Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 123, Number 19
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Brief Report
Global crop movement has traditionally been viewed as a major driver of emerging plant
diseases through the introduction of pathogens into naïve environments. Here we show
that the reverse process, introducing crops into regions containing endemic ...
Physical Sciences
Applied Mathematics
Deducing the makeup of ancient genomes is a fundamental challenge in evolutionary
biology. While vast genomic datasets exist that span the entire tree of life, current
methods for ancestral reconstructions struggle to resolve the inherent ambiguities
of ...
Applied Physical Sciences
Carbon materials are widely deployed in electrochemical energy technologies; however,
the nanoscale mechanisms underlying their durability remain incompletely understood.
We report the visualization of the corrosion dynamics of highly oriented pyrolytic
...
A significant challenge in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations is ensuring that sampled
configurations converge to the equilibrium or nonequilibrium stationary distribution
of interest. Lack of convergence constrains the estimation of free energies and of
...
In this study, a combined multiscale-modeling and experimental framework is presented
to elucidate design rules to optimize the binding thermodynamics and kinetics of sequence-defined
oligomers. It is shown that, contrary to conventional notions, entropy ...
The cochlea systematically encodes sound frequency and intensity via a precisely organized
tonotopic map, in which traveling waves peak at specific cochlear locations. A fundamental
but incompletely understood aspect of auditory coding involves how ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
During development, coordinated cell behaviors drive epithelial morphogenesis toward
precise three-dimensional architectures essential for physiological function. How
such coordination arises in epithelia composed of multiple cell types remains unclear.
...
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 spike glycoprotein enables infection
through a key conformational transition that exposes its receptor binding domain (RBD).
Experimental evidence indicates that spike mutations, particularly the early ...
Cortical traveling waves (TWs) are brain oscillation patterns that support the transfer
of neural information across distinct brain regions, with their direction shaping
cognitive function. However, direct evidence for their causal influence on brain ...
Chemistry
Though spatial arrangement between metal and acid has proven efficiency for enhancing
catalytic performance, their precise regulation on controlling the product selectivity
and revealing related catalytic mechanism remains scarce. Herein, we report a ...
Ginseng is widely praised for its benefits on cancer patients, often attributed to
its metabolite compound K (CK). Here, we synthesized a derivative (CKD-4) that, compared with CK, exhibited enhanced cellular uptake, threefold greater cytotoxicity, and ...
Purple bacteria are a diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that can capture and
convert light energy with high quantum efficiency across a variety of ecological niches.
They absorb light via an array of antenna proteins, primarily light-harvesting ...
Computer Sciences
Humans have a remarkable ability to systematically generalize—reasoning about new
situations by combining aspects of previous experiences. Language provides one of
the primary examples of this ability and modern machine learning has drawn much inspiration
...
Large language models (LLMs) hold great promise for generating social science data,
potentially expanding the methodological toolkit of quantitative social research.
Prior studies have primarily focused on individual-level predictability or behavioral
...
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
The Neoproterozoic Era was a pivotal era of Earth’s history in which multiple severe
glaciations profoundly influenced the biosphere, but explaining the duration and nature
of these events remains a major challenge. Notably, geochronology indicates that ...
The westerlies moisture transport underpins water security for over two billion people
dependent on the Asian water towers (AWTs). However, the mechanisms by which large-scale
westerlies-advected moisture is integrated into the AWTs’ atmospheric water ...
Physics
Demonstrating real advantage of machine learning–enhanced Monte Carlo for combinatorial optimization
Combinatorial optimization problems are central to both practical applications and
the development of optimization methods. While classical and quantum algorithms have
been refined over decades, machine learning–assisted approaches are comparatively
...
The Moon’s permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) are among the coldest places in the
Solar System and are expected to become key landing sites for upcoming international
space agency missions. Their proximity to peaks of perpetual solar power and potential
...
