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Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative recruited and genotyped more than half a million Taiwanese participants, almost all of Han Chinese ancestry, and performed comprehensive genomic analyses and developed polygenic risk score prediction models for numerous health conditions.

The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative (TPMI) has built a cohort of more than half a million individuals with Han Chinese ancestry, providing a rich resource of genetic and medical data for this group.

Variants in the PSMC5 gene impair proteasome function and cellular homeostasis, altering brain development in children. This study reveals underlying molecular mechanisms contributing to this neurodevelopmental phenotype, and suggests therapeutic leads for neurodevelopmental proteasomopathies.

By exploiting an optical thermodynamic framework, researchers demonstrate universal routing of light. Specifically, light launched into any input port of a nonlinear array is universally channelled into a tightly localized ground state. The principles of optical thermodynamics demonstrated may enable new optical functionalities.

The variability in clinical outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection is partly due to deficiencies in production or response to type I interferons (IFN). Here, the authors describe a FIP200-dependent lysosomal degradation pathway, independent of canonical autophagy and type I IFN, that restricts SARS-CoV-2 replication, offering insights into critical COVID-19 pneumonia mechanisms.

Maintaining facial warmth and humidity while ensuring adequate oxygen intake in cold environments is challenging for facial masks. Here, the authors design a MetaMask that recovers heat and moisture from exhaled air to warm inhaled air to 26.2 °C in a − 20 °C environment, while maintaining sufficient oxygen levels.

Superconductivity has not been observed in any antiperovskite oxide up to now. Here Oudahet al. report superconducting transition around 5 K in antiperovskite oxide Sr_3−xSnO, making it a new class of oxide superconductors.

Foamy macrophages are a pathological hallmark of demyelinating brain disorders. Here, the authors identify the molecular mechanisms underlying the faulty regulation of lipid efflux that cause accumulation, suggesting a promising strategy to enhance central nervous system repair.

Rechargeable aluminium ion batteries are an emerging class of energy storage device. Here the authors reveal high-quality natural graphite as a promising cathode for Al-ion batteries, also identifying chloroaluminate anion intercalation in graphite by Raman spectroscopy.

Here the authors reveal a study of 486,956 Han Chinese individuals showing that most people with genetic variants affecting drug response do not have the predicted adverse events, highlighting the challenges of implementing pharmacogenetics in clinical practice.

Topological insulators are materials with an insulating interior and a metallic surface. In this study the authors demonstrate that the topological state can coexist with a two-dimensional electron gas state, a feature important in semiconductors used for electronic applications.

In a large multinational cohort study, maternal, gestational or pregestational diabetes was associated with only a small-to-moderate risk of ADHD in offspring, contrary to previous estimates that showed stronger effect sizes, attributing the differences in findings to confounding by shared genetic and familial factors.

Here the authors provide a quantitative description of chromatin as bead-spring polymers. The study predicts the 3D size of chromatin beads given the genomic length and computes how stretchable and bendable chromatin is and how soft chromatin beads are.

Earthworms contribute to plant growth. Here, Fonte et al. conduct a global meta-analysis and estimate that earthworms contribute to roughly 6.5% of global grain (maize, rice, wheat, barley) production and 2.3% of legume yields, equivalent to over 140 million metric tons annually.

Stravalaci et al. examined recognition of SARS-CoV-2 by human soluble innate pattern recognition receptor. They report that pentraxin 3 and mannose-binding protein recognize viral nucleoprotein and spike, respectively. Mannose-binding lectin has antiviral activity, and human genetic polymorphisms of MBL2 are associated with more severe COVID-19.

A high-bandwidth neuromotor interface offers performant out-of-the-box generalization across people.

Tumour heterogeneity in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) remains to be investigated. Here, the integration of spatial omics, transcriptional and chromatin accessibility profiling at the single-nucleus level and bulk proteogenomics data reveal markers and pathways important for ccRCC.

