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Global analysis of obesity trends from 1980 to 2024 in 200 countries and territories using data from 4,050 population-based studies reveals that framing obesity as a single global epidemic masks the highly varied dynamics across countries and age groups.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

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.

Widely used, effective methods to prevent adhesions after digit flexor tendon injury are lacking. Here, authors develop a bioresorbable, supramolecular hydrogel as a lubricating barrier to preserve tendon biomechanics and improve functional recovery.

Drug-resistant fungal disease must be addressed in the 2026 update to the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance

Age-related microbiome changes increase medium-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria, driving GPR84-mediated myeloid inflammation, impaired vagal signalling and hippocampal dysfunction; targeting this gut–brain pathway restores memory in aged mice.

Type IX secretion system (T9SS) is required for protein export in the Bacteroidota. Here, the authors obtain structure of T9SS PorKN ring which resembles a cogwheel that may have a rotational movement and is disulfide bonded to outer membrane beta-barrel PorG.

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.

Induced proximity by molecular glues is a strategy that leverages the recruitment of proteins to facilitate their modification or degradation. Here the authors present unbiased quantitative proteomic, biochemical and computational workflows that uncover hundreds of CRBN molecular glue targets using recombinant protein and cell lysate.

Random walks on a network describe the dynamics of many natural and artificial systems. Here, Perkins et al.study the path distribution—characterizing how the walker moves—and find that it is either finite, stretched exponential or power law for any random walk on a finite network.

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.

Zhang et al. examine associations between wildfire-specific PM_2.5 and emergency department visits for mental disorders in children across 845 communities in Australia, Brazil and Canada over a 15-year period.

Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most frequent paediatric liver tumour with heterogeneous cellular phenotypes that influence clinical outcomes. Here, the authors integrate bulk, single-cell, and spatial multi-omics to characterise HB cells, and find that clonal evolution and epigenetic plasticity shape response to therapy.

Cryogenic electron microscopy structures of human Ostα/β uncover a unique transport pathway featuring two substrate-binding sites connected by an amphipathic helix-gated conduit, and electrophysiological studies demonstrate voltage-sensitive, bidirectional transport, showing its efflux role in vivo.

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.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

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.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.

Pressure overload in the heart, such as from aortic stenosis, triggers early molecular changes before visible damage occurs. Here, the authors show that combining proteomics, transcriptomics, and genetic data reveals key drivers of heart failure, highlighting potential targets for treatment.

Large genome-wide meta-analysis of clinically diagnosed late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) from 94,437 individuals identifies new LOAD risk loci and implicates Aβ formation, tau protein binding, immune response and lipid metabolism.

A recently described red-shifted channelrhodopsin permits control of complex behaviors in freely moving adult flies and reveals the functional modulation of courtship behavior by social experience.

An extensive map of human DNase I hypersensitive sites, markers of regulatory DNA, in 125 diverse cell and tissue types is described; integration of this information with other ENCODE-generated data sets identifies new relationships between chromatin accessibility, transcription, DNA methylation and regulatory factor occupancy patterns.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Wastewater-based surveillance tends to focus on specific pathogens. Here, the authors mapped the wastewater virome from 62 cities worldwide to identify over 2,500 viruses, revealing city-specific virome fingerprints and showing that wastewater metagenomics enables early detection of emerging viruses.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

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.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

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

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

The midbrain is a major site for gating vocalization in vertebrates. Here, the authors show midbrain periaqueductal gray neurons in teleost fish with properties like those in mammals, sculpt the acoustic features of context-specific vocal signals.

Swanton and colleagues present a clonal expression signature, ORACLE, which, in combination with clinicopathological and molecular risk factors, can predict survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and they prospectively validate its prognostic value.

Starble, Sun, and colleagues identify an epigenetic priming mechanism that promotes oncogene amplification in acquired resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors and establishes a role of METTL7A in this process.

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.

An automated system to measure aggression and courtship in pairs of interacting Drosophila is presented and should allow large-scale screens of these behaviors in the future.

Complete sequences of chromosomes telomere-to-telomere from chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan and siamang provide a comprehensive and valuable resource for future evolutionary comparisons.

Parhizkar et al. show that lemborexant, an orexin receptor antagonist, protects against neurodegeneration in male tau transgenic mice by preventing tau protein build-up and inflammation, highlighting its potential for preventing neurodegeneration.