Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 121, Number 21
This Week in PNAS
Opinion
Retrospective
Commentaries
Perspectives
Policy action for sustainability transformation faces inherent and ever-present sources
of conflict, pushback, and resistance (i.e., discord). However, conceptual frameworks
and policy prescriptions for sustainability transformations often reflect an ...
Generative AI that can produce realistic text, images, and other human-like outputs
is currently transforming many different industries. Yet it is not yet known how such
tools might influence social science research. I argue Generative AI has the ...
Letters
View the original article:
Proximal ejecta of the Bolaven extraterrestrial impact, southern Laos
This article has a reply:Reply to Mizera and Strunga: Evidence for the Bolaven impact crater and its ejecta
This article has a reply:
Reply to Darlow and Gray: Censorship is exclusion
View the original article:Prosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda
This article replies to:
Brief Report
Protocadherin19 (PCDH19)-related epilepsy syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by early-onset epilepsy,
intellectual disability, and autistic behaviors. PCDH19 is located on the X chromosome and encodes a calcium-dependent single-pass transmembrane
...
Physical Sciences
Applied Physical Sciences
While scientific researchers often aim for high productivity, prioritizing the quantity
of publications may come at the cost of time and effort dedicated to individual research.
It is thus important to examine the relationship between productivity and ...
Understanding the stability mechanism of surface micro/nanobubbles adhered to gas-evolving
electrodes is essential for improving the efficiency of water electrolysis, which
is known to be hindered by the bubble coverage on electrodes. Using molecular ...
Materials with a negative Poisson ratio have the counterintuitive property of expanding
laterally when they are stretched longitudinally. They are accordingly termed auxetic,
from the Greek auxesis meaning to increase. Experimental studies have ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Homomeric dimerization of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlus) is essential for
the modulation of their functions and represents a promising avenue for the development
of novel therapeutic approaches to address central nervous system diseases. Yet, ...
Nearly all circadian clocks maintain a period that is insensitive to temperature changes,
a phenomenon known as temperature compensation (TC). Yet, it is unclear whether there
is any common feature among different systems that exhibit TC. From a general ...
Experimental observations tracing back to the 1960s imply that ribosome quantities
play a prominent role in determining a cell’s growth. Nevertheless, in biologically
relevant scenarios, growth can also be influenced by the levels of mRNA and RNA ...
In mammalian cells, the cohesin protein complex is believed to translocate along chromatin
during interphase to form dynamic loops through a process called active loop extrusion.
Chromosome conformation capture and imaging experiments have suggested that ...
Chemistry
With a continuous increase in world population and food production, chemical pesticide
use is growing accordingly, yet unsustainably. As chemical pesticides are harmful
to the environment and developmental resistance in pests is increasing, a sustainable
...
The therapeutic targeting of ferroptosis requires full understanding of the molecular
mechanism of this regulated cell death pathway. While lipid-derived electrophiles
(LDEs), including 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE), are important biomarkers of ferroptosis,
...
Complex networks are pervasive in various fields such as chemistry, biology, and sociology.
In chemistry, first-order reaction networks are represented by a set of first-order
differential equations, which can be constructed from the underlying energy ...
While aqueous zinc-ion batteries exhibit great potential, their performance is impeded
by zinc dendrites. Existing literature has proposed the use of hydrogel electrolytes
to ameliorate this issue. Nevertheless, the mechanical attributes of hydrogel ...
Biological regulation often depends on reversible reactions such as phosphorylation,
acylation, methylation, and glycosylation, but rarely halogenation. A notable exception
is the iodination and deiodination of thyroid hormones. Here, we report detection
...
We propose that spontaneous folding and molecular evolution of biopolymers are two
universal aspects that must concur for life to happen. These aspects are fundamentally
related to the chemical composition of biopolymers and crucially depend on the ...
Computer Sciences
Interest in logics with some notion of real-valued truths has existed since at least
Boole and has been increasing in AI due to the emergence of neuro-symbolic approaches,
though often their logical inference capabilities are characterized only ...
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
During 2010 to 2020, Northeast Pacific (NEP) sea surface temperature (SST) experienced
the warmest decade ever recorded, manifested in several extreme marine heatwaves,
referred to as “warm blob” events, which severely affect marine ecosystems and extreme
...
Pyrite is the most common sulfide mineral in hydrothermal ore-forming systems. The
ubiquity and abundance of pyrite, combined with its ability to record and preserve
a history of fluid evolution in crustal environments, make it an ideal mineral for
...
The shape of the ocean floor (bathymetry) and the overlaying sediments provide the
largest carbon sink throughout Earth’s history, supporting ~one to two orders of magnitude
more carbon storage than the oceans and atmosphere combined. While accumulation ...
