Search

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

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.

Genome-wide analyses identify 30 independent loci associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder, highlighting genetic overlap with other psychiatric disorders and implicating putative effector genes and cell types contributing to its etiology.

In a cluster-randomized trial conducted across 70 medical centers in six countries, a 16-week structured educational program for healthcare providers improved adherence to guidelines for rhythm control but not for stroke prevention in individuals with atrial fibrillation.

Observational and experimental evidence suggests that vitamin D plays a role in glycemic control. Here, the authors report that in an ancillary study of the placebo-controlled randomized VITAL trial there is no effect of 2000 IU/day of vitamin D supplementation over 5 years on the prevention of type 2 diabetes in 22,220 older US adults.

Multi-ancestry meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for self-reported physical activity during leisure time, leisure screen time, sedentary commuting and sedentary behavior at work identify 99 loci associated with at least one of these traits.

Large igneous provinces may form very quickly, but compositions often differ. Here, the authors find that boninite-like rocks at Manihiki are a result of re-melting of an ultra-depleted source therefore putting into question that all boninitic rocks on Earth must be related to subduction processes.

Sediments, not oceanic crust, dominate barium transfer to arc magmas according to barium isotope variations in volcanic rocks from the South Sandwich Islands arc that arise from material mixing in subduction zones.

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission impact on asteroid Dimophos resulted in an elliptical ejecta plume. Here, the authors show that this elliptical ejecta is due to the curvature of the asteroid and makes kinetic momentum transfer less efficient.

A randomized trial in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 showed no benefit and potentially increased harm associated with the use of convalescent plasma, with subgroup analyses suggesting that the antibody profile in donor plasma is critical in determining clinical outcomes.

This study presents a predictive equation for total energy expenditure derived from doubly labelled water measurements. Applying this equation to two large datasets (the National Diet and Nutrition Survey and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) shows that the misreporting of total energy intake is greater than 50%, with important implications for macronutrient availability.

Genome-wide association analyses identify new risk loci for heart failure and its subtypes, extending understanding of the underlying biological pathways and disease mechanisms.

Tree planting is a promising yet controversial natural climate solution. Here the authors perform a global analysis of aboveground C accumulation in tree monocultures, identifying key predictors such as prior land use, taxonomic identity, and plant traits.

A region on chromosome 19p13 is associated with the risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer. Here, the authors genotyped SNPs in this region in thousands of breast and ovarian cancer patients and identified SNPs associated with three genes, which were analysed with functional studies.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

The Mid-Cayman Spreading Centre is an ultraslow-spreading mid-ocean ridge in the Caribbean. This study reveals two hydrothermal vent fields on the ridge, including high-temperature vents on an off-axis oceanic core complex where, similar to Mid-Atlantic vents, an alvinocaridid shrimp is common at both vent fields.

It is generally accepted that Polynesian settlers were directly responsible for the extinction of New Zealand moa. Here, the authors present three series of radiocarbon ages that define the brief period of interaction between Polynesians and moa, and show that high human population densities are not a prerequisite for the extinction of megafauna populations.

Systematic characterization of longitudinal tau variability in human Alzheimer’s disease using an unbiased subtyping algorithm reveals four trajectories of tau deposition with distinct clinical features.

A global multi-taxon extinction risk assessment of freshwater fauna for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species finds one-quarter of species to be at high risk of extinction.

Fine-mapping of causal variants and integration of epigenetic and chromatin conformation data identify likely target genes for 150 breast cancer risk regions.

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.

Although progress in the coverage of routine measles vaccination in children in low- and middle-income countries was made during 2000–2019, many countries remain far from the goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019.

Severe sepsis has a high mortality rate. Here, the authors provide genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic data across four sepsis-causing pathogens and identify a signature of global increase in fatty acid and lipid biosynthesis as well as cholesterol acquisition.

A high-resolution, global atlas of mortality of children under five years of age between 2000 and 2017 highlights subnational geographical inequalities in the distribution, rates and absolute counts of child deaths by age.

Breast cancer risk for BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers varies depending on other genetic factors. Here, the authors perform a case-only genome-wide association study and highlight novel loci associated with breast cancer risk for BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers.

Few aerobic hyperthermophilic microorganisms are known to degrade polysaccharides. Here, Nou et al. use genomic information to enrich and optical tweezers to isolate an aerobic hyperthermophilic bacterium that can grow at 65–87.5 °C using polysaccharides as sole carbon sources.

This study finds that sST2 is a disease-causing factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Higher sST2 levels impair microglial Aβ clearance in APOE4⁺ female individuals. A genetic variant, rs1921622, is associated with a reduction in sST2 level and protects against AD in APOE4⁺ female individuals.

Data from a variety of sources—including satellite, climate and soil data, as well as field-collected information on plant traits—are pooled and analysed to map the functional diversity of tropical forest canopies globally.

Forest management for climate mitigation plans requires accurate data on carbon fluxes to monitor policy impacts. Between 2001 and 2019, forests were a net sink of carbon globally, although emissions from disturbances highlight the need to reduce deforestation in tropical countries.

Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales cause healthcare-associated infections but modes of transmission are not well understood. Here, the authors find evidence of transmission without direct patient contact, indicating presence of undetected environmental reservoirs, whilst half of the transmission events are likely due to plasmid-mediated transmission.