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Here, the authors examine bird wing planform shape and functional performance using theoretical morphospace and phylomorphospace. They find that, in a sample of 1138 extant bird taxa, planform shape is weakly impacted by phylogeny and that functional optimality varies across birds depending on their flight style.

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.

Spectroscopic techniques are crucial for understanding the electronic structures and bonding in f-element coordination compounds. Here, the authors present advanced X-ray spectroscopic analysis alongside quantum chemical modeling to elucidate metal-ligand interactions in lanthanum homologues of actinium radiopharmaceuticals, providing insights to help guide the development of potent therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals.

Integrating CO₂ capture and electrochemical conversion avoids the thermal release of CO₂ and thus could potentially lower the energy needed to make useful products from CO₂, but choosing optimal system components is still challenging. Here the authors use piperazine alongside a nickel catalyst for capture and achieve high energy efficiency and stable CO production.

Simulated heatwaves shifted carbon fluxes in estuarine flats, with stronger effects after longer heatwave durations. Findings reveal that degradation state will influence heatwave effects on carbon dynamics including changes in source/sink status.

Distinguishing band and Mott insulators experimentally represents a longstanding challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate a momentum-resolved signature of a dimerized Mott-insulator in the out-of-plane spectral function of Nb₃Br₈.

Polygenic risk scores can help identify individuals at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Here, the authors characterise a multi-ancestry score across nearly 900,000 people, showing that its predictive value depends on demographic and clinical context and extends to related traits and complications.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Chiral topological materials have been predicted to host orbital angular momentum monopoles, which can be useful for orbitronics applications. Now such monopoles have been imaged in chiral materials.

Flash recycling method can achieve nondestructive cathode regeneration effectively with higher environmental and economic benefits over traditional destructive recycling processes.

High-pressure experiments performed on aperiodic TRUMOF-1 demonstrate that this material remains crystalline up to pressures of 1.8 GPa, higher than other cubic metal–organic framework, due to the heterogeneous distribution of different shock-absorption mechanisms throughout the material.

Single-photon emitters (SPEs) in 2D semiconductors are usually affected by complex spectral profiles that limit their understanding and applications. Here, the authors combine a noncovalent surface functionalization method with localized mechanical strain to simplify the spectra and enhance the purity of SPEs in monolayer WSe₂.

Body size and composition are complex traits that are challenging to characterize due to environmental and genetic influences. Here, Arehart et al. disentangle shared and distinct genetic signals underlying body size and composition.

The role of the tumour microenvironment in the response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic melanoma remains poorly understood. Here, single cell profiling of metastatic melanoma samples identifies associations of the mature dendritic enriched in immunoregulatory molecules subtype with immunotherapy response.

Spin-momentum locking is a fundamental property of condensed matter systems. Here, the authors evidence parallel Weyl spin-momentum locking of multifold fermions in the chiral topological semimetal PtGa.

Nature Biotechnology's readers select some of biotech's most remarkable and influential personalities from the past 10 years.

High-surface-area corundum are used in ceramics and catalyst supports, yet the synthesis is hampered by high energy barrier and aggregation. Here the authors report the ultrafast synthesis of corundum nanoparticles via the resistive hotspot triggered phase transformation in electric heating process.

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

The authors analyze rare coding variants in 1990 individuals with congenital kidney anomalies, finding diagnostic variants in 14.1% of cases. They identify two new causal genes, ARID3A and NR6A1, along with 38 candidate genes, providing evidence for shared genetics with other developmental disorders.

3D heterostructures offer properties that are inaccessible in bulk single-phase solids, but synthetic approaches are limited. The authors use mechanochemical reshuffling of binary precursors and subsequent annealing to design structurally aligned misfit heterostructures with well-defined atomic arrangements.

The bicyclic azetidines, a class of potent, well-tolerated antimalarial compounds that is active against multiple stages of the Plasmodium life-cycle, has been discovered following screens against libraries of compounds reminiscent of natural products.

Here, authors present results of a hiPSC transcriptomics study on corticogenesis from multiple donors across four transitions in differentiation. They present a bulk data deconvolution method and show that co-culturing human NPCs with rodent astrocytes results in mutually synergistic maturation.

Structure–activity relationships built on descriptors of surfaces can help to design electrocatalysts, but their identification for electrochemically driven surface transformations is challenging. The composition of LaNiO₃ thin film surfaces can now dictate surface transformation and activity of the oxygen evolution reaction.

Syngas is a mixture of CO and H₂ that can be converted into a variety of fuels. Syngas can be produced thermocatalytically from CH₄ and CO₂, but this requires high temperatures and coke formation can be a problem. Here the authors demonstrate lower temperature, light-driven production of syngas using a coke-resistant plasmonic photocatalyst.

