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Obtaining accurate mechanical data for nanowires is difficult and calls for complex methodology. Here, the authors report the design of a new lateral atomic force microscope set-up for electromechanically measuring the Poisson's ratio of nanowires with a high degree of accuracy.

A new version of nanorate DNA sequencing, with an error rate lower than five errors per billion base pairs and compatible with whole-exome and targeted capture, enables epidemiological-scale studies of somatic mutation and selection and the generation of high-resolution selection maps across coding and non-coding sites for many genes.

The incorporation of the desirable properties of graphene into three-dimensional materials remains challenging. Here, the authors report the scalable self-assembly of graphene sheets into spongy materials with very low densities, and near-zero and largely strain-independent Poisson's ratios in all directions.

In this study, the authors combine interpolation techniques and deep learning methods, introducing Interpolating Neural Networks (INNs) to model complex systems with high accuracy and low computational cost.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Clonalscope is a method for cancer subclone detection leveraging copy number profiles estimated using spatial and single-cell sequencing data.

Cash transfers reduced AIDS incidence and mortality among 12.3 million Brazilian women, especially those with overlapping social vulnerabilities, highlighting the role of social protection in addressing health inequalities.

A Swedish study examined whether the risks of maternal and paternal suicide attempt differ during and after pregnancy and found a reversed sex difference in risk of suicide attempt during and after pregnancy compared with the general population.

High-resolution geospatial mapping found that the annual incidence of cholera shifted from western to central and eastern Africa between 2011 and 2020, with the latter regions more likely to report cholera in 2022–2023, reflecting instability in cholera burden patterns that can impact progress in disease control.

People living in rural areas of the United States have poorer outcomes from acute COVID-19. Here, the authors show that higher mortality rates among rural dwellers persist for up to two years after the initial infection, even after accounting for baseline risk factors.

The long-term natural history of long-COVID is not well understood. In this population-based cohort study from Scotland, the authors describe symptom prevalence and health-related quality of life up to 18 months after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test and compare with matched test-negative controls.

Poisson's ratio describes the resistance of a material to distort under mechanical load rather than to alter in volume. On the bicentenary of the publication of Poisson's Traité de Mécanique, the continuing relevance of Poisson's ratio in the understanding of modern materials is reviewed.

Brain-wide recordings in mice reveal that prior expectations are distributed through recurrent loops across all levels of cortical and subcortical processing.

Malaria infection risk is complex to quantify, partly because polyclonal as well as asymptomatic infections are common. Here, the authors use parasite genotyping data from a prospective cohort study in Mali to estimate infection incidence at the strain level and explore risk factors associated with heterogeneous infection rates.

SCIFER detects clonal selection in whole-genome sequencing data using a population genetics model. Applied to a range of somatic tissues, SCIFER quantifies stem cell dynamics and infers clonal ages and sizes without requiring knowledge of driver events.

Noel et al. show aberrant updating of expectations in three distinct mouse models of autism spectrum disorder. Brain-wide neurophysiology data suggest this stems from excess units encoding deviations from prior mean and a lack of sensory prediction errors in frontal areas.

The developmental origin of behavioral individuality is unclear. The authors show that a temporal sequence of genetically encoded stochastic mechanisms explains variation in stereotyped neuronal circuits.

Ice cores are unique climate archives, but their dating can be challenging. Here, the authors have realized a method for counting ⁸¹Kr atoms in 1-kg polar ice-core samples, enabling access to climate information of the past million years in deep ice.

The authors developed a model of neuron firing in which spike generation arises from the combination of sensory drive and stimulus-independent modulatory influences. This model provides an accurate account of neuron responses in multiple visual areas, suggesting that variability originates from excitability fluctuations that increase in strength along the visual pathway.

Using a deep generative model, CellBender models and denoises droplet-based single-cell data and improves multiple downstream analyses.

Using occurrence records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the authors show that the global species abundance distribution of 39 taxonomic classes of eukaryotes is best fit by a Poisson log-normal distribution.

Trained and validated on multimodal data from 14.5 million images from multicountry datasets, a foundation model is shown to increase diagnostic and referral accuracy of clinicians when used as an assistant in a trial involving 16 ophthalmologists and 668 patients.

