Search

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

Fine-scale geospatial mapping of overweight and wasting (two components of the double burden of malnutrition) in 105 LMICs shows that overweight has increased from 5.2% in 2000 to 6.0% in children under 5 in 2017. Although overall wasting decreased over the same period, most countries are not on track to meet the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025.

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation exhibits considerable natural variability on interdecadal to centennial timescales making it difficult to understand how climate change affects it. A reconstruction now shows there has been anomalously high activity in the late twentieth century, relative to the past seven centuries. This is suggestive of a response to global warming, and will provide constraints to improve climate models and projections.

Anchor-Based Bisulfite Sequencing (ABBS) is a sequencing based method that enables analysis of DNA methylation states, based on specific hybridization of bisulfite-refractory methylcytosines with 8-aza-7-deaza-2-deoxyguanosine, incorporated in a primer at the end of 5 random nucleotides.

ESCRT-III proteins assemble into ubiquitous membrane-remodeling polymers during many cellular processes. Here, the authors use cryo-ET, cryo-EM and mathematical modeling to reveal how the shape of the helical membrane tube arises from the assembly of two distinct bundles of helical filaments.

ATP citrate lyase (ACLY) is the main nucleocytosolic source of acetyl-CoA and the enzyme contains citrate synthase homology (CSH) and acyl-CoA synthetase homology (ASH) domains. Here, the authors report data on an ACLY mutant that supports an allosteric role for the CSH domain in ACLY catalysis.

Luis Pérez-Jurado, Stephen Chanock and colleagues detect clonal chromosomal abnormalities in peripheral blood or buccal samples from individuals in the general population. They show that the frequency of such events increases with age and is associated with elevated risk of developing subsequent hematological cancers.

Analyses of data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook in the United States reveal associations between social capital and economic mobility.

The 1+ million publicly-available human –omics samples currently remain acutely underused. Here the authors present an approach combining natural language processing and machine learning to infer the source tissue of public genomics samples based on their plain text descriptions, making these samples easy to discover and reuse.

Social disconnection across socioeconomic lines is explained by both differences in exposure to people with high socioeconomic status and friending bias—the tendency for people to befriend peers with similar socioeconomic status even conditional on exposure.

Studying how the ligand design influences the bonding of f-block complexes is crucial to control their properties. Here, the authors report the preparation of Bk(III) and Ce(III) complexes featuring a terpyridyl ligand; structural, spectroscopic, electrochemical, and theoretical analysis reveal that the ligand induces unusual bonding by creating a plane of enhanced bond covalency.

Here, using clinical samples and autopsy tissues, the authors combine fast-colorimetric test (LAMP) for SARS-CoV-2 infection and large-scale shotgun metatranscriptomics for host, viral, and microbial profiling and provide a map of the viral genetic features of the New York City outbreak and associate specific host responses and gene expression perturbations with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias identifies new loci and enables generation of a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Computer models and theory do not offer a consensus on how El Niño will change under global warming. Despite this disagreement, a study indicates a robust increase in the frequency of extreme El Niño episodes.

Yeast exhibit oscillations that share features with circadian rhythms. The authors show that bioenergetic constraints promote oscillatory behaviour: resources are stored until supplies can support translational bursting, this is licensed by ion transport and release from membrane-less compartments.

The authors summarize the data produced by phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a resource for better understanding of the human and mouse genomes.

Internal low-frequency variability in the Arctic atmosphere can explain about half the summer sea ice decline over the past decades, according to an analysis of large ensembles of fully coupled climate model simulations.

In this study, the authors provide a global overview of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing, and estimate the proportion of cases sequenced and time to genome upload. They identify disparities and highlight the need to strengthen surveillance in lower and middle income countries.

The application of high-resolution metabolomics integrated with isotope labeling revealed that lactate is imported into the mitochondria and is metabolized by mitochondrial LDH into pyruvate.

The Arctic is warming and sea ice is declining, but how the two link is unclear. This study shows changes in summertime atmospheric circulation and internal variability may have caused up to 60% of September sea-ice decline since 1979.

The Omicron variant evades vaccine-induced neutralization but also fails to form syncytia, shows reduced replication in human lung cells and preferentially uses a TMPRSS2-independent cell entry pathway, which may contribute to enhanced replication in cells of the upper airway. Altered fusion and cell entry characteristics are linked to distinct regions of the Omicron spike protein.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

The traditional view of the open ocean is that surface waters should change faster and that the deep waters should be relatively stable. Now research shows that the depths of the Southern Ocean are also rapidly freshening and warming, and that these changes are spreading towards the Equator.

As space travel promises to become a reality for more humans, insights from human genetics could serve to inform space medicine. Here, the authors overview genetic variants that might confer a protective effect in space, and ethical and technical challenges to translating these findings.

High-resolution omics data have facilitated the ongoing Human Cell Atlas project. In this Perspective, Rutter and colleagues propose that a parallel Human Cell Space Atlas initiative would provide a platform for spaceflight-associated research and healthcare.

An international consortium reports the genomic sequence for ten Drosophila species, and compares them to two other previously published Drosophila species. These data are invaluable for drawing evolutionary conclusions across an entire phylogeny of species at once.

Exclusive breastfeeding in Africa is highly varied within and between countries, with many countries unlikely to reach World Health Organization 2025 targets without urgent action.

Meredith Yeager, Stephen Chanock and colleagues analyze mosaic loss of the Y chromosome in three prospective cohorts and observe association with age and smoking but not with cancer survival. They also identify common variation at TCL1A associated with increased risk of mosaic loss of the Y chromosome.

Global high-resolution crop-specific estimates of greenhouse gas emissions intensity (in 2000) reveal that certain cropping practices contribute disproportionately to emissions, making them suitable targets for climate mitigation policies.

This study identifies statistically significant trends in mid-atmospheric circulation patterns that partially explain observed changes in extreme temperature occurrence over Eurasia and North America; although the underlying cause of circulation pattern trends remains uncertain, most extreme temperature trends are shown to be consistent with thermodynamic warming.

Cope, Elsborg et al. analyzed transcriptomic data from mice and astronauts flown to space and identified molecular signatures of DNA damage and repair, mitochondrial dysregulation, and skin barrier disruption. These changes may underpin dermatological issues in astronauts.