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This study compares urban activities by frequency and matches them with socioeconomic data in three US cities. It found that mobility patterns predict economic outputs but it is the infrequent activities (for example, going to French restaurants) that have the highest explanatory power.

Isolating and studying haematopoietic stem cells in young and aged mice demonstrates evolutionary processes related to blood production and provides a framework for interpreting future work using laboratory mice to study stem cell ageing.

Control of atoms with single-atom precision is a key challenge in nanoscience. Now an electron beam approach to engineer shielded metal atoms in transition metal dichalcogenides is proposed. This method can create diverse atomic vacancies, leading to interesting magnetic and electronic properties.

Resting and activated T cell states are established by context-specific regulators and dynamic gene circuits.

There is a need for extensive neuroimaging datasets to facilitate the study of dynamic human visual perception. Here, the authors present a repository of whole-brain fMRI responses to over 1000 short naturalistic video clips across ten human subjects.

OpenSAFELY, a new health analytics platform that includes data from over 17 million adult NHS patients in England, is used to examine factors associated with COVID-19-related death.

Strontium isotope analysis can be applied to animal and plant tissues to help determine their provenance. Here, the authors generate a strontium isoscape of sub-Saharan Africa using data from 2266 environmental samples and demonstrate its efficacy by tracing the African roots of individuals from historic slavery contexts.

Interactions between members of a group may be influenced by their social relationships. Here, the authors track individuals’ trajectories within flocks of jackdaws and show that their social relationships transform local interactions and collective dynamics.

Alterations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are a hallmark of cancer, yet how they interact remains poorly understood. Here, the authors describe a quantitative functional cancer genomics platform in genetically engineered mice, and uncover complex interactions between tumor suppressors and KRAS, BRAF, and EGFR oncogenes across more than 100 different lung tumor genotypes.

Village cultures, where multiple stem cell lines are cultured in a single dish, provide an elegant solution for population-scale studies. Here, authors show the utility of village models – showing that expression heterogeneity is largely a result of line-specific effects and not village cultures.

It has been proposed that the age of the Earth deduced from lead isotopes reflects loss of lead into space at the time of the Moon's formation rather than partitioning into metallic liquids during core formation. Here it is shown that lead partitioning into liquid iron depends strongly on carbon content and that, given a core carbon content of about 0.2%, there is evidence of strong partitioning of lead into the core throughout the Earth's accretion.

BRCA2 and its interactor HSF2BP are required for meiotic recombination. Here, the authors define the interaction structurally, revealing that a repeat in BRCA2 binds two HSF2BP units, increasing the affinity. This region is, however, not essential for mouse meiosis.

There is limited data on immune factors contributing to SARS-CoV-2 viral clearance in people living with HIV. Here, the authors show that re-emergence of the neutralizing antibody response may be key to clearing persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in ART-mediated recovery from immunosuppression in advanced HIV disease.

AlphaFold is used to predict the structures of almost all of the proteins in the human proteome—the availability of high-confidence predicted structures could enable new avenues of investigation from a structural perspective.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

Acoustic measurements show how a player can extract a range of timbres from this primitive instrument.

Spinal CPGs transmit movement commands through rhythmic synaptic drive onto the spinal premotor network. Here, the authors use paired recordings to demonstrate that spinal neurons have decorrelated synaptic activity suggesting a CPG network with sparse convergent connectivity.

Reference assemblies of great ape sex chromosomes show that Y chromosomes are more variable in size and sequence than X chromosomes and provide a resource for studies on human evolution and conservation genetics of non-human apes.

Maize demand in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase. Here, the authors use data collected by One Acre Fund on 14,773 smallholder fields in the region and determine that maize production can be increased with minimal cropland expansion by improving management practices.

We present James Webb Space Telescope observations that detect the 3.3 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon feature in a galaxy observed less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.

A multifunctional additive modulates the kinetics of perovskite film growth, enabling inverted perovskite solar cells with 24.8% power conversion efficiency and enhanced thermal stability.

Machine-learning algorithms trained on 25,000 geolocated soil samples are used to create high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungi, revealing that less than 10% of their biodiversity hotspots are in protected areas.

AlphaFold predicts protein structures with an accuracy competitive with experimental structures in the majority of cases using a novel deep learning architecture.

Evolutionary modelling shows that an initial set of inhibitory neurons serving olfactory bulbs may have been repurposed to diversify the taxonomy of interneurons found in the expanded striata and cortices in primates.

A study reports a dual quantum spin Hall insulator in monolayer TaIrTe₄, arising from the interplay of its single-particle topology and density-tuned electron correlations.

