Search

CRISPR-based diagnostics are often limited by complex workflows and poor validation. Here the authors develop and validate a one-pot asymmetric CRISPR assay, which permits rapid and sensitive diagnosis of tuberculosis in a format which is suitable for resource-limited settings.

Two out of 15 dogs from households with confirmed human cases of COVID-19 were asymptomatically infected with SARS-CoV-2 and showed antibody responses to the virus.

There has been recent interest in understanding why the biodiversity-productivity relationship varies among studies and across scales. Here Fei et al. show that climatic variation drives forest biodiversity-productivity relationships at large spatial scales, whilst biotic and abiotic factors are important in given climate units.

Gammons et al. describe how the clustering of the Wnt receptor complex in clathrin-coated locales allows Axin and GSK3 to dock at adjacent tails of the LRP6 co-receptor to assemble a signalosome that transduces the Wnt signal to the nucleus.

Typical quantum error correcting codes assign fixed roles to the underlying physical qubits. Now the performance benefits of alternative, dynamic error correction schemes have been demonstrated on a superconducting quantum processor.

Reforestation is a key climate change mitigation strategy, but global maps of its potential are widely criticized. This study shows that addressing those critiques substantially refines estimates of the places with reforestation potential.

Prostate cancer (PrCa) involves a large heritable genetic component. Here, the authors perform multivariate fine-mapping of known PrCa GWAS loci, identifying variants enriched for biological function, explaining more familial relative risk, and with potential application in clinical risk profiling.

Systematic discovery of proteins interacting with low-abundance RNAs is challenging. Here, the authors develop an enhanced HyPro technology to identify proteins associated with compact RNA compartments and single RNA molecules, revealing early defects in ALS-linked mutant C9orf72 transcripts.

Fuelbreaks are treated areas of land that mitigate the spread of wildfires. Dent and colleagues present a method for determining optimal placement using network science and partitioning through optimization with the D-Wave hybrid quantum solver.

The BabyScreen+ study offered genomic screening to 1,000 newborns in Australia, and showed that the approach is feasible and positively received by families, leading to molecular diagnoses in 1.6% of babies.

Two-dimensional polyaramid polymers are synthesized to form nanofilms that exhibit the lowest gas permeability of any polymer by orders of magnitude, despite lacking crystallinity, enabling molecular-scale nanomechanical resonators and barrier materials.

A longitudinal analysis of viral expansion and clearance rates in 60 individuals sampled daily during acute infection reveals high inter-individual variation in infectious virus shedding, which may contribute to superspreading.

Association analyses in over 1 million individuals identify 535 new loci influencing blood pressure traits. The results provide new insights into blood pressure regulation and highlight shared genetic architecture between blood pressure and lifestyle exposures.

Using 7T resting-state functional MRI data, the authors investigate the effective connectivity of basal forebrain areas in a transdiagnostic sample of patients with anxiety and depression and healthy controls.

A compact platform for quantum magnetometry and thermometry can be created by integrating nitrogen–vacancy-based quantum sensing with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology.

Patricia Munroe, Christopher Newton-Cheh, Andrew Morris and colleagues perform association studies in over 340,000 individuals of European ancestry and identify 66 loci, of which 17 are novel, involved in blood pressure regulation. The risk SNPs are enriched for cis-regulatory elements, particularly in vascular endothelial cells.

In gastrointestinal stromal tumours early mutations in known genes are frequently followed by chromosome 14q deletion. Here the authors find mutations resulting in loss of MAX protein expression conserved between primary tumours and metastases in the same patients, suggesting thatMAXmutation is an early event.

In geometrically frustrated magnets, long-range magnetic order is typically suppressed, whereas at the same time non-trivial spin correlations are observed. Using time-domain terahertz spectroscopy, the authors find evidence for extended quantum string-like excitations in the quantum spin ice material Yb₂Ti₂O₇.

Theory and simulations predict scale-invariant concentration fluctuations during diffusion in liquids, but on Earth, large-scale fluctuations are damped by gravity. Microgravity experiments by Vailatiet al. reveal the scale-invariant nature of diffusion, associated with fractal fronts and long-ranged correlations.

Quantum spin Hall edge states are protected by time-reversal symmetry and are expected to disappear in a strong magnetic field. Here, the authors use microwave impedance microscopy and find, surprisingly, edge conduction in mercury telluride quantum wells that survives up to 9 T with little change.

Intentional defect creation in graphene is key to engineering its electrical, chemical, magnetic and mechanical properties. Robertsonet al. create defects by electron beam irradiation with sub-knock-on damage threshold, and show control over the defect position at the nanoscale and over the defect complexity.

This work introduces a pedigree-derived benchmark for single-nucleotide variants, indels, structural variants and tandem repeats, offering a variant map to validate sequencing workflows or to support the development and evaluation of new variant callers.

