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Wheat yields in northwest Europe have plateaued since the mid-1990s. This study finds that no ceiling in genetic yield potential has been reached and that climatic conditions have not constrained wheat yields across high-yielding environments in the region thus far; suboptimal agronomic management is responsible for unrealized wheat yield progress of 67–114 kg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ during the period 1994–2016.

Disease course and pathology an infection may cause can change owing to the structural and functional physiological changes that accumulate with age, but therapy can be tailored accordingly; disease tolerance genes show antagonistic pleiotropy.

Geometrical frustration in confined systems can lead to the emergence of topological defects, which significantly influence the physical properties of materials. This study demonstrates that grain boundary scars in dense assemblies of active spinners can decouple edge flows from the bulk, resulting in spontaneous self-shearing and a chiral activity-mediated reentrant melting transition.

This study examines long-term changes in species richness across tropical forests in the Andes and Amazon. Hotter, drier and more seasonal forests in the eastern and southern Amazon are losing species, while Northern Andean forests are accumulating species, acting as a refuge for climate-displaced species.

Glioblastoma is characterised by high levels of intratumoural heterogeneity and plasticity, hindering treatment. Here, the authors develop an analytical framework, scFOCAL, to predict the sensitivity of glioblastoma cell subpopulations to therapies based on reversal of disease transcriptional signatures to identify synergistic therapeutic combinations.

Spatially resolved gene expression during barley development was done by integrating an scRNA-seq dataset from cells with unknown position with spatial transcriptomics. This dataset is publicly available through the online web-based BARVISTA application.

Tree buds integrate cold and warm cues to control dormancy release. Extended warm periods block plasmodesmata opening by repressing Flowering Locus T and GA pathways in buds. This mechanism ensures robust temporal regulation of dormancy release.

Risk associated with genetically defined forms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can propagate by means of transcriptional regulation to affect convergently dysregulated pathways, providing insight into the convergent impact of ASD genetic risk on human neurodevelopment.

The anterior cingulate cortex encodes affective pain behaviours modulated by opioids; targeting opioid-sensitive neurons through a new chemogenetic gene therapy replicates the analgesic effects of morphine, providing precise chronic pain relief without affecting sensory detection.

Analysis of behavioral data often involves tracking animal keypoints in video and motion capture recordings. DISK imputes missing keypoints, thereby improving downstream analyses.

The predicted increase in frequency of droughts and rising temperatures in Europe will lead core populations of a temperate plant to an evolutionary dead-end unless they acquire genetic alleles that are present only in extreme edge Mediterranean, Scandinavian, or Siberian populations.

Climate change is altering how plants balance carbon gain and water loss. This study maps global leaf-level water-use efficiency over the past two decades, showing it is highest in regions that are cold or dry, increasing worldwide, and strongly influenced by atmospheric dryness.

During development of eutherian females, one of the X-chromosomes is silenced. Here, authors show that alleles on the inactive X-chromosome are dynamically expressed along neural differentiation enhancing resilience of female neural tissue.

Decentralized natural resource governance is thought to aid conservation and reduce poverty, but its heterogeneous local effects are under-explored. A study in Nepal shows that forest governance decentralization reduces poverty but the benefits are greater for dominant ethnic and caste groups compared with minority ones.

This study assessed the durability of immunity in humans after vaccination with an MVA-based MERS vaccine. The data show that antibodies and T cells persist for at least two years, with the antibodies capable of cross-neutralizing MERS-CoV variants.

When doubly-degenerate band crossings known as Kramers nodal lines intersect the Fermi level, they form exotic three-dimensional Fermi surfaces composed of massless Dirac fermions. Here, the authors present evidence that the 3R polytypes of TaS₂ and NbS₂ are Kramers nodal line metals with open octdong and spindle-torus Fermi surfaces, respectively.

CFAP20 has a key role in rescuing RNA polymerase II complexes that have arrested during DNA transcription, limiting the accumulation of R-loops and preventing collisions between the transcription and replication machinery.

Ionizing radiation can cause simultaneous charge noise in multi-qubit superconducting devices. Here, the authors measure space- and time-correlated charge jumps in a four-qubit system in a low-radiation underground facility, achieving operation with minimal correlated events over 22 h at qubit separations beyond 3 mm.

A suite of TadA-derived cytosine base editors was optimized to improve efficiency, reduce sequence bias, expand PAM compatibility and minimize artefacts, enabling precise genetic interrogation of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in zebrafish.

How neuron-level interactions produce complex cognitive behavior remains unclear. Here, the authors develop a brain circuit mechanistic model based on physiological computation, that uncovers an unexpected neural code, subsequently validated by empirical data.

XCR1+ type 1 conventional DCs (cDC1s) are crucial to mount anti-tumor immune responses, however their infiltration within tumours is often limited. Here the authors show that cDC1 infiltration could be expanded by intratumoral delivery of mesenchymal stromal cells engineered to express the membrane bound form of FLT3L in combination with poly(I:C) or CXCL9 and CCL5, improving anti-tumor immunity in preclinical models.

High-throughput chemical ligand discovery is challenged by false positives. Here, authors introduce a scalable enantioselective affinity-selection mass spectrometry approach for proteome-wide ligand discovery with high sensitivity and selectivity

FACED 2.0 builds on and expands the capabilities of the free-space angular-chirp-enhanced delay microscopy approach. Its high speed, large field of view and volumetric coverage enable two-photon voltage imaging of hundreds of neurons or calcium imaging of thousands of neurons in the mouse or zebrafish brain.

The authors present MorphoGenie, an unsupervised model that profiles cell shapes to predict cellular heterogeneity without manual labels. It provides a scalable, interpretable, and generalizable approach for data-driven exploration of cellular heterogeneity across diverse imaging modalities.

