Search

The growing demand for rare earth elements (REEs) underscores the need for sustainable recovery methods and a reliable supply. Here the authors establish a platform using a yeast to produce bio-oxalic acid for REE recovery, achieving 99% REE recovery from low-grade ore.

3-Hydroxypropionic acid (3HP) is a top Department of Energy value-added chemical and precursor to bioplastics, yet cost-effective microbial bioproduction remains elusive. Here the authors establish efficient 3HP production in an acid tolerant yeast and validate its financially viability.

In the US, the cropland and non-cropland conversion from existing uses to cellulosic feedstocks for sustainable aviation fuels reduces the net greenhouse gas emissions intensity, according to a framework that combines economic, biochemical, and feedstock-specific process engineering models.

Natural hazards exacerbated by climate change pose serious risks to property markets in the United States. Ignoring these risks could create instability in housing values. This research shows the magnitude of unpriced flood risk and who stands to lose from housing prices that reflect climate risks.

With a sustainable carbohydrate core, the proposed polyamide plastic design here can compete with fossil-based alternative in terms of both performance and cost.

Upcycling urine in wastewater for nitrogen and phosphorus production has gained attention, but their low market values hamper the application. Here, the authors develop a yeast platform that mimics osteoblast mechanisms to produce the high-value hydroxyapatite directly from urine.

Recent catastrophic weather events across the U.S.—and abroad—have brought the issue of electricity reliability and resilience to the forefront of energy and environmental policy discussions. This manuscript documents an approach to estimate the economic impacts of widespread, long duration (WLD) power interruptions.

This analysis looks at the impacts and outcomes from installing solar arrays on agricultural land, finding that these ‘agrisolar’ projects can displace food production but simultaneously provide economic security and offset water use.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

The results obtained by seventy different teams analysing the same functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset show substantial variation, highlighting the influence of analytical choices and the importance of sharing workflows publicly and performing multiple analyses.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Multi-fidelity Bayesian optimization methods are studied on molecular and material discovery tasks, and guidelines are provided to recommend cheaper and informative low-fidelity sources when using this technique in experimental settings.

The Inflation Reduction Act increases the competitiveness of US electric vehicle battery manufacturing and incentivizes supply chain diversification, but reducing vulnerabilities will depend on automaker choices in battery design and navigating regulations.

Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to formic acid is a promising and sustainable pathway for valuable chemical generation. However, direct production of formic acid rather than formate is challenging. Herein the authors report a zero-gap membrane electrode assembly architecture with perforated cation exchange membrane for the direct electrochemical synthesis of formic acid from CO2.

Carbon–carbon bonds are ubiquitous in lignin, limiting monomer yields from current depolymerization strategies mainly targeting C–O bonds. Now, a bifunctional hydrocracking approach uses a Pt/zeolite catalyst to break C–C bonds in lignin waste, achieving monocyclic hydrocarbon yields up to 54 C%.

An inadequate supply of cofactors often limits the production of target molecules in metabolic engineering. Here, the authors report cofactor engineering through decompartmentalization of the yeast mitochondrial metabolism to improve succinic acid production in Issatchenkia orientalis.

This study found higher RSV antibody levels were associated with lower RSV risk in children outside the hospital. An earlier rise in incidence and higher incidence rates were observed among children <5 years compared to older children and adults.

How do low-mass binaries age? Astronomers have constrained a tight, circular orbit of a close-in companion around a dying giant star, raising new questions about how tidal forces shape binary orbits in the final phases of stellar evolution.

A resource crisis exacerbated by global warming is looming, argues financier Jeremy Grantham. More scientists must speak out.

Functionalizing an intact carbohydrate core with acetals allows for the dramatically simplified production of a plastic precursor directly during the initial fractionation of non-edible biomass. When polymerized, the rigid and polar carbohydrate core also leads to bioplastics with competitive material and end-of life properties.

A circular economy for plastics offers a promising solution to the pollution crisis. Here the authors take advantage of the unique chemistry of polydiketoenamine resins, showing how plastics can be biorenewable and recyclable by incorporating biosourced triacetic acid lactone.

Clean energy can provide different health and environmental benefits depending on location. Modelling shows that renewable energy and energy-saving projects could deliver annual benefits of up to US$210 million across six locations in the USA.

A stable, low-temperature water–gas shift catalyst is achieved by crowding platinum atoms and clusters on α-molybdenum carbide; the crowding protects the support from oxidation that would cause catalyst deactivation.

Microbial production of succinic acid at an industrially relevant scale has been hindered by high downstream processing costs arising from neutral pH fermentation. Here, the authors report an end-to-end pipeline for succinic acid production at low pH using engineered acid-tolerant Issatchenkia orientalis strain.

This study examines long-term impacts of ‘redlining’, the historical practice of assigning values to residential areas in US cities based on race and class, on the vulnerability of communities to climate risks. Findings reveal that areas marked by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation as being less desirable for investment in the 1930s–1940s face disproportionately higher current and projected risks of flooding and extreme heat, in part due to their lessened environmental capital.

Polymerase theta is a widely conserved DNA polymerase that mediates Theta Mediated End Joining. Here authors present a synthetic lethal CRISPR screen to identify DDR gene mutations that induce cellular addiction to Pol theta.

A genome-wide association study including over 76,000 individuals with schizophrenia and over 243,000 control individuals identifies common variant associations at 287 genomic loci, and further fine-mapping analyses highlight the importance of genes involved in synaptic processes.

Estimates from the Global Dietary Database indicated that 2.2 million new type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages worldwide in 2020, with the highest burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Guide-star-free imaging through turbid media is achieved by computational back-projection and averaging of as few as 25 holographically measured scattered fields under a random unknown illumination.

An optimized Co–Ni alloy catalyst encapsulated with Sm₂O₃-doped CeO₂ shows both high activity and stability for high-temperature CO₂-to-CO conversion, overcoming the limitations of such catalysts typically used in industrial applications.

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.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Genome-wide analyses identify 30 independent loci associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder, highlighting genetic overlap with other psychiatric disorders and implicating putative effector genes and cell types contributing to its etiology.

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.

Retrosynthetic pathway design using promiscuous enzymes can provide a solution to the biosynthetic production of natural products. Here, the authors design a pathway for the production of cis-α-irone with a promiscuous methyltransferase using structure-guided enzyme engineering strategies.

Prior work has identified a male-only effective population size bottleneck 3-5000 years ago. While violent competition has been proposed as a cause, the authors here show that a segmentary patrilineal system with lineal fission provides a peaceful alternative explanation.

In cooperatively breeding species, subordinates help to raise the dominant breeders’ offspring in return for benefits associated with group membership. Here, Grinsted and Field show that the amount of help provided by subordinate paper wasps depends on the availability of alternative nesting options, as predicted by biological market theory.

Coffea stenophylla is a recently rediscovered, narrow-leaved wild coffee from Upper West Africa. Rigorous sensory evaluation (tasting) rates its flavour profile as analogous to high-quality Arabica coffee, but it can grow at much higher temperatures.