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Drylands under pressure: Science and solutions for global stability Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Ismahane Elouafi
Drylands are the backbone of global agriculture, supporting 44% of the world’s farming . Yet, they are under siege. Climate change, land degradation, and water scarcity are transforming these essential regions into barren landscapes, threatening the livelihoods of nearly three billion people . These lands, which already face some of the harshest conditions on Earth, are warming faster than other parts
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Conformational ensembles reveal the origins of serine protease catalysis Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Siyuan Du, Rachael C. Kretsch, Jacob Parres-Gold, Elisa Pieri, Vinícius Wilian D. Cruzeiro, Mingning Zhu, Margaux M. Pinney, Filip Yabukarski, Jason P. Schwans, Todd J. Martínez, Daniel Herschlag
Enzymes exist in ensembles of states that encode the energetics underlying their catalysis. Conformational ensembles built from 1231 structures of 17 serine proteases revealed atomic-level changes across their reaction states. By comparing the enzymatic and solution reaction, we identified molecular features that provide catalysis and quantified their energetic contributions to catalysis. Serine proteases
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Selective chemical looping combustion of acetylene in ethylene-rich streams Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Matthew Jacob, Huy Nguyen, Rishi Raj, Javier Garcia-Barriocanal, Jiyun Hong, Jorge E. Perez-Aguilar, Adam S. Hoffman, K. Andre Mkhoyan, Simon R. Bare, Matthew Neurock, Aditya Bhan
The requirement for C 2 H 2 concentrations below 2 parts per million (ppm) in gas streams for C 2 H 4 polymerization necessitates its semihydrogenation to C 2 H 4 . We demonstrate selective chemical looping combustion of C 2 H 2 in C 2 H 4 -rich streams by Bi 2 O 3 as an alternative catalytic pathway to reduce C 2 H 2 concentration below 2 ppm. Bi 2 O 3 combusts C 2 H 2 with a first-order rate constant
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Ultrastable supported oxygen evolution electrocatalyst formed by ripening-induced embedding Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Wenjuan Shi, Tonghao Shen, Chengkun Xing, Kai Sun, Qisheng Yan, Wenzhe Niu, Xiao Yang, Jingjing Li, Chenyang Wei, Ruijie Wang, Shuqing Fu, Yong Yang, Liangyao Xue, Junfeng Chen, Shiwen Cui, Xiaoyue Hu, Ke Xie, Xin Xu, Sai Duan, Yifei Xu, Bo Zhang
The future deployment of terawatt-scale proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE) technology necessitates development of an efficient oxygen evolution catalyst with low cost and long lifetime. Currently, the stability of the most active iridium (Ir) catalysts is impaired by dissolution, redeposition, detachment, and agglomeration of Ir species. Here we present a ripening-induced embedding
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KLF2 maintains lineage fidelity and suppresses CD8 T cell exhaustion during acute LCMV infection Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Eric Fagerberg, John Attanasio, Christine Dien, Jaiveer Singh, Emily A. Kessler, Leena Abdullah, Jian Shen, Brian G. Hunt, Kelli A. Connolly, Edward De Brouwer, Jiaming He, Nivedita R. Iyer, Jessica Buck, Emily R. Borr, Martina Damo, Gena G. Foster, Josephine R. Giles, Yina H. Huang, John S. Tsang, Smita Krishnaswamy, Weiguo Cui, Nikhil S. Joshi
Naïve CD8 T cells have the potential to differentiate into a spectrum of functional states during an immune response. How these developmental decisions are made and what mechanisms exist to suppress differentiation toward alternative fates remains unclear. We employed in vivo CRISPR-Cas9–based perturbation sequencing to assess the role of ~40 transcription factors (TFs) and epigenetic modulators in
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Developmental origins and evolution of pallial cell types and structures in birds Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Bastienne Zaremba, Amir Fallahshahroudi, Céline Schneider, Julia Schmidt, Ioannis Sarropoulos, Evgeny Leushkin, Bianka Berki, Enya Van Poucke, Per Jensen, Rodrigo Senovilla-Ganzo, Francisca Hervas-Sotomayor, Nils Trost, Francesco Lamanna, Mari Sepp, Fernando García-Moreno, Henrik Kaessmann