Statistics
Model uncertainty is a central challenge in statistical models for binary outcomes
such as logistic regression, arising when it is unclear which predictors should be
included in the model. Many methods have been proposed to address this issue for logistic
...
Social Sciences
Anthropology
Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most popular wheat species in the world today. However, studies on the
domestication of wheat have rarely focused on the evolution of this specific species
of Triticum. The discussions that have emerged have ...
Economic Sciences
Digital advertising finances much of the open web, yet relies on tracking technologies
that regulators increasingly seek to restrict. In response, industry has developed
privacy-enhancing technologies intended to preserve advertising performance while
...
Social media has transformed how academics disseminate research, but its effect on
academic job outcomes remains unclear. Previous research has shown correlations between
social media exposure and metrics like citation counts, but these relationships may
...
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We compare care for Black vs. White patients following pulse oximetry, a widely used
device for measuring blood oxygen levels which overestimates oxygen saturation in
darker-skinned patients. Black patients are therefore medically more appropriate for
...
Political Sciences
In this paper, we explore whether different choice environments affect voters’ willingness
to put democracy over party and policy. Using a series of candidate choice experiments
in which we manipulate not only candidate attributes, but also the number of ...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Large-scale online studies with healthy adults have documented consistent associations
between transdiagnostic psychiatric traits and metacognitive biases. Here, analysis
of existing and new large-scale datasets reveals that such correlations may be ...
Emotional intelligence (EI) is an umbrella term that has been used to describe i)
the ability to reason accurately about emotions and use emotions to augment thought
processes, ii) a constellation of traits reflecting social and emotional functioning,
or ...
Attention control predicts academic achievement, professional success, and health
outcomes. However, the neural basis of stable, individual differences in attention
control remains unclear. Prior research has emphasized momentary fluctuations in ...
Social Sciences
Large language models (LLMs) hold great promise for generating social science data,
potentially expanding the methodological toolkit of quantitative social research.
Prior studies have primarily focused on individual-level predictability or behavioral
...
Why do some people resort to violence while others in similar circumstances do not?
Drawing on 99 in-depth interviews with men from high-violence Chicago neighborhoods
who participated in a community violence intervention, we examine how past exposure
to ...
Biological Sciences
Agricultural Sciences
Soil inorganic carbon (SIC) constitutes half of the terrestrial carbon pool and exerts
a profound influence on global carbon cycling and ecosystem multifunctionality. Contrary
to the view of millennial-scale stability, SIC in cropland are undergoing rapid ...
Anthropology
Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most popular wheat species in the world today. However, studies on the
domestication of wheat have rarely focused on the evolution of this specific species
of Triticum. The discussions that have emerged have ...
Neanderthal endocrania are different in shape, though slightly larger in size than
modern humans on average. These shape differences have long been used to suggest Neanderthals
differed cognitively from modern humans, e.g., by having inferior linguistic/...
Biochemistry
Structure determination of orphan G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) is hindered
by lack of known ligands and their inherent instability during purification. Conventional
thermostability screening requires ligands or purified protein, limiting its ...
Immunoglobulin A (IgA) is the most abundant antibody in humans, with high concentrations
in both mucosae/secretions and circulation. While mucosal IgA has been studied extensively,
characterization of human IgA in serum and its distinctive functions lags ...
Many protein low-complexity domains (LCDs) self-associate to enable cellular function,
yet fundamental questions remain regarding how polypeptide chemical and structural
features beyond side chain identity contribute to LCD–LCD interactions. For instance,
...
Protein kinases regulate almost every major signaling pathway. Visualizing spatiotemporal
dynamics of kinase activity is thus essential to understand cell signaling. Here,
we report a de novo–designed activity reporter of kinase, dubbed NOVARK, which ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 spike glycoprotein enables infection
through a key conformational transition that exposes its receptor binding domain (RBD).
Experimental evidence indicates that spike mutations, particularly the early ...
Purple bacteria are a diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that can capture and
convert light energy with high quantum efficiency across a variety of ecological niches.
