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Breeding crops with delayed senescence could plausibly increase grain yield. Here the authors show that variation at the rice SGR locus contributes to differences in senescence between indica and japonica subspecies and show that introgression can increase yield in an elite indica rice variety.

Plasma p-tau217 tests used to develop clocks that predict when cognitively unimpaired individuals would develop symptoms of Alzheimerʼs disease.

Here, the authors show that 2’-O-methylated RNA fragments from ribosomal RNA naturally block TLR7 and TLR8, helping to avoid avoid harmful self-RNA detection and autoimmunity.

ATF6α activation in human and preclinical models of hepatocellular carcinoma is significantly associated with an aggressive tumour phenotype characterized by reduced survival, glycolytic reprogramming and local immunosuppression.

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 formation of exciton crystals is challenging because excitons possess short lifetimes and exhibit weaker interactions than electrons. Now, an exciton Wigner crystal is observed in a moiré electron–hole bilayer.

Natural products inspire the development of pseudo-natural products through combinations of fragments of compound classes that are chemically and biologically distinct. Here, the authors report a library of 244 pseudo-natural products, evaluate them in the cell painting essays and identify the phenotypic role of individual fragments.

Crystal structures of HIV Env trimer with native glycosylation in complex with neutralizing antibodies reveal a glycan shield of high-mannose and complex-type N-glycan and indicate a path for germline-targeting vaccine design.

Functional studies of O-GlcNAcylation have often focused on individual modifications. Now, a systems-level approach has identified simultaneous O-GlcNAcylation events that coordinate cellular activities and tissue-specific functions.

Here, the authors present a bioinformatic pipeline to annotate lncRNA genes in Aspergillus fumigatus. The majority of these lncRNAs are only conserved at the species level, and their expression is highly responsive to antifungal exposure in Aspergillus fumigatus.

The authors model the emergence of climate-driven changes in Antarctic sea ice, phytoplankton, krill, fish and penguins. They show earlier emergence for higher trophic levels, as well as highly seasonal and regional responses.

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but it is not deterministic. Here, the authors show that common genetic variation changes how APOE-ε4 influences cognition.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

An anti-HIV-1 antibody that targets an N332_gp120 glycan-independent V3 epitope, a site of Env vulnerability, can decline viremia in HIV-1-infected humanized mice while overcoming classical V3 escape mutations.

How cellular metabolism influences tissue-resident macrophage survival is currently unknown. The authors here demonstrate that SerpinB2 regulates mitochondrial function to promote tissue-resident macrophage survival.

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

WIN332 is an HIV-1 Env protein designed to elicit a new class of Asn332-glycan-independent antibodies (type II) to the V3-glycan site of Env. WIN332 immunization rapidly induces type-II V3-glycan antibodies with low inhibitory activity indicative of a neutralization activity in macaques.

The ZFTA–RELA fusion, an oncogene for ependymomas, promotes the production of itaconate, and its dependence on this metabolite represents a new therapeutic target for this cancer.

Molecular glue degraders have consistently been discovered retrospectively, despite their increasing importance. Herein, a high-throughput approach is described that modifies existing ligands into molecular glue degraders.

The lowest-frequency gravitational wave background may be shaped by supermassive black hole binaries that scatter nearby stars or dark matter. In this case, the NANOGrav 15-year dataset favours dense galactic centres with 10⁶ solar masses per cubic parsec.

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

The authors investigate the heterogeneity of Toxoplasma bradyzoites prior to recrudescence. Tissue cysts from infected mice harbor multiple bradyzoite subtypes with distinct developmental fates as evidenced by single-bradyzoite RNAseq and FACS.

A vagal reflex to blood volume changes in the heart involves PIEZO2 and helps to stabilize blood pressure in an upright posture and after blood loss.

Transcription factor osr2 is identified as a specific marker and regulator of mural lymphatic endothelial cell (muLEC) differentiation and maintenance, and muLECs and border-associated macrophages share functional analogies but are not homologous, providing an example of convergent evolution.

Jacquemyn et al. identify key lipid determinants controlling ectosome shedding from neurons. They find that ectosomes are a major route for the intercellular transport of misfolded α-synuclein, with relevance to Parkinson’s disease pathology.

This study estimates the green cooling distribution and the population most exposed to heat in 14 major European areas. It found that lower-income residents, immigrants and unemployed residents are more vulnerable compared with upper-income residents, nationals and homeowners.

