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A brain–heart–eye axis is generated through integration of multi-omics and multi-organ data from UKBB, BLSA, FinnGen and PGC, revealing phenotypic landscapes and genetic arcitectures of disease.

Nature staff take on the big topics that matter in science.

The authors introduce a method that combines physics and machine learning to design dynamic unstructured proteins with tunable ensemble properties like size, shape, sensing and binding.

Organ banking via vitrification could transform transplantation but has never been achieved at human organ scales. Here, the authors demonstrated successful vitrification in ≤ 3L CPA volumes and ~<1L porcine liver with successfully rewarming ≤ 2L CPA volumes using nanowarming.

Engineering structurally and functionally complex synthetic cells remains a key challenge. Here DNA condensate synthetic cells combine phase separation and DNA nanostructures to reveal how switchable artificial cytoskeletons assemble in viscoelastic confinements. These cytoskeletons improve the mechanical properties of synthetic cells and enable stable mechano-interfaces with mammalian cells.

Methane emission occurs in natural wetlands on a large scale, but the corresponding trace element emissions have not been studied. Here, the authors study selenium and arsenic emission in a pristine peatland and show that this causes large amounts of those trace elements to enter the biogeochemical cycle.

Polygenic risk scores can help identify individuals at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Here, the authors characterise a multi-ancestry score across nearly 900,000 people, showing that its predictive value depends on demographic and clinical context and extends to related traits and complications.

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.

Over 20 species of geographically and phylogenetically diverse bird species produce convergent whining vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites. Model presentation and playback experiments across multiple continents suggest that these learned calls provoke an innate response even among allopatric species.

Tilt-corrected bright-field scanning transmission electron microscopy offers enhanced cryogenic electron microscopy contrast and substantial improvement in dose efficiency for thick samples such as bacterial cells and large organelles, while still being able to perform single-particle analysis.

Lapique, Kim, and colleagues present an open-source approach together with an online probe design platform for in situ RNA and protein analysis. This is an easy-to-use approach that enables vast feature detection, with cycling times under 20 minutes per feature.

Natural hydrogen is generated through chemical and radioactive processes in the Earth’s crust, and could be an important future clean chemical feedstock and energy resource. This Review examines the processes of geological hydrogen generation, migration, accumulation and preservation that enable the development of exploitable reserves.

A complementary analysis of DESI DR2 distance measurements along with supernova and CMB data shows consistent, moderate evidence that dark energy changes over time rather than behaving as a simple cosmological constant.

Here they perform a systematic dissection of OCT4 and reveal how intrinsically disordered regions can be used to serve specific functions during reprogramming and embryonic development. This can be exploited to engineer more efficient and specific reprogramming factors.

The Zika viral protease NS2B-NS3 is a crucial target for antiviral drug development due to its role in processing viral polyproteins. Here, the authors utilize crystallographic fragment screening and deep mutational scanning to identify binding sites for resistance-resilient inhibitors.

Enterololin is a narrow-spectrum antibiotic that selectively kills Enterobacteriaceae in vitro and in a mouse model of adherent-invasive Escherichia coli gut infection. AI-guided mechanism-of-action studies identified LolCDE as its molecular target.

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.

Reliable measuring the voltage dynamics of individual neurons in the intact brain is significantly challenging. Here authors developed an all-optical method combining two-photon voltage imaging and optogenetics to measure and induce synaptic plasticity in vivo, revealing LTP of inhibition in cerebellar circuits and providing a blueprint to link synaptic changes to learning.

A combination of whole-genome NanoSeq with deep whole-exome and targeted NanoSeq is used to accurately characterize mutation rates and genes under positive selection in sperm cells.

Nimbus, a deep learning model, uses a large multiplexed imaging dataset to predict the likelihood of marker positivity in single cells.

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.

In plants, oxidosqualene cyclases (OSCs) perform a highly complex single reaction to generate the basis of all triterpenoid diversity. Here the authors leverage genome mining and transient expression to uncover multiple evolutionary and mechanistic insights for OSCs across the plant kingdom.

A 1,024-channel microelectrode array is delivered to the brain cortex via a minimally invasive incision in the skull and dura, and allows recording, stimulation and neural decoding across large portions of the brain in porcine models and human neurosurgical patients.

The HIV-1 RNA-binding protein rev facilitates nuclear export of viral RNA. Here, the authors use native mass spectrometry to study the interactions between rev-derived peptides and rev response elements of HIV-1 RNA, providing mechanistic insights into rev recognition and recruitment.

The authors demonstrate deeply subwavelength light confinement in the terahertz spectral range by exploiting the strong light–matter coupling and hyperbolicity of phonon polaritons in hafnium-based dichalcogenides.

