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Modeling analysis from the Global Dietary Database estimated that 70% of new global cases of type 2 diabetes are attributable to suboptimal intake of 11 dietary factors, with substantial differences in dietary risks across world regions and nations.

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.

Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 continue to evolve 6 to 12 months after infection in patients who have recovered from COVID-19, increasing in potency and breadth with time.

Vinyl acetate is an important polymer building block, but the mechanisms governing its catalytic production are not well understood. This study shows that dynamic palladium-acetate clusters determine catalyst efficiency and selectivity in vinyl acetate synthesis.

The patterns of how yield gaps change can suggest likely future outcomes for crop growth. This study conducts a spatial and temporal analysis of yield gaps for ten major crops from 1975 to 2010 and identifies regions where crops are experiencing ‘ceiling pressure’, signalling opportunities to improve future food security.

FACED 2.0 builds on and expands the capabilities of the free-space angular-chirp-enhanced delay microscopy approach. Its high speed, large field of view and volumetric coverage enable two-photon voltage imaging of hundreds of neurons or calcium imaging of thousands of neurons in the mouse or zebrafish brain.

Oat is an important food crop, but the genetic diversity within the gene pool remains unclear. Here, the authors report the analyses of worldwide diversity and population structure of hexaploid oat, and identify signatures of structural rearrangements within the germplasm collection.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet responded to different natural forcing mechanisms than the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the mid-Pliocene due to a greater sensitivity to oceanic feedbacks, according to iceberg-rafted debris records and ice-sheet modelling experiments.

Global high-resolution crop-specific estimates of greenhouse gas emissions intensity (in 2000) reveal that certain cropping practices contribute disproportionately to emissions, making them suitable targets for climate mitigation policies.

Predicting complex phenotypes from genomic information is still a challenge. Here, the authors use an evolutionarily informed machine learning approach within and across species to predict genes affecting nitrogen utilization in crops, and show their approach is also useful in mammalian systems.

The impacts of climate change on agriculture differ regionally and will increase hunger globally. Reducing tariffs and other barriers to international trade would mitigate this, but trade integration requires a careful approach to avoid reducing domestic food security in food-exporting regions.

This study examines the outcomes of dietary shifts across intrinsic and instrumental conservation perspectives, finding that most conservation benefits already come from a partial shift to healthier, more plant-based diets, whereas greater benefits depend on more targeted conservation action.

Predators, including prawns, can suppress schistosomiasis by eating snail hosts. This modelling study finds that two prawn species in sub-Saharan Africa can reduce snail hosts and help control schistosomiasis at densities that maximize profits of associated aquaculture—a potential win–win.

Activated carbon has been widely used for PFAS adsorption, but this method generates secondary solid wastes. The flash Joule heating approach realizes mineralization of PFAS and generation of useful flash graphene in waste granular activated carbon.

Completion of genome sequences for the diploid Setaria italica reveals features of C₄ photosynthesis that could enable improvement of the polyploid biofuel crop switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). The genetic basis of biotechnologically relevant traits, including drought tolerance, photosynthetic efficiency and flowering control, is also highlighted.

Estimates from the Global Dietary Database indicated that 2.2 million new type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages worldwide in 2020, with the highest burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

BRUTUS proteins are thought to act as iron sensors in plants. In-vitro studies provide biochemical evidence for the sensor function, demonstrating dynamic, redox-dependent iron binding to the unusual triple hemerythrin-like domain.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

Metal recycling plays a crucial role in mitigating the shortage of critical metals. Here the authors develop an electrothermal chlorination process incorporating direct electric heating into chlorination metallurgy for rapid and selective recovery of metals that are critical in electronics.

The GIAB genomic stratification resource defines challenging regions in three commonly used human genome references, including the first complete human genome (CHM13). These help understand strengths and weaknesses of sequencing and analysis methods.

In this Viewpoint article, several experts discuss the microbial contributions to climate change and consider the effects of global warming, extreme weather and other consequences of climate change on microbial communities in the ocean and soil, host–microbiota interactions and the global burden of infectious diseases and ecosystem processes, and they explore open questions and research needs.

Whether an actual Mott insulator phase exists in iron pnictides remains elusive. Here, Songet al. demonstrate an antiferromagnetic insulator phase persisting above the Néel temperature in NaFe_1−xCu_xAs, indicative of a Mott insulator, highlighting the role of electron correlations in high-T_csuperconductivity.

The International Strawberry Sequencing Consortium reports the draft genome of the woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca). The genome of this diploid species should serve as a reference genome for the Fragaria genus, as the cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) is an octoploid where F. vesca is predicted to be a subgenome donor.

