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Given the potential for increasingly common and intense tropical storms, it is important to understand their effects on island forest communities. Here, the authors show that Hurricane María’s strength and rainfall had larger effects on tree mortality than other less severe storms, and that large trees and species with low-density wood were most susceptible.

Dimorphic organisms switch between two distinct life forms, but how a single genome controls the genetic program for both states is unclear. The study identifies hundreds of convergently evolved gene families and two regulator genes, dkl and dfl, that coordinate expression to optimize the two morphologies of Mucorales fungi.

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.

Population-based studies from Sweden with replication in Norway identify associations between host genetic variants and gut microbial composition and implicate short-chain fatty acid chemosensors as modulators of gut microbial richness.

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.

Genome-wide analyses in the Norwegian HUNT study with replication in Swedish and Finnish cohorts identify host genetic variants associated with gut microbiome features and provide evidence of a causal effect of body mass index on gut microbiota composition.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Spatiotemporal insight into photoactivation of the prototypical B₁₂ photoreceptor CarH is revealed across nine orders of magnitude in time, identifying a transient adduct that distinguishes it from thermally activated B₁₂ enzymes.

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.

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.

A recently developed class of magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins are engineered to alter the properties of their response to magnetic fields and radio frequencies, enabling multimodal sensing of biological systems.

Mapping of the neutrophil compartment using single-cell transcriptional data from multiple physiological and patological states reveals its organizational architecture and how cell state dynamics and trajectories vary during health, inflammation and cancer.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

This study releases a very high-resolution migration dataset that reveals trends that shape daily life: rising moves into high-income neighborhoods, racial gaps in upward mobility, and wildfire-driven moves.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

Analysing >1,700 inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network, the authors show that the majority of Amazon tree species can occupy floodplains and that patterns of species turnover are closely linked to regional flood patterns.

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome is characterized by premature aging with cardiovascular disease being the main cause of death. Here the authors show that inhibition of the NAT10 enzyme enhances cardiac function and fitness, and reduces age-related phenotypes in a mouse model of premature aging.

Inventory data from more than 1 million trees across African, Amazonian and Southeast Asian tropical forests suggests that, despite their high diversity, just 1,053 species, representing a consistent ~2.2% of tropical tree species in each region, constitute half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees.

High near-surface nitrogen-fixation rates that promoted the recent growth of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt were tied to greater upwelling of phosphorus from the equatorial Atlantic, according to coral-bound nitrogen isotope records from the Caribbean.

This Registered Report presents evidence from 87 countries and regions showing that brief emotion-regulation interventions consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Genotype and exome sequencing of 150,000 participants and whole-genome sequencing of 9,950 selected individuals recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study constitute a valuable, publicly available resource of non-European sequencing data.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

Here the authors perform a trans expression quantitative trait locus meta-analysis study of over 3,700 people and link a USP18 variant to expression of 50 inflammation genes and lupus risk, highlighting how genetic regulation of immune responses drives autoimmune disease and informs new therapies.

Norovirus genotype GII.17 has been linked with a recent increase in cases in Europe and the Americas. Here, the authors investigate the genetic diversity and mutational patterns, and phenotypic differences associated with the recent circulating strain.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

Analyses of 475 ancient horse genomes show modern horses emerged around 2200 bce, coinciding with sudden expansion across Eurasia, refuting the narrative of large horse herds accompanying earlier migrations of steppe peoples across Europe.

This study used whole-genome and metagenomic sequencing to trace foodborne pathogens across humans, animals, and environments in four African countries, revealing persistent transmission routes and highlighting new opportunities for surveillance.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

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.

The authors present a molecular classification of acute leukemia using 5-methylcytosine signatures, together with a neural network-based classifier for clinical use.

Analysis of HbA1c and FPG levels across 117 population-based studies demonstrates regional variation in prevalence of previously undiagnosed screen-detected diabetes using one or both measures and suggests that use of elevated FPG alone could underestimate diabetes prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.

Here, the authors present results of the ZiBRA-2 project (https://www.zibra2project.org) which is an arbovirus surveillance project, across the Midwest of Brazil using a mobile genomics laboratory, combined with a genomic surveillance training program that targeted post-graduate students, laboratory technicians, and health practitioners in universities and laboratories.

Here the authors provide an explanation for 95% of examined predicted loss of function variants found in disease-associated haploinsufficient genes in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), underscoring the power of the presented analysis to minimize false assignments of disease risk.

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

The Amazonas region has been the most heavily affected by COVID-19 in Brazil. In this study, the authors conduct phylodynamic analyses to assess SARS-CoV-2 lineage replacement dynamics in the region and infer the impact of population immunity on the spread and severity of the Delta and Omicron variants.

Emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 raise concerns about vaccine efficiency. Here, the authors present a post-hoc analysis for the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) vaccine trial in Brazil and provide efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 caused by the Zeta (P.2) and other variants.

Genomic and epidemiologic analyses revealed that a novel reassortant viral lineage of the Oropouche virus, which has been circulating in the western Amazon region of Brazil for about a decade, is associated with the recent human outbreaks between 2022 and 2024.

The RNA methyltransferase activity of SPOUT1/CENP-32 is crucial for accurate mitotic spindle organization. Here, the authors describe a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by bi-allelic pathogenic SPOUT1 variants with reduced activity and compromised function in spindle organization.

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.

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.

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.