Featured
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Article
| Open AccessCarbon reduction technology pathways for existing buildings in eight cities
Here, the authors perform analysis of technology pathways for existing buildings using urban building energy models developed with cities, showing that shallow and deep retrofits along with onsite photovoltaic and grid decarbonization can help achieve carbon reduction targets.
- Yu Qian Ang
- , Zachary Michael Berzolla
- & Christoph F. Reinhart
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Article
| Open AccessUnselfish traits and social decision-making patterns characterize six populations of real-world extraordinary altruists
Here, the authors show that real-world extraordinary altruists, including heroic rescuers and altruistic kidney donors, are distinguished by unusually unselfish traits and decision-making patterns. This pattern was not predicted by a general sample of adults who were asked what traits would characterize altruists.
- Shawn A. Rhoads
- , Kruti M. Vekaria
- & Abigail A. Marsh
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Article
| Open AccessA holistic view on the role of egg yolk in Old Masters’ oil paints
Old Masters used paints containing mixtures of oils and proteins, but we lack an understanding on how and why proteins were used. Here, the authors use egg yolk in combination with two pigments to evaluate how different repartition of proteinaceous binder can be used to control the flow behaviour as well as drying kinetics and chemistry of oil paints.
- Ophélie Ranquet
- , Celia Duce
- & Norbert Willenbacher
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Article
| Open AccessSurprising combinations of research contents and contexts are related to impact and emerge with scientific outsiders from distant disciplines
Here, using hypergraph modeling the authors show that surprising research (in terms of unexpected combinations of research contents and contexts) is associated with impact and arises from scientific outsiders solving problems in distant disciplines.
- Feng Shi
- & James Evans
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Article
| Open AccessSupply chains create global benefits from improved vaccine accessibility
A more equitable global distribution of vaccines can benefit the world, while a multilateral benefit-sharing instrument needs to be developed to remove some of the disincentives for early equitable vaccines distribution globally.
- Daoping Wang
- , Ottar N. Bjørnstad
- & Nils C. Stenseth
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Article
| Open AccessInformation about historical emissions drives the division of climate change mitigation costs
Who pays for climate change mitigation is an ongoing source of conflict. Here the authors examine how historical carbon emissions influences how much people will pay for climate change mitigation via an economic experiment.
- Alessandro Del Ponte
- , Aidas Masiliūnas
- & Noah Lim
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Comment
| Open AccessUntitled public forestlands threaten Amazon conservation
A large proportion of recent Brazilian Amazon deforestation is occurring on untitled public forestlands through land grabbing. This emerging risk demands long-term conservation strategies. Here we propose prioritizing land tenure security, technological improvement, and law enforcement.
- Paulo Moutinho
- & Claudia Azevedo-Ramos
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Article
| Open AccessUnintended consequences of combating desertification in China
This paper shows that desertification combating practices decline incomes of farmers and herders, and China needs to adapt its ecological programmes to address the impacts of climate change and create positive synergies to combat desertification.
- Xunming Wang
- , Quansheng Ge
- & Fahu Chen
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Article
| Open AccessA scoping review of the impacts of COVID-19 physical distancing measures on vulnerable population groups
Physical distancing measures introduced to control the spread of COVID-19 had socio-economic trade-offs that may have particularly impacted vulnerable population groups. Here, the authors perform a scoping review and summarise the impacts on different vulnerable groups described in 265 studies.
- Lili Li
- , Araz Taeihagh
- & Si Ying Tan
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Article
| Open AccessExposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior
Here, using longitudinal survey and Twitter data, the authors examine the relationship between exposure to Russian Internet Research Agency activities on Twitter and voting behavior and attitudes in the 2016 US election.
- Gregory Eady
- , Tom Paskhalis
- & Joshua A. Tucker
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Article
| Open AccessProviding normative information increases intentions to accept a COVID-19 vaccine
The authors show that accurate information about descriptive norms can increase intentions to accept a vaccine for COVID-19. They show that these effects are largely consistent in the 23 included countries and are concentrated among people who were otherwise uncertain about accepting a vaccine.
- Alex Moehring
- , Avinash Collis
- & Dean Eckles
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Comment
| Open AccessCreative arts and digitial interventions as potential tools in prevention and recovery from the mental health consequences of adverse childhood experiences
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can harm mental health across the lifespan and reduce life expectancy. We provide a commentary of evidence on the health impacts, and how creative arts and digital interventions may support prevention and recovery.
