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Nitrogen has a complex phase diagram with rich polymorphism, which is challenging to characterize due to the extreme conditions and uncertain stability ranges needed to do so. Here the authors resolve one of the most elusive phases of this model system, reporting a crystalline structure with unusual complexity.

Molecular systems are predicted to transform into atomic solids and be metallic at high pressure; this was observed for the diatomic elements iodine and bromine. Here the authors access the higher pressures needed to observe the dissociation in chlorine, through an incommensurate phase, and provide evidence for metallization.

The 4D Nucleome Project demonstrates the use of genomic assays and computational methods to measure genome folding and then predict genomic structure from DNA sequence, facilitating the discovery of potential effects of genetic variants, including variants associated with disease, on genome structure and function.

Women in High Pressure, a community tackling gender imbalance in high-pressure research, is driving inclusion, visibility and systemic change — so every scientist can thrive, even under pressure.

Analysis of a fossilized front flipper of the Jurassic ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus that preserves details of soft tissue indicates the presence of a serrated trailing edge that would have reduced noise generated while swimming, enabling stealth hunting and hiding from predators.

Solid hydrogen has increasingly hindered rotation under high pressure, but the effect on spin isomer populations had not been directly probed. Here the authors measure NMR spectra of solid hydrogen up to the megabar, and observe the crossover to a spin 1/2 dipolar system above 70 GPa where distinction between ortho and para spin isomers is lost.

Wastewater treatment plants are important reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Here, the authors analyze ARGs in a global collection of samples from wastewater treatment plants across six continents, providing insights into biotic and abiotic mechanisms that appear to control ARG diversity and distribution.

Africa-specific genetic variation on chromosome 1 near CHD1L is associated with HIV replication in vivo.

Chronic social defeat stress induces loss of protein claudin-5, leading to abnormalities in blood vessel morphology, increased blood brain barrier permeability, infiltration of immune signals and depression-like behaviors.

Megabodies, built by grafting nanobodies onto larger protein scaffolds, help alleviate problems of particle size and preferential orientation at the water–air interfaces during cryo-EM based structure determination experiments and are shown to be generalizable to soluble and membrane-bound proteins.

Nanoparticle-based ‘microgauges’ are developed for in vivo force sensing and deployed in C. elegans to investigate how mechanical force correlates with electrical signalling in neuromuscular organs.

Impaired musical rhythm abilities and developmental speech-language related disorders are biologically and clinically intertwined. Here, the authors explore the correlation between the two traits, finding evidence of epidemiological associations and genetic overlap.

A connectome of the right optic lobe from a male fruitfly is presented together with an extensive collection of genetic drivers matched to a comprehensive neuron-type catalogue.

SNURPORTIN-1, encoded by the SNUPN gene, plays a key role in the nuclear import of spliceosomal small nuclear ribonucleoproteins, however its physiological function remains unclear. Here the authors report that recessive SNUPN mutations cause a distinct subtype of childhood muscular dystrophy and reveal SNURPORTIN-1’s role in muscle homeostasis, offering insights for new therapeutic strategies.

Both plant and animals utilize resistant proteins to recognise pathogens. In this work the authors illustrate how bacterial perception by a tomato resistant protein is communicated in order to protect plants against pathogens.

Metagenomic next-generation sequencing has the potential to support diagnosis of unknown infections as it can identify all potential pathogens without requiring a prior suspected cause. Here, the authors develop and clinically validate a metagenomics-based assay for common and novel respiratory viral pathogens.

A case–control study investigating the causes of recent cases of acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in 32 children identifies an association between adeno-associated virus infection and host genetics in disease susceptibility.

Two different methylation states of the adenosine adjacent to the snRNA cap are found in the biogenesis process of snRNAs, Am and m6Am, whose levels are regulated by FTO and are related to alternative pre-mRNA splicing.

Two nanobodies that bind SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD are shown to block interaction with receptor ACE2 and thus neutralize the virus, and have an additive effect with antibody CR3022.

Inhibitor-induced kinase degradation is a common event that positions supercharging of endogenous degradation circuits as an alternative to classical proximity-inducing degraders.

An investigation using various methods reports an association between adeno-associated virus 2 and paediatric hepatitis of unknown aetiology.

Newly sequenced seagrass genomes unveil a hexaploid ancestry for seagrasses. The transition to marine environments involved fine-tuning of many processes that all had to happen in parallel, probably explaining why adaptation to a marine lifestyle has been rare.

Resonant X-ray excitation of the  ⁴⁵Sc nuclear isomeric state was achieved by irradiation of a Sc-metal foil with 12.4-keV photon pulses from a state-of-the-art X-ray free-electron laser, allowing a high-precision determination of the transition energy.

The N₂-fixing symbiont ‘Candidatus Celerinatantimonas neptuna’ lives inside the root tissue of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, providing ammonia and amino acids to its host in exchange for sugars and enabling highly productive seagrass meadows to thrive in the nitrogen-limited Mediterranean Sea.

Mellman and colleagues show that dendritic cells represent a key source of PD-L1 in the tumor microenvironment, thereby restricting tumor infiltration by CD8⁺ T cells and antitumor responses.

Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome (SDS) is an inherited ribosome assembly disorder that increases the risk for haematopoietic malignancies. Here, the authors analysed clonal selection and evolution in SDS by sequencing patient-derived haematopoietic stem/progenitor cell colonies and exploring the function of key drivers in model organisms.

By leveraging paired microbiome and human gene expression data from pediatric patients who underwent hematopoietic cell transplantation, distinct lung–immune system–microorganism interactions were identified as important drivers of fatal lung injury.

Chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is associated with elevated levels of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Here the authors characterize the T cell responses to three variants of an HBsAg, Evn371-379, to find only the most stable L6I variant eliciting HBsAg responses, while T cells specific for L6I are detectable in both control and people with chronic HBV.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) in plasma can affect pathogenesis of parasites, but details remain unclear. Here, Toda et al. characterize plasma-derived EVs from Plasmodium vivax patients and show that PvEVs are preferentially taken up by human spleen fibroblasts, facilitating parasite cytoadherence.

A pooled genetic, transcriptomic and immunopathologic analysis of over 500 tumors from patients with advanced renal cell cancer suggests that response to PD-1 blockade depends on both CD8⁺ T cell infiltration and enrichment of tumor-intrinsic somatic alterations.

Neutralizing nanobodies (Nb) are of considerable interest as therapeutic agents for COVID-19 treatment. Here, the authors functionally and structurally characterize Nbs that bind with high affinity to the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and show that an engineered homotrimeric Nb prevents disease progression in a Syrian hamster model of COVID-19 when administered intranasally.

Here the authors assess 71 fecal and saliva samples of 48 different zoo animal species, uncovering 585 unreported microbial genomes and revealing 484 complete biosynthetic gene clusters, while comparing the results to wildlife samples.

A symbiosis between a diatom and a newly discovered species of alphaproteobacteria, ‘Candidatus Tectiglobus diatomicola’, can fix nitrogen in the ocean, providing evidence that nitrogen fixers other than cyanobacteria have a key role in the marine environment.

Developmental and epileptic encephalopathies are devastating neurological disorders. Here, the authors establish a cohort of patients with variants in the gene DENND5A and use human stem cells to discover a disease mechanism involving altered cell division.

Cecilia Lindgren and colleagues report results of a large-scale genome-wide association study for waist-to-hip ratio, a measure of body fat distribution. They identify 13 new loci associated with this trait, several of which show stronger effects in women than in men.

Serum MMP8 is increased in stress-susceptible mice following chronic stress and leads to brain structure and behavioural changes in mice.

Genome-wide studies of 1,916 plasma and urine metabolites from 5,023 participants of the German Chronic Kidney Disease study provide insights into systemic and kidney-specific enzymatic and transport processes.

The transmembrane export apparatus regulates protein secretion through bacterial type III secretion systems. New structural data indicate that MxiA, a major component of the apparatus, assembles in a nonameric ring. This and additional structural information provide a framework for understanding how protein secretion is controlled.

Cancers often harbor mutations in genes encoding important regulatory proteins, but therapeutic targeting of these molecules proves difficult due to their high structural similarity to their non-mutated counterpart. Here authors show the engineering of T cell engaging bispecific protein able to selectively target cancer cells with a high-frequency mutation in the KRAS oncogene.

As a ‘safe’ alternative to harmful monomeric halogenated flame retardants, the use of polymeric flame retardants has surged in recent years. The authors show that polymeric flame retardants break down in the environment into small toxic molecules that can pose environmental hazards.

Zhang et al. show that bone marrow fatty acid metabolism fuels expanded leukocyte production after myocardial infarction and, based on mouse, pig and human data, suggest that lipolysis in marrow adipocytes provides fatty acids to hematopoietic stem cells.

The escalating regulatory pressures on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water highlight the critical and expeditious need for advanced PFAS removal technologies. While innovative fluorinated materials are reported to be a promising avenue for PFAS removal by exploiting fluorine-fluorine (F···F) interactions, their production and applications raise potential concerns about perpetuating the “forever chemicals” cycle.

Heymut Omran, Joseph LoTurco and colleagues show that mutations in the dyslexia susceptibility candidate gene DYX1C1 cause primary ciliary dyskinesia. Their functional studies suggest that DYX1C1 is required for the cytoplasmic preassembly of axonemal dynein complexes.

Genome-wide association studies have uncovered several loci associated with diabetes risk. Here, the authors reanalyse public type 2 diabetes GWAS data to fine map 50 known loci and identify seven new ones, including one near ATGR2 on the X-chromosome that doubles the risk of diabetes in men.

Polycomb group proteins are involved in the epigenetic maintenance of repressive chromatin states, with the gene-silencing activity of the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) dependent on its ability to trimethylate lysine 27 of histone H3. The carboxy-terminal domain of the EED subunit of the complex is now shown to specifically bind to histone tails carrying trimethyl-lysine residues associated with repressive chromatin marks, leading to activation of the methyltransferase activity of PRC2.