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While acidic water splitting offers a renewable means to obtain renewable hydrogen fuel, the catalysts needed to oxidize water often require expensive noble metals. Here, authors show manganese oxyhalides as acidic oxygen evolution electrocatalysts.

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.

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.

Science can explain many things in the natural world. Although the laws of gravity, the origin of galaxies and the Universe are commonly accepted, the theory of evolution is still questioned by some. There are clear reasons for why that is, and why it need not be so.

Genomes evolve with time but the molecular mechanisms that underlie this process are poorly understood. Gontijoet al. describe a protein that was generated by the retention of an intron in the Drosophila melanogaster Rieske iron sulphur proteingene and show that the resulting protein is translated.

A high-quality genome assembly and phylogenetic analysis for the glasshouse plant, Rheum nobile, shed light on its evolutionary history and ability to adapt to intensive UV radiation in a low-temperature, alpine environment.

There is considerable interest in transitioning industrial thermocatalytic reactions to renewable-driven processes, but the electrification of such reactions has been challenging. Now, it has been shown that bridging non-aqueous chemistry with aqueous electrochemistry through aqueous–non-aqueous interfacial proton-coupled electron transfer can enable electricity-driven hydrogen peroxide production.

Cascadia is a mass spectrometry-based de novo sequencing model that uses a transformer architecture to handle data-independent acquisition data and achieves substantially improved performance across a range of instruments and experimental protocols.

Sea-level fluctuations can have a profound impact on coastal groundwater circulation. The geochemistry of groundwater in the Floridan aquifer system suggests that the fresh water in the upper aquifer was emplaced primarily during the last glacial period, when sea level was more than 100 m lower than at present.

A theoretical foundation for entrapment methods is presented, along with a method that enables more accurate evaluation of false discovery rate (FDR) control in proteomics mass spectrometry analysis pipelines. Evaluation of popular data-dependent acquisition tools indicates that these generally seem to control the FDR, but data-independent acquisition tools exhibit inconsistent control of the FDR at both the peptide and protein levels.

Halogens in Siberian xenoliths show that plume–lithosphere interaction controls the volatile content of large igneous provinces. The seawater-derived volatiles, implicated in the end-Permian mass extinction, infiltrated the lithosphere during subduction.

Artificial photosynthesis systems offer a sustainable solution to energy and environmental challenges, with significant improvements in efficiency. Here, the authors report a single light absorber system that achieves a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.7 %, with potential for future improvements.

LONP1, whose expression is downregulated in islets from donors with type 2 diabetes, is vital to mediate efficient mitochondrial protein folding, thus preventing proteotoxicity and promoting islet β cell survival and function.

Holocene aquifers are the source of much arsenic poisoning in south and southeast Asia, whereas Pleistocene aquifers are mostly safe; here the delayed arsenic contamination of a Pleistocene aquifer is described and modelled.

Here, the authors show the emergence of valley-polarized Floquet-Bloch states in 2H-WSe₂ upon below-band-gap driving using circularly polarized light.

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.

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.

The geometry of periodic plasmonic nanostructures in three dimensions can be exploited to give tailored optical properties. Here, the authors study the role of anisotropy on the nano- and mesoscale to provide a framework for designing the optical response of metamaterials formed from plasmonic building blocks.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

King Richard III was a controversial English King whose remains are presumably deposited in Grey Friars in Leicester. Here the authors sequence the mitochondrial genome and Y-chromosome DNA of the skeletal remains and living relatives of Richard III and confirm that the remains belong to King Richard III.

A highly efficient stereoselective C−H alkylation of indoles with aryl alkenes is achieved by sustainable iron catalysis, leading to atropoenriched and enantioenriched substituted indoles with high structural diversity. Detailed mechanistic studies by experiment, Mössbauer spectroscopy and computation reveal the origin of the catalytic efficacy and stereoselectivity.

Since publication of the first issue of Nature Reviews Nephrology 20 years ago, advances across various subspecialities of nephrology have provided insights into disease processes and led to the development of new therapeutics for people with kidney disease. However, despite this progress, many kidney diseases remain untreatable, the costs of kidney disease care are immense, and vast inequities persist in disease burden and access to care. In this Viewpoint, we ask experts from several key subspecialties of nephrology to reflect on progress made over the past 20 years, remaining challenges and the steps needed to move the field forward.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Ewing sarcoma (ES) is driven by the oncogenic fusion-protein EWSR1::FLI1. Here the authors identify that a galactosyltransferase C1GALT1 stabilizes Smoothened protein to activate Hedgehog signaling and promote EWSR1::FLI1 transcription in ES cells, which could be therapeutically targeted by an anti-fungal drug itraconazole that inhibits C1GALT1.

Depletion of Archaean atmospheric xenon in ¹²⁹Xe relative to the modern atmosphere might indicate that a short burst of mantle activity took place around 2.6 to 2.2  billion years ago.

The welding and sintering of nanoparticles is relevant, for example, to establish electrical contacts between particles in printed electronic devices. Here, using electron microscopy and computer simulations, Grouchko et al. discover a room-temperature sintering process driven by a selective wettability of silver nanoparticles independent of their shape.

Authors report MagNet, a plasma extracellular vesicle (EV) enrichment strategy using magnetic beads. Proteomic interrogation of this plasma EV fraction enables the detection of proteins that are beyond the dynamic range of mass spectrometry of unfractionated plasma.

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.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

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.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

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.