@article{21126, abstract = {Subparsec supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries are expected to be common in active galactic nuclei as a result of the hierarchical buildup of galaxies via mergers. While direct evidence for these compact binaries is lacking, a few hundred candidates have been identified, most based on the apparent periodicities of their optical light curves. Since these signatures can be mimicked by active galactic nuclei red noise, additional evidence is needed to confirm their binary nature. Recurring self-lensing flares, occurring whenever the two BHs are aligned with the line of sight within their Einstein radii, have been suggested as additional binary signatures. Furthermore, in many cases, lensing flares are also predicted to contain a “dip,” whenever the lensed SMBH’s shadow is comparable in angular size to the binary’s Einstein radius. This feature would unambiguously confirm binaries and additionally identify SMBH shadows that are spatially unresolvable by high-resolution Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Here we estimate the number of quasars for which these dips may be detectable by Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) by extrapolating the quasar luminosity function to faint magnitudes and assuming that SMBH binaries are randomly oriented and have mass ratios following those in the Illustris simulations. Under plausible assumptions about quasar lifetimes, binary fractions, and Eddington ratios, we expect tens of thousands of detectable flares, of which several dozen contain measurable dips.}, author = {Park, Kevin and Xin, Chengcheng and Davelaar, Jordy and Haiman, Zoltán}, issn = {2470-0029}, journal = {Physical Review D}, number = {6}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Self-lensing flares from black hole binaries. IV. The number of detectable shadows}}, doi = {10.1103/physrevd.111.063011}, volume = {111}, year = {2025}, } @article{21127, abstract = {The early growth of black holes (BHs) in atomic-cooling haloes is likely influenced by feedback on the surrounding gas. While the effects of radiative feedback are well-documented, mechanical feedback, particularly from active galactic nucleus (AGN) jets, has been comparatively less explored. Building on our previous work that examined the growth of a 100 M BH in a constant density environment regulated by AGN jets, we expand the initial BH mass range from 1 to 104 M and adopt a more realistic density profile for atomic-cooling haloes. We reaffirm the validity of our analytic models for jet cocoon propagation and feedback regulation. We identify several critical radii – namely, the terminal radius of jet cocoon propagation, the isotropization radius of the jet cocoon, and the core radius of the atomic-cooling halo – that are crucial in determining BH growth given specific gas properties and jet feedback parameters. In a significant portion of the parameter space, our findings show that jet feedback substantially disrupts the halo’s core during the initial feedback episode, preventing BH growth beyond 104 M. Conversely, conditions characterized by low jet velocities and high gas densities enable sustained BH growth over extended periods. We provide a prediction for the BH mass growth as a function of time and feedback parameters. We found that, to form a supermassive BH (> 106 M) within 1 Gyr entirely by accreting gas from an atomic-cooling halo, the jet energy feedback efficiency must be 10−4M˙ BHc2 even if the seed BH mass is 104 M.}, author = {Su, Kung-Yi and Bryan, Greg L and Haiman, Zoltán}, issn = {1365-2966}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, number = {1}, pages = {11--30}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Self-regulation of high-redshift black hole accretion via jets: Challenges for SMBH formation}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/staf228}, volume = {538}, year = {2025}, } @article{21128, abstract = {The brightest steady sources of radiation in the universe, active galactic nuclei (AGNs), are powered by gas accretion on to a central supermassive black hole (SMBH). The large sizes and accretion rates implicated in AGN accretion discs are expected to lead to gravitational instability and fragmentation, effectively cutting off mass inflow to the SMBH. Radiative feedback from disc-embedded stars has been invoked to yield marginally stable, steady-state solutions in the outer discs. Here, we examine the consequences of this star formation with a semi-analytical model in which stellar-mass black hole (sBH) remnants in the disc provide an additional source of stabilizing radiative feedback. Assuming star formation seeds the embedded sBH population, we model the time-evolving feedback from both stars and the growing population of accreting sBHs. We find that in the outer disc, the luminosity of the sBHs quickly dominates that of their parent stars. However, because sBHs consume less gas than stars to stabilize the disc, the presence of the sBHs enhances the mass flux to the inner disc. As a result, star formation persists over the lifetime of the AGN, damped in the outer disc, but amplified in a narrow ring in the inner disc. Heating from the embedded sBHs significantly modifies the disc’s temperature profile and hardens its spectral energy distribution, and direct emission from the sBHs adds a new hard X-ray component.