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Using quantitative brain imaging, the authors show opposite fMRI BOLD signal to metabolic activity due to variable oxygen extraction across the human cortex. This questions the canonical interpretation of fMRI signal in terms of neuronal activity.

Intelectin-2 defends mucosal interfaces by crosslinking mucus and blocking microbial growth. This study reveals that mouse and human intelectin-2 recognizes galactose-rich glycans to bind and target diverse bacteria—uncovering a potent, dual-action lectin that shapes host–microbe balance.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

Fungal parasites infect key nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria during Baltic Sea blooms, drawing on carbon and nitrogen reserves. Here, authors find up to a fifth of newly fixed nitrogen is diverted to fungi in the cyanobacterium Dolichospermum, altering the fate of new nitrogen and trophic transfer.

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.

In this study, the authors uncover how diverse inhibitory interneurons in the amygdala flexibly contribute to fear and safety learning, revealing a key role for inhibition in emotional memory and adaptive circuit plasticity.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

Analysis of a placebo-controlled trial of a BCMA-targeting CAR-T cell therapy in patients with myasthenia gravis shows that CAR-T cell infusion selectively remodels the systemic immune environment, with elimination of BCMA-high plasma cells and activated plasmacytoid dendritic cells and changes in the autoreactive B cell repertoire.

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).

Greening disease threatens the productivity of citrus crops worldwide yet the pathosystem is poorly understood. Here, Clark et al. show that an effector cloned from the associated bacteria can suppress host plant papain-like cysteine proteases' activity, suggesting its probable role in pathogenesis.

CNS toxicity was unexpectedly observed for anti-miR-17 RGLS4326 in nonclinical studies. Here, authors identify AMPA receptor inhibition as the likely culprit. Replacement of 3’-terminus guanine to adenine leads to discovery of farabursen (RGLS8429) that is devoid of CNS toxicity.

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.

Here the authors provide an explanation for 95% of examined predicted loss of function variants found in disease-associated haploinsufficient genes in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), underscoring the power of the presented analysis to minimize false assignments of disease risk.

Jayavelu, Samaha et al., apply machine learning models on hospital admission data, including antibody titers and viral load, to identify patients at high risk for Long COVID. Low antibody levels, high viral loads, chronic diseases, and female sex are key predictors, supporting early, targeted interventions.

Brain structure scaffolds intrinsic function, supporting cognition and behavioral flexibility. Here, the authors show how macroscale organization of cortical microstructure and resting-state function uncouple in transmodal cortex of humans and macaques.

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

While greater yam provides food and income security for millions of people around the world, there are limited genomic resources available. Here, the authors report a chromosome-scale assembly of the greater yam genome as well as quantitative trait loci associated with anthracnose resistance and tuber traits.

Foragers hunted small game locally and procured most large prey in riparian habitats and Afromontane grasslands to the southeast of the Kasitu Valley of northern Malawi, suggesting that migratory behavior in large grazers was absent, according to strontium isotopic analysis.

This systematic review and meta-analysis of 53 randomized controlled trials finds that educational interventions can help students reduce cognitive biases, with a small but statistically significant overall effect.

Cellular senescence is an underlying mechanism of aging. Among older Americans, higher expression of genes linked to cellular senescence is seen in women and those with class II obesity, and is associated with worse health outcomes.

Methylation levels of specific sites in the genome is correlated with aging. Here the authors develop a human-horse clock which could assist in translating anti-aging interventions from humans to horses and vice versa.

The US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub produced medium to long term projections based on different epidemic scenarios. In this study, the authors evaluate 14 rounds of projections by comparing them to the epidemic trajectories that occurred, and discuss lessons learned for future similar projects.

The authors summarize the data produced by phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a resource for better understanding of the human and mouse genomes.

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.

Analysis of copy number alterations in 1,451 patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) and matched patient tumor samples shows strong conservation from patient tumors through late-passage PDXs and a lack of systematic copy number evolution driven by the mouse host.

Polygenic risk scores can help identify individuals at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Here, the authors characterise a multi-ancestry score across nearly 900,000 people, showing that its predictive value depends on demographic and clinical context and extends to related traits and complications.

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.

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

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.

In an updated report on 70 laboratory-confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 cases in the USA between March 2024 and May 2025, the absence of human-to-human transmission to date was confirmed, with no known mutations of resistance to neuroaminidase inhibitors.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Frogs are an ancient and ecologically diverse group of amphibians that include important model systems. This paper reports genome sequences of multiple frog species, revealing remarkable stability of frog chromosomes and centromeres, along with highly recombinogenic extended subtelomeres.

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.

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.

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.