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Nanomechanical sensors that rely on intrinsic resonance frequencies usually present a tradeoff between sensitivity and bandwidth. In this work, the authors realise an optically driven nanorotor featuring high frequency stability and tunability over a large frequency range.

A direct measurement of the gravitational coupling between two 1-mm-radius gold spheres with masses below 100 mg using a torsional pendulum is reported.

Implementation of a genomics-informed prebreeding strategy in a global winter wheat collection enhances the use of genebank accessions and uncovers the value of genetic resources for wheat improvement.

Land use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity change. Here the authors measure diversity across multiple trophic levels in agricultural grassland landscapes of varying management, finding decoupled responses of above- and belowground taxa to local factors and a strong impact of landscape-level land use.

Glaucoma is the most common cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Here, the authors carry out a large meta-analysis of genetic data from individuals of European and Asian ancestry and identify 10 new loci associated with vertical cup-disc ratio, a key factor in the clinical assessment of patients with glaucoma.

Satellite-borne radar systems are promising tools to obtain spatial habitat data with complete geographic coverage. Here the authors show that freely available Sentinel-1 radar data perform as well as standard airborne laser scanning data for mapping biodiversity of 12 taxa across temperate forests in Germany.

The MAGIC investigators report results of a large genome-wide association study meta-analysis to identify common variants influencing fasting glucose homeostasis. They further show that several of the newly discovered loci influencing glycemic traits are also associated with risk of type 2 diabetes.

Long-term stability of ecological communities is vital for maintaining ecosystem functioning. Here, Blüthgen et al. show that greater land-use intensity in grasslands and forests can have negative impacts on the stability of plant and animal communities, driven primarily by variation in asynchrony between species.

Scanning SWATH increases the speed and selectivity of proteomics.

The first operation of the European X-ray free-electron laser facility accelerator based on superconducting technology is reported. The maximum electron energy is 17.5 GeV. A laser average power of 6 W is achieved at a photon energy of 9.3 keV.

Managing landscapes sustainably is challenging given the competing interests of different stakeholder groups. By combining broad ecological data with information on the ecosystem service priorities of multiple stakeholder groups, this study provides a tool to quantify the social impact of land-use changes.

Although co-occurring species may differ widely in their response traits, coordinated functional trait shifts may emerge at the community level in response to environmental factors. Here, the authors use data from 150 grassland sites to identify a coordinated slow-fast strategy response to land-use intensification across above- and belowground taxa.

Relationships between biodiversity and phosphorus cycling and the underlying processes are complex. Here the authors analyse a biodiversity manipulation experiment and an agricultural management gradient to show how plant and mycorrhizal fungal diversity promote phosphorus exploitation.

A DNA-encoded chemical library based on regio- and stereoisomers of phenylalanine has been synthesized and used for affinity-based selections against multiple target proteins. This approach led to the isolation and validation of potent ligands capable of CAR T-cell activation and tumour targeting.

Analyses of a dataset of arthropod biomass, abundance and diversity in grassland and forest habitats in Germany for the period 2008–2017 reveal that drivers of arthropod declines act at the landscape level.

The authors test whether spatial scale (plot, local and landscape) affects the supply of various ecosystem services in grasslands, finding that some services are predicted by plot-level properties while others depend more on landscape-level management.

The wide use of microfluidics for biological analysis demands scalable preparation methods, yet in practice it is very challenging. Here, Wanget al. show a wafer-scale fabrication of nanofluidic chips with single-digit nanometre dimension, which is compatible with standard semiconductor processing.

Reduced central corneal thickness (CCT) is observed in common eye diseases as well as in rare Mendelian disorders. Here, in a cross-ancestry GWAS, the authors identify 19 novel genetic loci associated with CCT, a subset of which is involved in rare corneal or connective tissue disorders.

Managing forests for the supply of multiple ecosystem services (ES) is key given potential trade-offs among services. Here, the authors analyse how forest stand attributes generate trade-offs among ES and the relative contribution of forest attributes and environmental factors to predict services.

Both a high number of species and abundance in multiple trophic levels are required for ecosystems to continue to provide the services humans require of them.

Analysis of a large grassland biodiversity dataset shows that increases in local land-use intensity cause biotic homogenization at landscape scale across microbial, plant and animal groups, both above- and belowground, that is largely independent of changes in local diversity.

Saldanha, Zhu et al. present an integrated pipeline combining weakly supervised learning with local artificial intelligence (AI) model training via swarm learning (SL) to circumvent a need for centralized data sharing. Deploying SL internationally with on-site data processing addresses challenges such as data privacy and annotation variability enabling AI training across international datasets while preserving data privacy.

This protocol describes an approach to generate chemically modified aptamers using CuAAC click chemistry. Such aptamers possess extended interaction properties and can be identified by in vitro selection procedures using established SELEX strategies.