They absorb light via an array of antenna proteins, primarily light-harvesting ...
Determination of specimen structure from cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) experiments
relies on an accurate model of the electrostatic potential of the specimen. For biological
macromolecules, the potential is strongly influenced by the presence of ...
Ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) catalyze the conversion of ribonucleotide (RNA) to
deoxyribonucleotide (DNA) building blocks initiated by a long-range (>30 Å) proton-coupled
electron transfer (PCET) by mechanistic principles that remain much debated. By ...
Cell Biology
Biomembranes are complex two-dimensional liquids composed of hundreds of lipid species
that interact in a myriad of ways. One such interaction, that between sphingomyelin
(SM) and cholesterol in plasma membranes of animal cells, provides many functional
...
Cuproptosis represents a promising therapeutic strategy for cancer; however, its clinical
application remains limited. We observed elevated copper levels and increased expression
of DLAT, a key procuproptosis gene, in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues, ...
Chronic psychosocial stress is a major precipitant of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD),
yet the glial mechanisms that translate sustained stress into maladaptive myelin and
immune changes remain unclear. Using chronic social defeat stress and single-...
Most algae enhance their CO2 assimilation by concentrating CO2 within the pyrenoid, a biomolecular condensate of the CO2-fixing enzyme Rubisco. Many pyrenoids are surrounded by a starch sheath thought to
slow the escape of CO2 from the pyrenoid, but how ...
Long-term hematopoietic stem cells (LT-HSC) maintain lifelong hematopoiesis while
preserving the stem cell compartment through self-renewal. The human LT-HSC compartment
is molecularly and functionally heterogeneous and also varies across ontogeny. ...
Developmental Biology
During development, coordinated cell behaviors drive epithelial morphogenesis toward
precise three-dimensional architectures essential for physiological function. How
such coordination arises in epithelia composed of multiple cell types remains unclear.
...
Coordinated development requires that growth and cell-fate transitions occur in a
defined temporal order across tissues, yet how multicellular organisms generate and
synchronize developmental timing information remains unclear. In Caenorhabditis elegans, ...
Human trophoblast stem (TS) can be captured, maintained in vitro under specific conditions,
and differentiated into extravillous trophoblast (EVT) cells. The regulatory mechanisms
that govern the self-renewal and differentiation of human TS cells into EVT ...
Cell behaviors in multicellular organisms are coordinated via both diffusible molecules
and by signals based on direct cell–cell contacts. The mode of cell communication
used influences the signaling range. In many developing epithelia, contact-based ...
MCM8 and MCM9 form a hexameric helicase critical for homologous recombination (HR).
While their variants are strongly associated with premature ovarian insufficiency
(POI), with many clustering within their AAA+ ATPase domains, the requirement for
their ...
Germ cells of diverse species form a syncytium, which is a multinucleated cell complex,
and share cytoplasmic components via intercellular bridges. Here, we demonstrate that
the paralogous transmembrane proteins ROOM-1 and ROOM-2, identified through the ...
Ecology
Large-scale afforestation on the Loess Plateau, costing hundreds of billions of Chinese
yuan, has increased vegetation cover but also depleted soil water, raising concerns
about the long-term ecosystem sustainability. While debates continue over suitable
...
Commercial harvesting of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), primarily by British and American whalers during the late-1700s to early-1900s,
nearly caused their extinction. While whaling-offtake rates during this period are
known, their spatiotemporal ...
Contemporary ecological networks reflect the influence of evolutionary and ecological
processes on species interactions. Additionally, late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions
and subsequent range contractions have interrupted mammalian predator–prey ...
Evolution
Deducing the makeup of ancient genomes is a fundamental challenge in evolutionary
biology. While vast genomic datasets exist that span the entire tree of life, current
methods for ancestral reconstructions struggle to resolve the inherent ambiguities
of ...
How genetic diversity responds to environmental change across spatiotemporal scales
remains poorly understood despite its importance for species persistence in changing
landscapes. Agricultural weeds offer ideal models for studying these adaptive dynamics
...
