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‘Archaeogenetic analysis of black rat remains reveals that this species was introduced into temperate Europe twice, in the Roman and medieval periods. This population turnover was likely associated with multiple historical and environmental factors.’

Genome-wide association meta-analyses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom measures and clinical diagnoses identify new risk loci, highlight putative effector genes and yield improved polygenic risk scores.

The Soai reaction occupies a singular role in organic chemistry and chemical kinetics due to its autocatalytic and self-amplification behavior, which has spurred intense mechanistic investigation and debate. Here, the authors use in situ high-resolution mass spectrometry and accompanying techniques to identify reaction intermediates and bring about more granular detail of the reaction.

This study identifies TriDTCs as a family of terpene cyclases responsible for harzianol I and wickerol A biosynthesis in Trichoderma fungi and are found to regulate Trichoderma’s chlamydospore and Aspergillus oryzae’s sclerotia formation through producing harzianol I.

Djeghloul, Cheriyamkunnel et al. apply chromosome sorting to isolate active and inactive X chromosomes and report a role for Hbo1 and Msl histone acetyltransferase complexes in preserving active X chromosomes in female cells during mitosis.

Stress on land is dynamic, entailing swift and drastic changes. Integrated time-course stress and co-expression analysis predict a gene regulatory network that retraces a web of ancient signal convergences shared by land plants and their algal sisters.

Pan-cistrome of the maize leaf under well-watered and drought conditions profiled by haplotype-specific MOA-seq highlights the relevance of transcription factor binding QTLs for understanding phenotypic diversity in maize.

Analysis of samples from the asteroid Ryugu provide evidence of late fluid flow in a carbonaceous asteroid, indicating that such bodies may have retained two to three times more water than previously thought.

Brown seaweeds are multicellular eukaryotes that have been evolving independently of animals and plants for more than a billion years. The filamentous brown alga Ectocarpus has been used as a model to understand the biology of these enigmatic organisms and to shed light on a range of major questions, from the molecular basis of complex developmental patterns to the evolution of sex.

Test, trace, and isolate programmes are central to COVID-19 control. Here, Viola Priesemann and colleagues evaluate how to allocate scarce resources to keep numbers low, and find that if case numbers exceed test, trace and isolate capacity, there will be a self-accelerating spread.

In mice, tissue-mimetic cells appear in thymus in two distinct waves, creating two distinct pools of mimetic cells, each expressing antigens characteristic of different cell types.

Noel et al. show aberrant updating of expectations in three distinct mouse models of autism spectrum disorder. Brain-wide neurophysiology data suggest this stems from excess units encoding deviations from prior mean and a lack of sensory prediction errors in frontal areas.

Dissociative recombination of electrons with molecular ions widely occurs in interstellar plasmas but laboratory studies are challenging. Here, the authors provide measurements of dissociative recombination with high-internal state definition for D₂H⁺ ions stored in the cryogenic storage ring.

Redox signalling is emerging as an important regulator of metabolism and physiology, which is dysregulated in ageing and disease. Here, the authors show that redox regulation of a key redox sensitive cysteine in Atg4a induces autophagy in vivo and extends lifespan in female Drosophila.

The authors reveal a three-domain architecture of glycoprotein clusterin and show that the hydrophobic tails are crucial for clusterin’s functions as an extracellular molecular chaperone and apolipoprotein, as well as for receptor binding and cellular uptake.

Correlating aromatic carbons attached to fluorine with meta-position hydrogens in fluorine-labelled phenylalanines can yield two-dimensional correlations with narrow linewidths in large proteins. Adapting phenylalanine-tRNA synthetase increases the incorporation rate, while expanding the genetic code enables site-specific incorporation of fluorinated phenylalanine. The resulting HC_F-transverse relaxation-optimized spectroscopy can illuminate protein dynamics and drive multiplexed drug discovery campaigns.

A mode of bidirectional microglia–neuron crosstalk through Hex–GM2–MGL2 and centred around GM2 ganglioside turnover is essential for homeostatic regulation of central nervous system membrane components.

Iridoids are terpenoid metabolites found in thousands of plants. Using single-cell transcriptomics, the authors discovered an unexpected enzyme that has been neofunctionalized to catalyse the cyclization required to form the iridoid scaffold.

Attosecond transient reflection spectroscopy is used to experimentally observe the attosecond electron dynamics of a crystalline diamond, showing that virtual interband transitions affect the timing and adiabaticity of the crystal response and thus providing insights for the development of information processing and petahertz electronics.

ChReef is an optogenetic actuator for sustained optogenetic control of excitable cells in a variety of preclinical applications.

