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Two below-threshold surface code memories on superconducting processors markedly reduce logical error rates, achieving high efficiency and real-time decoding, indicating potential for practical large-scale fault-tolerant quantum algorithms.

A new compatibilization strategy installs dynamic crosslinkers into several classes of binary, ternary and postconsumer immiscible polymer mixtures in situ, with the resulting compatibilized dynamic thermosets exhibiting intrinsic reprocessability and enhanced tensile strength and creep resistance.

Eukaryotic phytoplankton-derived sulfonates support the growth of the heterotrophic bacterial SAR11 clade and this is linked to light availability, indicating that sulfonates support microbial networks in the open ocean.

Size and shape of the brain are, among others, influenced by the dimensions of the skull. Here, the authors report genome-wide association studies for head circumference and intracranial volume in children and adults and the identification of nine common or low-frequency variants associated with these traits.

Mechanistic inference following GWAS is hampered by the lack of tissue-specific transcriptomic resources. Here the authors combine genetic variants predisposing to type 2 diabetes with human pancreatic islet RNA-seq data. They identify 7741 islet expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), providing a resource for functional interpretation of association signals mapping to non-coding sequence.

The fusion of dead Cas9 with KRAB and the transcriptional repressor domain of the chromatin modifier MeCP2 leads to an efficient transcriptional silencer that can be applied to genome-scale screens and genetic circuits.

A study demonstrating increasing error suppression with larger surface code logical qubits, implemented on a superconducting quantum processor.

Mapping enhancer regulation across human cell types and tissues illuminates genome function and provides a resource to connect risk variants for common diseases to their molecular and cellular functions.

Michael Talkowski and colleagues analyze balanced chromosomal abnormalities in 273 individuals by whole-genome sequencing. Their findings suggest that sequence-level resolution improves prediction of clinical outcomes for balanced rearrangements and provides insight into pathogenic mechanisms such as altered gene regulation due to changes in chromosome topology.

Mark McCarthy and colleagues identify twelve new risk loci for type 2 diabetes through a large-scale genome-wide association and replication study in individuals of European ancestry. The identified loci affect both beta-cell function and insulin action and are enriched for genes involved in cell cycle regulation.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

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.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

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.

Co-production includes diverse aims, terminologies and practices. This study explores such diversity by mapping differences in how 32 initiatives from 6 continents co-produce diverse outcomes for the sustainable development of ecosystems at local to global scales.

Michael Talkowski, David FitzPatrick, Erica Davis and colleagues report rare inherited or de novo missense variants in SMCHD1 in arhinia patients. Some of the same mutations in SMCHD1 are known to cause a phenotypically distinct muscular dystrophy disorder, FSHD2, and the distinct clinical features of the two disorders suggests that additional genes interact with SMCHD1 to cause arhinia.

As phase 1 of the Earth Microbiome Project, analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA sequences from more than 27,000 environmental samples delivers a global picture of the basic structure and drivers of microbial distribution.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

Genome assemblies, genetic variations, and metabolome and metal ion profiles were generated for diverse pigmented Asian rice varieties. An early maturing, shorter-stature black rice variety was created using CRISPR–Cas9-mediated genome editing, providing insights for improving Asian pigmented rice.

Despite the identification of genetic risk loci for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD), the genetic architecture and prediction remains unclear. Here, the authors use genetic risk scores for prediction of LOAD across three datasets and show evidence suggesting oligogenic variant architecture for this disease.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

Structural variants (SVs) contribute to the genetic architecture of many brain-related disorders. Here, the authors integrate SV calls from genome sequencing (n = 755) with RNA-seq data (n = 629) from post-mortem dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex to annotate the gene regulatory effects of SVs in the human brain and their potential to contribute to disease.

The role of wild elk in the spread and persistence of bovine brucellosis in the Great Yellowstone area is unclear. Here, Kamath et al. analyse the genomic sequences of 245 Brucella abortusisolates from elk, bison and cattle, supporting the idea that elk is an important reservoir and source of livestock infections.

In severe autism, deleterious variants at conserved residues are enriched in patients arising from female-enriched multiplex families, enhancing the detection of key autism genes in modest numbers of cases.

A common immune signature in the blood of patients with COVID-19, who are otherwise clinically heterogeneous, sheds light into the pathogenesis and clinical progression of the disease.