Life history theory predicts that organisms allocate resources across physiological
processes to maximize fitness. Under this framework, early-life adversity (ELA) which
limits energetic capital could shape investment in growth and reproduction, ...
What causes species’ niche and range margins to shift is not only a fundamental theoretical
question, but also directly affects how we assess the resilience of natural populations
in current and future environments. Yet despite the urgent need for theory ...
The origins and assembly of temperate biodiversity hotspots remain poorly understood.
This knowledge gap is particularly evident in low-latitude montane regions of the
Americas, where northern lineages have repeatedly colonized and diversified. Here
we ...
Understanding the forces shaping genomic diversity within bacterial species is essential
for interpreting microbiome evolution, ecology, and host associations. Here, we analyze
over one hundred prevalent gut bacterial species using the Unified Human Gut ...
Evolution of prokaryote genomes appears to be defined by the interplay of selection
for genome streamlining, deletion bias, and selection for functional diversification.
The previously observed overall positive correlation between the strength of ...
Genetics
Numerous proteins display pleiotropic functions in different clinical contexts. However,
the molecular mechanism underlying such effects is rarely understood. Speckle-type
POZ protein (SPOP) is a typical example, exhibiting tumor-suppressing or tumor-...
Observational studies are commonly used in psychology and epidemiology to identify
risk factors correlated with health outcomes. However, these studies are vulnerable
to confounding when shared genetic variation influences both the putative risk factor
...
Tandem repeats are highly mutable genomic elements with significant functional consequences,
yet the mechanisms underlying their evolutionary origin remain unclear. One proposed
mechanism is microhomology-mediated tandem duplication (MTD), in which single-...
Immunology and Inflammation
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is driven by a breakdown in immune regulation and
epithelial barrier function, yet the contribution of eosinophils to this process has
remained poorly defined and controversial. While eosinophils infiltrate the intestinal
...
Class switch recombination (CSR) in B lymphocytes switches immunoglobulin heavy chain
(Igh) constant regions (CHs) to generate different functional antibody isotypes and chromatin loop extrusion
has been proposed to regulate CSR. Stag1 and Stag2 are key ...
Red pulp macrophages (RPMs) remove senescent erythrocytes from the circulation and
recycle their iron for erythropoiesis. The development of RPMs is guided by signals
from the microenvironment, which promote expansion and tissue adaptation through the
...
Inflammasome activation triggers caspase-1-dependent maturation of pro-interleukin-1β
(pro-IL-1β) in an apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a CARD (ASC)-dependent
manner, yet the mechanism by which pro-IL-1β is physically recruited to the ...
Medical Sciences
Pseudogenes have been regarded as nonfunctional byproducts of evolutionary processes.
However, emerging evidence indicates that pseudogenes perform diverse biological roles
in human physiology and pathology. We identified the BRCA1 pseudogene (BRCA1P1), a ...
Heterotopic ossification (HO) is a debilitating condition that commonly occurs after
musculoskeletal injury and is characterized by the formation of bone in soft tissues.
Despite advances in understanding its pathogenesis, effective therapies to reverse
...
Poorly differentiated gastric carcinomas (PDGC) comprise 30% of gastric cancers and
are associated with poor prognosis, correlating with tumor size and microvascular
invasion. PDGC may be subcategorized as Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-positive or EBV-...
Microbiology
Enveloped viruses enter cells by membrane fusion. The viral membrane fuses with a
host membrane, either at the cell surface or within endocytic compartments. For endocytic
entry, fusion is typically triggered by low pH and often requires proteolytic ...
Neuroscience
Cortical traveling waves (TWs) are brain oscillation patterns that support the transfer
of neural information across distinct brain regions, with their direction shaping
cognitive function. However, direct evidence for their causal influence on brain ...
