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The study advances the use of serological surveys to guide trachoma elimination program decisions and provides a way to set thresholds for whether or not to continue an intervention program.

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.

Synthesis of decades of field, herbarium and taxonomic studies show the presumed extinct species of Ecuador’s iconic Centinela ridge have survived, revealing the complexity of tropical cloud forests and offering new optimism for their conservation.

Ossenkoppele, Coomans and colleagues analyzed the tau PET data of 12,048 individuals from 42 cohorts worldwide. They found that age, amyloid-β status, presence of an APOE ε4 allele and female sex are key contributors to tau PET positivity, which should aid clinical decision-making and trial designs.

Analysis of HbA1c and FPG levels across 117 population-based studies demonstrates regional variation in prevalence of previously undiagnosed screen-detected diabetes using one or both measures and suggests that use of elevated FPG alone could underestimate diabetes prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.

From 1980 to 2018, the levels of total and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol increased in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreased in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe.

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori, often found in the human stomach, can be classified into distinct subpopulations associated with the geographic origin of the host. Here, the authors provide insights into H. pylori population structure by collecting over 1,000 clinical strains from 50 countries and generating and analyzing high-quality bacterial genome sequences.

The authors report genome-wide data from 34 ancient individuals spanning the Holocene, from what is now Brazil, illuminating connections and disjoints between Sambaqui shellmound societies and preceding and later peoples.

Microscopy and 16S rRNA sequencing suggest that there is a limited bacterial presence in the human fetal intestine, with one enriched Micrococcus species exhibiting immunomodulatory activity ex vivo.

The spike protein of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has a higher affinity for ACE2 than Delta, and a marked change in its antigenicity increases Omicron’s evasion of therapeutic and vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies.

The metal-organic framework TAMOF-1 offers high performance for CO₂ capture and purification from model biogas streams, thanks to its high CO₂ adsorption potential, good stability in humid conditions, and energy-efficient regeneration.

Here the authors report results from a randomized clinical trial testing a combination of ChAOx1/MVA.HTI vaccines and the TLR7 agonist vesatolimod in men living with HIV-1. While the treatment showed a good safety profile and induction of HTI-focused T-cell responses, viral rebound was similar in treatment arm and placebo arm.

The second Global Amphibian Assessment finds that the status of amphibians is continuing to deteriorate globally, driven predominantly by climate change, disease and habitat loss.

Embryos at the 2-cell (2C) stage are totipotent, and overexpression of Dux transcription factor convert embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to a 2C-like state. Here the authors show that DUX-mediated 2C-like reprogramming is associated with DNA damage at CTCF sites and CTCF depletion promotes 2Clike conversion.

Contrary to the view that urbanization is a major driver of the global rise in obesity, the global increase in body-mass index is shown to be mostly due to increases in the body-mass indexes of rural populations.

A diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 experts in COVID-19 response from 112 countries provides health and social policy actions to address inadequacies in the pandemic response and help to bring this public health threat to an end.

The severity of rare genetic diseases often varies between individuals, but small sample sizes make it difficult to identify contributing factors. Here, the authors use biobank-scale clinical and genetic data to investigate a role for common genetic variation.

The role of subpatent infections for malaria transmission and elimination is unclear. Here, Slater et al. analyse several malaria datasets to quantify the density, detectability, course of infection and infectiousness of subpatent infections.

Here the authors identify RNA-binding protein MEX3A as a post-transcriptional regulator of quiescence and differentiation signatures at critical transitions along the murine subependymal neurogenic lineage

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.

Ancient DNA reveals genetic differences between stone-tool users and people associated with ceramic technology in the Caribbean and provides substantially lower estimates of population sizes in the region before European contact.

The origin, evolution and domestication of Citrus and the genealogy of the most important wild and cultivated citrus varieties.

Genomic surveillance has been important for tracking the evolution and spread of SARS-CoV-2. Here, the authors analyse ~300,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from two years of sequencing in the Latin America and Caribbean regions and describe the emergence and spread of different lineages over time.

Long non-coding RNAs are increasingly recognised to be important factors in regulating cellular processes and comprise a large faction of the transcriptome, however most are uncharacterised. Here the authors present RACE-Seq, a tool to improve and extend the annotation of low-expression transcripts.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

Aß are extracellular deposits relevant in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This study shows that Aß plaques are hubs of endothelial disassembly that induce non-productive angiogenesis. This process is aided by the microglia and unchained by reduced presenilin function, a trait of AD, in endothelial cells.

Deeply conserved syntenic characters unite sponges with bilaterians, cnidarians, and placozoans in a monophyletic clade to the exclusion of the comb jellies (ctenophores)—placing ctenophores as the sister group to all other animals.

A phylogenetic tree of 5,284 fungal species is used to infer patterns of extinction, diversification and morphological innovation in mushroom-forming fungi.

The optical detection of two virulence factors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis on extracellular vesicles in blood allowed for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in paediatric cases that were missed by clinical microbiological assays.

Christopher Newton-Cheh and colleagues report genome-wide association analyses for QT interval, an electrocardiographic measure reflecting myocardial repolarization, in 100,000 individuals. They identify 35 loci associated with QT interval and highlight a role for calcium regulation in myocardial repolarization.