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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 survey across 90 societies reveals that variation and change in everyday norms are explained by a single value dimension: the priority societies place on individualizing versus binding moral concerns.

Moreno-Loaiza et al. found that interleukin-1β, acting upon cardiac resident macrophages, promotes atrial fibrillation in mice, and this mechanism may represent a common pathway connecting various risk factors to this arrhythmia.

A warming pulse in continental Antarctica between 900 and 989 years before present produced significant erosion and changed Antarctic landscapes, according to GPR surveys, stratigraphic analyses, and radiocarbon dating along a glacial unconformity at the Boulder Clay glacier, Antarctica.

Production of type-I interferon is regulated by the transcription factor IRF-7. This paper shows that IRF-7 is negatively regulated by translational repressor proteins 4E-BP1 and 4E-BP2. Viral infection promotes mTOR-mediated phosphorylation of the repressor proteins and allows type-I interferon production to proceed.

Here the authors screen different lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulations for intramuscular delivery of plasmid DNA and uptake by antigen-presenting cells. The lead LNP exhibits immunogenicity and protection in small animal models that is comparable to approved SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine formulations.

Vertebrate frugivores play important ecological roles. Here, the authors analyse a global dataset on plants and birds and find that plant-frugivore networks are more dissimilar, yet structurally consistent, across ecoregion and biome boundaries.

A loss of neuronal network resilience results in epilepsy. In this study, the authors show that inhibition of mTORC2 suppresses seizures in animal models with multiple aetiologies, thus enhancing neuronal resilience to the pathological hypersynchrony associated with epilepsy.

Conditional deletion of the transcriptional co-activator Brd4 in infiltrating Cx3cr1⁺ mouse macrophages ameliorates heart failure and substantially reduces fibroblast activation.

mTORC1 was posited as required for hippocampal mGluR-LTD at CA1 synapses based on its pharmacological inhibition with rapamycin. Using molecular genetics, the authors show that mTORC2 but not mTORC1 is required for mGluR-LTD and associated behaviors.

Genomic studies of Heliconius butterflies provide evidence that Heliconius elevatus is a hybrid species, and that its speciation was driven by introgression of traits from Heliconius melpomene into the other parent, an ancestor of Heliconius pardalinus.

The search for antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 continue due to the emergence of variants of concerns, able to escape the vaccinal humoral response. In this work, authors pre-clinically explore the potential of kinetin against SARS-CoV-2, which could be used alone or in combination with other antivirals.

Nishino et al. show how maternal diabetes leads to epigenetic changes in cardiac and pharyngeal progenitor subsets with anteroposterior patterning and retinoic acid signaling dysregulation, revealing how environmental factors can cause birth defects.

High-resolution spatial maps of the global abundance of soil nematodes and the composition of functional groups show that soil nematodes are found in higher abundances in sub-Arctic regions, than in temperate or tropical regions.

Contrary to the view that urbanization is a major driver of the global rise in obesity, the global increase in body-mass index is shown to be mostly due to increases in the body-mass indexes of rural populations.

Myocardial regeneration and proliferation of heart muscle cells is limited to a short period after birth early postnatal life, after which heart muscle cells can only grow in size and not in number. Here, the authors identified that the expression level of an endogenous microRNA cluster in heart muscle promotes the passage of the proliferative state to adult heart growth, and modulating the expression of this cluster can stimulate heart regeneration after myocardial infarction.

Stimulation of de novo protein synthesis in both excitatory and inhibitory, somatostatin-expressing neurons in the mouse hippocampus enhances memory consolidation.

Measurements of the inelastic cross section of anti-³He allow the estimation of the transparency of the Milky Way to the propagation of these light antinuclei produced in either cosmic-ray collisions or annihilation of dark-matter particles.

The potential links between infections and neurodegenerative disorders are unclear. Here, Wu et al. present a mouse model of low-grade candidemia characterized by highly localized cerebritis, accumulation of amyloid precursor protein and beta peptides, and mild memory impairment that resolves with fungal clearance.

The direct measurement of the QCD dead cone in charm quark fragmentation is reported, using iterative declustering of jets tagged with a fully reconstructed charmed hadron.

Chagas disease is endemic in Latin America, but the migration of infected individuals makes the condition an increasingly global problem. The authors review the epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease, focusing particularly on the risk stratification and management of patients with Chagas cardiomyopathy.

Transcription factor diffusion along DNA regulates many fundamental cellular and developmental processes. Kaur et al. combine photoactivation and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to investigate transcription factor diffusion in mouse embryos and show that diffusion kinetics change during cell differentiation.

The eukaryotic translation-initiation factor eIF4E is a rate-limiting factor in protein translation. Sonenberg and colleagues show that phosphorylation of eIF4E modulates the antiviral response by selectively stimulating translation of the NF-κB inhibitor IκBα

Correlations in momentum space between hadrons created by ultrarelativistic proton–proton collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider provide insights into the strong interaction, particularly the short-range dynamics of hyperons—baryons that contain strange quarks.

The production of type I interferon—the first line of defense against virus infection and critical for innate immunity—in plasmacytoid dendritic cells relies on the mammalian target of rapamycin.

A study now provides proof of concept that restoration of Ras-Erk signaling during adulthood rescues cellular and cognitive phenotypes in mouse models of the genetic disorder Noonan syndrome.

A gene regulatory network, including the transcription factor Nkx2-5, regulates cardiac development. Here, the authors show that on deletion of NKX2-5 from human embryonic stem cells, there is impaired cardiomyogenesis and changes in action potentials, and that this is regulated via HEY2.

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) expand during pregnancy to promote tolerance towards the fetus. Here the authors show that Tregs induce proliferation of fetal and maternal cardiomyocytes during pregnancy and enhance myocardial repair via proliferation-promoting paracrine actions.

Memory and associated plasticity mechanisms span different timescales, from fleeting to enduring. This study shows that, across species, mTORC2's control of actin dynamics is critical for long-term forms of memory and synaptic plasticity.

The authors show that phosphorylation of the translation factor eIF2α is necessary and sufficient for mGluR-LTD. They identify mRNAs that are translated during mGluR-LTD and regulated by p-eIF2α, including Ophn1 as a key target. Deficient p-eIF2α-mediated translation impairs object-place learning, which requires mGluR-LTD. eIF2α phosphorylation may determine whether synapses undergo LTD or LTP.