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The signalling pathways underpinning cell growth and invasion use overlapping components, yet how mutually exclusive responses occur is unclear. Here, the authors show that alternate isoforms of the ARF GTPase exchange factor IQSEC1 direct phosphoinositide metabolism to control this switch.

Mosses support carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, organic matter decomposition and plant pathogen control in soils across the globe, according to a global survey of soil attributes in ecosystems with and without mosses.

Using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, human embryonic limb development across space and time and the diversification and cross-species conservation of cells are demonstrated.

Names must both represent a volatile hypothesis and provide a key to lasting information.

Dysregulation of lipid metabolism is associated with coronary artery disease (CAD). Here, the authors perform GWAS of the serum lipidome to identify variants associated with lipid species that are putatively in the mechanistic pathway to CAD.

David Adam reports on a new genetic modification technique that may see natural mosquito populations replaced with modified strains that cannot transmit malaria.

Plants must respond rapidly to unpredictable variations in light intensity to maximize photosynthetic efficiency. Here Armbruster et al.identify a potassium antiporter that is critical for accelerating proton fluxes across thylakoid membranes and minimizing energy loss in fluctuating light conditions.

London taxi drivers can get from Buckingham Palace to Big Ben in five minutes and, David Adam discovers, their brains change shape to prove it.

Succinylation is a metabolism-associated post-translational protein modification. Here the authors describe changes to the succinylation of proteins in the brain of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease.

One argument for conserving biological diversity is that it delivers beneficial ecosystem services. However, Kleijn et al.show that the economic benefits of crop pollination are delivered by only a small subset of relatively common species, arguing that threatened species should be considered separately.

Existing approaches to sharing of distributed medical data either provide only limited protection of patients’ privacy or sacrifice the accuracy of results. Here, the authors propose a federated analytics system, based on multiparty homomorphic encryption (MHE), to overcome these issues.

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in mink farms in the Netherlands in the first wave of the pandemic with evidence of human-to-mink and mink-to-human transmission. Here, the authors investigate this outbreak using phylodynamic analysis and show that personnel links and spatial proximity are predictors of transmission between farms.

Producing individual cannabinoids by metabolically engineered microbes has proven challenging. Here, the authors develop a cell-free enzymatic prenylating system to generate isoprenyl pyrophosphate substrates directly from glucose and produce both common and rare cannabinoids at >1 g/L.

Taxonomic monographs have been considered too vast and daunting as a source for studying biodiversity, but this novel study of morning glories combines herbarium specimens with DNA barcodes and high-throughput sequencing to describe new species and discover hidden traits.

The authors assemble and analyse previously generated mycobiome data linked to geographical locations across the world. They describe the distribution of fungal taxa and show that climate is an important driver of fungal biogeography and that fungal diversity appears to be concentrated at high latitudes.

Mangroves are adapted to cope with tropical storms, but might be threatened by rising frequency and intensity of these events. Here the authors document one of the largest mangrove diebacks on record following Hurricane Irma in Florida, and show a greater role of storm surge and ponding rather than wind as a mechanism for mangrove dieback.

Humans have a capacity for hierarchical cognitive control—the ability to simultaneously control immediate actions while holding more abstract goals in mind. The authors show that neural oscillations establish dynamic communication networks within the frontal cortex and that these oscillations coordinate local neural activity with increasing cognitive control.

Prediction of protein structures on the scale of genomes remains a challenge. Here the authors introduce a protein structure prediction method that uses deep learning to predict inter-atomic distances, torsion angles and hydrogen bonds, and apply it to predict the structures of 1475 Pfam domains.

B cells need at least two signals to terminally differentiate into antibody-secreting cells. Pierce and colleagues show that persistent exposure to antigen in the absence of T cell help or ‘pathogen pattern motifs’ leads to B cell death via a calcium-dependent ‘metabolic timer’.

Sekar Kathiresan et al. report genome-wide association studies for polygenic dyslipidemia. From a meta-analysis of seven genome-wide association studies and follow-up in five replication studies, they identify 11 new genetic associations for LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

The red-shouldered soapberry bug, Jadera haematoloma, is a potential model system for developmental plasticity. Here, the authors show that the reaction norm for wing polyphenism has evolved in a recently derived ecotype and identify insulin signaling as a candidate pathway underlying this adaptive change.

A computational approach is used to design modular proteins that bind to synthetic peptides and disordered regions of human proteins with high affinity and specificity.

Part 6: A cryptic response.

High resolution characterisation of the virus specific T cell response to SARS CoV2 provides further understanding to the immune response to the infection. Here the authors apply a reverse phenotyping approach to interrogate the SARS-CoV-2 T cell compartment at single cell resolution.”

Computationally designed sensors map the activity and signaling environment of Ras.

G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) can couple to different Gα protein subfamilies either selectively or promiscuously. Here, the authors use computational approach to show that selectivity determinants are at the periphery of the GPCR—G protein interface and that promiscuous GPCRs more frequently sample the common rather than selective contacts.

Photosynthetic activity is a key determinant of olive productivity in the eastern Mediterranean but may be threatened by intensifying water stress and decreasing solar radiation over the course of the twenty-first century, based on an 8000-year analysis of pollen records.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) computing and data storage are emerging fields that are unlocking new possibilities in information technology. Here, we discuss technologies and challenges regarding using DNA molecules as computing substrates and data storage media.

Denison and colleagues present a computational account of attention—temporal dynamic normalization—which extends the idea of limited attentional resources across space at a single moment to a formal account of limited resources across time at a single location.

The immunoglobulin domain framework of antibodies has been a long standing design challenge. Here, the authors describe design rules for tailoring these domains and show they can be accurately designed, de novo, with high stability and the ability to scaffold functional loops.

The Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 was awarded to David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek for their discovery of how quarks interact within protons.

Genebanks hold comprehensive collections of wild species, wild relatives, and landraces that are useful for genetic improvement. Here, the authors report the genotype of nearly 80,000 wheat accessions using DArTseq technology to show the less explored genetic diversity.

Physical unclonable functions with inherent randomness are promising candidates for secure labeling systems. Here the authors demonstrate such a function using gap-enhanced Raman tags to create high-capacity and high-security labels for anticounterfeiting.

Solving the public health crisis will take time, money and cooperation.

Forecasting unwanted interactions between drugs and chemicals in human body is an important but yet unmet need. Here the authors build networks that can predict comorbidities and drug side effects, by analysing the existing database that compiles effects of drugs and chemicals on human conditions.

Visual input is often noisy and discontinuous, even though the physical environment is generally stable. The authors show that the visual system trades off change sensitivity to capitalize on physical continuity via serial dependence: present perception is biased toward past visual input. This bias is modulated by attention and governed by a spatiotemporally-tuned operator, a continuity field.

Typhoid fever is caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi. Here, Park et al. analyse the genomes of 249 S. Typhi isolates from 11 sub-Saharan African countries, identifying genes and plasmids associated with antibiotic resistance and showing that multi-drug resistance is highly pervasive in sub-Saharan Africa.

Characterization of xylan utilization loci in the butyrate-producing Firmicute Roseburia intestinalis provides mechanistic insight into its growth on different xylan substrates and its ability to co-grow and compete with a xylan-degrading commensal from the Bacteroides genus.

Heilbroner et al. present LIFE, a self-supervised learning framework for imputing laboratory test values at any point in a patient’s journey using electronic health records. LIFE generally outperforms state-of-the-art baselines and enhances adverse event detection when tested on over 1 million oncology records.

This study demonstrates the experimental realization of a complete protocol for quantum key distribution using entangled trapped strontium ions with device-independent quantum security guarantees.