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A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

A comprehensive study of the Kepler-138 system reveals the twin nature of Kepler-138 c and d and the presence of a fourth planet. Remarkably, the warm-temperate planet Kepler-138 d is probably composed of 50% volatiles by volume, indicative of a water world, rather than a rocky world, despite its small ~1.5 R_⊕ size.

Observations of a luminous quasar from the high-resolution spectrometer Resolve aboard XRISM revealed highly inhomogeneous wind structure outflowing from a supermassive black hole, which probably consists of up to a million clumps.

In this study, the authors describe SANA, a nitroalkene derivative of salicylate, as a potential activator of creatine-dependent energy expenditure and thermogenesis in adipose tissue. Preclinical and clinical data from this paper also suggest that SANA improves glucose homeostasis and promotes weight loss in mice and humans.

In Arabidopsis thaliana, downregulation of the floral repressor FLC in response to cold occurs through a mechanism in which the FLC activator FRIGIDA is sequestered into biomolecular condensates away from the FLC promoter.

This study reconstructs the evolution of leaf venation networks, describing the transition from fewer, corrugated veins to high vein density and smoother loops. It also suggests herbivory as a potential driver of venation architectural changes.

Antibody-mediated SARS-CoV-2 uptake by monocytes and macrophages triggers inflammatory cell death that aborts the production of infectious virus but causes systemic inflammation that contributes to COVID-19 pathogenesis.

In contrast to conventional thermal annealing approaches, the authors report on the self-assembly of complex mixtures of DNA at room or physiological temperature for generating user-defined programmable nanostructures capable of shape selection and transformation.

This study reveals that population aging intensifies heat- and cold-related deaths, more so than climate change, in 50 countries. At 1.53 °C global warming, aging contributes to rising heat-related deaths, offsetting declines in cold related death.

Gene expression is inherently dynamic, due to complex regulation and stochastic biochemical events. Here the authors train a deep neural network to predict and dynamically control gene expression in thousands of individual bacteria in real-time which they then apply to control antibiotic resistance and study single-cell survival dynamics.

Animals respond rapidly and precisely to a variety of sensory stimuli, but the neural mechanisms supporting this flexibility are not fully understood. Here the authors describe a model of adaptive sensory processing based on functionally-targeted stochastic modulation, and find evidence for this co-variability in macaque V1 and middle temporal area.

Phase-resolved mid-infrared observations from JWST of the hot gas giant WASP-43b detect a day–night difference of 659 ± 19 K. Comparison with climate models shows that the observations are compatible with cloudy skies, at least on the nightside, and the lack of methane detection suggests the presence of disequilibrium chemistry.

Targeting cancer stem cells (CSCs) has great potential in anti-cancer treatment. Here this group reports the role of antibiotic Nifuroxazide as a potent anti-CSC compound and fabricates it into an anti-breast CSC prodrug using click chemistry strategy.

The dayside thermal emission spectrum and brightness temperature map of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-18b obtained from the NIRISS instrument on the JWST showed water emission features, an atmosphere consistent with solar metallicity, as well as a steep and symmetrical decrease in temperature towards the nightside.

The mechanisms of neurovascular adaptations underlying stress resilience remain unclear. Here the authors show that the astrocytic endocannabinoid system modulates the blood–brain barrier changes during stress in adult mice.

Optimization of antiviral therapy can be crucial in the management of Ebola virus outbreaks. Here, Madelain et al. use an integrative mathematical model to correlate the dose and the time of treatment initiation with survival rate, enhanced immune response and viral clearance.

Climate affects dynamics of infectious diseases, but the impact on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) epidemiology isn’t well understood. Here, Baker et al. model the influence of temperature, humidity and rainfall on RSV epidemiology in the USA and Mexico and predict impact of climate change on RSV dynamics.

Differences in virulence across the Listeria monocytogenes species are determined by the fine-tuning of SigB pathway responsiveness and reflect host adaptation.

The medium-resolution transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-39b, described using observations from the Near Infrared Spectrograph G395H grating aboard JWST, shows significant absorption from CO₂ and H₂O and detection of SO₂.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

NKp46 recognizes externalized calreticulin, which translocates from the ER to the cell membrane during ER stress, indicating a danger-associated molecular pattern that eliminates ER-stressed cells.

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium is an important healthcare-associated pathogen and genomic analyses could inform targeted interventions. Here, the authors optimise an analysis pipeline for identification of putative transmission events using core genome multilocus sequence type clustering and split kmer analysis.

Favipiravir has broad-spectrum antiviral activity against a variety of RNA viruses. Here the authors investigate the safety, pharmacokinetics and anti-SARS-CoV-2 efficacy of different drug dosage in the a Syrian hamster model of infection and, combined with genetic analyses, they show that Favipiravir at high doses decrease viral infectivity while inducing the emergence of mutations in viral genomes, decreasing fitness.

