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Glasses are known to have very slow flow behaviour on application of force, but the structural basis for this flow is currently unclear. Here Wang et al.use a dynamic mechanical analysis to study the flow phenomena in a La-based metallic glass.

Together with a companion paper, the generation of a transcriptomic atlas for the mouse lemur and analyses of example cell types establish this animal as a molecularly tractable primate model organism.

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.

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.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

Sparse labelling and whole-brain imaging are used to reconstruct and classify brain-wide complete morphologies of 1,741 individual neurons in the mouse brain, revealing a dependence on both brain region and transcriptomic profile.

A study demonstrates the extension of a lifetime of a quantum memory using active quantum error correction and reinforcement learning.

A versatile and rapid metallaphotoredox catalytic method of making ³H- and ¹¹C-labelled tracer compounds for use in positron emission tomography (PET) is reported.

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.

Modules of foldable crystalline silicon solar cells retain their power-conversion efficiency after being subjected to bending stress or exposure to air-flow simulations of a violent storm.

A noise-resilient protocol implemented in a cavity resonator coupled to a qubit demonstrates that large nonlinear couplings are not a necessary requirement for the fast universal control and state preparation of engineered quantum systems.

There is a long-standing trade-off between high piezoelectricity and good temperature stability for piezoceramics. Here, authors combine phase boundary engineering and process engineering to relieve this relationship in (Pb, Zr) TiO3 piezoceramics.

Photoemission measurements sensitive to the momentum perpendicular to the layers that make up the pnictide superconductors are able to map out a full three-dimensional superconducting gap structure.

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.

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.

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.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

The BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network has constructed a multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex in a landmark effort towards understanding brain cell-type diversity, neural circuit organization and brain function.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports a measurement of the ratio of the decay rates of W bosons to τ leptons and muons, in agreement with universal lepton couplings as postulated in the standard model of particle physics.

Analysis of interactions between the wheels of the Zhurong rover and the terrain along the rover’s traverse reveals soils with high bearing strength and cohesion.

Activity profiles generated from quantitative high-throughput screening improve drug candidate prediction.

Increased global land precipitation, due to the atmospheric feedbacks of large-scale bioenergy cultivation, may partially compensate the water consumption by such rainfed bioenergy crops at the global scale.

Ribosome biogenesis and translation are essential processes for cellular activity. Here, the authors illustrated the role of AtPRMT3-RPS2B in maintaining ribosome assembly and coordinating growth-stress trade-off.

An adversarial domain translation framework is presented for scalable integration of single-cell atlases across samples, technical platforms, data modalities and species.

The authors study CsV₃Sb₅ by nuclear quadrupole resonance. At ambient pressure, there are two superconducting gaps with line nodes in the smaller one. For pressures above P_c ~ 1.85 GPa, where the charge-density wave phase is completely suppressed, they observe fully-gapped superconductivity with broken rotational symmetry.

A massively parallel assay developed to map the essential photosynthetic enzyme rubisco showed that non-trivial biochemical changes and improvements in CO₂ affinity are possible, signposting further enzyme engineering efforts to increase crop yields.

A competitive-chemical-reaction-based growth mechanism by controlling the kinetic parameters can easily realize the growth of transition metal chalcogenides and transition metal phosphorous chalcogenides with different compositions and phases.

Calculations of relative binding free energy are crucial for lead optimization in structure-based drug design, but classical methods are computationally expensive. Here, the authors describe a more efficient method for calculating the free energy that is as accurate as thermodynamic integration.

Using spin-entangled baryon–antibaryon pairs, the BESIII Collaboration reports on high-precision measurements of potential charge conjugation and parity (CP)-symmetry-violating effects in hadrons.

GWAS have identified more than 500 genetic loci associated with blood lipid levels. Here, the authors report a genome-wide analysis of interactions between genetic markers and physical activity, and find that physical activity modifies the effects of four genetic loci on HDL or LDL cholesterol.

The QT interval is a heritable electrocardiographic measure associated with arrhythmia risk when prolonged. Here, the authors used a series of genetic analyses to identify genetic loci, pathways, therapeutic targets, and relationships with cardiovascular disease.

In all experimentally observed Weyl semimetals so far, the Weyl points always appear in pairs in the momentum space. Here, the authors report one unpaired Weyl point without surface Fermi arc emerging at the center of the Brillouin zone, which is surrounded by charged Weyl nodal walls in PtGa.

R-type contractile bacteriocins are natural-occurring nanomachines that kill bacteria. Here the authors report the atomic structures of a bacteriocin, called diffocin, that has been engineered to kill Gram-positive bacterium Clostridioides difficile.

The ASAP4 family of genetically encoded voltage indicators allows recording of action potentials and subthreshold activity with either one- or two-photon microscopy over extended periods of time.

Measurements of the inelastic cross section of anti-³He allow the estimation of the transparency of the Milky Way to the propagation of these light antinuclei produced in either cosmic-ray collisions or annihilation of dark-matter particles.

All components of the proton–proton nuclear fusion chain, in which hydrogen is converted into helium in the Sun, are described, with several implications for fundamental solar and particle physics.

Glass-to-glass transitions can help understanding the glass nature, but it remains difficult to tune metallic glasses into significantly different glass states. Here the authors demonstrate the high-entropy effects in glass-to-glass transitions of high-entropy metallic glasses.

Triply degenerate electronic structure—three-component fermions—protected by crystal symmetries is observed in tungsten carbide. The observed Fermi arcs associated with the surface states provide evidence of the non-trivial topology of the states.

Experiments show that TaAs is a three-dimensional topological Weyl semimetal.

Ten years after the discovery of the Higgs boson, the ATLAS  experiment at CERN probes its kinematic properties with a significantly larger dataset from 2015–2018 and provides further insights on its interaction with other known particles.

Cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography and mutational analyses reveal how Dengue and Zika virus protein NS5 suppresses STAT2 activity and interferon response in host cells.

Multi-modal analysis is used to generate a 3D atlas of the upper limb area of the mouse primary motor cortex, providing a framework for future studies of motor control circuitry.

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.

A genome-wide association study in ~3 million individuals identifies 3,952 independent variants associated with educational attainment. A polygenic index explains 12–16% of variance for this trait and contributes to risk prediction for ten diseases.

Rotaviruses are of great medical significance because they cause gastroenteritis in children. Here the authors provide insights into the mechanism of viral mRNA transcription by determining the in situ cryo-EM structures of a working rotavirus’ RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase, which is of interest for antiviral drug design.

Sun et al. report human lifespan changes in the brain’s functional connectome in 33,250 individuals, which highlights critical growth milestones and distinct maturation patterns and offers a normative reference for development, aging and diseases.

A chemically complex alloy that exhibits a high elastic strain limit and low internal friction is described; it also has an Elinvar effect (invariant elastic modulus) over a large temperature range, up to 627 °C.