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Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

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

Leveraging enzymatic selectivity, a single reaction stream provides a single diastereomer of the cyclic dinucleotide MK-1454, a promising immune-oncology drug candidate, without the use of protecting groups or chiral auxiliaries.

The Mass Spectrometry Query Language (MassQL) is an open-source language that enables instrument-independent searching across mass spectrometry data for complex patterns of interest via concise and expressive queries without the need for programming skills.

Interrelating metabolites by their fragmentation spectra is central to metabolomics. Here the authors align fragmentation spectra with both statistical significance and allowance for multiple chemical differences using Significant Interrelation of MS/MS Ions via Laplacian Embedding (SIMILE).

Serratus, an open-source cloud-computing infrastructure, can be used to screen millions of nucleic acid sequencing libraries at the petabase scale, and has enabled many new RNA viruses to be identified efficiently.

Wetland methane emissions contribute to global warming, and are oversimplified in climate models. Here the authors use eddy covariance measurements from 48 global sites to demonstrate seasonal hysteresis in methane-temperature relationships and suggest the importance of microbial processes.

Circulating tumour DNA profiling in early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer can be used to track single-nucleotide variants in plasma to predict lung cancer relapse and identify tumour subclones involved in the metastatic process.

Catalysis of simple organic carbon molecules into complex macromolecules by Fe and Mn may play a fundamental role in organic carbon preservation, to a degree that could substantially affect the Earth’s carbon and oxygen cycles.

A study establishes a scalable approach to engineer and characterize a many-body-localized discrete time crystal phase on a superconducting quantum processor.

By leveraging paired microbiome and human gene expression data from pediatric patients who underwent hematopoietic cell transplantation, distinct lung–immune system–microorganism interactions were identified as important drivers of fatal lung injury.

Fire impacts soil organic carbon stocks, in addition to aboveground biomass, yet changes are not well constrained. This study shows that more soil carbon is lost from drier ecosystems than humid ones and that the carbon sink is increasing in savannah–grassland regions with declining burned area.

T cell responses can be generated to either pathogen infection or from priming with a vaccine. Here the authors compare T cell generation, phenotype and single cell transcriptome of participants vaccinated with a mpox vaccine or infected with the virus showing that the virus induced T cells showed more effective function and phenotype.

The structural basis of membrane permeabilization by Alzheimer’s disease-related amyloid β (Aβ) peptides is elucidated. Membrane insertion of tyrosine-10 supports the most effective ionic conductance of the full-length Aβ_1-42 compared to other isoforms.

Public untargeted metabolomics data hold great promise for discovery but are difficult to access across repositories. Here, the authors develop universal identifiers and harmonized metadata to integrate major databases, enabling streamlined analysis and expanded research possibilities.

Analysis of mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) by using whole-genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancer samples across 38 cancer types identifies hypermutated mtDNA cases, frequent somatic nuclear transfer of mtDNA and high variability of mtDNA copy number in many cancers.

The US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub produced medium to long term projections based on different epidemic scenarios. In this study, the authors evaluate 14 rounds of projections by comparing them to the epidemic trajectories that occurred, and discuss lessons learned for future similar projects.

Samples of different body regions from hundreds of human donors are used to study how genetic variation influences gene expression levels in 44 disease-relevant tissues.

Nickelate superconductivity has so far been limited to thin films, raising questions about the role of the polar substrate–film interface. Here the authors utilize advanced characterization techniques to reveal the interfacial atomic structure and its relevance for superconductivity.

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

Upstream open reading frames (uORFs), located in 5’ untranslated regions, are regulators of downstream protein translation. Here, Whiffin et al. use the genomes of 15,708 individuals in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) to systematically assess the deleteriousness of variants creating or disrupting uORFs.

A novel variant annotation metric that quantifies the level of expression of genetic variants across tissues is validated in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) and is shown to improve rare variant interpretation.

Expression of a Huntington's-disease variant of huntingtin protein causes accumulation of the chaperone protein disulfide isomerase. This protein is the target of compounds obtained from screening for those that can alleviate cell death promoted by the mutant huntingtin, and represents a new connection between protein misfolding and cell death.

