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Papaya is a trioecious species with XX females, XY males, and XY^h hermaphrodites, and the combination of Y and Y^h chromosomes is lethal. Here, the authors identify the degeneration of the YY lethality gene on the Y chromosome as the causal balancing lethal factor that reenforces dioecy and stabilizes balanced sex ratios.

We introduce meta-amplified dark-field interferometric scattering microscopy, which uses a plasmonic metasurface to enhance sensitivity and contrast by converting nanoparticle-induced phase perturbations into strong far-field scattering signals.

In this work, the authors demonstrate nonlinearity-engineered dissipative quadratic solitons (DQS) for the first time. Moreover, they achieve an in-situ sign reversal of the effective nonlinearity, enabling a transition from bright DQS to platicon generation without requiring any dispersion engineering.

NatD is an acetyltransferase responsible for N-α-terminal acetylation of the histone H4 and H2A and has been linked to cell growth. Here the authors show that NatD-mediated acetylation of histone H4 serine 1 competes with the phosphorylation by CK2α at the same residue thus leading to the upregulation of Slug and tumor progression.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

This study proposes a p-block metal coordination strategy to engineer the single-atom Fe sites for improving the selectivity of Fe^IV = O generation in peroxymonosulfate (PMS)-based Fenton-like reactions

Protecting healthy and stable wetlands is important for retaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. Using a nationwide wetland survey in the United States, the authors find that wetland productivity and stability are more strongly associated with community-level plant traits than with plant functional diversity.

It is uncertain how much life expectancy of the Chinese population would improve under current and greater policy targets on lifestyle-based risk factors for chronic diseases and mortality behaviours. Here we report a simulation of how improvements in four risk factors, namely smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and diet, could affect mortality. We show that in the ideal scenario, that is, all people who currently smokers quit smoking, excessive alcohol userswas reduced to moderate intake, people under 65 increased moderate physical activity by one hour and those aged 65 and older increased by half an hour per day, and all participants ate 200 g more fresh fruits and 50 g more fish/seafood per day, life expectancy at age 30 would increase by 4.83 and 5.39 years for men and women, respectively. In a more moderate risk reduction scenario referred to as the practical scenario, where improvements in each lifestyle factor were approximately halved, the gains in life expectancy at age 30 could be half those of the ideal scenario. However, the validity of these estimates in practise may be influenced by population-wide adherence to lifestyle recommendations. Our findings suggest that the current policy targets set by the Healthy China Initiative could be adjusted dynamically, and a greater increase in life expectancy would be achieved.

In a prespecified interim analysis of the randomized, double-blind phase 3 COMPASSION-15 trial, patients with advanced HER2-negative gastric/GEJ cancer treated with the anti-PD-L1/CTLA-4 bispecific Ab cadonilimab plus chemotherapy showed significantly improved overall survival compared with patients treated with placebo plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the phase 2 trial NEOSUMMIT-01, perioperative treatment of patients with locally advanced gastric or gastro-esophageal junction adenocarcinoma with anti-PD-1 and SOX/XELOX versus SOX/XELOX alone improved pathological complete response or near-complete response rate.

Terrestrial ecosystems are expected to release more carbon under warming due to temperature-driven increases in ecosystem respiration. Here the authors use eddy covariance data to show that respiration may adapt to warmer temperatures and carbon losses may be lower than expected.

Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) plays a key role in soil carbon storage. Here, the authors show that CUE declines with soil depth across 60 forest sites, driven by microbial diversity in topsoil and by physicochemical protection in deeper layers.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal disease characterized by rapid motor neuron (MN) degeneration, with unclear causes in sporadic cases. Here, the authors showed that N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA modification drives ALS, and restoring it may protect MNs and lessen motor issues.

Multicomponent catalytic reactions that generate enantioenriched boronic esters are underdeveloped. Now an N-heterocyclic carbene–nickel catalyst promotes enantioselective alkene 1,2-carboboration to access multifunctional alkylboronates, bearing a tertiary or quaternary β-stereocentre.

Cobalt-based subsurface dopants induce a shift in the rate-determining step of electrochemical CO₂ reduction on copper to the chemical step: OCCO* + H* → OCCHO* + *. Electrochemical production of ethylene over the optimized catalyst is achieved at low voltage and high current in a membrane electrode assembly system.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

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.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

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

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

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.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Analysing subtropical forest soils from a 2,000 km transect across China, the authors show that temperature fluctuations can induce the thermal adaptation of microbial respiration, in contrast to findings derived from mean temperature alone.

Protein fusions between the paracaspase MALT1 and API2 (inhibitor of apoptosis 2) are found in B-cell lymphoma. Here the authors identify the tumour suppressor LIMA1 as a new target of API2–MALT1 chimeric protein and show that API2–MALT1-mediated proteolysis generates a LIM domain-only (LMO)-containing fragment with oncogenic properties in vitro and in vivo.

In this Perspective, members of the Aging Biomarker Consortium outline the X-Age Project, an Aging Biomarker Consortium plan for building standardized aging clocks in China. The authors discuss the project roadmap and its aims of decoding aging heterogeneity, detecting accelerated aging early and evaluating geroprotective interventions.

Global meta-analysis of plant species diversity effects on trophic levels of ecosystem functioning, finding beneficial impacts from increased diversity.

Multivalent antigen display on nanoparticles can enhance the immunogenicity of vaccines targeting viral moieties. Here the authors employ DNA origami to rationally design and assemble nanovaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and characterize cellular and humoral immune response in female mice.

The cryo-EM structures of SOS1 in the auto-inhibited and activated states reveal that SOS1 undergoes an inhibition–release process upon activation and uses an elevator transport mechanism for Na⁺/H⁺ exchange in response to salt stress.

Here, the authors warn of the declining stability of soil carbon associated with climate change and human activities. The unprotected soil carbon fraction dominates decadal soil carbon increases.

The magnetic anisotropy of the van der Waals ferromagnet Fe₅GeTe₂ can be continuously tuned—from an initial out-of-plane orientation to a canted orientation and then finally to an in-plane orientation—using electrical gating.

The metabolite agmatine derived from the gut microbiota contributes to a polycystic ovary syndrome-like phenotype in female mice and inhibits the secretion of glucagon-like peptide-1, thereby contributing to metabolic and ovarian dysfunction.