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RNF114 is an E3 ligase that can recognize ADP-ribose (ADPr) and ubiquitin with separate domains. Using these domains, Kolvenbach and Palumbieri et al. developed a proteomics approach to map ADP-ribosyl-ubiquitylation sites, revealing that serine ADPr induced by DNA damage is a target for ubiquitylation.

Understanding the forces behind the successful governance of common-pool resources is crucial to sustainable development. This study reveals the importance of establishing and enforcing ‘access rights’ in the face of intergroup conflicts over resources to facilitate the evolution of sustainable ‘use rights’.

U/Th-dated Asian monsoon records from Shima Cave, covering 142–122 ka BP, constrain the timing of a CO₂ rise at ~139 ka BP caused by millennial-scale variabilities, which, along with increasing orbital solar radiation, prepare for the end of ice age.

Plant traits drive ecosystem dynamics yet are challenging to map globally due to sparse measurements. Here, the authors combine crowdsourced biodiversity observations with Earth observation data to accurately map 31 plant traits at 1 km² resolution.

A 580,000-year cave record from southern Nevada reveals how temperature, ice sheets, and summer insolation influenced the southwest United States’ unique climate history over the last six glacial-interglacial cycles.

Adaptation policies can considerably influence the intensity and spatial patterns of sealevel rise-related migration, with managed retreat and setback zones leading to outmigration, while hard protection measures favor migration toward the coast.

Seahorses have a unique sex role reversal with male pregnancy involving the brood pouch, an evolutionarily novel organ. This study uses single-cell genomics and in vivo experiments to reveal the cellular basis and molecular mechanism of pouch development and diversity in seahorses.

Although climate action is undermined by political interests and institutional inertia, multiple safeguards are in place to prevent backsliding on progress so far, and positive feedbacks reinforce progress despite opposing forces. Key elements of climate action are irreversible and can be further strengthened by commitments, investments and positive narratives.

Climate change will decrease Arctic Sea ice and increase light, but effects on polar ecosystems remain unclear. Here, the authors predict that warming waters and prey loss will threaten cold-water fish species and severely reduce their habitat by 2060.

Nijsse and colleagues find that due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies. Uncertainties arise, however, over grid stability in a renewables-dominated power system, the availability of sufficient finance in underdeveloped economies, the capacity of supply chains and political resistance from regions that lose employment.

Heatwaves pose a growing threat to cities, and vegetation is often touted as a mitigation option. This study finds that while lawns provide a burst of intense cooling, trees access deeper water and provide moderate but more prolonged relief.

It may have taken only a decade to repeatedly destabilize the Antarctic Ice Sheet after the last Ice Age as shown by a new data-model study. The ice sheet lost ice for centuries each time before it abruptly re-stabilized again.

A major earthquake on the Hayward Fault could slash hospital capacity and severely disrupt access to care. This study shows how combined hospital and road damage could isolate communities and delay treatment across the San Francisco Bay Area.

An online tailored coaching intervention, delivered over 3 years, improved global cognition, dementia risk, physical activity, nutrition and depression in older dementia-free community-dwelling individuals.

The high-plasticity cell state (HPCS) is a critical hub that enables reciprocal transitions between cancer cell states, and targeting the HPCS may suppress cancer progression and eradicate treatment resistance.

Ocean stratification — density-related layering of seawater — influences oceanographic and climatic processes. This Review outlines observed and projected changes in stratification, noting a 0.8% dec⁻¹ increase in 0–2,000 m stratification from 1960–2024, and a further 1.4% dec⁻¹ increase by 2100 under SSP2-4.5.

Using a tuning fork-based probe, the authors offer evidence of 2D magnetic moment along the c-axis of CsV₃Sb₅. Their findings suggest that loop currents within the kagome lattice can generate orbital magnetism.

Large swathes of standing dead trees or ‘ghost forests’ can form owing to rising sea levels in coastal areas, but the extent to which this occurs is unclear. This study maps ghost forests at the individual tree level along the US Atlantic coastal region.

Phosphorus locked in ancient marine carbonates shows that ocean phosphorus rose and fell with atmospheric oxygen during the Great Oxidation Event, Earth’s first major oxygenation. Models suggest brief nutrient pulses could have accelerated oxygen production

Regeneration varies dramatically even between closely related species. Here they show that the evolutionary loss of foot regeneration observed in Hydra oligactis stems from weak Wnt activation after injury. Transient Wnt activation restores foot regeneration and the expression of foot transcription factor dlx2.

This study explores four decades of biodiversity change across the tree of life in Germany’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by sequencing standardized biota samples from a long-term pollution monitoring archive.