Innovations in the pallium likely facilitated the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities in birds. We therefore scrutinized its cellular composition and evolution using cell type atlases from chicken, mouse, and nonavian reptiles. We found that the avian pallium shares most inhibitory neuron types with other amniotes. Whereas excitatory neuron types in amniote hippocampal regions show evolutionary
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Thalamic opioids from POMC satiety neurons switch on sugar appetite Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Marielle Minère, Hannah Wilhelms, Bojana Kuzmanovic, Sofia Lundh, Debora Fusca, Alina Claßen, Stav Shtiglitz, Yael Prilutski, Itay Talpir, Lin Tian, Brigitte Kieffer, Jon Davis, Peter Kloppenburg, Marc Tittgemeyer, Yoav Livneh, Henning Fenselau
High sugar–containing foods are readily consumed, even after meals and beyond fullness sensation (e.g., as desserts). Although reward-driven processing of palatable foods can promote overeating, the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie the selective appetite for sugar in states of satiety remain unclear. Hypothalamic pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons are principal regulators of satiety because
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Engineering grain boundaries in monolayer molybdenum disulfide for efficient water-ion separation Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Jie Shen, Areej Aljarb, Yichen Cai, Xing Liu, Jiacheng Min, Yingge Wang, Qingxiao Wang, Chenhui Zhang, Cailing Chen, Mariam Hakami, Jui-Han Fu, Hui Zhang, Guanxing Li, Xiaoqian Wang, Zhuo Chen, Jiaqiang Li, Xinglong Dong, Kaimin Shih, Kuo-Wei Huang, Vincent Tung, Guosheng Shi, Ingo Pinnau, Lain-Jong Li, Yu Han
Two-dimensional (2D) materials have long been considered as ideal platforms for developing separation membranes. However, it is difficult to generate uniform subnanometer pores over large areas on 2D materials. We report that the well-defined eight-membered ring (8-MR) pores, typically formed at the boundaries of two antiparallel grains of monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ), can serve as molecular
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Thermal catalytic reforming for hydrogen production with zero CO 2 emission Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Mi Peng, Yuzhen Ge, Rui Gao, Jie Yang, Aowen Li, Zhiheng Xie, Qiaolin Yu, Jie Zhang, Hiroyuki Asakura, Hui Zhang, Zhi Liu, Qi Zhang, Jin Deng, Jihan Zhou, Wu Zhou, Graham J. Hutchings, Ding Ma
Carbon-neutral hydrogen production is of key importance for the chemical industry of the future. We demonstrate a new thermal catalytic route for the partial reforming of ethanol into hydrogen and acetic acid with near-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This reaction is enabled by a catalyst containing a high density of atomic Pt 1 and Ir 1 species supported on a reactive alpha-molybdenum carbide substrate
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RNA polymerase II at histone genes predicts outcome in human cancer Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Steven Henikoff, Ye Zheng, Ronald M. Paranal, Yiling Xu, Jacob E. Greene, Jorja G. Henikoff, Zachary R. Russell, Frank Szulzewsky, H. Nayanga Thirimanne, Sita Kugel, Eric C. Holland, Kami Ahmad
Genome-wide hypertranscription is common in human cancer and predicts poor prognosis. To understand how hypertranscription might drive cancer, we applied our formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE)–cleavage under targeted accessible chromatin method for mapping RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) genome-wide in FFPE sections. We demonstrate global RNAPII elevations in mouse gliomas and assorted human tumors
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Enhancer-driven cell type comparison reveals similarities between the mammalian and bird pallium Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Nikolai Hecker, Niklas Kempynck, David Mauduit, Darina Abaffyová, Roel Vandepoel, Sam Dieltiens, Lars Borm, Ioannis Sarropoulos, Carmen Bravo González-Blas, Julie De Man, Kristofer Davie, Elke Leysen, Jeroen Vandensteen, Rani Moors, Gert Hulselmans, Lynette Lim, Joris De Wit, Valerie Christiaens, Suresh Poovathingal, Stein Aerts
