Featured
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| Open AccessHigh-resolution impact-based early warning system for riverine flooding
A hindcast experiment of the 2021 summer flood in West Germany unveils a 17-hour lead time for preparedness and advisable action, holding promise for impact-based forecasting of inundated roads, railways and building footprint in real-time.
- Husain Najafi
- , Pallav Kumar Shrestha
- & Luis Samaniego
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Article
| Open AccessLoneliness trajectories over three decades are associated with conspiracist worldviews in midlife
Here, the authors show that elevated loneliness in adolescence and increasing loneliness over three decades is associated with heightened conspiracy beliefs in midlife.
- Kinga Bierwiaczonek
- , Sam Fluit
- & Jonas R. Kunst
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Article
| Open AccessA cluster-randomized trial of water, sanitation, handwashing and nutritional interventions on stress and epigenetic programming
A regulated stress response is essential for healthy child growth and development. Here, the authors show that a nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene intervention enhanced adaptive responses of the physiological stress system in early childhood.
- Audrie Lin
- , Andrew N. Mertens
- & Douglas A. Granger
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Article
| Open AccessPublic perceptions on carbon removal from focus groups in 22 countries
Global public expectations for carbon removal governance are: engagement beyond acceptance research; regulating industry beyond incentivizing innovation; systemic coordination; and prioritizing underlying and interrelated causes of unsustainability.
- Sean Low
- , Livia Fritz
- & Benjamin K. Sovacool
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Article
| Open AccessPatrilineal segmentary systems provide a peaceful explanation for the post-Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck
Prior work has identified a male-only effective population size bottleneck 3-5000 years ago. While violent competition has been proposed as a cause, the authors here show that a segmentary patrilineal system with lineal fission provides a peaceful alternative explanation.
- Léa Guyon
- , Jérémy Guez
- & Raphaëlle Chaix
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Article
| Open AccessInequality in economic shock exposures across the global firm-level supply network
Thurner and colleagues explore how economic shocks spread risk through the globalized economy. They find that rich countries expose poor countries stronger to systemic risk than vice-versa. The risk is highly concentrated, however higher risk levels are not compensated with a risk premium in GDP levels, nor higher GDP growth. The findings put the often-praised benefits for developing countries from globalized production in a new light, by relating them to risks involved in the production processes
- Abhijit Chakraborty
- , Tobias Reisch
- & Stefan Thurner
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| Open AccessIntegrating social vulnerability into high-resolution global flood risk mapping
The study introduces a method of integrating gridded estimates of social vulnerability into high-resolution global flood risk maps demonstrating new insights into the geography of flood risk within and between countries.
- Sean Fox
- , Felix Agyemang
- & Jeffrey Neal
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Article
| Open AccessDynamics of collective cooperation under personalised strategy updates
Collective cooperation is found across many social and biological systems. Here, the authors find that infrequent hub updates promote the emergence of collective cooperation and develop an algorithm that optimises collective cooperation with update rates.
- Yao Meng
- , Sean P. Cornelius
- & Aming Li
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Article
| Open AccessWorldwide divergence of values
The authors test whether social values have become converged or diverged across national cultures over the last 40 years using a 76-country analysis of the World Values Survey. They show that values have diverged, especially between high-income Western countries and the rest of the world.
- Joshua Conrad Jackson
- & Danila Medvedev
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Article
| Open AccessMeta-analysis indicates better climate adaptation and mitigation performance of hybrid engineering-natural coastal defence measures
This meta-analysis compares the performance of hard, hybrid, soft and natural coastal defence measures. Results show that all measures have a positive economic return over 20 years yet hybrid measures perform best for climate adaptation and mitigation.
- Lam Thi Mai Huynh
- , Jie Su
- & Alexandros Gasparatos
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Article
| Open AccessThermodiffusive desalination
Current desalination technologies are energy intensive and suffer from membrane degradation and fouling. Here, authors propose and explore the potential of thermodiffusion as a means of membrane-free, single-phase thermal desalination. A pathway towards a feasible thermodiffusive desalination is provided.
- Shuqi Xu
- , Alice J. Hutchinson
- & Juan F. Torres
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Comment
| Open AccessIntegrating science and the arts to deglobalise climate change adaptation
Setting goals that are context-specific, relevant, and collectively shared is critical in adaptation. As necessary elements in target setting, imaginaries for adaptation and the language connected to them remain vague. Visuals produced through art-science collaborations can be great allies to (de)construct imaginaries and deglobalise discourses of adaptation.
