WASHINGTON, DC – The Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has selected six papers published by PNAS in 2024 to receive the Cozzarelli Prize, an award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Papers were chosen from more than 3,200 research articles that appeared in the journal last year and represent the six broadly defined classes under which the NAS is organized. Additionally, the Editorial Board has recognized six papers—one in each class—as finalists for the 2024 Cozzarelli Prize.
The annual Cozzarelli Prize acknowledges papers that reflect scientific excellence and originality. The award was established in 2005 as the Paper of the Year Prize and was renamed in 2007 to honor late PNAS Editor-in-Chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli. The 2024 awardees will be recognized at an awards ceremony during the NAS Annual Meeting in April 2025.
2024 Cozzarelli Prize Recipients
Class I: Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Winner:
Permafrost thaw subsidence, sea-level rise, and erosion are transforming Alaska’s Arctic coastal zone
Roger Creel, Julia Guimond, Benjamin M. Jones, David M. Nielsen, Emily Bristol, Craig E. Tweedie, and Pier Paul Overduin
Coastal erosion, a growing hazard along Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain, is compounded by sea-level rise and land subsidence from permafrost thaw. The authors of this study merged estimates of erosion, subsidence, and sea-level rise to project the shoreline position of the Arctic Coastal Plain through 2100 in medium and high carbon emissions scenarios. The analysis revealed that erosion and ocean inundation could together lead to six to eight times more land loss than erosion alone. Without mitigating measures, land loss could damage 40–65% of infrastructure in villages on the Arctic Coastal Plain and 10–20% of oilfield infrastructure, the authors suggest.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2409411121
Finalist:
Integer partitions detect the primes
William Craig, Jan-Willem van Ittersum, and Ken Ono
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2409417121
Class II: Biological Sciences
Winner:
Eye blinks as a visual processing stage
Bin Yang, Janis Intoy, and Michele Rucci
Blinking mainly serves to lubricate the eyes, but blinks also represent a frequent interruption of the visual information entering the retina that may disrupt visual processing. The authors of this study used high-resolution eye tracking and visual input modeling to characterize the effects of blinking on perception. By transiently interrupting the flow of light to the retina, the authors found, blinking increases the contrast of a visual stimulus, improving the visibility of low-resolution information about the visual scene. In visual discrimination tasks involving a dozen participants, both voluntary and reflexive blinking significantly improved performance. Rather than impairing vision, as commonly thought, blinking actively facilitates visual processing by enhancing sensitivity.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2310291121
Finalist:
Identification of an active RNAi pathway in Candida albicans
Elise Iracane, Cristina Arias-Sardá, Corinne Maufrais, Iuliana V. Ene, Christophe d'Enfert, and Alessia Buscaino
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2315926121
Class III: Engineering and Applied Sciences
Winner:
Distribution of centrality measures on undirected random networks via the cavity method
Silvia Bartolucci, Fabio Caccioli, Francesco Caravelli, and Pierpaolo Vivo
Complex networks are often used to represent social, technological, biological, and financial systems, as well as infrastructures, such as power grids and transportation networks. A key challenge in analyzing complex networks is quantifying centrality, which is a measure of the importance of nodes based on connectivity. However, computing centrality requires considering all other nodes in the network, rendering the process analytically complex. The authors of this study present an algorithmic method for estimating centrality distributions in random tree-like networks. The analysis revealed that a node’s centrality strongly correlates with the number of neighboring nodes. This approach offers a robust way to identify key nodes for the functionality of real-world networks, such as hubs in transportation networks, the failure of which may hinder global connectivity, among other practical applications.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2403682121
Finalist:
Neuromorphic one-shot learning utilizing a phase-transition material
Alessandro R. Galloni, Yifan Yuan, Minning Zhu, Haoming Yu, Ravindra S. Bisht, Chung-Tse Michael Wu, Christine Grienberger, Shriram Ramanathan, and Aaron D. Milstein
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2318362121
Class IV: Biomedical Sciences
Winner:
Ultrahigh frequencies of peripherally matured LGI1- and CASPR2-reactive B cells characterize the cerebrospinal fluid in autoimmune encephalitis
Jakob Theorell, Ruby Harrison, Robyn Williams, Matthew I. J. Raybould, Meng Zhao, Hannah Fox, Andrew Fower, Georgina Miller, Zoe Wu, Eleanor Browne, Victor Mgbachi, Bo Sun, Rohini Mopuri, Ying Li, Patrick Waters, Charlotte M. Deane, Adam Handel, Mateusz Makuch, and Sarosh R. Irani
Autoimmune encephalitis is characterized by pathogenic autoantibodies that react to central nervous system (CNS) proteins, often resulting in cognitive impairment and relapse despite treatment. The maturation site of B cells producing the pathogenic autoantibodies is not well understood. The authors of this study characterized 166 pathogenic B cell receptors from the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with autoimmune encephalitis targeting two different CNS proteins. The patients’ cerebrospinal fluid was enriched in differentiated B cells and plasma cells that secreted autoantibodies with specific reactivities to the two proteins. These antibody-secreting cells largely diversify, mutate, and mature outside of the CNS, before expanding within the cerebrospinal fluid. The findings could aid the development of targeted therapies for autoimmune encephalitis.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2311049121
Finalist:
IFIH1 (MDA5) is required for innate immune detection of intron-containing RNA expressed from the HIV-1 provirus
Mehmet Hakan Guney, Karthika Nagalekshmi, Sean Matthew McCauley, Claudia Carbone, Ozkan Aydemir, and Jeremy Luban
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2404349121
Class V: Behavioral and Social Sciences
Winner:
AI-accelerated Nazca survey nearly doubles the number of known figurative geoglyphs and sheds light on their purpose
Masato Sakai, Akihisa Sakurai, Siyuan Lu, Jorge Olano, Conrad M. Albrecht, Hendrik F. Hamann, and Marcus Freitag
Over nearly a century, researchers discovered 430 figurative Nazca geoglyphs, such as animal and human figures, on the southern coast of Peru. The authors of this study used AI to analyze aerial images of the region and confirmed the presence of 303 additional geoglyphs within six months of field work. Analysis of motifs among geoglyphs revealed that small, relief-type geoglyphs often depict humans, domestic animals, or decapitated heads. In contrast, large, line-type geoglyphs primarily feature wild animals. Relief-type geoglyphs appear along winding trails imprinted by repeated walking, suggesting that the geoglyphs were used by individuals or small groups. Large, line-type geoglyphs were systematically planned and located at the beginning and end of pilgrimage routes across the Nazca Pampa, likely serving as community structures.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2407652121
Finalist:
Climate migration amplifies demographic change and population aging
Mathew E. Hauer, Sunshine A. Jacobs, and Scott A. Kulp
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2206192119
Class VI: Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
Winner:
Prey can detect predators via electroreception in air
Sam J. England and Daniel Robert
Predators and prey detect each other through a variety of senses. One such sense that prey can use to detect predators is electrostatic charge. The authors of this study report that predatory common wasps carry an electrostatic charge. Caterpillars of the cinnabar moth, the scarce vapourer moth, and the European peacock butterfly displayed defensive behaviors in response to electrostatic charges, such as those of the predatory wasp. The authors examined the caterpillars’ setae, which are organs that detect the sounds of predators’ wingbeats, and found that electrostatic charges can deflect the setae. The findings suggest that prey can use electroreception to detect predators—a phenomenon that may be widespread among terrestrial animals.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2322674121
Finalist:
A species’ response to spatial climatic variation does not predict its response to climate change
Daniel L. Perret, Margaret E. K. Evans, and Dov F. Sax
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2304404120
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