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Rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu contain some of the molecular building blocks of life on Earth, such as amino acids and nucleobases. They also carry ammonia that formed billions of years ago in cold, distant regions of our Solar System.

Despite the economic importance of the allotetraploid crop Brassica napus, our knowledge of its phylogenomic relationships, genetic structure, and diversification is limited. Here, the authors show its complex origin and diversification by analyzing transcriptome and organellar sequencing data.

Oestrogen negative breast cancer is associated with a poor prognosis. In this study, the authors perform a meta-analysis of 11 breast cancer genome-wide association studies and identify four new loci associated with oestrogen negative breast cancer risk. These findings may aid in stratifying patients in the clinic.

Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

Previous studies identified an association between the 2q35 locus and breast cancer. Here, the authors show that a SNP at 2q35, rs4442975, is associated with oestrogen receptor positive disease and suggest that this effect is mediated through the downregulation of a known breast cancer gene, IGFBP5.

Understanding the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 is dependent on being able to distinguish COVID-19 immune responses from cross-reactive immune responses to other coronaviruses. Here the authors show that choice of antigens and whether an ICS, ELISPOT or T cell proliferation assay is used has a major effect on this discriminatory ability.

Discussions at a recent conference on microscopy technology dissemination spotlighted the importance of setting technology adoption capable of producing scientific outcome as the end goal. This Comment examines current global efforts in microscopy dissemination and summarizes the challenges and paths forward.

Large igneous province subduction is a rare process with many unknowns. Timm et al.present geochemical and geophysical data providing insights into the Hikurangi Plateau subduction and its impact on arc volcanism, identifying a missing piece of the Ontong Java–Manihiki–Hikurangi super plateau.

Here, the authors characterize two distinct T_reg cell populations in the visceral adipose tissue of lean and high-fat diet-fed mice. ST2⁺ T_reg cells are dominant in male mice and are transcriptionally driven by GATA3 and PPARγ, regulators that limit the differentiation of the more female-dominant population of CXCR3⁺ T_reg cells that are T-bet dependent. Functional distinctions are also evident in glucose tolerance and adipose inflammation.

Multiplexed ion beam imaging can provide subcellular localisation information but with limited resolution. Here the authors report an ion beam imaging method with nanoscale resolution which they use to assess the subcellular distribution of cisplatin.

Quasi-2D halide perovskites are attracting increasing attention for light-emitting devices. Here, the authors demonstrated efficient and stable quasi-2D perovskite LEDs enabled by suppressed phase disproportionation with newly designed organic ligands.

A co-adsorbent is used to achieve a uniform self-assembled phosphonic acid monolayer on a textured substrate, leading to more efficient inverted perovskite solar cells.

Intestinal regionalization is characterized by robust and resilient structural cell states and the intestine can adapt to environmental stress in a spatially controlled manner through crosstalk between immunity and structural cell homeostasis.

A case–control study investigating the causes of recent cases of acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in 32 children identifies an association between adeno-associated virus infection and host genetics in disease susceptibility.

Observations from the Lucy spacecraft of the small main-belt asteroid (152830) Dinkinesh reveals unexpected complexity, with a longitudinal trough and equatorial ridge, as well as the discovery of the first contact binary satellite.

Stroke is a multifactorial disease influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Here, the authors apply exome-wide association analysis to find rare coding variants associated with stroke in a Pakistani cohort, finding a significant association of a variant in NOTCH3 that is highly enriched in South Asians.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

Aromatase inhibitors are used to treat oestrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. Here, the authors use genomic approaches to analyse tumours before and after neo-adjuvant treatment and find that treatment alters the clonal landscape of the tumours.

The authors provide a litmus test for the recognition mechanism of transiently binding proteins based on nuclear magnetic resonance and find a conformational selection binding mechanism through concentration-dependent kinetics of ubiquitin and SH3.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses and systematic variant-to-gene mapping strategies implicate new genes and pathways influencing lung function and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk.

Population-scale whole-genome sequencing across four remote Indigenous Australian communities reveals a large fraction of structural variants that are unique to these populations, emphasizing the genetic distinctiveness of and diversity among Indigenous Australians.

Radiometric cooling ages of chondrite meteorites record asteroid belt bombardment beginning approximately 11 million years after the formation of the Solar System, indicating an episode of giant planet migration at that time.

Here the authors perform modelling to reveal that the timescale of actin-VASP interactions plays a critical role in actin ring formation and filament length determines droplet deformation in VASP droplets: predictions from the model were tested against VASP GAB mutant.

Using single-molecule super-resolution microscopy, researchers revealed that Tau controls the recycling pool of synaptic vesicles in hippocampal neurons by forming nanoscale biomolecular condensates that are dynamically regulated by neuronal activity.

