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cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

How speech sounds come to be understood as language remains unclear. Here, the authors find that brain responses to speech in part reflect abstraction of phonological units specific to the language being spoken, mediated through relationships between acoustic features.

MultiSTAAR provides a general and flexible statistical framework for functionally informed multi-trait rare variant analysis of biobank-scale sequencing studies by jointly analyzing multiple traits and incorporating annotation information.

Soft auditory brainstem implant in the cochlear nucleus of macaque evokes auditory-like perceptions with high resolution and tonotopic specificity.

Cumulative cultural evolution is ubiquitous in humans, but is rarely observed in non-human animals. Here, Williams et al. report elaboration of songs over several decades in Savannah sparrows, consistent with cumulative cultural evolution.

To inform deliberations around use of the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) and related legacy data, we conducted a literature review of HGDP-derived data use from 2010 to 2024. Our analysis suggests broad re-use, possibly inconsistent with the original consent understandings. We urge caution with use of those data and similar datasets of unclear provenance.

Home from home.

Here, the authors conduct a multidisciplinary study of human-great ape viral sharing in Cameroon and a European zoo, finding that environmental co-use enables more enteric virome sharing, virome convergence, and adenovirus and enterovirus sharing between Cameroonian humans and apes.

Reconstructing imagined speech from neural activity holds great promises for people with severe speech production deficits. Here, the authors demonstrate using human intracranial recordings that both low- and higher-frequency power and local cross-frequency contribute to imagined speech decoding.

The goals, resources and design of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) programme are described, and analyses of rare variants detected in the first 53,831 samples provide insights into mutational processes and recent human evolutionary history.

Ahead of her 75th birthday, Jane Clarke discussed her life in science, including her career change from school science teacher to protein folding researcher.

Although the common genetic variants contributing to blood lipid levels have been studied, the contribution of rare variants is less understood. Here, the authors perform a rare coding and noncoding variant association study of blood lipid levels using whole genome sequencing data.

Ahead of his 75th birthday, A. R. (Ravi) Ravishankara, Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, reflects on his career in atmospheric chemistry as well as his contribution to combatting the depletion of the ozone layer.

Mitochondrial DNA is known to exhibit heterogeneity of variants, even within a single cell. Here, the authors assessed this heteroplasmy of mitochondrial DNA within the UK Biobank cohort and showed that the presence of heteroplasmy and a functional score generated from heteroplasmic SNVs were associated with all-cause mortality and certain cancers.

Analysis of whole-genome sequences of 25,465 individuals of European ancestry shows that rare variants contribute substantially to the heritability of height and body mass index.

Data collected from more than 2,000 taxa provide an unparalleled opportunity to quantify how extreme wildfires affect biodiversity, revealing that the largest effects on plants and animals were in areas with frequent or recent past fires and within extensively burnt areas.

Two animals coin unexpected sounds as a surprising form of social communication.

Early exposure to a tonal language leaves lasting neural traces: adoptees exposed to Mandarin in infancy show brain structures resembling native speakers, highlighting enduring effects of early linguistic experience on brain development.

Using administrative data on 4 million citizens from two nations, Richmond-Rakerd et al. find that multiple health and social problems cluster in a population segment with low workforce readiness, including low education and poor early-life mental health.

Small non-coding RNAs contribute to the regulation of aging. Here the authors identify a small nucleolar RNA, the snoRNA jouvence, which extends the lifespan of fruit flies through its function in the gut, and is conserved in humans.

The effectiveness of marine reserves relies on whether they supply substantial recruitment outside their boundaries. Here, Andrello and colleagues use models of larval fish dispersal to show that countries most dependent on coastal fisheries receive the lowest larval supplies from marine reserves.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become a key tool to discover genetic markers for complex traits; however, environmental factors that interact with genes are rarely considered. Here, the authors conduct a GWAS of obesity traits, and find that smoking may alter genetic susceptibilities.

The debate over cognitive penetrability of perception, which has been largely limited to vision, remains unsolved; in this Review, Vetter and colleagues detail cognitive influences on perception across vision, audition, somatosensation, vestibular perception and chemosensation to advance the debate.

An analysis of 16 health-related quantitative traits in approximately 350,000 individuals reveals statistically significant associations between genome-wide homozygosity and four complex traits (height, lung function, cognitive ability and educational attainment); in each case increased homozygosity associates with a decreased trait value, but no evidence was seen of an influence on blood pressure, cholesterol, or ten other cardio-metabolic traits.

Repetitive elements in differentiated cells are usually silenced. Genome-wide analyses in early mouse development show that repetitive-element expression decreases during development accompanied by the loss of active chromatin marks. LINE-1 and IAP retrotransposons become reactivated after fertilization, and LINE-1 transcription is regulated by short LINE-1 RNAs, which suggests that repetitive elements may be regulated through RNA during the earliest developmental stages.

Analysis of three wild-caught bumblebee species shows that family lineage survival and persistence is significantly increased between successive colony cycle stages with the proportion of high-value foraging habitat near the natal colony.

In neighborhoods with high bird diversity and tree species richness, residents report better mental health, according to an analysis combining population surveys, mental health indicators, bird species, and greenness data across 36 Canadian cities.