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People living in rural areas of the United States have poorer outcomes from acute COVID-19. Here, the authors show that higher mortality rates among rural dwellers persist for up to two years after the initial infection, even after accounting for baseline risk factors.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccines containing Omicron subvariant XBB 1.5 were introduced in the United States in 2023. Here, the authors assess the safety of these vaccines by analysing the occurrence of 15 adverse events of special interest following vaccine receipt using electronic health record data.

A love affair with research can be just as heartbreaking as romantic love, says Christopher Schmitt.

A study of retrotransposon activity repurposes a retroelement called R2Tocc to create a programmable system called STITCHR that enables diverse genome edits including efficient, scarless large payload insertions.

Radiometric dating and oxygen isotopes of Pilbara Craton zircons reveal early continent formation via seafloor hydrothermal alteration and subsequent shallow depth partial melting of mafic protcrust some 3565 million years ago.

On the electrocardiogram, the PR interval reflects conduction from the atria to ventricles and also serves as risk indicator of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Here, the authors perform genome-wide meta-analyses for PR interval in multiple ancestries and identify 141 previously unreported genetic loci.

Over the past eight years, the state of Florida has invested close to a billion dollars to attract renowned research organizations to open up shop within its borders. But even with the arrival of several heavyweights, including the Scripps Research Institute and the Max Planck Institute, some continue to question whether the investment was worthwhile. Christopher Mims reports.

Large sequences are integrated site specifically into the human genome without double-strand DNA cleavage.

While GWAS have uncovered susceptibility loci for B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL), much of the heritable risk remains undiscovered. Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis of two existing BCP-ALL GWAS together with an unpublished GWAS to identify risk loci at 8q24.21 and 2q22.3.

Rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu contain some of the molecular building blocks of life on Earth, such as amino acids and nucleobases. They also carry ammonia that formed billions of years ago in cold, distant regions of our Solar System.

Three-dimensional imaging reveals the existence of GPCR domains at the plasma membrane of living cells. The molecular mechanism underlying this spatial organization is energetic coupling of receptors to the curvature of the plasma membrane.

Conserved microbiome features across clinical and geographical variations may enable microbiome-based predictions of outcomes in CD19-targeted CAR-T cell immunotherapy

Neurodevelopmental disorders normally arise from intrinsic brain abnormality. Here the authors show that a motor-learning deficit in 22q11 deletion syndrome may arise from improper development of the skull structure housing a part of the cerebellum.

The study of rare isotopes is hampered by their scarcity, cost and sometimes toxicity. Now polyoxometalate ligands have been shown to facilitate the capture of f-block elements and their characterization. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction structures have been obtained for several molecular complexes, including three of the rare curium-248, from minute amounts (micrograms) of material.

The extent to which COVID-19 vaccination protects against long COVID is not well understood. Here, the authors use electronic health record data from the United States and find that, for people who received their vaccination prior to infection, vaccination was associated with lower incidence of long COVID.

Combination of epidemiology, preclinical models and ultradeep DNA profiling of clinical cohorts unpicks the inflammatory mechanism by which air pollution promotes lung cancer

Hysteresis is observed between circulation states in an ‘atomtronic’ circuit formed from a ring of superfluid Bose–Einstein condensate obstructed by a rotating weak link (a region of low atomic density), and may prove as crucial in future atomtronic devices as it has done in electronic devices.

Aortic valve stenosis (AS) is the most common valvular heart disease. Here the authors identify two new AS loci that also associate with bicuspid aortic valve, aortic root diameter and/or coronary artery disease implicating both developmental abnormalities and atherosclerosis-like processes in AS.

The effectiveness of community-based land protection compared to traditional top-down protection is debated. Here, the authors show that both community-managed forests and traditional protected areas in Madagascar experienced deforestation during a political crisis but the former were especially vulnerable in the post-crisis period.

Cell-mediated cytotoxicity observed in untreated SMA patients’ CSF and brain parenchyma. Spatial transcriptomic and multiplex immunohistochemistry linked cytotoxicity near affected motoneurons. Nusinersen treatment showed no impact on this profile.

Here the authors report that the Taf2 and Taf14 subunits of the yeast TFIID complex interact and mediate binding to chromatin. Binding of Taf2 to Taf14 promotes a conformational rearrangement in Taf14, resulting in a release of the linker region for the engagement with the nucleosome and their association with DNA is essential for transcriptional regulation.

Understanding the emergence, evolution, and transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) is essential to combat antimicrobial resistance. Here, Munk et al. analyse ARGs in hundreds of sewage samples from 101 countries and describe regional patterns, diverse genetic environments of common ARGs, and ARG-specific transmission patterns.

Odor identity remains stable despite changes in concentration yet the neural mechanisms are relatively unknown. Here the authors test a primacy coding model using an optogenetic masking paradigm in mice to show that a set of earliest activated receptors are sufficient to make decisions about odor identity across concentrations.

The expression of oncogenic MYC paralogs in small cell lung cancer is mutually exclusive. In this study, the authors show that MYC, but not MYCN or MYCL, represses BCL2, resulting in cells that are uniquely sensitive to apoptosis, and find that CHK1 and AURKA inhibitors may be useful for treating these cancers.

Genome-wide data from 400 individuals indicate that the initial spread of the Beaker archaeological complex between Iberia and central Europe was propelled by cultural diffusion, but that its spread into Britain involved a large-scale migration that permanently replaced about ninety per cent of the ancestry in the previously resident population.

High-coverage, ultra-long-read nanopore sequencing is used to create a new human genome assembly that improves on the coverage and accuracy of the current reference (GRCh38) and includes the gap-free, telomere-to-telomere sequence of the X chromosome.

Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

Obtaining data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from healthy human populations is difficult. Here, Hendriksen et al. use metagenomic analysis to obtain AMR data from untreated sewage from 79 sites in 60 countries, finding correlations with socio-economic, health and environmental factors.

Oxygen isotopic evidence from Jack Hill zircon crystals suggests that meteoric (fresh) water interacted with crustal magma systems four billion years ago, meaning that the hydrological cycle began at or before this time.

2D MXene hydrogels are promising for diverse applications. Here, the authors report a universal 4D printing technology to manufacture MXene hydrogels with customizable geometry, high conductivity, and efficient pseudocapacitive energy storage ability.

A major geochemical change that occurred 3.9 billion years ago, was probably related to a transition from impact-dominated to internal-heating-dominated thermal regimes on Earth, according to analysis of isotopic and geochemical data from dated detrital zircon crystals in the Jack Hills, Western Australia

Universal quantum logic operations with fidelity exceeding 99%, approaching the threshold of fault tolerance, are realized in a scalable silicon device comprising an electron and two phosphorus nuclei, and a fidelity of 92.5% is obtained for a three-qubit entangled state.