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Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

Disease heterogeneity complicates precision medicine, which focuses on single conditions and ignores shared mechanisms. Here the authors introduce ‘pan-disease’ analysis using a deep learning model on multi-organ data, identifying 11 AI-derived biomarkers that reveal new therapeutic targets and pathways, enhancing patient stratification for disease risk monitoring and drug discovery.

As Nature Aging celebrates its fifth anniversary, the journal asks some of the researchers who contributed to the journal early on to reflect on the past and the future of aging and age-related disease research, the impact of the field on human health now and in the future, and what challenges need to be addressed to ensure sustained progress.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

Convection-permitting simulations suggest that the radiative impact of aerosol–cloud interactions is enhanced by adjustments to large-scale circulation, which increase cloudiness.

This Resource paper presents a global SARS-CoV-2 phylogenetic tree of 4,471,579 high-quality genomes consistently constructed by Viridian, an efficient amplicon-aware assembler.

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.

Colorectal cancer is often diagnosed at later stages, leading to poor prognosis. Here, the authors utilise analysis of rectal mucus specimens using host and microbial analysis to detect cancer lesions.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) profoundly affects Australian weather, climate, ecosystems and socio-economic sectors. This Review presents the progress made in understanding ENSO teleconnections to Australian weather over the past 40 years, describing the atmospheric dynamics, complexities and impacts of this climate phenomenon.

Neural signalling is directional, but non-invasive neuroimaging methods are unable to map directed connections between brain regions. Here, the authors show how network communication measures can be used to infer signalling directionality from the undirected topology of brain structural connectomes.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

High-depth sequencing of non-cancerous tissue from patients with metastatic cancer reveals single-base mutational signatures of alcohol, smoking and cancer treatments, and reveals how exogenous factors, including cancer therapies, affect somatic cell evolution.

Binge drinking is a rising issue in women, yet the underlying neurobiology remains underexplored. Here authors show the Edinger-Westphal (EWcp) peptidergic neurons as a critical regulator of binge drinking in female mice via actions at the ghrelin receptor (GHSR).

Dynein is a molecular motor involved in many cellular functions. The motor domain of dynein contains six AAA+ domains forming a ring that interacts with the motile linker domain. The structure of yeast dynein motor domain crystallized without nucleotides is now presented at 3.3-Å resolution and shows the specific contacts between linker and ring, with nucleotide interactions at the different AAA+ domains revealed by soaking experiments.

Bergert et al. use theoretical modelling and cell-based experiments to show that adhesion-independent cell migration is powered by nonspecific substrate friction, with smaller forces exerted compared with those of focal-adhesion-dependent movement.

Using their unique bioadhesives, barnacles can adhere to a great variety of surfaces. Here, Gohad et al.show that the barnacle larval bioadhesive contains lipids and phosphoproteins that are organized in a complex structure and work together to maximize adhesion.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

Three BRAF inhibitors are used to treat melanoma and colorectal cancer. Here, the authors demonstrate that these drugs bind and activate the protein kinase GCN2, a previously unappreciated off-target effect that may modulate tumour cell responses.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

Known to augment host innate immunity, Zhou and Ahearn et al. shows that a SARS-CoV2 NSP15 mutant also increases viral recombination and reduces sub-genomic message. Results articulate a novel role for NSP15 in viral transcription and recombination.

Results from the phase ELAD 2 trial reveal that liraglutide is safe and well tolerated in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease but does not significantly slow brain metabolism decline.

Therapeutic options for patients with renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) are limited. Here the authors report the results of a phase II clinical trial of anti-PD1 nivolumab plus anti-CTLA4 ipilimumab in RMC, associating the activation of a myeloid mimicry program in tumor cells to the rapid disease progression and hyper-progression observed in treated patients.

Timothy Frayling, Joel Hirschhorn, Peter Visscher and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for adult height in 253,288 individuals. They identify 697 variants in 423 loci significantly associated with adult height and find that these variants cluster in pathways involved in growth and together explain one-fifth of the heritability for this trait.

In this study, the authors present structures and functional analyses for the RAD51C-XRCC3 tumor suppressor complex, providing insights into recurrent mutations in cancer and Fanconi Anemia patients that uncover distinct DNA replication fork protection, restart and reversal regions.

Detecting change in tropical cyclones is difficult from observational records. Here a reconstruction using reanalysis data of annual cyclone numbers shows they have declined globally and regionally over the twentieth century.

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.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing and phenotype data sharing are introduced in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover coding and non-coding variants that cause rare diseases.

Data collected from more than 2,000 taxa provide an unparalleled opportunity to quantify how extreme wildfires affect biodiversity, revealing that the largest effects on plants and animals were in areas with frequent or recent past fires and within extensively burnt areas.

Wastewater surveillance could provide a means of monitoring SARS-CoV-2 prevalence that does not rely on testing individuals. Here, the authors report results from England’s national wastewater surveillance program, use it to estimate prevalence, and compare estimates with those from population-based prevalence surveys.

A genome-wide association study of critically ill patients with COVID-19 identifies genetic signals that relate to important host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage that may be targeted by repurposing drug treatments.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

A wireless, battery-free soft robot system uses radio wave beamforming to actuate and power shape memory polymer actuators via LCE and liquid metal transducers-offering fast, remote control in confined spaces for rescue, teleoperation, and more.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) variability and its phenotypic consequences aren’t well studied in relation to viral replication fitness and disease severity. Here, the authors identify a replication-enhancing domain in non-structural protein 5A, linking high replication fitness to severe disease outcomes, with implications for understanding HCV pathogenesis in immunocompromised patients.