Symbiotic fungi control network-level structure and flows to meet trade demands.

Structural variations (SV) contribute to inter-individual variability. Here, the authors describe a first-generation multi-ancestry Asian SV catalogue containing 73,035 SVs from 8392 Singaporeans to provide insights into Asian SV diversity.

Material–microbe hybrids represent a promising strategy for harnessing biochemical reactivity using sunlight, yet little is known about the effect of the interaction on the organism. Here the interface of a CO₂- and N₂-fixing bacterium to CdTe alters its biochemical pathways, resulting in quantum efficiency close to the theoretical limit.

The power of pangenomic graphs to improve genetic mapping is still unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate its value in identification of genetic variants associated with disease resistance traits in melon using PanPipes, a pangenome construction and low-coverage genotype-by-sequencing pipeline.

Arachnoid cuff exit points create openings in the arachnoid barrier enabling the drainage of cerebrospinal fluid and exchange of molecules and cells between the dura and the subarachnoid space, therefore physically connecting the brain and the dura.

The PanGenome Research Tool Kit (PGR-TK) achieves flexible and scalable representation, visualization and analysis of genomic variation using pangenome graphs.

A truth-set catalog of human tandem repeats allows benchmarking of variant analysis tools.

A de novo-designed protein that precisely assembles a chlorophyll dimer has been developed. The design matches the conformation of the native ‘special pair’ of chlorophylls that functions as the primary electron donor in natural photosynthetic reaction centers. In the designed protein, excitonically coupled chlorophylls participate in energy transfer. The proteins were also redesigned to assemble into 24-chlorophyll nanocages.

Diversified renewable energy sources can enable the sustainable operation of multisector resource systems. An artificial intelligence-assisted multi-objective design framework, applied in Ghana, explores optimized management and investment strategies balancing hydropower, bioenergy, solar and wind energies, and their impacts.

Light-induced contraction in the out-of-plane direction in two-dimensional (2D) hybrid perovskites enables the realization of high-efficiency 2D perovskite solar cells.

Dense calcium imaging combined with co-registered high-resolution electron microscopy reconstruction of the brain of the same mouse provide a functional connectomics map of tens of thousands of neurons of a region of the primary cortex and higher visual areas.

Sequencing and genomic diversification of five allopolyploid cotton species provide insights into polyploid genome evolution and epigenetic landscapes for cotton improvement.

Genome assembly of durum wheat cultivar Svevo enables genome-wide genetic diversity analyses highlighting modifications imposed by thousands of years of empirical selection and breeding.

Nano-agrochemicals and nanomedicine are two areas of active research. While there are some distinct differences there are areas of overlap and lessons which can be learned. Here, the authors encourage readers to see where lessons can be learned from nanomedicine to avoid issues and advance nano-agriculture.

The perennial grass Miscanthus is a promising biomass crop. Here, via genomics and transcriptomics, the authors reveal its allotetraploid origin, characterize gene expression associated with rhizome development and nutrient recycling, and describe the hybrid origin of the triploid M. x giganteus.

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).

We present the complete 62,460,029-base-pair sequence of a human Y chromosome from the HG002 genome (T2T-Y) that corrects multiple errors in GRCh38-Y and adds over 30 million base pairs of sequence to the reference.

The goal of the 1000 Genomes Project is to provide in-depth information on variation in human genome sequences. In the pilot phase reported here, different strategies for genome-wide sequencing, using high-throughput sequencing platforms, were developed and compared. The resulting data set includes more than 95% of the currently accessible variants found in any individual, and can be used to inform association and functional studies.

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.

Pyrochlore iridates lie at a tuning-free magnetic quantum critical point hosting several complex exotic phenomena. Here, the authors discover an electronic phase separation in single crystalline Pr₂Ir₂O₇, where well-defined Kondo resonances are interweaved with a non-magnetic metallic phase with Kondo-destruction.

Savan and colleagues show that distinct isoforms of the RNA-binding protein ZAP function as an antiviral restriction factor or as an interferon-resolution factor, based on differences in their intracellular localization.

The expansion of agriculture and rangelands can cause ecological spillover effects across cultivated-natural ecosystem boundaries. Here, Luskin et al. show irruptions of oil palm-subsidized wild boar alter the abundance and diversity of understory trees >1 km into a primary forest reserve in Malaysia.

Plant pathogens translocate type III effector (T3E) proteins that may be recognized by plants to trigger immunity. Here, the authors show that the Xanthomonas T3E XopH possesses a novel 1-phytase activity that is required for XopH-mediated immunity of plants carrying the Bs7 resistance gene.