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Gallium arsenide photocathodes inside a superconducting radio-frequency gun are a promising source of polarized electrons for future colliders. Now the operation of such a source has been demonstrated.

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.

Optical spin defects in semiconductors are crucial for applications, but it is often difficult to establish their microscopic origin. A mechanism for the spin behaviour of a family of bright emitters in hexagonal boron nitride has now been identified.

Here the authors apply machine learning approaches to Alzheimer’s genetics, confirm known associations and suggest novel risk loci. These methods demonstrate predictive power comparable to traditional approaches, while also offering potential new insights beyond standard genetic analyses.

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.

In mammals, the enzyme TGDS produces UDP-4-keto-6-deoxyglucose, which binds to the catalytic pocket of UDP-xylose synthase, thereby regenerating the essential NAD⁺ cofactor of UDP-xylose synthase in conditions of low NAD⁺.

Polygenic risk scores for Alzheimer’s disease derived from individuals of European ancestry can show improved performance in multiancestry settings after incorporating genome-wide association summary statistics from diverse populations.

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.

Dopaminergic medication and deep brain stimulation exert a shared therapeutic modulation of cortex-subthalamic nucleus network activity in Parkinson’s disease, through a suppression of high beta synchrony mediated by the hyperdirect pathway.

This study shows how the same brain networks may support resilience differently in individuals with varying genetic risks, enabling more personalized mental health approaches.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome following SARS-CoV-2 infection results from increased serum levels of TGFβ, which impairs the reactivation of virus-specific T cells.

Li et al. introduced tract-geometry coupling (TGC) to quantify the coupling between white matter tracts and cortical geometry in the human brain, shedding light on how the brain’s wiring and shape evolve together and its support for behavior and growth.

Genome-wide association analyses of intracranial and nine subcortical brain volumes in 74,898 participants of European ancestry identify 254 independent loci and yield polygenic scores accounting for brain variation across ancestries.

The ferroelectric polarization of epitaxial thin films of germanium telluride can be switched by electrical gating and used to control spin-to-charge conversion.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

An analysis of fish and macroinvertebrate communities in European rivers over 32 years shows that inland ship traffic is associated with declining taxonomic richness, diversity and trait richness and with increased taxonomic evenness.

Exome sequencing within a structured diagnostic process for rare diseases in Germany shows how facial image analysis and machine learning can guide variant prioritization and uncover many ultrarare diseases.

Nonlinear absorption of helical light beams offers a new chiroptical detection scheme for both chiral and achiral molecules in liquid phase.

An analysis of annelid genomes reveals massive reshuffling of chromosomes in the ancestral lineage leading to clitellates, a clade composed of non-marine annelids, with potential implications for the adaptation of clitellates to freshwater and terrestrial environments.

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) is being held in November 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Having a climate summit hosted in an African country makes it timely to highlight climate change research from the continent. We asked a selection of researchers to share their thoughts on current research questions and how they affect African responses to climate change.

An outbreak of the multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage W148 has spread widely across Russia, Central Asia and Europe. Here, the authors use whole genome sequences of ~700 isolates of this lineage collected over ~20 years to analyze its spread, evolution of drug resistance, and impact of compensatory mutations.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

Multidrug-resistant pathogens have become increasingly common in hospital settings. Here, the authors investigate the efficacy of adjunctive antibiotic and phage therapy in a human cell model and a murine model of ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Timothy Frayling, Joel Hirschhorn, Peter Visscher and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for adult height in 253,288 individuals. They identify 697 variants in 423 loci significantly associated with adult height and find that these variants cluster in pathways involved in growth and together explain one-fifth of the heritability for this trait.

This study identifies distinct eating behavior profiles and links them to eating disorder symptoms, genetic predispositions for high body mass index and brain maturation during adolescence.

Longitudinal analysis of neuroimaging data are useful for analysing heterogeneity in adolescent brain development. Here the authors cluster adolescent participants of the IMAGEN study into groups based on gray matter volume developmental patterns and investigate genome-wide and epigenome-wide associations with these groups.

