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Ten years after the discovery of the Higgs boson, the ATLAS  experiment at CERN probes its kinematic properties with a significantly larger dataset from 2015–2018 and provides further insights on its interaction with other known particles.

Inorganic nitrate and nitrite from endogenous or dietary sources are metabolized in vivo to nitric oxide (NO) and other bioactive nitrogen oxides. The nitrate-nitrite-NO pathway is emerging as an important mediator of blood flow regulation, cell signaling, energetics and tissue responses to hypoxia. The latest advances in our understanding of the biochemistry, physiology and therapeutics of nitrate, nitrite and NO were discussed during a recent 2-day meeting at the Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

García-Prat, Perdiguero, Alonso-Martín et al. show that skeletal muscle contains a subpopulation of quiescent stem cells, maintained by FoxO signalling, that is preserved into late life but declines in advanced geriatric age.

A genome-wide-association meta-analysis of 18,381 austim spectrum disorder (ASD) cases and 27,969 controls identifies five risk loci. The authors find quantitative and qualitative polygenic heterogeneity across ASD subtypes.

This study uses gene expression predictors for the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other brain regions to perform a transcriptomic imputation analysis of schizophrenia, identifying 413 genic associations across 13 brain regions and 36 significantly enriched pathways.

Fort et al. identify CYRI as a conserved negative modulator of Scar–WAVE-induced lamellipodia by interacting directly with active Rac1, thereby conferring pseudopod plasticity and dynamics during motility.

Using a sample of more than 1 million individuals, Hatoum et al. identify genomic loci associated with general and substance-specific addiction risk.

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.

Some antiseizure medications including valporate are associated with neurodevelopmental conditions in children exposed in utero but evidence is less clear for other drugs. Here the authors investigate associations between antiseizure medication use in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental conditions using electronic health record data from the UK and Sweden.

The authors defined a roadmap for investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders. Their proof-of-concept study using the largest available common variant data sets for schizophrenia and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures did not find evidence of genetic overlap.

Of the 342 planets so far discovered orbiting other stars, 58 'transit' the stellar disk; the light from the star passes through the atmosphere of the planet, and in a few cases the basic atmospheric composition of the planet can be estimated. The transmission spectrum of our planet, obtained during a lunar eclipse, is now reported, with implications for the search to find analogues of Earth.

Mutations in LSM11 and RNU7-1, which encode components of the replication-dependent histone pre-mRNA–processing complex, cause an autoinflammatory syndrome due to enhanced interferon signaling mediated by the cGAS–STING pathway, showing an essential role for nuclear histones in suppressing the immunogenicity of self-DNA.

Genome-wide association analyses, functionally informed fine-mapping and complementary gene prioritization approaches identify new risk loci and candidate effector genes for CAD.

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

Transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of blood samples from individuals with COVID-19 reveals immune cell and hematopoietic progenitor cell alterations that are differentially associated with disease severity.

Astronomical research facilities, such as space telescopes, space probes or ground-based observatories, are the largest contributor to an astronomer’s carbon footprint, well beyond other activities such as flying to conferences or running computer simulations.

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a rare genetic disease causing multisystem tumour growth. Here the authors analyse 111 TSC-associated tissues for TSC1/TSC2 status, DNA mutations, copy number aberrations, differential gene expression and DNA methylation patterns providing a comprehensive genomic landscape.

There is high prevalence of whole genome duplication (WGD) in high grade serous ovarian cancer. Here, the authors compare tumours with and without WGD and find that those that acquired WGD early during tumour evolution are associated with worse survival and have the lowest expression of MHC-II.

Observations of the gas-giant exoplanet WASP-121b reveal near-infrared emission lines of water, suggesting that the planet has a stratosphere—a layer in the upper atmosphere where temperature increases with altitude.

The translocation and assembly module (TAM) is a nanomachine responsible for assembly of proteins into the outer membrane of pathogenic bacteria. Here, Shen et al.use magnetic contrast neutron reflectrometry to visualize movements within the TAM and insertion of a substrate protein into the lipid bilayer.

Trypanosomes evade the immune response through antigenic variation of a surface coat containing variant surface glycoproteins (VSG). They also express invariant surface glycoproteins (ISGs), which are less well understood. Here, Macleod et al. show that ISG65 of T. brucei is a receptor for complement component 3. They provide the crystal structure of T. brucei ISG65 in complex with complement C3d and show evidence that ISG65 is involved in reducing trypanosome susceptibility to C3-mediated clearance in vivo.

