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Reconstructing microbial genomes from 820 reef-building corals collected at 99 reefs across 32 islands throughout the Pacific Ocean highlights the importance of conserving coral reefs as vital reservoirs of molecular diversity.

Dinosaurs are thought to have been driven extinct by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Here, Condamine et al. show that six major dinosaur families were already in decline in the preceding 10 million years, possibly due to global cooling and competition among herbivores.

Arms races between herbivores and plants have likely affected their evolutionary histories, which could have led to their high diversity. Allio et al. find that butterflies shifting to new host plants have more adaptive molecular signatures across their genomes and show repeated bursts of speciation rates.

The contribution of ether lipid species in cancer cell fate has not been fully understood yet. Here the authors show that malignant cancer cells employ ether lipids to modulate membrane biophysical properties, enhancing iron endocytosis and ferroptosis susceptibility.

The impact of negative energy balance on dopamine transmission is unclear. Here, authors show that the ABA model disrupts dopamine transmission via loss of GABAergic control over VTA dopamine neurons contributing to the development of hyperactivity.

Sequence-specific conformational changes are essential in biological processes but difficult to replicate in synthetic systems. Here the authors encode in the primary sequence of molecular strands, the information required to govern the formation and dynamic behavior of multistranded helices.

Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems around the world. This Review describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researchers’ understanding of the clade in the genomic era; it also explores biogeographic patterns and conservation efforts for threatened species.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide and transcriptome-wide association studies of aortic stenosis identify more than 200 independent risk loci and provide insights into its genetic architecture.

This works presents an estimate of the contribution of avalanches to the mass balance of all glaciers in the world and its planned evolution throughout the 21st century, as well as the implications for the glacier mass balance and evolution.

The authors reveal that the C-terminal tail anchors of BCL-2 family proteins control BH3 binding and cell survival by allosteric regulation at the mitochondrial membrane, involving BAX recruitment and complex disruption upon BH3 mimetic antagonism.

Conventional PROTACs have limited capacity for misfolded proteins. Here, authors develop a BioPROTAC containing an scFv specifically targeting misfolded SOD1, fused to an E3 ligase, and demonstrate a strategy for reducing misfolded SOD1 accumulation.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

A demonstration of the ability to coherently control the collective attosecond dynamics of relativistic electrons driven through a plasma by an intense laser represents an important step in the development of techniques to manipulate and study extreme states of matter.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

The deployment of AI on edge computing devices raises significant challenges in terms of high energy consumption and limited functionality, which could be efficiently mitigated by brain-inspired neuromorphic engineering. Here, the authors introduce voltage-dependent synaptic plasticity for efficient, unsupervised learning in memristive synapses, demonstrating state-of-the-art performance and robustness on pattern recognition tasks

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

The impact of three extinction events during the Permo–Triassic interval on terrestrial invertebrates is unclear. Here, the authors find that key abiotic and biotic factors, including changes in floral assemblages, were correlated with changes in insect diversity through this interval.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

How mountain glaciers will react to temporarily overshooting 1.5 °C of warming is poorly understood. Here the authors show irreversible global glacier loss for centuries after overshoot, implying long-term reductions in glacial water resources with amplified impacts in regions where glaciers regrow.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

Conserving and restoring ecosystems requires understanding what natural vegetation would look like without human disturbance. This study maps the most likely global cover of trees, short vegetation, and bare ground, showing that land management through fire and herbivory may influence ecosystems more than climate change alone.

Viral hepatitis is a global public health problem. In this Viewpoint, we asked a selection of scientists and clinicians working in the viral hepatitis field to provide their opinions on progress and pitfalls towards the 2030 viral hepatitis elimination goals.

Protein citrullination regulates the physiological function of proteins and is linked to various autoimmune disorders. Here, the authors report on the allosteric targeting of PAD1-4 leading to broad inhibition of protein citrullination in neutrophils.

A reconstruction of Cenozoic marine biodiversity in the Indo-Australian Archipelago reveals decreasing rates of net diversification and identifies the factors that have established it as the richest marine biodiversity hotspot.

Here, the authors compared measurements between 34 laboratories from 19 countries, to quantify by mass spectrometry four ceramides of clinical relevance in human blood plasma Standard Reference Materials. The main goals were to evaluate concordance obtained in a large inter-laboratory trial and to report absolute concentrations of four circulating lipids in a publicly available standard.

Some cancer cells exhibit high loads of reactive iron in lysosomes, and this feature is exploited by using fentomycin-1, a newly developed small molecule, to induce ferroptosis.

Elasmobranchs (sharks, rays and skates) are among the most threatened marine vertebrates, yet their global functional diversity remains largely unknown. This study uses a trait dataset of over 1,000 species to assess elasmobranch functional diversity and compare it against other previously studied biodiversity facets to identify global conservation priorities.

A new phylogenomic tree for butterflies is constructed using 391 genes from 2,300 species, representing 92% of genera. It suggests that butterflies originated around 100 million years ago in what is now the Americas and originally fed on Fabaceae.

Attenuating effects of the ketogenic diet on colorectal cancer (CRC) cell growth has been previously described. Here, using a mouse model of CRC with a humanized microbiome, the authors identify a shift toward gut bacterial species that produce stearic acid in ketogenic conditions, resulting in elevated levels of free stearate in the gut lumen, which they then show exhibits tumor-suppressing properties.

The oral antibiotic adsorbent DAV132 can reduce fecal concentrations of antibiotics while preserving their pharmacokinetic properties. Here, in a randomized trial in healthy volunteers treated with antibiotics, the authors show that DAV132 does not affect plasma concentrations of the antibiotics but preserves microbiome diversity and composition, with implications for cancer immunotherapy.