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The authors test for temperature dependency of ecosystem respiration rates across globally distributed eddy covariance sites, revealing consistent temperature thresholds where ecosystem metabolism changes.

Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in sea water are driving a progressive acidification of the ocean, with as yet unclear impacts on marine calcifying organisms. Simulations with an Earth system model suggest that future changes in the marine environment could be more severe than those experienced during the Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum, both in the deep ocean and near the surface.

Embryos at the 2-cell (2C) stage are totipotent, and overexpression of Dux transcription factor convert embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to a 2C-like state. Here the authors show that DUX-mediated 2C-like reprogramming is associated with DNA damage at CTCF sites and CTCF depletion promotes 2Clike conversion.

Reconstructing imagined speech from neural activity holds great promises for people with severe speech production deficits. Here, the authors demonstrate using human intracranial recordings that both low- and higher-frequency power and local cross-frequency contribute to imagined speech decoding.

A high-quality bonobo genome assembly provides insights into incomplete lineage sorting in hominids and its relevance to gene evolution and the genetic relationship among living hominids.

Adipose tissue-resident regulatory T (T_reg) cells are important for maintaining normal metabolic function and adiposity. Li and colleagues demonstrate that insulin signaling directly controls adipose T_reg cell development and functionality

Nail-patella syndrome (NPS) is characterized by nail dysplasia, absent/hypoplastic patellae, chronic kidney disease, and glaucoma and can be caused by haploinsufficiency of LMX1B; however, not all patients harbor pathogenic LMX1B mutations. Here the authors show that loss-of-function variations in upstream enhancer sequences are responsible for a limb specific form of human NPS.

Offline cortical reactivations predict the gradual drift and separation in sensory cortical response patterns and may enhance sensory discrimination.

Mammalians rely on brown adipocytes to generate heat under cold exposure, this thermogenic function requires dynamic remodeling of the mitochondria. Here the authors identify a protein called FAM210A as a key regulator of cold-induced mitochondrial remodeling in brown adipocytes.

Precise regulation of auxin concentration via transport and metabolism determines the developmental fate of plant tissues. Here the authors show that local auxin biosynthesis is regulated by TMK4-dependent phosphorylation of the TAA1 enzyme and that this is required for proper root development.

Changes in the leaf area index alter the distribution of heat and moisture. The change in energy partitioning related to leaf area, increasing latent and decreasing sensible fluxes over the observational period 1982–2016, is moderated by plant functional type and background climate.

Reorganized ocean circulation during Late Ordovician cooling altered oxygenation through the water column, provoking a new look at the extinction mechanism, according to anoxia reconstructions using the I/Ca proxy and Earth system modelling.

XylE is a bacterial xylose transporter and homologue of human glucose transporters GLUTs 1-4. HDX-MS, mutagenesis and MD simulations suggest that protonation of a conserved aspartate triggers conformational transition from outward- to inward facing state only in the presence of substrate xylose. In contrast, inhibitor glucose locks the transporter in the outward facing state.

The authors introduce an agile, all-fiber laser source with three frequency combs. Three EOM combs from a single laser are expanded in a tri-core nonlinear fiber, maintaining high mutual coherence. This system’s performance is showcased through a 2D four-wave mixing spectroscopy experiment.

Present understanding of Plasmodium vivax biology is hampered by its inability to grow in vitro. Here, the authors developed an in vitro culture of its simian counterpart, P. cynomolgi, which shares morphological and phenotypic similarities with P. vivax, initiating a new phase in vivax research.

Cross-linking mass spectrometry (XLMS) allows mapping of protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions, but the analysis of protein-DNA complexes remains challenging. Here, the authors develop a UV light-based XLMS workflow to determine protein-DNA interfaces in reconstituted chromatin and isolated nuclei.

Analyses of mitochondrial genomes from populations in southern Africa provide evidence of a southern African origin of anatomically modern humans and a sustained occupation of the homeland before the first migrations of people appear to be driven by regional climate shifts.

A mathematical model of sexual conflict shows that kin discrimination and group dispersal inhibit harmful male behaviours at an individual level but kin discrimination intensifies sexual conflict at the population level.

Understanding the genetics and physiology of domesticated species is important for crop improvement. By studying natural variation and the phenotypic traits of 413 diverse accessions of rice, Zhao et al. identify many common genetic variants that influence quantitative traits such as seed size and flowering time.

Engineering of yeast transcription factors and design of hybrid DNA promoter elements have resulted in a toolkit for tunable and orthogonal regulation of gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana benthamiana plants.

The skin of zebrafish is patterned by alternating blue stripes and yellow interstripes which arises from guanine crystal-containing cells called iridophores that reflect light. Here the authors track iridophores and see that they do not migrate between stripes and interstripes, but instead differentiate and proliferate in place based on their micro-environment.

Taurine and indicine cattle have different desirable traits making them better adapted to different climates across the world. Here, Low et al. describe a pipeline to produce haplotype-resolved, chromosome-level genomes of Angus and Brahman cattle breeds from a crossbred individual and report on comparisons of the two genomes.

