronics and wearable devices. Despite recent advances, our understanding of conducting polymer nanostructures and how they arise remains incomplete, given the limited high-resolution studies and molecular-level descriptions of these systems. Here, we employ cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to investigate the evolution of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) morphology in solution and the resulting solid state structure in the presence of ionic and molecular additives. Our results reveal the formation of heterostructural elongated fibers consisting of PEDOT:PSS micelles in solution. Cryo-EM further reveals that additives increase the number of fibrils, in addition to inducing the formation of crystalline domains. We observe that fibril and crystalline phases in solutions act as a template for the growth of these nanostructures in the solid state. Furthermore, exploiting cryo-EM reveals the role of solid-liquid interactions in PEDOT:PSS through the imaging of PEDOT:PSS nanostructures after the hydration of thin films. Hydration leads to the swelling of heterostructural fibers while reducing the crystalline domain size. Such behavior explains the mechanical robustness of PEDOT:PSS thin films processed with various additives as well as the high electrical conductivity of PEDOT:PSS in applications such as organic electorchemical transistors. All cryo-EM micrographs generated in this study and data presented in Fig. 4 are available through ScholarSphere (https://doi.org/10.26207/ayrf-n930). Additional data generated and/or analyzed, which are presented in the Supporting Information, are available from the corresponding authors upon request. Lan, Y.-C. et al. Cold Sintering Enables the Reprocessing of LLZO-Based Composites. Koohfar, S. et al. Improvement of oxygen reduction activity and stability on a perovskite oxide surface by electrochemical potential. Google Scholar Taussig, L. et al. Electrostatic self-assembly yields a structurally stabilized PEDOT:PSS with efficient mixed transport and high-performance OECTs. Google Scholar Tropp, J., Meli, D. & Rivnay, J. 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Humidity-controlled water uptake and conductivities in ion and electron mixed conducting polythiophene films. ACS Appl. Tang, G. et al. EMAN2: an extensible image processing suite for electron microscopy. Alexander, H. et al. A SAXS/WAXS/GISAXS Beamline with Multilayer Monochromator. Pandolfi, R. J. et al. Xi-cam: a versatile interface for data visualization and analysis. J. Synchrotron Rad. Ilavsky, J. Nika: software for two-dimensional data reduction. Download references Funding from the National Science Foundation under Award DMR-1905550 and DMR-2515754 and the Office of Naval Research under Award N00014-19-1-2453 is gratefully acknowledged. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation under Awards NSF 1434799 and NSF 2323716. The co-authors would like to acknowledge the Huck Institutes' Cryo-EM Core Facility (RRID:SCR_024456) for the use of the Krios Titan and Talos Arctica cryo microscopes. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Office of the Director, NIH, under award number S10OD026822-01 (S.H.C.). The co-authors also acknowledge the use of the Penn State Materials Characterization Lab. The authors acknowledge Valerie A. Ogoe and Emily C. Detwiler for assistance with sample preparation and characterization. This research used resources of the Advanced Light Source, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility under contract no. Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Masoud Ghasemi, Farshad Nazari, Joshua T. Del Mundo, Yi-Chen Lan, Po-Hao Lai, Esther W. Gomez & Enrique D. Gomez Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Masoud Ghasemi, Louis Y. Kirkley & Enrique D. Gomez Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Mohammed K. R. Aldahdooh Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Dhruv Gamdha & Baskar Ganapathysubramanian Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Sung Hyun Cho Biomedical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Esther W. Gomez Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar conceived the scientific framework. designed experimental protocols, coordinated the experimental work, performed the cryo-EM and STEM-EELS measurements, and TEM analysis with the help of M.KR.A. and F.N., supervised by E.D.G. performed the complementary cryo-EM measurements of PEDOT:PSS systems. performed mechanical testing of PEDOT:PSS thin films. performed scattering characterization of solution and solid samples supervised by E.W.G. fabricated free-standing thin films for dry and hydrated thin films with the help of Y.L. measured the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS thin films. performed the quantitative GRATEv2 analysis of cryo-EM micrographs supervised by B.G. drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the editing and interpretation. Correspondence to Enrique D. Gomez. The authors declare no competing interests. Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available. Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Reprints and permissions Ghasemi, M., Kirkley, L.Y., Nazari, F. et al. Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy reveals assembly and nanostructure of PEDOT:PSS. Nat Commun (2026). Download citation Received: 04 May 2025 Accepted: 16 January 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68890-7 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. 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Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Nature Communications , Article number: (2026) Cite this article We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply. Manipulating the selectivity-determining step in the hydrogenation of nitrogen-containing intermediates is critical to achieving high ammonia selectivity in electrocatalytic nitrate reduction. Here, we propose a molecular interface engineering strategy that functionalized with thiol-anchored aromatic ligands to regulate the interfacial binding affinity and activation of key nitrogen-containing intermediates on silver nanocube surfaces. By systematically varying the electronic properties of the substituents, we identify 4-(methylthio)benzaldehyde as the most effective ligand, increasing the ammonia Faradaic efficiency from 50.8% to 98.9% and achieving a yield rate of 14,366.1 μg h–1 cmgeo–2 at –0.63 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode. In situ electrochemical characterizations combined with theoretical simulations further reveal that 4-(methylthio)benzaldehyde modification promotes the activation of weakly hydrogen-bonded water molecules and accelerates the hydrogenation of *HNO intermediates. This targeted modulation of interfacial binding affinity offers an effective strategy for selectivity control in electrocatalytic nitrate reduction. 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The authors thank Dr. Feng Yang (the Comprehensive Training Platform of the Specialized Laboratory, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University) for her assistance with TEM characterization and Prof. Li Wu (Analytical & Testing Center, Sichuan University) for her help with in situ Raman spectroscopy. These authors contributed equally: Longcheng Zhang, Yuan Liu, Ling Li. School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China Longcheng Zhang, Ting Chen & Xiaodong Guo School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore Longcheng Zhang, Yuan Liu, Pengfei Song, Qian Wu, Justin Zhu Yeow Seow, Kai Tang, Shirong Sun & Zhichuan J. Xu Analytical & Testing Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China Centre for Atomaterials and Nanomanufacturing (CAN), School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Xiaoning Li Centre for Advanced Catalysis Science and Technology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore Zhichuan J. Xu Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar conceived the original concept and initiated the project. prepared the catalyst materials and wrote the manuscript. carried out the theoretical calculations. performed SEM and in situ Raman measurements. conducted the remaining characterizations with assistance from X.L. (XPS), and S.S. (NMR). performed the data analysis. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the manuscript. Correspondence to Xiaodong Guo or Zhichuan J. Xu. The authors declare no competing interests. Nature Communications thanks Lihui Ou and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available. Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Reprints and permissions Zhang, L., Liu, Y., Li, L. et al. Aryl sulfur ligand-modulated silver catalysts with tailored binding affinity for selective nitrate-to-ammonia conversion. Nat Commun (2026). Received: 09 September 2025 Accepted: 01 February 2026 Published: 10 February 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69385-1 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. 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