Using mathematical modeling of RSV and hMPV, this study found lowered transmissibility of hMPV and suppressive effects on hMPV transmission. Peak timing and magnitude of hMPV may shift due to RSV interventions, but the overall burden is small.

SCENT is a nonparametric method that models association between chromatin accessibility and gene expression in single-cell multimodal datasets, enabling construction of cell-type-specific enhancer–gene maps to aid mapping of candidate causal variants and genes for common diseases.

The diversity of ponerine ants varies widely across the globe. This study finds that the origin and early colonization in Gondwana’s tropical regions mainly shaped this distribution, while differences in diversification and dispersal have balanced regional diversity over time.

How the brain combines sensory with non-sensory information is unknown. Here, the authors find that sensory input from the thalamus to the apical dendrites of the main cortical output neurons enables the first stage of this combination process.

Al-Hilal, Chrysovergi et al. identify a role for durotaxis in lung fibrosis and metastatic pancreatic cancer, mediated by the FAK–paxillin mechanosensor complex, and demonstrate therapeutic targeting of this pathway using the small molecule JP-153.

Natural killer T (NKT) cell defects have been implicated in several diseases such as autoimmunity, asthma and cancer, but will targeting them really be of clinical benefit? Here, the authors investigate this question and conclude that more careful studies are needed before the true clinical potential of NKT cell-targeted therapies can be determined.

Immune lymphocyte estimation from nucleotide sequencing (ImmuneLENS) infers B cell and T cell fractions from whole-genome sequencing data. Applied to the 100,000 Genomes Project datasets, circulating T cell fraction provides sex-dependent and prognostic insights in patients.

Extreme heat in Latin America increases road traffic mortality risks, with motorcyclists and bicyclists facing a 27% higher risk on the hottest days. Urban protection measures for vulnerable commuters in cities in the Global South are critical as climate change intensifies heat exposure.

Asteroid 1998 KY26 is the target of Hayabusa2 extended space mission. Here, authors show that it is smaller and rotates faster than known.

Exome sequencing of 851 trios from more than 2,500 individuals finds 187 genes with de novo mutations that contribute to meningomyelocele (spina bifida) and highlights critical pathways required for neural tube closure.

The neural mechanisms through which neurons represent simultaneously presented stimuli are not well understood. Here the authors demonstrate that the two stimuli are alternately encoded through fluctuations in the activity patterns of single neurons.

LFADS, a deep learning method for analyzing neural population activity, can extract neural dynamics from single-trial recordings, stitch separate datasets into a single model, and infer perturbations, for example, from behavioral choices to these dynamics.

Federated learning (FL) algorithms have emerged as a promising solution to train models for healthcare imaging across institutions while preserving privacy. Here, the authors describe the Federated Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) challenge for the decentralised benchmarking of FL algorithms and evaluation of Healthcare AI algorithm generalizability in real-world cancer imaging datasets.

The two-dimensional atomic layers of black phosphorus may be exfoliated to create devices with desirable electronic transport properties. Here, the authors observe two-dimensional quantum transport in black phosphorus quantum wells, protected from oxidation by encapsulation in a polymer layer.

The management of ulcerative colitis (UC) remains challenging due to the complexity of its etiology. Here, the authors establish that argininosuccinate synthetase 1 (ASS1) and its metabolite arginine are pivotal inducers of UC, through the triggering of mTOR and iNOS activation, and the induction of gut microbiota dysbiosis by metabolomics and proteomics. Inhibition of ASS1 by C-01 provides a viable strategy for the treatment of UC.

Analysis of single-nucleus RNA sequencing and single-nucleus assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with sequencing data derived from synovium of patients with rheumatoid arthritis identifies regions with dynamic accessibility that correlate with cell states. Dynamic peaks are more strongly enriched for autoimmune disease heritability.

Complete vaccine-mediated immune control of highly pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis is possible if immune effector responses can intercept the infection at its earliest stages.

Brazil has operated a conditional cash transfer program to support families living in precarious conditions since 2004. Here, the authors use linked administrative and health data to investigate the impacts of the program on HIV/AIDS-related outcomes, demonstrating strong positive associations.