- Marta Olazabal
- , Maria Loroño-Leturiondo
- & Josune Urrutia
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Article
| Open AccessAttribute latencies causally shape intertemporal decisions
People have different latencies in processing amount and time attributes when making intertemporal choices. Here, the authors test the causal effect of these latencies on choice by altering the onset of amount and time information, which alters people’s patience.
- Fadong Chen
- , Jiehui Zheng
- & Ian Krajbich
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Article
| Open AccessArchaeological and molecular evidence for ancient chickens in Central Asia
The origin and dispersal of the chicken across Eurasia is unclear. Here, the authors examine eggshell fragments from southern Central Asia with paleoproteomics to identify chicken eggshells, suggesting that chickens may have been an important dietary component as early as 400BCE.
- Carli Peters
- , Kristine K. Richter
- & Robert N. Spengler III
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Comment
| Open AccessImpression management in sex and gender neuroscience research reporting: the MAGIC guidelines
Here, the authors discuss guidelines to avoid miscommunication of findings in research into sex and gender-based differences in the brain.
- Gina Rippon
- , Katy Losse
- & Simon White
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| Open AccessSubstantially reducing global PM2.5-related deaths under SDG3.9 requires better air pollution control and healthcare
Reducing PM2.5 air pollution from biomass burning, transport, energy, and manufacturing, in combination with improvements in healthcare, especially in emerging economies like India and China, will be crucial to meeting SDG3.9
- Huanbi Yue
- , Chunyang He
- & Brett A. Bryan
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Comment
| Open AccessChallenges and ways forward for sustainable weather and climate services in Africa
Sustainability of African weather and climate information can only be ensured by investing in improved scientific understanding, observational data, and model capability. These requirements must be underpinned by capacity development, knowledge management; and partnerships of co-production, communication and coordination.
- Benjamin Lamptey
- , Salah SAHABI ABED
- & Erik W. Kolstad
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Article
| Open AccessGenetic similarity between relatives provides evidence on the presence and history of assortative mating
Non-random mating can complicate genetic studies, but implications hinge on its history in prior generations. Here, the authors use genetic similarity between relatives to investigate which traits show evidence of recent changes in mating behavior.
- Hans Fredrik Sunde
- , Nikolai Haahjem Eftedal
- & Fartein Ask Torvik
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Article
| Open AccessAn analysis of the accuracy of retrospective birth location recall using sibling data
Many surveys ask participants to retrospectively record their location of birth. Here, the authors find misreporting in retrospective birth location data in UK Biobank using data from siblings, which can lead to bias in estimates of the impact of location-based exposures.
- Stephanie von Hinke
- & Nicolai Vitt
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Article
| Open AccessPredicting and improving complex beer flavor through machine learning
Perception and appreciation of food flavour depends on many factors, posing a challenge for effective prediction. Here, the authors combine extensive chemical and sensory analyses of 250 commercial Belgian beers to train machine learning models that enable flavour and consumer appreciation prediction.
- Michiel Schreurs
- , Supinya Piampongsant
- & Kevin J. Verstrepen
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Article
| Open AccessFire suppression makes wildfires more severe and accentuates impacts of climate change and fuel accumulation
Fire suppression removes less-extreme wildfires, concentrating fires under extreme conditions. The authors use model simulations to show how this “suppression bias” intensifies fire behavior and effects, beyond fuel accumulation and climate change impacts.
- Mark R. Kreider
- , Philip E. Higuera
- & Andrew J. Larson
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| Open AccessFace and context integration in emotion inference is limited and variable across categories and individuals
People infer emotions using faces and situations, yet little is known about how these are integrated. Here, the authors show that situations are often sufficient to infer emotions, with variability in integration across categories and individuals.
- Srishti Goel
- , Julian Jara-Ettinger
- & Maria Gendron
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| Open AccessProjecting the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. population structure
The COVID-19 pandemic affected mortality, fertility, and migration. Using the cohort component projection method, the authors find that if the pandemic had not occurred, the expected population of the U.S. would have been 2.1 million more people in 2025 and 1.7 million more people in 2060.
- Andrea M. Tilstra
- , Antonino Polizzi
- & Evelina T. Akimova
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Article
| Open AccessImprint of urbanization on snow precipitation over the continental USA
This study shows that urban areas in the continental US are associated with decreased snowfall likelihood and frequency, in large part due to surface albedo contrasts with neighboring areas. They also see a faster decline in snow precipitation frequency with time.
