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The frequency stability of a high-quality silicon nanoresonator is shown to be several orders of magnitude higher than the limit imposed by thermal noise.

Rudensky and colleagues demonstrate a context-dependent differential requirement for Foxp3 for T_reg cell transcriptional and functional programs.

Operating in space, NASA’s Deep Space Atomic Clock, a trapped-ion clock, is shown to have long-term stability and drift that are an order of magnitude better than current space clocks.

The narrow frequency response of quantum harmonic oscillators typically limits their application in radiofrequency electric field detection. Now motional Raman transitions in trapped ions are shown to enable wideband, high-precision radiofrequency field sensing.

Al-Hilal, Chrysovergi et al. identify a role for durotaxis in lung fibrosis and metastatic pancreatic cancer, mediated by the FAK–paxillin mechanosensor complex, and demonstrate therapeutic targeting of this pathway using the small molecule JP-153.

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.

Comparing the frequency of two distant optical clocks will enable sensitive tests of fundamental physics. Here, the authors compare two strontium optical-lattice clocks 690 kilometres apart to a degree of accuracy that is limited only by the uncertainty of the individual clocks themselves.

Nano-electro-mechanical system-based mass spectrometry holds promise for detecting supramolecular assemblies at large molecular weights, but its efficiency is too poor to be practical. Sage et al. overcome this problem using a nanomechanical resonator array, which significantly decreases detection time.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

Afshar, Dammer et al. identify plasma proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease brain pathologies and find that many plasma proteins related to cognitive function are not associated with these pathologies.

The largest harmonized proteomic dataset of plasma, serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples across major neurodegenerative diseases reveals both disease-specific and transdiagnostic proteomic signatures, including a robust plasma profile associated with the APOEε4 genotype.

Mass spectrometry (MS) involves ionization of analytes with spectra dependent upon the mass-to-charge ratio. Here, the authors demonstrate that MS based on nanoelectromechanical systems gives results that are independent of the charge state and allow the mass spectrum of neutral species to be obtained.

Down syndrome causes extensive Alzheimer’s disease pathology in all individuals and has been instrumental in development of the amyloid hypothesis in AD. Here, the authors use proteomics on Down syndrome spinal fluid and brain tissues to illustrate the common and unique changes in DSAD compared to other genetic forms of AD and the more common late-onset form of the disease.

The detection of thermal emission from the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c using the Mid-Infrared Instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope reveals a dayside brightness temperature that disfavours a thick, CO₂-rich atmosphere.

Photonics-based radars offer intriguing potential but face tradeoffs in tunability, complexity, and noise. Here the authors present microwave generation in a photonics platform by heterodyning of two low-noise, self-injection-locked lasers, and demonstrate its advantages in an FMCW radar system.

MultiSTAAR provides a general and flexible statistical framework for functionally informed multi-trait rare variant analysis of biobank-scale sequencing studies by jointly analyzing multiple traits and incorporating annotation 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.

Land use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity change and ecosystem functioning. Here the authors identify thresholds of grassland plant community structure and stability in response to land use intensification.

It is generally assumed that ecologically relevant intraspecific diversity is restricted to DNA sequence variation. Here, Latzel et al.show that epigenetic diversity can increase the productivity of plant populations as well as their ability to suppress competitors.

An analysis of air up to 2 million years old, trapped in Antarctic ice, shows that a major shift in the periodicity of glacial cycles was probably not caused by a long-term decline in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

A network of optical atomic clocks based on three different atomic species is reported and their frequency ratios are measured with uncertainties at or below 8 × 10⁻¹⁸.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are well known breast cancer predisposition genes, however, many variants have not yet been classified for their pathogenicity. Here, the authors analyse a large combined cohort to provide evidence of variant pathogenicity.

A tweezer clock containing about 150 ⁸⁸Sr atoms achieves trapping and optical excited-state lifetimes exceeding 40 seconds, and shows relative fractional frequency stability similar to that of leading atomic clocks.

Genome wide association studies in cancer are used to understand the heritable genetic contribution to disease risk. Here, the authors perform a genome wide association study in European patients with acute myeloid leukemia and identify loci associated with risk of developing the disease.

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is an advanced form of fatty liver disease with complex pathogenic mechanisms. Here, the authors report that SRSF1 deficiency in mice livers provokes deleterious R-loop formation and genotoxicity, which impedes hepatocellular gene expression, metabolism, and lipid trafficking, resulting in NASH-like pathology.

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 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.

Meta-analyses in up to 1.3 million individuals identify 87 rare-variant associations with blood pressure traits. On average, rare variants exhibit effects ~8 times larger than the mean effects of common variants and implicate candidate causal genes at associated regions.

Large genome-wide meta-analysis of clinically diagnosed late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) from 94,437 individuals identifies new LOAD risk loci and implicates Aβ formation, tau protein binding, immune response and lipid metabolism.

Variant-to-gene-to-program is a new approach to building maps of genome function to link risk variants to disease genes and to convergent signalling pathways in an unbiased manner; its strength is demonstrated in coronary artery disease.

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.

NASA and Germany have spent 15 years and billions of dollars on SOFIA, an airborne telescope that is about to produce its first results. Eric Hand asks whether the science will justify the cost.

Genome-wide analyses identify common variants associated with 11 distinct neuropathology endophenotypes, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Swanton and colleagues present a clonal expression signature, ORACLE, which, in combination with clinicopathological and molecular risk factors, can predict survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and they prospectively validate its prognostic value.

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.

The Csu pili of the multidrug-resistant nosocomial pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii assemble into an ultrathin zigzag architecture secured by a clinch mechanism that provides the pilus with high mechanical stability and superelasticity.

A dataset of coding variation, derived from exome sequencing of nearly one million individuals from a range of ancestries, provides insight into rare variants and could accelerate the discovery of disease-associated genes and advance precision medicine efforts.