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Zygnematophycean algae are the closest algal relatives of land plants. This study compares the osmatic stress response of two of these species, finding a core set of molecular protective components and providing insights into the toolkit needed for plant terrestrialization.

Exploration helps reduce uncertainty in daily life, but the evolutionary roots of adaptive exploration are unclear. Here, the authors show that chimpanzees, like humans, tailor their exploration depending on their environment.

Amiad Pavlov, Heffler, et al. demonstrate that stress transmitted to the cardiomyocyte nucleus by the microtubule cage drives LMNA-associated cardiomyopathy and may represent a promising therapeutic target.

The coffee ring effect is commonly observed in drying droplets containing suspended matter leading to a deposition at the droplet edge. Sempels et al. show that self-generated biosurfactants in living bacterial systems reverse the coffee ring effect and result in a homogeneous deposition.

Although much is understood about the mechanical behaviour of macroscopic machinery, less is known about their molecular equivalents. It is now shown that for molecular machinery consisting of hydrogen-bonded components their relative motion is strongly accelerated by adding small amounts of ‘lubricating’ water, whereas other protic liquids have much weaker or opposite effects.

Dadras et al. exposed Mesotaenium, an alga of the sister lineage to land plants, to a bifactorial gradient of environmental cues and use comparative analyses to pinpoint conserved circuits in plant genetic response networks.

Quantum logic inspired techniques are promising to enable tests of fundamental physics at the quantum limit in ultrahigh precision experiments using Penning traps. Here, the authors present a procedure that shortens ion transport durations via trap voltage waveforms combined with electronic filter predistortion, enabling to boost data sampling rates in current cryogenic multi-Penning trap setups.

Genome-wide association analysis in over one million individuals of European ancestry identifies 2,103 independent genetic signals (including 113 new loci) associated with blood pressure traits.

Self-replicating molecules provide a simple molecular level system to study the processes occurring in speciation. Now it is shown that in a pool of interconverting macrocycles, constructed from two building blocks, two distinct sets of self-replicating molecules emerge, and that one is a descendant of the other.

Dynamic Kerr microscopy enables the tracking of the two-step melting of a magnetic skyrmion lattice from a two-dimensional solid through an intermediate hexatic regime to an isotropic liquid and provides direct insights in the occurrence and dynamics of lattice dislocations, the defects that mediate melting.

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.

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in mink farms in the Netherlands in the first wave of the pandemic with evidence of human-to-mink and mink-to-human transmission. Here, the authors investigate this outbreak using phylodynamic analysis and show that personnel links and spatial proximity are predictors of transmission between farms.

Traditional approaches in spatial transcriptomics often rely on preliminary data grouping, which can overlook subtle expression patterns in tissues. Here, the authors present Spatial Gradient Screening, a tool which facilitates the detection of histology-associated gene expression patterns without prior data grouping.

Magnons offer a variety of attractive features for information processing: low dissipation, controllable non-linearity, short wavelengths at typical frequencies used in information technologies. Here, Metzger et al demonstrate control of a strongly coupled two-magnon-one-phonon state in antiferromagnetic CoF2.

Glucose-derived isosorbide is a rigid polyester monomer with a low reactivity. Here, the authors report the synthesis of high molecular weight biobased polyesters with promising barrier and mechanical properties via in situ generation of reactive aryl ester groups.

A substantial reduction of losses in a phononic waveguide can be achieved by soft clamping, through which phonons can be guided through very sharp turns with losses accounting for less than one phonon in a million.

In the absence of language, there is a lack of common knowledge necessary for efficient communication. Here, the authors show that people solve this problem by reverting to commonly accepted physical priors and deviating from them to communicate goal locations.

The conversational diagnostic artificial intelligence system AMIE (Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer) has potential as a real-world tool for clinical history-taking and diagnostic dialogue, based on its performance in simulated consultations.

Diatoms often dominate production in aquatic communities, but the amount of available dissolved silicic acid (dSi) limits their growth. Here, Bondoc et al., show that diatoms perceive gradients in dSi, and can increase the encounter with this resource by chemotaxis toward high concentrations under resource-limited conditions.

Controlled patterning of functionality within hydrogels typically involves complex chemistry. Here, the authors report on a simple competitive binding strategy using avidin and biotin analogs in an injectable biomaterial for spatiotemporally controlled presentation of biochemical stimuli to cells.