- Kaustubh Anil Salvi
- & Mukesh Kumar
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Article
| Open AccessEffect of mobile food environments on fast food visits
Using large-scale mobility data, the authors examine how the quality of food in mobile environments away from home affects food choice.
- Bernardo García Bulle Bueno
- , Abigail L. Horn
- & Esteban Moro
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Article
| Open AccessThe atlas of unburnable oil for supply-side climate policies
The global atlas of unburnable oil shows that the most socio-environmentally sensitive areas, such as protected areas or biodiversity hotspots, need to be kept entirely off-limits to oil extraction in order to keep global warming under 1.5 °C.
- Lorenzo Pellegrini
- , Murat Arsel
- & Martí Orta-Martínez
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| Open AccessTrade-offs in land-based carbon removal measures under 1.5 °C and 2 °C futures
This study demonstrates how land-based carbon removals and the market-mediated responses are sensitive to mitigation policy strength and scope, illustrating that, despite trade-offs, both forestation and BECCS are integral to cost-effective 2 °C pathways.
- Xin Zhao
- , Bryan K. Mignone
- & Haewon C. McJeon
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| Open AccessIntranational synergies and trade-offs reveal common and differentiated priorities of sustainable development goals in China
The paper reveals areas of common and differentiated SDG priority at the national and subnational levels in China considering synergy and trade-off. The findings suggest that provincial governments should formulate more targeted policy aligning with national priority to achieve SDGs.
- Qiang Xing
- , Chaoyang Wu
- & Zhenci Xu
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Article
| Open AccessCost-effectiveness uncertainty may bias the decision of coal power transitions in China
China’s use of coal is complex to establish a clean and low-carbon transition for the country. With an uncertainty assessment framework, this study displays the risks of missing opportunities in obtaining cumulative positive net benefits and identifying an optimal transition strategy.
- Xizhe Yan
- , Dan Tong
- & Yu Lei
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Article
| Open AccessPolicy and market forces delay real estate price declines on the US coast
Subsidies for coastal management and tax advantages for high-income property owners dampen the negative effects of climate risks on coastal property values. Without subsidies or tax advantages market prices better reflect climate risks, but coastal gentrification could accelerate.
- Dylan E. McNamara
- , Martin D. Smith
- & Craig E. Landry
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Article
| Open AccessStrategies for robust renovation of residential buildings in Switzerland
Building renovation is an urgent requirement to reduce the environmental impact associated with the building stock. In this paper, authors identify strategies for robust renovation considering uncertainties on the future and provide recommendations for the residential buildings in Switzerland.
- Alina Galimshina
- , Maliki Moustapha
- & Guillaume Habert
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Article
| Open AccessElectric vehicle battery chemistry affects supply chain disruption vulnerabilities
Electric vehicle battery supply chains are currently vulnerable to supply disruptions in China, but research shows that the cumulative effect of multiple supply chain steps creates additional vulnerabilities across multiple critical battery minerals.
- Anthony L. Cheng
- , Erica R. H. Fuchs
- & Jeremy J. Michalek
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| Open AccessLight-responsive and ultrapermeable two-dimensional metal-organic framework membrane for efficient ionic energy harvesting
With porous structure and photothermal conversion performance, Cu-porphyrin framework membranes exhibit high efficiency in the extraction of electrical energy from salt solutions, opening avenues for renewable energy.
- Jin Wang
- , Zeyuan Song
- & Lei Wang
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| Open AccessPublic perceptions and support of climate intervention technologies across the Global North and Global South
This article establishes a global baseline of public perceptions of climate-intervention technologies. Publics across the global South are more favorable and supportive but concerned about impacts on mitigation and unequal burdens of risks on poor countries.
- Chad M. Baum
- , Livia Fritz
- & Benjamin K. Sovacool
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| Open AccessExploring the variances of climate change opinions in Germany at a fine-grained local scale
Mewes and colleagues show substantial and systematic differences in public climate change opinions across Germany that manifest between urban vs. rural and prospering vs. declining areas. Besides these geographic features, more complex historical and cultural differences between places play an important role.
- Lars Mewes
- , Leonie Tuitjer
- & Peter Dirksmeier
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| Open AccessInequalities in healthcare use during the COVID-19 pandemic
An indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was a decline in healthcare utilisation for other conditions. Here, the authors quantify this decline in the Netherlands and show that impacts were greater for individuals with lower household income, females, older people, and those with a migrant background.
- Arun Frey
- , Andrea M. Tilstra
- & Mark D. Verhagen
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Article
| Open AccessA framework for evaluating clinical artificial intelligence systems without ground-truth annotations
Estimating the performance of clinical AI systems on data in the wild is complicated by distribution shift and the absence of ground-truth annotations. Here, we introduce SUDO, a framework for more reliably evaluating AI systems on data in the wild.
