Search

Women of reproductive age may have specific concerns relating to perceived impacts on fertility and menstrual cycles that make them hesitant to receive COVID-19 vaccination. In this study, the authors explore COVID-19 vaccine uptake rates in women of reproductive age using linked data for ~13 million women in England.

A prospective nationwide genomic screening pilot for ten genes in young adults in Australia detected pathogenic variants in 2% of the population, most of whom were ineligible for government-funded genomic testing.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

Global Burden of Disease estimates show that between 1990 and 2023, the prevalence and burden of drug use disorders, inclusive of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and opioid use, have been increasing in high-income countries, particularly in the USA.

In a multicenter, randomized trial of patients with atrial fibrillation and a low risk of thromboembolic events, treatment with the anticoagulant rivaroxaban showed no benefit in reducing cognitive decline, stroke or transient ischemic attack when compared to placebo.

The last deglaciation was interrupted by a cool period known as the Younger Dryas. Numerical simulations suggest that the cold interval was the result of a combination of changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation and reduced radiative forcing.

Men and women differ in their lipid biology. Here, the authors identify NCOA1 as a female-specific regulator that promotes the conversion of white fat into energy-burning fat, protecting women from obesity and metabolic disease by enhancing thermogenic activity in subcutaneous fat.

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) associated uveitis can cause vision loss in children, but mechanisms remain unclear. The authors here identify elevated CD19⁺IgD^-CD27^- double negative type 1 B cells in JIA-uveitis and show that targeting B-T cell interactions suppresses disease in mouse models of uveitis.

Here, the authors present archaeology of the Namorotukunan site in Kenya’s Turkana Basin that demonstrates adaptive shifts in hominin tool-making behaviour spanning 300,000 years and increasing environmental variability. They contextualize these findings with paleoenvironmental proxies, dating, and geological descriptions.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

Using multi-omic analyses, the authors reveal how aging, sex, and trisomy 21 shape human biology across the lifespan, showing that age- and sex-specific changes peak during puberty and adulthood, while trisomy 21 exerts differential effects over time.

New hominin fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I (ThI-GH) in Casablanca, Morocco, dated to around 773 thousand years ago are similar in age to Homo antecessor, yet are morphologically distinct.

Demand-side food policies show small average effects, with effectiveness varying across intervention types. Targeted strategies and a better understanding of how context and population influence outcomes can advance food system sustainability.

Understanding the organism-wide molecular effects of spaceflight becomes increasingly critical as space exploration accelerates. Here, the authors show that miRNAs mediate microgravity-induced adaptations via extracellular matrix, DNA damage and developmental pathways, as shown by small RNA profiling in 13 organs of mice during and after spaceflight.

This study reports age-dependent negative correlations between temporal changes in maximal leaf area index and growing season length, indicating contrasting leaf acclimation strategies driving vegetation greening in young versus old deciduous broadleaf forests.

A retrospective, observational study shows that completion of a diabetes prevention program in England (the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme) was associated with decreased incidence of type 2 diabetes and long-term conditions such as dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at 24 months.

Individuals with young onset sporadic Alzheimer’s disease show faster pathological and clinical progression. Here the authors report that earlier symptom onset in Alzheimer’s disease is associated with higher tau pathology in globally connected brain hubs, accelerated connectivity-mediated tau spreading and faster cognitive decline.

The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative recruited and genotyped more than half a million Taiwanese participants, almost all of Han Chinese ancestry, and performed comprehensive genomic analyses and developed polygenic risk score prediction models for numerous health conditions.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

Using 1,425 UK Biobank participants, we show for the first time that morphological brain asymmetry exhibits evidence of plasticity changes throughout adulthood, which tracks individual variation ~1,000 lifestyle factors and ~4,500 disease ICD codes.

Ageing of the immune system is now realized to drive systemic ageing, and there is interest in targeting immune ageing in order to promote healthy ageing. Here, the authors detail how ageing affects different immune cell populations and discuss strategies to rejuvenate the immune system in order to extend healthspan.

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.

Respiration enhances cerebrospinal fluid flow through mechanical and autonomic pathways. Inhale length and diaphragm motion influence its displacement and net flow, identifying a modifiable, noninvasive mechanism relevant to brain homeostasis.

The response to infectious and inflammatory challenges differs among people but the reasons for this are poorly understood. Here the authors explore the impact of variables such as age, sex, and the capacity for controlling inflammation and maintaining immunocompetence, linking this capacity to favourable health outcomes and lifespan.

Individuals over eighty years of age are less likely to mount a good immune response against SARS-CoV-2 (measured by neutralization titres) after the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine, but achieve good neutralization after the second dose.

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.

uPAR is a senescence-associated protein, and CAR T cells targeting uPAR exert senolysis. Here Eskiocak et al. identify uPAR⁺ cells as key targets of intestinal aging and show that CAR T-mediated elimination prevents and restores age-related decline in intestinal regeneration and barrier function.

In a national study of 46 million adults, living with diabetes-related multiple long-term health conditions(MLTCS), particularly during young adulthood, led to extended periods of time with MLTCS, while also substantially reducing the years of life.

The potential of mammogram-based biological age predictors remains to be fully explored. Here this group introduces a deep learning model to estimate the biological age of the breast using healthy mammograms.

Despite a rise in COVID-19 cases among children, there is limited understanding of the antibody responses mounted, compared to in adults. In this work, authors compare seroconversion rates and antibody responses in unvaccinated Australian children across the three SARS-CoV-2 waves (Wuhan, Delta and Omicron).

A high-resolution transcriptomic and epigenomic cell-type atlas of the developing mouse visual cortex from embryonic to postnatal development is presented, providing a real-time dynamic molecular map associated with individual cell types and specific developmental events.

NutriSighT, an interpretable AI transformer model, accurately predicts which mechanically ventilated ICU patients are at risk of underfeeding, enabling clinicians to personalize nutritional care

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.

Primary angle-closure glaucoma can cause blindness. Here, the authors study populations of Asian and European ancestries and find that genetic factors associated with darker irises and being far sighted increase the risk of developing the condition.

Ageing is a known risk factor in the development of cancers, but its association with molecular alterations is not fully explored. Here, the authors analyse pan-cancer age-associated molecular alterations in datasets from the TCGA, PCAWG and AACR-GENIE projects and identify prognostic biomarkers.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies across different populations highlights new risk loci and provides a genetic risk score that can stratify prostate cancer risk across ancestries.

Here, the authors present mtDNA and chronological data for sediments from excavations in the South Chamber of Denisova Cave, from which they construct a timeline of hominin and faunal occupation that fills stratigraphic gaps in other parts of the cave.

This study reveals that MDS stem cells progressively acquire progenitor-like chromatin features during disease progression, and that a scoring system based on chromatin accessibility in MDS stem and progenitor cells correlates strongly with disease progression.