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Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

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 authors use systematic monitoring across the former USSR to investigate phenological changes across taxa. The long-term mean temperature of a site emerged as a strong predictor of phenological change, with further imprints of trophic level, event timing, site, year and biotic interactions.

Climate change can alter when and how animals grow, breed, and migrate, but it is unclear whether this allows populations to persist. This global study shows that shifts in seasonal timing are key to helping vertebrate species maintain population growth under global warming.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

Wastewater-based surveillance tends to focus on specific pathogens. Here, the authors mapped the wastewater virome from 62 cities worldwide to identify over 2,500 viruses, revealing city-specific virome fingerprints and showing that wastewater metagenomics enables early detection of emerging viruses.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

Antimicrobial resistance genes that have been mobilized between bacterial species represent a subset of the naturally occurring resistome. Here, the authors compare the abundance, diversity and geographical patterns of acquired resistance genes with latent resistance genes in global sewage metagenomes.

Accessing synthetic two-dimensional polymers that are analogous to graphene is synthetically and analytically challenging. Now, single crystals of a simple-to-make monomer have been grown and then photopolymerized to form layered single crystals of covalently bonded two-dimensional polymer. Much like natural graphite, these crystals can be exfoliated to form thin sheets and single layers of the polymer.

The standard band structure picture cannot be applied to amorphous materials as they lack crystal symmetry. Now a first-principles approach that captures the possibility of band-like electron transport in amorphous solids is presented, with In₂O₃ as an example.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

An important source of loss in solar cells is the recombination of the photogenerated charge carriers before they are extracted from the device. Chang et al. now show that such recombination can be reduced in organic solar cells by increasing the separation between donors and acceptors.

It is known that the spin-excitation spectrum of the undoped parents of iron-pnictide superconductors contains a pronounced magnon peak, but it is unclear whether this survives doping into the superconducting state. Schmitt et al.report resonant inelastic X-ray scattering spectra that suggest it does.

Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a powerful tool but local control of superconductivity with the STM tip is still lacking. Here, Geet al. show the use of an STM tip to control the local pinning in a superconductor through the heating effect, allowing to manipulate single superconducting vortex at nanoscale.

Screening by a graphite gate placed at 1 nm proximity to graphene produces transformative improvement in its electronic quality, reducing charge inhomogeneity by two orders of magnitude.

Machine-learning algorithms trained on 25,000 geolocated soil samples are used to create high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungi, revealing that less than 10% of their biodiversity hotspots are in protected areas.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

Lead sulphide colloidal nanocrystals are now used to harvest non-emissive triplet excitons generated in a tetracene layer. Depending on the length of the ligands capping the nanocrystals, exciton transfer efficiency as high as 90% can be achieved.

Remarkable organ shape morphological diversity exists in fruits, vegetables and seeds. Here, the authors establish a link between OVATE Family Proteins and TONNEAU1 Recruiting Motif family proteins in the development pathway that governs fruit shape of tomato, melon, and cucumber as well as potato tuber shape.

The authors analyze rare coding variants in 1990 individuals with congenital kidney anomalies, finding diagnostic variants in 14.1% of cases. They identify two new causal genes, ARID3A and NR6A1, along with 38 candidate genes, providing evidence for shared genetics with other developmental disorders.

Across 26 countries, Imhoff et al. find that conspiracy mentality is more prevalent at both ends of the political spectrum than the centre. This U-shaped pattern is accentuated for supporters of political parties not in government, particularly on the political right.

Risk for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is higher when there are first-degree family members with the disease. Here, Scelo and colleagues perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis and new genome-wide scan to identify seven new loci with significant RCC association.

A comparison of alpha diversity (number of plant species) and dark diversity (species that are currently absent from a site despite being ecologically suitable) demonstrates the negative effects of regional-scale anthropogenic activity on plant diversity.

Here the authors show that the patterning signals WNT, BMP, and FGF control chromosome segregation fidelity during early lineage specification and neurogenesis, which could provide a rationale for the spatio-temporal distribution of genomic mosaicism during human development.

An experimental method is used to assign partial charges based on crystal structure determination through electron diffraction, applicable to any crystalline compound.

Trees come in all shapes and size, but what drives this incredible variation in tree form remains poorly understood. Using a global dataset, the authors show that a combination of climate, competition, disturbance and evolutionary history shape the crown architecture of the world’s trees and thereby constrain the 3D structure of woody ecosystems.

Many Western nations are severing scientific links — but it’s a different story in China, India and South Africa.

To evaluate the effectiveness of current national policies in achieving global temperature targets is important but a systematic multi-model evaluation is still lacking. Here the authors identified a reduction of 3.5 GtCO₂ eq of current national policies relative to a baseline scenario without climate policies by 2030 due to the increasing low carbon share of final energy and the improving final energy intensity.

A topological insulator-based Josephson junction is expected to host low-energy Andreev-bound states. Here, Kurter et al. study Josephson interferometry and SQUID oscillations in Bi₂Se₃junctions to evidence anomalous non-sinusoidal supercurrent contributions as possible signatures of these states.

With the yearly exodus from labs and lecture theatres imminent, Nature's regular reviewers and editors share some tempting holiday reads.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

The polar chiral texture of the vortex or skyrmion structure in ferroelectric oxide PbTiO₃/SrTiO₃ superlattice attracts attention. Here, the authors report a theoretical framework to probe emergent chirality of electrical polarization textures.

Endogenous CXCR4 homo-oligomers are identified in native tissue and human cancer cell lines through time-resolved Förster resonance energy transfer between fluorescently labelled nanobodies.

Transancestral GWAS meta-analysis in 160,420 individuals identifies 139 loci associated with refractive error, including myopia. Newly identified genes implicate pathways involved in eye growth and light signaling cascades.

Integrating inventory data with machine learning models reveals the global composition of tree types—needle-leaved evergreen individuals dominate, followed by broadleaved evergreen and deciduous trees—and climate change risks.

Harty and colleagues report that physiological microbial exposures in mice can enhance memory T cell presence in the brain and influence neurological disease outcomes.

Vitamin A deficiency exacerbates invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella infection in mice, revealing a restrictive role for SLC11A1 in neutrophils.

A comprehensive meta-analysis of global terrestrial and marine genetic diversity covering more than three decades of research demonstrates rapid loss of genetic diversity and identifies conservation interventions that could mitigate this process.

Using a graphene quantum dot creation and a wavefunction mapping technique, quantum scars are directly visualized for Dirac electrons with a scanning tunnelling microscope.