Observations of ZTF SLRN-2020, a short-lived optical outburst in the Galactic disk accompanied by bright, long-lived infrared emission, show that the resulting light curve and spectra are consistent with the signatures of a planet being engulfed by its host star.

Axons have always been assumed to be cylindrical. Using in silico modeling and cryopreservation of tissues, Griswold et al. demonstrate that unmyelinated axons of the mammalian central nervous system exhibit pearls-on-a-string morphology through their entire length.

Whole-genome sequencing identifies a novel germline variant in the oncogene MITF, which is associated with the development of melanoma.

Most studies of the genetics of the metabolome have been done in individuals of European descent. Here, the authors integrate genomics and metabolomics in Black individuals, highlighting the value of whole genome sequencing in diverse populations and linking circulating metabolites to human disease.

Analysis of 97,691 high-coverage human blood DNA-derived whole-genome sequences enabled simultaneous identification of germline and somatic mutations that predispose individuals to clonal expansion of haematopoietic stem cells, indicating that both inherited and acquired mutations are linked to age-related cancers and coronary heart disease.

Douglas Easton, Per Hall and colleagues report meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for breast cancer, including 10,052 cases and 12,575 controls, followed by genotyping using the iCOGS array in an additional 52,675 cases and 49,436 controls from studies within the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC). They identify 41 loci newly associated with susceptibility to breast cancer.

During the antigen-dependent phase of B cell development, clones expressing high-affinity B cell receptors are transferred from light zones to dark zones of germinal centers, while transforming their energy metabolism. Here authors show that in the light zones, the hypoxic microenvironment promotes growth arrest and apoptosis in B cells, while miR-155 protects the high-affinity clones via inducing a switch in energy utilization.

Here, the authors report a live chimeric DENV2/4 EDII virus, encoding DENV2 and DENV4 neutralizing epitopes, that replicates efficiently in primates and simultaneously elicits neutralizing DENV2 and DENV4 type-specific antibodies, providing domain-specific diagnostic reagents and simplified vaccine strategies.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with a strong ethnic and gender bias. In a transancestral genetic association study, Langefeldet al. identify 24 novel regions associated with risk to lupus and propose a cumulative hits hypothesis for loci conferring risk to SLE.

A dataset of 3D images from more than 200,000 human induced pluripotent stem cells is used to develop a framework to analyse cell shape and the location and organization of major intracellular structures.

Pooling participant-level genetic data into a single analysis can result in variance stratification, reducing statistical performance. Here, the authors develop variant-specific inflation factors to assess variance stratification and apply this to pooled individual-level data from whole genome sequencing.

Productivity of coral reefs is enhanced near islands with no invasive rats, as populations of seabirds, which transfer nitrogen from deeper areas of ocean to the nearshore waters via their guano, are much larger than on rat-infested islands.

A systematic census at 1,636 sites around Australia from 2008 to 2021 finds that more than 30% of shallow invertebrate species in cool latitudes exhibit a high extinction risk due to declining populations and oceanic barriers, but tropical coral species remain relatively stable.

Hundreds of genetic loci associated with age at menopause, combined with experimental evidence in mice, highlight mechanisms of reproductive ageing across the lifespan.

Marine woodborers can digest woody biomass without the help of gut microbiota but the mechanism has remained unclear. Here, the authors provide evidence that the woodborer’s respiratory protein hemocyanin plays a central role in wood digestion and may offer a route toward biorefining of woody plant biomass.

The genomic organization and origin of the avenacin biosynthetic gene cluster remain unknown. Here, the authors assemble the genome of diploid oat Avena strigosa, reveal the structure and organization of the consecutive genes, characterize the last two missing pathway steps, and investigate the origin of the pathway in cereals.

Entanglement was observed in top–antitop quark events by the ATLAS experiment produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s  = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 fb⁻¹.

Methods to directly label active neurons are still lacking. Here the authors develop CaMPARI2, a photoconvertible fluorescent protein sensor for neuronal activity with improved brightness and calcium binding kinetics, as well as an antibody to amplify the activated sensor signal in fixed samples.

Brown et al. report results of a genome-wide association study for melanoma. Their screen, which used a pooling strategy, identified common variants on 20q11.22 associated with melanoma susceptibility. In two separate studies, Sulem et al. and Gudbjartsson et al. report that the same region on 20q11.22, near ASIP, influences pigmentation and confers risk of cutaneous melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.

High-fat diet plays a role in development of insulin resistance. Here, the authors report a mechanism that underlies the development of diet induced insulin resistance through the activation of an aryl hydrocarbon receptor mediated signalling pathway in the liver by faecal exosomes derived from intestinal cells.