- Kamaldeep Bhui
- , Sania Shakoor
- & Michaela Otis
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Article
| Open AccessUsing performance art to promote intergroup prosociality by cultivating the belief that empathy is unlimited
People tend to feel less empathy toward people who do not belong to their social group (outgroup members). Here, the authors show that leading people to believe that empathy is unlimited increases empathy, support for prosocial actions, and empathic behaviors toward outgroup members.
- Yossi Hasson
- , Einat Amir
- & Eran Halperin
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Article
| Open AccessReported sleep duration reveals segmentation of the adult life-course into three phases
Sleep varies within and between individuals. Here, using self-reported sleep duration from a large sample of participants across 63 countries, the authors show three phases in the adult human life-course, consistent across culture, gender, education and other demographics.
- A. Coutrot
- , A. S. Lazar
- & H. J. Spiers
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Comment
| Open AccessA call for immediate action to increase COVID-19 vaccination uptake to prepare for the third pandemic winter
This Comment piece summarises current challenges regarding routine vaccine uptake in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides recommendations on how to increase uptake. To implement these recommendations, the article points to evidence-based resources that can support health-care workers, policy makers and communicators.
- Cornelia Betsch
- , Philipp Schmid
- & Amanda Garrison
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Article
| Open AccessThe gut microbiota and depressive symptoms across ethnic groups
Here, by studying a multi-ethnic cross-sectional urban cohort (N = 3211, 6 ethnic groups), the authors show that depressive symptom levels are related to the gut microbiota taxonomic characteristics but that these are largely invariant across ethnic groups.
- Jos A. Bosch
- , Max Nieuwdorp
- & Anja Lok
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Article
| Open AccessPredicting European cities’ climate mitigation performance using machine learning
Since the Paris Agreement recognized in 2015 cities have pledged climate actions that often exceed the scope and ambition of their national governments’ policies but there is scant evidence of these actions’ outcomes, largely because of the lack of reported emissions data. Here the authors utilize spatially explicit datasets relevant to urban carbon emissions and self-reported emissions data from European cities, and develops a machine-learning approach to predict and explore trends in city-scale mitigation.
- Angel Hsu
- , Xuewei Wang
- & Nihit Goyal
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Article
| Open AccessMeasuring exposure to misinformation from political elites on Twitter
Misinformation online can be shared by major political figures and organizations. Here, the authors developed a method to measure exposure to information from these sources on Twitter, and show how exposure relates to the quality of the content people share and their political ideology.
- Mohsen Mosleh
- & David G. Rand
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Article
| Open AccessDisparate impacts on online information access during the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated an important changes in online information access. Here, the authors analyse everyday web search interactions across 25,150 US ZIP codes revealing significant differences in how digital informational resources are mobilized by different communities.
- Jina Suh
- , Eric Horvitz
- & Tim Althoff
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Article
| Open AccessAn AI approach for managing financial systemic risk via bank bailouts by taxpayers
Systemic risk and bank bailout approaches have been the source of discussions on scientific, financial and governmental forums. An artificial intelligence technique is proposed to inform equitable bailout decisions that minimise taxpayers’ losses.
- Daniele Petrone
- , Neofytos Rodosthenous
- & Vito Latora
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Perspective
| Open AccessThe history of sexual selection research provides insights as to why females are still understudied
While it is widely acknowledged that Darwin’s descriptions of females were gender-biased, gender bias in modern sexual selection research is less recognized. This Perspective highlights that sexual selection theory and research are still male-centered and suggest strategies for alleviating biases in this field and beyond.
- Malin Ah-King
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Comment
| Open AccessThe harmful legacy of colonialism in natural hazard risk
The colonial practices of geoscience have created long term vulnerabilities to natural hazards. In this comment the ongoing consequence are explored of colonialism as well as the actions that are needed to be taken to reduce natural hazard risk.
- Jazmin P. Scarlett
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Article
| Open AccessDaylight saving time affects European mortality patterns
How daylight saving time shift (DST) affects mortality dynamics on a large population scale remains unknown. Here, the authors examine the impact of DST on all-cause mortality in 16 European countries for the period 1998-2012.
- Laurent Lévy
- , Jean-Marie Robine
- & François R. Herrmann
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Article
| Open AccessFemale peer mentors early in college have lasting positive impacts on female engineering students that persist beyond graduation
The authors report findings from their study of female student participants interested in engineering at college entry who were randomly assigned to a female peer mentor, male mentor, or no mentor for their first year of college. The authors show that students assigned to a female peer mentor show benefits in psychological experiences in engineering, aspirations to pursue postgraduate engineering degrees, and emotional well-being, which persists up to one year after graduation.
