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Global Burden of Disease estimates show that between 1990 and 2023, the prevalence and burden of drug use disorders, inclusive of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and opioid use, have been increasing in high-income countries, particularly in the USA.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

Latin Americans trace their ancestry to the admixture of Native Americans, Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans. Here, the authors develop a novel haplotype-based approach and analyse over 6,500 Latin Americans to infer the geographically-detailed genetic structure of this population.

TIRTL-seq is a high-throughput method for paired T cell receptor sequencing at the cohort scale.

A magnetic-spectrometer-free method for electron–proton scattering data reveals a proton charge radius 2.7 standard deviations smaller than the currently accepted value from electron–proton scattering, yet consistent with other recent experiments.

Metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiome of people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), from three distinct cohorts, revealed infection- and antiretroviral drug-linked alterations, which may contribute to HIV-associated non-infectious comorbidities.

The authors report a data-driven approach to phenotyping 3D facial shape. They apply their methodology to 2,329 individuals of European ancestry and identify 38 loci that associate with specific facial morphologies, some of which overlap with neural-crest-specific regulatory regions.

Perovskite structure is disturbed by environmental moisture, limiting the device performance. Here, Wei et al. monitor the effect of moisture during the growth by N₂-protected characterization techniques, and obtain an operationally stable perovskite solar cell with efficiency approaching 24%.

Measurements of the proton’s spin structure in experiments scattering a polarized electron beam off polarized protons in regions of low momentum transfer squared test predictions from chiral effective field theory of the strong interaction.

Adaptive decision-making often requires an understanding of our agency in a situation; however, chronic stress can disrupt agency and promote inflexible, habitual behaviour by turning off a brain pathway needed for agency and activating one that promotes habit.

Around 1% of the A subgenome of modern bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) originates from einkorn (Triticum monococcum), the first domesticated wheat species.

The formation of ternary degrader-protein complexes is a key step in the targeted degradation of proteins of interest. Here, the authors explore the structure and dynamics of such complexes applying high-performance computer simulations augmented with experimental data.

The effect of defects on MXene structural transitions in high-temperature environments is shown. Further, defect occupied alkali cations are shown to improve MXenes’ phase stability and control surface diffusion related phase changes.

Protein misfolding can spread from one molecule to another in infectious prion diseases. The propagation of protein misfolding has been directly observed in single protein molecules. These results showed that pathogenic mutants of the protein superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD1), which causes familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, imprint their misfolding onto native wild-type molecules.

Using genome-wide association studies and meta-analyses on dimensions of personality from large existing datasets, Gupta et al. find novel genomic loci that refine our understanding of the genetic architecture of complex traits.

The wurtzite crystal structure of nitride semiconductors results in strong piezoelectricity. Here, the authors also achieve electric-field control of the magnetization of gallium manganese nitride, thus showing that piezoelectric and magnetoelectric effects can be combined in the same material.

In the deep sedimentary biosphere, 80 °C has been proposed as an upper thermal barrier for life. Using a suite of radiotracer experiments, this study reports active methanogenic and sulfate-reducing microbial populations with high cell-specific metabolic rates in deeply buried marine sediments from the Nankai Trough subduction zone, which reach temperatures up to 120 °C.

Neurostimulation has been proposed as a potential approach for treatment-resistant PTSD. Here in a pilot study the authors show that amygdala theta activity is heightened during aversive and symptomatic experiences in patients with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder, and reduced following significant clinical improvement associated with closed-loop stimulation.

A prospective analysis of gut microbiome signatures in patients treated with neoadjuvant immunocheckpoint blockade for high risk resectable metastatic melanoma identifies new links between microbiota signatures, dietary intake and systemic inflammation in shaping the response and toxicity to immunotherapy.

Sea-level rise poses a substantial risk to coastal communities and economies, thus accurate predictions are needed to enable planning and adaptation. This Perspective provides an overview of uncertainties in model projections of sea-level rise, and how observations can be used to reduce these.

Quantum correlations between the laser beams and the positions of the 40-kg mirrors of LIGO are confirmed experimentally, enabling high-precision measurements of both gravitational waves and macroscopic quantum states.