}, author = {Epstein-Martin, Marguerite and Tagawa, Hiromichi and Haiman, Zoltán and Perna, Rosalba}, issn = {1365-2966}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, number = {4}, pages = {3396--3420}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Time-dependent models of AGN discs with radiation from embedded stellar-mass black holes}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/staf237}, volume = {537}, year = {2025}, } @article{21129, abstract = {Recent hydrodynamical simulations have shown that circumbinary gas disks drive the orbits of massive binary black holes (BHs) to become eccentric, even when general relativistic (GR) corrections to the orbit are significant. Here, we study the GR apsidal precession of eccentric equal-mass massive binary BHs in circumbinary disks via two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. We perform a suite of simulations comparing precessing and nonprecessing binaries across a range of eccentricities, semimajor axes, and precession rates. We find that the GR precession of the binary’s semimajor axis can introduce a dominant modulation in the binary’s accretion rate and the corresponding high-energy electromagnetic light curves. We discuss the conditions under which this occurs and its detailed characteristics and mechanism. Finally, we discuss the potential to observe these precession signatures in electromagnetic- and gravitational-wave observations, as well as the precession signal’s unique importance as a potential tool to constrain the mass, eccentricity, and semimajor axis of binary merger events.}, author = {DeLaurentiis, Stanislav and Haiman, Zoltán and Westernacher-Schneider, John Ryan and Krauth, Luke Major and Davelaar, Jordy and Zrake, Jonathan and MacFadyen, Andrew}, issn = {1538-4357}, journal = {The Astrophysical Journal}, number = {1}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{Relativistic binary precession: Impact on eccentric massive binary black hole accretion and hydrodynamics}}, doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ada612}, volume = {980}, year = {2025}, } @article{21131, abstract = {Introduction: Parkinson’s disease (PD) impairs motor preparation due to basal ganglia dysfunction, contributing to motor deficits. Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS), a non-invasive neuromodulation technique, shows promise in enhancing motor function in PD, but its underlying neural mechanisms are poorly understood. This study employs a Deep Koopman model to linearize and analyze preparatory EEG dynamics in PD, hypothesizing that GVS restores cortical activity patterns critical for motor planning. Methods: EEG data from 18 PD participants (on/off medication) and 18 healthy controls were collected during a preparatory phase of a motor task under three conditions: sham, GVS1 (50–100 Hz multi-sine), and GVS2 (100–150 Hz multi-sine). A Deep Koopman framework mapped EEG signals into a three-dimensional latent space for linear dynamical analysis. Temporal dynamics were assessed via eigenvalue analysis, spatial contributions via regression-based scalp mapping, and motor performance correlations via Pearson’s coefficients. A Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) simulated control of PD dynamics toward healthy patterns. Results: The Deep Koopman model accurately captured EEG dynamics, with eigenvalue analysis showing no significant temporal dynamic differences across groups. Spatial contribution analysis revealed that PD-Off sham conditions deviated most from healthy control EEG patterns, while GVS and medication significantly reduced these deviations, aligning PD patterns closer to controls. Closer alignment correlated with improved motor performance metrics, including reduced reaction and squeeze times. LQR control effectively guided PD neural dynamics toward healthy trajectories in the latent space. Discussion: GVS enhances motor preparation in PD by restoring healthy cortical EEG patterns, with additive benefits from dopaminergic medication. The Deep Koopman framework offers a powerful approach for dissecting complex EEG dynamics and designing targeted neuromodulation strategies. These findings elucidate GVS’s therapeutic mechanisms and highlight its potential for personalized PD interventions, warranting further exploration in larger cohorts and varied stimulation protocols.