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Integration of GWAS and single-cell transcriptomic data from the entire nervous system systematically identifies cell types underlying brain complex traits and provides insights into the etiology of Parkinson’s disease.

Melinda Mills, Nicola Barban, Harold Snieder, Marcel den Hoed and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of data from over 300,000 individuals for age at first birth and number of children ever born. They identify 12 significant loci that associate with these traits, providing insights into the genetic basis of human reproductive behavior.

The One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining green plant evolution that comprises the transcriptomes and genomes of diverse species of green plants.

A catalogue of the vascular flora of New Guinea indicates that this island is the most floristically diverse in the world, and that 68% of the species identified are endemic to New Guinea.

Montserrat Garcia-Closas and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for bladder cancer. They identify three new susceptibility loci on chromosomes 22q13.1, 19q12 and 2q37.1.

Cognitive function is associated with health and important life outcomes. Here, the authors perform a genome-wide association study for general cognitive function in 300,486 individuals and identify genetic loci that implicate neural and cell developmental pathways in this trait.

Species’ range shifts projections are usually based on climate and land cover variables. Here, the authors use long-term records for bird species to show that species distribution models accounting for climate and land cover often fail to predict observed range shifts.

Soil carbon content is positively related with plant diversity in global grasslands, and this relationship is particularly strong in warm and arid climates. Plant diversity is related to soil carbon via the quality of organic matter.

Proferroptotic activity of 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase is shown along with an unexpected prosurvival function of its substrate, 7-dehydrocholesterol, indicating a cell-intrinsic mechanism that could be used by cancer cells to protect phospholipids from oxidative damage and escape ferroptosis.

Using genetically engineered models, Genovese and colleagues study patterns of convergent evolution in renal cancer, and pinpoint dysregulation of interferon signaling as a means of adaptation to chromosomal instability in metastatic progression.

Remotely sensed NDVI data and contemporary field data from 84 grasslands on 6 continents show increasing divergence in aboveground plant biomass between sites in different bioclimatic regions.

A first principles understanding of the origins of the Earth's magnetic field requires the study of iron and nickel at high temperatures and pressures. Here, the authors find anomalies in the electronic properties of nickel and iron-nickel alloys, which may be important for the physics of geomagnetism.

An insufficient amount of pollen transfer by pollinators (pollen limitation) could reduce plant reproduction in human-impacted landscapes. Here the authors conduct a global meta-analysis and find that pollen limitation is high in urban environments and depends of plant traits such as pollinator dependency.

Patterns for the cultivation and domestication of ancient cereals can be difficult to reconstruct, but this Article demonstrates a functional ecological model that can identify soil disturbance and related plant traits, marking a new understanding of early cereal management.

The species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric quantifies the contributions that abating threats and restoring habitats offer towards reducing species’ extinction risk in specific places.

A genome-wide association study of 1.7 million individuals identified 41 genetic variants associated with left-handedness and 7 associated with ambidexterity. The genetic correlation between the traits was low, thereby implying different aetiologies.

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.

The Caucasus mountain range has impacted on the culture and genetics of the wider region. Here, the authors generate genome-wide SNP data for 45 Eneolithic and Bronze Age individuals across the Caucasus, and find distinct genetic clusters between mountain and steppe zones as well as occasional gene-flow.

T- and X-shaped polyphilic liquid crystals can generate ordered structures with potential nanotechnology applications. Here, the inability of polyphiles to achieve optimal packing and complete nanophase separation is exploited to produce a flexible two-dimensional honeycomb with giant octagonal and square cylinders.

Many proposed spin-wave based devices make use of non-linear behaviour of spin-waves. Here, Dreyer et al show the emergence of non-linear spin waves oscillating at half-integer harmonics in the strong modulation regime. By applying super-Nyquist sampling Kerr microscopy they directly image these non-linear spin waves and demonstrate their phase-locking to an external frequency source.

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.

Nonlinear magnetization dynamics underlie the operation of important spintronic devices. Here, the authors study NiFe thin films via X-ray magnetic circular dichroism, to develop a model for nonlinear spin-wave excitation by ferromagnetic resonance under small applied magnetic fields.