Combinations of transcription factors govern the identity of cell types, which is reflected by genomic enhancer codes. We used deep learning to characterize these enhancer codes and devised three metrics to compare cell types in the telencephalon across amniotes. To this end, we generated single-cell multiome and spatially resolved transcriptomics data of the chicken telencephalon. Enhancer codes of
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Good plasmons in a bad metal Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Francesco L. Ruta, Yinming Shao, Swagata Acharya, Anqi Mu, Na Hyun Jo, Sae Hee Ryu, Daria Balatsky, Yifan Su, Dimitar Pashov, Brian S. Y. Kim, Mikhail I. Katsnelson, James G. Analytis, Eli Rotenberg, Andrew J. Millis, Mark van Schilfgaarde, D. N. Basov
Correlated metals may exhibit unusually high resistivity that increases linearly in temperature, breaking through the Mott-Ioffe-Regel bound, above which coherent quasiparticles are destroyed. The fate of collective charge excitations, or plasmons, in these systems is a subject of debate. Several studies have suggested that plasmons are overdamped, whereas other studies have detected propagating plasmons
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Neuroevolution insights into biological neural computation Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Risto Miikkulainen
This article reviews existing work and future opportunities in neuroevolution, an area of machine learning in which evolutionary optimization methods such as genetic algorithms are used to construct neural networks to achieve desired behavior. The article takes a neuroscience perspective, identifying where neuroevolution can lead to insights about the structure, function, and developmental and evolutionary
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Depth-dependent seismic sensing of groundwater recovery from the atmospheric-river storms of 2023 Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Shujuan Mao, William L. Ellsworth, Yujie Zheng, Gregory C. Beroza
In early 2023, a series of intense atmospheric-river storms eased California’s historic drought, yet the spatiotemporal extent of groundwater recovery remains poorly understood. We tracked two-decadal changes in groundwater in Greater Los Angeles using seismic ambient-field interferometry. The derived seismic hydrographs reveal distinct expressions of groundwater and surficial water droughts: Whereas
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Variability of flowing stream network length across the US Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Jeff P. Prancevic, Hansjörg Seybold, James W. Kirchner
The aggregate length of flowing streams in a drainage network lengthens and shortens as landscapes become wetter and drier. However, direct measurements of stream network variability have been limited to a handful of small drainage basins. We estimated the variability of stream network length for 14,765 gauged basins across the contiguous United States using measured streamflow distributions and topography-based
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Breaking the silence Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 H. Holden Thorp, Meagan Phelan
Research on science communication has largely focused on teaching scientists how to describe their studies in ways that interest the public while deepening their understanding of scientific exploration. However, there is another, often overlooked side to science communication—how scientists respond when questions arise about the integrity of their research. Often, the tendency has been to stay silent
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Evolutionary convergence of sensory circuits in the pallium of amniotes Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Eneritz Rueda-Alaña, Rodrigo Senovilla-Ganzo, Marco Grillo, Enrique Vázquez, Sergio Marco-Salas, Tatiana Gallego-Flores, Aitor Ordeñana-Manso, Artemis Ftara, Laura Escobar, Alberto Benguría, Ana Quintas, Ana Dopazo, Miriam Rábano, María dM Vivanco, Ana María Aransay, Daniel Garrigos, Ángel Toval, José Luis Ferrán, Mats Nilsson, Juan Manuel Encinas-Pérez, Maurizio De Pittà, Fernando García-Moreno
The amniote pallium contains sensory circuits that are structurally and functionally equivalent, yet their evolutionary relationship remains unresolved. We used birthdating analysis, single-cell RNA and spatial transcriptomics, and mathematical modeling to compare the development and evolution of known pallial circuits across birds (chick), lizards (gecko), and mammals (mouse). We reveal that neurons
