Reviews & Analysis

Climate model ensemble boosting can yield physically coherent storylines for record-shattering climate extremes such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave. Combining information from storyline approaches with process understanding can inform planning for future extremes of unprecedented intensity.

Geroscience is becoming a major hope for preventing age-related diseases and loss of function by targeting biological mechanisms of aging. This article reports a discussion of a research Task Force on the challenges posed by the clinical research in Geroscience so that future gerotherapeutic clinical trials can be conducted successfully.

Learning from human brains to build powerful computers is attractive, yet extremely challenging due to the lack of a guiding computing theory. Jaeger et al. give a perspective on a bottom-up approach to engineer unconventional computing systems, which is fundamentally different to the classical theory based on Turing machines.

The ecology and evolution of eukaryotic microbes in extreme environments are poorly understood. In this Perspective, Rappaport and Oliverio summarize data from over 80 studies of protists in extreme environments and identify lineages of particular interest as targets for future research.

Polymer electrolytes are attractive candidates for rechargeable lithium metal batteries. Here, the authors give a personal reflection on the structural design of coupled and decoupled polymer electrolytes and possible routes to further enhance their performance in rechargeable batteries.

The design of polymers for regenerative medicine could be accelerated with the help of machine learning. Here the authors note that machine learning has been applied successfully in other areas of polymer chemistry, while highlighting that data limitations must be overcome to enable widespread adoption within polymeric biomaterials.

In this review article, the authors provide an overview of the interrelationships between the microbiome and nutrition in child growth and healthy development and discuss the potential of the microbiome in undernutrition interventions.

Increasing C storage in mineral-associated organic matter is insufficient due to diverse, environmentally specific persistent soil organic matter formation. Context-dependent management strategies highlighting the importance of particulate organic matter are necessary.

Positron emission tomography is widely used to diagnose and monitor different disease states and interest in the technique has led to the demand for the development of new method for radiolabelling. Here the authors review the recent progress in the development of new PET probes.

Precision environmental health leverages environmental and system-level data to understand underlying environmental causes of disease, identify biomarkers of exposure, and develop new prevention and intervention strategies. In this Perspective, the authors provide real-life illustrations of the utility of precision environmental health approaches and identify current challenges in the field.

Fear of missing neonatal sepsis has led to early in life antibiotic administration, even without culture-proven sepsis. Here, the authors discuss the potential impact on antimicrobial resistance, and chronic disease later in life, due to effect on the developing microbiome, suggesting a factual based approach in quantifying burden of treatment in relation to the burden of disease.

Ebrahimi and Samanta review the key advances in the chemical and structural modification of proteins that have enabled their rise as indispensable tools in medicine and outline emerging protein engineering strategies that can potentially unlock structures with improved therapeutic properties.

Biotechnology is emerging as a promising approach to increase resilience, flexibility, and efficiency of space missions. In this Perspective, the authors outline design-scenarios and provide a techno-economic analysis of their deployment.

The lack of a standardized approach for the characterization of the performance of 2D photodetectors represents an important obstacle towards their industrialization. Here, the authors propose practical guidelines to characterize their figures of merit and analyse common situations where their performance can be misestimated.

In this Review article, the authors discuss the potential of microorganisms as a solution to the challenges faced by our food system. Engineered microorganisms can be used to produce enhanced foods and ingredients in a sustainable manner. The technical, economical, and societal limitations are also discussed together with the current and future perspectives.

Increasing evidence suggests parental environmental stressors can influence offspring health and disease outcomes. In this perspective, the authors provide an update of the paternal epigenetic inheritance field and propose links between paternally transmitted epigenetic influences and functional changes to the embryo.

Naturally evolved genomes tend to be unnecessarily large and redundant, and are not optimised for biotechnological or research applications. In this review, the authors explore genome minimization and re-functionalisation approaches, and discuss their potential for industrial applications.

Yeasts, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris, are promising chassis for the production of nature products (NPs). Here, the author discusses establishing a comprehensive platform for sustainable production of NPs via system-associated optimization at genetics, temporal controllers, productivity screening, and scalability levels.

In this perspective, the authors hypothesise that glial senescence, requiring senescent microglia burden, perpetuates further aging, Alzheimer’s pathologies, and senescence. Increasing glial senescence is proposed as necessary to drive individuals from healthy cognition into cognitive decline and dementia.

One of the ambitions of computational neuroscience is that we will continue to make improvements in the field of artificial intelligence that will be informed by advances in our understanding of how the brains of various species evolved to process information. To that end, here the authors propose an expanded version of the Turing test that involves embodied sensorimotor interactions with the world as a new framework for accelerating progress in artificial intelligence.