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Kidney stone disease causes significant morbidity and increases in health care utilization. Here, the authors define the spatial molecular landscape and specific pathways contributing to stone-mediated injury in the human renal papilla and identify associated urinary biomarkers.

Stone tools illustrate behavioural complexities in Middle Pleistocene hominin populations. Here, the authors present small dimensional flakes and hafted tools from Xigou, central China, dated to ~160–72 thousand years ago that demonstrate early, complex technological advancements.

A 3,000-year record of capuchin monkey stone tool use shows long-term variability in technology outside of the human lineage.

Stylistic similarities of stone tools recovered from 800,000-year-old deposits in Flores with stone tools associated with the much later Homo floresiensis suggest continuity — calling into question claims that the brain of Homo floresiensis was too small to have accommodated technology.

Kidney stones form in the presence of overabundance of crystal-forming substances such as Ca²⁺ and oxalate. Here, the authors report genome-wide association analyses for kidney stone disease, report seven previously unknown loci and find that some of these loci also associate with Ca²⁺ concentration and excretion.

Wild capuchin monkeys in Brazil deliberately break stones, unintentionally producing flakes similar to the ancient sharp-edged flakes characterized as intentionally produced Pliocene–Pleistocene hominin tools, although why they do so remains unclear.

Most of the archaeological record of the Middle to Later Stone Age transition comes from southern Africa. Here, Shipton et al. describe the new site Panga ya Saidi on the coast of Kenya that covers the last 78,000 years and shows gradual cultural and technological change in the Late Pleistocene.

Here the authors present a compendium of avirulence genotypes for epidemiologically significant strains of wheat stem rust based on nuclear phased genome assemblies and functional assays to inform resistance gene deployment and pathogen surveillance.

Ureteroscopy is the first-line treatment for urinary stone disease at many institutions. Techniques and indications continue to evolve. This Review covers the most current trends, controversies, and issues in ureteroscopic stone management. It summarizes the most recent evidence regarding ureteroscopic treatment of ureteral and renal stones, current standard indications, adjunct devices and instruments used during ureteroscopy, and future directions.

The environmental impacts of food consumption in the European Union are global. This study estimates the environmental footprints of EU27 household food consumption, simulating the mitigation potential of tax policies and assessing consumption-related welfare costs.

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.

Once again the question of one versus two 24 h urine collections for diagnosis in kidney stone prevention has been raised. As in all previous studies, no difference is seen in the mean levels of analytes between first and second collections. However, variation within patients is so marked that at least two collections are needed for confidence.

Most kidney and ureteral stones can be considered for treatment with a noninvasive or minimally invasive approach, with improved safety and morbidity compared with traditional open surgical approaches. However, improvements in laparoscopic surgical techniques mean that nearly any open surgery can be performed in a minimally invasive fashion. Here, Borofsky and Lingeman discuss the role of these techniques in modern stone surgery.

Animal models that naturally and spontaneously form uroliths — including domestic dogs and cats, and a variety of other captive and wild species, such as otters, dolphins and ferrets — are an underused resource in the study of human stone disease and offer many potential opportunities for improving insight into stone pathogenesis. Improved collaboration between urologists, basic scientists and veterinarians is warranted to further our understanding of how stones form and to consider possible new preventive and therapeutic treatment options.

Imaging is an important diagnostic tool and initial step in deciding which therapeutic options to use for the management of kidney stones and guidelines differ regarding the optimal initial imaging modality. In this Review, Brisbane and colleagues discuss the advantages and disadvantages of CT, ultrasonography, MRI and kidney, ureter, bladder (KUB) plain film radiography for stone imaging and propose an algorithm for imaging patients with acute stones.

MicroRNAs (MiRNAs) can act as oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes and have differential expression in tumor progression and metastasis. MiRNAs are involved in a number of pathways that contribute to metastasis, including migration, invasion, cell proliferation, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, angiogenesis and apoptosis. This Review provides a summary of the existing data documenting these functions and describes the clinical utility of miRNAs as prognostic and predictive biomarkers and their potential therapeutic applications in advanced cancer.

