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‘Populations residing near nuclear power plants may experience low-level chronic exposure to ionizing radiation through environmental release pathways. In here the authors find higher cancer mortality rates in U.S. counties closer to operational nuclear power plants, with the strongest relative risks observed in older adults.’

Computationally designing proteins with interfaces that bind small molecules has posed a long-standing challenge. Here, authors combine deep learning and physics-based approaches to design proteins that bind small molecules, and demonstrate their approach by designing a cortisol biosensor.

Although river protection is core to social and environmental well-being, the extent to which river conservation policies are effective is difficult to assess. This study reveals that, under all relevant protection mechanisms in the contiguous USA, only 12% of rivers are adequately protected.

Here, Wulczynski et al. find fewer small-intestinal fiber-degrading bacteria in CeD patients, independent of the gluten-free diet, while inulin-supplemented diet in gluten-sensitized mice facilitates microbial saccharolytic function and SCFAs, accelerating mucosal healing in the small intestine.

Global Burden of Disease analysis found that in 2023, suboptimal diet was estimated to be responsible for 4 million deaths and 97 million morbidity burdens from ischemic heart disease.

Extracellular vesicles carrying diverse molecules circulate the body. Here, the authors show that blood-borne vesicles containing specific miRNAs boost synaptic function and sociability in mice, revealing a non-canonical pathway for social behavior.

A large-scale study on the replicability of claims from social and behavioural science journals reports that about half of the results replicate in the same patterns as the original study.

Melanocytic nevi are small, pigmented benign skin tumours. This large-scale genome-wide association study for nevus count identifies novel genomic regions, highlighting pathways beyond pigmentation and offers new insights into melanoma risk and biology.

Exposome analyses across 34 countries showed that social exposures were associated with faster functional brain aging and physical exposures with faster structural brain aging.

Using inbred medaka strains, the authors mapped 59 genetic loci linked to heart rate. Gene editing validated conserved genes affecting heart rate and morphology, highlighting the power of isogenic strains in uncovering mechanisms of cardiac traits and disease.

The Star of David topology is an iconic symbol that has been used in religious and cultural contexts for thousands of years. Now it is assembled in molecular form through a hexameric circular helicate generated by six tris(bipyridine) ligands entwined about six iron(II) cations. The structure of the two triply-entwined 114-membered rings is revealed by X-ray crystallography.

Alsulami et al. present PrePR-CT, a computational approach that predicts how different cell types respond to drug-like compounds using limited data. By integrating biological networks with machine learning, it improves accuracy, interpretability and efficiency in early drug discovery.

Lineages within the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex display differences in virulence and drug susceptibility patterns. Here, Banaei-Esfahani et al. compare strains from two lineages and show that small genetic variations are associated with lineage-specific differences in gene expression networks, metabolism, and tolerance to bedaquiline.

Robustness checks and reproduction of analyses with existing and updated data based on 110 articles in economics and political science journals with data and code-sharing requirements found high levels of robustness and reproducibility and determined that robustness was not dependent on author characteristics or data availability.

Analyses of snRNA genes in a French cohort of people with rare disorders, with validation through international collaboration, identify monoallelic and biallelic variants in RNU2-2 as frequent causes of neurodevelopmental disorders with epilepsy.

A co-distillation framework is used to iteratively adapt sequence-only protein language models for high-accuracy variant effect prediction, without the need for additional structural or genetic data. Individual protein language models therefore self-improve by distilling the most confident predictions from multiple models, achieving state-of-the-art performance across multiple variant effect prediction benchmarks.

JWST phase-curve observations reveal that the two innermost TRAPPIST-1 planets emit thermal radiation consistent with bare rocky surfaces, indicating that both lack thick atmospheres.

Variant mapping of sorghum promoters identifies CRISPR-accessible mutations that upregulate gene expression.

Paracrine signalling between tuft cells and enterochromaffin cells is a key mode of immune–sensory and gut–brain communication, and accounts for the pattern of gastrointestinal symptoms that occurs during parasite infections.

A high-resolution spectroscopic analysis reveals ultralow amounts of heavy elements in the star SDSS J0715−7334. The star originates from the Large Magellanic Cloud and probably formed directly after the first stars through dust cooling.

A study of reproducibility in a stratified random sample of 600 papers published from 2009 to 2018 in 62 journals spanning the social and behavioural sciences finds higher reproducibility among more recent papers and papers from journals that require data sharing.

The transcription factor ATF4 is shown to regulate double-stranded DNA repair within vulnerable CUX2⁺ upper-layer 2/3 cortical neurons, enabling their survival during development.

LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA’s fourth Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog shows evidence of a clear pair-instability gap in the distribution of binary black-hole secondary masses but is absent in the larger primary masses.

Genetic analyses in more than 15,000 individuals from across the Americas, including individuals with autism and family members, define the genetic landscape of autism in Latin American populations and identify significant overlap with other ancestries.

An analysis of the responses of 15 diverse human gut bacteria in more than 100 pairwise co-cultures reveals extensive remodelling of the bacterial proteome and metabolome in response to the presence of other species.