The roots of neuroblastoma plasticity and heterogeneity remain poorly understood. Here, the authors characterise the transcriptional states of neuroblastoma cells and their changes throughout development using avian embryo models, single-cell RNA-sequencing, and patient samples; they find transcriptomic changes related to early sympatho-adrenal development.

Protease-cleavable orthogonal-coiled-coil-based (SPOC) systems, in which split viral proteases are activated by small molecules and cleave coiled-coil protease substrates, reprogram signaling with rapid kinetics in mammalian cells.

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).

Our understanding of human brain development in health and disease is limited. The authors generated human brain organoids from stem cell-derived isolated single neural rosettes to study human cortico-striatal development and deficits caused by an autism-associated genetic abnormality in SHANK3.

FlyWire presents a neuronal wiring diagram of the whole fly brain with annotations for cell types, classes, nerves, hemilineages and predicted neurotransmitters, with data products and an open ecosystem to facilitate exploration and browsing.

Here, the authors compare gene expression signatures in rectal tissues of African green monkeys (AGMs) and rhesus macaques (RMs) acutely infected with simian immunodeficiency virus and find that AGMs rapidly activate and maintain evolutionarily conserved regenerative wound healing mechanisms.

How the human visual system leverages the rich structure in object motion for perception remains unclear. Here, Bill et al. propose a theory of how the brain could infer motion relations in real time and offer a unifying explanation for various perceptual phenomena.

Prokaryotic cell transcriptomics has been limited to mixed or sub-population dynamics and individual cells within heterogeneous populations. Here the authors develop a ‘TRANSITomic’ approach to profile transcriptomes of single Burkholderia pseudomallei cells as they transit through host cell infection.

Right-sided colorectal cancer (rCRC) has a different mutational spectrum to the left-sided counterpart. Here the authors develop a mouse model of rCRC that recapitulates human BRAF-mutant rCRC and show that loss of TGFβ-receptor signalling and inflammation induce the development of colonic tumours with a foetal-like phenotype.

Here, the authors use atomic force microscopy under ultra-high vacuum conditions to study intramolecular single electron transfer within a single molecule. This allows them to investigate energy dissipation process related to the electron transfer as a function of temperature.

The organisation of plasma membrane receptors is important for their function. Here the authors combine lattice light-sheet microscopy with 3D single-molecule localisation microscopy (dSTORM) and single-particle tracking to study the distribution and motility of several surface receptors.

A large meta-analysis combining genome-wide and custom high-density genotyping array data identifies 63 new susceptibility loci for prostate cancer, enhancing fine-mapping efforts and providing insights into the underlying biology.

This study proposes a molecular mechanism of voltage activation in SLC9C1, a transporter essential for male fertility.

Following double-strand break a cascade of events leads to the recruitment of repair factors to damaged sites. Here the authors identify ZNF506 as a key factor that mediates post-translational modification changes in H2AX affecting the DNA damage response.

Samuli Ripatti and colleagues report the results of a genome-wide association study for circulating lipid levels based on 1000 Genomes Project imputation. Their results implicate several new loci, refine the association signals at many established loci and highlight the impact of low-frequency variants on lipid traits.

Ordinary differential equation (ODE) models are widely used to understand multiple processes. Here the authors show how the concept of mini-batch optimization can be transferred from the field of Deep Learning to ODE modelling.

Adaptive radiations are well-known for animals and plants, but not for microbes. Here, Hehemann et al. show that there has been a recent adaptive radiation of bacteria in the Vibrionaceae to use different forms of alginate and that this radiation has been mediated by horizontal gene transfer.

The Z-ring, constituted of the tubulin homolog FtsZ protein, plays an essential role for bacterial cell division. Here the authors use an in vitro reconstitution approach to determine how the regulatory protein ZapA affects FtsZ treadmilling and filament organization into large-scale patterns.

Obtaining data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from healthy human populations is difficult. Here, Hendriksen et al. use metagenomic analysis to obtain AMR data from untreated sewage from 79 sites in 60 countries, finding correlations with socio-economic, health and environmental factors.

Currently many of the time resolved serial femtosecond (SFX) crystallography experiments are done with light driven protein systems, whereas the reaction initiation for non-light triggered enzymes remains a major bottle neck. Here, the authors present an expanded Drop-on-Tape system, where picoliter-sized droplets of a substrate or inhibitor are turbulently mixed with nanoliter sized droplets of microcrystal slurries, and they use it for time-resolved SFX measurements of inhibitor binding to lysozyme and secondly, binding of a β-lactam antibiotic to a bacterial serine β-lactamase.