The cleavage of C–F bonds through hydrodefluorination is challenging and has been traditionally limited to unsaturated fluorocarbons. Now, a simple plasmonic approach based on the use of aluminium nanocrystal-supported palladium nanoparticles is introduced to effectively upgrade fluoromethane under visible light.

Fentanyl continues to drive the opioid crisis by contributing to >70,000 deaths per year in the US. Here, the authors investigate a candidate medication for fentanyl overdose prevention (monoclonal antibody CSX-1004) demonstrating its mitigation of fentanyl’s effects in preclinical animal models.

Biogenic sulfate production during the penultimate glacial period only modestly exceeded that in the following interglacial, indicating a balancing of dust-driven Subantarctic productivity increases and sea ice-driven high-latitude declines, according to an Antarctic ice core.

Targeting oncogenic ALK activity in neuroblastoma is an attractive therapeutic strategy but success has been limited by resistance to ALK inhibitors. Here, the authors identify loss of miR-1304-5p as a driver of ALK inhibitor resistance via regulation of NRAS, and therapeutically target this axis with the addition of a farnesyltransferase inhibitor in preclinical models of neuroblastoma.

The X-chromosome linked long non-coding RNA, Xist, is a master regulator of the X inactivation. Here, the authors report that XistAR, an Xist anti-sense long non-coding RNA encoded within the mouse Xist gene and transcribed only from the inactive X chromosome, regulates Xistexpression.

Imprinted mouse X-chromosome inactivation is controlled by two long non-coding RNAs, Tsix and Xist. Here, Maclary et al. demonstrate that Tsix is dispensable during the initiation and maintenance of X-inactivation in vivo and in vitro, but required to prevent Xist expression as trophectodermal progenitors differentiate.

The restriction of dietary protein or amino acid intake is well established to extend lifespan in multiple species. Here, the authors show that the endocrine hormone FGF21 is necessary for dietary protein restriction to extend lifespan and improve metabolic health in aged, male mice.

Resequencing analyses of three species of wild sunflower identify large non-recombining haplotype blocks that correlate with ecologically relevant traits, soil and climate characteristics, and that differentiate species ecotypes.

The systemic immune features that distinguish COVID-19 from common infections remain incompletely elucidated. Here McClain et al. compare RNA sequencing in peripheral blood between subjects with SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infections and demonstrate dysregulated immune responses in COVID-19 with both heterogeneous and conserved components.

The protective efficacy of a single dose of adenovirus serotype 26 (Ad26) vector-based vaccine expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in non-human primates is demonstrated.

An investigation using various methods reports an association between adeno-associated virus 2 and paediatric hepatitis of unknown aetiology.

Patients with BRAF^V600E-mutated colorectal cancer have encouraging overall response rates to inhibition of PD-1, BRAF and MEK, with translational analyses suggesting that induction of tumor-intrinsic programs and immune programs contributes to improved outcomes via MAPK inhibition.

The Cas9-specific T cell response has been speculated to impair CRISPR therapy. Here, the authors show that local and systemic AAV CRISPR therapy induces cytotoxic killing and eliminates rescued dystrophin in canine models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

The use of machine learning for identifying small molecules through their retention time’s predictions has been challenging so far. Here the authors combine a large database of liquid chromatography retention time with a deep learning approach to enable accurate metabolites’s identification.

The authors identify an impaired myelination signature from the brains of mouse models of Pitt–Hopkins syndrome and show that it is shared in the postmortem brains of people with autism.

Jaffe et al. profile the granule cell layer of the human hippocampus and find unique molecular associations for aging and genetic variation, as well as diagnosis with schizophrenia and its genetic risk, that were previously undiscovered in homogenate tissue.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias identifies new loci and enables generation of a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

A dataset of the genomes of 363 species from the Bird 10,000 Genomes Project shows increased power to detect shared and lineage-specific variation, demonstrating the importance of phylogenetically diverse taxon sampling in whole-genome sequencing.

A study reports the distribution, replication and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the human body including in the brain at autopsy from acute infection to more than seven months following symptom onset.

Maternal genome-wide analyses identify variants associated with gestational duration and preterm delivery. Maternal alleles positively associated with gestational duration exhibit negative fetal effects on birth weight, likely reflecting antagonistic pleiotropy.

In this study the authors identify a possible link between the gene FAM222A and brain atrophy. The protein it encodes is found to accumulate in plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease, and functional analysis suggests it interacts with amyloid-beta.