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In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

A multi-cohort genome-wide association study of tau PET, a brain imaging-based marker of Alzheimer’s disease, identifies a CYP1B1-RMDN2 locus as associated with higher tau and faster cognitive decline. These results suggest a new genetic contribution to cerebral tau and target for Alzheimer’s disease research.

Physical analysis of processes universal to raised peatlands produces an equation that explains their morphology and carbon storage across biomes, from Alaska to New Zealand.

Two below-threshold surface code memories on superconducting processors markedly reduce logical error rates, achieving high efficiency and real-time decoding, indicating potential for practical large-scale fault-tolerant quantum algorithms.

A method that allows for the detection of mosaic chromosomal alterations from blood whole-genome sequencing data highlights ancestry-specific differences in the distribution of common and rare germline susceptibility variants.

Human TNF is required for respiratory-burst-dependent immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis in macrophages but seems to be largely redundant physiologically.

Many individual genetic risk loci associate with multiple diseases, but the molecular basis of these loci often remains unclear. Here, the authors provide a framework to reveal the genetic cross-disease associations at the PROCR vascular disease locus.

Analysing camera-trap data of 163 mammal species before and after the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns, the authors show that responses to human activity are dependent on the degree to which the landscape is modified by humans, with carnivores being especially sensitive.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

A study of SARS-CoV-2 variants examining their transmission, infectivity, and potential resistance to therapies provides insights into the biology of the Delta variant and its role in the global pandemic.

Insight into the battles that raged as a centre of excellence was forged.

Based on the acquisition of a multi-spectral reflection matrix at a high frame rate, a fully digital microscope overcomes aberrations and multiple scattering to provide a three-dimensional image of an ex vivo opaque cornea at a resolution of 0.29 μm and 0.5 μm in the transverse and axial directions, respectively.

Hydrogen has been proposed as a fuel for widespread use since the 1970s, but uptake has repeatedly fallen below projections, primarily due to high costs. This Perspective considers hydrogen’s potential in relation to rapidly improving competitor technologies, and outlines steps for prioritising roles for clean hydrogen within the energy transition.

Different functional variants in ADH1B (and elsewhere) in Europeans and Africans strongly affect risk for alcohol dependence. Dependence only partly genetically correlates with consumption, with strong correlations to other psychiatric disorders.

The insertion of magnesium into protoporphyrin starts the biosynthesis of chlorophyll. X-ray crystallography, computational modelling, mutagenesis and enzymology combined probe the magnesium chelatase complex’s structure and catalytic function.

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.

The MAGIC investigators report results of a large genome-wide association study meta-analysis to identify common variants influencing fasting glucose homeostasis. They further show that several of the newly discovered loci influencing glycemic traits are also associated with risk of type 2 diabetes.

A chromosome-level genome assembly for the Ninu (greater bilby) and genome sequences for the extinct Yallara (lesser bilby), together with resequenced genomes, shed light on the demographic history of Ninu and inform conservation plans for this culturally and ecologically important marsupial.

Coordinated neuronal activity may mediate memory in hippocampal CA1. Here, the authors use an array of machine-learning classifiers to reveal how higher-order population dynamics and learning-induced spine plasticity are disrupted in amnestic mice.

Artificial reefs provide important ecosystem services in marine environments. Accurate knowledge of the area covered by such reefs can help evaluate benefits and risks of such structures. This study describes the physical footprint of artificial reefs deployed in coastal waters of the United States.

Whether Alzheimer’s disease originates in basal forebrain or entorhinal cortex remains highly debated. Here the authors use structural magnetic resonance data from a longitudinal sample of participants stratified by cerebrospinal biomarker and clinical diagnosis to show that tissue volume changes appear earlier in the basal forebrain than in the entorhinal cortex.

The response to infectious and inflammatory challenges differs among people but the reasons for this are poorly understood. Here the authors explore the impact of variables such as age, sex, and the capacity for controlling inflammation and maintaining immunocompetence, linking this capacity to favourable health outcomes and lifespan.

Individuals over eighty years of age are less likely to mount a good immune response against SARS-CoV-2 (measured by neutralization titres) after the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine, but achieve good neutralization after the second dose.

Here the authors conduct a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of telomere length, used diverse approaches to identify genes underlying association signals, and experimentally validated POP5 and KBTBD6 as regulators of telomere length in human cells.

In cells with microsatellite instability, expanded TA-dinucleotide repeats form cruciform structures that stall replication forks and cause chromosome shattering in the absence of the WRN helicase.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

Using mouse and human plasma, Carver et al. identify factors that are altered with age and test which are reverted by a panel of genetic and pharmacological senolytic interventions in aged mice. They identify IL-23R as a senescence-associated, age-increased circulating biomarker.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide analyses identify 95 loci associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and implicate candidate genes, pathways and neurobiological systems underlying its pathophysiology.

Med-PaLM, a state-of-the-art large language model for medicine, is introduced and evaluated across several medical question answering tasks, demonstrating the promise of these models in this ___domain.

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.

Combining a large-scale dataset of 23 ungulate species (in which newborns follow contrasting tactics of predator avoidance) with continuous-time stochastic movement models, the authors reveal that there are multiple dimensions of maternal movement behaviour and space use.

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

An analysis of metagenomic sequencing of stool samples from multiple cohorts of patients with melanoma treated with immune checkpoint blockade uncovers microbiome correlates of response to therapy and also reveals widespread variability across populations.

Within microbial communities, microorganisms adopt different lifestyle strategies to use the available resources. Here, the authors use an integrated ‘multi-omic’ approach to study niche breadth (generalist versus specialist lifestyles) in oleaginous microbial assemblages from an anoxic wastewater treatment tank.

Here the authors show that Omicron neutralizing antibody titers decline over time in mice immunized with a wild-type (WT) lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-mRNA vaccine and are robustly increased by WT or Omicron LNP-mRNA and that Omicron boosters elicit higher BA.1-neutralizing titer than WT boosters.

Safely opening university campuses has been a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, the authors describe a program of public health measures employed at a university in the United States which, combined with other non-pharmaceutical interventions, allowed the university to stay open in fall 2020 with limited evidence of transmission.

De Blank and colleagues examine data from childhood cancer survivors diagnosed between 1970 and 1999 and find that exposure to radiation decreased over time, and radiation was associated with a higher risk of late mortality and subsequent neoplasms.

A genome-wide association study suggests 41 previously unreported loci on top of the 23 known loci that influence the disease risk for lumbar disc herniations. Many of these loci harbour genes implicated in disc structure and inflammation, as well as genes related to the nervous system and nerve function.