It remains unclear whether exotic and native species are functionally different. Using a global grassland experiment, Seabloomet al. show that native and exotic species respond differently to two globally pervasive environmental changes, addition of mineral nutrients and alteration of herbivore density.

How biodiversity is linked to multiple ecosystem functions is not fully understood. Here, the authors show that a new mechanism, which they term the 'jack-of-all-trades' effect, best explains patterns of tree diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in European forests.

Current preclinical models to investigate human HR + breast cancer progression and response to immunotherapy in vivo are limited. Here, the authors demonstrate that mammary tumours driven by a synthetic progestin combined with an oral carcinogen recapitulate several immunobiological features of human HR + breast cancers.

There has been a lack of multi-year landscape-scale studies on the effect of neonicotinoids on honeybee health. Here, Osterman et al. show that clothianidin exposure via seed-treated rapeseed has no negative impact on honeybee colony development, microbial pathogens/symbionts or immune gene expression.

Although plant functional trait combinations reflect ecological trade-offs at the species level, little is known about how this translates to whole communities. Here, the authors show that global trait composition is captured by two main dimensions that are only weakly related to macro-environmental drivers.

Here, Saha et al. show that self-intercalation of e₂Cr atoms in CrTe₂ create an asymmetry in the number of atoms intercalated in the van der Waals gaps between the layers of CrTe₂. This inversion symmetry breaking leads to non-collinear spin-textures and Néel-type magnetic skyrmions over a wide temperature range.

Lechner et al. used an affinity-based chemical proteomics approach to investigate the target landscape of HDAC inhibitors, and identified an extracellular vesicle regulator MBLAC2 as a universal off-target of 24 hydroxamate inhibitors.

Leveraging independent gains and losses of eusociality, the authors identify complementary signatures of selection in sweat bee genomes, including two proteins that bind and transport juvenile hormone.

A global field survey that analyses samples of soil from all continents identifies hotspots for soil nature conservation, and shows that different ecological dimensions of soil are associated with different priority areas for conservation.

Heart rate variability (HRV) describes the individual variation in cardiac cycle duration and is a measure of vagal control of heart rate. Here, the authors identify seventeen single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with HRV, lending new insight into the vagal regulation of heart rhythm.

The beetle Tribolium castaneum is a commonly used laboratory model, combining the ease of systematic RNAi experiments like those in Caenorhabditis elegans, with biology that is more representative of most insects than Drosophila melanogaster. A large consortium has sequenced and analysed the genome of the red flour beetle, creating a resource for biologists everywhere.

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.

Future dramatic rises in dementia are widely reported, assuming no change in incidence. Matthews and colleagues report that, in contrast to such statements, age-specific incidence has dropped over 20 years, with overall incidence of dementia remaining stable in a large multi-site population study from England.

OLED materials based on thermally activated delayed fluorescence have promising efficiency. Here, the authors investigate an organometallic multicore Cu complex as luminophore, by pump-probe X-ray techniques at three different facilities deriving a complete picture of the charge transfer in the triplet excited state.

Early-life complications modulate the association of genomic risk and schizophrenia.

The potential impact of neonicotinoid field exposure on bumblebee microbiota remains unclear. In a landscape—scale study, Wintermantel et al. show that whilst exposure to clothianidin impacts Bombus terrestris performance, it does not affect levels of gut bacteria, viruses or intracellular parasites.

Clay minerals align in a preferred orientation already during the first stages of sediment settling, prior to deeper sediment compaction, according to particle settling experiments using 4D synchrotron diffraction and crystal-preferred orientation analysis

Protein phosphatase 5 (PP5) is expressed in many cell types but its role in cardiomyocytes is unknown. Here the authors show that PP5 binds and dephosphorylates elastic titin in cardiac sarcomeres, and that PP5 is increased in heart failure, reducing cardiomyocyte compliance.

This Registered Report presents evidence from 87 countries and regions showing that brief emotion-regulation interventions consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The presence of conformational substates of a catalytically competent 'closed' state in the ligand-free form of adenylate kinase is detected. Molecular dynamics simulations indicated that the partially closed conformations were sampled in nanoseconds, and NMR and single-molecule FRET experiments revealed the sampling of a fully closed conformation occurring on the microsecond-to-millisecond timescale.