}, author = {Kia, Maryam and Mirian, Maryam S. and Soori, Saeed and Saedi, Saeed and Arasteh, Emad and Faramarzi, Mohamadhosein and Chinchani, Abhijit and Lee, Soojin and Luczak, Artur and McKeown, Martin J.}, issn = {1662-5161}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, publisher = {Frontiers Media}, title = {{Koopman-based linearization of preparatory EEG dynamics in Parkinson’s disease during galvanic vestibular stimulation}}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2025.1566566}, volume = {19}, year = {2025}, } @article{21136, abstract = {The plant hormone auxin regulates growth and development through at least two distinct signaling pathways. The nuclear pathway, involving TIR1/AFB receptors, mediates transcription; whereas the cell surface ABP1-TMK1 auxin perception triggers global ultrafast phosphorylation response. Here, we revisit the rich history of the disputed ABP1 auxin receptor, highlighting recent findings of the involvement of TMKs and other molecular components and focusing on their role in auxin canalization-mediated development.}, author = {Monzer, Aline and Friml, Jiří}, issn = {3005-1401}, journal = {npj Science of Plants}, number = {1}, pages = {2}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Historical and mechanistic perspective on ABP1-TMK1-mediated cell surface auxin signaling.}}, doi = {10.1038/s44383-025-00002-8}, volume = {1}, year = {2025}, } @article{21143, abstract = {The Lovász Local Lemma (LLL) is a powerful tool in probabilistic combinatorics which can be used to establish the existence of objects with certain properties. The breakthrough paper by Moser & Tardos (STOC’09 and JACM 2010) and follow-up work revealed that the LLL has intimate connections with a class of stochastic local search algorithms for finding such desirable objects. Besides conditions for convergence, many other natural questions can be asked about algorithms; for instance, “are they parallelizable?”, “how many solutions can they output?”, “what is the expected ‘weight’ of a solution?”. These questions and more have been answered for a class of LLL-inspired algorithms called commutative. In this paper we introduce a new, very natural and more general notion of commutativity (essentially matrix commutativity) which allows us to show a number of new refined properties of LLL-inspired local search algorithms with significantly simpler proofs.}, author = {Harris, David G. and Iliopoulos, Fotios and Kolmogorov, Vladimir}, issn = {1557-2862}, journal = {Theory of Computing}, number = {5}, pages = {1 -- 34}, publisher = {University of Chicago Press}, title = {{A new notion of commutativity for the algorithmic Lovász Local Lemma}}, doi = {10.4086/toc.2025.v021a005}, volume = {21}, year = {2025}, } @unpublished{21211, abstract = {We show that, for any graph F and η > 0, there exists a d0 = d0(F, η) such that every nvertex d-regular graph with d ≥ d0 has a collection of vertex-disjoint F-subdivisions covering at least (1 − η)n vertices. This verifies a conjecture of Verstraëte from 2002 and improves a recent result of Letzter, Methuku and Sudakov which additionally required d to be at least polylogarithmic in n. }, author = {Montgomery, Richard and Petrova, Kalina H and Ranganathan, Arjun and Tan, Jane}, booktitle = {arXiv}, title = {{Packing subdivisions into regular graphs}}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2508.00480}, year = {2025}, } @article{21235, abstract = {The condensation of charged polymers is an important driver for the formation of biomolecular condensates. Recent experiments suggest that this mechanism also controls the clustering of eukaryotic chromosomes during the late stages of cell division. In this process, interchromosome attraction is driven by the condensation of cytoplasmic RNA and Ki-67, a charged intrinsically disordered protein that coats the chromosomes as a brush. Attraction between chromosomes has been shown to be specifically promoted by a localized charged patch on Ki-67, although the physical mechanism remains unclear. To elucidate this process, we combine coarse-grained simulations and analytical theory to study the RNA-mediated interaction between charged polymer brushes on the chromosome surfaces. We show that the charged patch on Ki-67 leads to interchromosome attraction via RNA bridging between the two brushes, whereby the RNA preferentially interacts with the charged patches, leading to stable, long-range forces. By contrast, if the brush is uniformly charged, bridging is basically absent due to complete adsorption of RNA onto the brush. Moreover, the RNA dynamics becomes caged in presence of the charged patch while remaining diffusive with uniform charge. Our work sheds light on the physical origin of chromosome clustering, while also suggesting a general mechanism for cells to tune work production by biomolecular condensates via different charge distributions.