News & Comment

Modern gut microbiota research, enabled by high-throughput sequencing, has established gastrointestinal microbial communities as integral components of host biology across the animals and humans. Animal studies established their roles in polysaccharide fermentation, nutrient utilization, and host physiology, while human investigations linked microbiota variation to metabolic and inflammatory conditions. The Gut Microbiota Collection (https://www.nature.com/collections/jhdjahhcea) brings together studies across host species, populations, and systems to offer more insights in how diet, geography, and host physiology shape microbiota composition and function.

This editorial reviews the "Periodontal Health and Disease" Collection from Scientific Reports, highlighting pivotal research that bridges the gap between local oral pathology and systemic health. The Collection presents significant mechanistic insights, particularly regarding the role of VPS13B in epithelial barrier function and the regulation of osteoprotegerin by gingival fibroblasts. Furthermore, it showcases diagnostic advancements in salivary biomarkers, such as short-chain fatty acids and specific B-cell subsets, which offer noninvasive avenues for early detection. Crucially, the research explores the bidirectional links between periodontitis and systemic conditions, including non-small cell lung cancer, threatened preterm labor, and metabolic dysregulation. Collectively, these studies underscore the importance of periodontal health in achieving global health targets, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being), and provide a roadmap for future translational research and clinical practice.

Sexual health and contraception research has historically emphasized the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, often overlooking broader dimensions of well-being and equity. This editorial introduces the Sexual Health and Contraception Collection and highlights a shift toward a more holistic, interdisciplinary framework centered on autonomy, access, and reproductive justice. Across the Collection, key themes include persistent inequities in care and the complex biological, psychosocial, and environmental determinants of sexual health. Emerging diagnostic and methodological innovations offer new opportunities for early identification and targeted interventions. Together, these contributions underscore the need for inclusive, systems-level approaches that translate evidence into equitable care and advance sexual well-being across populations and life stages.

For a long time, political thought was shaped by the image of the “rational voter,” someone who calmly evaluates policies and candidates before making a choice. Research in political psychology has steadily challenged that picture. Even so, the biological and cognitive processes that shape political identities, susceptibility to misinformation, and emotional reactions to leaders are only now coming into sharper focus. This Collection brings together recent work that goes beyond self-report and draws on neuroimaging, computational modelling, and behavioral interventions to examine the architecture of the political mind. Across these studies, political behavior appears closely linked to basic sensory, affective, and cognitive processes. Here, we synthesize those contributions and argue that future progress in political neuroscience will depend on stronger predictive computational models. Rather than treating ideology as either fully rational or simply irrational, this perspective suggests that political beliefs often emerge from ordinary neural systems trying to cope with complexity, uncertainty, and threat.

Near-surface geophysics encompasses methods for investigating the upper layers of the Earth’s crust, where geological processes directly affect infrastructure, natural resources, and environmental risks. The Near-surface geophysics Collection brings together studies that demonstrate the rapid evolution of the field, ranging from advances in data acquisition and processing to new inversion and regularization strategies and integrated case studies. In this editorial, the contributions are grouped into three themes: improving the coverage and quality of seismic data; developing inversion and regularization methods for diverse datasets; and integrating data from multiple geophysical methods. Together, these approaches highlight the move toward more reliable and higher-quality subsurface models.

Over the past few decades, digital twin technology has evolved into a highly versatile tool. Initially used in the aerospace industry, digital twins can now form the dynamic backbone of systems in manufacturing, healthcare, smart cities, and planetary-scale climate models. They facilitate predictive ‘what if’ simulations, ranging from virtual hearts to interactive Earth twins. Progress in the future will rely on the integration of heterogeneous data, the validation of models and the embedding of human-centric governance in order to build robust and trustworthy digital twins across disciplines for the benefit of society.

Ecohydraulics sits at the dynamic intersection of fluid mechanics and ecological function. As the impacts of climate change, urbanization, and industrial expansion intensify, this emerging discipline offers powerful tools for restoring and managing rivers, lakes, and coastal zones through nature-based, science-driven solutions. By integrating hydrodynamic principles with ecological objectives, ecohydraulics enables the design and assessment of interventions that not only rehabilitate degraded systems but also enhance long-term environmental resilience and sustainability. This Scientific Reports Collection highlights recent advances across experimental, modeling, and artificial-intelligence (AI)-driven approaches—from turbulence-based habitat design to coastal wave attenuation and fish-migration modeling—demonstrating how ecohydraulics connects scientific innovation with practical restoration and sustainable water management.

Urbanization in the Global South is accelerating amid a confluence of ecological, social, and developmental pressures that diverge considerably from those experienced in the Global North. Recent advances in spatial analysis, environmental modeling, and related fields are reshaping scholarly understandings of these multifaceted challenges and the targeted policy responses needed to address them. The Urban Sustainability in the Global South Collection, published in Scientific Reports, compiles interdisciplinary research contributions that elucidate ongoing urban transformations and provide evidence-based insights to inform pathways toward inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable urban futures, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11).

Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) and Addictions are a major public health concern, affecting people’s health and well-being at all ages. The intention behind this collection was to publish original research articles on SUDs and related addictions. These articles would address genetic, neurobiological, psychological, and environmental risk factors for the development of these disorders, as well as approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Thirteen articles covering a wide range of topics related to different SUDs and behavioral addictions, as well as human and animal studies from basic and clinical research, were received and have been summarized in this editorial. Each of the articles has made a significant contribution to our scientific understanding of addiction, with the potential to inform clinical applications. We hope that the findings revealed by this collection of articles, along with the broader efforts of the scientific and clinical communities around the world, will lead to the development of better tools and methods for preventing, diagnosing, and treating substance use disorders (SUD) and behavioral addictions.

LGBTQ+ individuals represent a large, heterogenous group. Individuals in this group often experience prejudice, discrimination, and inequities in the healthcare system, making them less likely to seek care and more likely to experience adverse outcomes. In addition to stigma and denial of primary or specialized care, they may also experience inappropriate pathologizing of their sexual orientation or gender identity both within and outside of healthcare settings that drives them away from accessing life-saving services linked to their health and well-being. This collection invites original research on LGBTQ+ health – both broad and intersectionally construed. We welcome quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method studies on LGBTQ+ health. We also welcome manuscripts that apply evidence synthesis including systematic reviews, as well as meta-analyses which focus on health-related outcomes (e.g., disparities, predictors of mental or physical health outcomes, group comparisons, experience in/access to/utilisation of healthcare provisions), focusing on clear health-related outcome(s) among LGBTQ+ communities.

From genome sequencing to single-cell multi-omics profiling, bioinformatic data holds massive promise, calling for data interpretation to facilitate the development of precision medicine with artificial intelligence technologies. Moreover, clinical health records and real-time sensing data from wearable devices could provide deeper insights into construction of multidimensional personalized digital profiles. While precision medicine is an appealing concept, several core challenges still impede translation from bench to the bedside, including heterogeneity challenges across varied data sources, integration challenges facing privacy and permission concerns, and real-world challenges with a wider and more complicated disease range than training sets. In this Collection, we publish original research and contributions across all aspects of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and precision medicine.