Porosity is a key issue in additive manufacturing (AM). Here, the authors reveal the bubble evolution mechanisms including formation, coalescence, pushing, growth, entrainment, escape, and entrapment during directed energy deposition AM using in situ X-ray imaging and multiphysics modelling.

Loss of let-7, a key microRNA, causes lung alveolar stem cells to grow abnormally and dieprematurely, leading to scarring and lung damage. Here the study links let-7 loss to cancer-like signals and epigenomic gene changes, revealing new treatment paths for lung fibrosis.

A 4 °C global temperature increase would push 7.5% of amphibian species beyond their physiological limits.

Here the authors present a local ancestry inference algorithm with superior accuracy, and use it to shed light on the demographic histories of Latin Americans and the Askenazi Jewish, and to map a candidate Viking immune locus under selection in the British population.

The plant biomass is a composite formed by a variety of polysaccharides and an aromatic polymer named lignin. Here, the authors use solid-state NMR spectroscopy to unveil the carbohydrate-aromatic interface that leads to the variable architecture of lignocellulose biomaterials.

The urgency of the developing COVID-19 epidemic has led to a large number of novel diagnostic approaches, many of which use machine learning. DeGrave and colleagues use explainable AI techniques to analyse a selection of these approaches and find that the methods frequently learn to identify features unrelated to the actual disease.

Simulating ultrafast quantum dissipation in molecular excited states is a strongly demanding computational task. Here, the authors combine tensor network simulation, entanglement renormalisation and machine learning to simulate linear vibronic models, and test the method by analysing singlet fission dynamics.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide gene–smoking interaction study identifies 13 new loci associated with serum lipids.

The actin methyltransferase SETD3, by virtue of its ability to interact with the viral 2A protein and independently of its enzymatic activity, is necessary for RNA replication of several enteroviruses in cell culture and in vivo.

Understanding decoherence in mechanical resonators in the quantum regime is crucial for realizing their potential in hybrid quantum devices. Cleland et al. study dissipation and dephasing induced by tunnelling defects in a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a transmon qubit, which serves as a quantum sensor.

Gupta, Johnson et al. quantify the turnover rates of ~3200 E. coli proteins, demonstrating that cytoplasmic proteins are recycled when nitrogen is limited and that protein degradation rates are generally uncoupled from cell division rates.

Physical reservoir computing systems often possess a single set of internal dynamics, limiting their computational capabilities. Here, Stenning et. al. create hierarchical neural networks with distinct physical reservoirs, enabling diverse computational performance and learning of small datasets.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Oestrogen negative breast cancer is associated with a poor prognosis. In this study, the authors perform a meta-analysis of 11 breast cancer genome-wide association studies and identify four new loci associated with oestrogen negative breast cancer risk. These findings may aid in stratifying patients in the clinic.

Investigation of variation in three cohorts has identified multiple genetic signals associated with the pregnancy-specific liver disorder, intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy, giving insight into the disease which can cause preterm birth and stillbirth.

A machine learning algorithm implemented on a quantum annealer—a D-Wave machine with 1,098 superconducting qubits—is used to identify Higgs-boson decays from background standard-model processes.

Hookworm infection remains a threat to public health where economic factors restrict treatment and lack of effective vaccination have limited successful therapeutic control which results in reinfection in endemic areas. Here the authors use a controlled human hookworm infection model and use high dimensional single cell profiling to show that plasmacytoid dendritic cells and regulatory T cells profiles that resemble those seen during natural infections in endemic areas.

Oceanic lithosphere contains a record of plate-spreading rates, but the oldest oceanic plates have been subducted into the mantle. Measurements of seismic wave velocities in the subducted part of the Cocos Plate beneath central Mexico reveal an anisotropy that was created when the plate formed, preserving an archive of ancient plate-spreading rates on Earth.

Microsatellite instability (MSI) due to alterations in DNA repair genes leads to carcinogenesis, but it also correlates with better prognosis and therapy response. Little is known of the contribution of altered noncoding sequences to MSI tumorigenesis. This report identifies a deletion in an MSI intronic region leading to the expression of a truncated chaperone, which shows dominant-negative effects on its wild-type counterpart. Acting as an endogenous inhibitor of a protumorigenic chaperone, the expression of the truncated variant associates with better prognosis in humans and may contribute to the overall limited malignancy of MSI tumors.

Bacteriocins are antimicrobial peptides that are naturally produced by many bacteria. In this work, authors develop a bacteriocin secretion platform, and test, in a proof-of-concept study, antimicrobial efficacy against Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium.

Deep learning methods have been used to design proteins that can neutralize the effects of three-finger toxins found in snake venom, which could lead to the development of safer and more accessible antivenom treatments.