Search

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

Transgenic American cotton resistant to lepidopteran pests increases yields and revenues while reducing pesticide use compared to non-GM varieties. However, when grown without artificial irrigation the economic benefits over Asiatic cotton are less clear.

Recent estimates of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) intake are generally unavailable. Here the authors show a global SSBs intake of 2.7 servings/week in 2018 in adults (range: 0.7 South Asia, 7.8 Latin America/Caribbean); intakes were higher among males, younger, more educated, and urban adults.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

A scale-independent theory of habitat complexity based on three key surface descriptors explains substantial variation in coral reef biodiversity.

Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

An analysis based on data from the Global Dietary Database shows mean animal-sourced food intakes among children and adolescents increased modestly from 1990 to two portions per day in 2018, but remain low in sub-Saharan Africa, India and Bangladesh.

How we juggle morally conflicting outcomes during learning remains unknown. Here, by comparing variants of reinforcement learning models, the authors show that participants differ substantially in their preference, with some choosing actions that benefit themselves while others choose actions that prevent harm.

How accurate are social scientists in predicting societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? Grossmann et al. report the findings of two forecasting tournaments. Social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models.

Room-temperature single photon sources with memory capabilities are promising for quantum information processing, but are currently limited in their memory time or photon purity. Here, the authors report single photon emission with good antibunching from an atomic vapour cell source with 0.68 ms memory time.

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.

Abdellaoui et al. synthesize genomic evidence on the link between socio-economic status and heredity. They show how social stratification may create selection pressures, meaning that individuals are clustered in distinct environments. This may have consequences for genetic architectures and social inequality.

Dietary quality is reported at the global, regional and national level across 185 countries. Though diet quality increased modestly since 1990 at the global level, in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa it did not improve. In some regions, children’s dietary quality is lower than that of adults.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has identified a nearby, bright, quiescent M dwarf star that hosts two sub-Neptune-sized planets and one super-Earth-sized planet. The system is eminently suitable for follow-up studies of transit timing variations, radial velocity measurements and transmission spectroscopy.

A study leveraging transsynaptic tracing demonstrates rapid and extensive integration of human glioblastoma organoids into the mouse brain.

Yaron and colleagues collected and classified 412 experiments relating to four leading theories in consciousness research, providing a comprehensive overview of the field and unravelling trends and methodological biases.

A genome-wide association study of critically ill patients with COVID-19 identifies genetic signals that relate to important host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage that may be targeted by repurposing drug treatments.

Using large-scale mobility data from diverse cities around the globe, a simple and robust scaling law that captures the temporal and spatial range of population movement is revealed.

The 12 January 2010 M_w 7.0 Haiti earthquake exhibited primarily strike-slip motion but unusually generated a tsunami. An extensive field survey reveals that coastal strike-slip fault systems produce relief conducive to rapid sedimentation, erosion and slope failure, so that even modest predominantly strike-slip earthquakes can cause potentially catastrophic slide-generated tsunamis.

Genome-wide association analyses of magnetic resonance imaging data describe the genetic architecture of 13 cortical phenotypes at both global and regional levels, implicating neurodevelopmental and constrained genes.

A normative digital atlas of fetal brain maturation produced using 1,059 optimal quality, three-dimensional ultrasound brain volumes from 899 fetuses presents a unique spatiotemporal benchmark from a large cohort with normative postnatal growth and neurodevelopment at 2 years of age.

Ancient DNA reveals genetic differences between stone-tool users and people associated with ceramic technology in the Caribbean and provides substantially lower estimates of population sizes in the region before European contact.

Detecting the targets of positive selection in the human genome is challenging. Here, the authors combine modern and ancient genomes to show that alleles strongly differentiated between Africans and Europeans mediated local adaptation in European populations, and were mostly contributed by ancient hunter-gatherers.

The Nature Relationship Index offers a new way to measure and engage human aspirations to shape a better future for people and all life on Earth.

The rhesus macaque is an important model species in several branches of science, but the utility of this model would be enhanced by the ability to measure behaviour throughout pose. Here, the authors describe a deep learning-based markerless motion capture system for estimating 3D pose in freely moving macaques.

Sharp distinctions often drawn between machine and biological intelligences have not tracked advances in the fields of developmental biology and hybrid robotics. We call for conceptual clarity driven by the science of diverse intelligences in unconventional spaces and at unfamiliar scales and embodiments that blur conventional categories.

Yoo and colleagues find that while pursuing virtual prey, monkeys predict the prey’s upcoming movements, and neurons in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex tracked prey position, velocity and acceleration to facilitate these predictions.

Data on the richness and composition of the skin microbiome from 2,349 individual amphibians, representing 205 species across a broad geographic range, is compared with local biotic and abiotic environmental factors.

A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs) target protein kinase A to specific locations within the cell. Here, the authors identify SPHKAP as an AKAP that enriches protein kinase A near ER-plasma membrane contact sites in brain neurons.

Strategically perceiving and conceiving problems facilitates the effective use of limited cognitive resources.

No noncontextual hidden-variable model can be consistent with quantum theory, but proving such an inconsistency with nature itself is a long-standing problem. Here, the authors devise experimentally-achievable tests of noncontextuality and perform a photonic implementation that rules out such models.

The BTK inhibitor ibrutinib is used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, however some patients develop resistance to the drug. Here, the authors use genomic analyses to examine the clonal evolution of 5 patients that develop resistance to ibrutinib.

The authors investigate how associative conditioning in gene regulatory networks (GRNs) affects their causal emergence. They show that biological GRNs show increased causal emergence after training, more than random networks.

Brain and skull development are intimately related across tetrapods. Here, the authors show a close relationship between brain and skull roof across evolutionary transitions and ontogenetic stages of reptiles.

The number of publications in artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasing exponentially and staying on top of progress in the field is a challenging task. Krenn and colleagues model the evolution of the growing AI literature as a semantic network and use it to benchmark several machine learning methods that can predict promising research directions in AI.

The gut microbiota can play various roles in the host's physiology, but is not known to influence the germ line. Here, Elgart et al. show that certain extracellular gut bacteria can affect oogenesis and embryo development in the fruit fly.

General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations with general relativistic radiative transfer reproduce remarkably well the broadband spectrum and morphology of the innermost jet of M87, allowing some first rough constraints on the spin of M87*.

It is unclear whether the sequence and timing of early life neurodevelopment varies across human populations, excluding the effects of disease or malnutrition. Here, the authors show that children of healthy, urban, educated mothers show very similar development across five geographically diverse populations.