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Cell state plasticity of neuroblastoma cells is linked to therapy resistance. Here, the authors develop a transcriptomic and epigenetic map of indisulam (RBM39 degrader) resistant neuroblastoma, demonstrating bidirectional cell state switching accompanied by increased NK cell activity, which they therapeutically enhance by the addition of an anti-GD2 antibody.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

The extent to which the onset of bioturbation affected global biogeochemistry during the Palaeozoic remains unclear. Here, the authors integrate bioturbation into the COPSE model, compare output with geochemical proxies, and suggest shallow burrowing contributed to a global low oxygen state during the early Cambrian.

Fire emissions in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes are mainly produced from smouldering combustion of woody debris, according to observationally constrained fire emissions inventories.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

Droughts can lead to large-scale decline in net CO₂ uptake and increased water-use efficiency by plants, according to global analyses of atmospheric carbon isotope data from 2001 to 2011. This suggests that current climate models may underestimate carbon–drought feedbacks.

Iron input into the ocean is a key control on mineral–organic preservation, and therefore the accumulation of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, according to a theoretical model and supported by proxy records for iron phases and cycling.

Deficiency in Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASP) has been associated with autoimmune colitis, but the underlying mechanism is still unclear. Here the authors show that WASP deficiency is associated with defective WASP/DOCK8 complex formation, altered IL-10 signalling, and impaired anti-inflammatory macrophage functions.

The amplification of molecular motion along length scales for macroscopic muscle-like functions provides attractive opportunities ranging from soft actuators to responsive biomedical materials. Here, the authors design a photoswitch amphiphile based on an overcrowded alkene-derived core and develop supramolecular polymer-based artificial muscles.

Multi-ancestry meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for self-reported physical activity during leisure time, leisure screen time, sedentary commuting and sedentary behavior at work identify 99 loci associated with at least one of these traits.

Flickering gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial thunderstorms have been observed, which may be the missing link between gamma-ray glows and TGFs.

Tropical thunderclouds over ocean and coastal regions are shown to emit gamma rays for several hours over areas of up to a few thousand square kilometres, contradicting the quasi-stationary picture of glows.

Timothy Frayling, Joel Hirschhorn, Peter Visscher and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for adult height in 253,288 individuals. They identify 697 variants in 423 loci significantly associated with adult height and find that these variants cluster in pathways involved in growth and together explain one-fifth of the heritability for this trait.

Newly sequenced seagrass genomes unveil a hexaploid ancestry for seagrasses. The transition to marine environments involved fine-tuning of many processes that all had to happen in parallel, probably explaining why adaptation to a marine lifestyle has been rare.

The CMS Collaboration reports the study of three simultaneous hard interactions between quarks and gluons in proton–proton collisions. This manifests through the concurrent production of three J/ψ mesons, which consist of a charm-quark–antiquark pair.

How groundwater recharge changes with global warming is not well constrained. Here, the authors use an empirical relationship to show that groundwater recharge is more sensitive to aridity changes than expected, implying a strong response of water resources to climate change.

The most up-to-date combination of results on the properties of the Higgs boson is reported, which indicate that its properties are consistent with the standard model predictions, within the precision achieved to date.

Crop failures are potentially predictable much further in advance than previously thought possible. Using multiyear forecasts of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Anderson et al. show that crop failures can be predicted before the planting season even begins in some countries.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a causative agent of meningitis and bacteremia. In a combined pathogen and host GWAS, Lees et al. find that host genetic variation is associated with both susceptibility and severity of pneumococcal meningitis, and specific bacterial genetic variation associated with susceptibility.

The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.

Muscle weakness has been associated with morbidity and mortality in older people. Here, the authors have investigated this trait further by performing a genome-wide meta-analysis of grip strength and Mendelian randomization to discover causal relationships between muscle weakness and other diseases.

Identifying patients that will respond to a particular therapy remains a key challenge in precision oncology. Here, in gastric cancer, the authors show that circulating tumour DNA can predict recurrence, provided that the signal from white blood cells is filtered out.

In the treatment of rectal cancer, the additional use of radiotherapy has changed treatment policy dramatically. Compelling data showed that preoperative radiotherapy, in addition to surgery for resectable rectal cancer, is superior to postoperative treatment. Considering evidence-based data, it is hard to understand why preoperative radiotherapy has not been accepted in the US.

Bioavailable nitrogen is increasing due to human activity, rapidly outpacing increases in another essential nutrient, phosphorous. Peñuelas et al.show that this increasing imbalance between these nutrients is likely to significantly affect life and limit carbon storage in this century.

The authors summarize the data produced by phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a resource for better understanding of the human and mouse genomes.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study here shows novel genetic loci to be associated to body fat percentage, and describes cross-phenotype association that further demonstrate a close relationship between adiposity and cardiovascular disease risk.

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with multiple human pathologic conditions. In a genome-wide association study of 79,366 individuals, Jiang et al. replicate four and identify two new genetic loci for serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and find evidence for a shared genetic basis with autoimmune diseases.

Microbes can dwell in highly alkaline environments in the absence of obvious food sources. Here, the authors describe physiological and genomic features of a group of bacteria that live on hydrogen, calcium carbonate and oxygen at a very high pH.

Large collections of defined glycosaminoglycan (GAG) structures have been synthetically challenging to obtain but are required to understand this important class of biomolecules. Now, an efficient platform for synthesizing large libraries of heparan sulfate oligosaccharides has been developed, providing a detailed view into the sulfation code of GAGs.

Global gridded crop models are increasingly used to assess climate change impacts on food production. Here, the authors assess crop yield uncertainty associated with soil data input, reporting that soil type strongly influences yield estimates, and may either buffer or amplify climate-related impacts.

Warming-enhanced microbial respiration can explain marine anoxia patterns across depth, a key driver of the end-Permian mass extinction, according to biogeochemical modelling and geochemical proxy records.