Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 19 October 2026 · From issue 54

Scientists disrupt less but more persistently with career aging

Senior scientists disrupt old ideas less often, but their disruptive work lasts longer.

Nan Deng, Liying Yang et al.

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Also in issue 54 15 papers

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Water pumping near borders in shared underground water layers can affect neighboring countries more than expected.
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Most European bee species and half of hoverfly species shrank in range over the last century.
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In a model, a black hole's disk light shifts gamma-ray burst neutrinos to lower energy.
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Spin wobbles, not atom vibrations, glue electron pairs together in this superconductor.
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Without any word hints, people still judge faces using five similar trait patterns.
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In lab crystals, electrons lose their light-making rhythm within femtoseconds by hitting internal vibrations.
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In fruit flies, a cell-death protein switches modes to help wings grow instead of killing cells.
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A protein called Syntaxin11 directly switches on the calcium channel immune cells need to kill germs.
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In climate models, warming steadily cuts sunlight reaching the ground at both poles.
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A 13,800 year old Alaska camp holds the oldest known tools of its type east of the old land bridge.
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