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Vehicles are responsible for a large share of urban air pollution, but emissions estimates omit the full driving cycle or focus on only a few vehicles. Using GPS traces, emissions from thousands of private vehicles in three European cities are estimated to identify gross polluters and grossly polluted roads.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

The authors present a diploid reference-quality genome assembly of the widely used cell line RPE-1, revealing heightened variation between haplotypes and other human genomes at centromeres. The availability of a reference genome matching the cell line under study promises a new era of high-precision haplotype-resolved functional genomics.

Congenital infection of SARS-CoV-2 has been described, but the transmission routes remain unclear. Here, the authors report evidence of transplacental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a neonate born to a mother infected in the last trimester and presenting with neurological compromise.

Kasatkina, Ma, and colleagues propose a bacterial phytochrome-based approach for multimodal imaging and optogenetic manipulation enabled by biliverdin reductase knockout. This enables deep high-resolution photoacoustic and two-photon imaging, and light-controlled therapy in diabetes.

Using exome sequencing data from one of the largest cohorts of children with cerebral palsy, the genetic diagnostic rates of single-nucleotide and copy number variants were assessed and a sizeable fraction found to be clinically actionable.

Coletta et al. integrate patient-specific intracranial stimulations in the white matter with normative brain connectivity data. Findings reveal that intracranial driven network mapping is an accurate predictor of both neurological impairments in stroke patients and post-operative language recovery trajectories in glioma patients.

On-surface chemistry can overcome the limitations of in-solution synthesis but so far has been limited to metal substrates and unconventional mechanisms, thereby precluding a direct transposition of classic organic reactions. Herein, the authors report the photoinduced deoxygenation of dibenzothiophene S-oxide on insulating alkali halide surfaces in ultra-high vacuum.

The effects of warming legacies on ecosystem stability to future climate extremes remain unclear. By tracking the dynamics of rocky intertidal biofilm communities, this study shows that relatively constant warming enhances resistance via functional redundancy, whereas fluctuating warming boosts recovery by selecting fast-growing taxa but at the expense of functional redundancy.

The carbon allotrope cyclo[16]carbon has been synthesized using on-surface chemistry and characterized with scanning tunnelling microscopy and atomic force microscopy, revealing orbital densities and bond-length alternation, which show it to be doubly anti-aromatic.

The thymus is essential for T cell maturation and selection, and thymic defects result in severe immune problems. Here the authors identify a thymus cell population that is expandable in vitro, and can repopulate natural thymic matrix to generate tissue that supports mature T cell development in vitro and in vivo.

Here they reveal how DNA methylation and chromatin accessibility shape how stem cells respond to differentiation signals and uncover an ERK-driven mechanism that guides the formation of diverse tissues during mammalian development.

Using bibliometric techniques, this Article assesses the evolving landscape of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 research, highlighting publication trends, thematic focus areas, authorship patterns, keyword co-occurrences and citation networks.

Applications of spontaneous symmetry breaking are hindered by unavoidable imperfections. Here, the authors reveal how a phase defect provides topological robustness to this process, enabling a bias free realization without fine tuning of parameters.

Josephson junction arrays lead quantum circuitry research, vital for quantum computing, simulation, and metrology. Here the authors show that increasing the number of links in an atomtronic Josephson junction necklace enhances the atomic circuit’s resilience to higher circulations, corresponding to higher critical currents.

Combined analysis of new genomic data from 116 ancient hunter-gatherer individuals together with previously published data provides insights into the genetic structure and demographic shifts of west Eurasian forager populations over a period of 30,000 years.

Freshwater flow reduction in the Mediterranean Sea due to climate change and escalating water demand may cause a strong decline in marine productivity and commercial species biomass, affecting ecosystems and socio-economic activities.

Medulloblastoma in children is a difficult cancer to treat and the immune response to this tumour is not fully understood. Here the authors characterise and validate T cell epitopes from these cancers using an immunopeptidomics approach, comparing different molecular subtypes.

Patterns of brain activity during sleep in early stages of life influence brain development and behavior. Here, the authors reveal cortical dynamics underpinning quiet and active sleep states in pre- and full-term infants, and their links to neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Both the mathematics and outcomes of the Method of Reflections (MR) and Fitness and Complexity algorithm (FC) approaches differ largely. Here the authors recast both methods in a mathematical and multidimensional framework to reconcile both and show that the conflicts between the two methodologies to measure economic complexity can be resolved by a neat mathematical method based on linear-algebra tools within a bipartite-networks framework.