The last glacial period was punctuated by cold intervals in the North Atlantic region
that culminated in extensive iceberg discharge events. These cold intervals, known
as Heinrich Stadials, are associated with abrupt climate shifts worldwide. Here, we
...
Environmental Sciences
As a global problem, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) really needs local fixes. Considering the increasing epidemiological relevance to
anxiety and depression but inconsistent toxicological results, the most important
question is to clarify whether and how ...
Physics
The kagome metal CsVSb is an ideal platform to study the interplay between topology and electron correlation.
To understand the fermiology of CsVSb, intensive quantum oscillation (QO) studies at ambient pressure have been conducted.
However, due to the ...
Halide perovskites emerged as a revolutionary family of high-quality semiconductors
for solar energy harvesting and energy-efficient lighting. There is mounting evidence
that the exceptional optoelectronic properties of these materials could stem from
...
Topological defects play a central role in the physics of many materials, including
magnets, superconductors, and liquid crystals. In active fluids, defects become autonomous
particles that spontaneously propel from internal active stresses and drive ...
A recent advance in the study of emergent magnetic monopoles was the discovery that
monopole motion is restricted to dynamical fractal trajectories [J. N. Hallén et al., Science 378, 1218 (2022)], thus explaining the characteristics of magnetic monopole ...
The mammalian brain implements sophisticated sensory processing algorithms along multilayered
(“deep”) neural networks. Strategies that insects use to meet similar computational
demands, while relying on smaller nervous systems with shallow architectures, ...
Social Sciences
Anthropology
The antiquity of human dispersal into Mediterranean islands and ensuing coastal adaptation
have remained largely unexplored due to the prevailing assumption that the sea was
a barrier to movement and that islands were hostile environments to early hunter-...
Economic Sciences
Drawing on a harmonized longitudinal dataset covering more than 55,000 smallholder
farms in six African countries, we analyze changes in crop productivity from 2008
to 2019. Because smallholder farmers represent a significant fraction of the world’s
...
We show that adding noise before publishing data effectively screens -hacked findings: spurious explanations produced by fitting many statistical models
(data mining). Noise creates “baits” that affect two types of researchers differently.
Uninformed -...
Political Sciences
This study examines voting in the 2022 United States congressional elections, contests
that were widely expected to produce a sizable defeat for Democratic candidates for
largely economic reasons. Based on a representative national probability sample of
...
Social Sciences
While scientific researchers often aim for high productivity, prioritizing the quantity
of publications may come at the cost of time and effort dedicated to individual research.
It is thus important to examine the relationship between productivity and ...
We study the effect of Facebook and Instagram access on political beliefs, attitudes,
and behavior by randomizing a subset of 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram
users to deactivate their accounts for 6 wk before the 2020 U.S. election. We report
...
In this paper, we present findings from four separate studies using different data
sources and methods to examine Chinese attitudes toward the United States amid the
COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results consistently indicate a marked and significant
...
Sustainability Science
Drawing on a harmonized longitudinal dataset covering more than 55,000 smallholder
farms in six African countries, we analyze changes in crop productivity from 2008
to 2019. Because smallholder farmers represent a significant fraction of the world’s
...
Biological Sciences
Agricultural Sciences
With a continuous increase in world population and food production, chemical pesticide
use is growing accordingly, yet unsustainably. As chemical pesticides are harmful
to the environment and developmental resistance in pests is increasing, a sustainable
...
Transforming smallholder farms is critical to global food security and environmental
sustainability. The science and technology backyard (STB) platform has proved to be
a viable approach in China. However, STB has traditionally focused on empowering ...
Decreased production of crops due to climate change has been predicted scientifically.
While climate-resilient crops are necessary to ensure food security and support sustainable
agriculture, predicting crop growth under future global warming is ...
Biochemistry
The therapeutic targeting of ferroptosis requires full understanding of the molecular
mechanism of this regulated cell death pathway. While lipid-derived electrophiles
(LDEs), including 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE), are important biomarkers of ferroptosis,
...
Biological regulation often depends on reversible reactions such as phosphorylation,
acylation, methylation, and glycosylation, but rarely halogenation. A notable exception
is the iodination and deiodination of thyroid hormones. Here, we report detection
...
The biogenesis of iron–sulfur (Fe/S) proteins entails the synthesis and trafficking
of Fe/S clusters, followed by their insertion into target apoproteins. In eukaryotes,
the multiple steps of biogenesis are accomplished by complex protein machineries in
...
Multicellular organisms are composed of many tissue types that have distinct morphologies
and functions, which are largely driven by specialized proteomes and interactomes.
