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How the shape of the pre-implantation murine embryo changes dramatically upon implantation is unclear. Here, the authors use live imaging with a cdx2-GFP reporter line in combination with loss of function experiments to demonstrate that FGF signalling mediated trophectoderm morphogenesis orchestrates this process.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

Primary angle-closure glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness. Here, the authors identify rare deleterious variants in UBOX5 as risk factors and implicate BIP ubiquitination as a potential disease mechanism.

Trafficking from endosomes to the trans-Golgi network requires recognition of vesicle tethers during membrane docking. Here, the authors identify a complex localised to AP-1 generated vesicles containing WDR11, C17orf75 and FAM91A, which together with TBC1D23 facilitates vesicle capture on Golgi membranes

In yeast, TFIP11 and DHX15 promote the disassembly of spliceosome complex after splicing is completed. Here the authors show that human TFIP11 functions independently of DHX15 and is required for U6 snRNA 2’-O-methylation and U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP assembly.

Resistance to primary treatments of invasive aspergillosis is growing. Here, the authors generate a knockout library for 484 transcription factors in Aspergillus fumigatus, and show that loss of the NCT complex leads to cross-resistance to all primary and some salvage therapeutics without affecting pathogenicity.

Inspired by biology, great progress has been made in creating artificial molecular motors. Here the authors report the synthesis and characterization of the Lawnmower, an autonomous, protein-based artificial molecular motor and show their design is capable of track-guided motion.

A thermogelling polymer that acts as an internal tamponade can repair detached retinas and trigger the formation of a vitreous-like body, as shown in retinal-detachment rabbit and non-human-primate models.

Ion exchange is a powerful method to access metastable materials for energy storage, but identifying lithium and sodium interchange in layered oxides remains challenging. Using such model materials, vacancy level and corresponding lithium preference are shown to be crucial for ion exchange pathway accessibility.

This resource presents a high-resolution diffusion MRI dataset of a chimpanzee brain, which should be useful for evolutionary studies of primate brain evolution.

SARS-CoV-2 uses the host endolysosomal system for replication and egress. Here the authors show that SARS-CoV-2 virulence factor ORF3a localizes to the late endocytic compartments of the host cell to disrupt Rab7 GTP to GDP cycling and block lysosome function in cargo degradation, while activated Rab7 promotes virus replication.

Human airway epithelium infected with SARS-CoV-2 shows viral entry occurring at the apical plasma membrane, excluding cilia. Here, the visualization of viral fusion at the cell surface and budding profiles within infected cells through high-resolution electron microscopy and tomography provide new insight into the infection process.

COPI is recruited to the membrane by binding to Arf GTPases. Here the authors find that GORAB, a trans-Golgi protein, promotes COPI recruitment by forming membrane domains that also contain the COPI-interacting protein Scyl1, which is required for efficient glycosylation of cargo proteins.

In this study, Fu et al. provide mechanistic insight into how GLUT2 fine-tunes environmental nutrient sensing with T cell activation, which optimizes metabolic adaptation during acquisition of T cell effector function.

The fate of soil carbon depends on microbial processes, but whether different microbial taxa have individualistic effects on carbon fluxes is unknown. Here the authors use 16 S amplicon sequencing and stable isotopes to show how taxonomic differences influence bacterial respiration and carbon cycling across four ecosystems.

Bacteria can be trapped by neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in vitro, but their relevance in vivo is uncertain, in part because NETs are thought to be released by dying neutrophils, thereby eliminating the other antimicrobial functions of these cells. Paul Kubes and his colleagues report in this issue that NET release need not kill neutrophils and that NETosis can by dynamically imaged in vivo.

Mouse and human embryonic stem (ES) cells use different signalling pathways to maintain their pluripotent status. Now, a new kind of pluripotent ES cell is described. This cell type is derived from mouse embryos after they implant in the wall of the uterus, and shares many defining features with human ES cells, including signalling responses that control differentiation to somatic fates.

Here the authors show eutherian mammals co-opted the histone demethylase KDM5C during sex-chromosome evolution to induce X-chromosome inactivation by upregulating Xist expression selectively in females.