The results obtained by seventy different teams analysing the same functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset show substantial variation, highlighting the influence of analytical choices and the importance of sharing workflows publicly and performing multiple analyses.

Panos Deloukas, Nilesh Samani and colleagues report a large-scale association analysis using the Metabochip array in 63,746 coronary artery disease cases and 130,681 controls. They identify 15 susceptibility loci, refine previous associations and use network analysis to highlight biological pathways.

A photoreceptor-controlled carbon metabolism pathway in microalgae has been discovered. Blue light, sensed by phototropin, dephosphorylates Phototropin-Mediated Signalling Kinase 1 (PMSK1), repressing starch accumulation in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Stable isotope analysis of zooarchaeological remains and pottery in a palaeo-environmental framework reveals that early Central European farmers utilized diverse regional pasturing strategies for cattle, including the use of forested environments for grazing and seasonal foddering.

Genome-wide analysis identifies variants associated with the volume of seven different subcortical brain regions defined by magnetic resonance imaging. Implicated genes are involved in neurodevelopmental and synaptic signaling pathways.

Ruth Loos and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association study for body mass index. They identify 18 new loci associated with this trait, some of which map near key hypothalamic regulators of energy balance.

In a birth cohort, Holz et al. found widespread structural brain changes at the age of 25 years as a function of adversity. This pattern was replicated at the age of 33 years and in another cohort. Individual-level volume reductions on top of this pattern predicted anxiety.

Patricia Munroe, Christopher Newton-Cheh, Andrew Morris and colleagues perform association studies in over 340,000 individuals of European ancestry and identify 66 loci, of which 17 are novel, involved in blood pressure regulation. The risk SNPs are enriched for cis-regulatory elements, particularly in vascular endothelial cells.

The same type of polymer network deforms cell membranes inward, to absorb external material, and outward, to facilitate signal transmission. Experiments and theory show that these deformations are regulated by membrane tension and network mesh size.

Species’ range shifts projections are usually based on climate and land cover variables. Here, the authors use long-term records for bird species to show that species distribution models accounting for climate and land cover often fail to predict observed range shifts.

Santosa et al. show that IRF4 is upregulated upon NK cell activation and acts as a signal integrator for the differentiation and expansion of mouse cytomegalovirus-specific NK cells by partly controlling nutrient uptake required for adaptive NK cell responses.

The neurobiology of human brain development and aging is hard to study in vivo. The authors report on distinct spatial associations between brain morphology and cellular as well as molecular brain properties throughout neurodevelopment and aging.

In a large, partially prospective cohort of patients with molecularly profiled and clinically annotated meningioma, the extent of surgical resection and radiotherapy (RT) response correlate with molecular classification, which can be used in a molecular model to predict clinical outcomes in response to RT.

Xu et al. show that satellite-measured urbanicity (living in a densely populated area) is correlated with brain volume, cortical surface area and brain network connectivity in a sample of 3,867 people from China and Europe.

Improvements in European freshwater biodiversity occurred mainly before 2010 but have since plateaued, and communities downstream of dams, urban areas and cropland were less likely to experience recovery.

Evidence from large longitudinal neuroimaging cohorts, which include genetic and behavioral data, suggest a common neural basis for symptoms seen across multiple psychiatric disorders.

DeepTaskGen uses deep learning to generate synthetic task-based fMRI maps from resting state data, enabling scalable neuroimaging studies. It preserves individual variation and outperforms benchmarks in biomarker and cognitive prediction.

Les chercheurs partagent leurs réflexions sur les questions de recherche actuelles et sur la manière dont elles affectent les réponses africaines au changement climatique.

An extreme Einstein ring ~10,000 times as bright as the Milky Way in the infrared is studied with VLT/ERIS and ALMA, and the authors find that the lensed galaxy is a starburst with a fast-rotating disk, rather than being driven by a major merger.

This study explores selection signals of Papua New Guinean highlanders and lowlanders using 128 new whole genome sequences. It highlights two genetic variants associated with blood traits that also influence the heart rate of these populations.