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Ultra-high-capacity Li–air batteries have low Coulombic efficiency and degrade during re-charging, resulting in a poor cycle life. Redox mediators enable improvements but only at undesirably high potentials. The origin of this high potential and the impact of purported reactive intermediates has now been elucidated by resolving the charging mechanism using Marcus theory.

Here the authors compare genetic testing strategies in rare movement disorders, improve diagnostic yield with genome analysis, and establish CD99L2 as an X-linked spastic ataxia gene, showing that CD99L2–CAPN1 signaling disruption likely drives neurodegeneration.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Wegner et al. apply machine learning to video recordings of walking tasks in people with ataxia and healthy controls using sensor-free motion capture. Their models replicate clinical ratings and detect subtle longitudinal gait changes that are challenging to capture in standard assessments, supporting improved monitoring of disease progression.

This Resource paper presents a global SARS-CoV-2 phylogenetic tree of 4,471,579 high-quality genomes consistently constructed by Viridian, an efficient amplicon-aware assembler.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

Redox mediators are important for improving the rechargeability of metal–air batteries, however, how they affect singlet oxygen formation and hence parasitic chemistry is unclear, hindering strategies for their improvement. Now, the mechanism of mediated peroxide and superoxide oxidation is elucidated, explaining how redox mediators either enhance or suppress singlet oxygen formation.

Here the authors provide an explanation for 95% of examined predicted loss of function variants found in disease-associated haploinsufficient genes in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), underscoring the power of the presented analysis to minimize false assignments of disease risk.

Human transplantation with allogeneic donor organs results in non-matching of MHC and differential presentation of T cell antigens. Here the authors show that in a lung transplanted SARS-CoV-2 infected patient T cell responses generated from the host may not be able to recognise infected cells within the graft and this may contribute to virus persistence.

Asexual-to-sexual switching underpins malaria transmission. Prajapati et al. identify an AP2-G loss-of function mutation and use it as a genetic tool to show that GDV1 is essential for initial ap2-g activation and sexual commitment initiation.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

Experiments in ¹³C nanotubes reveal surprisingly strong nuclear spin effects that, if properly harnessed, could provide a mechanism for manipulation and storage of quantum information.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

Many genetic loci have been identified to be associated with kidney disease, but the molecular mechanisms are not well understood. Here, the authors perform epigenome-wide association studies on kidney function measures to identify epigenetic marks and pathways involved in kidney function.

Serum urate concentration can be studied in large datasets to find genetic and epigenetic loci that may be related to cardiometabolic traits. Here the authors identify and replicate 100 urate-associated CpGs, which provide insights into urate GWAS loci and shared CpGs of urate and cardiometabolic traits.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

The 2022 global mpox outbreak underscored the challenge of distinguishing between monkeypox virus infection and vaccination-induced immunity due to cross-reactive antibodies. Here, the authors develop a machine learning-assisted serological assay that differentiates MPXV infection from vaccination, achieving 88% specificity and 92% sensitivity, paving the way for seroepidemiological studies with improved resolution.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

Samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission contain N-rich organics with prebiotic implications. This material probably formed in the earliest stages of the asteroid’s history possibly even before its water ice melted.

Seismological and geodetic data are used together with a machine learning earthquake catalogue to reconstruct magma migration before and during the 2025 volcano–tectonic crisis at Santorini volcano, indicating a coupling between Santorini and Kolumbo.

Genome-wide association analyses identify new risk loci for heart failure and its subtypes, extending understanding of the underlying biological pathways and disease mechanisms.

Inbreeding depression has been observed in many different species, but in humans a systematic analysis has been difficult so far. Here, analysing more than 1.3 million individuals, the authors show that a genomic inbreeding coefficient (FROH) is associated with disadvantageous outcomes in 32 out of 100 traits tested.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Beneficial effects of fasting combined with endocrine therapy for oestrogen receptor-α-expressing breast cancers can be recapitulated using exogenous glucocorticoid receptor ligands instead of fasting to reduce harmful effects.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Heart failure can be caused by cardiac fibroblasts replacing myocytes. Here, the authors use functional genomic data from fibroblasts, genetic signals enriched in people with heart disease, and gene perturbation analyses to link disease-associated regulatory elements to protein-coding genes.

As presented at the ESMO Congress 2025: Results of the phase 2/3 AGITG DYNAMIC-III trial show that de-escalated chemotherapy based on ctDNA-negative status in patients with stage III colon cancer did not meet non-inferiority for 3-year recurrence-free survival when compared to standard of care, although it enables better informed treatment decisions.

The manuscript uses an integrative approach to generate a comprehensive structure of the multisubunit endocytic TPLATE complex and to study its membrane targeting and its role in membrane deformation during the initial phase of plant endocytosis.

Mature parts of the shallow megathrust beneath Costa Rica are characterized by striking corrugations that may channel fluids, according to seismic images. Nascent sections of the subduction zone plate boundary appear only weakly corrugated.

Genome-wide association meta-analyses identify more than 350 loci associated with atrial fibrillation. A polygenic score derived from these results improves atrial fibrillation risk prediction compared to published clinical and polygenic scores.

Quinones are key electron acceptors in nature, however, the role of their excited states is not fully understood. Femtosecond spectroscopy and quantum calculations on the prototypical parabenzoquinone radical anion provide insight into quinones’ intrinsic electron-accepting ability, revealing how unbound electronically excited states relax to form the ground-state radical anion.

Understanding the process of exciton fission, which occurs in certain organic materials, could lead to the development of more efficient photovoltaic devices. Here, an expression derived from first principles is used to accurately characterize the singlet fission rate of a wide array of materials, reproducing a transition from weak to strong coupling as a function of molecular separation.

Cas9 DNA targeting is inherently sequence specific but not temporally controlled. Here, authors spatiotemporally couple Cas9 activity to target site transcription in eukaryotes and exploit this to preferentially edit the more highly transcribed of two alleles that harbor identical Cas9 targets.

Using data from a single time point, passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate (PACER) estimates the fitness of common driver mutations that lead to clonal haematopoiesis and identifies TCL1A activation as a mediator of clonal expansion.

Federated learning (FL) algorithms have emerged as a promising solution to train models for healthcare imaging across institutions while preserving privacy. Here, the authors describe the Federated Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) challenge for the decentralised benchmarking of FL algorithms and evaluation of Healthcare AI algorithm generalizability in real-world cancer imaging datasets.

A genome-wide association study meta-analysis combined with multiomics data of osteoarthritis identifies 700 effector genes as well as biological processes with a convergent involvement of multiple effector genes; 10% of these genes express the target of approved drugs.

Across 13 longitudinal studies (3,737 adults), the authors show that brain atrophy parallels memory loss, with a stronger coupling in later life. APOE ε4 increases decline, yet genetic risk does not modify the brain–memory relationship.

An expert-elicitation process identifies current methodological barriers for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity, and how technological and procedural development of robotic and autonomous systems may contribute to overcoming these challenges.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.