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A global research network monitoring the Amazon for 30 years reports in this study that tree size increased by 3% each decade.

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

A low-cost robotic platform using mainly optical detection to quantify yields of products and by-products allows the analysis of multidimensional chemical reaction hyperspaces and networks much faster than is possible by human chemists.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

The authors analyse tree responses to an extreme heat and drought event across South America to understand long-term climate resistance. While no more sensitive to this than previous lesser events, forests in drier climates showed the greatest impacts and thus vulnerability to climate extremes.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

The Amazon rainforest is dominated by relatively few tree species, yet the degree to which this hyperdominance influences carbon cycling remains unknown. Here, the authors analyse 530 forest plots and show that ∼1% of species are responsible for 50% of the aboveground carbon storage and productivity.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

Most conventional tuberculosis diagnostic tests rely on difficult to obtain sputum samples. In this proof-of-concept study, authors analyse whether pulmonary tuberculosis can be detected using exhaled breath condensate samples.

Understanding ligated metal clusters’ reactivities is challenging. Now, a methodology has been developed to explore dynamic mixtures of metal clusters. Interrelated cluster populations are constructed through organometallic precursor chemistry. Structural information on mixed-metal systems is obtained with a bias-free computational framework, and reactivities towards CO₂ and alkynes are investigated in situ.

There are two subtypes of hippocampal theta oscillations that differ in frequency range, pharmacology, and behavioural correlates. Here, the authors report that activity of OLM interneurons in the ventral hippocampus mediates type 2 theta, associated with increased risk-taking in the presence of predator threat.

Tree mortality has been shown to be the dominant control on carbon storage in Amazon forests, but little is known of how and why Amazon forest trees die. Here the authors analyse a large Amazon-wide dataset, finding that fast-growing species face greater mortality risk, but that slower-growing individuals within a species are more likely to die, regardless of size.

Population genomics and chromosome-level genome assemblies for Leishmania strains circulating in Colombia reveal population structure, copy number variation and evolution of amastin families.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

Integrating inventory data with machine learning models reveals the global composition of tree types—needle-leaved evergreen individuals dominate, followed by broadleaved evergreen and deciduous trees—and climate change risks.

Immune-mediated selection pressures impact the clonal evolution of tumours. Here, in hepatocellular carcinoma the authors map spatio-temporal interactions between tumor and immune cells, highlighting the regulatory substrate of intra-tumoural heterogeneity that correlates with regional adaptive immune responses.

Newly emerged pathogens are inherently difficult to forecast, due to many unknowns about their biology early in an epidemic. Here, the authors assess forecasts of a suite of models during the Zika epidemic in Colombia, finding that the models that performed best changed over the course of the epidemic.

Geoffrey Woods, Jan Senderek and colleagues show that biallelic mutations in PRDM12 cause congenital insensitivity to pain. They further show that PRDM12 is expressed in nociceptors and their progenitors and participates in sensory neuron development in Xenopus.

A spatially explicit global map of tree symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi reveals that climate variables are the primary drivers of the distribution of different types of symbiosis.

The pairing mechanism behind the Cooper pairs in unconventional superconductors has been debated since the discovery of the high-Tc cuprates. Here, using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy data for Bi2212 applied to the Bethe-Salpeter equation, the authors suggest that a spin-mediated pairing interaction can account for the high superconducting temperature as well as play a dominant role in the Cooper pair formation.

Topological signals are dynamical variables that can be associated to nodes, links, triangles, etc. Here, the authors formulate Dirac synchronization that uses the Dirac operator to couple locally topological signals defined on nodes and links and show, numerically and analytically, that this gives rise to an explosive synchronization transition and to a coherent rhythmic phase.

Synchronization phenomena, where coupled oscillators coordinate their behavior, are ubiquitous in physics, biology, and neuroscience. In this work the authors investigate a framework of coupled topological signals where oscillators are defined both on the nodes and the links of a network, showing that this leads to new topologically induced explosive transitions.