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Soil microbes drive ecosystem functions but are vulnerable to environmental stressors triggered by global change. This study reveals that multiple environmental stressors drive community-level restructuring of soil functional microbiomes globally.

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.

This multi-cohort study finds a third of Small for Gestational Age births show dysregulated axon guidance proteins in cord blood, linked to lower birth weight and reduced later lung function. The findings are strengthened with GWAS and sheep model data.

Cofactors such as NAD⁺/NADH are essential in modern metabolism, and their prebiotic analogues may have played a key role in the non-enzymatic coupling of protometabolic reactions. Here, the authors show that prebiotically plausible pyridinium/1,4-dihydropyridine pair simultaneously mediates oxidative decarboxylation and reductive amination of pyruvate without enzymes.

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.

A large-scale proteomics analysis of the dark proteome by the TransCODE Consortium reveals many translated non-canonical open reading frames to encode microproteins and peptideins.

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).

Radiocarbon analyses show that dryland soils store organic carbon with a mean age of ~2100 years and release carbon averaging ~520 years old, suggesting that long-stored carbon in drylands is vulnerable to environmental change.

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.

A fully automated methodology based on rubrics capturing a broad range of cognitive and intellectual demands is illustrated using LLMs and tasks, demonstrating a new way to evaluate the capabilities of AI systems and anticipate their performance.

In absence of telomerase, short telomeres trigger senescence. Here, the authors find using single-telomere-single-cell approaches in budding yeast, that one critically short telomere is required and sufficient to induce senescence. Some cells can escape via DNA rearrangements, trading stability for survival.

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.

Genotype and exome sequencing of 150,000 participants and whole-genome sequencing of 9,950 selected individuals recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study constitute a valuable, publicly available resource of non-European sequencing data.

Polyamines prevent the action of kinases on acidic phosphorylatable motifs in spliceosomal proteins, thus providing a mechanism for metabolite-mediated regulation of alternative splicing in cells.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

Global Burden of Disease estimates show that between 1990 and 2023, the prevalence and burden of drug use disorders, inclusive of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and opioid use, have been increasing in high-income countries, particularly in the USA.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Gene fusion products involving protein kinases are known drivers in human cancers and actionable targets for personalized therapy. Here, the authors uncover the structural and molecular determinants that control the mechanism of autoactivation of the CCDC6-RET oncogenic fusion protein revealing a dual ATP and ADP dependent activity, with implications in cancer signaling.

Analysis of 2,170 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Spain provides insights into transmission patterns and the effects of lockdown on the emergence of new variants.

Grazing affects plant diversity, but plant diversity in turn may modulate the effect of grazing on the plant community. This global analysis explores the association between plant species richness and plant cover resistance to grazing intensity in drylands.

The authors analyse tree responses to an extreme heat and drought event across South America to understand long-term climate resistance. While no more sensitive to this than previous lesser events, forests in drier climates showed the greatest impacts and thus vulnerability to climate extremes.

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.

Analysis of 20 chemical and morphological plant traits at diverse sites across 6 continents shows that the transition from semi-arid to arid zones is associated with an unexpected 88% increase in trait diversity.

An analysis involving the shotgun sequencing of more than 300 ancient genomes from Eurasia reveals a deep east–west genetic divide from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and provides insight into the distinct effects of the Neolithic transition on either side of this boundary.

Genomic surveillance has been important for tracking the evolution and spread of SARS-CoV-2. Here, the authors analyse ~300,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from two years of sequencing in the Latin America and Caribbean regions and describe the emergence and spread of different lineages over time.

Identification of virus–host pairs requires cultivation, otherwise it is based on tentative assignment using genomic signatures. Here, the authors describe a method that can unambiguously assign viruses to hosts and does not require their cultivation.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

Protection afforded by inorganic minerals is assumed to make mineral-associated organic carbon less susceptible to loss under climate change than particulate organic carbon. However, a global study of soil organic carbon from drylands suggests that this is not the case.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

It remains uncertain whether genetic variants and day–night cycles affect the efficacy of drugs in acute disease settings. Here, the authors show that metoprolol reduces risk only in patients who carry two Arg389 alleles of the beta-1 adrenoceptor, and specifically when myocardial infarction occurs at the beginning of the light cycle.