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Elephant seals as ecosystem sentinels for the northeast Pacific Ocean twilight zone Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Roxanne S. Beltran, Allison R. Payne, A. Marm Kilpatrick, Conner M. Hale, Madison Reed, Elliott L. Hazen, Steven J. Bograd, Joffrey Jouma’a, Patrick W. Robinson, Emma Houle, Wade Matern, Alea Sabah, Kathryn Lewis, Samantha Sebandal, Allison Coughlin, Natalia Valdes Heredia, Francesca Penny, Sophie Rose Dalrymple, Heather Penny, Meghan Sherrier, Ben Peterson, Joanne Reiter, Burney J. Le Boeuf, Daniel
The open ocean twilight zone holds most of the global fish biomass but is poorly understood owing to difficulties of measuring subsurface ecosystem processes at scale. We demonstrate that a wide-ranging carnivore—the northern elephant seal—can serve as an ecosystem sentinel for the twilight zone. We link ocean basin–scale foraging success with oceanographic indices to estimate twilight zone fish abundance
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Computational design of serine hydrolases Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-13 Anna Lauko, Samuel J. Pellock, Kiera H. Sumida, Ivan Anishchenko, David Juergens, Woody Ahern, Jihun Jeung, Alex Shida, Andrew Hunt, Indrek Kalvet, Christoffer Norn, Ian R. Humphreys, Cooper Jamieson, Rohith Krishna, Yakov Kipnis, Alex Kang, Evans Brackenbrough, Asim K. Bera, Banumathi Sankaran, K. N. Houk, David Baker
The design of enzymes with complex active sites that mediate multistep reactions remains an outstanding challenge. With serine hydrolases as a model system, we combined the generative capabilities of RFdiffusion with an ensemble generation method for assessing active site preorganization to design enzymes starting from minimal active site descriptions. Experimental characterization revealed catalytic
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Kidney multiome-based genetic scorecard reveals convergent coding and regulatory variants. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-07 Hongbo Liu,Amin Abedini,Eunji Ha,Ziyuan Ma,Xin Sheng,Bernhard Dumoulin,Chengxiang Qiu,Tamas Aranyi,Shen Li,Nicole Dittrich,Hua-Chang Chen,Ran Tao,Der-Cherng Tarng,Feng-Jen Hsieh,Shih-Ann Chen,Shun-Fa Yang,Mei-Yueh Lee,Pui-Yan Kwok,Jer-Yuarn Wu,Chien-Hsiun Chen,Atlas Khan,Nita A Limdi,Wei-Qi Wei,Theresa L Walunas,Elizabeth W Karlson,Eimear E Kenny,Yuan Luo,Leah Kottyan,John J Connolly,Gail P Jarvik
Kidney dysfunction is a major cause of mortality, but its genetic architecture remains elusive. In this study, we conducted a multiancestry genome-wide association study in 2.2 million individuals and identified 1026 (97 previously unknown) independent loci. Ancestry-specific analysis indicated an attenuation of newly identified signals on common variants in European ancestry populations and the power
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Relating DNA sequence, organization, and function. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Geoffrey Fudenberg,Vijay Ramani
Cross-species mosaic genomes provide insight into synthetic chromosome design.
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Probing the planet's polesEnds of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and Our Future Neil Shubin Dutton, 2025. 288 pp. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Sarah Boon
A paleontologist explores our intertwined fate with Earth's most remote regions.
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Convergent evolution in whale and human vocal cultures. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Andrew Whiten,Mason Youngblood
The complex songs of humpback whales conform to fundamental laws of language.
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Arctic research cooperation in a turbulent world. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Jennifer Spence,John Holdren,Fran Ulmer
Rapid Arctic change requires multifaceted approaches with Arctic peoples at the forefront.
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The future of measlesBooster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health Adam Ratner Avery, 2025. 288 pp. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Arthur Caplan
A pediatrician confronts the disease's persistence in a world where eradication is possible.
