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Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) is critical for normal development and metabolism. Here, the authors conduct a GWAS and suggest protective effect of higher TSH on risk of thyroid cancer and goitre.

Preparing molecules with multiple ¹³C labels is difficult owing to the lack of available ¹³C-labelled reagents. Now, a hydroformylation approach to the synthesis of [¹³C₃]propionaldehyde, using gas surrogates, provides a straightforward method to prepare bioactive molecules with three ¹³C labels.

Douglas Easton and colleagues report a comprehensive analysis of SNP associations to prostate cancer across the 8q24 region. They report 8 SNPs in 5 blocks independently associated to prostate cancer risk.

Non-medullary thyroid cancers include papillary and follicular subtypes, and are the most common type of thyroid cancer. Here, the authors extend previous work by performing a large genome-wide association study and find five novel loci associated with this disease.

Julius Gudmundsson and colleagues report the association of two SNPs on chromosomes 9 and 14 with thyroid cancer in European populations. The variants are near FOXE1 and NKX2-1, both good biological candidates, and individuals who are homozygous for both risk variants have a 5.7-fold greater risk of thyroid cancer.

The incorporation of multiple carbon labels into drug candidates is a difficult synthetic challenge. Here an operationally simple method for the preparation of multi-carbon-labelled isotopologues of active pharmaceutical ingredients and other bioactive molecules, through a combined catalytic three-gas surrogate hydroformylation strategy, is reported.

Why genetic variants that confer risk for psychiatric disorders persist in the genome is an evolutionary conundrum. Here, Mullinset al. report association of polygenic risk for autism with having fewer children and polygenic risk for ADHD with higher reproductive fitness.

Monitoring of the flow of an ice sheet in Antarctica finds that the surface velocity oscillates by as much as 20 per cent every two weeks: the spring-to-neap tidal cycle seems to be the cause. Although the mechanism through which these tides couple to ice flow has yet to be elucidated, these observations caution against the use of velocity measurements over limited periods to infer long-term changes in flow rate.

Hydroformylation of alkenes is widely used in industry to synthesize aldehydes, but is less prominent in small laboratories due to safety and equipment issues associated with the CO/H₂ mixture. This is now addressed by generating stoichiometric syngas from two main element compounds, with water as the activator.

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.

Burden testing in three large European ancestry cohorts identifies new risk genes for a number of common cancer types, including pan-cancer protective variants in AURKB and breast cancer protective variants in PPP1R15A.

Thyroid dysfunction is a common public health problem and associated with cardiovascular co-morbidities. Here, the authors carry out genome-wide meta-analysis for thyroid hormone (TH) levels, hyper- and hypothyroidism and identify SLC17A4 as a TH transporter and AADAT as a TH metabolizing enzyme.

Large-volume volcanic eruptions can occur despite only limited precursory activity. Here the authors show that modelling the combined effects of buoyant magma, viscoelastic earth behaviour, and sustained magma channels can explain such behaviour of volcanoes and gives an estimate of pressure evolution in magma bodies.

Julius Gudmundsson and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for circulating levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone in 27,758 individuals not known to have thyroid cancer. They follow with thyroid cancer association analyses and identify common variants at three loci newly associated with susceptibility to thyroid cancer.

Rosalind Eeles and colleagues present a genome-wide association study for prostate cancer. They report seven loci newly associated with prostate cancer susceptibility.

Julius Gudmundsson, Kari Stefansson and colleagues identify a low-frequency variant at 8q24 strongly associated with prostate cancer risk. They also confirm association of a recently reported risk variant in HOXB13 in samples from multiple European populations.

Uterine leiomyomas are common benign tumors. Here, a meta-analysis of two European leiomyoma GWAS uncovers 21 leiomyoma risk variants at 16 loci, providing evidence of genetic overlap between leiomyoma and various benign and malignant tumors and highlighting the role of estrogen in tumor growth.

Calorie burning is normally turned off in thermogenic brown fat at warm temperatures. Here the authors show that adipocyte oxygen sensing directly boosts brown fat calorie burning, even at warm temperatures.

The Filchner–Ronne and Ross ice shelves are two of the largest in Antarctica. Here the authors show their vulnerability to warming ocean conditions, where a transition to warmer waters in the ice shelf cavities could lead to accelerated ice loss and grounding line retreat.

Genome-wide analyses identify 27 loci associated with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and provide insights into its genetic architecture in relation to other psychiatric disorders and cognitive traits.

A genome-wide association study involving lung cancer finds that genetic sequences in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit gene cluster contribute to susceptibility. This paper finds that alleles present in a cluster of nicotinic acid receptor genes affect smoking quantity in European samples, and are therefore also associated with risk of lung cancer and peripheral arterial disease.

Relativistic electron-positron (pair) plasmas play a fundamental role in the magnetospheres, jets, and winds of black holes and neutron stars, but existing studies have been purely theoretical. Here, the authors open up the exciting possibility to probe relativistic pair-plasmas in the laboratory.

A genome-wide association study for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) identifies 12 loci and implicates neurodevelopmental pathways and conserved regions of the genome as being involved in underlying ADHD biology.

Anthropogenic climate change is impacting the temperature and ice cover of lakes across the globe, according to an attribution analysis based on hindcasts and projections from lake models.

While the consequences of homozygous loss of function variants have been studied, the effect of missense variants is less understood. Here, the authors identify pathogenic genotypes through an observed deficit of homozygous carriers of missense variants in a population, elucidating previously unexplained recessive disease and miscarriage.

It has been suggested that Antarctic ice sheets can become unstable and undergo irreversible retreat, but so far observational evidence for this mechanism is missing. Here, the authors show evidence that such an irreversible retreat occurred at Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica in the 1970s.

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.

Finding the genetic basis of protein expression can elucidate the genetic mechanisms of disease. Here, the authors link low-frequency and common DNA sequence variants to thousands of serum proteins, finding genetic overlap between circulating proteins and a wide range of common diseases.

Little is known about the biology of back pain, a leading cause of disability. Here the authors report 30 new back pain loci, implicating genes involved in cartilage/bone biology, as well as neurological and inflammatory processes.

Circulating proteins have been linked to many conditions, and understanding their genetic control can lead to understanding of disease. Here, the authors associate common genetic variants with protein levels, finding overlap of genetic associations with circulating proteins and complex disease.

A strategy for inferring phase for rare variant pairs is applied to exome sequencing data for 125,748 individuals from the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD). This resource will aid interpretation of rare co-occurring variants in the context of recessive disease.

A genomic constraint map for the human genome constructed using data from 76,156 human genomes from the Genome Aggregation Database shows that non-coding constrained regions are enriched for regulatory elements and variants associated with complex diseases and traits.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is currently surrounded by relatively cool water but changes in ocean dynamics may lead to warmer ocean water on the shelf in the future. This has the potential to dramatically increase its future sea level contribution.