}, author = {Sorichetti, Valerio and Robin, Paul and Palaia, Ivan and Hernandez-Armendariz, Alberto and Cuylen-Haering, Sara and Šarić, Anđela}, issn = {2835-8279}, journal = {PRX Life}, number = {3}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Charge distribution of the coating brush drives interchromosome attraction}}, doi = {10.1103/41fd-r847}, volume = {3}, year = {2025}, } @article{21236, abstract = {The migration behavior of colliding cells is critically determined by transient contact interactions. During these interactions, the motility machinery, including the front-rear polarization of the cell, dynamically responds to surface protein-mediated transmission of forces and biochemical signals between cells. While biomolecular details of such contact interactions are increasingly well understood, it remains unclear what biophysical interaction mechanisms govern the cell-level dynamics of colliding cells and how these mechanisms vary across cell types. Here we develop a phenomenological theory based on 14 candidate contact-interaction mechanisms coupling cell position, protrusion, and polarity. Using high-throughput micropattern experiments, we detect which of these phenomenological contact interactions captures the interaction behaviors of cells. We find that various cell types—ranging from mesenchymal to epithelial cells—are accurately captured by a single model with only two interaction mechanisms: polarity-protrusion coupling and polarity-polarity coupling. Remarkably, the qualitatively different interaction behaviors of distinct cells, as well as cells subject to molecular perturbations of surface protein-mediated signaling, can all be quantitatively captured by varying the strength and sign of the polarity-polarity coupling mechanism. Altogether, our data-driven phenomenological theory of cell-cell interactions reveals polarity-polarity coupling as a versatile and general contact-interaction mechanism, which may underlie diverse collective migration behaviors of motile cells.}, author = {Brandstätter, Tom and Brieger, Emily and Brückner, David and Ladurner, Georg and Rädler, Joachim O. and Broedersz, Chase P.}, issn = {2835-8279}, journal = {PRX Life}, number = {3}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Data-driven theory reveals protrusion and polarity interactions governing collision behavior of distinct motile cells}}, doi = {10.1103/3hhj-rt1n}, volume = {3}, year = {2025}, } @article{21237, abstract = {Intelligent soft matter lies at the intersection of materials science, physics, and cognitive science, promising to change how we design and interact with materials. This transformative field aims to create materials with life-like capabilities, such as perception, learning, memory, and adaptive behavior. Unlike traditional materials, which typically perform static or predefined functions, intelligent soft matter can dynamically interact with its environment, integrating multiple sensory inputs, retaining past experiences, and making decisions to optimize its responses. Inspired by biological systems, these materials leverage the inherent properties of soft matter such as flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness to perform functions that mimic cognitive processes. By synthesizing current research trends and projecting their evolution, we present a forward-looking perspective on how intelligent soft matter could be constructed, with the aim of inspiring innovations in areas such as biomedical devices, adaptive robotics, and beyond. We highlight new pathways for integrating sensing, memory and actuation with low-power internal operations, and we discuss key challenges in realizing materials that exhibit truly “intelligent behavior”. These approaches outline a path toward more robust, versatile, and scalable materials that can potentially act, compute, and “think” through their inherent intrinsic material properties—moving beyond traditional smart technologies that rely on external control.}, author = {Baulin, Vladimir A. and Giacometti, Achille and Fedosov, Dmitry A. and Ebbens, Stephen and Varela-Rosales, Nydia R. and Feliu, Neus and Chowdhury, Mithun and Hu, Minghan and Füchslin, Rudolf and Dijkstra, Marjolein and Mussel, Matan and van Roij, René and Xie, Dong and Tzanov, Vassil and Zu, Mengjie and Hidalgo-Caballero, Samuel and Yuan, Ye and Cocconi, Luca and Ghim, Cheol-Min and Cottin-Bizonne, Cécile and Miguel, M. Carmen and Esplandiu, Maria Jose and Simmchen, Juliane and Parak, Wolfgang J. and Werner, Marco and Gompper, Gerhard and Hanczyc, Martin M.