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Lithium peroxide is the crucial storage material in lithium–air batteries. Understanding the redox properties of this salt is paramount toward improving the performance of this class of batteries. Lithium peroxide, upon exposure to p –benzoquinone ( p –C 6 H 4 O 2 ) vapor, develops a deep blue color. This blue powder can be formally described as [Li 2 O 2 ] 0.3   · [LiO 2 ] 0.7   · {Li[ p –C 6 H 4 O 2 ]} 0.7 , though spectroscopic characterization indicates a more nuanced structural speciation. Infrared, Raman, electron paramagnetic resonance, diffuse-reflectance ultraviolet-visible and X-ray absorption spectroscopy reveal that the lithium salt of the benzoquinone radical anion forms on the surface of the lithium peroxide, indicating the occurrence of electron and lithium ion transfer in the solid state. As a result, obligate lithium superoxide is formed and encapsulated in a shell of Li[ p –C 6 H 4 O 2 ] with a core of Li 2 O 2 . Lithium superoxide has been proposed as a critical intermediate in the charge/discharge cycle of Li–air batteries, but has yet to be isolated, owing to instability. The results reported herein provide a snapshot of lithium peroxide/superoxide chemistry in the solid state with redox mediation. 

Abstract The short arms of the human acrocentric chromosomes 13, 14, 15, 21 and 22 (SAACs) share large homologous regions, including ribosomal DNA repeats and extended segmental duplications 1,2 . Although the resolution of these regions in the first complete assembly of a human genome—the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium’s CHM13 assembly (T2T-CHM13)—provided a model of their homology 3 , it remained unclear whether these patterns were ancestral or maintained by ongoing recombination exchange. Here we show that acrocentric chromosomes contain pseudo-homologous regions (PHRs) indicative of recombination between non-homologous sequences. Utilizing an all-to-all comparison of the human pangenome from the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium 4 (HPRC), we find that contigs from all of the SAACs form a community. A variation graph 5 constructed from centromere-spanning acrocentric contigs indicates the presence of regions in which most contigs appear nearly identical between heterologous acrocentric chromosomes in T2T-CHM13. Except on chromosome 15, we observe faster decay of linkage disequilibrium in the pseudo-homologous regions than in the corresponding short and long arms, indicating higher rates of recombination 6,7 . The pseudo-homologous regions include sequences that have previously been shown to lie at the breakpoint of Robertsonian translocations 8 , and their arrangement is compatible with crossover in inverted duplications on chromosomes 13, 14 and 21. The ubiquity of signals of recombination between heterologous acrocentric chromosomes seen in the HPRC draft pangenome suggests that these shared sequences form the basis for recurrent Robertsonian translocations, providing sequence and population-based confirmation of hypotheses first developed from cytogenetic studies 50 years ago 9 . 

Abstract Here the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium presents a first draft of the human pangenome reference. The pangenome contains 47 phased, diploid assemblies from a cohort of genetically diverse individuals 1 . These assemblies cover more than 99% of the expected sequence in each genome and are more than 99% accurate at the structural and base pair levels. Based on alignments of the assemblies, we generate a draft pangenome that captures known variants and haplotypes and reveals new alleles at structurally complex loci. We also add 119 million base pairs of euchromatic polymorphic sequences and 1,115 gene duplications relative to the existing reference GRCh38. Roughly 90 million of the additional base pairs are derived from structural variation. Using our draft pangenome to analyse short-read data reduced small variant discovery errors by 34% and increased the number of structural variants detected per haplotype by 104% compared with GRCh38-based workflows, which enabled the typing of the vast majority of structural variant alleles per sample. 

Abstract Lanthanide permanent magnets are widely used in applications ranging from nanotechnology to industrial engineering. However, limited access to the rare earths and rising costs associated with their extraction are spurring interest in the development of lanthanide‐free hard magnets. Zero‐ and one‐dimensional magnetic materials are intriguing alternatives due to their low densities, structural and chemical versatility, and the typically mild, bottom‐up nature of their synthesis. Here, we present two one‐dimensional cobalt(II) systems Co(hfac)₂(R‐NapNIT) (R‐NapNIT=2‐(2′‐(R‐)naphthyl)‐4,4,5,5‐tetramethylimidazoline‐1‐oxyl‐3‐oxide, R=MeO or EtO) supported by air‐stable nitronyl nitroxide radicals. These compounds are single‐chain magnets and exhibit wide, square magnetic hysteresis below 14 K, with giant coercive fields up to 65 or 102 kOe measured using static or pulsed high magnetic fields, respectively. Magnetic, spectroscopic, and computational studies suggest that the record coercivities derive not from three‐dimensional ordering but from the interaction of adjacent chains that compose alternating magnetic sublattices generated by crystallographic symmetry.