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Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

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.

Sympathetic cooling of trapped ions with neutral buffer gases is a widespread technique, but its limitations are not entirely understood. Here, the authors examine barion ions immersed in a gas of calcium atoms, and observe nonequlibrium behaviour through bifurcations in the ions steady-state temperatures.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play a role in intercellular communication, however the precise biogenesis of different populations of EVs are not clear. Here, the authors follow the intracellular trafficking of two proteins before their secretion in EVs and report the biogenesis and protein markers of EV subtypes: ectosomes budding from the plasma membrane as well as exosomes from late endosomes.

A high-resolution update of Antarctic bed topography using mass conservation reveals broad stabilizing ridges for glaciers flowing across the Transantarctic Mountains, and stabilizing slopes beneath Moscow University, Totten and Lambert glacier system.

Estimates of chikungunya virus prevalence across 180 countries and territories show that Southeast Asia, Africa and the Americas carry the most substantiative burden, which would require reactive vaccine campaigns against new outbreaks and routine immunization in heavily endemic areas to reduce transmission.

Analysis of shallow-water marine carbonate samples from 101 stratigraphic units allows construction of a record of lithium isotopes from the past 3 billion years, tracking the evolution of the global carbon and silicon cycles.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

The identification of T cell epitopes is a critical step in understanding the immune response to infection and in designing vaccine based approaches. Here the authors introduce a frame work of antigen discovery called MHCvalidator and Epitrack to identify new antigenic features for T-cell COVID-19 vaccines and characterise a novel non-canonical epitope from a truncated Spike variant and mutation of an immunodominant epitope in the BNT162b4 vaccine.

Sequencing the microbial species present in complex metagenomic samples is made easier with a method that groups genes by co-abundance.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

Federated learning improves prediction of the histological response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with triple-negative breast cancer, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach for analysis of multicenter cohorts of patients with rare diseases.

Trained on 1.5 million whole-slide images from 100,000 patients, a pathology foundation model is shown to improve performance of specialized models in detection of rare cancers.

Mathieu Blanchette and colleagues report whole-genome sequencing of three Brassicaceae species, Leavenworthia alabamica, Sisymbrium irio and Aethionema arabicum. They include comparative genomic analysis with 6 additional crucifier genomes, identify and characterize over 90,000 conserved noncoding sequences and provide a map of functional noncoding regions in plant genomes.

In the dose-escalation part of the ongoing phase 1/2 LIBRA4 trial, patients with relapsed/refractory peripheral T cell lymphoma received T cell antigen receptor beta-chain constant domain 1 (TRBC1)-targeted chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy, showing limited toxicity and encouraging preliminary clinical responses.

A multiomic approach profiles the three-dimensional, epigenetic and mutational landscapes of 80 metastatic prostate cancer biopsies. Hi-C experiments identify an extrachromosomal circular DNA at the AR locus associated with therapy resistance.

Sepsis induces a period of immunosuppression which can be problematic in the face of subsequent infectious challenge. Here the authors show the presence of PD-L1 expressing regulatory plasma cells that can inhibit T cells in a murine model and in patients with sepsis.

Authors utilise a murine model of Escherichia coli infection to immunologically characterise the properties of their live attenuated vaccine candidate. They also demonstrate protection of newborn mice following maternal immunisation.

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.

Lean body mass is a highly heritable trait and is associated with various health conditions. Here, Kiel and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for whole body lean body mass and find five novel genetic loci to be significantly associated.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

Rates of ice-mass loss from southwestern Greenland this century will exceed the maximum rate over the past 12,000 years, and would not be the result of natural variation.

Marine microbial eukaryotes and zooplankton display enormous diversity and largely unexplored physiologies. Here, the authors use metatranscriptomics to analyze four organismal size fractions from open-ocean stations, providing the largest reference collection of eukaryotic transcripts from any single biome.

