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Equilibrium isomerization of retinol is a new activity now attributable to DES1. 11-cis-retinol synthesized by DES1 in Müller cells of the retina can be converted to the visual chromophore for regenerating opsin pigment in cone photoreceptors.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

This work compares the preclinical lung biodistribution and efficacy profile of inhaled anti-CCN2 (cellular communication network factor 2) Anticalin® protein PRS-220 for the treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) compared to systemic delivery of a CCN2 inhibitor.

Achieving the Paris Agreement’s climate goals depends on safeguarding and monitoring the permanence of forest carbon stocks, as delays in addressing their vulnerability to disturbances drastically increase mitigation costs and efforts.

The identification of patient-specific disease mechanisms and druggable targets is crucial for precision medicine in glioblastoma. Here, the authors show that comparing patients-matched glioma-initiating cells with neural stem cells enables the discovery of patient-specific mechanisms of disease and the identification of effective drugs

Keyl et al. present an explainable artificial intelligence model-based real-world data analysis from over 15,000 patients across 38 cancer types, identified key prognostic marker interactions, and confirmed these in an external lung cancer cohort.

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.

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab has operated on the International Space Station since 2018 to study quantum gases and mature quantum technologies in Earth’s orbit. Here, Williams et al., report on a series of pathfinding experiments exploring the first quantum sensor using atom interferometry in space.

It is currently thought that visual pigments in vertebrate photoreceptors are regenerated exclusively through enzymatic cycles. Here the authors show that mammalian photoreceptors also regenerate opsin pigments in light through photoisomerization of N-ret-PE (N-retinylidene-phosphatidylethanolamine.

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.

In a post-approval study including more than 17,000 patients on the safety of pulsed field ablation, a new method for treatment of atrial fibrillation, the procedure was found to have a low rate of adverse events but was associated with some unexpected rare complications that will need further study.

Using upgraded hardware of the multiuser Cold Atom Lab (CAL) aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) of two atomic isotopes are simultaneously created and used to demonstrate interspecies interactions and dual species atom interferometry in space.

Asian soybean rust caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi is an important plant pathogen, but an accurate genome assembly for this fungus has been lacking. This study sequenced three independent P. pachyrhizi isolates and generated reference quality assemblies and genome annotations, representing a critical step for further in-depth studies of this pathogen and the development of new methods of control.

Chemical proteomics identified covalent ligands targeting an isoform-restricted allosteric cysteine in JAK1. The compounds inhibit JAK1-dependent signaling in immune cells with unprecedented selectivity.

Solar wind is highly structured yet variable. Close-up observations of the solar atmosphere reveal that the changing connectivity of multiple sources in the solar corona drives the observed complexity and variability in the inner heliosphere.

Cost-effective biodiversity monitoring through time is important for evidence-based conservation. Here, the authors show that automated bioacoustics monitoring can be used to track tropical forest recovery from agricultural abandonment, suggesting its use to assess restoration outcomes.

Models of brain organisation can overlook the role of the autonomic nervous system in cognitive processes. Here the authors show a link between the ascending arousal system and both low dimensional neural dynamics and internal shifts in conscious awareness.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

In this largest whole-exome sequencing study of epilepsies to date, the Epi25 Collaborative identified extremely rare variants that confer risk for diverse epilepsy subtypes, highlighting roles in synaptic transmission and neuronal excitability.

Liver resident CD8 T cells have an essential role in immunopathology in a mouse model of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, by becoming auto-aggressive following sequential transcriptional and metabolic activation steps .

The authors analyse tree responses to an extreme heat and drought event across South America to understand long-term climate resistance. While no more sensitive to this than previous lesser events, forests in drier climates showed the greatest impacts and thus vulnerability to climate extremes.

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.

X-ray computed tomography is combined with burst ptychography and filtered back-propagation to achieve high-speed, three-dimensional imaging of features as small as 4 nm.

Male offspring of pregnant mice infected with a low dose of Zika virus infection have increased testosterone levels, an increased number of immature neurons in apical hippocampal dendrites and are less likely to survive in utero infection than female littermates.

Influenza infection during pregnancy can affect health of offspring but it is not clear how this affects immune responses. Here the authors use a mouse model to show that influenza infection during pregnancy can increase susceptibility to secondary infection and alter immune cell function in offspring.

Mosses support carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, organic matter decomposition and plant pathogen control in soils across the globe, according to a global survey of soil attributes in ecosystems with and without mosses.

Genome-wide analysis identifies variants associated with the volume of seven different subcortical brain regions defined by magnetic resonance imaging. Implicated genes are involved in neurodevelopmental and synaptic signaling pathways.

Neotropical tree community composition shows opposing successional pathways for wet and dry forests, but as vegetation cover increases over time, trends converge. Selecting species that have similar wood density to early successional communities could improve reforestation prospects.

Kinases are a widely targeted enzyme class in cancer chemotherapy. Several clinically used kinase inhibitors also inhibit bromodomains, epigenetic ‘readers’ of acetylated lysine residues, suggesting that kinase-bromodomain polypharmacology may offer benefits in therapeutic settings.

This protocol enables the generation of human forebrain organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells with the intrinsic ability to assemble functionally integrated bilateral optic vesicles.

By determining the crystal structure of the Na + /H + antiporter NhaA at active pH, the authors show how substrate accessibility to the ion-binding site can be controlled by pH sensitive switch located on the cytoplasmic surface.

Data from over 700,000 individuals reveal the identity of 83 sequence variants that affect human height, implicating new candidate genes and pathways as being involved in growth.

The authors defined a roadmap for investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders. Their proof-of-concept study using the largest available common variant data sets for schizophrenia and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures did not find evidence of genetic overlap.

The hippocampus in mammalian brain varies in size across individuals. Here, Hibar and colleagues perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis to find six genetic loci with significant association to hippocampus volume.

At light levels where both rods and cones are active, their signals converge into shared downstream retinal circuitry. Using HCN1 deficient mice, this study shows that the signals from cone photoreceptors are overwhelmed when rod output is not regulated, suggesting a mechanism for how these systems interact.

Ibargüen-González, Heller et al. analyze plasma levels of pancreatic enzymes and inflammatory markers in a retrospective cohort study of 120 COVID-19 patients. Host factor PLAC8 is found to be required for SARS-CoV-2 pancreatic infection.

A technique that combines X-ray ptychography with laminography can provide three-dimensional views of integrated circuits, yielding both images of entire chip volumes and high-resolution images of arbitrarily chosen subregions, and is applicable to any imaging problem where the samples are planar.

Interleukin-1β promotes an atheroprotective phenotype in late-stage lesions of mice, suggesting the possibility of deleterious effects of interleukin-1β blockade in the setting of myocardial infarction.

The role of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) in mediating the impacts of drought in tropical trees is unclear. Here, the authors analyse leaf and branch NSC in 82 Amazon tree species across a Basin-wide precipitation gradient, finding that allocation of leaf NSC to soluble sugars is higher in drier sites and is coupled to tree hydraulic status.

Exome-wide analysis identifies rare and low-frequency coding variants associated with body mass index. Gene-based meta-analysis and functional studies implicate 13 genes, eight of which are novel, and neuronal pathways as factors in human obesity.