- Dani Kiyasseh
- , Aaron Cohen
- & Nicholas Altieri
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| Open AccessPeople quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice are more collectivistic than people assigned to farm wheat
According to the rice theory, the demands of rice farming might make cultures more collectivistic. Here the authors provide evidence in support of this theory by showing that Chinese farmers who were quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice score higher on measures related to collectivism than those assigned to farm wheat.
- Thomas Talhelm
- & Xiawei Dong
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Comment
| Open AccessThe bioethics of skeletal anatomy collections from India
Millions of skeletal remains from South Asia were exported in red markets (the underground economy of human tissues/organs) to educational institutions globally for over a century. It is time to recognize the personhood of the people who were systematically made into anatomical objects and acknowledge the scientific racism in creating and continuing to use them.
- Sabrina C. Agarwal
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Article
| Open AccessConcordance of randomised controlled trials for artificial intelligence interventions with the CONSORT-AI reporting guidelines
The CONSORT-AI extension was developed to provide specific guidance for randomised controlled trials involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) interventions. Here, the authors show that since publication of CONSORT-AI, several AI-specific considerations remain systematically underreported.
- Alexander P. L. Martindale
- , Benjamin Ng
- & Xiaoxuan Liu
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| Open AccessExtracting accurate materials data from research papers with conversational language models and prompt engineering
Efficient data extraction from research papers accelerates science and engineering. Here, the authors develop an automated approach which uses conversational large language models to achieve high precision and recall in extracting materials data.
- Maciej P. Polak
- & Dane Morgan
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Article
| Open AccessOpen-source microscope add-on for structured illumination microscopy
Researchers developed an open-hardware structured illumination microscopy add-on. This affordable upgrade provides super-resolution capabilities for normal optical microscopes. Detailed instructions enable easy reproduction to help democratize advanced microscopy.
- Mélanie T. M. Hannebelle
- , Esther Raeth
- & Georg E. Fantner
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Article
| Open AccessAn agricultural digital twin for mandarins demonstrates the potential for individualized agriculture
A digital twin represents a real world object using available data. Here, the authors develop a digital twin for mandaring orchards in Jeju island showing the value of individualized agriculture to predict fruit quality at tree level.
- Steven Kim
- & Seong Heo
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Article
| Open AccessCases of trisomy 21 and trisomy 18 among historic and prehistoric individuals discovered from ancient DNA
Information on the occurrence of aneuploidies in prehistory human populations are rare. Here, from a large screen of ancient human genomes and osteological examination, the authors find genetic evidence for six cases of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and one case of trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) in historic and prehistoric infants.
- Adam Benjamin Rohrlach
- , Maïté Rivollat
- & Kay Prüfer
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Article
| Open AccessPsychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected the global economy, environment, and political order. Here, the authors show that it also coincided with a temporary decline in psychological well-being across Europe.
- Julian Scharbert
- , Sarah Humberg
- & Mitja D. Back
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Article
| Open AccessLeisure engagement in older age is related to objective and subjective experiences of aging
The benefits of different leisure activities for different aspects of aging remain unclear. Here, authors show that performing physical or creative activities is associated with important aging metrics and could help to prevent age-related decline.
- Jessica K. Bone
- , Feifei Bu
- & Daisy Fancourt
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Article
| Open AccessChanges in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries
Tightness-looseness theory predicts that social norms strengthen following threat. Here the authors test this and find that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased, but no evidence was observed for a robust change in most other norms.
- Giulia Andrighetto
- , Aron Szekely
- & Kimmo Eriksson
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Article
| Open AccessEffect of trade on global aquatic food consumption patterns
Xu and colleagues find that the average trophic level of aquatic food items in the human diet is declining (from 3.42 to 3.18) because of the considerable increase in low-trophic level aquaculture species output relative to that of capture fisheries since 1976. Additionally they find that trade has contributed to increasing the availability and trophic level of aquatic foods in >60% of the world’s countries.
- Kangshun Zhao
- , Steven D. Gaines
- & Jun Xu
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Article
| Open AccessStructured information extraction from scientific text with large language models
Extracting scientific data from published research is a complex task required specialised tools. Here the authors present a scheme based on large language models to automatise the retrieval of information from text in a flexible and accessible manner.
- John Dagdelen
- , Alexander Dunn
- & Anubhav Jain