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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Explore groundbreaking news and research from PNAS, one of the world's most-cited scientific journals. Discover its sibling journal, @pnasnexus.org, both official journals of the National Academy of Sciences. Visit www.pnas.org for more info.
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In this issue: Heat-driven decline of Caribbean corals, colonial influence on Amazonian forests, and evidence that repaired DNA leaves lasting scars in chromatin. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/mF1s50Xyi6w
Pictured is Garrisson, an adult male chimpanzee. Brian M. Wood and colleagues studied wild chimpanzees from the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Image credit: Kevin E. Langergraber
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Data from 10,000+ necropsies show how macroplastic ingestion drives mortality in marine species. For seabirds, mammals, and turtles, 6–405 pieces can raise risk to 90%, depending on species and plastic type.

In NPR: https://ow.ly/EYrV50XAimS
In PNAS: https://ow.ly/hav450XAijR
A fish swims near floating seaweed and a dirty plastic bottle at the ocean surface, highlighting marine pollution. Image credit: Michael O'Neill/Science Source
December 1, 2025 at 9:00 PM
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The Roman Empire needed wood for building and burning. Tree-ring analysis of over 20,000 samples reveals how Roman expansion drove intensive logging across Central-Western Europe, eventually leading to overexploitation of old-growth forests. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/tWR150XAhVA
Ground plan of a Roman-period wooden building from the vicus (civil settlement) of Eschenz, Switzerland. CREDIT: Amt für Archäologie Thurgau, Schweiz, archaeologie.tg.ch.
December 1, 2025 at 8:01 PM
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Opinion piece: Despite what some suggest, removing #DeadTrees will not save us from fast-moving #wildfires. In PNAS Front Matter: https://ow.ly/foxC50XAcxX

#logging #ClimateChange #ForestFire
Pictured is post-disturbance logging that entailed removal of biological legacies and that increased fine fuels on the Stanislaus National Forest in California, two years after the 2013 Rim fire, one of the state’s largest fires at the time. Image credit: Doug Bevington (photographer).
December 1, 2025 at 6:30 PM
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People born during China's Great Famine, from 1958 to 1962, show a 13% higher risk of infectious diseases in adulthood, with smaller effects extending to their children, highlighting the multigenerational impact of prenatal malnutrition. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/OXnN50Xzuui
Spatial variation in migration-adjusted cohort size shrinkage index (CSSI) for Sichuan Province. Overall CSSI was 0.47, indicating that the population size of the famine birth cohort was 47% smaller than the average population size of the pre- and post-famine cohorts.
November 30, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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One of the most-viewed PNAS articles in the last week is “The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research.” Explore the article here: https://ow.ly/CWvM50XzuBk

For more trending articles, visit https://ow.ly/5q7x50XzuBi.
When confronted with experimental treatments, synthetic respondents accurately guess the hypothesis under investigation at high rates (A), provide responses that are consistent with the detected hypothesis, but do so imperfectly (B and C), and bias the treatment effect in the predicted direction (D).
November 29, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Teaching people how mRNA vaccines actually work protects against misconceptions about mRNA vaccination changing the recipient's DNA, without the need to repeat the false claims, according to experiments with over 3,500 participants. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/sVwH50Xzutc
A graphic explaining how mRNA vaccines work, which was showed to study participants.
November 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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Opinion piece: Catastrophic #wildfires are destabilizing the #InsuranceIndustry, leaving some homeowners in jeopardy. Here’s a path forward: https://ow.ly/XVJc50Xzuo1

#BuiltEnvironment #RiskAssessment #ClimateChange #LandManagement
The results of wildland-urban fire in Los Angeles in January 2025. Image credit: Dave E. Calkin.
November 29, 2025 at 6:35 PM
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There’s still time to honor exceptional science! If you’ve read a PNAS paper this year that moved its field forward, submit a nomination by January 2, 2026. PNAS articles published between December 16, 2024, and December 15, 2025, are eligible. Nominate today: https://ow.ly/SJCW50Xzubo
PNAS – 2025 Cozzarelli Prize. Submit a Nomination. Learn more!
November 29, 2025 at 5:35 PM
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Mars doesn’t have the tectonics that shaped Earth’s landscapes, but a look at its ancient river systems reveals that 5% of the red planet is covered in large drainage systems, creating a mosaic of possibly habitable environments across the planet’s surface. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/BVA450XyjxI
Distribution of the 16 mapped large drainage systems on Mars.
November 27, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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One of the most-viewed PNAS articles in the last week is “Organic geochemical evidence for life in Archean rocks identified by pyrolysis–GC–MS and supervised machine learning.” Explore the article here: https://ow.ly/6nh350XyiVP

For more trending articles, visit https://ow.ly/HUuh50XyiVQ
The percentage of biogenic (vs. abiogenic) samples classified by random forest Model #2 increases significantly through time for rocks from Archean to Proterozoic to Phanerozoic eons.
November 27, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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Six years of monitoring in a warmed forest showed a decrease in nitrogen emissions due to reduced microbial activity in dry soil. The result was contrary to predictions and challenges ecosystem model assumptions. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Yf1550Xyjpl
Warmed plot in the study. CREDIT: Kai Huang
November 26, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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In this issue: Heat-driven decline of Caribbean corals, colonial influence on Amazonian forests, and evidence that repaired DNA leaves lasting scars in chromatin. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/mF1s50Xyi6w
Pictured is Garrisson, an adult male chimpanzee. Brian M. Wood and colleagues studied wild chimpanzees from the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Image credit: Kevin E. Langergraber
November 26, 2025 at 8:01 PM
pnas.org
All hail Caenorhabditis elegans, one of the most researched organisms on Earth. Collaborative data sharing in the nematode research community led to four Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about human development and disease. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/uNqU50Xyj4e
Caenorhabditis elegans, imaged with confocal laser scanning microscopy, and modeled by surface rendering software. Stock image.
November 26, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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Novel method reveals an easier way to grow immature eggs from #StemCells. In PNAS Journal Club: https://ow.ly/LZAi50XyhLn

