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Understanding the mechanisms behind clinical immunity to malaria is crucial for developing effective interventions. Here, the authors demonstrate that clinical immunity to Plasmodium vivax develops rapidly after a single controlled human malaria infection, reducing inflammatory responses and protecting against symptoms, while not significantly affecting parasite load.

Venom is a complex trait with unresolved underlying toxin expression dynamics. Here, the authors compare expression across sea anemone species, revealing variation in dominant toxin diploid copy number across populations which generates distinct haplotypes.

Online cognitive testing combined with the reach of a digital patient registry revealed a subtype of people with Multiple Sclerosis with significant cognitive impairment but no motor deficits. This hidden disability is often underestimated and left untreated.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Buchanan et al. show evidence confirming the phenomenon of semantic priming across speakers of 19 diverse languages.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Ticks transmit a large number of pathogens that cause human diseases. Here, the authors sequence the genome of the tick Ixodes scapularisand uncover expansion of genes associated with parasitic processes unique to ticks and tick-host interactions.

This meta-analysis assesses the rates and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions from flowing and standing (sub)tropical inland waters, finding that emissions are lower than previous estimates. Considerable spatial variation in fluxes arises mainly from differences in hydroclimate, geomorphology, land cover and human disturbance.

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.

The processes that lead to losses of highly energetic particles from Earth’s radiation belts remain poorly understood. Here the authors compare observations and models of a 2013 event to show that electromagnetic ioncyclotron waves provide the dominant loss mechanism at ultra-relativistic energies.

The unique contributions of different frontoparietal networks (FPNs) in cognition remains unclear. Here, authors use neuroadaptive Bayesian optimization to identify cognitive tasks that segregate dorsal and ventral FPNs and reveal complex many-to-many mappings between cognitive tasks and FPNs.

Cells typically migrate toward stiffer substrates via durotaxis, relying on focal adhesions. Here, the authors show that confined cells can migrate up friction gradients without focal adhesions, revealing a mode of directed migration called frictiotaxis.

A national prospective study of patients requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 demonstrates global cognitive deficits at 1 year, associated with elevated brain injury markers and reduced gray matter volume.

Exercise trains fat cells to give up their contents. Too much food stops them, David Adam discovers.

A defining human characteristic is the ability to perform diverse cognitively challenging tasks. The authors show that this adaptability relates to a network sampling mechanism, where brain-wide network states transiently blend the unique combinations of neural resources required by different tasks.

An expert-elicitation process identifies current methodological barriers for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity, and how technological and procedural development of robotic and autonomous systems may contribute to overcoming these challenges.

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.

The duration of symptomatic COVID-19 and its impacts on health and quality of life are not well understood. In this study, the authors report results from a survey of ~275,000 adults in England and find that persistent COVID-19 is relatively rare but is associated with poorer mental health and health-related quality of life.

Current influenza vaccine approaches largely focus on highly variable epitopes with high immunogenicity or epitopes of low variability that often have low immunogenicity. Here, Thompson et al. identify a highly immunogenic epitope of limited variability in the head domain of the H1 haemagglutinin and show protection from diverse H1N1 strains in mice.

A common immune signature in the blood of patients with COVID-19, who are otherwise clinically heterogeneous, sheds light into the pathogenesis and clinical progression of the disease.

Rampant deepfakes and false news are often blamed for swaying votes. Research suggests it’s hard to change people’s political opinions, but easier to nudge their behaviour.

Using genome-wide meta-analyses of clinical measures of depression and biobank data, the authors investigate symptom-specific genetic associations between depression and subsequent risk for Alzheimer’s disease, finding an absence of a putative genetic overlap between disorders.

Electrical deep brain stimulation therapy is limited by the risks of inserting electrodes into the brain. Here the authors report non-invasive deep brain stimulation in the human hippocampus using temporal interference of kHz electric fields.

Investigation of variation in three cohorts has identified multiple genetic signals associated with the pregnancy-specific liver disorder, intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy, giving insight into the disease which can cause preterm birth and stillbirth.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common infection in children and older adults but little is known about within-host viral population diversity. Here, the authors perform deep sequencing and find that RSV subgroup B exhibited more diversity than subgroup A, with implications for development of therapeutics and vaccines.

COVID-19 can be associated with neurological complications. Here the authors show that markers of brain injury, but not immune markers, are elevated in the blood of patients with COVID-19 both early and months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in those with brain dysfunction or neurological diagnoses.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s health and well-being. Here, the authors characterize self-reported impact of the pandemic (positive and negative) at a large scale in the United Kingdom, and show variance among individual circumstances.

As the 'war on terrorism' unfolds, some politicians are calling for controls on the availability of encryption software. But many computer scientists claim such moves would play into the terrorists' hands. David Adam reports.

Whole-genome sequencing and phenotype data sharing are introduced in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover coding and non-coding variants that cause rare diseases.

Genome-wide and multitrait analyses identify novel loci associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and relevant left ventricular traits. Gene-level burden analyses show that rare truncating SVIL variants are associated with high risk of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Longitudinal proteomic profiling of over 1,800 patients revealed two distinct profiles of blood biomarkers measured on admission to hospital for COVID-19, which predict cognitive deficits 6 and 12 months later.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

The right inferior frontal cortex has long been thought to house a neural module that inhibits dominant behaviours. Using brain imaging, Erika-Florence et al.demonstrate that this inhibition is in fact an emergent property of multiple neural networks that support broader classes of cognitive processes.

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

Entanglement was observed in top–antitop quark events by the ATLAS experiment produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s  = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 fb⁻¹.

Millions of pounds per year are spent on various 'brain-training' programs; however, the efficacy and performance of these training regimes is still unclear. In collaboration with the BBC, a six-week online study of brain training was conducted. Although improvements were observed in the specific tasks used for training, in the authors' view there was no evidence that these improvements transferred to other untrained cognitive tasks.

Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Similarities in cancers can be studied to interrogate their etiology. Here, the authors use genome-wide association study summary statistics from six cancer types based on 296,215 cases and 301,319 controls of European ancestry, showing that solid tumours arising from different tissues share a degree of common germline genetic basis.

Vaccination is effective in protecting from COVID-19. Here the authors report immune responses and breakthrough infections in twice-vaccinated patients receiving anti-TNF treatments for inflammatory bowel disease, and find dampened vaccine responses that implicate the need of adapted vaccination schedules for these patients.

The accretion geometry of X-ray binary Cygnus X-3 is determined here from IXPE observations. X-ray polarization reveals a narrow funnel with reflecting walls, which focuses emission, making Cyg X-3 appear as an ultraluminous X-ray source.