Relapse, reinfection and recrudescence can all cause recurrent infection after treatment of Plasmodium vivax malaria in endemic areas, but are difficult to distinguish. Here the authors show that they can be differentiated probabilistically and thereby demonstrate the high efficacy of primaquine treatment in preventing relapse.

Candida albicans, the most common human fungal pathogen, causes local and life-threatening systemic infection. Here, the authors show that absence of tyrosine kinase 2 protects from invasive cutaneous candidiasis.

NK cells control SIV infection in secondary lymphoid tissues in the natural host that typically doesn’t progress toward disease. Here the authors show that this control is associated with terminal NK cell differentiation and improved MHC-E-dependent activity lacking in pathogenic SIV infection.

The oculomotor system keeps the eyes steady in expectation of visual events, inhibiting small fixational eye movements. Here, the authors reveal that this oculomotor freezing reflects tactile temporal expectations and aids tactile perception.

Genome-wide association analyses of prostate cancer in men from sub-Saharan Africa identify population-specific risk variants and regional differences in effect sizes. Founder effects contribute to continental differences in the genetic architecture of prostate cancer.

Endosomal biogenesis is vital for eukaryotic cell physiology and relies on membrane fusion promoted by the CORVET tethering complex. Here, the authors solved the structure of CORVET by cryo-EM and reveal its minimal requirements for membrane tethering.

HAESA and HSL2 are receptors for IDA/IDL-family signaling peptides in plants. Here the authors show that HSL1, previously shown to recognize CLE9, preferentially binds IDA/IDL peptides and regulates leaf epidermal patterning independently of CLE peptides.

Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics analysis of stricturing Crohn’s disease highlights cellular heterogeneity in fibrotic tissue and identifies neighborhoods of fibroblasts and immune cells contributing to this severe disease complication.

Patient-relevant in vitro models remain crucial to study lung cancer progression and heterogeneity. Here, the authors develop an in vitro model of lung squamous cell carcinoma using primary human bronchial epithelial cells from healthy donors, revealing signalling pathways that are critical for early tumour development and invasion.

Allele-preferential transcription factor binding can influence pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma risk loci function. Here, the authors show allele-specific JunB and JunD binding at chr1p36.33 and propose a role for KLHL17 in protein homeostasis by mitigating inflammation.

Cryopreservation is standard protocol prior to using NK cells in immunotherapy. Here the authors show that cryopreservation substantially reduces the clinical utility of these cells owing to a defect in their motility, an effect that might account for failure to treat some cancers with NK cell immunotherapy.

The transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-39b is obtained using observations from the Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy mode of the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph instrument aboard the JWST.

Natural Killer cells regulate foetal growth. Here the authors use a humanized transgenic mouse to demonstrate that specific HLA-C KIR2DL interactions promote changes in maternal and foetal cell transcriptomes, resulting in modifications to placental vasculature, intercellular communications and foetal growth restriction.

Cold-induced silencing of Arabidopsis FLC requires the binding of VAL1 to an intronic motif. Here, the authors show that ASAP and PRC1, two interacting partner complexes of VAL1, mediate co-transcriptional repression and chromatin modulation to effectively co-ordinate different steps in FLC silencing.

Editor summary: A native-mass-spectrometry-based approach analyzes integral membrane protein–lipid complexes directly from near-physiological membrane conditions, providing information about protein oligomeric states, lipid identities, and membrane properties.

A survey of the fitness effects conferred by mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs) in UK Biobank shows that most mCAs—despite being relatively infrequent—are associated with increased fitness. Mosaic loss of the sex chromosomes was more common but these events afforded only small fitness gains.

Analysis of 1.32 billion records of medication data from England, Scotland and Wales reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial declines in dispensing of antihypertensive and lipid-lowering medications, leading to increased risks for future cardiovascular disease.

Engineered living materials (ELMs) embed living cells in a biopolymer matrix to create novel materials with tailored functions. In this work, the authors engineered bacteria to grow novel macroscopic materials that can be reshaped, functionalized, and used to filter contaminated water while also showing that the stiffness of these materials can be tuned through genetic changes.

Calreticulin del52 and ins5 mutations induce two phenotypically distinct myeloproliferative neoplasms in patients. Here the authors show that modeling these mutations in knock-in mice recapitulate the two diseases and highlight how they impact the different hematopoietic compartments.

Here the authors characterize a single-domain antibody that broadly neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 variants with high potency by targeting the heptad repeat 2 (HR2) coiled coil, conserved in sarbecoviruses. Binding to its quaternary epitope blocks membrane fusion, by locking HR2 in its prefusion conformation.

It is now shown that the phase of heteromolecular submonolayer films formed by adsorbates with opposite intermolecular interactions can be controlled by tuning the density of the gas phase of the species with repulsive character.