By integrating in-vivo tractography with ex-vivo dissection, this study maps the subcomponents of the Superior Longitudinal System and classifies them based on their anatomical plausibility, revealing the hierarchical and depth-dependent organization of association fibers of the brain.

Lipid accumulation in the liver leads to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that is a risk factor for developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, the authors show that activation of the translation initiation factor eIF6 promotes lipid accumulation in the liver and targeting eIF6 in murine models reduces NAFLD and associated HCC.

Schinzel-Giedion syndrome (SGS) is a fatal developmental syndrome characterized by severe intellectual and physical deficits due, at least in part, to early neurodegeneration. Here the authors introduce a human SGS model that displays disease-relevant phenotypes to demonstrate that neuronal death in SGS originates from developmental alterations mainly in safeguarding cell identity and homeostasis.

About 45% of terrestrial precipitation originates from land evaporation, highlighting the role of land use in the global water cycle, as revealed by improved high-resolution atmospheric moisture flows reconciled with reanalysis data through the Iterative Proportional Fitting.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

The Transcription Factor EB (TFEB) is known to regulate cellular homeostasis and energy metabolism, but its role in cell fate determination in the liver is unknown. Here, the authors show that TFEB regulates the progenitor/cholangiocyte lineage and that its depletion prevents tissue recovery upon injury.

Statistical analysis of COVID-19 transmission among users of a smartphone-based digital contact-tracing app suggests that such apps can be an effective measure for reducing disease spread.

Phase 1 trial results reveal that intrathecal transplantation of human fetal neural precursor cells in patients with progressive multiple sclerosis is feasible, safe and tolerable.

Motor planning can improve performance but can also lead to premature actions. The authors show that the anterior lateral motor cortex plays an important role in impulsive behavior by encoding and influencing premature motor output.

Happloinsufficiency of Myc delays onset of cancers in mice. Here, the authors generated a mouse model of reversible cMyc hypomorphism and show that metronomic reduction of c-Myc in adult mice confers protection against cancers without side effects and that the bottleneck in early cancer evolution is dependent upon Myc.

Pt-based catalysts are state-of-the-art cathodes in fuel cells, but they experience a trade-off between activity and durability. Now a Pt nanocatalyst with embedded cobalt oxide clusters is shown to promote stability during proton exchange membrane fuel cell operation without sacrificing activity, achieving 88.2% mass activity retention after 30,000 accelerated stress test cycles.

Single-cell measurements and modelling show that the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus obtain most of the carbon required for growth from mixotrophy, extending their ecological range and impact in the water column.

Cells in the developing embryo interpret WNT signalling with context-dependence, but the mechanism decoding these cues is unclear. Here, the authors show that combinatorial TALE/HOX activity destabilizes nucleosomes at WNT-responsive regions to activate paraxial mesodermal genes.

Plankton models have crucial applications in ecosystem management and climate change projections. This Perspective suggests that stronger alignment of plankton models with empirical knowledge is needed and recommends steps to close the gap between empirical research and modelling.

Pubertal timing in mammals depends on the function of GnRH neurons that innervate the median eminence (ME) of the hypothalamus. Here, the authors show that Semaphorin 6A regulates GnRH innervation and puberty onset by tuning vascular permeability at the ME.

SARS-CoV-2 infection of expecting mothers has been reported. Here the authors profile the peripheral blood from 14 pregnant women with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection to find grossly normal immune cell composition but heterogenous induction of pro-inflammatory cytokines, thereby implicating possible therapeutic targets for virus-induced damages during pregnancy.

Accumulation of advanced glycation end products such as carboxymethyllysine (CML) has been associated with aging but their molecular roles are largely unclear. Here, the authors use proteomics to identify CML sites and show that CML formation affects protein homeostasis and cell proliferation.

Application of the founder principle from population genetics to variant selection after recombineering allows the isolation of rare unselected recombinants.

The inability of T cells to properly mount anti-tumour immunity underlies failed cancer immune surveillance or therapy. Here the authors show that a microRNA, miR-155, suppresses Ship1 phosphatase expression to modulate epigenetic reprogramming of CD8 T cell differentiation via the Phf19/PRC2 axis, thereby implicating a novel aspect of cancer immunity regulation.

Kuhm et al. reveal how human guanylate-binding protein 1 (GBP1) dimers self-associate to coat bacterial pathogens and uncover a guanosine triphosphate hydrolase-dependent membrane-remodeling activity of GBP1 that is crucial for intracellular immunity