Investigation into the lipid metabolism shifts occurring in shrimp infected with white spot syndrome virus provides insight into how this virus modulates host metabolism in a way that creates a favorable environment for its replication.

Beck et al. develop a model where striosomes create a flexible “decision-space” that adapts to environmental context and internal state. It explains how we make choices and why decision-making varies between people, and in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Exploring lattice distortions from magnetic short-range ordering (SRO) facilitates the understanding of magnetic long-range ordering (LRO). Here the authors apply high-multipole nonlinear optical polarimetry to track SRO induced distortions in CrSiTe₃, showing that LRO is established via a crossover from two- to three-dimensional SRO.

Epigenetic regulators are promising targets for cancer drugs, as they can modulate a broad range of transcriptional networks simultaneously. Here, the authors identify an inhibitor of Jumonji-family histone demethylases and show that it selectively kills cancer cells in mouse tumour models.

Transcranial focused ultrasound can be used for neuromodulation, but its use in wearable systems remains challenging. The authors present a miniaturised wearable ultrasound device, integrated with a bioadhesive hydrogel for stable, long-term somatosensory cortical stimulation.

There is substantial interest in the development of base metal molecular catalysts for hydrogen generation. Here, the authors report a nitrosyl-containing diiron complex, and study its versatile electrochemical behaviour, which is due to the two unique iron sites and the redox active nitrosyl ligands.

The prodrug gliocidin effectively kills glioblastoma cells by targeting de novo purine synthesis, improving survival in mouse models.

Erythropoiesis can be regulated by transcriptional, epigenetic, and post-transcriptional mechanisms. Here the authors report that N⁶-methyladenosine mRNA methyltransferase complex stimulates erythropoiesis by promoting translation of specific mRNAs.

Estimates from the Global Dietary Database indicated that 2.2 million new type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages worldwide in 2020, with the highest burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Fusion of a split form of the protein O-GlcNAcase with nanobodies enables the targeted removal of O-GlcNAc protein modifications, providing a tool for probing the functional roles of specific O-GlcNAc modifications in a cellular context.

Colonic goblet cell-associated passages allow translocation of live bacteria to other organs in early life, potentially leading to beneficial impacts.

pegRNA scaffold incorporation is a common by-product of prime editing, compromising its precision and safety. Here, the authors show that an internal abasic spacer or 2’-O-methylation within pegRNAs mitigates these by-products by terminating reverse transcriptase before reaching pegRNA scaffold.

Prime editing can generate undesired editing outcomes. Here, authors describe a method for reducing both on-target and off-target imprecise editing outcomes of diverse prime editing modalities in different cell types with a combination of small molecules that inhibit both DNA-PK and PolΘ activity.

Basal Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is more aggressive than the classical subtype of pancreatic cancer. Here the authors report that RNA-binding protein LIN28B and its target HMGA2 drive basal PDAC pathogenesis by reducing PP2A methylation and activity, resulting in enhanced protein synthesis and aggressive features.

A complex substrate containing mobile double Holliday junctions is now used to show that yeast proteins Sgs1 (DNA helicase) and Top3 (topoisomerase) act together to dissolve the junctions and avoid crossing over; the protein Rmi1 stimulates this process.

There is growing recognition of the metabolic links between metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and sarcopenia and the need to take these links into account when diagnosing and treating these two diseases. This Review covers connections between MASLD, sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome and discusses how care for patients affected by these diseases is evolving.

An analysis based on data from the Global Dietary Database shows mean animal-sourced food intakes among children and adolescents increased modestly from 1990 to two portions per day in 2018, but remain low in sub-Saharan Africa, India and Bangladesh.

In the recently proposed topological crystalline insulators, the topological states result from crystalline symmetries rather than time-reversal symmetry. Xu et al. report the experimental observation of a topological crystalline insulator phase in Pb_1-xSn_xTe by spin-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.