To define the proteome and interactome of a specific type of tissue in an intact ...
Dichotomous transactivation domains contribute to growth inhibitory and promotion functions of TAp73
The transcription factor p73, a member of the p53 tumor-suppressor family, regulates
cell death and also supports tumorigenesis, although the mechanistic basis for the
dichotomous functions is poorly understood. We report here the identification of an
...
SRSF1 is the founding member of the SR protein family. It is required—interchangeably
with other SR proteins—for pre-mRNA splicing in vitro, and it regulates various alternative
splicing events. Dysregulation of SRSF1 expression contributes to cancer and ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Homomeric dimerization of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlus) is essential for
the modulation of their functions and represents a promising avenue for the development
of novel therapeutic approaches to address central nervous system diseases. Yet, ...
We propose that spontaneous folding and molecular evolution of biopolymers are two
universal aspects that must concur for life to happen. These aspects are fundamentally
related to the chemical composition of biopolymers and crucially depend on the ...
The ubiquitin–proteasome system is essential to all eukaryotes and has been shown
to be critical to parasite survival as well, including Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of the deadliest form of malarial disease. Despite the central
role of the ...
Encapsulins are protein nanocompartments that regulate cellular metabolism in several
bacteria and archaea. Myxococcus xanthus encapsulins protect the bacterial cells against oxidative stress by sequestering
cytosolic iron. These encapsulins are formed by ...
Protein evolution is guided by structural, functional, and dynamical constraints ensuring
organismal viability. Pseudogenes are genomic sequences identified in many eukaryotes
that lack translational activity due to sequence degradation and thus over time ...
We introduce ZEPPI (Z-score Evaluation of Protein–Protein Interfaces), a framework
to evaluate structural models of a complex based on sequence coevolution and conservation
involving residues in protein–protein interfaces. The ZEPPI score is calculated by
...
Cell Biology
The RNA polymerase II (Pol II) elongation rate influences poly(A) site selection,
with slow and fast Pol II derivatives causing upstream and downstream shifts, respectively,
in poly(A) site utilization. In yeast, depletion of either of the histone ...
The tumor suppressor LKB1 is a serine/threonine protein kinase that is frequently
mutated in human lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). LKB1 regulates a complex signaling network
that is known to control cell polarity and metabolism; however, the pathways that
...
Ecology
Mercury (Hg) is a heterogeneously distributed toxicant affecting wildlife and human
health. Yet, the spatial distribution of Hg remains poorly documented, especially
in food webs, even though this knowledge is essential to assess large-scale risk of
...
Long-term ecological time series provide a unique perspective on the emergent properties
of ecosystems. In aquatic systems, phytoplankton form the base of the food web and
their biomass, measured as the concentration of the photosynthetic pigment ...
Evolution
The ecoevolutionary drivers of species niche expansion or contraction are critical
for biodiversity but challenging to infer. Niche expansion may be promoted by local
adaptation or constrained by physiological performance trade-offs. For birds, ...
Pangenomes vary across bacteria. Some species have fluid pangenomes, with a high proportion
of genes varying between individual genomes. Other species have less fluid pangenomes,
with different genomes tending to contain the same genes. Two main ...
Hybridization blurs species boundaries and leads to intertwined lineages resulting
in reticulate evolution. Polyploidy, the outcome of whole genome duplication (WGD),
has more recently been implicated in promoting and facilitating hybridization between
...
Genetics
Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic bacteria whose gene expression patterns are globally
regulated by their circadian (daily) clocks. Due to their ability to use sunlight
as their energy source, they are also attractive hosts for “green” production of ...
Medical Sciences
Myogenic regeneration relies on the proliferation and differentiation of satellite
cells. TECRL (trans-2,3-enoyl-CoA reductase like) is an endoplasmic reticulum protein
only expressed in cardiac and skeletal muscle. However, its role in myogenesis remains
...
Microbiology
Potyviridae, the largest family of plant RNA viruses, includes many important pathogens
that significantly reduce the yields of many crops worldwide. In this study, we report
that the 6-kilodalton peptide 1 (6K1), one of the least characterized potyviral ...
The outer membrane (OM) of didermic gram-negative bacteria is essential for growth,
maintenance of cellular integrity, and innate resistance to many antimicrobials. Its
asymmetric lipid distribution, with phospholipids in the inner leaflet and ...
Cell surface glycans are major drivers of antigenic diversity in bacteria. The biochemistry
and molecular biology underpinning their synthesis are important in understanding
host–pathogen interactions and for vaccine development with emerging ...
Antigenic similarities between Zika virus (ZIKV) and other flaviviruses pose challenges
to the development of virus-specific diagnostic tools and effective vaccines. Starting
with a DNA-encoded one-bead-one-compound combinatorial library of 508,032 ...