- Deborah J. Wu
- , Kelsey C. Thiem
- & Nilanjana Dasgupta
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Article
| Open AccessNeural implementation of computational mechanisms underlying the continuous trade-off between cooperation and competition
Social interactions change continuously from cooperation to competition. Here, using an economic game, the authors show how the social context and inferences about others’ intentions modulate cooperativeness, and examine the neural network underlying the continuous cooperation competition trade-off.
- M. A. Pisauro
- , E. F. Fouragnan
- & M. G. Philiastides
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Article
| Open AccessAssociations of hurricane exposure and forecasting with impaired birth outcomes
Early forecasts give people in a storm’s path time to prepare, but less is known about the cost to society when forecasts are incorrect. In this observational study, the authors examine over 700,000 births in the path of Hurricane Irene and find exposure was associated with impaired birth outcomes.
- Jacob Hochard
- , Yuanhao Li
- & Nino Abashidze
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Article
| Open AccessHuman cooperation in changing groups in a large-scale public goods game
Little is known about the dynamics of human cooperation in groups with changing compositions. Using data from a large-scale and long-term online public goods game, this study shows how group changes are associated with temporarily lower cooperation.
- Kasper Otten
- , Ulrich J. Frey
- & Naomi Ellemers
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Article
| Open AccessIncorporating social knowledge structures into computational models
People are remarkably good at learning about others’ personalities. Here, the authors develop computational models showing that this learning relies on a combination of prior beliefs and similarities between personality traits.
- Koen M. M. Frolichs
- , Gabriela Rosenblau
- & Christoph W. Korn
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Article
| Open AccessReputation effects drive the joint evolution of cooperation and social rewarding
Rewards can motivate people to cooperate, but the evolution of rewarding behavior is itself poorly understood. Here, a game-theoretic analysis shows that reputation effects facilitate the simultaneous evolution of cooperation and social rewarding policies.
- Saptarshi Pal
- & Christian Hilbe
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Article
| Open AccessPublic attitudes value interpretability but prioritize accuracy in Artificial Intelligence
For many AI systems, it is hard to interpret how they make decisions. Here, the authors show that non-experts value interpretability in AI, especially for decisions involving high stakes and scarce resources, but they sacrifice AI interpretability when it trades off against AI accuracy.
- Anne-Marie Nussberger
- , Lan Luo
- & M. J. Crockett
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Article
| Open AccessQuantifying ethnic segregation in cities through random walks
Socioeconomic segregation is one of the main factors behind large-scale inequalities in urban areas and its characterisation remains challenging. The authors propose a family of non-parametric measures to quantify spatial heterogeneity through diffusion, and show how this relates to segregation and deprivation
- Sandro Sousa
- & Vincenzo Nicosia
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Article
| Open AccessThe macroeconomic effects of adapting to high-end sea-level rise via protection and migration
The authors calculated the economy-wide costs of sea level rise and possible adaptation options. Protection clearly pays off and when combining protection and coastal migration, costs can be brought down further, yet, residual damage costs are large.
- Gabriel Bachner
- , Daniel Lincke
- & Jochen Hinkel
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Article
| Open AccessLeakage does not fully offset soy supply-chain efforts to reduce deforestation in Brazil
This research quantifies the role of zero deforestation policies and potential leakages in Brazilian soybean production, the third major driver of deforestation globally. Here the authors provide the first estimates of net global avoided soy-driven deforestation from zero-deforestation import restrictions and find that such restrictions could help avoid ~40% of deforestation for soy cultivation in Brazil and ~2% of global deforestation.
- Nelson Villoria
- , Rachael Garrett
- & Kimberly Carlson
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Article
| Open AccessBalancing national economic policy outcomes for sustainable development
Selecting economic policies to achieve sustainable development is challenging due to the many sectors involved and the trade-offs implied. Artificial intelligence combined with economy-wide computer simulations can help.
- Mohammed Basheer
- , Victor Nechifor
- & Julien J. Harou
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Article
| Open AccessSocial inequalities in climate change-attributed impacts of Hurricane Harvey
New study shows that up to 50% of properties flooded after hurricane Harvey flooded because of climate change, with low-income and Latina/x/o neighborhoods experiencing higher climate change-attributed impacts.
- Kevin T. Smiley
- , Ilan Noy
- & Oliver E. J. Wing
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Article
| Open AccessHuman expansion into Asian highlands in the 21st Century and its effects
Most of the intensive human activities usually occur in lowlands. Here the authors report that human activity expansions also were widely distributed in Asian highlands in the 21st century and held dual effects, which provides new insights for regional human activity expansions.
