Evolution is expected to be crucial for the persistence of some populations exposed to changing climate, but demonstrations of rapid evolution in wild populations associated with ongoing climate change are scarce. Inferences about possible adaptive responses rest heavily on “space-for-time” approaches that are fraught with assumptions that are difficult to verify. In contrast, resurrection experiments offer a direct method to observe evolutionary changes over time but rarely span the periods of several decades over which climatic shifts have occurred. In this study, we integrated space-for-time, environmental manipulation, and resurrection experiments to investigate the evolution of the annual plant Lactuca serriola following 44 years of climate change in Israel and the Golan Heights. We found that contemporary plants flowered over 7 d earlier, a putative adaptation to increasingly warm and dry conditions, and also flowered earlier under experimental drought. However, in contrast to these patterns, plants originating from wetter populations flowered earlier than those from drier populations, indicating a mismatch between space-for-time predictions and observed temporal shifts in phenology. Our findings provide direct evidence for evolution in response to climate change in a wild species, while cautioning against applying predictions made from space-for-time studies to future climate change responses.
Inferring the underlying computational processes from behavioral measurements is a fundamental approach in cognitive science and neuroscience. Although Bayesian decision theory has become a major normative framework for modeling perception and cognition, it is unclear to what extent its modeling components (i.e., prior belief, likelihood function, and loss function) can be recovered from behavioral data. Here, we systematically investigated the problem of inferring such Bayesian models from behavioral tasks. We determined the situations under which some components of Bayesian models are systematically confounded, as well as the practical choices in experimental design that can resolve such ambiguity. Overall, our analytical results guarantee in-principle identifiability under broadly applicable conditions, without any a priori knowledge of prior or encoding. Simulations and applications on the basis of behavioral datasets validate that the predictions of this theory apply in realistic settings. Importantly, our results demonstrate that reliable recovery of the model often requires having data from multiple noise levels. This is a crucial insight that will guide future experimental design.
Lanthanum hydride has attracted significant attention in recent years due to its signatures of superconductivity at around 250 K. However, the required megabar pressures present extraordinary challenges in verifying its Meissner effect. Although nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond offer a solution, their application has been limited by insufficient working pressures. In this work, using a gaseous pressure-transmitting medium, the working pressure of NV centers is extended to nearly 180 GPa. With this quantum probe, magnetic field screening and the Meissner effect of lanthanum hydride are observed at around 240 K and 155 GPa, consistent with the record high transition temperature ( T c ) of LaH 10 . Additionally, spatially resolved measurements reveal significant inhomogeneities within an insufficiently annealed sample, which has a lower T c of approximately 220 K. Independent X-ray diffraction measurements indicate that this T c could originate from the LaH 9.5± δ F m 3 ¯ m phase. Our work provides experimental evidence for superconductivity in lanthanum hydride and highlights the importance of spatially resolved techniques in characterizing and optimizing samples under ultrahigh pressure conditions.
Although recognizing emotions from facial expressions appears effortless, the field is divided between vision-based accounts, which posit matching to learned visual templates, and embodied accounts, which posit recruitment of facial motor circuits. We propose an ambiguity-gated, developmentally calibrated architecture in which the recognition system draws on sensorimotor information primarily when visual evidence is insufficient, with early motor experience proposed to shape the threshold and gain of this contribution. We tested this model across three studies (N = 185) integrating dynamic prototypical and nonprototypical expressions, congenital (Moebius syndrome) and acquired facial palsy, and standardized severity grading (Sunnybrook Facial Grading System; SFGS). Neurotypical adults (N = 117) confirmed a robust prototypicality-dependent cost on recognition. Both congenital (N = 15) and acquired (N = 19) cohorts showed severity–performance coupling for nonprototypical expressions, consistent with shared reliance on sensorimotor information when visual evidence is insufficient; only the Moebius cohort showed this coupling also for prototypical expressions, consistent with undercalibrated visual templates following lifelong atypical facial motor experience. Exploratory electroencephalography (EEG) revealed reduced sensorimotor–face-network functional connectivity in Moebius, consistent with altered cross-route integration. Reanalysis of an independent dataset of ultra-ambiguous static morphs replicated severity–performance coupling and revealed Moebius–control mean differences only under high perceptual demand. Together, the findings provide strong behavioral support for an ambiguity-gated, developmentally calibrated architecture and motivate direct tests of how developmental motor experience shapes when—and how strongly—the recognition system draws on sensorimotor information.
Mesenchymal-to-epithelial transitions are essential for epithelial tissue formation and thus the development of functional organs. Here, we demonstrate that the transition from a disordered mesenchymal state to a columnar epithelial structure in branched pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma organoids is associated with rosette formation. We show that fluctuations in acto-myosin contractions on the emerging apical side of branches with high cell density create a tug-of-war mechanism, leading to regular spacing of rosettes. The distance between adjacent rosettes depends on the branch diameter, which we validate with a minimal theoretical model based on apical constriction. The resulting lumen formation occurs through the apoptosis of an inner cell mass, leaving an epithelial layer lining the cavity. In summary, our findings show that rosette architecture is set by geometrical confinement of the cell nuclei in combination with acto-myosin driven contractions. This underscores the critical role of mechanical processes in self-organized assembly of epithelial tissue.