#oocyte #InVitroFertilization #ovary #PluripotentStemCells
Close up of an oocyte (egg cell). Image credit: ALAIN GOUGEON / Science Source.
November 26, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
philzyl.bsky.social
Our new paper in PNAS summarises why the push to 'salvage' log dead trees won't reduce the risk of fast wildfires as has been claimed.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
November 24, 2025 at 11:36 PM
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Analysis of over 10,000 necropsies reveals that seabirds face a 90% mortality risk after ingesting 23 pieces of plastic, marine mammals after 29 pieces, and sea turtles after 405 pieces, providing quantitative information on plastic pollution impact. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/GkZZ50XxIBV
A seagull with a plastic bag in its mouth. Stock photo.
November 26, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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One of the most-viewed PNAS articles in the last week is “Neurodevelopmental disorder–linked Argonaute mutations permit delayed RISC formation and unusual shortening of miRNAs by 3′→5′ trimming.” Explore now: https://ow.ly/hwP450XxHM6

For more trending articles, visit https://ow.ly/q6Cl50XxHGN.
AGO1(ΔF180) retains the ability to form functionally mature RISCs.
November 25, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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In the latest episode of Science Sessions, Curtis Suttle and Kevin Xu Zhong of University of British Columbia discuss how a previously unidentified virus may be linked to mass die-offs of farmed Pacific oysters. Listen now: https://ow.ly/ZyYw50XxIbI
November 25, 2025 at 8:01 PM
pnas.org
Medieval agricultural and trade practices in southwestern Germany boosted plant diversity for centuries, with biodiversity peaking around 1000 CE and declining only when human activity contracted during the Black Death. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Q6ca50XxIvC
Woodcut illustration to Michael Beuther’s Calendarium Historicum, published in Frankfurt by David Zephelius in 1557. Image shows a person pollarding a tree and another person sowing seeds. CREDIT: The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
November 25, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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Discover one of the top-performing PNAS Nexus articles on Altmetric from the last three months!
“Benefits of clean air for school children's vision health” by Xi Chen, et al. earned an Altmetric score of 660, reflecting high engagement across media.

Read the research: https://ow.ly/3rG050XxFRM
PNAS Nexus – Check out one of the top PNAS Nexus articles on Altmetric! Read the article
November 25, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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A 12,000-year-old clay figurine from an archeological site in northern Israel depicts a woman and a goose in a mythological scene that hints at an animistic belief system. Depictions of human–animal interactions in Paleolithic artwork are rare. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/q06T50Xx2E8
Left: The 12,000-year-old Natufian clay figurine from Nahal Ein Gev II, depicting a woman and a goose. Right: Artistic reconstruction of the figurine. CREDIT: Photo: Laurent Davin, Reconstruction: Laurent Davin and Vic Oh
November 25, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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Read highlights in this week’s issue of PNAS: We explore diverse fossil assemblages from Ordovician marine ecologies, analyze how machine learning links tissue images to chronological age, and examine sustainable multifunctional films. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/HgYX50XwZoG
Pictured is the wing of a dragonfly species called the pied sapphire flutterer (Rhyothemis regia). Image credit: Samuel T. Fabian (University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom).
November 24, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Analysis finds proposed SMR designs could produce more voluminous, reactive nuclear waste than traditional reactors. Higher neutron leakage may further complicate waste management.

In Mongabay: https://ow.ly/aOJK50Xx1zb

In PNAS: https://ow.ly/JzhH50Xx1mz
Three tall electrical transmission towers partially obscured by thick fog, with power lines fading into the fog.
November 24, 2025 at 8:01 PM
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Marine heatwaves in 2023 and 2024 killed 84% of fire coral colonies around St. John in the US Virgin Islands, causing the collapse of a species that had previously been considered a hardy “winner” that could handle thermal stress. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/XiSh50Xx2t8
Left: Live Millepora colony encrusting a large boulder in Lameshur Bay, St. John, in March 2024. Right: The same Millepora colony, now dead on the same large boulder in Lameshur Bay in March 2025. CREDIT: Peter J. Edmunds
November 24, 2025 at 7:01 PM
pnas.org
Opinion piece: Catastrophic #wildfires are destabilizing the #InsuranceIndustry, leaving some homeowners in jeopardy. Here’s a path forward: https://ow.ly/8TtU50XwZzK

#BuiltEnvironment #RiskAssessment #ClimateChange #LandManagement
Diagram of the Wildland–Urban Continuum showing forest to urban areas. Left side (lower structure density) highlights wildland fire hazards, ember attack, high structure spacing, limited structure-to-structure spread, and isolated vulnerability. Right side (higher structure density) shows mixed wildland–built hazards, lower spacing, greater spread, and networked vulnerability.
November 24, 2025 at 6:01 PM