Using a randomized three-way crossover design and stratification approaches based on obesity and renal function in people with type 2 diabetes, the TriMaster study demonstrated that patients with obesity were more likely to have greater glycemic control with pioglitazone (a thiazolidinedione) than with sitagliptin (a DPP4 inhibitor) and that patients with eGFR 60–90 ml/min/1.73 m² were more likely to achieve lower HbA1c levels on sitagliptin than on canagliflozin (an SGLT2 inhibitor).

Time-series data from tropical forests tracking weather and declines in arthropod diversity and function show that fluctuations in species were largely dependent on their El Niño sensitivity and ecological specialization.

Unclear emissions and ice-sheet processes drive uncertainties in future sea-level rise. The authors show that the timing of emissions reductions drives the uncertainties during the twenty-first century, but geophysical uncertainties become more important with time, especially under optimistic scenarios.

A model incorporating physical, production, ecological and social carrying capacity is used to explore sustainable aquaculture production potential within the African continent.

Ground truthed thermal data from a new NASA satellite combined with experimental warming data from three continents in an empirical model suggests that tropical forests are closer to a high temperature threshold than previously thought.

Soils may release more CO₂ under warming when increases in plant productivity mine nitrogen from soil organic matter, according to an analysis of a global dataset of soil organic carbon measurements.

Consumer adoption of clean technologies is needed to reduce emissions and meet climate targets, but psychological and contextual barriers slow and even prevent uptake. This Review examines these barriers and discusses the effectiveness of interventions in overcoming them.

The authors present a 3.5-million-year-long pollen record from the Zoige Basin of the eastern Tibetan Plateau, 3,442 m above sea level. The ~5,000 pollen assemblages retrieved from the core reveal many ecosystem transitions during this time and, when correlated with climatic curves, indicate what effects future warming may have on regional vegetation.

A slower Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during Heinrich Stadial 1 led to the spread of seasonal tropical vegetation in northern Amazonia, a pattern that may repeat in a warming climate, according to proxy records combined with modelling.

In situ examinations of coral reef benthic communities along a gradient of CO₂ exposure show a decline in calcareous taxa and a proliferation of the non-calcareous taxa. Community changes expected by the end of century will depend on atmospheric CO₂ emissions.

Land abandonment and afforestation are two of the largest processes of land-use change in the Global North. Here, using a nationwide successional gradient the authors show that abandoned ecosystems develop toward increasing afforestation where the process for soil microbes is non-linear and contains thresholds. Microbial taxonomic and functional diversity diverge, revealing a trade-off between different dimensions of diversity.

This study shows how escalating floods, droughts, heatwaves, fires, and landslides in the Amazon create unequal risks for Indigenous and traditional communities, urging climate justice in the world’s largest tropical forest.

The Antarctic ozone hole has had far-reaching impacts, but effects on geochemical cycles in polar regions is still unknown. Iodine records from the interior of Antarctica provide evidence for human alteration of the natural geochemical cycle of this essential element.

Drought response is structured by water-table depth in higher-fertility Southern Amazonia, whereas lower-fertility Northern Amazonia supports more-drought-resilient forests independent of water-table depth.

Relatively strong warming over the Mongolian Plateau in recent decades can be explained, in part, by synchronous internal climate oscillations, according to climate model experiments.

Analyses of drivers of water stress are used to predict likely trajectories of the Amazon forest system and suggests potential actions that could prevent system collapse.

Future Amazon dieback could occur during the 21st century, triggered by local annual surface air temperatures above 32.2 °C and precipitation below 1394.3 mm per year, and exacerbated by land-use change, according to an analysis of Earth System Model projections under different levels of warming

Carbon release from permafrost thaw would substantially decrease the amount of carbon emissions required to meet climate targets, according to climate simulations.

Earth system model simulations of future climate in the Amazon show little agreement. Here, the authors show that biases in internally generated climate explain most of this uncertainty and that the balance between water-saturated and water-limited evapotranspiration controls the Amazon resilience to climate change.

Using historical data across the U.S., the authors find that population declines are associated with flood exposure. Projecting this relationship to 2053, the authors find that flood risk may result in 7% lower growth than otherwise expected.

Effective response to immune checkpoint inhibitors depends on the proliferation and expansion of tumor-reactive CD8⁺ T cells. By combining analysis of CD8⁺ T cell clones in a preclinical multi-site tumor model with clinical datasets, the authors track the expansion dynamics of hundreds of T cell clones over time and define a signature to predict intratumoral CD8⁺ T cell expansion in response to immunotherapies.