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Indonesia's new capital poses public health risks. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Dyna Rochmyaningsih
Scientists worry about potential rise in malaria and insect-borne viral diseases.
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New complexity emerges in Earth's 'boring' middle region. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Paul Voosen
Planetary CT scans and lab experiments reveal layering and intricate flows in the mantle.
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Generative AI exacerbates the climate crisis. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Qiong Chen,Jinghui Wang,Jialun Lin
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After abuse, Inuit group closes off ancient rock belt. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Rachel Berkowitz
The nearly 4-billion-year-old rocks offer a look into Earth's earliest years.
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A new 'mini-CRISPR' flexes its editing power in monkey muscles. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Jennifer Couzin-Frankel
The downsized DNA-slicing machinery may reach more tissues to take aim at more diseases.
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Trump orders cause chaos at science agencies. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Jeffrey Mervis
Wild week of canceled meetings, program changes, and data purges creates high anxiety.
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Whale song shows language-like statistical structure Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Inbal Arnon, Simon Kirby, Jenny A. Allen, Claire Garrigue, Emma L. Carroll, Ellen C. Garland
Humpback whale song is a culturally transmitted behavior. Human language, which is also culturally transmitted, has statistically coherent parts whose frequency distribution follows a power law. These properties facilitate learning and may therefore arise because of their contribution to the faithful transmission of language over multiple cultural generations. If so, we would expect to find them in
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Overwriting an instinct: Visual cortex instructs learning to suppress fear responses Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Sara Mederos, Patty Blakely, Nicole Vissers, Claudia Clopath, Sonja B. Hofer
Fast instinctive responses to environmental stimuli can be crucial for survival but are not always optimal. Animals can adapt their behavior and suppress instinctive reactions, but the neural pathways mediating such ethologically relevant forms of learning remain unclear. We found that posterolateral higher visual areas (plHVAs) are crucial for learning to suppress escapes from innate visual threats
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Structural pathway for PI3-kinase regulation by VPS15 in autophagy Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Annan S. I. Cook, Minghao Chen, Thanh N. Nguyen, Ainara Claveras Cabezudo, Grace Khuu, Shanlin Rao, Samantha N. Garcia, Mingxuan Yang, Anthony T. Iavarone, Xuefeng Ren, Michael Lazarou, Gerhard Hummer, James H. Hurley
The class III phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase complexes I and II (PI3KC3-C1 and -C2) have vital roles in macroautophagy and endosomal maturation, respectively. We elucidated a structural pathway of enzyme activation through cryo-EM analysis of PI3KC3-C1. The inactive conformation of the VPS15 pseudokinase stabilizes the inactive conformation, sequestering its N -myristate in the N-lobe of the pseudokinase
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Free speech, fact checking, and the right to accurate information Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Stephan Lewandowsky
True to his campaign promises, on 20 January 2025, US President Donald Trump signed a broad range of Executive Orders, the scope of which ranged from renaming the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” to reinterpreting the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution by curtailing birthright citizenship. At least one order is relevant to social scientists studying political communication because it aims to
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Advances and shortfalls in knowledge of Antarctic terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 L. R. Pertierra, P. Convey, A. Barbosa, E. M. Biersma, D. Cowan, J. A. F. Diniz-Filho, A. de los Ríos, P. Escribano-Álvarez, C. I. Fraser, D. Fontaneto, M. Greve, H. J. Griffiths, M. Harris, K. A. Hughes, H. J. Lynch, R. J. Ladle, X. P. Liu, P. C. le Roux, R. Majewska, M. A. Molina-Montenegro, L. S. Peck, A. Quesada, C. Ronquillo, Y. Ropert-Coudert, L. G. Sancho, A. Terauds, G. Varliero, J. A. Vianna