Different subregions of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis are shown to increase and decrease anxiety in mice, and distinct neural projections arising from a single coordinating brain region modulate different anxiety features.

DNA nanotube scaffolds allow artificial myosin filaments to be engineered that can be used to probe the mechanical coordination of myosin motor ensembles.

Characterization of a biosynthetic pathway for the sulfonation of steroidal metabolites, such as cholesterol, by gut bacteria may have implications for immune cell trafficking and inflammatory bowel disease.

Antibody-mediated SARS-CoV-2 uptake by monocytes and macrophages triggers inflammatory cell death that aborts the production of infectious virus but causes systemic inflammation that contributes to COVID-19 pathogenesis.

Head-to-head comparison of third doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in US Veterans finds that both are effective against documented SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 outcomes.

The GREGoR consortium provides foundational resources and substrates for the future of rare disease genomics.

Substantial improvements, through the use of squeezed light, in the sensitivity of a prototype gravitational-wave detector built with quasi-free suspended optics represents the next step in moving such devices out of the lab and into orbit.

High-speed tracking of effortful responses and neuronal activity in rats during a forced swim test identifies medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons that respond during escape-related swimming but not normal locomotion, and optogenetics shows that mPFC neurons projecting to the brainstem dorsal raphe nucleus, which is implicated in depression, modulate this behavioural response to challenge

FRET-MD spectrometry reveals atomic-level interfaces involved in oligomerization of the human secretin receptor in live cells, offering mechanistic insights into their quaternary structure and a framework for future application to other GPCRs and membrane proteins.

High-energy electron scattering that can isolate pairs of nucleons in high-momentum configurations reveals a transition to spin-independent scalar forces at small separation distances, supporting the use of point-like nucleon models to describe dense nuclear systems.

During carrier multiplication, high-energy free carriers in a given material relax by generation of additional electron-hole pairs. Here, the authors report evidence of carrier multiplication in multilayer MoTe₂ and WSe₂ films with up to 99% conversation efficiency.

Tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase 2 (Tdp2) processes DNA termini with a 5′-phosphotyrosyl–linked topoisomerase II adduct, such as those stabilized by chemotherapeutic drugs anthracyclines and etoposides, by direct reversal of the 5′-phosphotyrosyl linkage. Now crystal structures of mouse Tdp2–DNA complexes, along with mutagenesis and functional analyses, reveal how Tdp2 recognizes and reverses such adduction.

Torpor is a state of reduced metabolism and body temperature that conserves energy when food is scarce. Here the authors show that estrogen-sensitive neurons in the hypothalamus regulate torpor in mice, maintaining torpor in both sexes but initiating torpor and regulating core temperature differentially across sex.

Squeezed states of light have been experimentally demonstrated to improve the performance of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in astrophysically relevant frequency regions. This enhanced performance may help to reach the sensitivity required for detecting gravitational waves.

Electron scattering measurements are shown to reproduce only qualitatively state-of-the-art lepton–nucleus energy reconstruction models, indicating that improvements to these particle-interaction models are required to ensure the accuracy of future high-precision neutrino oscillation experiments.

This study has developed the first small molecule NEDD8-activating enzyme (NAE) inhibitor, which induces cancer cell death and exerts anti-tumour activity in preclinical mouse models. This work establishes NAE as an anti-cancer target and may lead to new anti-cancer therapeutics.

The astronomical event GW170817, detected in gravitational and electromagnetic waves, is used to determine the expansion rate of the Universe, which is consistent with and independent of existing measurements.

Phage-related chromosomal islands, which include theStaphylococcus aureuspathogenicity islands, often encode virulence factors and co-opt a helper phage to spread to other cells. Richard Novick and colleagues describe the life cycle of these genetic elements, the regulation of their mobility and their effects on helper phages.

Electron-scattering experiments reveal that the fraction of high-momentum protons in medium-to-heavy nuclei increases considerably with neutron excess, whereas that of high-momentum neutrons decreases slightly, in contrast to shell-model predictions.