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This study identifies status dystonicus as a distinct brain state characterized by excessive beta-band activity with implications for the diagnosis and treatment of this poorly known neurological emergency

Benefit-cost analyses of climate policies have generated conflicting assessments; as social welfare is affected by regional heterogeneity. Here the authors show that economically optimal pathways are consistent with climate stabilization but are characterized by persistent economic inequalities due to climate damages.

The lowest-frequency gravitational wave background may be shaped by supermassive black hole binaries that scatter nearby stars or dark matter. In this case, the NANOGrav 15-year dataset favours dense galactic centres with 10⁶ solar masses per cubic parsec.

The underpinnings of a supposed basal ganglia pathway imbalance in dystonia are unknown. Here, the authors unveil exaggerated low frequency coupling in the direct striato-pallidal pathway to reflect dystonic symptoms, which could potentially be used as target for neuromodulation strategies.

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but it is not deterministic. Here, the authors show that common genetic variation changes how APOE-ε4 influences cognition.

A better-ventilated North Pacific could have reduced the carbon of water upwelled in the Southern Ocean, reducing outgassing and revealing a remote influence on Southern Ocean biogeochemistry in glacial times.

Many animals display brilliant colors thanks to the precise formation of guanine crystals within specialized organelles. Here, the authors demonstrate that dynamic pH shifts orchestrate this process: an initially acidic lumen stabilizes amorphous, protonated guanine and subsequent alkalinization triggers its crystallization.

Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Here, the authors leverage intracranial recordings in such patients, finding that pathological pallidal activity is present during sleep and associated with sleep disturbance.

Controlling crystal growth alignment in wide bandgap low-dimensional perovskites has been a persistent challenge. Here, authors induce vertical crystal growth through the addition of chlorine to precursor solution, giving rise to a record power conversion efficiency of 9.4% for 2 eV bandgap devices.

The addition of molecules on a magnetic film has been known to alter the magnetic properties of the film. Here, through a combination of density function theory calculations, and magnetic force microscopy measurements, Benini and coauthors show the critical importance of long range correlations in the resulting properties of the molecule-decorated magnetic film.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Group-IV color centers in diamond show promise for spin-photon interfaces, but precise positioning and activation are challenging. Here the authors combine site-controlled ion implantation with laser annealing and in-situ photoluminescence monitoring to create and tune individual tin vacancy centers in diamond.

Experimental observations and theoretical analysis provide evidence that the spin polarization of the spin-spiral type II multiferroic NiI₂ exhibits p-wave magnetism and its spin chirality is related to ferroelectric polarization, which can be electrically controlled. 

The durability of Fe-N-C single-atom-catalysts for oxygen reduction in acidic medium remains elusive. Here, the authors report how a low amount of platinum stabilizes the FeN4 sites via a long-range electronic effect.

The stability of perovskite tandem solar cells is an issue. Li et al. show that diamines improve the compositional homogeneity of a low-bandgap perovskite surface and form a low-dimensional barrier that passivates defects, leading to an operational stability of over 1,000 h.

Fe–N–C materials are a promising alternative to platinum for catalysing the oxygen reduction reaction in acidic polymer fuel cells. Now, a ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer study reveals that while these catalysts initially comprise two distinct FeN_x sites, a high-spin FeN₄C₁₂ and a low- or intermediate-spin FeN₄C₁₀, only the latter is durable in operating conditions.

At the hybrid interface between an organic molecular layer and a metallic magnetic surface, spin-filtering effects may be exploited for the generation of spin polarization. Here, the authors demonstrate a dynamic spin-filtering effect across the Co/Alq₃ interface, mediated via a second Alq₃layer.

Future spintronic devices may exploit spin-orbit interactions, which often emerge from broken symmetries and strongly influence electronic behaviour. Here, the authors evidence the amplification of Rashba coupling by a crystal field that breaks the local inversion symmetry at the Ni site in BaNiS₂.

The partial oxidation of methane to methanol is a very attractive yet challenging process. Now, a H₂-reduced Pd-containing phosphomolybdate catalyst is reported to convert methane and O₂ to methanol with nearly 100% selectivity at room temperature.

The presence of toxic lead enables high photoconversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells but poses environmental and human health concerns. Here the authors address the issues by introducing a cost-effective TiO₂ absorption layer through a scalable process.

Fishing has had a profound impact on global reef shark populations, and the absence or presence of sharks is strongly correlated with national socio-economic conditions and reef governance.

The search for near-ambient superconductivity in hydrides is hindered by the emergence of metastable phases during sample preparation. Tresca et al. predict that spontaneous formation of H₂ molecules in N-doped LuH₃ lead to dynamical stabilization, allowing low-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure.

Integrating electrochemical CO electrolysers with a bioreactor can yield high-value long-chain carbon products, but the electrolytes for the two systems are mismatched. Now, a porous solid electrolyte reactor, which can produce acetate directly in bioelectrolyte, is demonstrated. Direct integration with a bioreactor produces bioplastic from CO via the acetate intermediate.

X-ray polarimetry observations with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer constrain the accretion geometry in an X-ray pulsar and provide evidence for a misalignment of the spin, magnetic and orbital axes in Her X-1.

A pulse of ocean acidification is reconstructed from the boron isotope composition of fossilized oysters at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, implicating ocean acidification from volcanic outgassing as a kill mechanism during the extinction event.

Hollunder et al. identify networks where deep brain stimulation reduces symptoms for Parkinson’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome, dystonia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This revealed a fronto-rostral topography that segregates the frontal cortex.

The authors analyze rare coding variants in 1990 individuals with congenital kidney anomalies, finding diagnostic variants in 14.1% of cases. They identify two new causal genes, ARID3A and NR6A1, along with 38 candidate genes, providing evidence for shared genetics with other developmental disorders.

Although Fe–N–C materials are promising catalysts for oxygen electroreduction in polymer fuel cells, the structure of their active sites is unclear. Quantitative analysis of Fe–N–C now reveals the existence of porphyrin-like FeN₄C₁₂ moieties.