Neonatal cholestasis is a result of elevated bile acid levels, and is associated with mutations in genes regulating bile acid homeostasis. Here the authors identify mutations in the bile acid sensing farnesoid X receptor in four individuals with neonatal cholestasis from two unrelated families.

Male patients with COVID-19 have higher plasma levels of innate immune cytokines and chemokines such as IL-8, IL-18 and CCL5 and more non-classical monocytes than female patients, whereas female patients mount robust T cell activation maintained even in older age.

The band topology of nonmagnetic crystals can be characterized by Topological Quantum Chemistry (TQC), whereas the band topology of magnetic crystals remains unexplored. Here, the authors extend TQC to the magnetic space groups to form a complete, real-space theory of band topology in magnetic and nonmagnetic crystalline solids.

Analysis of whole-genome sequencing data across 2,658 tumors spanning 38 cancer types shows that chromothripsis is pervasive, with a frequency of more than 50% in several cancer types, contributing to oncogene amplification, gene inactivation and cancer genome evolution.

Michael Talkowski, David FitzPatrick, Erica Davis and colleagues report rare inherited or de novo missense variants in SMCHD1 in arhinia patients. Some of the same mutations in SMCHD1 are known to cause a phenotypically distinct muscular dystrophy disorder, FSHD2, and the distinct clinical features of the two disorders suggests that additional genes interact with SMCHD1 to cause arhinia.

TSPO PET imaging is widely used to quantify microglial activation. Here, the authors show that TSPO expression increases in activated rodent but not human microglia, implying that in humans TSPO informs on microglial density rather than activation status.

This Primer explores metal–organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) as a transformative technique for synthesizing wafer-scale 2D dichalcogenides. The MOCVD apparatus, the growth mechanism, process conditions, current applications across next-generation 3D integration, photonics, optoelectronics, flexible electronics and the future potential of MOCVD are discussed.

It is unclear how often genetic mosaicism of chromosome X arises. Here, the authors examine women with cancer and cancer-free controls and show that X chromosome mosaicism occurs more frequently than on autosomes, especially on the inactive X chromosome, but is not linked to non-haematologic cancer risk

Efficient, large-scale genomic analysis is facilitated on the cloud by a computational tool with error-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities.

Above band-gap photovoltage could be achieved in materials with a net polarization. Here, Cooket al. compute the contribution to the shift current from the band edge and identify two classes of shift current photovoltaics materials, GeS and ferroelectric polymer films.

Proteome mapping of tissues is crucial for phenotypic characterization of tissue heterogeneity and microenvironment within spatial context. Here the authors report a robust, easy-to-use single voxel proteomics technique for deep proteome mapping of tissues and profiling of regions of interest.

Industrial decarbonization poses both risks and benefits for communities. We show how community-based research can move pervasive yet nebulous calls for community engagement to processes that emphasize just and equitable governance.

Classification of archaeal and bacterial viruses can be automated with an algorithm that identifies relationships on the basis of shared gene content.

Multi-nucleotide variants (MNV) are genetic variants in close proximity of each other on the same haplotype whose functional impact is difficult to predict if they reside in the same codon. Here, Wang et al. use the gnomAD dataset to assemble a catalogue of MNVs and estimate their global mutation rate.

Analysis of data from 33 longitudinal cohorts from low- and middle-income countries indicates that conditions during pre-conception, pregnancy and the first few months of life are crucial in determining the risk of growth faltering in young children.

A pooled analysis of longitudinal studies in low- and middle-income countries identifies the typical age of onset of linear growth faltering and investigates recurrent faltering in early life.

Temporal multi-omic analysis of tissues from rats undergoing up to eight weeks of endurance exercise training reveals widespread shared, tissue-specific and sex-specific changes, including immune, metabolic, stress response and mitochondrial pathways.

Laser spectroscopy measurements of the fermium isotopic chain show a smooth trend in the nuclear size of heavy actinide elements, and diminishing shell effects on the size evolution compared with lighter nuclei.

Oncolytic viruses create an inflamed tumour microenvironment allowing T cells to respond to immune checkpoint blockade therapy more efficiently. Authors here show that in a hepatocellular carcinoma model, a dominant anti-viral rather than anti-tumour T cell response is elicited by an oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus, unless the virus is designed to express tumour antigens, which restores therapeutic benefit.