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Nathan Wolfe applauds a tome on interspecies disease transmission that mixes research with human stories.

How Indigenous populations in the southern tip of South America have changed over time has been unclear. Here the authors generate genome-wide data for 20 ancient individuals and examine how past migrations and admixture events correlate to geography and shifts in the archaeological record.

PTEN mutations are frequent in glioblastoma and often are associated with therapeutic resistance. Here, the authors demonstrate that PTEN regulates gene expression at the chromatin level by interacting with the histone chaperone DAXX and H3.3, and that DAXX inhibition inhibits PTEN-deficient GBM growth in vivo.

Zika and dengue incidence in the Americas declined in 2017–2018, but dengue resurged in 2019 in Brazil. This study uses epidemiological, climatological and genomic data to show that the decline of dengue may be explained by protective immunity from pre-exposure to ZIKV and/or DENV in prior years.

Over half the world’s rivers dry periodically, yet little is known about the biological communities in dry riverbeds. This study examines biodiversity across 84 non-perennial rivers in 19 countries using DNA metabarcoding. It finds that nutrient availability, climate and biotic interactions influence the biodiversity of these dry environments.

Genome-wide analyses of ancient DNA from individuals from California and Mexico shed light on the spread of Mexican ancestry to California and how it correlates with linguistic flow.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

The authors show that neural activity and synaptic plasticity in the orbitofrontal cortex mediate multiple timescales of reinforcement learning (RL) for meta-RL, which parallels a form of meta-RL in artificial intelligence.

Probabilistic cell typing by in situ sequencing (pciSeq), leverages previous single-cell RNA sequencing classification and multiplexed in situ RNA detection to spatially map cell types accurately in the mouse hippocampus and isocortex.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Modeling shows that an expanded set of federal and state policies beyond current policies in the US could achieve economy-wide emissions reductions of 56-67% below 2005 levels by 2035.

The biology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains unknown. We propose AD is a protein connectivity-based dysfunction disorder whereby a switch of the chaperome into epichaperomes rewires proteome-wide connectivity, leading to brain circuitry malfunction that can be corrected by novel therapeutics.

A hydraulic corollary to Darcy’s law is used to predict the characteristics of plants that will survive during drought in a warmer climate. This indicates that forest trees will need to be shorter and more drought-tolerant to survive in the future.

Analysing camera-trap data of 163 mammal species before and after the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns, the authors show that responses to human activity are dependent on the degree to which the landscape is modified by humans, with carnivores being especially sensitive.

We present the complete 62,460,029-base-pair sequence of a human Y chromosome from the HG002 genome (T2T-Y) that corrects multiple errors in GRCh38-Y and adds over 30 million base pairs of sequence to the reference.

AgRP neurons regulate feeding behavior by promoting signals of hunger. Here, the authors show that miR-33, represses the activity of AgRP neurons, and selective loss of miR-33 in AgRP neurons promotes obesity and metabolic dysfunction in mice.

Data collected from more than 2,000 taxa provide an unparalleled opportunity to quantify how extreme wildfires affect biodiversity, revealing that the largest effects on plants and animals were in areas with frequent or recent past fires and within extensively burnt areas.

Alterations in the tumour suppressor genes STK11 and/or KEAP1 can identify patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer who are likely to benefit from combinations of PD-(L)1 and CTLA4 immune checkpoint inhibitors added to chemotherapy.

A single-cell multiomics analysis of over 200,000 cells of the primary motor cortex of human, macaque, marmoset and mouse shows that divergence of transcription factor expression corresponds to species-specific epigenome landscapes, and conserved and divergent gene regulatory features are reflected in the evolution of the three-dimensional genome.

A high-resolution gene expression atlas of prenatal and postnatal brain development of rhesus monkey charts global transcriptional dynamics in relation to brain maturation, while comparative analysis reveals human-specific gene trajectories; candidate risk genes associated with human neurodevelopmental disorders tend to be co-expressed in disease-specific patterns in the developing monkey neocortex.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of kidney cancer identifies 63 regions associated with disease susceptibility including one locus that was associated with increased risk in individuals with African ancestry.

