Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Vol. 123, Issue 21 Issue 21 2026
91
Articles

Articles in this Issue

Climate mediates phenological and phylogenetic differentiation in plant invasions

Tadeo H. Ramirez-Parada, Isaac W. Park, Shijia Peng et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2536192123

Darwin’s Naturalization Conundrum holds that both functional similarity and distinctiveness can facilitate biological invasions: invaders similar to natives may succeed through preadaptation to local...

Extreme nonequilibrium synthesis of a Ca–Cu–Si clathrate during the Trinity nuclear test

Luca Bindi, Marek Mihalkovič, Michael Widom et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2604165123

The Trinity nuclear test of July 16, 1945, generated extreme transient conditions that produced trinitite, a silicate glass containing rare metallic phases. Here we report the discovery and structural...

Spectral mapping reveals a resemblance of the anesthetic brain state to both sleep and coma

Janna D. Helfrich, Jerzy Szaflarski, Marianne C. J. Nævra et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2514098123

General anesthesia is often compared to sleep but may more closely resemble a medically induced coma. While all three states involve a loss of awareness, the extent of their neural similarity remains...

Layer-specific genetic variation unlocks secondary metabolite diversity in long-lived clonal peppermint

Nestor Kippes, Meric C. Lieberman, Darrin Culp et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2532794123

Mutations that arise in the shoot apical meristems can become fixed, but typically only in one of the meristem layers. Therefore, in long-lived, clonally propagated species, polymorphic genomes coexis...

Age-based approach to characterize the dynamics of cellular processes

Elad Noor, Kirill Jefimov, Ersilia Bifulco et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2525585123

Cells continuously produce and degrade molecules, essential for maintaining homeostasis. The study of these dynamics has gained momentum since the development of pulse–chase methods, utilizing fluores...

Collective motion in bacterial suspensions is scale-free

Benjamín Pérez-Estay, Vincent Martinez, Carine Douarche et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2600266123

In suspensions of swimming bacteria, individual cells interact via long-range hydrodynamic forces and self-organize into collective states that drive large-scale chaotic flows, commonly referred to as...

Forbidden Sidon subsets of perfect difference sets, featuring a human-assisted proof

Boris Alexeev, Dustin G. Mixon May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2531760123

We resolve a $1,000 Erdős prize problem, complete with formal verification generated by a large language model. In over a dozen papers, beginning in 1976 and spanning two decades, Paul Erdős repeatedl...

Indoor thermoregulatory homeostasis using hydrodynamic instability

Raphael Kay, Ross J. Cocks, Charles Katrycz et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2535522123

Branching patterns can emerge when one fluid is injected into a more viscous one within a quasi-two-dimensional cavity. While these patterns have dazzled physicists for decades, modern engineering eff...

On the large-scale radiative cooling induced by tropical cyclone activity

Gabriel A. Rios, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Wenchang Yang May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2526160123

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are among the most energetic phenomena in the climate system. Given their energetic nature, TCs induce upscale effects on the climate system, although these effects have not be...

Correction for Scherrer et al., Characterizing sliding and rolling contacts between single particles

May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2614322123

Capturing nuclear quantum effects in high-pressure superconducting hydrides and ice with nuclear–electronic orbital theory

Logan E. Smith, Paolo Settembri, Alessio Cucciari et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2605545123

Nuclear quantum effects are essential for correctly describing hydrogen-rich materials at high pressures. Superconducting hydrides and ice are prime examples of such systems, requiring the inclusion o...

Light-controlled disruption of cancer cell dormancy via photoswitchable stress hormone receptor degraders

Karina M. Freitag, Robin Scheuplein, Chiara Orlacchio et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2528760123

Cancer cell dormancy is a key contributor to therapy resistance and disease relapse. The glucocorticoid receptor (GR), a major mediator of stress hormone signaling, has emerged as a central regulator...

The simplicity of the Hodge bundle

Anand Patel May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2610183123

This paper establishes the simplicity of the Hodge bundle, a theorem in the branch of modern mathematics known as algebraic geometry. Notably, the essential mathematical content was autonomously gener...

