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The mode of action of eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF5A), a translation factor activated by hypusination, remains to be characterized. Here, the authors suggest that hypusinated eIF5A is involved in mitochondrial metabolism and translation promoting prostate cancer progression.

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.

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).

DNA damage burden and inadequate repair in CUX2⁺ cortical layer 2/3 excitatory neurons contributes to selective vulnerability in neuroinflammatory injury.

Bioactivity-guided isolation of specialized metabolites is an iterative process. Here, the authors demonstrate a native metabolomics approach that allows for fast screening of complex metabolite extracts against a protein of interest and simultaneous structure annotation.

It is unclear whether the harsh abiotic conditions of drylands hinder biological invasions. This global analysis shows that drylands are vulnerable to non-native plants and are likely to become more so as native plant diversity declines and grazing pressure intensifies.

It is currently unknown how uniform is signalling at the first synapse of vision in vivo. Here, the authors show neighbouring PR1 (red) cones differ in contrast sensitivity and timing due to locally stochastic horizontal-cell feedback, thereby extending total dynamic range.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

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.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

De novo and inherited dominant variants in genes encoding U4 and U6 small nuclear RNAs are identified in individuals with retinitis pigmentosa. The variants cluster at nucleotide positions distinct from those implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Identifying jets originating from heavy quarks plays a fundamental role in hadronic collider experiments. In this work, the ATLAS Collaboration describes and tests a transformer-based neural network architecture for jet flavour tagging based on low-level input and physics-inspired constraints.

Geospatial estimates of the prevalence of anemia in women of reproductive age across 82 low-income and middle-income countries reveals considerable heterogeneity and inequality at national and subnational levels, with few countries on track to meet the WHO Global Nutrition Targets by 2030.

Wastewater-based surveillance tends to focus on specific pathogens. Here, the authors mapped the wastewater virome from 62 cities worldwide to identify over 2,500 viruses, revealing city-specific virome fingerprints and showing that wastewater metagenomics enables early detection of emerging viruses.

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.

Lung adenocarcinomas bearing the ID2 mutational signature display increased LINE-1 retrotransposon activity, which contributes to their fast evolutionary dynamics and aggressive phenotype.

Genetically engineered mouse models of cancer are useful in identifying oncogenes and tumour suppressors. Here, the authors use gene expression profiles to generate a catalogue of copy number aberrations in 45 mouse models, and compare mouse and human tumours to identify additional drivers of tumorigenesis.

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.

An analysis of data from the Sherlock-Lung study provides insight into the mutational processes that contribute to lung cancer in never smokers, and looks at the possible role of factors such as air pollution and passive smoking.

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.

Data from a variety of sources—including satellite, climate and soil data, as well as field-collected information on plant traits—are pooled and analysed to map the functional diversity of tropical forest canopies globally.

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.

Assessing the coupling between a plasmonic nanocavity and a single quantum emitter is challenging due to the lack of spatial control at the atomic scale. Here Zhanget al. achieve control with sub-nanometre precision and demonstrate the Fano resonance and Lamb shift at the single-molecule level.

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.

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.

An investigation using various methods reports an association between adeno-associated virus 2 and paediatric hepatitis of unknown aetiology.

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.

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.

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.

Over half the world’s rivers dry periodically, yet little is known about the biological communities in dry riverbeds. This study examines biodiversity across 84 non-perennial rivers in 19 countries using DNA metabarcoding. It finds that nutrient availability, climate and biotic interactions influence the biodiversity of these dry environments.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports a measurement of the ratio of the decay rates of W bosons to τ leptons and muons, in agreement with universal lepton couplings as postulated in the standard model of particle physics.

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider reports a search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in decays of Z bosons into a τ lepton and an electron or muon of opposite charge.

Phytoplankton are important primary producers. Here the authors investigate phytoplankton physiological changes associated with bloom phases and mixing regimes in the North Atlantic, finding that stratification and deep mixing shape accumulation rates by altering physiology and viral production.

The LHCb experiment at CERN has observed significant asymmetries between the decay rates of the beauty baryon and its CP-conjugated antibaryon, thus demonstrating CP violation in baryon decays.

Entanglement was observed in top–antitop quark events by the ATLAS experiment produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s  = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 fb⁻¹.

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.

In an observational cohort of pregnant women in Israel, the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine was found to have effectiveness similar to that seen in the general population.

A consensus cell type atlas for the fly brain provides both an intellectual framework and open-source toolchains for brain-scale comparative connectomics.

The blooming alga Emiliania huxleyi and its viruses are a model for density-dependent virulent dynamics. However, Knowles et al. show that this host–virus system exhibits temperate dynamics at natural host densities, in a manner dependent on host physiology.

Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic assessment of these relationships and highlights the role of subjective attribution.

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.

What is the state of trust in scientists around the world? To answer this question, the authors surveyed 71,922 respondents in 68 countries and found that trust in scientists is moderately high.

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.

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.

A cross-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci, reveals putative causal genes, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as potential drug targets, and provides cross-ancestry integrative risk prediction.