}, issn = {1744-6848}, journal = {Soft Matter}, number = {21}, pages = {4129--4145}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, title = {{Intelligent soft matter: Towards embodied intelligence}}, doi = {10.1039/d5sm00174a}, year = {2025}, } @article{21241, abstract = {White dwarfs (WDs) showing transits from orbiting planetary debris provide significant insights into the structure and dynamics of debris disks, which are eventually accreted to produce metal pollution. This is a rare class of objects with only eight published systems. In this work, we perform a systematic search for such systems within 500 pc in the Gaia-eDR3 catalog of WDs using the light curves from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and present six new candidates. Our selection process targets the top 1% most photometrically variable sources identified using a combined variability metric from ZTF and Gaia eDR3 photometry, boosted by a metric space we define using von Neumann statistics and Pearson-Skew as a novel discovery tool to identify these systems. This is followed by optical spectroscopic observations of visually selected variables to confirm metal pollution. Four of the six systems show long-timescale photometric variability spanning several months to years, resulting either from long-term evolution of transit activity or dust and debris clouds at wide orbits. Among them, WD J1013–0427 shows an indication of reddening during the long-duration dip. Interpreting this as dust extinction makes it the first system to indicate an abundance of dust grains with radius ≲0.3 μm in the occulting material. The same object also shows metal emission lines that map an optically thick eccentric gas disk orbiting within the star’s Roche limit. For each candidate, we infer the abundances of the photospheric metals and estimate accretion rates. We show that transiting debris systems tend to have higher inferred accretion rates compared to the general population of metal-polluted WDs. Growing the number of these systems will further illuminate such comparative properties in the near future. Separately, we also serendipitously discovered an AM Canis Venaticorum showing a very long-duration outburst—only the fourth such system to be known.}, author = {Bhattacharjee, Soumyadeep and Vanderbosch, Zachary P. and Hollands, Mark A. and Tremblay, Pier-Emmanuel and Xu, Siyi and Guidry, Joseph A. and Hermes, J.J. and Caiazzo, Ilaria and Rodriguez, Antonio C. and van Roestel, Jan and El-Badry, Kareem and Drake, Andrew J. and Roulston, Benjamin R. and Riddle, Reed and Rusholme, Ben and Groom, Steven L. and Smith, Roger and Toloza, Odette}, issn = {1538-3873}, journal = {Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific}, number = {7}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{A ZTF search for circumstellar debris transits in White Dwarfs: Six new candidates, one with gas disk emission, identified in a novel metric space}}, doi = {10.1088/1538-3873/ade0ea}, volume = {137}, year = {2025}, } @inproceedings{21243, abstract = {Widely deployed consensus protocols in the cloud are often leader-based and optimized for low latency under synchronous network conditions. However, cloud networks can experience disruptions such as network partitions, high-loss links, and configuration errors. These disruptions interfere with the operation of leader-based protocols, as their view change mechanisms interrupt the normal case replication and cause the system to stall. We propose RACS, a novel randomized consensus protocol that ensures robustness against adversarial network conditions. RACS achieves optimal one-round trip latency under synchronous network conditions while remaining resilient to adversarial network conditions. RACS follows a simple design inspired by Raft, the most widely used consensus protocol in the cloud, and therefore enables seamless integration with the existing cloud software stack. Experiments with a prototype running on Amazon EC2 show that RACS achieves 28k cmd/sec throughput, ninefold higher than Raft under adversarial cloud network conditions. Under synchronous network conditions, RACS matches the performance of Multi-Paxos and Raft, achieving a throughput of 200k cmd/sec with a median latency of 300ms, confirming that RACS introduces no unnecessary overhead. Finally, SADL-RACS, a throughput-optimized version of RACS, achieves a throughput of 500k cmd/sec, delivering 150 percent higher throughput than Raft.