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Van Leeuwen and colleagues demonstrate that chimpanzees use social learning to acquire a skill they failed to innovate, supporting the hypothesis that social learning is necessary for acquiring complex skills after initial innovation.

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.

Estimates from the Global Dietary Database indicated that 2.2 million new type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages worldwide in 2020, with the highest burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

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.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Diagnosis of Barrett’s esophagus depends on pathologist assessment of stained slides. Here, the authors utilise a deep learning approach to prioritize potential cases using diagnostic labels in two datasets, with the aim to improve Barrett’s screening capacity.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Amyloid-like proteins are central to age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Here, the authors show that transcription errors can produce mutant proteins with enhanced amyloid- and prion-like properties in human cells.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

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.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

Recent estimates of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) intake are generally unavailable. Here the authors show a global SSBs intake of 2.7 servings/week in 2018 in adults (range: 0.7 South Asia, 7.8 Latin America/Caribbean); intakes were higher among males, younger, more educated, and urban adults.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

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.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

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.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

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.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the ___location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

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.

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.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

The millimetre image of the Centaurus A nucleus by the Event Horizon Telescope reveals a highly collimated, asymmetrically edge-brightened jet. The source’s event horizon shadow should be visible at terahertz frequencies, consistent with the universal scale invariance of black holes.

Using cryo-electron microscopy, heteromeric amyloid filaments composed of TDP-43 and ANXA11 in the brains of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration type C are discovered.

Chromodomain Helicase DNA-binding (CHD) proteins have been implicated in neurodevelopmental processes. Here, the authors identify missense variants in CHD3 that disturb its chromatin remodeling activities and cause a neurodevelopmental disorder with macrocephaly and speech and language impairment.

Lesser-known and junior colleagues helped the great physicist to piece together his general theory of relativity, explain Michel Janssen and Jürgen Renn.

We report the outcome of an international optical observation campaign of a prototype constellation satellite, AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3, which features a 64.3 m² phased-array antenna and a launch vehicle adaptor.

Cell polarization of budding yeast recovers reliably and reproducibly from loss of one of its key components. Here, the authors show how this robustness emerges from redundant self-organization mechanisms coexisting within the underlying protein network.

The compositional makeup of skeletons and teeth in invertebrates and vertebrates is generally different. This study examines the material composition and properties of freshwater crayfish mandibles and finds, in an unusual case of convergent evolution, that they are composed of an apatite layer that is similar to mammalian enamel.

A proximity assay based on methylation of interacting 'prey' proteins by a 'bait' fused to the histone lysine methyltransferase permits the detection of enzyme-substrate protein-protein interactions in yeast.

Neutrophils rapidly respond to bacterial and fungal infections but can cause substantial collateral tissue damage if not restrained. Rosenbauer and colleagues show that the transcription factor PU.1 serves a cell-intrinsic role to prevent over-exuberant neutrophil responses to fungal infection.

Organic farming is proposed to increase the biodiversity of organisms within a field. In this study, Schneider et al.show that while biodiversity is increased in organically farmed fields compared to conventionally farmed land, these effects are not seen at a greater spatial level.

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.

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.

Notch signals are crucial for organization of angiogenic sprouting cells into the leading ‘tip’ and trailing ‘stalk’ cells. Here the authors show that endothelial neuropilin-1 quantitatively inhibits TGF-β/BMP signalling, explaining how Notch-mediated regulation of neuropilin-1 specifies endothelial tip and stalk cells.

This Registered Report presents evidence from 87 countries and regions showing that brief emotion-regulation interventions consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A potential therapeutic strategy for spinal cord injury (SCI) is to maintain continuity of damaged axons after contusion, but the viability of such strategies depends on the degree to which initially injured axons can recover. Here the authors use morphological and molecular in vivoimaging after contusion SCI in mice, to show that injured axons persist in a metastable state for hours.