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The authors investigate the broad-scale climatological and soil properties that co-vary with major axes of plant functional traits. They find that variation in plant size is attributed to latitudinal gradients in water or energy limitation, while variation in leaf economics traits is attributed to both climate and soil fertility including their interaction.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

Carbon is a key support for metal-catalyzed acetylene hydrochlorination to vinyl chloride but its role remains elusive. Here, the authors, by means of operando spectroscopy, demonstrate the co-catalytic function of neighboring carbon and isolated metal atoms, constituting the active ensemble.

Iron-catalysed [2+2] cycloaddition/oligomerization of neat butadiene affords (1,n′-divinyl)oligocyclobutane—a telechelic, crystalline material consisting of 1,3-enchained cyclobutyl units. This oligocyclobutane can be chemically recycled to pure butadiene using the same iron catalyst employed in its synthesis, demonstrating design principles for next-generation plastic materials that can be returned to pristine monomer.

Traditional machine learning methods for drug development struggle with bioactivity prediction due to the limited number of compounds in each assay and assay incompatibilities. Feng et al. developed ActFound, a bioactivity foundation model trained by pairwise learning and meta-learning, that improves the accuracy and generalization of bioactivity prediction.

Polar-faceted nanocrystals often have complex atomic surface configurations that are very difficult to characterize. Here, the authors are able to determine detailed structural information about the polar facets of ceria nanocubes by using ¹⁷O and ¹H solid-state NMR spectroscopy, in combination with density functional theory calculations.

High-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells offer efficient solutions to complex fuel cell challenges, including fuel flexibility and heat management. Here the authors demonstrate that laser-scribed membranes improve fuel cell durability and boost peak power density by over 50%, providing a more stable and scalable approach for high performance fuel cells.

One-carbon substrates are attractive feedstocks for circular bioeconomy. Here, the authors design an erythrulose monophosphate (EuMP) cycle for formaldehyde assimilation, demonstrate the activity of the core reactions in E. coli, and show its integration with pathway reactions existed in pentose phosphate pathway and glycolysis.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Mitochondrial DNA is known to exhibit heterogeneity of variants, even within a single cell. Here, the authors assessed this heteroplasmy of mitochondrial DNA within the UK Biobank cohort and showed that the presence of heteroplasmy and a functional score generated from heteroplasmic SNVs were associated with all-cause mortality and certain cancers.

The goals, resources and design of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) programme are described, and analyses of rare variants detected in the first 53,831 samples provide insights into mutational processes and recent human evolutionary history.

The next step after sequencing a genome is to figure out how the cell actually uses it as an instruction manual. A large international consortium has examined 1% of the genome for what part is transcribed, where proteins are bound, what the chromatin structure looks like, and how the sequence compares to that of other organisms.

Aqueous Zn-ion batteries are promising devices but their energy storage mechanism remains elusive. Now it is shown that these involve a catalytic mechanism based on water dissociation.

In Alzheimer’s disease, the role of connectivity in facilitating pathology accumulation remains unclear. Using in-vivo neuroimaging, the authors show that tau and reactive microglia follow connectome gradients, underlying cognitive decline.

Many drug targets remain unknown for small molecules. Here, the authors develop a label-free Proteome Integral Solubility Alteration (PISA) workflow to automate target identification and analysis. Applied to rat organs, the authors identify previously unknown drug targets for common medication.

The growth rates of freshly formed aerosol particles influence what fraction of these can reach sizes large enough to affect cloud formation and climate. Here, the authors show that the nano-particle growth in a sulphuric acid containing system can be enhanced by the presence of ions or small acid-base clusters.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

1000 Genomes imputation can increase the power of genome-wide association studies to detect genetic variants associated with human traits and diseases. Here, the authors develop a method to integrate and analyse low-coverage sequence data and SNP array data, and show that it improves imputation performance.

Electrophilic halogenation approaches often suffer from low reactivity and chemoselectivity when it comes to complex compounds. Now a class of halogenating reagents based on anomeric amides that can halogenate complex bioactive molecules with diverse functional groups and heterocycles has been developed. The higher reactivity of these anomeric amide reagents is attributed to the energy stored in the pyramidalized nitrogen.

