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Photonic neuromorphic hardware is fast and energy-efficient, but large circuit footprints remain a key bottleneck for scaling. Here, Sestoft et al. demonstrate a few-nanowire artificial neuron that can reduce circuit footprints by ≥100 × .

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.

When 100 social and behavioural science claims were examined, 34% of reanalyses closely matched the original results, with 74% reaching the same conclusion, revealing limited robustness of single-path analyses and the need to address analytical uncertainty.

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.

Recombination can speed up adaptation by bringing beneficial alleles together. However, this study shows rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback fish depends more on the initial frequency of alleles and mating of key individuals than recombination.

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.

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.

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.

Longitudinal metatranscriptomics in a prospective cohort of 1,164 adults hospitalized for COVID-19 reveals that azithromycin offered no apparent anti-inflammatory benefit but enriched the respiratory microbiome with potential pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes.

The authors have applied an eight-tissue rat multi-omic dataset to analyze the gene regulatory landscape of endurance exercise training, identifying tissue-specific regulatory patterns involved in muscle function, metabolism and immune response.

Whether anterior cingulate cortex neurons track cognitive variables or primarily reflect movements remains unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate that anterior cingulate neurons are modulated by both movements and a movement-independent record of past decisions/outcomes that is similar across subjects.

Precision oncology requires access to high quality data, as well as the application of current technologies. Here, the authors use federated learning to predict clinical outcomes in anal cancer patients across 16 centres as part of the atomCAT consortium.

It remains unclear why some BRCA-deficient high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSC) do not respond to platinum-based therapy. Here, multi-omic analysis of BRCA1- and BRCA2-deficient HGSC attributes co-occurring mutations, DNA repair deficiency and tumor microenvironment features to short survival in these patients.

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.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

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.

The authors uncover a noncanonical role for Arabidopsis POT1b in maintaining genome stability through ROS regulation, establishing an unexpected connection between telomere biology and cellular oxidative stress.

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but it is not deterministic. Here, the authors show that common genetic variation changes how APOE-ε4 influences cognition.

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.

Tracking oceanic microbial populations in situ over time is challenging. Here, the authors use autonomous underwater vehicles to show how microbes at the deep chlorophyll maximum respond to diel cycles and isopycnal uplift by a cyclonic eddy.

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.

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.

Karapetyan et al. report how multiscale electron ptychography, a computational electron microscopy technique with sub-Ångström lateral and nanometer-scale depth resolution, enables 3D imaging of buried features (distortions, defects, and roughness) in gate-all-around transistors, guiding the semiconductor fabrication.

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.

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.

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.

Here, the authors present aDNA from 49 grape pips spanning the Bronze Age to Medieval period in France and surrounding areas. They find evidence of long-distance exchange of domestic varieties through vegetative clones and one Medieval sample that is nearly identical to modern Pinot Noir.

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).

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

Photocatalysts for methane conversion can suffer from inefficient charge carrier diffusion, limiting their effectiveness. Here the authors exploit the insulator–metal transition in VO₂ to create an electronic phase junction, enhancing the non-oxidative conversion of methane into hydrogen, ethane and propane, with peak efficiency at the transition’s critical temperature.

Cancer associated fibroblast subpopulations are identified by single cell and spatial sequencing as relevant components of the brain metastasis tumor microenvironment, where they participate in the tissue architecture and intercellular communication.

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.

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.

Disulfide tethering screening is applied to address the challenge of targeting oncogenic KRAS, historically deemed undruggable due to its high nucleotide affinity and perceived lack of binding sites. Here, the authors developed a disulfide library and a set of 83 cysteine KRAS mutants to perform tethering screens towards the oncogenic KRAS, while describing the discovery of fragment-binding pockets in KRAS G12D, identified by this screening approach.

Over five years, implementation of the NHS England Lung Cancer Screening Programme achieved high early-stage detection rates and demonstrated that the programme is both feasible and scalable for reaching high-risk and underserved populations.

Hyperpolarized ¹³C-enriched pyruvate has demonstrated promise for imaging metabolism in cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders; however, broader clinical adoption is constrained by the cost and limited availability of current hyperpolarization technology. Here, the authors report in situ hyperpolarization of pyruvate at 6.5mT by SLIC SABRE, demonstrating its application in low-cost high-performance ¹³C MRI at milli Tesla fields with sufficient resolution to distinguish chemical shifts between pyruvate isotopomers.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Palaeobiologist who pioneered mathematical modelling of mass extinctions.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

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.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Evo 2 is an artificial intelligence-based biological foundation model trained on 9 trillion DNA base pairs spanning all domains of life that predicts functional properties from genomic sequences and provides a rich generative model for researchers in biology.

The identification of cellular targets for natural products that potently inhibit the growth of cancer cell lines implicates oxysterol-binding proteins in the growth of cancer cells. These natural products, termed ORPphilins, also affect sphingomyelin biosynthesis.

Here the authors compare genetic testing strategies in rare movement disorders, improve diagnostic yield with genome analysis, and establish CD99L2 as an X-linked spastic ataxia gene, showing that CD99L2–CAPN1 signaling disruption likely drives neurodegeneration.