In a randomized, placebo-controlled, stepwise dose-escalation phase 1 trial evaluating a conjugate vaccine against both typhoid and invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella infections, the vaccine was found to be safe and immunogenic in healthy adults.

A single-phase chromium–molybdenum–silicon alloy is described that exhibits compression ductility at room temperature as well as resistance to oxidation, pesting, nitridation and scale spallation at temperatures up to at least 1,100 °C.

Two types of on-chip silicon device utilizing silicon T centres are developed: an O-band light-emitting diode and an electrically triggered single-photon source. Further, a new method of spin initialization with electrical excitation is demonstrated.

2023 CX1 is the only L-chondrite-like asteroid analysed from space to ground. It catastrophically fragmented in the atmosphere, depositing 98% of its energy in one burst—an unusual, high-risk fragmentation mode with implications for planetary defence.

Cortical networks switch from asynchronous firing to sudden synchronized population events. Here, the authors show that differential excitatory short-term synaptic plasticity onto either excitatory or inhibitory targets establishes and shapes the dynamics of these population events.

Defining the spatial organization of tissues and organs like the brain from large datasets is a major challenge. Here, authors introduce CellTransformer, an AI tool that defines spatial domains in the mouse brain based on spatial transcriptomics, a technology that measures which genes are active in different parts of tissue.

Here, the authors present archaeological excavations from two sites paired with life-size rock engravings from 12,800 to 11,400 years ago in the Nefud desert of northern Arabia. These engravings, depicting camels, ibex and more, combined with stone tools from associated archaeological deposits and sediment analyses of playa deposits, provide evidence of human populations exploiting seasonal waterbodies.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) frequency and risk factors vary considerably across regions and ancestries. Here, the authors conduct a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study and fine mapping study of HNSCC subsites in cohorts from multiple continents, finding susceptibility and protective loci, gene-environment interactions, and gene variants related to immune response.

Observed 730 Myr after the Big Bang, a little red dot is found to anchor an overdensity of eight galaxies and seems to be embedded in a massive host dark matter halo.

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

Indonesian cattle are unique due to their history of admixture involving both zebu and banteng. Here, Wang et al. identify ~3.5 million novel introgressed SNP variants and provide a genomic map of banteng introgression within and across many cattle breeds, each with unique introgression histories.

The authors estimate genomic vulnerability for closely related species of rainbowfish. They find that narrow endemic species that have hybridized with a warm-adapted generalist show reduced vulnerability to climate change and that hybridization may facilitate evolutionary rescue for such species.

Liu et al. show that SPIN90 dimerizes and binds two Arp2/3 complexes to nucleate two bidirectional actin filaments and the dimerization domain is conserved in multicellular animals, suggesting that the mechanism of bidirectional actin filament nucleation is conserved.

PROTACs induce degradation by bridging a target protein and E3 ubiquitin ligase. Here, authors show that protein interface frustration correlates with cooperativity, offering a structural metric to prioritize PROTAC candidates prior to synthesis.

Heller et al. showed dense longitudinal imaging in four females, including one with endometriosis and one using oral contraceptives, and the finding that different hormonal milieus influence widespread brain volume changes linked to progesterone or estradiol.

Turbulence onset in shear flows is often modeled as a memoryless directed percolation (DP) transition. The authors show that in channel flow, turbulent stripes age near the critical point, questioning the DP analogy and revealing geometry-dependent transition dynamics.

Nature Biotechnology’s annual survey highlights university startups that are, among other things, rethinking how to deliver gene-editing therapy and tackling various metabolic conditions, immune disorders and cancer with microbiome treatments or immunotherapy. Michael Eisenstein, Ken Garber, Esther Landhuis, Caroline Seydel and Laura DeFrancesco report.

Measurements of anyons moving through a quantum point contact allow the extraction of their tunnelling exponent. This fully characterizes their topological order and confirms that they are well described by the Luttinger liquid theory.

In the past three decades, fish abundance, richness and uniqueness have diverged across cold and warm streams, and the effects on native fish communities of stream warming and increases in introduced fishes have magnified each other.

Spike-based sensing offers the potential to lower power consumption and enable edge computing. Here, the authors fabricate a bio-inspired strain sensor using hybrid 3D printing enabled by a quantum tunneling composite with a large strain range.

Membrane trafficking is essential for organelle biogenesis. Here, the authors discover an alternative assembly of the Commander trafficking complex and show its role in melanosome biogenesis and in a subtype of albinism.

Plasma proteomics plays a key role in advancing clinical research and biomarker discovery. Here, the authors show in a large MSCoreSys multicenter benchmark study that DIA outperforms DDA, delivering robust, precise, and reproducible label-free protein quantification across sites.