A spatial and single-cell transcriptomics study across multiple mammalian species identifies epidermal BMP signalling as a functional requirement for rete ridge formation, providing insight into mechanisms underlying hair density loss and wound healing.

Here, the authors find that time-varying brain network analysis better captures cognitive processing than static methods and reveals network measurement linked to task performance and psychopathology that offer precise neural markers for mental health risks.

Tactile sensing to differentiate normal and shear forces remains a challenge. A force microsensor array based on graphene and a liquid-metal composites decouples normal–shear force sensing, achieving a 200 μm scale and a 0.9 μN force detection limit.

CURT1/CurT proteins, known for shaping thylakoid membranes in photosynthetic organisms, play a newly found role in coordinating cell division and symmetry. Being shared in cyanobacteria and green algae this role is likely phylogenetically ancient.

Quantum error correction codes protect quantum information, but running algorithms also requires the ability to perform gates on logical qubits. A lattice surgery scheme for fault-tolerant gates has now been demonstrated in a quantum repetition code.

A platform using matched patient-derived lung tumouroids and healthy lung organoids enables accurate examination of patient responses to CAR T therapy and offers a faithful framework for improved CAR T design.

Neville, Ferguson et al. show that non-canonical Polycomb repressive complex 1.1-mediated gene silencing is antagonized by DOT1L and is required for the therapeutic efficacy of Menin and DOT1L inhibitors in mixed-lineage leukaemia.

A comprehensive atlas platform integrating transcriptional and epigenetic data enables more precise engineering of T cell states, accelerating the rational design of more effective cellular immunotherapies.

Functional and structural characterization of PtmA2 reveals that it is an unusual non-adenylating acyl-CoA ligase and part of a system wherein the canonical acyl-CoA ligase reaction is separated into two half-reactions performed by distinct enzymes.

This study finds that crowd-sensed plants as living sensors uncover climate and soil patterns in 326 European cities; extend the urban heat island effect to moisture, pH, salinity and disturbance; and show built-up areas homogenize whereas urban forests preserve environmental diversity.

Superlubric arrays of double-bilayer graphene enable elastically coupled switching between Bernal and rhombohedral graphene polytypes under shear forces below 1 nN with an estimated energy cost of less than 1 fJ per switching event.

MedHELM, an extensible evaluation framework including a new taxonomy for classifying medical tasks and a benchmark of many datasets across these categories, enables the evaluation of large language models on real-world clinical tasks.

Newly developed mouse models that enable cell-specific analyses of proteostasis dynamics across the lifespan of the mice reveal key aspects of neuronal proteostasis with ageing.

The Neurospora circadian clock keeps time through a negative feedback loop involving a protein complex of FRQ bound to FRH. Here, the authors show that slow, stochastic phosphorylation of these proteins dissociates and activates them via two precisely timed switches.

Proteomic data from natural isolates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae provide insight into how these cells tolerate aneuploidy (an imbalance in the number of chromosomes), and reveal differences between lab-engineered aneuploids and diverse natural yeasts.

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.

Humans and monkeys integrated experiential and observational evidence during a two-player task, and the anterior cingulate cortex combined the information sources into a unified neural belief representation that explains behavioural asymmetries.

T-cell–mediated rejection (TCMR) remains a major cause of kidney transplant failure with incompletely understood mechanisms. Here the authors use single-nucleus RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics and immunofluorescence to show that injured kidney epithelial cell states associate with poor transplant outcomes after T-cell–mediated rejection.

Global Burden of Disease estimates show that between 1990 and 2023, the prevalence and burden of drug use disorders, inclusive of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and opioid use, have been increasing in high-income countries, particularly in the USA.

How inflammation spreads from the skin to the joints in psoriatic disease is unclear. Here, the authors show that joint-resident fibroblasts can control differentiation of infiltrating skin-derived myeloid precursors that can become inflammatory macrophages.

Floquet engineering is often limited by weak light–matter coupling and heating. Now it is shown that exciton-driven fields in monolayer semiconductors produce stronger, longer-lived Floquet effects and reveal hybridization linked to excitonic phases.

The impact of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) on protein function and cancer risk remain unclear. Here, the authors focus on the functional impact of VUS of the PALB2 gene and identify defects in DNA damage repair by homologous recombination associated with increased risk of breast cancer.

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.