Ancient DNA studies over the past decade have yielded a plethora of insights into the Denisovan archaic hominin group. The authors review our understanding of Denisovan population history and their interactions with other human groups, insights from studies of Denisovan ancestry in modern humans, what we know about the Denisovan phenotype and their impact on our own evolutionary history.

Native nucleotide modifications regulate RNA function and metabolism, the study of which has revealed disease mechanisms, offers therapeutic potential and enables innovative clinical strategies. Chemical modifications in RNA are harnessed for clinical use in stable artificial RNAs such as mRNA vaccines and synthetic small RNA molecules.

Genomic imprinting — the monoallelic expression of genes based on their parent of origin — may have evolved due to an intragenomic conflict between maternal and paternal genomes within an individual, with differential interests regarding the level of parental caregiving. Here, the authors review the influence of genomic imprinting on parenting behaviour in mammals, with a focus on studies in mice.

In this Review, Zhang et al. discuss how recent advances in computational methods are helping to reveal the multiscale features involved in genome folding within the nucleus and how the resulting 3D genome organization relates to genome function.