Search

The authors resolve 63 structurally diverse haplotype structures for the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome region. Deletion risk differs depending on structure; individuals of African ancestry are enriched for inverted repeats that predispose to inversion.

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.

Neurons recorded in human ventral precentral gyrus encode speech modes and loudness via ensemble patterns separable from those encoding phonemic content. Attempted loudness was decoded accurately to add expressivity to a speech neuroprosthesis.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is key for metabolic balance. Here, the authors show that RAP250 deficiency enhances BAT activity. Under these conditions, BAT-derived neuritin-1 regulates thermogenesis and fat metabolism, showing therapeutic promise for obesity and metabolic disorders.

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.

The degradation of dead wood by basidiomycete fungi relies on Fenton chemistry under aerobic conditions. Here, Röllig et al. show that these fungi can also thrive and degrade wood in anoxia, switching from a Fenton chemistry-based process to the secretion of plant cell wall-active enzymes.

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.

The signaling mechanisms regulating adipose thermogenesis have not been fully elucidated. Here, the authors show that a brown fat-enriched adipokine ADISSP promotes adipose thermogenesis and improves metabolic health independently of b-adrenergic receptor.

Guan, Ocampo and colleagues report the discovery and mechanistic dissection of Al3Cas12f, a metagenome-derived miniature nuclease that retains notable genome-editing capacity. They engineer an RKK variant, which boosts editing and helps overcome the potency threshold that has limited compact editors.

This analysis of coral reef fish community structure reveals major differences in the energetic potential of planktivorous assemblages between Indo-Pacific and Caribbean coral reefs. Indo-Pacific reefs support greater planktivorous fish biomass and productivity, largely due to the contribution of species that feed on gelatinous plankton.

Korobkina et al. show that ACLY in brown fat prevents metabolic overload in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, thus ensuring adequate thermogenesis by avoiding cellular stress.

Individual dietary specialization is impacted by development, social learning, genetics, and environment. Here, the authors document European brown bear diet in a multigenerational female sample, finding that social learning during rearing was the most important contributor to dietary specialization.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a fatal human disease driven by the accumulation of apoptosis-resistant fibroblasts that impede homeostatic lung repair. Here, the authors show that elevated BCL-2 expression in fibroblasts drives their survival and senescence prolonging fibrosis in mice, while BCL-2 inhibition reverses persistent fibrosis.

Adipose tissue is composed of a number of adipocytes and a number of other cells including immune cells. Here the authors use single-cell sequencing of murine brown adipose tissue immune cells and describe multiple macrophage and monocyte subsets and show that monocytes contribute to brown adipose tissue expansion.

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

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.

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.

The CMS experiment at CERN reports one of the highest-precision measurements of the W boson mass, finding it in line with standard model predictions and at odds with recent anomalous measurements.

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.

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.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

Observations from the JWST MIRI showed the detection of ¹⁴NH₃ and ¹⁵NH₃ isotopologues in the atmosphere of a cool brown dwarf, along with a ¹⁴N/¹⁵N value consistent with star-like formation by gravitational collapse.

Habitat-forming marine macrophytes (brown macroalgae and seagrasses) provide important ecological and socio-economic services but are threatened by climate change. In this study, models of their future distribution under different climate change projections forecast a substantial redistribution of these groups globally, with loss of diversity and habitat.

A mummified fossil of the early Permian reptile Captorhinus reveals the potential ancestral amniote breathing mechanism and its impact on terrestrial vertebrate evolution.

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 brain generates high-dimensional representations of complex sensory environments and concurrently predicts expected stimuli. Here the authors show that neural circuits that perform these computations exhibit desegregated representations of sensory stimuli and prediction errors.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly lethal cancer due to late detection and rapid progression. Here, the authors integrate multi-regional whole genome and RNA sequencing to characterize intratumoural heterogeneity and evolutionary trajectories underlying the malignant transformation of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms into invasive PDAC.

In this study, Park, Haley, Le, Jung et al. perform a detailed characterization in vivo of metabolic flux distribution during thermogenesis and uncover brown fat nutrient fluxes and unexpected inter-organ metabolic crosstalk and glutamine utilization.

Recent data has observed sequential, rather than persistent, neural activity during evidence accumulation for decision-making. Here, the authors develop models that accumulate evidence through sequences and relate model predictions to neural recordings in different brain regions.

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.

Decreased brain volumes and increased NfL levels can be observed earlier than disease diagnosis in short-tandem-repeat-associated neurological diseases.

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.

Mitochondrial function is essential for energy metabolism in brown adipocytes. Here, the authors show that LCN2 plays a critical role as a phosphatidic acid binding protein in phospholipid acyl chain remodeling and mitochondrial bioenergetics, influencing signaling pathway activation.

Neuromodulation via epidural electrical stimulation both below and above the lesion in three participants with complete spinal cord injury could enable respectively motor activation and sensory perception.

Brown adipose tissue activation of thermogenesis is accompanied by a sequence of events commonly associated with apoptosis, however they evade cell death. Assali et al. show that NCLX prevents mitochondrial calcium overload and apoptosis. Deletion of NCLX, converts a thermogenic signal into a death pathway.

Macrophages serve important functions in defense and tissue homeostasis. Jung and colleagues demonstrate that a resident population of macrophages controls the innervation of brown adipose tissue and thereby regulates energy use.

In mice, DHPS supports the maturation, maintenance and function of tissue-resident macrophages via the polyamine–hypusine axis, with implications for macrophage-targeting therapies.

Electroreduction of CO on copper is notable for enabling C–C coupling, but a fundamental understanding of what drives product selectivity is lacking. Here a series of well-defined copper nanocrystals with tunable shape and size are used to control product selectivity, with strain identified as a major factor in n-propanol formation.

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.

Insulin controls adipocyte metabolism through changes in protein localisation. Here, the authors use cell-wide subcellular proteomics to uncover extensive insulin-regulated protein redistribution and identify C3ORF18 as a regulator of adipocyte insulin sensitivity.

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.

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.

Appel et al. found that deceptive networks reached over 37 million Facebook and 3 million Instagram users during the 2020 US elections, with the majority of this exposure driven by 3 networks and amplified by ordinary users resharing the content.

DNA hybridisation thermodynamics parameters underlie rational design of oligonucleotides for diagnostics and nanotechnology. Here, the authors present an accurate method to measure the free energy of a given DNA structure at specific temperature and buffer conditions.

Picks include a quantum pioneer, a co-discoverer of Ebola and a bioethicist-turned-activist.