Incentives modulate voluntary movement, yet the circuitry channeling these signals
into motor output remains unclear. Classical models emphasize a closed-loop circuit
(CLC) linking dorsal putamen (PUTd) with the motor cortex, but this pathway is ...
The mammalian pineal gland maintains normal circadian rhythms and homeostasis by secreting
melatonin. However, the lack of a single-cell-resolved regulatory map limits our understanding
of how these neuroendocrine functions are orchestrated. Here, we ...
Prefrontal neurons exhibit diverse activity during cognitive functions such as working
memory, attention, and timing; however, the importance of this heterogeneity is unclear.
Our goal was to better understand the diversity of prefrontal activity through ...
People must often sustain cognitive effort to achieve important goals. Although current
models recognize that subcortical valuation regions are important for initiating such
effort, they have not seen them as playing meaningful roles in sustaining effort ...
Pharmacology
The structure of the catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA-C), a
prototype for the protein kinase superfamily, laid the foundation for the development
of targeted kinase inhibitors. Here we describe the structure and biophysical ...
Physiology
The cochlea systematically encodes sound frequency and intensity via a precisely organized
tonotopic map, in which traveling waves peak at specific cochlear locations. A fundamental
but incompletely understood aspect of auditory coding involves how ...
Plant Biology
The evolution of the seed habit can be traced back to a change in the cell fate of
the nucellus, the sporophytic tissue responsible for female meiosis. Seeds arose when
the nucellus retained the female spores instead of releasing them into the ...
Plants rely on environmental information such as light and temperature to control
growth and development. Integrating these cues improves developmental precision, yet
it remains unclear how this capacity is distributed across major plant lineages and
how ...
The intrinsic link between temperature and leaf-to-air vapor pressure difference (Δe) complicates isolation of their individual effects on photosynthesis. Consequently,
how CO2 diffusion changes under heat and high evaporative demand, particularly through ...
Plants have evolved diverse chemical strategies to defend against herbivores and pathogens,
yet the mechanisms underlying their origin and diversification remain unclear. Here,
we identify a sugar chain–dependent triterpenoid saponin defense system in ...
Saponins are a class of plant-derived amphiphile defense compounds that disrupt cellular
membranes, yet the basis for their selective toxicity remains unclear. Because membrane
sterols diverged across the three major eukaryotic kingdoms from a shared ...
Generalist pathogens pose a challenge to plant immunity by infecting diverse hosts
while harboring extensive intraspecific genetic variation. Whether evolutionary distant
plant lineages rely on a shared immune strategy or deploy distinct, lineage-specific
...
Population Biology
MHC polymorphism is explained by natural selection driven by the MHC-dependent impact
of certain infections, inflammatory conditions, autoimmune diseases, and cancers.
However, examples of human disease driving this process are rare. We evaluated the
...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Humans have a remarkable ability to systematically generalize—reasoning about new
situations by combining aspects of previous experiences. Language provides one of
the primary examples of this ability and modern machine learning has drawn much inspiration
...
Attention control predicts academic achievement, professional success, and health
outcomes. However, the neural basis of stable, individual differences in attention
control remains unclear. Prior research has emphasized momentary fluctuations in ...
Sustainability Science
Large-scale afforestation on the Loess Plateau, costing hundreds of billions of Chinese
yuan, has increased vegetation cover but also depleted soil water, raising concerns
about the long-term ecosystem sustainability. While debates continue over suitable
...
Corrections
Cover image: Pictured are netleaf oaks (Quercus rugosa) in a moist forest in Cerro Verde, Oaxaca, Mexico. Kieran N. Althaus et al. traced the history of white and red oaks in Mexican and Central American mountainous forests. Around 25 million years ago, white and red oaks independently spread into Mexico. Species diversification intensified as the trees moved into high-elevation terrain. According to the authors, the oaks’ movement into new habitats and their adaptability to new climates boosted the biodiversity of the mountainous forests. See the article by Althaus et al. e2537040123. Image credit: María del Socorro González-Elizondo.
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