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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.

To better understand the etiology of frailty, the authors perform a large genetic study. They identified 45 additional variants and implicated MET, CHST9, ILRUN, APOE, CGREF1 and PPP6C as potential causal genes, linking frailty to immune regulation, metabolism and cellular signaling.

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.

Analysis of HbA1c and FPG levels across 117 population-based studies demonstrates regional variation in prevalence of previously undiagnosed screen-detected diabetes using one or both measures and suggests that use of elevated FPG alone could underestimate diabetes prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.

A genome-wide association study suggests 41 previously unreported loci on top of the 23 known loci that influence the disease risk for lumbar disc herniations. Many of these loci harbour genes implicated in disc structure and inflammation, as well as genes related to the nervous system and nerve function.

From 1980 to 2018, the levels of total and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol increased in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreased in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias identifies new loci and enables generation of a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Contrary to the view that urbanization is a major driver of the global rise in obesity, the global increase in body-mass index is shown to be mostly due to increases in the body-mass indexes of rural populations.

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.

The most up-to-date combination of results on the properties of the Higgs boson is reported, which indicate that its properties are consistent with the standard model predictions, within the precision achieved to date.

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.

A genome-wide association study identifies 17 genetic loci that are associated with the risk of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), and shows that the modulation of haematopoietic stem cell function drives MPN risk.

The influence of X chromosome genetic variation on blood lipids and coronary heart disease (CHD) is not well understood. Here, the authors analyse X chromosome sequencing data across 65,322 multi-ancestry individuals, identifying associations of the Xq23 locus with lipid changes and reduced risk of CHD and diabetes mellitus.

Narcolepsy has genetic and environmental risk factors, but the specific genetic risk loci and interaction with environmental triggers are not well understood. Here, the authors identify genetic loci for narcolepsy, suggesting infection as a trigger and dendritic and helper T cell involvement.

Many genetic factors that contribute to uterine leiomyomata (UL) - the most common tumours of the female genital tract - remain to be discovered. Here, the authors conduct a UL meta-genome-wide association study, and find loci related to altered muscle tissue biology that are associated with UL.

The burden of mosaic chromosomal alterations in blood-derived DNA, a type of clonal hematopoiesis, is associated with an increased risk for diverse types of infections, including sepsis and pneumonia.

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.

Identifying women at high risk of breast cancer has important implications for screening. Here, the authors demonstrate that polygenic risk scores improve breast cancer risk prediction in the population, in women with mutations in high-risk genes and in women with close relatives with the disease.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are associated with plasma lipid levels. Here, Tabassum et al. perform genome-wide association studies for lipidomic profiles with 141 (non-standard) lipid species which highlights shared genetic loci with CVD and that traditional lipids have low genetic correlation with other lipids.

Upper gastrointestinal cancer is often missed during examinations and survival outcomes are still poor among patients in the Western world. As discussed in this Perspectives, following the Japanese example, an improved gastroscopy technique, advanced training for endoscopists and optimized screening procedures for risk stratification will be necessary to elicit a change in clinical practice and improve diagnosis and treatment.

The discovery and purification of a new neurotrophic factor, conserved dopamine neurotrophic Factor (CDNF), is reported. Like the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor GDNF, CDNF can prevent degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in a rat model of Parkinson's disease.

Combined analysis of proton-proton collision data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN by the CMS and LHCb collaborations leads to the observation of the extremely rare decay of the strange B meson into muons; the result is compatible with the standard model of particle physics, and does not show any signs of new physics, such as supersymmetry.

In a large and prospective cohort, higher polygenic risk is associated with higher risk and earlier age of onset for cardiometabolic disorders and cancer, and has added value to clinical risk scores in clinical disease prediction.