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Caspase-7 cleaves and activates acid sphingomyelinase (ASM), which promotes the repair of gasdermin pores and thereby delays pore-driven lysis to allow other processes such as extrusion or apoptosis to occur before cell death.

PCR duplicates—sequencing reads from the same original genomic fragment—can cause headaches. But there are remedies.

Chen at al. show that CHD1 loss in SPOP-mutated prostate tumors confers castration resistance by increasing SREBP2-mediated cholesterol synthesis and subsequent androgen supply, an effect counteracted by combined androgen and cholesterol inhibition.

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.

Assessing forest health and resilience is an urgent, many-methods task that takes global collaboration, data collected at multiple scales and a willingness to be surprised.

A journey in science takes initiative, and also an ability to face headwinds. These PhD students aren’t scared away.

Sexual dimorphism results in widely diverse animal forms, but sexual determination is generally attributed to a single gene in animal models. Here they find that the glu gene regulates sexual dimorphism of honeybee eyes, demonstrating diversification of genetic programs for dimorphism.

Analysis of a preselected group of proteins delivers more precise, quantitative, sensitive data to more biologists. Vivien Marx reports.

As instruments and approaches emerge for single-molecule protein analysis, some developers and early users share their first impressions.

The research community focused on noncoding RNAs keeps growing. Skepticism about the field has some history.

The atmospheric terminator region of WASP-39 b, a hot gas giant exoplanet, is inhomogeneous, despite past assumptions, with the evening terminator being hotter and thus probably clearer, and the morning terminator probably being cloudy and consequently cooler.

As a postdoctoral fellowship ends, for some, next is a trek to their new lab.

Labs reaping information from single cells balance desirables with headaches such as data sparsity, cost and protocol surprises.

As they grapple with increasingly large data sets, biologists and computer scientists uncork new bottlenecks.

Analysis of whole-genome sequences of 25,465 individuals of European ancestry shows that rare variants contribute substantially to the heritability of height and body mass index.

Analysis of gravitational waves from merging binary neutron stars was accelerated using machine learning, enabling full low-latency parameter estimation and enhancing the potential for multi-messenger observations.

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.

Fallout radionuclide (FRN) chronometry reveals that accumulation of Hg in soils is five times higher than reported in sediment or peat archives. This confirms that global forest soils are strong and stable sinks of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM).

Base editing screens of 11 cancer genes identify four functional classes of variants that collectively underpin sensitivity and resistance to ten commonly used drugs in cancer cell lines.

Hybrid superconductor-semiconductor circuits have recently garnered attention for various applications. Here, the authors use a semiconductor heterostructure with a high-mobility Ge channel to create a Josephson device, where the supercurrent is mainly carried by Cooper pairs, crucial for parity-protected qubits.

Stress-associated catecholamines promote CD8⁺ T cell exhaustion through the β₁-adrenergic receptor, and blocking β-adrenergic signalling may help restore anti-tumour functions.

Pathogens often persist within granulomas which form to control infection. Here, Harvest et al describe an innate granuloma that eradicates a ubiquitous environmental pathogen without inducing adaptive immunity.

Ultra-hot Jupiters provide a unique window into atmospheric processes and this in-depth study enables integrated global snapshots of the atmosphere and more accurate identification of flow patterns, thus allowing for better comparison to models.

In offspring exposed to THC in utero, molecular, synaptic and circuit reorganizations lead to a hyperdopaminergic phenotype and behavioral susceptibility. The neurosteroid pregnenolone restores both dopamine function and abnormal behavior.

Some graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and senior researchers choose a special kind of science-focused summer.

Analysis of the panchromatic transmission spectrum of the warm, low-density, Neptune-sized exoplanet WASP-107b from instruments aboard the HST and JWST suggests that tidal interaction with its host star led to changes in its atmospheric chemistry.

Cell-cell adhesion by desmosomes is weakened in the blistering skin disease pemphigus vulgaris. Here, authors found that the transcription factor Kruppel-like factor 5 is essential for the expression of the desmosomal gene desmoglein 3 and suggest a novel treatment approach.

