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Redβ annealase catalyses single-strand annealing homologous DNA recombination. Here, the authors present a cryo-EM structure of a Redβ annealing intermediate bound to two complementary 27mer oligonucleotides.

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.

In an updated report on 70 laboratory-confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 cases in the USA between March 2024 and May 2025, the absence of human-to-human transmission to date was confirmed, with no known mutations of resistance to neuroaminidase inhibitors.

Estimates of the levels of neutralizing antibodies necessary for protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 or severe COVID-19 are a fraction of the mean level in convalescent serum and will be useful in guiding vaccine rollouts.

Genome-wide association analysis of gout and urate identifies 148 new loci, implicating biological pathways and prioritizing candidate genes involved in inflammatory processes.

Continuous-variable quantum networks are easier to implement than discrete-variable ones, but suffer from a lower teleportation fidelity. Here, the authors demonstrate a CV teleportation protocol exploiting heralded noiseless amplification to increase the fidelity, at the expense of probabilistic operation.

This study provides a structural and functional characterisation of the phage resistance system, BREX. Went et. al. provide structures of the methyltransferase component, PglX, and rationally mutate PglX to retarget BREX defence against new phages.

Humans can infer rules for building words in a new language from a handful of examples, and linguists also can infer language patterns across related languages. Here, the authors provide an algorithm which models these grammatical abilities by synthesizing human-understandable programs for building words.

Two related studies describe a newly discovered cranium of Australopithecus anamensis, the environment in which this hominin would have lived approximately 3.8 million years ago and how it is related to Australopithecus afarensis.

Integrin α_Vβ₆ binds the transforming growth factor-β1 precursor (pro-TGF-β1) in an orientation that is biologically relevant for force-dependent release of TGF-β from its latent form.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Sequencing data from two large-scale studies show that most of the genetic variation influencing the risk of type 2 diabetes involves common alleles and is found in regions previously identified by genome-wide association studies, clarifying the genetic architecture of this disease.

A general approach to simplifying quantum logic circuits—the ‘programs’ of quantum computers—is described and demonstrated on a platform based on photonic qubits.

Individually addressable ‘T centre’ photon-spin qubits are integrated in silicon photonic structures and their spin-dependent telecommunications-band optical transitions characterized, creating opportunities to construct silicon-integrated, telecommunications-band quantum information networks.

The authors present a magnetically powered, self-clearing implantable catheter that can rapidly remove hematoma from the brain without using drugs. Animals treated with this device had significantly better survival following a hemorrhagic stroke compared with regular catheters.

Goldenberg et al. show that we tend to overestimate the average intensity of a sequence of emotional expressions and that this is caused by increased memory for stronger expressions.

This study reports a global analysis of binding sites for over 200 RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) from 24 species; conserved RNA-binding motifs are identified, and their analysis allows prediction of interaction sites based on the sequence of the RNA-binding domain alone.

A genome-wide association study of critically ill patients with COVID-19 identifies genetic signals that relate to important host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage that may be targeted by repurposing drug treatments.

Paiardini and colleagues describe a subset of lymph node HIV- and SIV-specific TOX^hiTCF1⁺CD39⁺CD8⁺ T cells that coexhibit stem- and effector-like phenotypic and transcriptional profiles and associate with reduced viral burden.

Taurine and indicine cattle have different desirable traits making them better adapted to different climates across the world. Here, Low et al. describe a pipeline to produce haplotype-resolved, chromosome-level genomes of Angus and Brahman cattle breeds from a crossbred individual and report on comparisons of the two genomes.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Analysis of whole-genome sequencing data across 2,658 tumors spanning 38 cancer types shows that chromothripsis is pervasive, with a frequency of more than 50% in several cancer types, contributing to oncogene amplification, gene inactivation and cancer genome evolution.

Srs2 is a DNA helicase and single-stranded DNA translocase that prevents homologous recombination by dismantling Rad51 filaments. Qiu et al.use single-molecule techniques to describe Rad51 filament formation and show that Srs2 displays repetitive activity on single-stranded DNA, which prevents re-formation of Rad51 filaments after dismantling.

Analysis of mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) by using whole-genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancer samples across 38 cancer types identifies hypermutated mtDNA cases, frequent somatic nuclear transfer of mtDNA and high variability of mtDNA copy number in many cancers.

Efficient, large-scale genomic analysis is facilitated on the cloud by a computational tool with error-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities.

Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

Making Bohmian mechanics fully compatible with special relativity is still an ongoing challenge. Here, the authors make a further step in this direction by providing a way of constructing the relativistic Bohmian-type velocity field of single photons which is operationally based on weak measurements.

Data suggest an inverse relationship exists between where plant diversity occurs in nature and where it is housed. This disparity persists across physical and digital botanical collections despite overt colonialism ending over half a century ago.

There are adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines, such as myocarditis for adolescents following receipt of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. Here the authors compare the immunogenicity and reactogenicity of two widely available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines (BNT162b2, an mRNA vaccine, and CoronaVac, a whole-virus inactivated vaccine) in healthy adolescents.

Quantum channel correction could provide a remedy to unavoidable losses in long-distance quantum communication, but the break-even point has escaped demonstration so far. Here, the authors fill this gap using distillation by heralded amplification, followed by teleportation of entanglement.

Here, a new type of behaviour of receptor–ligand bonds has been identified, by using a new method that links receptor and ligand in a single molecule to measure binding and unbinding. The binding of von Willebrand factor to the glycoprotein Ib α subunit on the surface of platelets is important for coagulation. This receptor–ligand bond is now shown to have two distinct states, one seen at low force and a second that has greater force resistance. This has implications for how increased blood flow activates platelet plug formation.

Chemical modification of PS-ASO therapeutics reduces binding to cellular proteins and decreases toxic side-effects.

A catalogue of the vascular flora of New Guinea indicates that this island is the most floristically diverse in the world, and that 68% of the species identified are endemic to New Guinea.

There is increasing evidence that epigenetic mechanisms contribute to therapeutic resistance in cancer. Here the authors study AML patient samples and a mouse model of non-genetic resistance and find that transcriptional plasticity drives stable epigenetic resistance, and identify regulators of enhancer function as important modulators of resistance.

Exome-sequencing analyses of a large cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes and control individuals without diabetes from five ancestries are used to identify gene-level associations of rare variants that are associated with type 2 diabetes.

Bacteriophage single-stranded DNA annealing proteins (SSAPs) interact with the C termini of single-stranded binding proteins in host bacteria, a finding that enables engineering of enhanced SSAP portability and DNA recombineering activities.