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Humans and monkeys integrated experiential and observational evidence during a two-player task, and the anterior cingulate cortex combined the information sources into a unified neural belief representation that explains behavioural asymmetries.

Although the encoding of horizontal space by place and grid cells is relatively well understood, the manner by which these neurons encode height is not yet known. Here, the authors find that place cell sensitivity to height is weaker than for horizontal distances, and grid cell firing is aperiodic in the vertical dimension, suggesting absent odometry for height. It therefore appears that, in the mammalian brain, volumetric space is not encoded uniformly in all dimensions.

Targeting neurons that regulate energy balance may offer new approaches for obesity treatment. Here, authors show that chemogenetic and pharmacological manipulation of GABAergic neurons in the DRN/vlPAG increases adaptive thermogenesis and reduces weight gain in mice fed a highfat diet.

The authors find that distinct radial glia subtypes generate and support midbrain dopaminergic neurons, revealing specialized function and lineage relationships among the diverse cell types that shape dopamine neuron development.

An analysis of behavioural, eco-morphological and genomic data in 60 species of Lake Tanganyika cichlids reveals a remarkable diversity of temporal activity patterns across species, suggesting that temporal niche partitioning may have played a role in the adaptive diversification of this group.

This report describes a nanobody targeting glycine receptor mGlyR that inhibits its ability to regulate G protein signaling and produces anti-depressant effects in mice providing an immunotherapy approach to potentially treat depression.

Longitudinal calcium imaging reveals the ability of corner cells to synchronize their activity with the environment, with the results implying the potential of the subiculum to contain the information required to reconstruct spatial environments.

The dopamine motivating animals to perform a current behavior also desensitizes local D₂ dopamine receptors. Dopamine signaling is less effective in subsequent rounds, resulting in repetition-induced devaluation of behavior.

This study investigates a calcium-permeable AMPAR–gated microcircuit in the nucleus accumbens during social bonding in prairie voles. By showing that disrupting calcium-permeable AMPAR signaling impairs ensemble-level encoding despite increasing single-neuron selectivity, the work reveals how coordinated ensemble dynamics transform social interaction into enduring attachment.

The bittersweet nightshade Solanum dulcamara produces extrafloral nectar from herbivore-inflicted wounds, without the need for any specialized structure. This nectar attracts ants that defend the plant against two of its native herbivores.

Climate model intercomparison projects have been essential in identifying mechanisms of human-caused climate change, but similar efforts in biodiversity science have lagged behind. This Perspective discusses existing biodiversity model intercomparison projects and identifies opportunities for their advancement in the future.

How do neural circuits evolve to encode new social behaviors? Here we show that in Drosophila santomea, females signal their sexual receptivity by spreading wings in response to male songs, and this recently originated social behavior evolved through the actualization of a pre-existing latent circuit.

The development of RECORD, a high-throughput, customizable system offers an alternative model for unveiling the behavioral strategies leveraged by rodents during naturalistic foraging-like decision-making.

Living in groups allows animals to decrease defenses, enabling other behaviors, but the mechanisms of safety in numbers are unknown. The authors show that fruit flies regulate freezing behavior as a function of group size and identify motion by others, and neurons that detect it, as key to this process.

Not all forest cover is of equal quality. Here, the authors ask whether forest cover or forest structural complexity influences extinction risk in tropical rainforest vertebrates, finding that forest structural conditions are more important than cover alone in terms of buffering species against extinction and population declines.

The physics of swimming at the mesoscale, where nonlinear and time-dependent fluid mechanics prevail, remains poorly understood. Here, the authors use a micropipette force sensor and deep neural network–based image analysis to reveal how Artemia enhances propulsion, establishing a universal force-based scaling law that informs future biomimetic meso-robot designs.

Little is known about the role of variant ionotropic glutamate receptors (IRs) in insect taste. Here the authors characterise the expression pattern of IRs in the Drosophila gustatory system and highlight the role of one receptor, IR56d, in the detection of carbonation

The development of high-performance implantable soft electronics as diagnostic platforms is key to realizing improved health monitoring. Here, the authors design wireless, battery-free, implantable bioelectronics that interface with the osseosurface for chronic musculoskeletal system monitoring.

Pupariation in Drosophila is triggered by the steroid-hormone ecdysone and requires coordination between associated behavioral and body-reshaping motor subprograms. The authors show that coordination requires ecdysone-dependent Dilp8-Lgr3 signaling between the cuticle epidermis and interneurons.

In Drosophila, dopamine sets motivational state during mating by regulating the integration of competing drives in copulation decision neurons, potentially indicative of a more general role for control over neuronal integration time in the regulation of behavioural decisions.

Experiments with untreated municipal wastewaters from 47 countries showed that some samples selected for resistant E. coli, whereas non-resistant bacteria were favored in most cases, providing a nuanced view on resistance evolution in sewage.

Kalium channelrhodopsins (KCRs) are promising tools for optogenetic silencing. Here, the authors show that KCRs inhibit cellular excitability in flies, worms, and fish, establishing them as first-line tools for inhibiting diverse types of excitable cells.

Relatively few lncRNAs have been shown to regulate animal behavior. Here, Saha et al. use mouse genetic methods to show that the lncRNA Pnky can underlie specific mouse behavior by functioning in trans.

Nematode bacterial symbionts were evolved in vitro to resist insect-sequestered plant toxins to improve the insect-killing efficacy of their nematode host.

Breugnathair elgolensis gen. et sp. nov., an early squamate identified from a newly discovered Middle Jurassic skeleton on the Isle of Skye, provides new evidence on the origins of snakes.

Whether paternal pre-conceptual SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts sperm RNA content, or effects offspring phenotypes, has not been previously investigated. Here authors report changes in sperm noncoding RNAs in SARS-CoV-2 infected sires and increased anxiety-like behaviors in offspring.

Here, the authors generated and analyzed run-on sequencing data to observe transcription in species across the tree of life to uncover the origins of the promoter-proximal pause.

Profiling transcriptional crosstalk between promoters and cell-type-specific enhancers allows large gene cargo delivery.

ONIX is a data acquisition system for recording freely behaving mice. It can accommodate a variety of recording technologies, while maintaining minimal impact on animal behavior.

A two-phase machine-learning-based tool making use of high-throughput experimentation is introduced to examine the connections between chemical and protein sequence space and predict productive biocatalytic reactions among substrate and enzyme pairs.

This Perspective proposes a new framework to support the inclusion of Black, Indigenous and people of colour in conservation initiatives.

A large-scale livestock prevalence study in Cameroon identified Brucella abortus as the sole endemic species, primarily affecting cattle, and revealed its genetic link to African strains, underscoring the need for regional surveillance and control.

An automated system for tracking large numbers of fruit flies over time and for detecting their behaviors is presented, and should allow high-throughput quantitative studies of fly behavior.

Place cells in hippocampus encode a map of space, however the role of activity in place map stability is not known. Schoenenberger and colleagues optogenetically manipulate hippocampal firing rates within place fields and show lasting changes in spatial firing patterns through two separate mechanisms.

A flexible, environmentally controlled experimental setup for the study of terrestrial animal dispersal is reported. Its unprecedented scale should enable studies in spatial ecology and permit tests of conservation strategies in the face of environmental change.

A Middle Triassic diapsid is presented that has a distinctive crest consisting of integumentary appendages that are structurally distinct from avemetatarsalian feathers.