}, author = {Tennage, Pasindu and Desjardins, Antoine and Kokoris Kogias, Eleftherios}, booktitle = {2025 IEEE 18th International Conference on Cloud Computing}, location = {Helsinki, Finland}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {{RACS-SADL: Robust and understandable randomized consensus in the cloud}}, doi = {10.1109/cloud67622.2025.00044}, year = {2025}, } @article{21245, abstract = {Flickering light is a new promising, fully non-invasive brain stimulation technique that utilizes intermittent sensory stimulation to induce brainwave synchronization (entrainment). While the effects of 40 Hz externally induced neural entrainment have been extensively described, little is known about 60 Hz entrainment in humans. This study presents preliminary observations on the neural and somatic response to flickering 60 Hz light in healthy volunteers over a 3-week period. Fourteen volunteers were randomized to receive either 60 Hz flickering white light or constant light as sham (30-min sessions, 3 weeks, 5 days/week on weekdays). Neural entrainment was assessed with EEG on days 1, 5 and 19. Salivary cortisol and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, measured with ELISA, assessed the somatic response to stimulation. Side effects and well-being were monitored via questionnaires. EEG recordings showed neural entrainment and synchrony in response to 60 Hz flickering light across multiple cortical regions, including occipital, central, temporal, and frontal areas. The entrainment power and synchronization between different cortical regions declined significantly by day 19 compared to day 1, indicating possible neural habituation. Cortisol and CRP salivary levels were unchanged, and minor side effects were reported with equal frequency in the active and sham groups. Our findings show that 60 Hz flickering light can induce significant neural entrainment and synchrony in healthy adults and is well tolerated. The decline in entrainment strength and neural synchrony observed with repeated 60 Hz stimulations suggests plastic changes in the cortex. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize neural and somatic responses to repeated 60 Hz flickering visual stimuli. Given the well-known connection between 60 Hz brain oscillations and cognition, neuroplasticity, and their role in neuropsychiatric disorders, additional research in both preclinical and clinical settings is warranted.}, author = {Alamalhoda, MohammadAmin and Leesch, Friederike and Giovanetti, Francesca and Dunne, Eoghan and Pilloni, Giuseppina and Caffrey, Mark and O’Keeffe, Jack and Venturino, Alessandro and Ferretti, Maria Teresa}, issn = {1932-6203}, journal = {PLOS One}, number = {10}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Exploring neural entrainment and synchrony in response to repeated 60 Hz flickering white light in healthy volunteers}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0332310}, volume = {20}, year = {2025}, } @article{21246, abstract = {Stellar astrophysics relies on diverse observational modalities—primarily photometric light curves and spectroscopic data—from which fundamental stellar properties are inferred. While machine learning (ML) has advanced analysis within individual modalities, the complementary information encoded across modalities remains largely underexploited. We present the dual embedding for stellar astronomy (DESA) model, a novel multimodal foundation model that integrates light curves and spectra to learn a unified, physically meaningful latent space for stars. DESA first trains separate modality-specific encoders using a hybrid supervised/self-supervised scheme, and then aligns them through DualFormer, a transformer-based cross-modal integration module tailored for astrophysical data. DualFormer combines cross- and self-attention, a novel dual-projection alignment loss, and a projection-space eigendecomposition that yields physically structured embeddings. We demonstrate that DESA significantly outperforms leading unimodal and self-supervised baselines across a range of tasks. In zero- and few-shot settings, DESA’s learned representations recover stellar color–magnitude and Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams with high fidelity (R2 = 0.92 for photometric regressions). In full fine-tuning, DESA achieves state-of-the-art accuracy for binary star detection (AUC = 0.99, AP = 1.00) and stellar age prediction (RMSE = 0.94 Gyr). As a compelling case, DESA naturally separates synchronized binaries from young stars—two populations with nearly identical light curves—purely from their embedded positions in UMAP space, without requiring external kinematic or luminosity information. DESA thus offers a powerful new framework for multimodal, data-driven stellar population analysis, enabling both accurate prediction and novel discovery.}, author = {Kamai, Ilay and Bronstein, Alexander and Perets, Hagai B.