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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.

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.

A cohort study tracking 20-year age-related declines in multiple organ systems finds that, already by midlife, those aging fastest showed cognitive declines, signs of brain aging, diminished sensory–motor function and negative views about aging.

Here, the authors created a virtual reality task for monkeys and mice to explore if internal states like attention are similar across species. Their facial expressions during the task were similar, suggesting facial expressions reflect shared internal states.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

Actin filament polymerization is crucial for building sound-sensitive stereocilia in the cochlea. Here, the authors show that a myosin motor can nucleate actin filaments, revealing a mechanism for stereocilia growth and hereditary hearing loss.

ALMA observations of the protoplanetary disk around HD 100546 reveal an unexpected C/O variation with azimuth. The carbon-dominated wedge of the disk can be reproduced via a model with a shadowing mechanism.

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.

Maps of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) help identify new components of pathways, complexes, and processes. In this work, state-of-the-art methods are used to identify binary Drosophila PPIs, generating broadly useful physical and data resources.

Federated ML (FL) provides an alternative to train accurate and generalizable ML models, by only sharing numerical model updates. Here, the authors present the largest FL study to-date to generate an automatic tumor boundary detector for glioblastoma.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Solid organ transplant recipients are at increased risk of infectious disease and have unique molecular pathophysiology. Here the authors use host-microbe profiling to assess SARS-CoV-2 infection and immunity in solid organ transplant recipients, showing enhanced viral abundance, impaired clearance, and increased expression of innate immunity genes.

The genomic landscape of diffuse gliomas remains to be characterised. Here, the authors perform whole genome sequencing of 403 tumours and identify recurrent coding and non-coding genetic mutations, their associations with clinical outcomes and potential therapeutic targets.

Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

COVID-19 can be associated with neurological complications. Here the authors show that markers of brain injury, but not immune markers, are elevated in the blood of patients with COVID-19 both early and months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in those with brain dysfunction or neurological diagnoses.

Gil McVean and colleagues report a meta-analysis of Immunochip studies including over 17,000 multiple sclerosis cases and 30,000 controls, with imputation of classical HLA alleles. They find two interactions involving class II HLA alleles but no evidence for significant epistatic interactions or interactions between HLA and non-HLA risk variants.

Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) is still not well understood. Here the authors provide patient reported outcomes from 590 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and show association of PASC with higher respiratory SARS-CoV-2 load and circulating antibody titers, and in some an elevation in circulating fibroblast growth factor 21.

The role of IgG glycosylation in the immune response has been studied, but less is known about IgM glycosylation. Here the authors characterize glycosylation of SARS-CoV-2 spike specific IgM and show that it correlates with COVID-19 severity and affects complement deposition.

Mixed responses to targeted therapy within a patient are a clinical challenge. Here the authors show that TP53 loss-of-function cooperates with whole genome doubling which increases chromosomal instability. This leads to greater cellular diversity and multiple routes of resistance, which in turn promotes mixed responses to treatment.

Combination of epidemiology, preclinical models and ultradeep DNA profiling of clinical cohorts unpicks the inflammatory mechanism by which air pollution promotes lung cancer

A massive field study whereby many different treatments are tested synchronously in one large sample using a common objectively measured outcome, termed a megastudy, was performed to examine the ability of interventions to increase gym attendance by American adults.

Zika virus (ZIKV) can persist in human semen and sperm, which can result in sexual transmission. Here, Griffinet al. show that a DNA vaccine, expressing ZIKV pre-membrane and envelope proteins, protects mice from infection-associated damage to testes and sperm, and prevents viral persistence in testes.

Studying dynamic processes in mechanobiology has been challenging due to lack of appropriate tools. Here, the authors present an interference-based method, illuminated via two rapidly alternating wavelengths, which enables real-time mapping of nanoscale forces with sub-second mechanical fluctuations.

Immune lymphocyte estimation from nucleotide sequencing (ImmuneLENS) infers B cell and T cell fractions from whole-genome sequencing data. Applied to the 100,000 Genomes Project datasets, circulating T cell fraction provides sex-dependent and prognostic insights in patients.

Swanton and colleagues present a clonal expression signature, ORACLE, which, in combination with clinicopathological and molecular risk factors, can predict survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and they prospectively validate its prognostic value.

How accurate are social scientists in predicting societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? Grossmann et al. report the findings of two forecasting tournaments. Social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models.

The Southern Ocean takes up substantial amounts of heat and carbon. Here the authors show that it has historically accounted for a much greater proportion of global ocean heat uptake—and link this to aerosols depressing uptake in northern oceans—but that future heat and carbon uptake will become more comparable.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loss of heterozygosity, allele-specific mutation and measurement of expression and repression (MHC Hammer) detects disruption to human leukocyte antigens due to mutations, loss of heterogeneity, altered gene expression or alternative splicing. Applied to lung and breast cancer datasets, the tool shows that these aberrations are common across cancer and can have clinical implications.

The heterogeneity of whole-exome sequencing (WES) data generation methods presents a challenge to joint analysis. Here, the authors present a bioinformatics strategy to generate high-quality data from processing diversely generated WES samples, as applied in the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project.

During the Last Glacial Maximum, tropical glacier snowlines were lower than expected, based on estimates of tropical sea surface temperatures. Sea surface temperature reconstructions suggest the Indo-Pacific warm pool was cooler than previously thought; these temperatures and convective mixing processes can explain snowline altitude in this region.

Wu et al. utilize multiparametric analysis of early-stage human NSCLC to characterize a population of Vδ1 T cells displaying a resident memory and effector memory phenotype, which were associated with ongoing remission.

RNA sequencing data and tumour pathology observations of non-small-cell lung cancers indicate that the immune cell microenvironment exerts strong evolutionary selection pressures that shape the immune-evasion capacity of tumours.

Analyses of the TRACERx study unveil the relationship between tissue morphology, the underlying evolutionary genomic landscape, and clinical and anatomical relapse risk of lung adenocarcinomas.

Joint likelihood mapping across six autoimmune diseases identifies shared and distinct association signals and improves fine-mapping resolution at loci with shared effects, yielding insights into the underlying biological mechanisms.

Suthaharan et al. show that levels of paranoia increased in the general population during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, in association with more erratic belief updating. Government policies also played a role.

Auditory responses in zebra finches exposed to a novel canary environment show a surprising transient reversal of typical brain lateralization together with improved discrimination of canary vocalizations, thereby suggesting that lateralization is not fixed, but dynamically regulated.

In lung adenocarcinoma, antibodies against endogenous retroviruses promote anti-tumour activity, and expression of endogenous retroviruses can predict outcomes of immunotherapy.

Patient-derived xenografts are important tools for cancer drug development. Here, the authors develop models from 22 non-small cell lung cancer patients. They show genomic differences between models created from different spatial regions of tumours and a bottleneck on model establishment.

How mechanosensitive ion channels, such as MscL, are activated by lipids and physical properties of the membrane remains unclear. Here authors use PELDOR/DEER spectroscopy and identify a single site which generated an allosteric structural response in the absence of membrane tension.

A survey of T cell repertoire evolution in the tumors, healthy tissue and blood of patients with early-stage untreated lung cancer offers an opportunity to monitor and identify neoantigen-specific T cells for personalized immunotherapy.

Results of the TRACERx study shed new light into the association between body composition and body weight with survival in individuals with non-small cell lung cancer, and delineate potential biological processes and mediators contributing to the development of cancer-associated cachexia.