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Global Burden of Disease estimates show that between 1990 and 2023, the prevalence and burden of drug use disorders, inclusive of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and opioid use, have been increasing in high-income countries, particularly in the USA.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Analysing >1,700 inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network, the authors show that the majority of Amazon tree species can occupy floodplains and that patterns of species turnover are closely linked to regional flood patterns.

Inventory data from more than 1 million trees across African, Amazonian and Southeast Asian tropical forests suggests that, despite their high diversity, just 1,053 species, representing a consistent ~2.2% of tropical tree species in each region, constitute half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees.

Rodrigues et al. show that exosomal CEMIP derived from brain metastatic cells elicits vascular remodelling and inflammation and supports subsequent metastatic colonization in the brain microenvironment.

In this immunological ancillary study of the PREVAC trial, the authors show that approved Ebola virus vaccines induce memory T-cell responses that persist during the five year follow-up after initial vaccination.

Systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease study reported that, despite global improvements from 1990 to 2021, dietary iron deficiency-associated disease burden remains high in women, children and residents in low socio-demographic index countries.

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.

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.

Oral cancer has region-specific histopathological and molecular characteristics, complicating its classification by the standard tumor-node-metastasis system. Here, the authors combine discovery and targeted proteomics with IHC to identify region-specific and saliva biomarkers for oral cancer prognosis.

Demyelination leads to nerve damage and inflammation. Here, the authors show multisensory gamma stimulation’s potential to mitigate demyelination and neuroinflammation, suggesting that this might be a therapeutic strategy for demyelinating diseases.

An analysis of viral genomes and epidemiological data from the 2022 mpox outbreak in Portugal sheds light on the heterogeneity of early transmission events, with national and international linkages.

Macrophages undergo a Warburg-like switch from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis in response to inflammatory stimulus. Here the authors show that fungal melanin can trigger this switch in human macrophages by sequestering calcium in the phagosome and enabling protection against Aspergillus fumigatus infection.

The biological understanding of poor prognosis associated with lymph node metastasis in head and neck cancer (HNC) remains crucial. Here, a proteomic characterisation of 140 multisite samples from a 59-HNC patient cohort and machine learning reveals potential biomarkers and metastasis related signatures.

Contrary to the view that urbanization is a major driver of the global rise in obesity, the global increase in body-mass index is shown to be mostly due to increases in the body-mass indexes of rural populations.

Molecular diagnostics for tuberculosis have focused on predicting drug susceptibilities in a binary manner (i.e., strains are either susceptible or resistant). Here, CRyPTIC Consortium researchers use whole genome sequencing and a quantitative assay to identify associations between genomic mutations and minimum inhibitory concentrations in over 15,000 Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates.

Strontium isotope analysis can be applied to animal and plant tissues to help determine their provenance. Here, the authors generate a strontium isoscape of sub-Saharan Africa using data from 2266 environmental samples and demonstrate its efficacy by tracing the African roots of individuals from historic slavery contexts.

Using 13 functional traits we characterize the Amazonian trees and the communities they form. Amazonian tree communities are distributed along a fast-slow-spectrum. This results in clear differences in traits among these forests, as well as their biomass and biomass productivity.

Understanding the emergence, evolution, and transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) is essential to combat antimicrobial resistance. Here, Munk et al. analyse ARGs in hundreds of sewage samples from 101 countries and describe regional patterns, diverse genetic environments of common ARGs, and ARG-specific transmission patterns.

The authors find a reciprocal negative regulation loop between TCTP and P53. TCTP modulates P53 by competing with NUMB for MDM2 binding and increasing MDM2-mediated degradation of P53. This is reciprocated by p53's direct transcriptional repression of TCTP. Some human breast tumors have increased amounts of TCTP, which only in some cases correlateswith decreased P53 activity, and elevated TCTP is associated with poor prognosis and may influence P53-regulated stemness of tumor cells.

In the first results from an ongoing global cancer screening data repository, screening program organization was better overall in Europe compared to other continents; however, there were substantial gaps in implementation across both high- and low-resource settings.

Tree species turnover across Amazonian forests unveils sharp floristic transitional zones, that are linked with changes in soil fertility and climate.

Borges et al. study the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal during 2020. The authors use phylodynamic modelling to infer patterns of SARS-CoV-2 introduction into Portugal and its subsequent spread, providing a comprehensive genomic epidemiology study of the early SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Portugal.

A study mapping the tree species richness in Amazonian forests shows that soil type exerts a strong effect on species richness, probably caused by the areas of these forest types. Cumulative water deficit, tree density and temperature seasonality affect species richness at a regional scale.