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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.

An improved strategy for siting food and energy production is needed to avoid further habitat loss. This paper presents a multi-sector framework that can empower land use planners to find synergies across conservation and development sectors.

Divergent white matter metabolic patterns reveal a mechanistic basis for cognitive resilience and enhance prediction of future cognitive decline beyond established aging and dementia biomarkers.

Children with dyslexia show significant differences in Visual Word Form Area size and specialization compared to typical readers, suggesting enduring neural characteristics exist even after targeted intervention increases reading ability scores.

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.

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).

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

The cytochrome bc₁ oxidase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a potential target in the fight against tuberculosis. Here, the authors evaluate the potential of cytochrome bc₁ inhibitors as partner drugs in tuberculosis treatment regimens.

While therapies targeting type I BRAF mutations have been developed, there are limited options for those with type II and III mutations. Here, the authors identify a subset of BRAF-mutant non-small cell lung cancer patients and characterise the pan-RAF inhibitor exarafenib, demonstrating efficacy in preclinical models and investigating subsequent resistance mechanisms.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

This multicenter study demonstrates use of dried and capillary blood as a minimally invasive, scalable approach for Alzheimer’s biomarker testing in research, with potential as a widely scalable population-based research approach, especially in resource-limited settings.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

Neurons that respond emergently to illusory contours drive pattern completion in V1. Pattern completion in lower cortical areas may therefore mediate perceptual inference by selectively reinforcing activity patterns that match prior expectations.

Rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu contain some of the molecular building blocks of life on Earth, such as amino acids and nucleobases. They also carry ammonia that formed billions of years ago in cold, distant regions of our Solar System.

McGavern and colleagues identified a CD8⁺ T cell population that expresses GZMK in ʽtau-richʼ brains, where it may play a protective role against neurodegeneration.

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.

Genome editing tools can precisely introduce a specified lesion into the DNA, but ultimately rely on the cell’s DNA repair machinery to determine the editing outcome. Here, authors demonstrate how neurons’ unique DNA repair pathways impact the safety, efficiency, and precision of CRISPR edits.

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.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

Simulated microgravity reveals species-specific effects on sperm navigation, fertilization, and early embryo development, highlighting compensatory mechanisms and chemical cues critical for reproduction in future space missions.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

As Nature Aging celebrates its fifth anniversary, the journal asks some of the researchers who contributed to the journal early on to reflect on the past and the future of aging and age-related disease research, the impact of the field on human health now and in the future, and what challenges need to be addressed to ensure sustained progress.

A proteomic aging clock, developed using data from the UK Biobank and validated using data from the China Kadoorie Biobank and FinnGen, predicts the incidence of 18 major chronic diseases, as well as multimorbidity and all-cause mortality.

Oxidative catalytic depolymerization of polystyrene (PS) can produce benzoic acid, but the annual consumption of benzoic acid is ~40 times lower than PS, so benzoic acid should be converted to higher-volume chemicals for the process to be viable. Here, the authors report a hybrid chemical and biological process that uses PS as feedstock for production of adipic acid, a high-volume co-monomer for nylon 6,6, via benzoic acid.

A large brain imaging study of over 2000 people worldwide shows that fear conditioning engages brain regions linked to emotion and attention, with differences in individuals with anxiety or depression and strong influences from task design.

Little is known about the genetic basis of many natural behaviours and how they contribute to speciation. Here the authors address this by identifying genes linked to migration of a songbird, investigating how these gene are regulated, and connecting them to potential barriers between species.

The authors report a meta-analysis of methylome-wide association studies, identifying 15 significant CpG sites linked to major depression, revealing associations with inflammatory markers and suggesting potential causal relationships through Mendelian randomization analysis.

Guidance for optimizing lipid nanoparticle formulations is derived using sophisticated biophysical techniques.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

Here, the authors use passenger mutations to quantify expansion rate in ~6,000 people with mosaic chromosomal alterations in the NHLBI TOPMed cohort, finding associations between growth rate and blood counts along with germline genetic modulators of growth rate.

Molecular biomarkers of recurrence in colorectal cancer (CRC) generally cannot capture spatial information about the tumour and its microenvironment. Here, the authors develop HIBRID, a deep learning model to predict disease-free survival in CRC from histopathology whole slide images, improving risk stratification in large cohorts.

The developing heart integrates several progenitor cell types. Here they show that the pericardium enveloping the heart develops among cells that form the mesothelium around inner organs and body cavities, distinct from the classic heart field.

mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Gli and Hedgehog genes compound knockout fish exhibited a combination of actinopterygian fish and stem-tetrapod pectoral girdle characteristics, suggesting the evolutionary origin of terrestrial girdles as a tuning of a deeply conserved developmental program.

The Omicron variant evades vaccine-induced neutralization but also fails to form syncytia, shows reduced replication in human lung cells and preferentially uses a TMPRSS2-independent cell entry pathway, which may contribute to enhanced replication in cells of the upper airway. Altered fusion and cell entry characteristics are linked to distinct regions of the Omicron spike protein.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of type 2 diabetes (T2D) identifies more than 600 T2D-associated loci; integrating physiological trait and single-cell chromatin accessibility data at these loci sheds light on heterogeneity within the T2D phenotype.

Analysis of the JWST/NIRSpec spectrum of the recently observed Lyman-break galaxy JADES-GS+53.15508-27.80178 revealed a redshift of z = 7.3, a Balmer break and a complete absence of nebular emission lines, indicating that quenching occurred only 700 million years after the Big Bang.

Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine uptake in those at risk of severe disease, such as people with mental illness, is important. Here, the authors use cohort and/or health registry data from five countries in northern Europe and investigate vaccine uptake by mental illness and treatment status.

A dormant supermassive black hole at high redshift that is substantially overmassive relative to its host galaxy has been detected, indicating a much larger population of dormant black holes around the epoch of reionization.

Phylogenomic analysis of 7,923 angiosperm species using a standardized set of 353 nuclear genes produced an angiosperm tree of life dated with 200 fossil calibrations, providing key insights into evolutionary relationships and diversification.