HNF1B is overexpressed in the clear cell subtype and epigenetically silenced in the serous subtype of ovarian cancer. Pearce and colleagues now show that genetic variants in HNF1B are differentially associated with risks of developing these two cancer subtypes, possibly through an epigenetic mechanism.

Myosin Va is a two-headed molecular motor that transports cargo inside cells by moving along actin filaments. The trailing head detaches and swings 72 nm forward to bind to a new leading position. During the processive movement at least one of the heads remain bound to actin. This report visualizes the movement of a fluorescently-labelled myosin Va molecule while simultaneously observing the binding and dissociation of a fluorescent ATP analogue. This is the first direct demonstration of nucleotide binding to and movement of myosin V motors during stepping.

Describing anaerobic short chain alkane degrading archaea at a newly discovered cold seep, the authors here suggest that these organisms play much more important roles in submarine carbon cycling globally than previously thought.

Leveraging independent gains and losses of eusociality, the authors identify complementary signatures of selection in sweat bee genomes, including two proteins that bind and transport juvenile hormone.

Environmental influences during prenatal development may have implications for health and disease later in life. Here, Czamara et al. assess DNA methylation in cord blood from new-born under various models including environmental and genetic effects individually and their additive or interaction effects.

Leftover materials in protoplanetary disks form planets, shaping their chemistry, atmospheres and habitability. This Review highlights how planetesimal formation and pebble accretion explain planetary compositions, influencing volatile delivery and atmospheric development, with implications for planetary habitability beyond our Solar System.

Ultraviolet irradiation of simple ice mixtures present in the interstellar medium can lead to the synthesis of organic species, which could behave as the precursors to life on primordial Earth following asteroidal and cometary delivery. These reactions and their products are discussed herein.

Sexual dimorphism in genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia, systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjögren’s syndrome is linked to differential protein abundance from alleles of complement component 4.

Endometrial cancer is the most common invasive gynaecological cancer in developed countries. Here a meta-analysis identifies an additional nine novel endometrial cancer risk loci and eQTL analysis reveals risk variants associate with reduced expression of negative regulators of oncogenic signal transduction proteins.

Most confirmed susceptibility variants for epithelial ovarian cancer lie in non-protein-coding sequences. Here Permuth-Wey and colleagues investigate variants in 3′ untranslated regions (UTRs) and uncover a new susceptibility locus.

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.

Last year, three Earth-sized planets were discovered to be orbiting the nearby Jupiter-sized star TRAPPIST-1; now, follow-up photometric observations from the ground and from space show that there are at least seven Earth-sized planets in this star system, and that they might be the right temperature to harbour liquid water on their surfaces.

Depression is correlated with many brain-related traits. Here, Shen et al. perform phenome-wide association studies of a depression polygenic risk score (PRS) and find associations with 51 behavioural and 26 neuroimaging traits which are further followed up on using Mendelian randomization and mediation analyses.

The Cassini spacecraft has provided an unprecedented characterisation of seasonal changes on Saturn. Here the authors describe the development of a warm polar vortex in Saturn’s northern summer, and show that the hexagon extends hundreds of kilometres from the troposphere into the stratosphere.

The study of an iron-fertilized phytoplankton bloom dominated by diatoms, which takes up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, shows that a substantial proportion of the bloom eventually sinks to the deep-sea floor, sequestering the carbon for timescales of centuries or more.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for cognitive ability identifies 190 new loci and implicates 939 new genes related to neurogenesis, neuron differentiation and synaptic structure.

The heterogeneity of androgen receptor (AR) gene alterations across metastases in prostate cancer remains unresolved. Here, the authors characterise AR genomic complexity across spatially separated lethal metastases from 10 prostate cancer patients and investigate how AR alterations evolve.

Understanding the effect of vaccination on emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern is of increasing importance. Here, James et al. report that two doses of vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine induce more robust immune responses to the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 SARS-CoV-2 lineages than does natural infection.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has a limited host range and current animal models can only recapitulate certain aspects of HBV replication. Here, the authors show that expression of the HBV receptor NTCP in macaques supports HBV replication in vivo, suggesting this as animal model for future HBV studies.

Epidermal growth factor receptors have been shown to oligomerise upon binding to their cognate ligands. Here, the authors use biochemical, biophysical and cell biology techniques to analyse the structures of these oligomers, and argue that these formations are required for signalling.