Through RNA profiling of right ventricular tissue from patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, Jafari et al. uncover mechanisms underlying disease severity-associated remodeling, identify key signaling molecules involved in fibrotic and proliferative pathways, and reveal processes driving right ventricular recovery after pulmonary endarterectomy.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

Pleiotropy is the effect of a single locus on multiple traits, which can lead to undesirable outcomes during crop improvement. Here, the authors reveal regulatory variation controlling pleiotropy between maize leaf angle and tassel branching, two important agronomic traits.

Using the valley degree of freedom in analogy to spin to encode qubits could be advantageous as many of the known decoherence mechanisms do not apply. Now long relaxation times are demonstrated for valley qubits in bilayer graphene quantum dots.

Astrocytes display diverse molecular and functional features in the brain, but the developmental origins of this heterogeneity are not well understood. Here, the authors show that two separate progenitor types give rise to distinct cortical astrocyte subtypes with specialized roles.

Epicardial engineered heart muscle allografts from induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes can safely and effectively remuscularize chronically failing hearts in rhesus macaques, leading to improved cardiac function and paving the way for human clinical trials.

Microbial communities, exposed to early Earth-like conditions in a modern microbialite reef, change cyclically due to seasonal environmental variations, implying evolved metabolic processes in microbialites over time, based on multiple chemical, physical, and biological analyses.

The Einstein Probe has discovered a fast X-ray transient, EP240414a, associated with a broad-lined type Ic supernova. Its unusually soft spectrum and weak jet add to the diversity of stellar deaths and suggest a previously unknown Wolf–Rayet star explosion mechanism.

Cancer incidence is rare in long-lived bats. Here the authors find that although bat fibroblasts express telomerase and require only two oncogenic hits for malignant transformation, bats may rely on elevated p53 signaling and enhanced immunosurveillance to prevent cancer.

Extant jawless vertebrates, such as lampreys and hagfishes, express variable lymphocyte receptors (VLRs) that are different from adaptive immune receptors in mammals. Here, the authors show that, in addition to the well-described five VLRs, a sixth VLR is expressed in lamprey T-like cells and evolved at least 250 million years ago.

Studying four examples of the transition to co-sexuality in brown algae, the authors show extensive convergent changes in gene expression driven by selection, and greater similarity of co-sexual gene expression profiles to those of ancestral females than to those of ancestral males.

The spindle assembly checkpoint protects cells from chromosome missegregation. Here, the authors use sophisticated biochemical reconstitutions to address how kinetochores, the microtubule-binding structures of chromosomes, regulate this checkpoint.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

The Biodiversity Cell Atlas aims to create comprehensive single-cell molecular atlases across the eukaryotic tree of life, which will be phylogenetically informed, rely on high-quality genomes and use shared standards to facilitate comparisons across species.

A map of the surface of a brown dwarf reveals features that suggest patchy clouds, providing the mechanism for the dispersal of atmospheric dust as brown dwarfs cool with age.

The transcription factors TCF1 and LEF1 promote self-renewal and regulatory functions in B-1a cells.

It is unclear how cell compartmentalization emerged in prebiotic conditions. Now it is shown that a temperature gradient in a confined space can bring the core components of a cell together.

Synaptic diversity in biological neural networks enables sophisticated learning capabilities missing in artificial networks. The authors implement three biologically inspired drop-in replacements enhancing learning performance across multiple network architectures.

A bivalent biparatopic nanobody penetrates the brain, binds to and potentiates the activity of homodimeric metabotropic glutamate receptor 2, correcting cognitive deficits in two preclinical mouse models with endophenotypes resulting from NMDA receptor hypofunction.

Erythropoietin (EPO) regulates energy metabolism via its receptor (EpoR) in adipose tissue. The authors demonstrate that EPO influences glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, and fat mass and that EPO treatment reduces lipogenic gene expression through the EPO-EpoR-RUNX1 axis.

Analysis of the whole-brain fly connectome reveals high-dimensional dynamics supported by many small independent circuits, motivating a proposal for optogenetic perturbation to efficiently learn a whole-brain causal neural dynamics model.

Combining sedimentary Pa/Th with ESM simulations allowed quantitative estimates of past AMOC largescale strengths. The AMOC reinvigorated after the last glacial, weakened during meltwater events and reached its stable state after ~6.5 ka BP.

Here, Peters et al. report that Pseudomonas fluorescens protects Caenorhabditis elegans against pathogen infection via polyketide synthase-derived sphingolipids, uncovering a non-canonical bacterial sphingolipid synthesis pathway that modulates host metabolism.

The genetic structure of modern-day brown bears mainly reflects contemporary population connectivity. Recent gene flow barriers have obscured the genomic signatures of postglacial recolonisation.

Two high-redshift post-starburst galaxies are in the process of quenching, although their quasars remain active, indicating the complex co-evolution between black hole activity and star formation.