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Artificial intelligence has become popular as a cancer classification tool, but there is distrust of such systems due to their lack of transparency. Here, the authors develop an explainable AI system which produces text- and region-based explanations alongside its classifications which was assessed using clinicians’ diagnostic accuracy, diagnostic confidence, and their trust in the system.

Epithelial folding has mainly been linked to forces acting in the apical actomyosin network of cells. Here, the authors show using live imaging that two distinct mechanisms, changes in basal surface tension and changes in lateral surface tension, drive the formation of two folds in the Drosophila wing disc.

The cellular differentiation states of paediatric rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) remain to be explored. Here, single-cell RNA sequencing analysis of RMS tumours reveals an immunosuppressive microenvironment and distinct transcriptional programs predictive of patient outcomes.

Behaviour drives infection risk in social groups. Here, Li et al. show that depending on the behavioural role of clonal ants in a colony, genetically identical individuals face vastly different risks of becoming infected with parasitic nematodes.

Ependymoma is a tumor of the brain or spinal cord with the two most common and aggressive types mainly occurring in children. Here the authors employ 3D genomics and epigenomics to reveal targets for aggressive ependymoma tumors in children.

Platypuses are monotremes and combine aspects of both reptilian and mammalian behaviour. An international consortium reports the genome sequence and analysis of Ornithorhynchus anatinus and as expected, parts of the genome look more like mammals, whereas other parts more like reptiles or even chickens.

Frank Uhlmann discusses how biophysics and electron microscopy studies have shed light on what lies inside chromosomes.

The role of non-coding mutations in cancer progression and immune evasion needs to be further explored. Here, the authors investigate the potential of common somatic and germline 3′ untranslated region variants in predicting response to immunotherapy in gastric patients.

Using an international collection of population-based microbiome studies of participants in the MicroCardio Consortium, a cross-cohort meta-analysis identified several phylogenetically diverse, species- and strain-level microbial features as well as community-level functional shifts encompassing diverse pathways to type 2 diabetes.

Fatty acid desaturation is central to metazoan lipid metabolism. Here, using C. elegans as a model, the authors show that both endogenous and microbiota-dependent small molecule signals converge to promote lipid desaturation via the nuclear receptor NHR-49/PPARα.

Harmful algal and bacterial blooms are increasingly frequent in lakes and rivers. From the Sydney Basin, Australia, this study uses fossil, sedimentary and geochemical data to reveal bloom events following forest ecosystem collapse during the end-Permian event and that blooms have consistently followed warming-related extinction events, inhibiting the recovery of freshwater ecosystems for millennia.

In mice, oral tolerance to food antigens can break down after enteric infection, and this leads to food-induced pain resembling irritable bowel syndrome in humans.

Kang et al. find that vitamin B₁₂ from gut bacteria modulates host neural function and behaviour in Caenorhabditis elegans: vitamin B₁₂ rewires the methionine/S-adenosylmethionine cycle and choline metabolism, impacting free choline levels for neuronal acetylcholine synthesis.

The default mode network (DMN) is a core brain network in humans. Here, the authors show that marmoset primates also possess a DMN-like network but, unlike in the human DMN, dlPFC is a more prominent node than mPFC, suggesting mPFC is more developed in humans than in other primates.

Analyses of the hominin skull from Broken Hill, Zambia, place it at an earlier date than previously thought, confirming that later Middle Pleistocene Africa was home to at least three lineages of hominin.

Polycomb (PcG) and Trithorax (TrxG) group regulate several hundred target genes with important roles in development and disease. Here the authors combine experiment and theory to provide evidence that the Polycomb/Trithorax system has the potential for a rich repertoire of regulatory modes beyond simple epigenetic memory.

Experimental observation of intersubband transitions in van der Waals quantum wells is enabled by high spatial resolution imaging through near-field optical microscopy.

Annually resolved Fennoscandian tree-ring anatomy records show that the climate of the current industrial era is substantially warmer than that of the medieval period.

Singlet fission is an important process occurring in solar cells, however the mechanism is not well understood. Here the authors reveal intermediates during singlet fission of a non-conjugated pentacene dimer, developing a single kinetic model to describe the data over seven temporal orders of magnitude at room and cryogenic temperatures.

Trans-ethnic analyses of exome array data identify new risk loci for type 2 diabetes. Fine-mapping analyses using genome-wide association data show that the index coding variants represent the likely causal variants at only a subset of these loci.

This protocol describes how to injure and trace dorsal column sensory and corticospinal axons and visualize axon degeneration and regeneration by two-photon microscopy. Axon density and regeneration are assessed with Imaris and ImageJ software.

Helper T cell subsets are characterized functionally by the cytokines they produce. Benoist and colleagues demonstrate that in vivo helper T cells do not manifest as discrete helper subsets but rather form a continuum shaped by microbial exposure.

Transcriptomic analysis may provide information about the differentiation state and cell of origin of a cancer. Here, the authors assess mRNA signals in 1300 childhood and adult renal tumors and report a fetal origin of childhood tumors and no dedifferentiation of adult tumors.

Nanometre-sized polyaromatic hydrocarbons (nanographenes) have been largely explored as single-layer systems. Now a C₆₄ nanographene comprising a planar core decorated with four terphenyl–imide moieties at its periphery has been shown to assemble with coronene to form bi- and trilayer host–guest complexes in solution, as well as tetra-, hexa- and multilayer stacks in the crystalline state.

Ghajar and colleagues report that astrocyte-deposited laminin-211 promotes the quiescence of disseminated tumor cells in the brain, in a manner dependent on the cytoplasmic sequestration of YAP by dystroglycan.

Controlling the transition-dipole-moment orientation in quantum dot solids at device level has not been achieved before. Here, the authors demonstrated intrinsic light out-coupling enhancement approach to boost the external quantum efficiency up to 25% by using the colloidal lead halide perovskite anisotropic nanocrystals.

Decoupled high-order MQW superlattices are desired to design miniaturized photonic sources but they are yet to be realized in scalable ways. Here Jagielski et al. achieve this goal using multiple-stacked colloidal lead halide perovskite quantum wells separated by atomically thin quantum barriers.

A neuromodulator produced by commensal Providencia bacteria that colonize the gut of Caenorhabditis elegans mimics the functions of the cognate host molecule to manipulate a sensory decision of the host.

Imaging and sequencing approaches are combined to show that extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) in cancer is circular and has unique chromatin structure that amplifies oncogene output.

The collective properties of atomically precise nanoclusters bear vast potential for electronic materials by design. Here, the authors describe the self-assembly of Au₃₂ nanoclusters into micro-crystals, which improves the electric conductivity and invokes new optical transitions caused by the high structural order.

Frank Close enjoys a journalistic account of the sociology and politics of the search for the elusive particle named after physicist Peter Higgs, but cautions that the idea has deeper roots than its name implies.