The authors report the discovery of charge order with onset temperature of 800 K in the kagome superconductor YRu₃Si₂. In addition, they observe time-reversal symmetry breaking below 25 K, field-induced magnetism below 90 K and bulk multi-gap superconductivity below 3.4 K.

RAS-driven cancers depend on SHOC2–PP1C. Here, the authors reveal that KRAS forms a low-affinity SHOC2–PP1C complex with fewer contacts than MRAS and show that dual inhibition of KRAS- and MRAS-dependent assemblies strengthens SHOC2 suppression and may overcome resistance.

Guided by density functional theory, a commercially viable refractory alloy is developed, which exhibits excellent room-temperature ductility and strength, and high strength at elevated temperatures.

N¹-Methylpseudouridine enhances the translation of synthetic mRNAs, independently of innate immunity.

The authors report an enhancement of the superconducting onset temperature in nanometer-thin YBa₂Cu₃O₇-δ films grown on substrates with nanofaceted surfaces. They theoretically show that the enhancement is mainly driven by electronic nematicity and unidirectional charge density waves, and further suggest that the nanofacets themselves may promote these effects.

De novo and inherited dominant variants in genes encoding U4 and U6 small nuclear RNAs are identified in individuals with retinitis pigmentosa. The variants cluster at nucleotide positions distinct from those implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Rare cells are often biologically and clinically important, but their low abundance makes them challenging to study using single-cell transcriptomics. Here, the authors develop PURE-seq which integrates FACS and PIP-seq to directly sequence ultra-rare cells. It captures cells at 1 in 1,000,000 rarity, which the authors demonstrate by profiling circulating tumor cells and identifying Egr1 as a regulator of mouse hematopoietic stem cell aging.

In a randomized controlled trial that included 97 participants, 69% patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) allocated to a fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) achieved clinical response, and over 60% reached remission, outperforming the control group. The FMD also reduced markers of intestinal inflammation, suggesting this dietary intervention could serve as adjunctive treatment for CD.

How the complex interplay between multiple nutrients within the microenvironment dictates potential sites of metastatic cancer growth is explored.

This work presents a global wind power simulation tool that uses high-resolution data and extensive validation to improve accuracy. It corrects wind speed biases and validates against real-world data, enhancing reliability for wind energy assessments across various scales and regions.

The hierarchy of DNA repair pathways at stalled replication forks is not fully understood. Here, the authors isolate two mutations in yeast RAD51 with defects in binding to duplex DNA and stalled replication forks, suggesting a role of Rad51 duplex DNA binding in fork stabilization and postreplication repair.

The authors found that the Alzheimer’s disease-associated protein tau, widely considered pathogenic when hyperphosphorylated, has a natural function as part of the innate immune system in the brain and can protect against herpes simplex virus 1.

In this work, authors show how the enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) protease EatA cleaves the human mucus protein MUC2 at a C-terminal site, allowing bacteria to cross the intestinal mucus, reach epithelial cells, and promote infection, as demonstrated using a human MUC2 transgenic mouse model.

Skeletal muscle is central to whole-body energy balance. Here, Yang et al. show that MLL4-dependent enhancer activation is a key regulatory node for the governance of muscle metabolic efficiency and systemic metabolism via the control of muscle AMPK.

Demand for agricultural water resources under climate change may come into conflict with achieving positive environmental outcomes. In Australia’s Macquarie basin, environmentally minded management can ensure agricultural needs are met without sacrificing environmental outcomes.

This study introduces a sediment-based method to reconstruct Antarctic fast-ice change during the late Holocene, revealing cyclic patterns linked to solar variability and offering insight into long-term cryosphere climate dynamics.

This Resource paper presents a global SARS-CoV-2 phylogenetic tree of 4,471,579 high-quality genomes consistently constructed by Viridian, an efficient amplicon-aware assembler.

DNA double-strand breaks endanger genome stability. Here, the authors present cryo-EM structures showing how Ku70/80 and DNA-PK bind DNA ends on nucleosomes, offering a mechanistic model for break recognition within chromatin.

A natural circular RNA termed ciRS-7 is shown to function as a negative regulator of microRNA; ciRS-7 acts as an efficient sponge for the microRNA miR-7, and is resistant to the usual microRNA-mediated degradation pathway of exonucleolytic RNA decay.

Improved vaccines and antivirals are needed for many enveloped viruses. Here, the authors identify sulfur-based small molecules that disrupt viral membrane properties, inhibiting fusion and entry, and safely inactivate influenza virus. The resulting inactivated influenza vaccine is protective in mice.

A photocatalytic synthetic route to deuterated N-heteroarenes over an atomically dispersed palladium photocatalyst in D₂O is developed. By recycling used D₂O and photocatalyst, up to 1.157 kg of deuterated N-heteroarenes can be obtained using only 4.5 litres of D₂O (19.7 equiv.).

The existing ENCODE registry of candidate human and mouse cis-regulatory elements is expanded with the addition of new ENCODE data, integrating new functional data as well as new cell and tissue types.

One of three back-to-back papers to show dosage of BACH2 can modulate T cell differentiation and function and how we might apply this to enhance chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies for cancer.

Gas-phase actinium monofluoride (AcF) has been produced and spectroscopically studied at the CERN-ISOLDE radioactive ion beam facility; the results highlight the potential of ²²⁷AcF for exceptionally sensitive searches of CP violation.

The 4D Nucleome Project demonstrates the use of genomic assays and computational methods to measure genome folding and then predict genomic structure from DNA sequence, facilitating the discovery of potential effects of genetic variants, including variants associated with disease, on genome structure and function.