This study reports on excavations of hearths and stone artefacts from 20,000-year-old deposits at Dargan Shelter, which at an elevation of 1,073 m is believed to be the oldest occupied high-altitude site in Australia.

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.

The prevalence of asymptomatic stones is likely to grow with the increasing utilization of CT. Goldsmith and Lipkin discuss the management of patients with asymptomatic stones, addressing the proportion of patients who are likely to pass the stone spontaneously or ultimately require an intervention, and which intervention might be best.

The archaeological site Shinfa-Metema 1 in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia provides early evidence of intensive riverine-based foraging aided by the likely adoption of the bow and arrow.

When modern humans colonized India is debated. Here, Clarkson and colleagues report an archaeological site in India that has been occupied for approximately 80,000 years and contains a stone tool assemblage attributed to Homo sapiens that matches artefacts from Africa, Arabia, and Australia.

This Review outlines the operative mechanisms that contribute to iatrogenic mechanical ureteric injuries. The authors aim to increase awareness among urologists of the aetiology of these injuries, so that they can be avoided in practice, ultimately enhancing patient safety.

The origin and dispersal of Homo erectus, a long-lived and geographically widespread human ancestor, are unclear despite a rich fossil record. Here, the authors reconstruct the face from a Homo erectus cranium from Gona, Ethiopia, dated to 1.5-1.6 million years ago, providing insights into the evolutionary transition from early Homo to H. erectus.

Despite large numbers of patients being affected by stones, a surprising lack of knowledge exists on the relevance of stone compositions and pathological features to the outcomes of patients with stones. Here authors describe the potential of new technologies such as high-resolution endoscopes, and micro-CT imaging to address this lack of knowledge.

The formation of kidney stones is governed by the same principles as other stone systems. These ‘diagenetic phase transitions’ that create human kidney stones reflect the environment within the kidney during stone formation and could, therefore, improve understanding of urolithiasis and enable future treatment development. In this wide-ranging and unique Review, the authors explain how kidney stone formation parallels that of other stone systems such as stony corals, travertine in Roman aqueducts, stalactites and agates, and describe how the new field of GeoBioMed could be harnessed to improve patient care.

Nearly ten years after the field of primate archaeology was first proposed, the status of the field is reported on, including recent discoveries as well as future directions and challenges, marking the end of archaeology’s ‘anthropocentric era’.

Multi-proxy data from Wonderwerk Cave reveal that both C₃ and C₄ grasses and prolonged wetlands formed major components of Early Pleistocene hominin palaeoenvironments in southern Africa, with regional trends distinct from contemporary ones in eastern Africa.

The local delivery of a calcium channel blocker and a Rho-kinase inhibitor, determined by screening for small molecules that cause ureteral relaxation, significantly reduce ureteral contraction in pigs.

Differentiating between wild and domesticated South American camelids in the archaeological record can be challenging. Here, the authors use aDNA to infer ancestry of 49 camelids from the South-Central Andes (3,360–2,370 cal. yr BP), finding that most were not ancestors of living camelids and were likely wild, hunted camelids or herded camelids with selective male culling.

Siew et al. using multi-omic, physiological & imaging approaches have demonstrated that spaceflight causes kidney remodelling, suggesting a contribution to kidney stone formation, & that space radiation causes kidney damage & early signs of dysfunction.

This study identifies key neurocognitive domains that distinguish patients with schizophrenia from healthy individuals using machine learning. Analyzing data from 1,304 participants, it demonstrates that verbal learning and emotion identification effectively classify conditions, promoting efficient neurocognitive profiling strategies.

Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania is a key site for understanding early human evolution. Here, the authors report a multiproxy dataset from the Western basin of Oldupai Gorge dating to 2 million years ago, enabling the in situ comparison of lithic assemblages, paleoenvironments and hominin behavioral adaptability.

Evidence for hominin activity on Flores, Indonesia, has been thought to go back at least 800,000 years, as shown by fission-track dating at Mata Menge in the Soa Basin. However, new research at another locality in the Soa Basin uses the more accurate technique of ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating to show that hominins were living on Flores at least a million years ago.