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This study explores four decades of biodiversity change across the tree of life in Germany’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by sequencing standardized biota samples from a long-term pollution monitoring archive.

Recently released documents give the inside story of Otto Hahn's 1944 Nobel prize in chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. They reveal flaws in the award-making process — and an attempt to rewrite history.

White matter aging leads to degenerative and inflammatory changes. Here the authors show that microglial dysfunction exacerbates glial CXCL10 expression, harmful CD8⁺ T cell recruitment, myelinated axon damage and functional decline in aging mice.

Exome sequencing within a structured diagnostic process for rare diseases in Germany shows how facial image analysis and machine learning can guide variant prioritization and uncover many ultrarare diseases.

In this phase 1/2 trial, the authors show that INO-3107, a DNA immunotherapy designed to elicit an immune response against HPV-6 and -11 recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, is well-tolerated and demonstrates an antigen specific immune response resulting in surgical reduction in 81% of trial participants.

Attenuating effects of the ketogenic diet on colorectal cancer (CRC) cell growth has been previously described. Here, using a mouse model of CRC with a humanized microbiome, the authors identify a shift toward gut bacterial species that produce stearic acid in ketogenic conditions, resulting in elevated levels of free stearate in the gut lumen, which they then show exhibits tumor-suppressing properties.

The mechanisms of intratumoral subtype heterogeneity in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remain unclear. Here, the authors analyse PDAC tumours and preclinical models using multi-omics and imaging; they demonstrate that AP1 dichotomy influences tumor plasticity, heterogeneity, and immune response, with potential therapeutic implications.

Myocardial tissue undergoes steady functional decline when cultured in vitro. Here, the authors report a protocol for culture of human cardiac slices that allows maintenance of contractility for up to four months, and show that the model is suitable for evaluation of drug safety, as exemplified for drugs interfering with cardiomyocyte repolarization.

Metastatic dissemination in breast cancer patients occurs early in malignant transformation, raising questions about how disseminated cancer cells (DCC) progress at distant sites. Here, the authors show that DCCs in bone marrow are activated via IL6-trans-signaling and thereby acquire stemness traits relevant for metastasis formation.

Transancestral GWAS meta-analysis in 160,420 individuals identifies 139 loci associated with refractive error, including myopia. Newly identified genes implicate pathways involved in eye growth and light signaling cascades.

Experimental archaeological ballistic modelling suggests that lesions on 120,000-year-old deer skeletons from Neumark-Nord, Germany, were caused by close-range use of thrusting spears on the part of Neanderthals.

Resilience to drought is crucial for tree survival under climate change. Here, DeSoto et al. show that trees that died during drought were less resilient to previous dry events compared to surviving conspecifics, but the resilience strategies differ between angiosperms and gymnosperms.

This report by the Consortium for Refractive Error and Myopia uses gene-environment-wide interaction study (GEWIS) to identify genetic loci that affect environmental influence in myopia development, and identifies ethnic specific genetic loci that attribute to eye refractive errors.

Intestinal stem cells are responsible for replenishing cells within the high-turnover intestinal epithelium. Here they show that ribosome dynamics affect intestinal stem cell identity through a mechanism that is triggered by changes in nutrient availability.

Christer Betsholtz, Christine Klein, Maria Sobrido and colleagues report the identification of mutations in the gene encoding PDGF-B that cause idiopathic basal ganglia calcification. They also show that mice carrying hypomorphic Pdgfb alleles develop brain calcifications.

Temporal multi-omic analysis of tissues from rats undergoing up to eight weeks of endurance exercise training reveals widespread shared, tissue-specific and sex-specific changes, including immune, metabolic, stress response and mitochondrial pathways.

The authors summarize the data produced by phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a resource for better understanding of the human and mouse genomes.

How long does the average person sleep? Here, Kocevska et al. conducted a meta-analysis including over 1.1 million people to produce age- and sex-specific population reference charts for sleep duration and efficiency.

Singh and colleagues show that PDAC phenotypic plasticity is regulated via AP1 enhancer remodeling and modulated by TNF-α⁺ macrophages and pharmacological inhibition of the BRD4–cJUN–CCL2–TNF-α axis restores favorable PDAC subtypes and prognosis.

IL1 signalling pathway has been shown to shape cancer associated fibroblast (CAF) heterogeneity. Here the authors identify a pro-tumorigenic CAF subtype in colorectal cancer characterized by high IL1R1 expression and associated with an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.

A human neural organoid cell atlas integrating 36 single-cell transcriptomic datasets shows cell types and states and estimates transcriptomic similarity between primary and organoid counterparts, showing potential to assess organoid fidelity and facilitate protocol development.

This meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies four genetic loci associated with circulating leptin levels independent of adiposity. Examination in mouse adipose tissue explants provides functional support for the leptin-associated loci.

Satellite data suggest that contemporary climate warming has already resulted in increased productivity and shrub biomass over much of the Arctic, but plot-level evidence for vegetation transformation remains sparse. Now research provides plot-scale evidence linking changes in vascular plant abundance to local summer warming in widely dispersed tundra locations across the globe.

Acidic pH of respiratory aerosols in acidified indoor air settings leads to unfolding of SARS-CoV-2 spike and in consequence to disrupted attachment of SARS-CoV-2 virions to target cells.

A giant planet candidate roughly the size of Jupiter but more than 14 times as massive is observed by TESS and other instruments to be transiting the white dwarf star WD 1856+534.

Analyses of the relationships between temperature, moisture and seven key plant functional traits across the tundra and over time show that community height increased with warming across all sites, whereas other traits lagged behind predicted rates of change.

Galectin-3 is a sugar-binding protein that can inhibit antitumour cytotoxic immunity. Here the authors show that Galectin-3 expressed by tumour cells inhibits LFA-1 on cytotoxic lymphocytes, impairing immunological synapse formation, IFNg secretion, and target cell killing.

This study uses gene expression predictors for the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other brain regions to perform a transcriptomic imputation analysis of schizophrenia, identifying 413 genic associations across 13 brain regions and 36 significantly enriched pathways.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Identifying patients that will respond to a particular therapy remains a key challenge in precision oncology. Here, in gastric cancer, the authors show that circulating tumour DNA can predict recurrence, provided that the signal from white blood cells is filtered out.

Common polygenic variation at chromosome 16p and rare recurrent deletions of 16p11.2 influencing autism risk are associated with reduced expression of genes throughout the 16p region, suggesting functional convergence of rare and common variant effects.

The authors defined a roadmap for investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders. Their proof-of-concept study using the largest available common variant data sets for schizophrenia and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures did not find evidence of genetic overlap.

Christoph Klein and colleagues identify homozygous mutations in the JAGN1 gene in families and individuals with severe congenital neutropenia. They show that JAGN1 is necessary for the differentiation and survival of neutrophil granulocytes.

As children grow, so does their knowledge of language. Sizemore et al. describe knowledge gaps, manifesting as topological cavities, in toddlers’ growing semantic network. These gaps progress similarly, independent of the order in which children learn words.