Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Articles in this Issue
Fatal police violence near reservations: Interpreting risk in context
The persistence and loss of hard selective sweeps amid admixture in ancient Eurasians
The extent to which human adaptations have persisted throughout history despite strong eroding demographic events such as admixture, genetic drift, and fluctuations in selection pressures remains unkn...
Challenges of county-level circadian modeling for time-policy debates
Reply to Erren et al. and Martin-Olalla and Mira: What constitutes circadian burden? An empirically grounded approach to long-term summary metrics
The sum of absolute circadian shifts: Questioning the metric linking daylight saving time policy to stroke and obesity
Enhancer-directed gene delivery for digit regeneration based on conserved epidermal factors
Limb loss remains a significant clinical challenge, but regenerative medicine approaches such as gene therapy offer a promising strategy to trigger endogenous regeneration programs. Optimal vector con...
The health and economic repercussions of declining MMR coverage in the United States
The resurgence of measles in the United States, driven by declining childhood vaccination coverage, poses a substantial public health and economic threat. Using county-level Measles–Mumps–Rubella (MMR...
When a bigger brain is better: The case of bee olfactory learning
Whether bigger brains provide enhanced cognitive capacities is a long-lasting and controversial question. While big brains may not be required for producing sophisticated behavior, they could facilita...
Halibee member archaeology: Middle Stone Age environment, technology, and postmortem modifications
The Middle Awash study area of Ethiopia’s Afar Rift features a composite stratigraphic thickness of >1 km. Near the top of this succession lie sediments of the lower Halibee member, comprising the...
“Thinking traces” in large reasoning models: Cognitive cost or performative scaffolding?
Reply to Zhabagin and Sabitov: Novel knowledge is gained through fresh data and new analytical methods, not through paraphrasing
Reply to Hu: Reasoning traces need not be faithful to account for the cost of human thinking
High-resolution present-day Y-chromosome phylogeny refines golden horde lineage placement
Elasto-viscous regime in coalescence of viscoelastic droplets
The merging of two droplets represents an energy-minimizing process whereby they combine to produce a thermodynamically stable droplet. Coalescence of Newtonian droplets is characterized by distinct v...
Design principles of the cytotoxic CD8 <sup>+</sup> T cell response
Cytotoxic T lymphocytes eliminate infected or malignant cells, safeguarding surrounding tissues. Although experimental and systems-immunology studies have cataloged many molecular and cellular actors...
Machine learning multiscale collective cell dynamics: From single-cell characterization to multicellular monolayer modeling
Collective cell dynamics are fundamental to numerous physiological processes, including embryo development, tissue morphogenesis, immune response, and disease progression. Accurately modeling these dy...
Learning reinforces curiosity for related information
Human curiosity is dynamic, however the principles governing its fluctuations remain debated. Here, we test two competing hypotheses about how past learning shapes subsequent curiosity and memory. The...
Serotonin potentiates presynaptic calcium currents and transmitter release at cortical synapses
Synaptic strength is dynamically modulated not only by activity-dependent processes but also by neuromodulators. These modulators can enhance or depress synaptic transmission and play essential roles...
Improving photosynthesis by scattering hydrogel fiber–enabled volumetric illumination
Photosynthetic biomanufacturing offers a sustainable route to generate valuable bioproducts by harnessing microorganisms such as algae to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into biomass. A major barr...
A conserved E3 ubiquitin ligase rewires carotenoid, sterol, and lipid metabolism in <i>Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous</i>
Sterols, lipids, and carotenoids are major metabolites that share common biosynthetic precursors and underpin key physiological processes in eukaryotes. Yet, how cells coordinate metabolic flux throug...
Lactoperoxidase is a candidate for mediating neuromelanin formation in the human substantia nigra
The presence of neuromelanin is a characteristic feature of the human substantia nigra (SN); however, the mechanism of its synthesis and its role in the development of Parkinson’s disease remain uncle...
Sensory basis of speech motor learning and memory
Changes to speech offer a quantifiable means to assess speech motor learning, and the resulting memory is thought to be motor in nature. Here, we evaluate this idea and show instead that memory for sp...
Monoclonal antibodies against nitrated nerve growth factor reveal an oxidation-dependent pathogenic hallmark in ALS
Nerve growth factor (NGF) is a member of the neurotrophin family, essential for neuronal survival and phenotypic maintenance. However, in vitro, its function can be disrupted by oxidative posttranslat...
Gene loss, repression, amplification, and horizontal acquisition shape galactose/melibiose metabolism in fission yeast
Natural variation in metabolism is a key driver of microbial adaptation. While galactose utilization is well studied in budding yeasts, it remains poorly understood in the fission yeast...
Elastocapillary thinning dynamics in ferroelectric nematic filaments
Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals (FNLCs) represent an emerging class of functional soft materials that combine the orientational order of nematic liquid crystals with spontaneous electrical polar...