}, issn = {1538-4357}, journal = {The Astrophysical Journal}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{Machine Learning inference of stellar properties using integrated photometric and spectroscopic data}}, doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ae0cbc}, volume = {994}, year = {2025}, } @article{21247, abstract = {Seasonal snowmelt in High Mountain Asia is an important source of river discharge. Therefore, observation of the spatiotemporal variations in snow cover at catchment scales using high-resolution satellites is essential for understanding changes in water supply from headwater catchments. In this study, we adapt an algorithm to automatically detect the snowline altitude (SLA) using the Google Earth Engine platform with available high-resolution multispectral satellite archives that can be readily applied for areas of interest. Here, we applied and evaluated the tool to five glacierized watersheds across the Himalayas to quantify the changes in seasonal and annual snow cover over the past 21 years and analyze climate reanalysis data to assess the meteorological factors influencing the SLA. Our findings revealed substantial variations in the SLA among sites in terms of seasonal patterns, decadal trends, and meteorological controls. We identify positive trends in SLA in Hidden Valley (+11.9 m yr−1), Langtang (+14.4 m yr−1), and Rolwaling (+8.2 m yr−1) in the Nepalese Himalayas but a negative trend in Satopanth (−15.6 m yr−1) in the western Indian Himalayas and no significant trend in Parlung in southeastern Tibet. We suggest that the increase in SLA in Nepal was caused by warmer temperatures during the monsoon season, whereas the decrease in SLA in India was driven by increased winter snowfall and reduced monsoon snowmelt. By integrating the outcomes of these analyses, we found that long-term changes in SLA are primarily driven by shifts in the local climate, whereas seasonal variability may be influenced by geographic features in conjunction with climate.}, author = {Sasaki, Orie and Miles, Evan S. and Pellicciotti, Francesca and Sakai, Akiko and Fujita, Koji}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, number = {11}, pages = {5283--5298}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Contrasting patterns of change in snowline altitude across five Himalayan catchments}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-19-5283-2025}, volume = {19}, year = {2025}, } @article{21248, abstract = {Camera-type eyes in vertebrates and cephalopods are striking examples of parallel evolution of a complex structure. While comparisons have focused on these two groups, camera-type eyes with likely high functionality are also found in other invertebrate phyla with simpler brains. Employing single-cell RNA sequencing, we identify neurogenic cells in the adult eyes and brain of the marine annelid worm Platynereis dumerilii. Distinct neural stem cells in the camera-type adult eyes, located at the edge of the cup-shaped retina, and adjacent to the glass body/lens, produce radial lines of cells, reminiscent of stem cells in ciliary marginal zones of vertebrate eyes exhibiting life-long growth. Normal proliferation in the eye depends on ambient light, a phenomenon that depends on the integrity of the photoreceptor gene c-opsin1, which is present in emerging rhabdomeric photoreceptors, and impacts on their differentiation. During reproductive maturation, proliferation in the eye as well as the entire brain sharply declines, while cells upregulate molecular characteristics of mammalian adult neural stem cell quiescence. Our data provide insights into the development and modulation of annelid head and brain cells, revealing similarities and differences to vertebrate eye development, neurogenesis and brain plasticity.}, author = {Milivojev, Nadja and Scaramuzza, Federico and Brum, Pedro Ozório and Velastegui Gamboa, Camila L and Andreatta, Gabriele and Raible, Florian and Tessmar-Raible, Kristin}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Light-modulated stem cells in the camera-type eye of an annelid model for adult brain plasticity}}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-025-65631-0}, volume = {16}, year = {2025}, } @inproceedings{21250, abstract = {We investigate the step complexity of the Leader Election problem (and implementing the corresponding test-and-set object) in asynchronous shared memory, where processes communicate through registers supporting atomic read and write and must coordinate so that a single process becomes the leader. Determining tight step complexity bounds for solving this problem is one of the key open problems in the theory of shared memory distributed computing. The best known algorithm is a randomized tournament-tree, which has worst-case expected step complexity O(log N) for N processes. There are provably no deterministic wait-free algorithms, and only restricted lower bounds are known for obstruction-free and randomized wait-free algorithms. We introduce a new lower bound that establishes an Ω((log N)/(log log N + log Q)) step complexity for any obstruction-free Leader Election algorithm, where N is the number of processes, and 2 ≤ Q ≤ N is a bound on the value contention, which we define as the maximum number of different values that processes can be simultaneously poised to write to the same register in any execution of the algorithm. Our result is strictly stronger than previous bounds based on write contention. In particular, it implies new lower bounds on step complexity that depend on register size.