Antarctica harbors many distinctive features of life, yet much about the diversity and functioning of Antarctica’s life remains unknown. Evolutionary histories and functional ecology are well understood only for vertebrates, whereas research on invertebrates is largely limited to species descriptions and some studies on environmental tolerances. Knowledge on Antarctic vegetation cover showcases the
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The essential genome of Plasmodium knowlesi reveals determinants of antimalarial susceptibility Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Brendan Elsworth, Sida Ye, Sheena Dass, Jacob A. Tennessen, Qudseen Sultana, Basil T. Thommen, Aditya S. Paul, Usheer Kanjee, Christof Grüring, Marcelo U. Ferreira, Marc-Jan Gubbels, Kourosh Zarringhalam, Manoj T. Duraisingh
Measures to combat the parasites that cause malaria have become compromised because of reliance on a small arsenal of drugs and emerging drug resistance. We conducted a transposon mutagenesis screen in the primate malaria parasite Plasmodium knowlesi , producing the most complete classification of gene essentiality in any Plasmodium spp. to date, with the resolution to define truncatable genes. We
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Retrograde mitochondrial signaling governs the identity and maturity of metabolic tissues Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Emily M. Walker, Gemma L. Pearson, Nathan Lawlor, Ava M. Stendahl, Anne Lietzke, Vaibhav Sidarala, Jie Zhu, Tracy Stromer, Emma C. Reck, Jin Li, Elena Levi-D’Ancona, Mabelle B. Pasmooij, Dre L. Hubers, Aaron Renberg, Kawthar Mohamed, Vishal S. Parekh, Irina X. Zhang, Benjamin Thompson, Deqiang Zhang, Sarah A. Ware, Leena Haataja, Nathan Qi, Stephen C. J. Parker, Peter Arvan, Lei Yin, Brett A. Kaufman
Mitochondrial damage is a hallmark of metabolic diseases, including diabetes, yet the consequences of compromised mitochondria in metabolic tissues are often unclear. Here, we report that dysfunctional mitochondrial quality control engages a retrograde (mitonuclear) signaling program that impairs cellular identity and maturity in β-cells, hepatocytes, and brown adipocytes. Targeted deficiency throughout
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Rapid and dynamic evolution of a giant Y chromosome in Silene latifolia Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Takashi Akagi, Naoko Fujita, Kenta Shirasawa, Hiroyuki Tanaka, Kiyotaka Nagaki, Kanae Masuda, Ayano Horiuchi, Eriko Kuwada, Kanta Kawai, Riko Kunou, Koki Nakamura, Yoko Ikeda, Atsushi Toyoda, Takehiko Itoh, Koichiro Ushijima, Deborah Charlesworth
Some plants have massive sex-linked regions. To test hypotheses about their evolution, we sequenced the genome of Silene latifolia , in which giant heteromorphic sex chromosomes were first discovered in 1923. It has long been known that the Y chromosome consists mainly of a male-specific region that does not recombine with the X chromosome and carries the sex-determining genes and genes with other
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Does the mantis shrimp pack a phononic shield? Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 N. A. Alderete, S. Sandeep, S. Raetz, M. Asgari, M. Abi Ghanem, H. D. Espinosa
The powerful strikes generated by the smasher mantis shrimp require it to possess a robust protection mechanism to withstand the resultant forces. Although recent studies have suggested that phononic bandgaps complement the mantis shrimp’s defensive suite, direct experimental evidence for this mechanism has remained elusive. In this work, we explored the phononic properties of the mantis shrimp’s dactyl
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Antarctica in 2025: Drivers of deep uncertainty in projected ice loss Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Helen Amanda Fricker, Benjamin K. Galton-Fenzi, Catherine Colello Walker, Bryony Isabella Diana Freer, Laurie Padman, Robert DeConto
Antarctica is a vital component of Earth’s climate system, influencing global sea level, ocean circulation, and planetary albedo. Major knowledge gaps in critical processes—spanning the atmosphere, ocean, ice sheets, underlying beds, ice shelves, and sea ice—create uncertainties in future projections, hindering climate adaptation and risk assessments of ice intervention strategies. Antarctica’s ice
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Supersaturation mutagenesis reveals adaptive rewiring of essential genes among malaria parasites Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Jenna Oberstaller, Shulin Xu, Deboki Naskar, Min Zhang, Chengqi Wang, Justin Gibbons, Camilla Valente Pires, Matthew Mayho, Thomas D. Otto, Julian C. Rayner, John H. Adams
