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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.

The effects of pesticides on individual species could propagate into additional community-wide and ecosystem-level effects. Here the authors use a mesocosm experiment to test how a diverse array of herbicides and insecticides disrupt aquatic community structure and ecosystem function.

Using multi-ancestry genome-wide association study and fine-mapping, 298 loci and 36 credible genes are identified in the aetiology of bipolar disorder.

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.

The mechanical stresses within and between cells inside an advancing cellular monolayer are mapped experimentally. Cellular migration is found to be oriented in the direction of maximum principal stress indicating that cells collectively migrate to maintain minimal local intercellular shear stress.

Analysis of snRNA genes in individuals with rare disorders identifies de novo and recurrent variants in RNU5B-1 and RNU5A-1, in addition to previously unreported cases with pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in RNU4-2.

Genome-wide association analyses of 41,917 bipolar disorder cases and 371,549 controls of European ancestry provide new insights into the etiology of this disorder and identify novel therapeutic leads and potential opportunities for drug repurposing.

Pl@ntBERT is a language-based AI model that learned the ‘syntax’ of plant assemblages, predicting likely species and inferring habitats by modelling biotic relationships.

This study used fine-mapping to analyze genetic regions associated with bipolar disorder, identifying specific risk genes and providing new insights into the biology of the condition that may guide future research and treatment approaches.

A genome-wide association study including over 76,000 individuals with schizophrenia and over 243,000 control individuals identifies common variant associations at 287 genomic loci, and further fine-mapping analyses highlight the importance of genes involved in synaptic processes.

This study presents an analytic framework to link imaging-derived brain phenotypes to gene expression. In the future, this approach may facilitate in vivo pharmacotranscriptomics and the development of personalized (pharmacological) interventions.

Geospatial estimates of the prevalence of anemia in women of reproductive age across 82 low-income and middle-income countries reveals considerable heterogeneity and inequality at national and subnational levels, with few countries on track to meet the WHO Global Nutrition Targets by 2030.

Advances in biofabrication technology enable 3D printed constructs to resemble real tissues, but it remains unclear how cell-generated forces deform these constructs. Here the authors investigate mechanical behaviours of 3D printed “microbeams” made from mixtures of living cells and extracellular matrix.

Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis in 26,699 people with seizures and 492,324 controls to identify 25 genome-wide significant copy-number variants. The discovered loci point to known disease genes and associations with clinical annotations.

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.

Cryopreservation is standard protocol prior to using NK cells in immunotherapy. Here the authors show that cryopreservation substantially reduces the clinical utility of these cells owing to a defect in their motility, an effect that might account for failure to treat some cancers with NK cell immunotherapy.

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.

Swarm Learning is a decentralized machine learning approach that outperforms classifiers developed at individual sites for COVID-19 and other diseases while preserving confidentiality and privacy.

Species interactions that can enhance habitat heterogeneity such as facilitation cascades of foundation species have been overlooked in biodiversity models. This study conducted 22 geographically distributed experiments in different ecosystems and biogeographical regions to assess the extent to which biodiversity is explained by three axes of habitat heterogeneity in facilitation cascades.

Genome-wide analysis identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder, allowing for comparisons of shared genes and pathways with other psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and depression.

Here, the authors report that schizophrenia risk variants mapping to a striatal dopamine-related gene set are associated with increased striatal dopamine synthesis capacity and increased striatal activity during reward anticipation in humans.

Bhattacharjee and Schaeffer et al. map exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) in 94 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), finding increased EBF practice and reduced subnational variation across the majority of LMICs from 2000 to 2018. However, only six LMICs will meet WHO’s target of ≥70% EBF by 2030 nationally, and only three will achieve this in all districts.

Human brain structure changes throughout the lifespan. Brouwer et al. identified genetic variants that affect rates of brain growth and atrophy. The genes are linked to early brain development and neurodegeneration and suggest involvement of metabolic processes.

It has been thought that sheets of cells move by traction forces exerted by the cells at the leading edge of the sheet. Using traction microscopy to create a map of physical forces, it is now shown that in fact it is cells many rows from the front that do most of the work.

Confining plasma and managing disruptions in tokamak devices is a challenge. Here the authors demonstrate a method predicting and possibly preventing disruptions and macroscopic instabilities in tokamak plasma using data from JET.

Secondary foundation species, such as epiphytes, form structurally complex habitats on primary foundation species. A meta-analysis shows that they significantly enhance the abundance and richness of inhabitants compared to primary foundation species alone.

Experiments at the Joint European Torus tokamak show improved thermal ion confinement in the presence of highly energetic ions and Alfvénic instabilities in the plasma.

A new brain mapping approach tailored to individual people reveals that volume changes in psychiatric illness occur in highly variable locations across individuals, but that these differences often aggregate within common brain systems.

Tumor-associated dendritic cells are defective in their ability to cross-present antigens, and they accumulate lipid bodies. Here the authors show that this defect is due to an impaired trafficking of peptide-MHC class I caused by the interaction of electrophilic lipids with chaperone heat shock protein 70.