Previous studies have shown that both rare pathogenic mutations and common genetic variants contribute to the familial risk of developing colorectal cancer. Here, the authors carry out a two-stage genome-wide association study and identify six new loci associated with colorectal cancer.

A randomized trial in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 showed no benefit and potentially increased harm associated with the use of convalescent plasma, with subgroup analyses suggesting that the antibody profile in donor plasma is critical in determining clinical outcomes.

Integrating inventory data with machine learning models reveals the global composition of tree types—needle-leaved evergreen individuals dominate, followed by broadleaved evergreen and deciduous trees—and climate change risks.

Notch1 is frequently activated promoting T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL). Here, the authors show that Notch1 induces oxidative phosphorylation dependency in T-ALL and synergism when inhibiting both mitochondrial complex I and glutaminolysis in preclinical murine and human xenograft models.

Here, using metagenomic profiling in 180 individuals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the authors find associations between the gut microbiome and konzo, a neurodegenerative disease that mostly affects children and is caused by the consumption improperly processed cassava.

Both host diet and phylogeny have been argued to shape mammalian microbiome communities. Here, the authors show that diet predicts the presence of ancient bacterial lineages in the microbiome, but that co-speciation between more recent bacterial lineages and their hosts may drive associations between microbiome composition and phylogeny.

Antibiotic resistance genes are common but not all are of high risk to human health. Here, the authors develop an omics-based framework for ranking genes by risk that incorporates level of enrichment in human associated environments, gene mobility, and host pathogenicity.

Dated palaeolake sequences show that there were at least five Pleistocene hominin expansions into the Arabian interior, coinciding with windows of reduced aridity between 400 and 55 thousand years ago.

Two stars born at the same time, from the same natal material, and with the same mass are 'identical twins', and as such might be expected to possess identical physical attributes. But this paper reports that a pair of twin stars have surface temperatures that differ by ∼300 K and luminosities that differ by ∼50 per cent. These surprising dissimilarities suggest that one of the twins may have been delayed by several hundred thousand years in its formation relative to its sibling.

High-throughput peptide synthesis and mass spectrometry are used to generate a near-complete reference map of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae proteome; two versions of the map (supporting discovery- and hypothesis-driven proteomics) are then applied to a protein-based quantitative trait locus analysis.

Efficient methods for the synthesis of enantioenriched α-amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — have been developed, but it remains a challenge to obtain non-natural amino acids. A new catalytic asymmetric method is now reported for the syntheses of highly enantiomerically enriched non-natural amino acids using a simple and robust chiral amido-thiourea catalyst. The method also uses a safer source of cyanide.

Detailed atomic models of axonemes from algal flagella and human respiratory cilia, which are hair-like protrusions from cells that enable motility and clear mucus from human airways, could provide insights into how they function.

A human–SARS-CoV-2 protein interaction map highlights cellular processes that are hijacked by the virus and that can be targeted by existing drugs, including inhibitors of mRNA translation and predicted regulators of the sigma receptors.

Genome-wide association analyses based on whole-genome sequencing and imputation identify 40 new risk variants for colorectal cancer, including a strongly protective low-frequency variant at CHD1 and loci implicating signaling and immune function in disease etiology.

The function of nuclear Argonaute proteins in somatic mammalian cells has remained elusive. A new study shows that chromatin-bound Argonaute-1 and Argonaute-2 associate with splicing factors and affect the deposition of histone marks, thereby facilitating spliceosome recruitment and modulating the RNA polymerase II elongation rate. This in turn favors inclusion of variant exons in the mature mRNA.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Analysis of global navigation satellite system observations and satellite data shows that frontal changes in 2012 of the North-East Greenland Ice Stream led to speed-up and thinning at least 200 km inland.

Femto-chemistry allows researchers to probe the individual transitions in a molecule during a chemical reaction. Here, the authors show that a relatively simple tabletop experiment is capable of capturing the dynamics of isomerization and fragmentation of the acetylene cation to record a molecular movie.