Search

In the second case in which a genetically modified pig heart was transplanted into a living person, the xenografted heart functioned well initially, but antibody-mediated rejection occurred thereafter, pointing to the need for improved strategies to avoid this complication.

In a randomized trial, a remotely delivered weight management intervention for people with long COVID and excess weight improved respective long COVID symptoms and quality of life and resulted in substantial weight loss when compared with a control group, with no serious adverse effects reported.

Genome sequencing and phylogenomic analysis show that the lungfish, not the coelacanth, is the closest living relative of tetrapods, that coelacanth protein-coding genes are more slowly evolving than those of tetrapods and lungfish, and that the genes and regulatory elements that underwent changes during the vertebrate transition to land reflect adaptation to a new environment.

Segmentation and classification of microstructures are required by quality control and materials development. The authors apply deep learning for the segmentation of complex phase steel microstructures, providing a bridge between experimental and computational methods for materials analysis.

Latitudinal ecosystem boundaries in the global upper ocean may be driven by many factors. Here the authors investigate pole-to-pole eukaryotic phytoplankton metatranscriptomes, gene co-expression networks, and beta diversity, finding that geographic patterns are best explained by temperature gradients.

A new development came last week in the saga over JET. Chris Sherwell reports

COVID-19 vaccination has been recommended for children and young people (aged 5–17) in the UK since 2021/2022. In this study, the authors use linked health and administrative data to estimate vaccine uptake in this age group and show that age and adult household vaccination status are associated with uptake.

A consensus cell type atlas for the fly brain provides both an intellectual framework and open-source toolchains for brain-scale comparative connectomics.

Gather scientific evidence on the feasibility and risks of marine geoengineering to guide regulation of research, advise Philip Boyd and Chris Vivian.

CETP inhibitors are being developed for treatment of coronary heart disease. Here, the authors show that the anticipated beneficial effects of lower plasma levels of CETP are shared among individuals of European and East Asian ancestry.

Analysis of HbA1c and FPG levels across 117 population-based studies demonstrates regional variation in prevalence of previously undiagnosed screen-detected diabetes using one or both measures and suggests that use of elevated FPG alone could underestimate diabetes prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.

A recent conference on the environmental effects of nanoparticles leaves Chris Toumey reflecting on the difficulties of carrying out nanotoxicology research that can be used to develop informed environmental regulation.

Adoptive T-cell immunotherapy offers promise to patients who are resistant to standard anti-viral strategies. Here the authors describe clinical observations in patients with viral complications treated with adoptive immunotherapy over the last 15 years.

Analysis of mammalian brain and body mass reveals a curvilinear relationship contrary to assumptions of log-linear power laws. As mammals grow larger, increases in brain mass compared to body mass diminish.

An analysis of the impact of logging intensity on biodiversity in tropical forests in Sabah, Malaysia, identifies a threshold of tree biomass removal below which logged forests still have conservation value.

1000 Genomes imputation can increase the power of genome-wide association studies to detect genetic variants associated with human traits and diseases. Here, the authors develop a method to integrate and analyse low-coverage sequence data and SNP array data, and show that it improves imputation performance.

It may have taken only a decade to repeatedly destabilize the Antarctic Ice Sheet after the last Ice Age as shown by a new data-model study. The ice sheet lost ice for centuries each time before it abruptly re-stabilized again.

Biological computing is a promising field with potential applications in biosafety, environmental monitoring, and personalized medicine. Here the authors create bio-computers using engineered E. coli colonies that respond to chemical gradients, producing different logic functions depending on how they are spatially arranged.

In the continuing debate over Britain's energy policy there is still no shortage of information being published. Chris Sherwell reports

A growing interest in cannabis has led to new career opportunities.

Mastomys natalensis, a mouse found closely to rural human dwellings in Sub-Saharan Africa, is a major reservoir for Lassa Virus (LASV). Here, the authors show that LASV causes transient infections in adult M. natalensis, but persistent infections in young animals despite antibodies. LASV is found in various organs without causing pathology and infected animals efficiently transmit the virus.

Epidemiological analyses coupled with immunological phenotyping suggest that humoral immunity induced by COVID-19 vaccines wanes more rapidly in individuals with severe obesity compared to individuals with a BMI within the normal range.

Repeat expansion disorders are found in all major global populations, and their frequency is up to three times higher than typically quoted, suggesting underdiagnosis or incomplete penetrance.

The genome of the grey short-tailed opossum Monodelphis domestica has been sequenced and analyzed, giving a first peek at a marsupial's genetic code. Of particular interest are the genetics of the immune system, which has been studied as a model for humans, and of the X chromosome for historical reasons.

A series of unexplained elephant mortalities occurred in northwest Zimbabwe in 2020. Here the authors show that six elephants died of bacterial septicaemia associated with a little-reported Pasteurella species.

Climate change and land use change may have independent or interactive effects on species’ distributions. Here, the authors show that changes in bird, lepidopteran and plant ranges across Great Britain are often explained by individual or additive effects of land conversion and temperature change.

Quantifying recombination in halide perovskites is crucial, but quantitative analysis remains rare. Here the authors observe a long-lived and continuously changing photoluminescence decay time due to the high density of shallow defects and substantial rates of charge carrier trapping.

DNA from ancient wolves spanning 100,000 years sheds light on wolves’ evolutionary history and the genomic origin of dogs.

Efficient, large-scale genomic analysis is facilitated on the cloud by a computational tool with error-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities.

This study demonstrates that diatoms with phytochrome photoreceptors can detect and functionally respond to the entire visible light spectrum through these sensors, enabling them to sense depth and regulate photosynthesis accordingly in marine environments.

A positive regulatory environment, combined with a raft of drug approvals that included the first US gene therapy, buoyed the sector in 2017. The FDA's flexibility and focus on marketplace competition is likely to galvanize innovators in the coming year. Chris Morrison reports.

Large-scale sequencing efforts have uncovered a large number of secondary metabolic pathways, but the chemicals they synthesise remain unknown. Here the authors present PRISM 4, which predicts the chemical structures encoded by microbial genome sequences, including all classes of bacterial antibiotics in clinical use.

An optimistic assessment of the radiological consequences of disposing of solid high-level radioactive waste on the ocean floor is published this week. Chris Sherwell reports

The UK Social Research Council (SSRC) has approved a grant application from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) of the University of Sussex to assess the criteria used by the Science Research Council (SRC) for capital projects in basic science. Chris Sherwell reports.

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has substantial impacts on the global climate. This Review outlines ENSO relationships with Africa, outlining their dynamics, impacts on precipitation and projected changes in the future.

Fusion gates are common operations in photonic quantum information platforms, where they are employed to create entanglement. Here, the authors propose a quantum computation scheme where the same measurements used to generate entanglement can also be used to achieve fault-tolerance leading to an increased tolerance to errors.

Bottom-up and top-down approaches are used to quantify global nitrous oxide sources and sinks resulting from both natural and anthropogenic sources, revealing a 30% increase in global human-induced emissions between 1980 and 2016.

Thumbs and brains coevolved in primates. Across living and extinct species, longer thumbs predict bigger brains, highlighting the neural cost of dexterity.

COVID-19 has provided an opportunity to rethink the scientific conference. If online meetings become the norm, how can researchers make the most of them?

Although poverty and mental illness are strongly correlated, it is unclear whether they are causally linked. Using UK Biobank and Psychiatric Genomic Consortium data, Marchi et al. provide evidence of a causal relationship between poverty and some mental illnesses.