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This study of 50 wild Western chimpanzee mother–offspring dyads revealed no evidence of disorganized attachment. Instead, offspring exhibited secure-like and insecure avoidant-like behaviours during threats, consistent with the theory that attachment is an adaptive trait.

The first total synthesis of conolidine — representing the first asymmetric synthesis of a C5-nor-stemmadenine — is described. The chemical synthesis proceeds in just nine steps and gives an 18% overall yield from a commercially available pyridine — an achievement that led to the discovery that (+)-, (–)- and (±)-conolidine are potent non-opioid analgesics.

This multi-omic longitudinal analysis of the healthy human peripheral immune system constructs the Human Immune Health Atlas and assembles data on immune cell composition and state changes with age, including responses to cytomegalovirus infection and influenza vaccination.

Coarctate reactions, involving the simultaneous formation and cleavage of two bonds at single or multiple atoms, have remained largely unexplored for biomolecular applications. Here, the authors use an azo-ene-yne coarctate reaction to synthesize isoindazole-based N-heterocycles and explore their applications in the synthesis of unnatural amino acids and drug conjugates, and late-stage peptide functionalization.

A chiral ammonium salt mediates a dynamic kinetic resolution of racemic α-aryl ketones by atropselective O-alkylation. Oxidation with DDQ gives access to C₂-symmetric and non-symmetric BINOL derivatives in high yields and with high enantioselectivity.

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.

In contrast to phosphine and arsine oxides, stibine oxides have been challenging to isolate in monomeric forms as they tend to polymerize. Now, such a SbO moiety has been kinetically stabilized using sterically bulky protecting groups, and its reactivity found to be substantially different to that of its lighter pnictogen counterparts.

The temporal order of neuronal firing within bursts of population spiking in the human anterior temporal lobe is dependent on the category as well as the identity of the individual stimulus, and this encodes information independently of spike rate or latency.

Controlling macrocycle conformation represents a powerful tool for the construction of new bioactive molecules. Now, peptide-based macrocycles bearing a 1,3,4-oxadiazole moiety grafted into their backbone have been synthesized via a new cyclization approach. The resulting cyclic products exhibit conformationally rigid turn structures (stabilized through intramolecular hydrogen bonding) that can display passive membrane permeability.

Wittig et al. show that attention in the service of verbal memory triggers a preparatory suppression of neural activity in the human anterior temporal lobe, suggesting that this region is a novel and unexpected source of attentional control.

Holger Prokisch and colleagues report whole-exome sequencing of an individual with severe complex I deficiency, followed by screening in an additional 120 cases. They identify mutations in ACAD9 as causal for complex I deficiency.

Strontium isotope analysis can be applied to animal and plant tissues to help determine their provenance. Here, the authors generate a strontium isoscape of sub-Saharan Africa using data from 2266 environmental samples and demonstrate its efficacy by tracing the African roots of individuals from historic slavery contexts.

The A.27 SARS-CoV-2 lineage spread globally in 2021 but did not become dominant. Here, the authors show that A.27 shares some mutations in the spike gene that are present in variants of concern, but lacks the D614G mutation, indicating independent evolution of immune escape properties.

Endothelial cells play a critical role in the adaptation of tissues to injury and show a remarkable plasticity. Here the authors show, using single cell sequencing, that endothelial cells acquire a transient mesenchymal state associated with metabolic adaptation after myocardial infarction.

Monitoring of western chimpanzee populations in Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire reveals the presence of rare and different genotypes of Mycobacterium leprae, suggesting greater circulation in wild animals than previously thought.

Sequential neural spiking activity is a potential substrate for learning and memory across species. Here, the authors showed spiking in the human cortex forms an average backbone sequence, and flexibility around this backbone is associated with cognition.

Pre conditioning injury or environmental enrichment have been shown to promote axon regeneration. Here the authors show that environmental enrichment, combined with preconditioning injury promotes regeneration via a redox signalling dependent mechanism.

An artificial molecular machine was designed by coupling a chemical equilibrium to a photoresponsive molecular motor. Upon light illumination, the rotary movement of the motor performs work on the chemical equilibrium generating a far-from-equilibrium state.

An essential ingredient of future worldwide quantum communication is the generation of long-lived entangled quantum states; a coherence time of six hours is now reported for optically addressable nuclear spins in europium-doped yttrium orthosilicate.

A tethered macrocyclic peptide antibiotic class described here—which shows potent antibacterial activity against carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii—blocks the transport of bacterial lipopolysaccharide from the inner membrane to its destination on the outer membrane through inhibition of the LptB₂FGC complex.

Environmental variability is one potential driver of behavioural and cultural diversity in humans and other animals. Here, the authors show that chimpanzee behavioural diversity is higher in habitats that are more seasonal and historically unstable, and in savannah woodland relative to forested sites.

The sensory cortices of many mammals consist of modules in the form of cortical columns. By analyzing functional connectivity and neural responses to visual stimuli, the authors show that this organization may extend to the human temporal lobe.

Xie et al. combine intracranial recording, brain stimulation and lesion case study to show that the human medial temporal lobe is involved in the quality of short-term memory representation.

Memories formed around the same time are linked together by a shared temporal context. Here, the authors show that the ability to selectively retrieve distinct episodic memories formed close together in time is related to how quickly neural representations of temporal context change over time during encoding.

Na⁺ controls the function of the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation system and hypoxic redox signalling through an unexpected interaction with phospholipids.

Jonathan Marchini and colleagues with the Ox-GSK consortium report a meta-analysis for smoking phenotypes from 20 studies including 41,150 individuals, confirming an association at the CHRNA5–CHRNA3 locus on 15q25 to smoking quantity. They use imputation based on 1,000 Genomes Project Pilot 1 data to refine the association at this locus.

EnzymeML is an XML-based markup language that enables FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) storage and exchange of enzymatic data such as reaction conditions, the time course of the substrate and the product, kinetic parameters and the kinetic model.

Surbeck and colleagues investigate the proximate drivers of female gregariousness in bonobos and chimpanzees across different observed communities. Their findings indicate that varied levels of sexual signalling in these two species result in different social behaviours regarding female grouping and potentially cooperation.

Genome-wide association analysis of 8,956 German individuals identifies 38 genetic loci associated with single bacteria and overall microbiome composition.

An anthrax-causing agent, Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis, is a persistent and widespread cause of death for a broad range of mammalian hosts in a tropical rainforest, with important implications for the conservation of mammals such as chimpanzees.

A meta-analysis of studies on chimpanzees and bonobos across Africa shows that their conspecific aggression is the normal and expected product of adaptive strategies to obtain resources or mates and has no connection with the impacts of human activities.

In wild chimpanzees, shared community and non-genetic maternal effects are determined to be a more powerful force compared to genetic inheritance in shaping urinary cortisol levels.

Lester and colleagues use faecal samples and genetic analyses to investigate the genetic connectivity across chimpanzees. Their results indicate that the global pattern of genetic diversity in chimpanzees is largely characterized by a pattern of isolation by distance with several isolated populations exhibiting strong local differentiation.