A transiting planet with a period of about 8.5 days and a radius 0.4 times that of Jupiter is reported within the debris disk around the star AU Microscopii.

Multi-nucleotide variants (MNV) are genetic variants in close proximity of each other on the same haplotype whose functional impact is difficult to predict if they reside in the same codon. Here, Wang et al. use the gnomAD dataset to assemble a catalogue of MNVs and estimate their global mutation rate.

It is shown that zinc sulphinate salts can be used to transfer alkyl radicals to heterocycles, allowing for the mild, direct and operationally simple formation of medicinally relevant carbon–carbon bonds while reacting in a complementary fashion to other innate carbon–hydrogen functionalization methods.

Geminal disubstitution of cyclic monomers is known to improve the chemical recyclability of their polymers, but usually at the expense of performance properties. Now, geminal disubstitution of a six-membered lactone has been shown to synergistically enable chemical recyclability back to the monomer and enhance the materials performance of the resulting polyesters, with properties that rival or exceed those of polyethylene.

The combination of laboratory and semifield experiments, paired with surveillance data, demonstrate the natural timeline for mosquito diapause, highlighting the importance of latitude and population genetics.

In a new study including 200 families who experienced perinatal death, adding genomic analyses to standard autopsies improved the identification of underlying pathogenic causes and informed genetic counseling.

It is unclear whether CO₂-stimulation of photosynthesis can propagate through slower ecosystem processes and lead to long-term increases in terrestrial carbon. Here the authors show that CO₂-stimulation of photosynthesis leads to a 30% increase in forest regrowth over a decade of CO₂ enrichment.

Quantum supremacy is demonstrated using a programmable superconducting processor known as Sycamore, taking approximately 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times, which would take a state-of-the-art supercomputer around ten thousand years to compute.

It is hoped that quantum computers may be faster than classical ones at solving optimization problems. Here the authors implement a quantum optimization algorithm over 23 qubits but find more limited performance when an optimization problem structure does not match the underlying hardware.

NRAS-driven melanomas have limited therapeutic options. Combining genetically engineered models and oncogenic signaling inhibitors with rational systems-biology approaches, the authors compare the effects of genetic extinction of NRAS to that of chemical pathway inhibition targeting downstream MEK. The differences provide actionable targets by revealing that NRAS signaling operates as a gated output and that MEK inhibition, although inducing apoptosis, is not able to achieve further inhibition of NRAS-induced outputs such as cell-cycle progression. A combination of MEK and CDK4 inhibitors provides a more complete inhibition of NRAS signaling and a more effective antitumor effect in vivo.

The 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO) has been implicated in steroid biogenesis and neuroinflammation. Here, the authors create viable and fertile global TSPO knockout mice, challenging the assumption that TSPO is essential for mouse development but suggesting that it may have a role under certain disease conditions.

Upstream open reading frames (uORFs), located in 5’ untranslated regions, are regulators of downstream protein translation. Here, Whiffin et al. use the genomes of 15,708 individuals in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) to systematically assess the deleteriousness of variants creating or disrupting uORFs.

A novel variant annotation metric that quantifies the level of expression of genetic variants across tissues is validated in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) and is shown to improve rare variant interpretation.

A modeling study using case and mortality data from the first 8 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States explores five potential future scenarios of social distancing mandates and mask use at the state level, with projections of the course of the epidemic through winter 2021.

Repetition codes running many cycles of quantum error correction achieve exponential suppression of errors with increasing numbers of qubits.

Genome-wide analysis of matched human IVF embryonic stem cells (IVF ES cells), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and nuclear transfer ES cells (NT ES cells) derived by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) reveals that human somatic cells can be faithfully reprogrammed to pluripotency by SCNT; NT ES cells and iPS cells derived from the same somatic cells contain comparable numbers of de novo copy number variations, but whereas DNA methylation and transcriptome profiles of NT ES cells and IVF ES cells are similar, iPS cells have residual patterns typical of parental somatic cells.

Ex vivo methods of circulating tumor cell (CTC) isolation use small blood volumes, limiting sensitivity and introducing analytical inaccuracies. The authors describe a proof-of-concept study of an in vivo aphaeresis system that continuously collects CTCs from a peripheral vein over several hours.