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Hepatocytes grown in a dish are immature and do not metabolize compounds as a real liver would. Here, the authors supply stem cell-derived hepatocytes with amino acids at a higher concentration than nutritionally necessary, changing the metabolism of these cells, making them more mature and useful for drug screening and toxicity studies.

Pyrolysis gas chromatography–mass spectrometry reveals the presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in human kidney, liver and brain tissue samples from 2016 and 2024, with higher proportions found in the brain.

High-depth sequencing of targeted regions in primary breast cancer identifies mutated promoter elements with recurrent mutations at specific and/or nearby bases, suggesting selection of certain non-coding events.

Plants may respond to light competition by growing upwards, via physiological changes that maximise performance under low light, or by growing laterally. Here Gruntman et al. show that the light-competition scenario determines the strategy employed by the clonal plant Potentilla reptans.

Investment in climate and energy startups is growing in the United States. Here the authors show that public grants back high-risk areas, and that publicly funded startups exit at higher rates with corporate backing than with other private investment.

Personalized medicine requires accurate and ethnicity-optimized reference genome panels. Here, the Consortium on Asthma among African-ancestry Populations in the Americas (CAAPA) evaluates typical variant filters and existing genome databases against newly sequenced African-ancestry populations.

Patricia Munroe, Christopher Newton-Cheh, Andrew Morris and colleagues perform association studies in over 340,000 individuals of European ancestry and identify 66 loci, of which 17 are novel, involved in blood pressure regulation. The risk SNPs are enriched for cis-regulatory elements, particularly in vascular endothelial cells.

Chiea Chuen Khor, Tin Aung and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association study of primary angle closure glaucoma. They identify five new susceptibility loci and provide insights into disease pathogenesis.

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities provides an opportunity for clearing roadblocks to city action. The special report needs to provide the evidence base required to convince nation-states that cities are indispensable partners, while showing development banks and the private sector how to jump-start and accelerate city financing.

A global shortage of suitable donor kidneys is the primary challenge in kidney transplantation. In this Review, the authors describe different methods of donor kidney preservation, discussing the strengths and limitations of each method and noting how advances in donor organ perfusion could improve organ utilization and patient outcomes.

A strategy for inferring phase for rare variant pairs is applied to exome sequencing data for 125,748 individuals from the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD). This resource will aid interpretation of rare co-occurring variants in the context of recessive disease.

Granular cell tumors (GCTs) are rare tumors that arise in multiple anatomical locations. Here, the authors investigate the genomics of GCTs, finding inactivating somatic mutations in ATP6AP1 or ATP6AP2 in 72% of the 82 GCTs analyzed. In vitro manipulation of these genes recapitulated GCT phenotypes in cellular models.

Enhancers and promoters are different types of regulatory elements with shared architectural and functional features. Here the authors perform integrated cross-mammalian analyses of DNase hypersensitivity, chromatin modification and transcriptional data, to provide evidence of regulatory repurposing during evolution.

A more sustainable agriculture is needed to address global food security and environmental degradation. This scoping review surveys the incentives for farmers to adopt sustainable practices benefiting their farms, the environment or both.

Richard Murray of Innovate UK explains to Nature Materials how innovation derived from research findings can boost the production of wealth.

Integrative analysis of copy number and gene expression in 2,000 primary breast tumours with long-term clinical follow-up revealed putative cis-acting driver genes, novel subgroups and trans-acting aberration hotspots that modulate subgroup-specific gene networks.

A tether-less and battery-less implant allows for the recording of electroencephalograms, electromyograms and body temperature in freely moving small animals, and for closed-loop neuromodulation via optogenetics and pharmacology.

Cancer cells are characterised by abnormalities in the number of centrosomes and this phenotype is linked with tumorigenesis. Here the authors report centriole length deregulation in a subset of cancer cell lines and suggest a link with subsequent alterations in centriole numbers and chromosomal instability.

Müller-Tidow and colleagues perform a randomized clinical trial and show that administration of convalescent plasma improves COVID-19 outcome in patients with cancer who are unable to generate an adequate immune response.

On the Moon, extensional tectonic features have only been observed close to the influence of the mare basalt-filled basins and floor-fractured craters. Analysis of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images reveals several potentially very young extensional tectonic features in the farside highlands, implying that extensional stresses may locally exceed compressional ones.

The planet Mercury has contracted over its history. The identification of small thrust fault scarps suggests the occurrence of tectonic activity on Mercury within the past 50 million years and thus a slow-cooling planetary interior.

The sign of switching currents in supercurrent diodes depends on their flow direction, however effective strategies to control it in single platforms with large efficiency are missing. The authors realise a supercurrent diode in superconducting weak links that is tunable both in amplitude and sign of switching current by an out of-plane magnetic field in a regime without magnetic screening.

p62 is a signaling hub protein that contributes to the control of energy expenditure. Here the authors investigate the relative roles of p62 and a similar protein, NBR1, and show that NBR1 is required for the repression of thermogenesis in adipocytes occurring in the absence of p62.

Serological detection of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 can help establish rates of seroconversion. Here the authors develop a red cell agglutination test to detect antibodies against the receptor binding domain for distribution free of charge to qualified research groups.

A wooded flora thrived during the Late Miocene greenhouse climate in the currently hyperarid Peruvian desert, according to analysis of paleobotanical samples from the Pisco Formation, Peru.

Modeling brain modular structure by accounting for higher-order interactions reveals a novel organization of the transmodal cortex and highlights brain areas with high and low topological specialization in healthy individuals and across the lifespan.

Evergreen crowberry biomass increased in contrast to deciduous shrubs and herbaceous plants, affecting reindeer pasture quality and diversity according to an analysis combining reindeer data and a vegetation resurvey in twenty districts in Norway.