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Considering air pollution-induced health risks from a consumption perspective is important. Here the authors evaluated the premature deaths resulting from household consumption across 30 Chinese provinces and find that rural households can cause a similar number of pollution-induced deaths as urban households despite a larger and wealthier urban population, due to the combustion of solid fuel.

Building on a nucleosome-depletion strategy, DEFND-seq utilizes a droplet microfluidic platform to enable high-throughput co-profiling of DNA and RNA in single cells.

The heavy-fermion compound YbRh₂Si₂ possesses a quantum critical point, at which the standard theory of electron behaviour in metals is expected to break down; such anomalous behaviour has now been observed.

Reconfigurable materials are of interest for many photonic applications. Here, Montelongo et al. demonstrate optical elements such as Bragg diffraction gratings, volumetric photonic crystals, lenses, and holograms in a composite with dispersed nanoparticles which can be recorded and erased.

Detailed measures of energy use inequality globally and within countries are essential to ensure a just energy transition. Estimating embedded energy in goods and services used by different income groups, Oswald et al. measure the large inequality in energy use in 86 countries, and internationally.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of type 2 diabetes (T2D) identifies more than 600 T2D-associated loci; integrating physiological trait and single-cell chromatin accessibility data at these loci sheds light on heterogeneity within the T2D phenotype.

Human challenge studies with SARS-CoV-2 have shown changes in the innate and adaptive immune response. Here the authors are examining potential correlates of infection in virus challenged recipients by assessing baseline immune parameters and how this predicts virus control.

Although progress in the coverage of routine measles vaccination in children in low- and middle-income countries was made during 2000–2019, many countries remain far from the goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019.

Synovial sarcoma (SS) is a difficult-to-treat cancer, driven by the fusion oncoprotein SS18::SSX. SS18::SSX alters the BAF (mammalian SWI/SNF) chromatin remodelling complex to create an oncogenic transcriptome. Here, the authors identify SS18::SSX-driven SMARCE1 SUMOylation as a therapeutic vulnerability in SS and show that SUMOylation inhibition stabilizes the cBAF complex, inducing cell death and sensitization of SS to chemotherapy.

Fine particulate matter-related mortality attributable to dietary changes and agricultural emissions has increased health inequality across regions and income groups in China, according to an analysis combining emission concentration, mortality, and economic data in the statistical model.

Current-induced motion of magnetic nanostructures, such as skyrmions or domain walls, is envisioned as a promising scalable technology for information storage. Yuet al.demonstrate near-room-temperature motion of skyrmions with current densities orders of magnitude lower than previously reported in domain walls.

Size-exclusion chromatography coupled with multi-angle static light scattering allows for the separation of macromolecules or colloids in suspension and the determination of the molar mass of the components. This Primer covers the equipment, sample preparation and controls needed for a size-exclusion chromatography with multi-angle static light scattering experiment; data processing, applications, limitations and workarounds; and concludes with a review of the applications and challenges in the field.

A purpose-built implantable system based on biomimetic epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord reduces the severity of hypotensive complications in people with spinal cord injury and improves quality of life.

Bats are natural hosts for Marburg virus (MARV), but the mechanism of bat-to-bat transmission is unclear. Here, Schuhet al. monitor MARV infection in a cohort of 38 bats over nine months, find ‘supershedders’ and show that MARV can horizontally transmit between bats.

Charge-neutral excitations have been proposed to explain metal-like thermal transport in Kondo insulators. Here, the authors demonstrate the coupling between charge-neutral excitations and spin degrees of freedom in a Kondo insulator YbIr₃Si₇, which puts restrictions on current theories.

Active fluids exhibit regimes with a complex spatio-temporal structure reminiscent of inertial turbulence. Now, inertial and active turbulence are theoretically shown to be closely related indeed.

There is an urgent need to discover blood-based biomarkers to predict response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Here the authors show that effective ICI therapy correlates with increased frequency of circulating CX3CR1⁺CD8⁺ T cells in preclinical tumor models and in a cohort of patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated with anti-PD-1.

In quantum chromodynamics, the condensation of quark–antiquark pairs breaks the chiral symmetry of vacuum. Experiments with pionic tin atoms demonstrate that the symmetry is partially restored at high densities.

An analysis of the academic employment and doctoral education of faculty members at all PhD-granting US universities from 2011 to 2020 shows that a small minority of universities (20.4%) supply a large majority of faculty members (80.0%).

An analysis of the environmental footprints of consumption finds that planetary boundary transgressions can be mitigated by following an effective mitigation pathway focused on the food and services sectors and high-expenditure consumers.

A CRISPR–Cas9 screen combined with heparan sulfate (HS)-binding reagents identifies genes involved in HS biosynthesis and assembly and reveals the unexpected role of histone demethylase KDM2B in regulating HS presentation on the cell surface.

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

Virtual optical waveguide can be potentially utilised in variety of applications that require in situ light steering yet the efficacy is still unclear. Here, the authors show that ultrasonically-sculpted virtual gradient-index waveguides are effective in guiding and confining light inside tissue and other scattering media, and significantly outperform external lenses at this task.

Eye2Gene’s next-generation phenotyping of multimodal images increases diagnostic yield for inherited retinal diseases by improving screening, phenotype-driven variant prioritization and automatic similarity matching in phenotypic space to drive gene discovery.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

In the river Rhine, almost 70% of litter particles above 1 cm in diameter are plastics, most of which come from single-use items, often from private consumers, but they comprise less than 15% of all litter by weight, according to continuous monitoring over 16 months with a custom-made physical-interception litter trap.

Infection studies on highly pathogenic avian influenza virus clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 on calves and lactating cows indicate that transmission occurs primarily via milk and milking procedures rather than respiratory routes.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

Simul-seq profiles genomes and transcriptomes by uniquely barcoding DNA and RNA reads from the same material.

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.

Optical receivers based on graphene still suffer from low responsivity. Here, the authors integrate a photo-thermoelectric graphene photodetector with a Si micro-ring resonator, and obtain a voltage responsivity ~ 90 V/W and a reduction of energy-per-bit consumption, enabling performance on par with mature semiconductor technology.