Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Vulnerability to natural disasters and sustainable consumption: Unraveling political and regional differences

The urgent calls for action on climate change underscore the importance of increasing sustainable behavior among individuals who have traditionally veered away from it, such as those on the political...

Correction for Nestor et al., Future scientific innovation requires the transformative power of philanthropy

How can we make sound replication decisions?

Replication and the reported crises impacting many fields of research have become a focal point for the sciences. This has led to reforms in publishing, methodological design and reporting, and increa...

Poverty–disease–environment traps: Locally tailored solutions and collective action

Automating the practice of science: Opportunities, challenges, and implications

Automation transformed various aspects of our human civilization, revolutionizing industries and streamlining processes. In the domain of scientific inquiry, automated approaches emerged as powerful t...

Environmental variability across space and time drives the recolonization pattern of a historically persecuted large carnivore

Wildlife populations are not static. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect individuals, which lead to spatiotemporal variation in population density and range. Yet, dynamics in density and their driv...

Emergence and evolution of heterocyte glycolipid biosynthesis enabled specialized nitrogen fixation in cyanobacteria

Heterocytes, specialized cells for nitrogen fixation in cyanobacteria, are surrounded by heterocyte glycolipids (HGs), which contribute to protection of the nitrogenase enzyme from oxygen. Diverse HGs...

Electric transportation and electroreception in hummingbird flower mites

Electric fields in terrestrial environments are used by caterpillars to detect their predators, as foraging cues by pollinators, and facilitate ballooning by spiders. This study shows that electric fi...

Alternative models of funding curiosity-driven research

Funding of curiosity-driven science is the lifeblood of scientific and technological innovation. Various models of funding allocation became institutionalized in the 20th century, shaping the present...

Efficient, scalable, and near-nucleotide-resolution profiling of protein occupancy in the genome with deaminases

Chronic stress–induced cholesterol metabolism abnormalities promote ESCC tumorigenesis and predict neoadjuvant therapy response

Recent studies have demonstrated that chronic stress can enhance the development of multiple human diseases, including cancer. However, the role of chronic stress in esophageal carcinogenesis and its...

New evidence for early Indian Ocean trade routes into the South African interior

The rise and spread of ancient Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) trade networks profoundly impacted southern Africa. Control over this trade played a critical role in the rise and maintenance of complex societie...

How should the advancement of large language models affect the practice of science?

Large language models (LLMs) are being increasingly incorporated into scientific workflows. However, we have yet to fully grasp the implications of this integration. How should the advancement of larg...

14-3-3 promotes sarcolemmal expression of cardiac Ca _V 1.2 and nucleates isoproterenol-triggered channel superclustering

The L-type Ca 2+ channel (Ca V 1.2) is essential for cardiac excitation–contraction coupling. To contribute to the inwar...

Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge? New perspectives on the principle of model parsimony

The preference for simple explanations, known as the parsimony principle, has long guided the development of scientific theories, hypotheses, and models. Yet recent years have seen a number of success...

Fatty acid metabolism and the oxidative stress response support bacterial predation

Despite growing awareness of their importance in soil ecology, the genetic and physiological traits of bacterial predators are still relatively poorly understood. In the course of a...

The present and future of peer review: Ideas, interventions, and evidence

What is wrong with the peer review system? Is peer review sustainable? Useful? What other models exist? These are central yet contentious questions in today’s academic discourse. This perspective crit...

Dialogues about the practice of science

Discourse on measurement

Measurement literacy is required for strong scientific reasoning, effective experimental design, conceptual and empirical validation of measurement quantities, and the intelligible interpretation of e...

PgpP is a broadly conserved phosphatase required for phosphatidylglycerol lipid synthesis

The cytoplasmic membrane of bacteria is composed of a phospholipid bilayer made up of a diverse set of lipids. Phosphatidylglycerol (PG) is one of the principal constituents and its production is esse...

Bubble coalescence principle in saline water

Bubbles present in saline water typically exhibit a prolonged lifetime, making them attractive for various engineering processes. Herein, we unveil a transition from delayed bubble coalescence to rapi...

The misalignment of incentives in academic publishing and implications for journal reform

For most researchers, academic publishing serves two goals that are often misaligned—knowledge dissemination and establishing scientific credentials. While both goals can encourage research with signi...

No gender differences in attraction to young partners: A study of 4,500 blind dates

In mixed-gender couples, men are older than women on average. Scholars and laypeople presume that this arrangement reflects mirrored preferences such that men desire younger partners and women desire...

Managing protected areas takes a village

Carbonate fluorapatite coatings on phillipsite represent a significant sink of phosphorus in abyssal plains of the western Pacific Ocean

As an essential micronutrient, phosphorus plays a key role in oceanic biogeochemistry, with its cycling intimately connected to the global carbon cycle and climate change. Authigenic carbonate fluorap...