Insights on the mechanistic differences between artificial metalloenzymes (ArMs) with non-native metal centres and the free cofactor or natural enzymes are scarce. Now, a detailed mechanistic analysis of a cyclopropanation reaction catalysed by such an ArM is provided, revealing intriguing differences to the natural system.

Frequent dispersal and short-lived local transmission clusters fuelled the 2013–2016 Ebola virus epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Although the common genetic variants contributing to blood lipid levels have been studied, the contribution of rare variants is less understood. Here, the authors perform a rare coding and noncoding variant association study of blood lipid levels using whole genome sequencing data.

Generating and quantifying the effect of the promoter speciation in heterogeneous catalysts is very challenging. Here, the authors show that the precise palladium atoms architecture reached by controlled co-precipitation overcomes selectivity and stability limitations associated with palladium nanoparticles for CO₂-based methanol synthesis.

As a measure of disorder, entropy is a central concept of statistical mechanics. In practice, however, it is typically determined thermodynamically, that is, by measuring heat. However, in arrays of interacting submicrometre-sized magnetic islands—known as artificial spin ice—entropy can be determined directly by ‘counting’ the microstate of the system.

A comprehensive analysis of models of brain metastasis and multiple cohorts of patient samples identifies a targetable molecular mechanism underlying the resistance to whole-brain radiotherapy that can inform patient selection for personalized radiotherapy.

Disease monitoring of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is a challenge. Here, the authors show that serial ctDNA analysis in 32 CLL patients allows monitoring of clonal dynamics over time, and identifies the emergence of genomic changes associated with Richter’s syndrome.

Whole-genome sequencing and phenotype data sharing are introduced in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover coding and non-coding variants that cause rare diseases.

Characterizing highly-reactive glycosyl cation intermediates and understanding their glycosylation mechanisms are essential to the stereoselective synthesis of complex carbohydrates. Here the authors report a workflow that is utilized to characterize rhamnosyl 1,3-bridged dioxanium ions derived from C-3 p-anisoyl esterified donors.

As phase 1 of the Earth Microbiome Project, analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA sequences from more than 27,000 environmental samples delivers a global picture of the basic structure and drivers of microbial distribution.

Single-cell gene expression analysis is challenging. This work describes a new droplet-based single cell RNA-seq platform capable of processing tens of thousands of cells across 8 independent samples in minutes, and demonstrates cellular subtypes and host–donor chimerism in transplant patients.

Analysis of whole-genome sequencing data across 2,658 tumors spanning 38 cancer types shows that chromothripsis is pervasive, with a frequency of more than 50% in several cancer types, contributing to oncogene amplification, gene inactivation and cancer genome evolution.

Here, the analysis of 'HapMap 3' is reported — a public data set of genomic variants in human populations. The resource integrates common and rare single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number polymorphisms (CNPs) from 11 global populations, providing insights into population-specific differences among variants. It also demonstrates the feasibility of imputing newly discovered rare SNPs and CNPs.

The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network reports an integrative analysis of more than 400 samples of clear cell renal cell carcinoma based on genomic, DNA methylation, RNA and proteomic characterisation; frequent mutations were identified in the PI(3)K/AKT pathway, suggesting this pathway might be a potential therapeutic target, among the findings is also a demonstration of metabolic remodelling which correlates with tumour stage and severity.

Dense-water formation around Antarctica could be reduced as climate change alters sea-ice formation and circulation patterns. This study shows there has been an over 40% reduction in dense-water formation in the Weddell Sea since 1992, which could affect global overturning circulation.

Bourdon et al. demonstrate the possibility to ectopically synthesize callose, a polymer restricted to primary cell walls, into Arabidopsis and aspen secondary cell walls to manipulate their ultrastructure and ultimately reduce their recalcitrance.

Washington

The cooperation that characterized the international Human Genome Project (HGP) is shifting rapidly towards competition as the project's members vie to decipher the genetic codes of other species.

Lake fisheries are vulnerable to environmental changes. Here, Kao et al. develop a Bayesian networks model to analyze time-series data from 31 major fisheries lake across five continents, showing that fish catches can respond either positively or negatively to climate and land-use changes.