Hydrologic data collected from river gauges inform critical decisions for allocating water resources, conserving ecosystems and predicting the occurrence of droughts and floods. The current global river gauge network is biased towards large, perennial rivers, and strategic adaptations are needed to capture the full scope of rivers on Earth.

SK2-containing channels are expressed on dendritic spines of mouse CA1 pyramidal neurons and influence synaptic responses, plasticity and learning. Allen et al. find that the long isoform of SK2 directs synaptic SK2-containing channel expression, mediating synaptic and behavioral effects.

Slug supports heart development and tumor metastasis, but its role in blood vessel formation is less clear. Here the authors show that endothelial cell-expressed Slug regulates both physiologic and pathological angiogenesis, at least in part through the modulation of Notch signalling.

How does a T cell recognize an allogeneic antigen? How does it compare with the conventional recognition of self antigen? Why does alloreactivity exist? Here, Paul Allen and Nathan Felix discuss these questions in the context of recent advances in our understanding of allorecognition.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

Genomic analysis of Plasmodium DNA from 36 ancient individuals provides insight into the global distribution and spread of malaria-causing species during around 5,500 years of human history.

This paper discusses how experimental and computational studies integrating multimodal data, such as RNA expression, connectivity and neural activity, are advancing our understanding of the architecture, mechanisms and function of cortical circuits.

Catabolizing lignin-derived aromatic compounds requires an aryl-O-demethylation step. Here the authors present the structures of GcoA and GcoB, a cytochrome P450-reductase pair that catalyzes aryl-O-demethylations and show that GcoA displays broad substrate specificity, which is of interest for biotechnology applications.

BrainTACO is a resource that visualizes multiscale neurobiological data. It provides a platform for comprehensive gene expression analysis in brain networks to understand the complex interplay of genes, brain function and structure.

The medium-resolution transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-39b, described using observations from the Near Infrared Spectrograph G395H grating aboard JWST, shows significant absorption from CO₂ and H₂O and detection of SO₂.

JAXLEY, a differentiable simulator, leverages automatic differentiation and GPU acceleration to make large-scale biophysical neuron model optimization feasible. This approach uniquely combines biological accuracy with advanced machine-learning optimization techniques, allowing for efficient hyperparameter tuning and the exploration of neural computation mechanisms at scale.

The atmospheric terminator region of WASP-39 b, a hot gas giant exoplanet, is inhomogeneous, despite past assumptions, with the evening terminator being hotter and thus probably clearer, and the morning terminator probably being cloudy and consequently cooler.

Responsive exocytosis in neutrophil leukocytes involves actin depolymerisation-dependent sequential release of gelatinase granules, then strongly pro-inflammatory azurophilic granules. Here authors show that the actin nucleator protein WASH facilitates the initial step of innate immune activation by gelatinase granules while inhibiting release of pro-inflammatory granules.

Neutrophils provide a critical early defense as part of our innate immune system. Here, authors performed a genome-wide assessment of the molecular factors critical to proliferation, differentiation, and cell migration in a neutrophil-like cell.

Simultaneous spin and orbital angular momentum conservation enables control over the divergence and polarization of EUV vortex beams, paving the way to ultrafast studies of chiral systems using high-harmonic beams with designer spin and orbital angular momentum.

Lombardo et al. find large-scale associations between the leukocyte transcriptome and neural responses to speech in toddlers, and these associations differ between toddlers with ASD who have good versus poor language outcomes.

Integrated analyses reveal that multiomics captured the heterogeneity of metabolic states accompanying obesity and changes in metabolic health in response to lifestyle intervention that are not apparent in body mass index measurements.

This Perspective provides a roadmap toward globally federated open data resources for bioimaging data.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

Excitatory neurons in the preBötzinger Complex generate bursting activity responsible for breathing, but these alone cannot generate physiological breathing frequencies. Here the authors show how inhibition regulates refractory properties of excitatory neurons to allow dynamic breathing rhythms.

Non-human primates are important animal models for studying SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, Salguero et al. directly compare rhesus and cynomolgus macaques and show that both species represent COVID-19 disease of mild clinical cases, and provide a lung histopathology scoring system.