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Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

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.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

With advances in generative AI, political speech deepfakes are becoming more realistic. Here, the authors show that people’s ability to distinguish between real and fake speeches relies on audio and visual information more than the speech content.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

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.

Large genome-wide meta-analysis of clinically diagnosed late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) from 94,437 individuals identifies new LOAD risk loci and implicates Aβ formation, tau protein binding, immune response and lipid metabolism.

Different functional variants in ADH1B (and elsewhere) in Europeans and Africans strongly affect risk for alcohol dependence. Dependence only partly genetically correlates with consumption, with strong correlations to other psychiatric disorders.

A common but untested expectation is that nutrient enrichment causes biotic homogenization. However, a globally standardized nutrient addition experiment in grasslands shows proportionally similar species loss across scales and no biotic homogenization after up to 14 years of treatment.

Available wheat genomes are annotated by projecting Chinese Spring gene models across the new assemblies. Here, the authors generate de novo gene annotations for the 9 wheat genomes, identify core and dispensable transcriptome, and reveal conservation and divergence of gene expression balance across homoeologous subgenomes.

Christopher Newton-Cheh and colleagues report genome-wide association analyses for QT interval, an electrocardiographic measure reflecting myocardial repolarization, in 100,000 individuals. They identify 35 loci associated with QT interval and highlight a role for calcium regulation in myocardial repolarization.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is widely accepted to be nutrient limited. A series of standardized nutrient addition experiments, carried out on grasslands on five continents, suggests aboveground grassland productivity is commonly limited by multiple nutrients, including potassium and micronutrients.

An extended nonlinear recharge oscillator model shows skilful and explainable El Niño–Southern Oscillation forecasts at lead times up to 16–18 months, better than global climate models and comparable to the most skilful artificial intelligence forecasts.

The species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric quantifies the contributions that abating threats and restoring habitats offer towards reducing species’ extinction risk in specific places.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

By combining modelling and simulated data with empirical data from 76 grassland sites across 6 continents, the authors show that the relative abundance of dominant species predicts species richness, while their absolute abundance predicts community biomass.

Protection afforded by inorganic minerals is assumed to make mineral-associated organic carbon less susceptible to loss under climate change than particulate organic carbon. However, a global study of soil organic carbon from drylands suggests that this is not the case.

A high-resolution, global atlas of mortality of children under five years of age between 2000 and 2017 highlights subnational geographical inequalities in the distribution, rates and absolute counts of child deaths by age.

Fine-scale geospatial mapping of overweight and wasting (two components of the double burden of malnutrition) in 105 LMICs shows that overweight has increased from 5.2% in 2000 to 6.0% in children under 5 in 2017. Although overall wasting decreased over the same period, most countries are not on track to meet the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025.

Wiita and colleagues use cross-linking mass spectrometry and glycoprotein surface capture to identify an activated conformation of integrin β₂ present on AML cells and develop CAR T cells that target this conformation antigen in preclinical models.

In global drylands, soils tend to be more fertile beneath tree, shrub and grass islands. Soil fertility was greater beneath taller and wider plants but was unaffected by either grazing pressure or the type of herbivore.

Melinda Mills, Nicola Barban, Harold Snieder, Marcel den Hoed and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of data from over 300,000 individuals for age at first birth and number of children ever born. They identify 12 significant loci that associate with these traits, providing insights into the genetic basis of human reproductive behavior.

Using a sample of more than 1 million individuals, Hatoum et al. identify genomic loci associated with general and substance-specific addiction risk.

The El Niño - Southern Oscillation can have global impacts, therefore assessing its future occurrence is needed. Here, the authors project that El Niño will grow at a faster rate, persist longer over the eastern and far eastern Pacific, and have stronger and distinct remote impacts in the 21st Century

Asian soybean rust caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi is an important plant pathogen, but an accurate genome assembly for this fungus has been lacking. This study sequenced three independent P. pachyrhizi isolates and generated reference quality assemblies and genome annotations, representing a critical step for further in-depth studies of this pathogen and the development of new methods of control.

Heart rate variability (HRV) describes the individual variation in cardiac cycle duration and is a measure of vagal control of heart rate. Here, the authors identify seventeen single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with HRV, lending new insight into the vagal regulation of heart rhythm.

Analysis of 20 chemical and morphological plant traits at diverse sites across 6 continents shows that the transition from semi-arid to arid zones is associated with an unexpected 88% increase in trait diversity.

The PARTHENOGENESIS (PAR) gene is identified in apomictic dandelion. A dominant allele has a MITE transposon insertion similar to that found in apomictic hawkweed. Expression of dandelion PAR in lettuce induces embryo-like structures without fertilization.

Integrating inventory data with machine learning models reveals the global composition of tree types—needle-leaved evergreen individuals dominate, followed by broadleaved evergreen and deciduous trees—and climate change risks.

A NutNet global grassland study finds that leaf N, P and K consistently respond to soil nutrient additions, but leaf morphological traits, such as specific leaf area, are inconsistent indicators of anthropogenic perturbations.

An integrated approach combing solution and solid-state NMR, molecular dynamics simulations and neutron reflectometry is applied to characterize dynamic membrane bound forms of ADP-ribosylation factor 1 (Arf1).

The One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining green plant evolution that comprises the transcriptomes and genomes of diverse species of green plants.

The examination of changes in tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation since the mid-nineteenth century using observations and a suite of global climate model experiments reveals a weakening of the Walker circulation, consistent with theoretical predictions.

Anthropogenic eutrophication is a driver of plant community shifts in many grassland ecosystems. Here, the authors use data from a globally distributed experiment to assess how nutrient addition affects multiple facets of grassland ecological stability and their correlations.

The insurance hypothesis posits that more diverse communities are more stable through time. Here, the authors show that plant biodiversity reduces the spatial variability of productivity in grassland communities, demonstrating that the insurance hypothesis applies also across space.

Remotely sensed NDVI data and contemporary field data from 84 grasslands on 6 continents show increasing divergence in aboveground plant biomass between sites in different bioclimatic regions.

Early-life complications modulate the association of genomic risk and schizophrenia.

Alien species of animals and plants can invade new regions of the earth. This study performs a global analysis of temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of alien species introductions over the past 200 years, and reports no saturation in the rate at which these invasion are increasing.

Thyroid dysfunction is a common public health problem and associated with cardiovascular co-morbidities. Here, the authors carry out genome-wide meta-analysis for thyroid hormone (TH) levels, hyper- and hypothyroidism and identify SLC17A4 as a TH transporter and AADAT as a TH metabolizing enzyme.

It has been argued that volcanic eruptions can influence the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), but the strength of this relationship is not well known. Here, the authors use paleoclimate data assimilation methods to study the linkage over the last millennium and find that there is only a weak association between volcanism and ENSO.