Glycogen is a glucose storage molecule composed of branched α-1,4-glucan chains, best
known as an energy reserve that can be broken down to fuel central metabolism. Because
fungal cells have a specialized need for glucose in building cell wall glucans, we
...
Studies have determined that nonredox enzymes that are cofactored with Fe(II) are
the most oxidant-sensitive targets inside Escherichia coli. These enzymes use Fe(II) cofactors to bind and activate substrates. Because of their
solvent exposure, the metal ...
All respiratory viruses establish primary infections in the nasal epithelium, where
efficient innate immune induction may prevent dissemination to the lower airway and
thus minimize pathogenesis. Human coronaviruses (HCoVs) cause a range of pathologies,
...
Neuroscience
The mammalian brain implements sophisticated sensory processing algorithms along multilayered
(“deep”) neural networks. Strategies that insects use to meet similar computational
demands, while relying on smaller nervous systems with shallow architectures, ...
Arginine vasopressin (AVP) neurons of the hypothalamic paraventricular region (AVPPVN) mediate sex-biased social behaviors across most species, including mammals. In mice,
neural sex differences are thought to be established during a critical window ...
We developed a significantly improved genetically encoded quantitative adenosine triphosphate
(ATP) sensor to provide real-time dynamics of ATP levels in subcellular compartments.
iATPSnFR2 is a variant of iATPSnFR1, a previously developed sensor that has ...
Blood–brain barrier (BBB) models derived from human stem cells are powerful tools
to improve our understanding of cerebrovascular diseases and to facilitate drug development
for the human brain. Yet providing stem cell–derived endothelial cells with the ...
Here, we describe a group of basal forebrain (BF) neurons expressing neuronal Per-Arnt-Sim
(PAS) domain 1 (Npas1), a developmental transcription factor linked to neuropsychiatric
disorders. Immunohistochemical staining in Npas1-cre-2A-TdTomato mice ...
RNASET2-deficient leukodystrophy is a rare infantile white matter disorder mimicking
a viral infection and resulting in severe psychomotor impairments. Despite its severity,
there is little understanding of cellular mechanisms of pathogenesis and no ...
While depolarization of the neuronal membrane is known to evoke the neurotransmitter
release from synaptic vesicles, hyperpolarization is regarded as a resting state of
chemical neurotransmission. Here, we report that hyperpolarizing neurons can actively
...
Congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB) is an inherited retinal disease that
causes a profound loss of rod sensitivity without severe retinal degeneration. One
well-studied rhodopsin point mutant, G90D-Rho, is thought to cause CSNB because of
its ...
View related content:
Physiology
The single-pass transmembrane protein Stromal Interaction Molecule 1 (STIM1), located
in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane, possesses two main functions: It senses
the ER-Ca2+ concentration and directly binds to the store-operated Ca2+ channel Orai1 ...
Plant Biology
Lipid polymers such as cutin and suberin strengthen the diffusion barrier properties
of the cell wall in specific cell types and are essential for water relations, mineral
nutrition, and stress protection in plants. Land plant–specific glycerol-3-...
Reproductive phasiRNAs (phased, small interfering RNAs) are broadly present in angiosperms
and play crucial roles in sustaining male fertility. While the premeiotic 21-nt (nucleotides)
phasiRNAs and meiotic 24-nt phasiRNA pathways have been extensively ...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Groups often outperform individuals in problem-solving. Nevertheless, failure to critically
evaluate ideas risks suboptimal outcomes through so-called groupthink. Prior studies
have shown that people who hold shared goals, perspectives, or understanding ...
Sustainability Science
Transforming smallholder farms is critical to global food security and environmental
sustainability. The science and technology backyard (STB) platform has proved to be
a viable approach in China. However, STB has traditionally focused on empowering ...
Systems Biology
Nearly all circadian clocks maintain a period that is insensitive to temperature changes,
a phenomenon known as temperature compensation (TC). Yet, it is unclear whether there
is any common feature among different systems that exhibit TC. From a general ...
SI Correction
Cover image: Pictured is a scientist holding a piece of Antarctic ice. Kathleen Wendt et al. extracted high-resolution CO2 measurements from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet spanning four Heinrich Stadials, which were cold intervals in the North Atlantic during the last glacial period. Each Heinrich Stadial coincided with an abrupt increase in atmospheric CO2 and warming in Antarctica, likely due to shifting westerly winds driving increased release of CO2 from the Southern Ocean. Similar shifts in westerly winds may weaken the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the Southern Ocean in the future. See the article by Wendt et al. e2319652121. Image credit: Katherine Stelling (Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR).
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