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Ellen, Faith and Fedorov, Alexander}, booktitle = {39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing}, location = {Berlin, Germany}, pages = {3:1--3:16}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik}, title = {{An almost-logarithmic lower bound for leader election with bounded value contention}}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.3}, volume = {356}, year = {2025}, } @article{21251, abstract = {Cellular membranes differ across the tree of life. In most bacteria and eukaryotes, single-headed lipids self-assemble into flexible bilayer membranes. By contrast, thermophilic archaea tend to possess bilayer lipids together with double-headed, monolayer spanning bolalipids, which are thought to enable cells to survive in harsh environments. Here, using a minimal computational model for bolalipid membranes, we explore the trade-offs at play when forming membranes. We find that flexible bolalipids form membranes that resemble bilayer membranes because they are able to assume a U-shaped conformation. Conversely, rigid bolalipids, which resemble the bolalipids with cyclic groups found in thermophilic archaea, take on a straight conformation and form membranes that are stiff and prone to pore formation when they undergo changes in shape. Strikingly, however, the inclusion of small amounts of bilayer lipids in a bolalipid membrane is enough to achieve fluid bolalipid membranes that are both stable and flexible, resolving this trade-off. Our study suggests a mechanism by which archaea can tune the material properties of their membranes as and when required to enable them to survive in harsh environments and to undergo essential membrane remodelling events like cell division.}, author = {Santana de Freitas Amaral, Miguel and Frey, Felix F and Jiang, Xiuyun and Baum, Buzz and Šarić, Anđela}, issn = {2050-084X}, journal = {eLife}, publisher = {eLife Sciences Publications}, title = {{Balancing stability and flexibility when reshaping archaeal membranes}}, doi = {10.7554/elife.105432}, volume = {14}, year = {2025}, } @article{21252, abstract = {Context. Recent observational results from asteroseismic studies show that an important fraction of solar-like stars do not present detectable stochastically excited acoustic oscillations. This non-detectability seems to correlate with a high rotation rate in the convective envelope and a high surface magnetic activity. At the same time, the properties of stellar convection are affected by rotation and magnetism. Aims. We investigate the role of rotation in the excitation of acoustic modes in the convective envelope of solar-like stars, to evaluate its impact on the energy injected in the oscillations. Methods. We derived theoretical prescriptions for the excitation of acoustic waves in the convective envelope of rotating solar-like stars. We adopted the rotating mixing-length Theory to model the influence of rotation on convection. We used the MESA stellar evolution code and the GYRE stellar oscillation code to estimate the power injected in the oscillations from our theoretical prescriptions. Results. We demonstrate that the power injected in the acoustic modes is insensitive to rotation if a Gaussian time-correlation function is assumed, while it can decrease by up to 60% for a Lorentzian time-correlation function, for a 20 Ω⊙ rotation rate. We show that the modification of the excitation rate by rotation depends not only on the rotation rate but also on the radial and angular orders of the considered oscillation mode. This result can allow for better constraints on the properties of stellar convection by studying observationally acoustic mode excitation. Conclusions. These results demonstrate how important it is to take into account the modification of stellar convection by rotation when evaluating the amplitude of the stellar oscillations it stochastically excites. They open the path for understanding the large variety of observed acoustic-mode amplitudes at the surface of solar-like stars as a function of surface rotation rates.}, author = {Bessila, L. and Deckx van Ruys, A. and Buriasco, V. and Mathis, S. and Bugnet, Lisa Annabelle and García, R. A. and Mathur, S.}, issn = {1432-0746}, journal = {Astronomy & Astrophysics}, publisher = {EDP Sciences}, title = {{The impact of rotation on the stochastic excitation of stellar acoustic modes in solar-like pulsators}}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202452093}, volume = {700}, year = {2025}, }