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As phase 1 of the Earth Microbiome Project, analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA sequences from more than 27,000 environmental samples delivers a global picture of the basic structure and drivers of microbial distribution.

Genome-wide association analyses based on whole-genome sequencing and imputation identify 40 new risk variants for colorectal cancer, including a strongly protective low-frequency variant at CHD1 and loci implicating signaling and immune function in disease etiology.

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.

Atlantic Niño, the Atlantic counterpart of the Pacific El Niño, increases the likelihood of powerful hurricanes developing near the Cape Verde islands, elevating associated risks for the Caribbean islands and the U.S.

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

Though active metasurfaces have been attractive for applications requiring control of optical wavefronts, realizing metasurfaces with full phase control remains a challenge. Here, the authors report a metasurface design strategy for enhanced dynamic phase modulation and tunability.

The efficacy of an antidepressant is predicted from an EEG signature.

It is nearly 10 years since the first attempts were made to grow better protein crystals in the low gravity environment of space. Can the enormous cost of these experiments be justified by the results?

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

Fungi produce oxygenated fatty acids, or oxylipins, of unclear function. Here, Niu et al. show that an Aspergillus oxylipin induces various developmental processes in several fungi, including lateral branching in human pathogenic Aspergillus species, and appressorium formation in the plant pathogen Magnaporthe grisea.

Oxygen production using electrolysis will be critical for life support and refueling on the Moon and Mars. Herein, electrolysis under lunar and Martian gravity was found to be less efficient than electrolysis under Earth’s gravity, and predictable from data obtained using ground-based systems.

Telomere shortening is a hallmark of several disorders and aging. Here, the authors uncover that RIOK2 maintains telomerase activity, thereby preventing telomere shortening. Thus, increasing RIOK2 levels may help rescue telomere biology disorders.

The next step after sequencing a genome is to figure out how the cell actually uses it as an instruction manual. A large international consortium has examined 1% of the genome for what part is transcribed, where proteins are bound, what the chromatin structure looks like, and how the sequence compares to that of other organisms.

Africa-specific genetic variation on chromosome 1 near CHD1L is associated with HIV replication in vivo.

Measurement of aerosol concentrations, soot amount and solar fluxes over the polluted Indian Ocean using three vertically stacked light weight unmanned aerial vehicles finds that atmospheric brown clouds enhance lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50 per cent. A model study also suggests that atmospheric brown clouds contribute as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends.

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.

Duy and Weise et al. combined human functional integrative genomics with mouse experimental biology to reveal a neuroprogenitor-based genetic subtype of human hydrocephalus with defective neurogenesis and altered brain–fluid biomechanics.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

With redox-linked synthetic biology and electrobiofabrication, electronic information can be transmitted in a bidirectional manner between biology and electronics. Here the authors design an electrogenetic platform that allows real time electronic control of biological functions from proteins and gene circuits to cell consortia.

A cell-based phenotypic screen led to the discovery of compounds called NVS-STGs, which bind to the N-terminal domain of STING and act as a molecular glue to induce higher-order oligomerization and activation.

The proximity effect enables the injection of Cooper pairs from a superconductor into a normal metal, but they usually do not travel far into the metal. A study of the propagation of Cooper pairs from irregularly shaped superconducting islands on a metal film finds that they can travel further than expected for certain island geometries.

Saturation genome editing characterizes von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) coding variants and their associations with diseases. Function scores for 2,268 VHL single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) classify pathogenic alleles driving renal cell carcinoma and suggest new mechanisms by which variants impact function.

Ahmed, Nguyen et al. show that two FDA-approved antibiotics, paromomycin and neomycin, promote cardiomyocyte proliferation and improve cardiac function after myocardial infarction in mice and pigs by interfering with the cell division inhibiting function of transcription factors Meis1 and Hoxb13.

Whole-genome sequence analysis identifies five independent risk loci for Lewy body dementia and demonstrates overlapping genetic architecture with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

JNJ-1802—a highly potent dengue virus inhibitor—blocks the NS3–NS4B interaction within the viral replication complex, and is highly effective against viral infection with DENV-1 or DENV-2 in non-human primates.

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.

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDP) are pleotropic proteins with diverse functions. Here the authors show that an IDP, TgIST, from T. gondii blocks interferon-induced gene expression by binding to the STAT1 dimer interface and preventing the recruitment of co-transcriptional activators, CBP/p300, to STAT1 to inhibit expression of immunity genes.

Sequencing data from two large-scale studies show that most of the genetic variation influencing the risk of type 2 diabetes involves common alleles and is found in regions previously identified by genome-wide association studies, clarifying the genetic architecture of this disease.

The authors describe microscopic channels that directly connect the skull marrow cavities with the meninges. Neutrophils originating from the skull marrow have a higher propensity to travel to the ischemic mouse brain than cells in the tibia.

The Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to study a variety of microbial communities that exist throughout the human body, enabling the generation of a range of quality-controlled data as well as community resources.

Li et al. identify a human TCF1-expressing stem-like T cell population that is associated with immune-mediated pathogenesis in ulcerative colitis.

A rare population of acinar cells expressing telomerase reverse transcriptase renew the acinar cell compartment during homeostasis, and are potential sources of premalignant cells in pancreatic carcinogenesis.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

An analysis of the Drosophila connectome yields all cell types intrinsic to the optic lobe, and their rules of connectivity.

Resequencing analyses of three species of wild sunflower identify large non-recombining haplotype blocks that correlate with ecologically relevant traits, soil and climate characteristics, and that differentiate species ecotypes.

METTL3, the enzyme responsible for m⁶A modification, influences translation by interacting with eIF3h to mediate looping between the regions near the stop codon and 5′ cap of mRNA.

A deep learning algorithm using electronic health records from two large cohorts of patients predicts the risk of pancreatic cancer from pre-cancer disease trajectories up to 3 years in advance, showing promising performance in retrospective validation.

Tasha Fingerlin, David Schwartz and colleagues report a genome-wide association study of fibrotic idiopathic interstitial pneumonia. Their results confirm known risk variants at MUC5B and TERT and identify several new regions associated with disease susceptibility.

Prime-editing mouse models enable the study of specific cancer mutations in vivo.

Current guidelines recommend stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastasis measuring less than 3 cm but there is significant variability in outcomes following treatment. This study shows that in treatment naïve brain metastasis less than 3 cm, intrinsic biological differences across multiple histologies may influence response to stereotactic radiosurgery.

The identification of antibodies targeting a conserved site of vulnerability in the Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein reveals opportunities for passive prevention of malaria in vulnerable individuals and provides insights for rational vaccine design.

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.

The function of genes linked to type 2 diabetes is poorly characterized. Here the authors combine Drosophila genetics and physiology with human islet biology to identify new regulators of insulin secretion including BCL11A.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.