Androgen activity in the male embryonic hindbrain prolongs hindbrain differentiation in male individuals and drives sex differences in the incidence and prognosis of posterior fossa type A (PFA) ependymoma, an aggressive childhood brain tumour.

High hole mobilities in a polarization-induced two-dimensional hole gas at a gallium nitride/aluminium nitride interface can allow Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations of light and heavy holes to be observed in gallium nitride.

In this study, the authors present optimization and efficacy testing of apolipoprotein-based lipid nanoparticles for delivering various nucleic acid therapeutics in vivo to immune cells and their progenitors in the bone marrow.

Researchers show that a disease-causing Tau mutation disrupts the autophagy-lysosome pathway in human neurons, leading to Tau accumulation, and that enhancing autophagy can partially restore protein clearance.

Repeated exposure makes information feel truer, shaping how people judge what they read and hear. Here, using meta-analysis, the authors show that the illusory truth effect is small but robust and dependent on conditions of the initial exposure.

In a phase 1b trial, patients with treatment-naive metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma received the CD73 inhibitor quemliclustat plus gemcitabine and nabpaclitaxel with or without the anti-PD1 antibody zimberelimab, showing encouraging clinical response rates and survival in quemliclustat-treated patients.

In a large UK-based primary care randomized trial, immediate artificial intelligence (AI)-driven prioritization of chest X-rays did not significantly shorten time to computed tomography or lung cancer diagnosis versus standard workflow, suggesting that AI-based prioritization alone is unlikely to accelerate the lung cancer diagnostic pathway.

Gene correction in the lung is achieved with inhalable mRNA lipid nanoparticles containing an amino acid-derived ionizable lipid identified from screening and structure–function optimization studies.

Cas9 structures explain topology sensing and off-target activation.

A star in a primordial dwarf galaxy has preserved the elements produced by the first generation of stars. The star lacks heavy elements but exhibits an extreme amount of carbon, suggesting that low-energy explosions can seed the initial chemistry of early galaxies.

Manipulating chemical interactions is crucial in protein assembly. Here, the authors highlight the importance of accounting for solvent forces mediated by interfacial hydration structures when designing protein assemblies at liquid-crystal interfaces.

Trained and validated on data from 2,344 patients with smoldering multiple myeloma, a new algorithm using longitudinal biomarker dynamics provides accurate prediction of risk of disease progression, outperforming established models.

The authors examine public, private, and family time investments in children in the United States using ten nationally representative surveys between 2010 and 2023.

A global analysis of 1,412 studies shows that one in five women and one in six men experienced sexual violence as children, highlighting the urgent need for evidence-based prevention and intervention programmes worldwide.

Single-nucleus chromatin and RNA sequencing identifies epigenetic chromatin domains that confer vulnerability to paediatric brain tumours such as ependymomas, providing insight into the development of such tumours despite ‘quiet’ genomes.

The effectiveness of marine protected areas remains uncertain. Studying 2,800 tropical reefs, the authors of this study show that marine protected areas have compensated for only a small portion of human impacts on fish contributions to people and nature, particularly in terms of biomass and biodiversity.

A fully automated methodology based on rubrics capturing a broad range of cognitive and intellectual demands is illustrated using LLMs and tasks, demonstrating a new way to evaluate the capabilities of AI systems and anticipate their performance.

An analysis of whole-exome sequencing data linked to longitudinal electronic health records from 44,028 British South Asians finds new gene–phenotype associations and identifies 2,991 genes with rare biallelic predicted loss-of-function genotypes.

The authors conduct a national inventory on individual tree carbon stocks in Rwanda using aerial imagery and deep learning. Most mapped trees are located in farmlands; new methods allow partitioning to any landscape categories, effective planning and optimization of carbon sequestration and the economic benefits of trees.

A multimodal organic electrochemical transistor array enables picomolar dopamine sensing, high-bandwidth electroencephalography acquisition and on-device seizure classification within one flexible bioelectronic platform.

A dispersive sensing technique, termed the radiofrequency electron cascade, can perform singlet-triplet readout of two exchange-coupled electron spins in a natural silicon planar metal–oxide–semiconductor quantum-dot array.

Comparing line-by-line transfer simulations using the radiation code GRTcode with regressions against satellite-observed ongoing longwave radiation shows that instantaneous longwave radiative forcing from well-mixed greenhouse gases has increased by 3.69 ± 0.07 W m⁻² since 1850.

The discovery of new gold deposits has declined by 45% over the past 10 years. Lintern et al.present new evidence for the occurrence of particulate gold in trees growing above buried mineral deposits, and propose vegetation sampling as a mineral exploration method.

Polymer thin films that emit and absorb circularly polarised light are promising in achieving important technological advances, but the origin of the large chiroptical effects in such films has remained elusive. Here the authors demonstrate that in non-aligned polymer thin films, large chiroptical effects are caused by magneto-electric coupling, not structural chirality as previously assumed.

Genome-wide analysis coupled with long-read sequencing identifies a repeat expansion in GOLGA8A associated with high risk for atypical frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin-positive inclusions.