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A large-scale field intervention experiment on 23,377 US Facebook users during the 2020 presidential election shows that reducing exposure to content from like-minded social media sources has no measurable effect on political polarization or other political attitudes and beliefs.

The interaction of localized and conduction electrons in some heavy fermion materials is believed to give rise to a Kondo insulating state. Kushwaha et al. present evidence that Ce3Bi4Pd3 is a Kondo insulator with a gap small enough to be driven into a Fermi liquid phase with accessible magnetic fields.

Many rare high-impact variants have been associated with disease, but the origins and functional impact are not always explored. Here, the authors trace the ancestry of a rare high impact atrial fibrillation allele in KCNQ1, and use iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes to characterize the effect of the allele.

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.

Exploring the impurity-induced phenomena facilitates the understanding of emergent quantum materials. Here the authors show the anomalous magnetization transitions as well as demonstrate the relation between the impurities and the excited spin states in the Mg doped Shastry-Sutherland compound SrCu₂(BO₃)₂.

The green slime that covers ponds is an efficient factory for turning sunlight into fuel, but growing it on an industrial scale will take ingenuity.

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.

Two high-quality genomes of petunia wild parents reveal two rounds of hexaploidization in the evolution of Petunia lineage and provide insights into the diversity of floral patterns and pollination systems — enhancing the model value of this genus.

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.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports the observation of the electroweak production of two jets and a Z-boson pair. This process is related to vector-boson scattering and allows the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking to be probed.

Lung squamous carcinomas (LUSC) are poorly molecularly characterized, but sub-populations show promising response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Here, the authors identify a subset of LUSC characterized by infiltration of inflammatory monocytes, where metastasis is linked to Factor XIIIA promoting fibrin cross-linking.

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider reports a search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in decays of Z bosons into a τ lepton and an electron or muon of opposite charge.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports a measurement of the ratio of the decay rates of W bosons to τ leptons and muons, in agreement with universal lepton couplings as postulated in the standard model of particle physics.

Single-cell RNA sequencing is used to characterize and compare the functional diversity of cells from liver biopsies of human scarred and normal liver, and identifies markers for scar-associated macrophages and endothelial cells.

Land management and ownership by Indigenous Peoples are critical components of conservation strategies, but information on these has previously never been aggregated. Here, global data is compiled to show that Indigenous Peoples have tenure rights or manage a quarter of the world’s land area and 40% of all protected areas and intact ecosystems.

APOE is the major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. In a large number of neuropathologically confirmed cases and controls, the impact of different APOE genotypes on Alzheimer’s dementia risk was greater than previously thought and APOE2 homozygotes had an exceptionally low risk.

Copy number variants (CNVs) account for a major proportion of human genetic diversity and may contribute to genetic susceptibility to disease. Here, a large, genome-wide study of association between common CNVs and eight common human diseases is presented. The study provides a wealth of technical insights that will inform future study design and analysis. The results also indicate that common CNVs that can be 'typed' on existing platforms are unlikely to contribute much to the genetic basis of common diseases.

Identification and characterization, using a comprehensive embryonic phenotyping pipeline, of 410 lethal alleles during the generation of the first 1,751 of 5,000 unique gene knockouts produced by the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium.

Quantum electrodynamics predicts a rare process in which light is scattered by light. The ATLAS Collaboration reports signs of this elusive effect in the collisions of ultra-relativistic lead ions.

The measurement of the total cross-section of proton–proton collisions is of fundamental importance for particle physics. Here, the first measurement of the inelastic cross-section is presented for proton–proton collisions at an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

The existence and properties of tetraquark states with two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks have been widely debated. Here, the authors use a unitarized model to study the properties of an exotic narrow state compatible with a doubly charmed tetraquark.

Jason Cooper and colleagues identify four new risk loci for type 1 diabetes through a meta-analysis of data from three genome-wide association studies, with replication in additional case-control and family-based samples, providing further insights into the genetic risk factors underlying this disease.

Mental health symptoms are a common and functionally impairing feature of rheumatoid arthritis, and increasingly seem to represent an integral part of the inflammatory process. Could treatment with DMARDs affect physical as well as mental health outcomes?

Primary biliary cirrhosis is an autoimmune liver disease with poor therapeutic options. Here Cordell et al. a perform meta-analysis of European genome-wide association studies identifying six novel risk loci and a number of potential therapeutic pathways.

A region of the hypothalamus that is critical in controlling sleep/wake states is now shown to mediate the sedative effects of anesthetics that act at the GABA_A receptor.

A careful study of quantum oscillations of single crystals of the cuprate superconductor YBCO placed under a magnetic field reveals a sawtooth behaviour that is reminiscent of two-dimensional electronic systems—in turn suggesting the existence of a so-called ‘hard antinodal gap’ in this system.

A high-quality sequence assembly of the zebrafish genome reveals the largest gene set of any vertebrate and provides information on key genomic features, and comparison to the human reference genome shows that approximately 70% of human protein-coding genes have at least one clear zebrafish orthologue.

Cultured human embryonic stem cells often acquire chromosomal abnormalities that could be detrimental in certain applications. Närvä et al. report the highest-resolution genetic analysis of these cells to date and identify genes whose expression is altered by culture-induced genetic changes.

Combining antibiotics remains a promising approach to treat patients and to prevent the emergence of antimicrobial resistance