Unsupervised and probabilistic learning with Contrastive Local Learning Networks: The Restricted Kirchhoff Machine

Marcelo Guzman, Simone Ciarella, Andrea J. Liu May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2525792123

Autonomous physical learning systems modify their internal parameters and solve computational tasks without relying on external computation. Compared to traditional computers, they enjoy distributed a...

The effector NlOBP1b from the brown planthopper suppresses rice immunity by manipulating the OsCK2 complex

Chao Wang, Can Wei, Chang-Lai Qiu et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2532548123

Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) are crucial mediators in the peripheral olfactory perception of insects, functioning as a link between the external environment and odor receptors. Recent research has...

Evolution of genome-wide barriers to gene flow during complex speciation in rattlesnakes

Keaka Farleigh, Dylan K. Highland, Megan G. Alderman et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2609058123

Speciation with gene flow poses a central paradox: how do genome-wide barriers to gene exchange accumulate as recombination continually breaks down associations among selected loci? Although theory pr...

Illuminating proinflammatory myeloid cells with PET tracers targeting GPR84

Mausam Kalita, Renesmee C. Kuo, Valentina Straniero et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2536372123

Innate immunity mediated by myeloid cells defends against infection and injury, but when chronically activated, it drives tissue damage and neurodegeneration. Molecular imaging with positron emission...

Cultural evolution of beauty standards

Louis Boucherie, Sagar Kumar, Katharina Ledebur et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2602380123

Beauty standards shape self-perception and health through social comparison and objectification, while exposure to idealized imagery exacerbates body-image concerns. Media and fashion are central arbi...

From free speech advocates to critics: The Trump administration’s new rhetoric promotes support for censorship among Trump voters

Matthew E. K. Hall, B. Tyler Leigh, Brittany C. Solomon May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2532084123

Most Americans claim to support freedom of speech, including President Donald Trump who has portrayed himself as an ardent defender of this constitutional right. However, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s...

Observation of chiral bound states in the continuum in self-biased magneto-optical photonic crystals

Maohua Gong, Qiutong Zhen, Yujie Tang et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2536341123

Chiral bound states in the continuum (BICs) are confined photonic modes with infinite quality factors and chiral response, offering significant potential for chiral optics. Although a novel type of sp...

Amplification-free dual-blocking autocatalytic CRISPR-Cascade for attomolar DNA detection with low nonspecific signal

Jongwon Lim, An Bao Van, Matthew Wester et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2537414123

Autocatalytic CRISPR architecture offers amplification-free nucleic acid detection by directly linking target recognition to self-reinforcing ribonucleoprotein (RNP) generation. However, spontaneous b...

Early adjunct anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy improves outcomes and restores infection-induced immune paralysis in mice with invasive pulmonary mucormycosis

Sebastian Wurster, Jezreel Pantaleon Garcia, Yongxing Wang et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2512042123

Invasive pulmonary mucormycosis (IPM) is a severe opportunistic mold infection whose outcome is predominantly host driven. Preclinical proof-of-concept studies and clinical case reports in salvage the...

Bleb expansion requires transient membrane invaginations that sequester curvature-preferring proteins

Yuki Maekawa, Saori R. Yoshii, Noboru Mizushima et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2534871123

Bleb-based cell migration involves rapid plasma membrane expansion driven by intracellular pressure. How the membrane reorganizes its curvature and protein composition during this process remains uncl...

Dynamic bidirectional coupling of membrane morphology and rod organization in flexible vesicles

Stijn van der Ham, André F. V. Matias, Marjolein Dijkstra et al. May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2604848123

The ordering of rod-like particles in soft, deformable containers emerges from the interplay of anisotropic interactions, geometric confinement, and boundary compliance. This competition couples inter...

ProteomeLM: A proteome-scale language model enables accurate and rapid prediction of protein–protein interactions and gene essentiality across taxa

Cyril Malbranke, Gionata Paolo Zalaffi, Anne-Florence Bitbol May 26, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2524201123

Language models trained on biological sequences are advancing inference tasks from the scale of single proteins to that of genomic neighborhoods. Here, we introduce ProteomeLM, a transformer-based lan...

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Journal Info

Publisher National Academy of Sciences
ISSN 0027-8424
E-ISSN 1091-6490
Subject Life Sciences
Language English
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