Malaria parasites are highly divergent from model eukaryotes. Large-scale genome engineering methods effective in model organisms are frequently inapplicable, and systematic studies of gene function are few. We generated more than 175,000 transposon insertions in the Plasmodium knowlesi genome, averaging an insertion every 138 base pairs, and used this “supersaturation” mutagenesis to score essentiality
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The Silene latifolia genome and its giant Y chromosome Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Carol Moraga, Catarina Branco, Quentin Rougemont, Pavel Jedlička, Eddy Mendoza-Galindo, Paris Veltsos, Melissa Hanique, Ricardo C. Rodríguez de la Vega, Eric Tannier, Xiaodong Liu, Claire Lemaitre, Peter D. Fields, Corinne Cruaud, Karine Labadie, Caroline Belser, Jerome Briolay, Sylvain Santoni, Radim Cegan, Raquel Linheiro, Gabriele Adam, Adil El Filali, Vinciane Mossion, Adnane Boualem, Raquel Tavares
In many species with sex chromosomes, the Y is a tiny chromosome. However, the dioecious plant Silene latifolia has a giant ~550-megabase Y chromosome, which has remained unsequenced so far. We used a long- and short-read hybrid approach to obtain a high-quality male genome. Comparative analysis of the sex chromosomes with their homologs in outgroups showed that the Y is highly rearranged and degenerated
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Sequence-dependent activity and compartmentalization of foreign DNA in a eukaryotic nucleus Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Léa Meneu, Christophe Chapard, Jacques Serizay, Alex Westbrook, Etienne Routhier, Myriam Ruault, Manon Perrot, Alexandros Minakakis, Fabien Girard, Amaury Bignaud, Antoine Even, Géraldine Gourgues, Domenico Libri, Carole Lartigue, Aurèle Piazza, Agnès Thierry, Angela Taddei, Frédéric Beckouët, Julien Mozziconacci, Romain Koszul
In eukaryotes, DNA-associated protein complexes coevolve with genomic sequences to orchestrate chromatin folding. We investigate the relationship between DNA sequence and the spontaneous loading and activity of chromatin components in the absence of coevolution. Using bacterial genomes integrated into Saccharomyces cerevisiae , which diverged from yeast more than 2 billion years ago, we show that nucleosomes
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Disappearing landscapes: The Arctic at +2.7°C global warming Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Julienne C. Stroeve, Dirk Notz, Jackie Dawson, Edward A. G. Schuur, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Céline Giesse
Under current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, global warming is projected to reach 2.7°C above preindustrial levels. In this review, we show that at such a level of warming, the Arctic would be transformed beyond contemporary recognition: Virtually every day of the year would have air temperatures higher than preindustrial extremes, the Arctic Ocean
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Protein codes promote selective subcellular compartmentalization Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Henry R. Kilgore, Itamar Chinn, Peter G. Mikhael, Ilan Mitnikov, Catherine Van Dongen, Guy Zylberberg, Lena Afeyan, Salman F. Banani, Susana Wilson-Hawken, Tong Ihn Lee, Regina Barzilay, Richard A. Young
Cells have evolved mechanisms to distribute ~10 billion protein molecules to subcellular compartments where diverse proteins involved in shared functions must assemble. Here, we demonstrate that proteins with shared functions share amino acid sequence codes that guide them to compartment destinations. A protein language model, ProtGPS, was developed that predicts with high performance the compartment
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Four-dimensional conserved topological charge vectors in plasmonic quasicrystals Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Shai Tsesses, Pascal Dreher, David Janoschka, Alexander Neuhaus, Kobi Cohen, Tim C. Meiler, Tomer Bucher, Shay Sapir, Bettina Frank, Timothy J. Davis, Frank Meyer zu Heringdorf, Harald Giessen, Guy Bartal
According to Noether’s theorem, symmetries in a physical system are intertwined with conserved quantities. These symmetries often determine the system topology, which is made ever more complex with increased dimensionality. Quasicrystals have neither translational nor global rotational symmetry, yet they intrinsically inhabit a higher-dimensional space in which symmetry resurfaces. Here, we discovered