The authors report nickel-porphyrins derivatives of chlorophyll in ~1 Gyr-old multicellular eukaryotes, preserved in low-grade metamorphic rocks. This brand new approach permits to identify early phototrophic organisms through the geological record.

The dystroglycanopathies are a group of muscular dystrophies that are caused by glycosylation defects in α-dystroglycan, an important membrane protein that binds to the extracellular matrix. In this review, Paul Martin summarizes the genetic and clinical features of these disorders, and discusses the possible roles of dystroglycanopathy-associated genes in α-dystroglycan glycosylation.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has been connected to deficits in autophagy. Here, the authors demonstrate, in mice and dry-AMD patient samples, that calcium and integrin binding protein 2 (CIB2) regulates Rheb-mTORC1 signaling axis, and subsequently autophagy.

The authors present a public collection of 117 bacterial isolates from the pig gut, including the description of 38 novel taxa. Interesting functions discovered in these organisms include a new fucosyltransferease and sactipeptide-like molecules encoded by biosynthetic gene clusters.

The choroid plexus (ChP) modulates cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) composition and the blood-CSF barrier. Here the authors show that the ChP is a critical circadian component with time-of-day variations in translation, barrier, and metabolism to alter CSF composition.

An integrated analysis of several cohorts shows that clonal, antigen-experienced T cells are found in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that the adaptive immune system has a role in age-related neurodegeneration.

A calcium–calmodulin signalling pathway is identified as a master regulator of light chain 3 (LC3)-associated phagocytosis. Aspergillus melanin sequesters Ca2⁺ inside the phagosome, inhibiting this pathway, which is important in human aspergillosis.

Plasmodium protein phosphatase PP1 is essential for the asexual proliferation of malaria parasites. Here the authors show that PP1 regulates egress of parasites from host red blood cells, integrating parasite intrinsic pathways with environmental signals for release into the bloodstream.

Here authors show that machine learning derives the degree of background retinal pigmentation with more nuance than self-described ethnicity. Retinal pigment scores are associated with genes linked to melanin and may improve algorithmic fairness.

Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is highly heritable, yet not well understood from a genetic perspective. Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies in 34,179 POAG cases, identifying 44 previously unreported risk loci and mapping effects across multiple ethnicities.

Heart function after injury improves upon formation of new blood vessels. Here, the authors show that ablating a transcription factor RBPJ in the murine heart increases vascularization and maintains cardiac function after injury by increasing responsiveness to hypoxia, suggesting a new approach to treat heart injury.

Atmospheric methane may be consumed by microorganisms in soil, but the mechanisms behind high-affinity methane oxidization remain poorly understood. Here, Jia et al. show that known methanotrophic bacteria are responsible for atmospheric methane uptake in periodically drained wetland ecosystems.

Insulin signals satiety after a meal; however, the rising incidence of obesity and chronic insulin elevation suggests that insulin may also signal reward. Here, Stouffer et al. show that insulin amplifies dopamine release in rodent striatum depending on diet, and that striatal insulin can influence food choice.

The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.

The CMS Collaboration reports the study of three simultaneous hard interactions between quarks and gluons in proton–proton collisions. This manifests through the concurrent production of three J/ψ mesons, which consist of a charm-quark–antiquark pair.

Contributions from both parents are usually needed to produce viable offspring, in plants as well as animals. Nowack et al. explore the pathways controlling this process in plants by producing seeds containing only maternal endosperm— only possible when certain FIS class mutations are present in the maternal line — that grow into viable but smaller plants.

Microglia in the aging hippocampus accumulate lipid droplets, and are functionally impaired and inflamed. Lipid droplet formation in microglia is regulated by genes linked to neurodegeneration such as progranulin.

A covalent ligand that targets C277 of ATP6V1A was identified resulting in enhanced v-ATPase activity, inhibition of mTORC1 signaling, increased lysosomal acidification, activation of autophagy and clearance of toxic protein aggregates.

Degeneration of pericytes causes toxic fibrin(ogen) accumulation, cell death and microcirculation dysfunction in CNS white-matter axon tracts.