The performance of single-crystal perovskite solar cells has been limited by interfacial loss at the perovskite/charge transport layer. Here, authors fabricate an asymmetric substrate stack through space-confined inverse temperature crystallization, achieving maximum device efficiency of 24.32%.

Predicting declines in commercially harvested species is crucial to avoid overexploitation. An analysis of historical whaling records identifies early warning signals in body size and abundance data 40 years before the collapse of whale stocks.

A connectome of the right optic lobe from a male fruitfly is presented together with an extensive collection of genetic drivers matched to a comprehensive neuron-type catalogue.

Direct wavefront sensing with laser ‘guide stars’ is used in astronomy and microscopy to correct for optical aberrations. Wang et al.use near-infrared guide stars to extend this approach to the highly scattering mouse brain, allowing high-resolution fluorescence imaging at 700μm depth.

Assays for catalytic systems—particularly ones with simple colorimetric readouts—are useful for the rapid evaluation of performance. Here, the authors report an assay based on a concurrent colour-forming reaction working across a wide range that can be stopped to allow measurements and subsequently restarted.

Ion channels are often an assembly of proteins, but it is not clear if protein combinations have additive effects or function to prevent binding of other proteins. Here, the authors show that β and γ subunits can assemble into the same BK complex, and the constituents of the complex have an effect on its function.

Aligning the resonances of sets of optical cavities is necessary for advanced photonics and sensing applications. Here, the authors introduce resonant photoelectrochemical etching as a method to collectively and permanently tune the resonant wavelengths of ensembles of resonators on a photonic chip.

Baleen whales migrate from high latitude feeding grounds to subtropical reproductive winter grounds, translocating limiting nutrients across ecosystems. This study estimates the latitudinal movement of nutrients from carcasses, placentas and urea for four species of baleen whales that exhibit annual migrations.

PENSIEVE-AI is a drawing-based, digital cognitive test that can be self-administered in <5 min. It matches traditional tests in detecting cognitive impairment and dementia, offering promise for early detection in literacy-diverse populations.

Impacts from a climate event can cascade through natural, anthropogenic and socio-economic systems. Here the authors assess cascading climate impacts on the EU and identify intervention points for adaptation related to water, livelihoods, agriculture, infrastructure and economy, and violent conflict.

This protocol outlines an extracellular vesicle detection approach in which reagent-loaded liposomes fuse with extracellular vesicles directly in patient blood to sensitively detect RNA within the extracellular vesicles.

A pan-betacoronavirus vaccine will likely require the elicitation of antibodies against spike regions conserved across diverse coronaviruses. Here, authors computationally engineer and experimentally validate immunogens to elicit antibodies against two such spike regions.

Single-cell CRISPR screens enable high-throughput analysis of how genetic changes affect individual cells. Here, authors present GPerturb, a method that accurately detects and quantifies gene-level effects of perturbations, with uncertainty estimates, revealing complex biological interactions.

Modelled supply curves show that, with policy reform and technological innovation, the production of food from the sea may increase sustainably, perhaps supplying 25% of the increase in demand for meat products by 2050.

A biophysical model uses knockdown or overexpression data to infer splicing factor activity.

Exposure of mice to high fructose during gestation or early postnatal life causes decreased microglial phagocytosis during brain development and leads to anxiety-like behaviour in adolescence.

In a phase 2 trial of adults with neurofibromatosis type 1 and inoperable/growing plexiform neurofibromas, treatment with the MEK inhibitor selumetinib resulted in an objective response rate of 63.6% and improvement in other patient outcomes, with additional biopsy-based data providing further information on drug activity.

Base lesions can be directly repaired by oxidative dealkylation catalysed by AlkB in bacteria and by ABH2/ABH3 in man. Several structures of AlkB and ABH2 bound to dsDNA are solved. These structures reveal why AlkB prefers ssDNA to dsDNA substrates, and how ABH2 differs structurally, to allow it to repair dsDNA.

Resonant soft X-ray scattering characterization of the cuprate superconductors La_1.875Ba_0.125CuO₄ and YBa₂Cu₃O_6.67 shows that the orbital symmetry of the charge density waves is a key feature determining their properties.

Small nanoparticles with controlled morphologies can be prepared for catalysis applications by colloidal methods using stabilizing ligands. A solvent-extraction method has now been described that removes the ligands without affecting the morphology of the nanoparticles, or their catalytic activity over a range of reactions.

Phylogenetic and biogeographic modelling show that high-latitude Antarctic nearshore habitats have been an evolutionary sink for species diversity of notothenioids, which dominate teleost fish diversity in the Southern Ocean.

Mechanochemical reactions between solid phases can be triggered by localized melting caused by deformation-induced heating.