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Moisture-responsive root-branching pathways identified in diverse maize breeding germplasm Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Johannes D. Scharwies, Taylor Clarke, Zihao Zheng, Andrea Dinneny, Siri Birkeland, Margaretha A. Veltman, Craig J. Sturrock, Jason Banda, Héctor H. Torres-Martínez, Willian G. Viana, Ria Khare, Joseph Kieber, Bipin K. Pandey, Malcolm Bennett, Patrick S. Schnable, José R. Dinneny
Plants grow complex root systems to extract unevenly distributed resources from soils. Spatial differences in soil moisture are perceived by root tips, leading to the patterning of new root branches toward available water in a process called hydropatterning. Little is known about hydropatterning behavior and its genetic basis in crop plants. Here, we developed an assay to measure hydropatterning in
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Endothelial insulin resistance induced by adrenomedullin mediates obesity-associated diabetes Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Haaglim Cho, Chien-Cheng Lai, Rémy Bonnavion, Mohamad Wessam Alnouri, ShengPeng Wang, Kenneth Anthony Roquid, Haruya Kawase, Diana Campos, Min Chen, Lee S. Weinstein, Alfredo Martínez, Mario Looso, Miloslav Sanda, Stefan Offermanns
Insulin resistance is a hallmark of obesity-associated type 2 diabetes. Insulin’s actions go beyond metabolic cells and also involve blood vessels, where insulin increases capillary blood flow and delivery of insulin and nutrients. We show that adrenomedullin, whose plasma levels are increased in obese humans and mice, inhibited insulin signaling in human endothelial cells through protein-tyrosine
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Hidden cascades of seismic ice stream deformation Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-02-06 Andreas Fichtner, Coen Hofstede, Brian L. N. Kennett, Anders Svensson, Julien Westhoff, Fabian Walter, Jean-Paul Ampuero, Eliza Cook, Dimitri Zigone, Daniela Jansen, Olaf Eisen
Ice streams are major regulators of sea level change. However, standard viscous flow simulations of their evolution have limited predictive power due to incomplete understanding of involved processes. On the Greenland ice sheet, borehole fiber-optic observations reveal a brittle deformation mode that is incompatible with viscous flow over length scales similar to the resolution of modern ice sheet
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Erratum for the Review "Addressing interconnect challenges for enhanced computing performance" by J.-S. Kim et al. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30
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Global study shows species are losing diversity. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 Elizabeth Pennisi
Even in some common species, the genetic variation key to resilience is slipping away.
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The monster in the roomHumans: A Monstrous History Surekha Davies University of California Press, 2025. 336 pp. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 Ed Finn
A historian interrogates the mythical creatures we create to dehumanize and devalue others.
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Banished from CERN, Russian physicists regroup. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30
Breakdown in collaboration leads many scientists to look to domestic projects-and to China.
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Taking responsibility: Asilomar and its legacy. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 J Benjamin Hurlbut
A reappraisal of the constitutional position of science in American democracy is needed.
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Laser-powered accelerators, compact and cheap, get real. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 Adrian Cho
Encouraging lab results bolster plans to harness a new kind of particle accelerator in x-ray sources.
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International commitment to safe nuclear reactors. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 Lisa Marshall
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Trump gender order upends federal surveys. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 Jeffrey Mervis
Move would ban data collection on transgender and nonbinary people.
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In India, a debate over the benefits of gas stoves. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar
Surprise finding of few health payoffs complicates push to replace biomass fuel.
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International commitment to safe nuclear reactors-Response. Science (IF 44.7) Pub Date : 2025-01-30 R Scott Kemp,Edwin S Lyman,Mark R Deinert,Richard L Garwin,Frank N von Hippel