In this study the authors report that Caldesmon controls force-balance and architecture of stress fibers through dynamic cross-linking of actin and myosin filaments. Caldesmon depletion led to consequent problems in cell morphogenesis, motility and mechanosensing.

Ventral tegmental area (VTA) is involved in reward behaviours, but the precise contribution of VTA glutamatergic neurons to this process is not known. Here the authors show that phasic but not sustained optogenetic stimulation of VTA glutamatergic neurons is rewarding and involves co-release of GABA.

Using data from a single time point, passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate (PACER) estimates the fitness of common driver mutations that lead to clonal haematopoiesis and identifies TCL1A activation as a mediator of clonal expansion.

Scientists can choose between multiple human genome references, and a pangenome reference is coming. Deciding what to use when is not quite straightforward.

The transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-39b is obtained using observations from the Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy mode of the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph instrument aboard the JWST.

Pooling participant-level genetic data into a single analysis can result in variance stratification, reducing statistical performance. Here, the authors develop variant-specific inflation factors to assess variance stratification and apply this to pooled individual-level data from whole genome sequencing.

Dimension reduction helps to visualize high-dimensional datasets. These tools should be used thoughtfully and with tuned parameters. Sometimes, these methods take a second thought.

Phase-resolved mid-infrared observations from JWST of the hot gas giant WASP-43b detect a day–night difference of 659 ± 19 K. Comparison with climate models shows that the observations are compatible with cloudy skies, at least on the nightside, and the lack of methane detection suggests the presence of disequilibrium chemistry.

“In subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), therapies are limited and clinical outcomes remain disappointing. The authors show a contribution of the urotensin II system in microvascular changes, vasospasm, neuroinflammation and cognitive deficits post-SAH, primarily through meningeal cells and border-associated macrophages

Genome-edited human pluripotent stem cells and genome-edited mouse models reveal that combinatorial genetic interactions contribute to the complex genetic heritability of human cardiomyopathy.

Labs combine techniques to study why cancer cells are so metabolically flexible.

 Analysis of a gravitational-wave signal reveals a strongly precessing black-hole binary that contains a rapidly spinning black hole.

The materials–biology interface is challenging to characterize, but new assays are on the way.

Microscopy has undoubtedly advanced biomedical research, but novel hypotheses are often lost to a lack of analytical tools. Here authors propose iCLOTS, a freely-available software that allows researchers to apply image processing and artificial intelligence algorithms to their own data.

Multiomic factor analysis of blood multiomic data, including single-cell transcriptomics, for individuals with either acute or chronic coronary syndrome identifies immune cell signatures that correlate with treatment outcomes.

Mapping ecological variables using machine-learning algorithms based on remote-sensing data has become a widespread practice in ecology. Here, the authors use forest biomass mapping as a study case to show that the most common model validation approach, which ignores data spatial structure, leads to overoptimistic assessment of model predictive power.

Magnetoelectric effect enables versatile electronic and spintronic devices. Here the authors demonstrate a different strategy to achieve magnetoelectric coupling in which the electric polarization is controlled by magnetic spin state transition instead of the traditional ferro- or antiferromagnetic order.

The protein Mdm10 is known to be present in the endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria encounter structure (ERMES) and in mitochondrial sorting and assembly machinery (SAM). Here, the authors examine how this protein interacts with SAM and EMRES, showing that the SAM-mediated protein machinery is independent of ERMES.

The supramammillary nucleus in the hypothalamus acts as a novelty hub that selectively directs different types of novelty signals to different subregions of the hippocampus and flexibly modulates the encoding of memory.

Infection with SARS-COV-2 can result in self-limited upper airway infection or progress to a more systemic inflammatory condition including pneumonic COVID-19. Here the authors utilise a multi-omics approach to interrogate the immune response of patients with self-limiting upper respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection and reveal a temporal immune trajectory they associate with viral containment and restriction from pneumonic progressive disease.