An expert elicitation survey estimates yield losses for the five major food crops worldwide, suggesting that the highest losses are associated with food-deficit regions with fast-growing populations and frequently with emerging or re-emerging pests and diseases.

Plastics are major marine pollutants, and while research suggests that they can release potential harmful additives into seawater, how environmental conditions influence this is unknown. Here the authors determine that byproducts released from microplastics are less under deep-sea conditions versus surface.

AMBRA1 is the main regulator of the degradation of D-type cyclins, and loss of AMBRA1 promotes cell proliferation and tumour growth, and reduces the sensitivity of cancer cells to inhibition of CDK4 and CDK6.

Fabry and colleagues show that cribriform plate-resident lymphatic endothelial cells respond to neuroinflammatory signals by inducing functional changes that enhance antigen capture and presentation from the cerebrospinal fluid and promote leukocyte interactions within the central nervous system.

Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are major pathogens. Here the authors screen 480 structural families of natural products to find compounds that kill Caenorhabditis elegans specifically when they require rhodoquinone (RQ)-dependent metabolism: they identify several classes of compounds and show some compounds kill adult STHs.

HitRS is a two-component system that responds to cell envelope damage in the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Here, the authors identify an RNA-binding protein that regulates HitRS function by modulating the stability of the hitRS mRNA. In addition, the protein binds to over 70 RNAs and affects the expression of genes involved in multiple cellular processes.

High-grade gliomas functionally remodel neural circuits in the human brain, promoting tumour progression and impairing cognition.

A combination of single-molecule long-read sequencing, single-molecule genome mapping and short-read sequencing provides reference-quality de novo assemblies and also shows improved phasing and variant detection over short-read assemblies when mapping to a reference genome.

Urban development in China has led to cropland loss and displacement over the past decades. This study uses a model-based approach to estimate spatial flows of grain, disaggregated by transport modal choices and routes, to explore the increase in carbon emission associated with the transport of cereals, tubers and soybean in China over 1990–2015.

The Michael-type addition reaction is used for carbon-carbon bond formation; however biocatalytic methods for this reaction are rare. Here, the authors generate and exploit mutability landscapes of 4-oxalocrotonate tautomerase to direct the redesign of this promiscuous enzyme into enantio-complementary Michaelases.

Histone variant macroH2A1.2 and chromatin remodeler ATRX act jointly to maintain telomere integrity under conditions of acute replication stress in ALT-positive cancer cells.

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics is the method of choice for the global mapping of post-translational modifications, but matching and scoring peaks with unknown masses remains challenging. Here, the authors present a refined open search strategy to score all peaks with higher sensitivity and accuracy.

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been investigated as a potential treatment for Covid-19 in several clinical trials. Here the authors report a meta-analysis of published and unpublished trials, and show that treatment with hydroxychloroquine for patients with Covid-19 was associated with increased mortality, and there was no benefit from chloroquine.

A selective inhibitor of Sec61 blocks protein entry into the secretory pathway and has therapeutic efficacy in rheumatoid arthritis. A cryo-EM structure of the inhibited Sec61 provides a model for client-selective protein translocation inhibition.

The model–inventory discrepancy in net land-use carbon emissions mainly results from conceptual differences in estimating anthropogenic forest sinks. A revised disaggregation of global land model results allows greater comparability with inventories.

Rapid activation of SnRK2 kinases is central to plant responses to osmotic stress and abscisic acid. Here the authors show that a group of Raf-like kinases are very quickly activated by osmotic stress, and then phosphorylate and activate SnRK2s.

This study developed a highly sensitive method for detecting S-nitrosylation peptides, which allows quantitative identification of S-nitrosylated proteins and reveals a key role of GSNOR1 in regulating endoplasmic reticulum functions in Arabidopsis.

Phosphorylated peptide antigens are present on cancer cells, but their role in cancer immunity is unknown. Here, the authors describe a molecular mechanism, by which a tumor-specific phosphopeptide found in acute myeloid leukemia is recognized by the human immune T cells.

The entry receptor for SARS-CoV-2, ACE2, translocates to the nucleus following infection with this virus. Here, the authors demonstrate that a peptide targeting the ACE2 nuclear localization signal promotes its methylation and abrogates viral replication of SARS-CoV-2 in Syrian hamsters.

The prefrontal cortex interacts with the hippocampus to guide memory, but the mechanisms driving functional connectivity are unknown. Here, the authors demonstrate that the nucleus reuniens elicits synchronizations at beta (15–30 Hz) rhythms during retrieval.

Compound climate events such as floods and droughts together can cause severe socio-economic impacts. Here, the authors analyse global hazard pairs from 1980–2014 and find global hotspots for the occurrence of compound events.

Lake fisheries are vulnerable to environmental changes. Here, Kao et al. develop a Bayesian networks model to analyze time-series data from 31 major fisheries lake across five continents, showing that fish catches can respond either positively or negatively to climate and land-use changes.