Search

Understanding the electromagnetic responses at subwavelength scales is important for achieving tunability. Using a combination of the near-field and far-field spectroscopy, the authors demonstrate a heavy fermion metamaterial with tunable dual-band optical responses by selectively and separately modifying the 4f and 5d band electrons.

Dominant coactivation patterns are primarily studied in resting-state fMRI. Here, the authors study the rest of the signal, which reveals ‘caricatured’ connectomes with improved behavioral prediction.

The photonic applications of hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in anisotropic van der Waals materials are currently limited by their low tunability. Here, the authors report the static and ultrafast wavevector modulation of HPhPs in hexagonal boron nitride by tuning the plasma frequency of doped semiconductor substrates.

Water window imaging with high-harmonic generation is achieved using soft X-ray coherence tomography (SXCT), revealing the cross-sectional structure of buried nanolayers with 12 nm axial resolution.

Ahead of her 73rd birthday, Lidia Morawska, Distinguished Professor at Queensland University of Technology, discusses her life as a researcher and advocate of clean air.

The 4D Nucleome Project demonstrates the use of genomic assays and computational methods to measure genome folding and then predict genomic structure from DNA sequence, facilitating the discovery of potential effects of genetic variants, including variants associated with disease, on genome structure and function.

The knowledge of how spin fluctuations affect high-Tc superconductivity comes exclusively from neutron scattering. Here, Chi et al. establish characteristic excitation features of the spin fluctuations in real space from the scanning tunnelling spectra in an iron-based superconductor.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Ahead of his 82nd birthday, Helmut Schwarz, recent recipient of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and Professor of Chemistry at Technische Universität Berlin, looks back on his career in science.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

In wildlife tagging, stress from capture and handling can alter post- release behavior and potentially study interpretations. This study of 42 mammal species shows that these effects diminish within 4–7 days, and quicker for animals in high human activity areas indicating adaptation to disturbance.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

The Messinian Salinity Crisis occurred during extensional lithospheric delamination, with the demise of the crisis driven by slab detachment around 5 Ma, according to U-Pb dating and clumped isotopes from calcite veins in an eastern Betic basin.

The structure-function relationships of a β-helix, a folding motif formed by parallel β-strands arranged in a helical repetitive pattern, remain poorly understood and underexploited. Here, the authors reconstitute a protein β-helix by design from an elementary sequence of 18 amino acids, which self-assembles into a self-contained multifunctional motif exhibiting a range of biological functions.

Bone-matrix mineralization induces a less proliferative phenotype in breast cancer cells, as shown in collagen-based matrices with adjustable mineralization and in mice with xenografted bone matrices seeded with cancer cells.

Nitrate, a common pollutant in wastewater and groundwater, has been efficiently converted into valuable ammonia products via an electrochemical method using Ru-dispersed Cu nanowire as the catalyst.

Ahead of his 75th birthday, Robin Perutz, Emeritus Professor at the University of York, discusses his career combining theory and experiment to probe reactivity while also promoting the inclusion of marginalized groups into science.

Capturing radioactive organic iodides from nuclear waste is important for safe nuclear energy usage, but remains a significant challenge. Here, Li and co-workers fabricate a stable metal–organic framework functionalized with tertiary amine groups that exhibits high capacities for radioactive organic iodides uptake.

Electrocatalysis offers a route to improving the treatment of wastewater, yet the need for supporting electrolytes complicates the purification of products. Here a cell is designed based on a porous solid electrolyte layer with a cation shuttling strategy that allows direct conversion of nitrate-containing wastewater into NH₃(g) and purified water.

Converting methane to hydrogen and aromatics is a route to upgrading natural gas into high value products. Here the authors report a high-performing synergistic trimetallic thermochemical catalyst, along with mechanistic insights into the process.

An analysis of the impact of logging intensity on biodiversity in tropical forests in Sabah, Malaysia, identifies a threshold of tree biomass removal below which logged forests still have conservation value.

Analysis of 97,691 high-coverage human blood DNA-derived whole-genome sequences enabled simultaneous identification of germline and somatic mutations that predispose individuals to clonal expansion of haematopoietic stem cells, indicating that both inherited and acquired mutations are linked to age-related cancers and coronary heart disease.

Protein microarrays are useful both in basic research and also in disease monitoring and diagnosis, but their dynamic range is limited. By using plasmonic gold substrates with near-infrared fluorescent enhancement, Tabakman et al. demonstrate a multiplexed protein array with improved detection limits and dynamic range.

Carbon capture and storage can help reduce CO₂ emissions but the confidence in geologic CO₂ storage security is uncertain. Here the authors present a numerical programme to estimate leakage from wells and find that under appropriate regulation 98% of injected CO₂ will be retained over 10,000 years.

Structural characterization of the bifunctional enzyme linalool dehydratase isomerase and exploration of its substrate scope demonstrate its potential for catalyzing desirable transformations of various tertiary alcohols.

Identifying modifiable risk factors that could prevent depression is important. Here, the authors show increased risks of incident depression in pre-frail and frail individuals and highlight the mediating role of brain structure and inflammation.

The electrochemical transformation of CO₂ into liquid fuels is a major challenge. Now, Jaramillo, Hahn and co-workers present a Au/Cu catalyst highly active to C₂₊ alcohols at low overpotentials as a result of a tandem mechanism where CO₂ is reduced to CO on Au and further reduced to C₂₊ alcohols on nearby Cu.

This study supports neurofilament light chain protein (NfL) in both cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood as an early marker of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease but suggests that NfL in CSF may be better suited than blood for monitoring clinical trial outcomes in symptomatic patients.

Network controllability represents the ease with which the brain switches between mental states and can be inferred from white matter connectivity. Here, the authors show network controllability emerges in infants as early as the third trimester, and that preterm birth disrupts the energy required to drive state transitions.

Analysing camera-trap data of 163 mammal species before and after the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns, the authors show that responses to human activity are dependent on the degree to which the landscape is modified by humans, with carnivores being especially sensitive.

Rosenblatt et al. run over 900 million resampling-based simulations in functional and structural connectivity data to show that low and medium effect size predictions require training and external samples in the hundreds to thousands of participants.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.