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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.

HIV-1 integrase forms an RNA-binding module on the luminal side of the mature capsid lattice.

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.

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.

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.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

How to effectively communicate climate change to the public has long been studied and debated. Through a registered report megastudy, researchers tested the ten most-cited climate change messaging strategies published, finding that many had significant, but small, effects on climate change attitudes.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Arctic warming is thought to lead to large losses in soil carbon stocks. Here a 35-year-long fertilization experiment in Alaska shows that increased shrub productivity and changes in plant–microbial feedbacks may eventually reverse trends of carbon loss and restore the soil carbon sink.

When a topological insulator is coupled with a superconductor, supercurrents arise that—if fully understood—may allow the detection of long-sought Majorana fermions. Here the nature of these supercurrents is further elucidated as they are characterized as non-symmetric and carried by surface states.

A three-dimensional topological insulator nanowire is predicted to display gapped one-dimensional surface transport properties. Here, the authors demonstrate this experimentally, observing characteristic quantum oscillations in conductance in (Bi1.33Sb0.67)Se3 nanowires under an applied magnetic field.

Cochlearia is an evolutionarily dynamic genus with different base chromosome numbers and ploidal levels. Here, the authors construct a graph-based pangenome for Cochlearia and reveal that whole-genome duplication associated with greater diversity of genomic structural variation and their possible function in adaptation.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

Analysing camera-trap data of 163 mammal species before and after the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns, the authors show that responses to human activity are dependent on the degree to which the landscape is modified by humans, with carnivores being especially sensitive.

Viruses generally have compact genomes, resulting in many viral mRNAs with short 5’ untranslated regions. An antiviral complex exploits this feature of viral mRNAs to selectively inhibit viral protein synthesis and repress viral replication.

Bosonic qubits can be engineered to feature intrinsic protection against certain kinds of errors, which makes quantum error correction across many bosonic qubits possible with less overhead.

Inbreeding depression has been observed in many different species, but in humans a systematic analysis has been difficult so far. Here, analysing more than 1.3 million individuals, the authors show that a genomic inbreeding coefficient (FROH) is associated with disadvantageous outcomes in 32 out of 100 traits tested.

The spatial and temporal control of material properties at a distance have been so far achieved with light, heat, or sound. Here, the authors control chemical reactions and further polymerization of composites with an electric field via inverse piezo-effect resulting in multi-stiffness gels.

Positron emission tomography measurements of nutrient uptake in cells of the tumour microenvironment reveal cell-intrinsic partitioning in which glucose uptake is higher in myeloid cells, whereas glutamine is preferentially acquired by cancer cells.

An expert-elicitation process identifies current methodological barriers for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity, and how technological and procedural development of robotic and autonomous systems may contribute to overcoming these challenges.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

The authors analyzed the whole-exome sequences of over 16,000 individuals and found that very rare variants predicted to disrupt the SETD1A gene confer substantial risk for schizophrenia. Damaging variants in SETD1A were also associated with diverse, severe developmental disorders, providing an important genetic link between schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

cSplotch compares spatial transcriptomics data across ages and regions of mouse colon tissue.

Retroviral reverse transcriptase from Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus (MoMLV) requires interaction with peptidyl release factor 1. Here, the authors report the crystal structure of this complex, and provide insights into how MoMLV uses the host translation machinery to synthesize its own proteins.

A multiancestry genome-wide association study of chronic alanine aminotransferase elevation identifies candidate risk loci for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, with replication in external cohorts defined by histology or imaging.

The 3CL protease of SARS-CoV-2 is inhibited by PF-00835231 in vitro. Here, the authors show that the prodrug PF-07304814 has broad spectrum activity, inhibiting SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 in mice and its ADME and safety profile support clinical development.

Michael Talkowski and colleagues analyze balanced chromosomal abnormalities in 273 individuals by whole-genome sequencing. Their findings suggest that sequence-level resolution improves prediction of clinical outcomes for balanced rearrangements and provides insight into pathogenic mechanisms such as altered gene regulation due to changes in chromosome topology.

This overview of the ENCODE project outlines the data accumulated so far, revealing that 80% of the human genome now has at least one biochemical function assigned to it; the newly identified functional elements should aid the interpretation of results of genome-wide association studies, as many correspond to sites of association with human disease.

Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic assessment of these relationships and highlights the role of subjective attribution.

Multiple omics platforms and deep single-cell profiling in the I4 astronauts reveal both conserved and distinct immune system disruptions across missions, provide a single-cell immune reference for future missions.

A transiting planet with a period of about 8.5 days and a radius 0.4 times that of Jupiter is reported within the debris disk around the star AU Microscopii.

Tracing barcoded clones of Klebsiella pneumoniae during pneumonia with bacteremia, Holmes and colleagues identify two modes of dissemination, with high or low bacterial burdens, and define the host and bacterial factors that influence this process.

What is the state of trust in scientists around the world? To answer this question, the authors surveyed 71,922 respondents in 68 countries and found that trust in scientists is moderately high.

Analysis of data from multiple instruments reveals a giant exoplanet in orbit around the 0.2-solar-mass star TOI-6894. The existence of this exoplanetary system challenges assumptions about planet formation and it is an excellent target for atmospheric characterization.

A dataset of the genomes of 363 species from the Bird 10,000 Genomes Project shows increased power to detect shared and lineage-specific variation, demonstrating the importance of phylogenetically diverse taxon sampling in whole-genome sequencing.

Mouse models are an essential tool in breast cancer research. Here, the authors present the genomic and transcriptomic profiles of two widely used mouse models, revealing parallels with the human disease specifically with metastasis and treatment response.

Mouldable hydrogels find a variety of applications in the biomedical industry. Here, Appel et al. show a method to fabricate hydrogels through a self-assembly process based on the interaction between biopolymers and functional nanoparticles for multistage drug delivery in vivo.

Meta-analysis shows people’s views on climate change have only a small impact on their tendencies to act in climate-friendly ways. These views are affected more by ideology and political orientation than education, sex and experience of extreme weather.

A device architecture based on indium arsenide–aluminium heterostructures with a gate-defined superconducting nanowire allows single-shot interferometric measurement of fermion parity and demonstrates an assignment error probability of 1%.