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Most of the archaeological record of the Middle to Later Stone Age transition comes from southern Africa. Here, Shipton et al. describe the new site Panga ya Saidi on the coast of Kenya that covers the last 78,000 years and shows gradual cultural and technological change in the Late Pleistocene.

A study investigating the mortality attributed to urolithiasis over a 15-year period has noted an increasing rate of death with a simultaneous rise in stone prevalence. However, the exact mechanisms by which nephrolithiasis causes death remains unclear.

Obesity is a major health concern and is associated with an increased risk of nephrolithiasis, particularly in women. Bariatric surgery for weight loss is known to increase the incidence of stone formation and alter urinary chemistry profiles. In this Review, the authors summarize the problems of stone formation in the bariatric surgery population and discuss relevant dietary recommendations, current medical therapies, and new therapeutic directions for the management of stones in this population.

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka, driven by adaptation to diverse habitats.

In this Case Study, Tseng and Matlaga report on a 50-year-old man with a 1.5 cm lower pole renal calculus who was successfully treated with percutaneous nephrolithotomy. They discuss the management options for patients presenting with lower pole calculi and highlight the need for studies evaluating quality-of-life outcomes for the different approaches.

Increasing body and brain size constitutes a key pattern in human evolution, but the mechanisms driving these changes remain debated. Using a large fossil dataset combined with global paleoclimatic reconstructions, the authors show that different environmental variables influenced the evolution of brain and body size in Homo.

Naturally acquired antibodies may inhibit Plasmodium survival in mosquitoes, alter malaria transmission dynamics, and form the basis for transmission-blocking vaccines. Here, using sera from malaria-exposed individuals, Stone et al. reveal novel antibody correlates of transmission-reducing activity.

Andrew Robinson pieces together the story of who deserves the credit for deciphering the hieroglyphs.

The temporal activation of kinases and timely ubiquitin-mediated degradation is central to faithful mitosis. Here the authors show that acetylation controlled by Coenzyme A synthase (COASY) and acetyltransferase CBP constitutes a mechanism that ensures faithful mitosis.

Agricultural sectors receive US$600 billion per year in government support, providing incentives for GHG emission-intensive production. Here, the authors show that removing this support will not reduce global GHG emissions by much; rather it will need to be radically redirected to contribute to climate change mitigation.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

The tumour microenvironment counteracts immune therapy in Glioblastomas. Authors show here, using spatially resolved and single cell transcriptomics, that dysfunctional T cells are induced by a myeloid cell subset via Interleukin-10 signalling, and inhibition of the downstream JAK/STAT pathway might restore glioblastoma immune therapy responsiveness.

Zakaria and colleagues describe the case of a previously healthy 29-year-old man with renal infarction. The nonspecific nature of his presenting symptoms caused a delay in diagnosis. The authors provide a comprehensive account of the presenting features, and of diagnostic tests that can distinguish renal infarction from more common conditions.

Facemap is a data analysis framework for tracking keypoints on mouse faces and relating them to large-scale neural activity. Both of these steps use state-of-the-art convolutional neural networks to achieve high precision and fast processing speeds.

In this longitudinal study of an incident (new infections) and chronic (asymptomatic infections) cohort of Plasmodium falciparum infection in children in Burkina Faso, the authors show higher gametocyte production and mosquito infectivity in chronic infections.

Melamine has been used in industry to adulterate human and animal foodstuffs owing to its high nitrogen content, which gives misleading results in assays that measure protein content in food. Ingestion of melamine can result in kidney stones, renal failure and, occasionally, death. The authors of this Review discuss the epidemiological, clinical, pathological, and toxicological observations that have been linked to melamine alone and in combination with cyanuric acid.

The heterogeneity of androgen receptor (AR) gene alterations across metastases in prostate cancer remains unresolved. Here, the authors characterise AR genomic complexity across spatially separated lethal metastases from 10 prostate cancer patients and investigate how AR alterations evolve.

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

The genome of the grey short-tailed opossum Monodelphis domestica has been sequenced and analyzed, giving a first peek at a marsupial's genetic code. Of particular interest are the genetics of the immune system, which has been studied as a model for humans, and of the X chromosome for historical reasons.

An international consortium reports the genomic sequence for ten Drosophila species, and compares them to two other previously published Drosophila species. These data are invaluable for drawing evolutionary conclusions across an entire phylogeny of species at once.

You can't live without it.

Montserrat Garcia-Closas and colleagues report a meta-analysis of three genome-wide association studies for estrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer, including 4,193 ER-negative breast cancer cases and 35,194 controls, with replication using the iCOGS custom genotyping array in 40 studies, including 6,514 cases and 41,455 controls. They identify four loci associated with ER-negative but not ER-positive breast cancer.

Heterogeneity in the transmission potential of individual hosts is an important feature of malaria. Here, the authors perform a multi-regional study of the human infectious reservoir in malaria-endemic regions of Burkina Faso and Kenya.

Although effective at inducing and maintaining remission in the majority of patients with Wegener's granulomatosis, agents such as cyclophosphamide and high-dose glucocorticoids are associated with severe toxic effects. In this Review, Peter Wung and John Stone discuss the progress that is being made in the search for alternative treatments for this common form of systemic vasculitis.

Too many data-management projects fail because they ignore the changing nature of life-sciences data, argues John Boyle.

In the nineteenth century, reform at the ancient university came from an unexpected source. Georgina Ferry enjoys its history.

A blast from the past.

Focal therapy has the potential to become a 'middle ground' between active surveillance and radical treatment for prostate cancer by combining minimal morbidity, cancer control, and scope for re-treatment. In this article, the authors outline the energy modalities available for use in focal therapy, review the current evidence, and discuss future directions for this type of treatment.

Gabrielle Walker enjoys a historic exploration of the frozen continent's great mountain range.

Fifty years ago, Abdus Salam envisaged a 'world centre' for theorists. Now the institute that he founded is adapting to a changing world and to changing ways of doing science.

A large array of viral sequences is being uncovered in eukaryotic genome sequences, revealing that almost any type of virus — not just retroviruses — can become part of host genomes. These discoveries provide new information about the origins and evolution of modern day viruses and host–virus relationships.

Human energy consumption and productivity have steeply risen around 1950 CE, leading to a departure from the Earth’s Holocene state into the Anthropocene, suggests a quantitative analysis of humanity’s influence on the Earth system.