- Chao Yang
- , Huizeng Liu
- & Guofeng Wu
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Comment
| Open AccessTo create serious movement on climate change, we must dispel the myth of indifference
A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.
- Cynthia McPherson Frantz
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Article
| Open AccessAmericans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half
A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.
- Gregg Sparkman
- , Nathan Geiger
- & Elke U. Weber
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Article
| Open AccessArctic sea-ice loss is projected to lead to more frequent strong El Niño events
With an ice-free Arctic, strong El Niño frequency increases 1/3 + . Almost half the increase by 2100 links to Arctic ice loss, not other greenhouse forcing. The Arctic’s influence on ENSO may represent a novel driver of changing climate extremes globally.
- Jiping Liu
- , Mirong Song
- & Shang-Ping Xie
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Article
| Open AccessIndividuals with ventromedial frontal damage display unstable but transitive preferences during decision making
The ventromedial frontal lobes (VMF) contribute to encoding of value. Here the authors show that individuals with VMF damage have less stable, but fundamentally transitive preferences, suggesting that valuation does not solely rely on the VMF.
- Linda Q. Yu
- , Jason Dana
- & Joseph W. Kable
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Article
| Open AccessA macroscopic link between interhemispheric tract myelination and cortico-cortical interactions during action reprogramming
Myelination is a key regulator of brain function. Here the authors use MR-based myelin measures to examine if cortico-cortical interactions, as assessed by paired pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation, are affected by variations in myelin in the human brain.
- Alberto Lazari
- , Piergiorgio Salvan
- & Heidi Johansen-Berg
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Comment
| Open AccessDifferences in barriers for controlled learning about safety between biotechnology and chemistry
In contrast to chemical industry, biotechnology is still not competitive for the production of chemicals, materials, and biofuels. Here, the authors discuss the underlying reasons and propose to address the problem through regulatory changes and risk management.
- Britte Bouchaut
- , Frank Hollmann
- & Lotte Asveld
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Article
| Open AccessThe effect of COVID certificates on vaccine uptake, health outcomes, and the economy
Many countries introduced COVID certificates that were required to access public venues. Here, the authors analyse data from France, Germany, and Italy, and estimate that these policies led to increased vaccine uptake of 6-13 percentage points with subsequent beneficial impacts on health and economic outcomes.
- Miquel Oliu-Barton
- , Bary S. R. Pradelski
- & Guntram B. Wolff
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Article
| Open AccessPotential impacts of climate change on agriculture and fisheries production in 72 tropical coastal communities
Responses of agriculture and fisheries to climate change are interlinked, yet rarely studied together. Here, the authors analyse more than 3000 households from 5 tropical countries and forecast mid-century climate change impacts, finding that communities with higher fishery dependence and lower socioeconomic status communities face greater losses.
- Joshua E. Cinner
- , Iain R. Caldwell
- & Richard Pollnac
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Article
| Open AccessRevisiting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy around the world using data from 23 countries in 2021
Vaccine hesitancy is a public health challenge. Here the authors examine COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in June 2021 using a survey including individuals from 23 countries, and report differences compared to a year earlier.
- Jeffrey V. Lazarus
- , Katarzyna Wyka
- & Ayman El-Mohandes
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Article
| Open AccessSharing the effort of the European Green Deal among countries
An ethically-based method for allocating climate change mitigation effort among subsidiaries, applicable worldwide, is proposed. Applied to the EU Green Deal, this results in a wider range of targets than the Commission’s proposal of 2021.
- Karl W. Steininger
- , Keith Williges
- & Keywan Riahi
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Article
| Open AccessCross-cutting scenarios and strategies for designing decarbonization pathways in the transport sector toward carbon neutrality
New study shows how region-specific policy under the Avoid–Shift–Improve framework may aid in realizing a deep decarbonization in the transport sector and assist in achieving China’s carbon neutrality goals.
- Runsen Zhang
- & Tatsuya Hanaoka
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Article
| Open AccessTargeting climate adaptation to safeguard and advance the Sustainable Development Goals
Without targeted climate adaptation, impacts of climate change threaten achievement of all 169 SDG targets. Fuldauer et al. provide an actionable framework to assess these impacts and help systematically align national adaptation plans with the SDGs.
- Lena I. Fuldauer
- , Scott Thacker
- & Jim W. Hall
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessEvidence confirms an anthropic origin of Amazonian Dark Earths
- Umberto Lombardo
- , Manuel Arroyo-Kalin
- & Wenceslau Geraldes Teixeira