Welcome to Science Research Weekly, Season 5, Episode 4, And the Crowd Goes Wild for Chitons. Get ready for genes before the last common ancestor, a new Cold Earth, herbivorous microsaurs, lava tubes on Venus, a publicly-named chiton species, paleontology R packages, and the Protean grant from DARPA. Science On.

References:

• Universal paralogs provide a window into evolution before the last universal common ancestor
• A Cool Earth-sized Planet Candidate Transiting a Tenth Magnitude K-dwarf From K2
• Does the Measured Abundance Suggest a Biological Origin for the Ancient Alkanes Preserved in a Martian Mudstone?
• Carboniferous recumbirostran elucidates the origins of terrestrial herbivory
• Ocean Species Discoveries 28–30 — new species of chitons (Mollusca, Polyplacophora) and a public naming competition
• Radar-based observation of a lava tube on Venus
• Formalization and inevitability of the Pareto principle
• Light to Heavy, Brief to Eternal: An Axion for Every Occasion (in the Early Universe)
• Reading TEA leaves for de novo protein design
• A toolkit for programmable transcriptional engineering across eukaryotic kingdoms
• Temporal dynamics of microbiome communities within urban compost piles undergoing the heat process
• Introducing geoboundaries
• Paleontology R Packages to Benefit from Software Sustainability Institute Grant
• Advancing Bioinformatics, Translational Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Research (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
• Protean

R Packages:

• mixpower: Simulation-Based Power Analysis for Mixed-Effects Models
• aesopR: Tools for Text Analysis of Aesop's Fables
• ohvbd: One Health VBD Hub
• statuser: Statistical Tools Designed for End Users

Welcome to Science Research Weekly, Season 5, Episode 3, Cave Robots in Space. Get ready for endoplasmic reticulum remodeling, marine bacteria streamlining shortcomings, robotic run-throughs of space-cave explorations, non-exponential growth for AI, viral protein immune escape constraints, the Top 40 new CRAN packages of December 2025, and pilot projects from the NIH on using common fund data sets. Science On.

References:

ER remodelling is a feature of ageing and depends on ER-phagy

Cell cycle dysregulation of globally important SAR11 bacteria resulting from environmental perturbation

Cooperative robotic exploration of a planetary skylight surface and lava cave

Protein Autoregressive Modeling via Multiscale Structure Generation

Primordial black holes as cosmic accelerators of light dark matter: Novel direct detection constraints

Are AI Capabilities Increasing Exponentially? A Competing Hypothesis

Habitat fragmentation controls bacterial community composition outcomes

Constrained Evolutionary Funnels Shape Viral Immune Escape

A deep-learning-based score to evaluate multiple sequence alignments

December 2025 Top 40 New CRAN Packages

caugi (Causal Inference), phylospatia (Genetics), distionary (Statistics), svgedit (Utilities)

Pilot Projects Enhancing Utility and Usage of Common Fund Data Sets (R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

R Packages:

regextable: Pattern-Based Text Extraction and Standardization with Lookup Tables

fru: A Blazing Fast Implementation of Random Forest

marinepredator: Marine Predators Algorithm

Get ready for supermassive dark stars, human creativity versus AI, unsinkable metal tubes, robot-assisted microscopy, the Collaborative Microbial Metabolite Center knowledgebase, and a grant to strengthen agricultural systems. Science On.

References:

• https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/12/1/1
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-25157-3
• https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ae2b6f/pdf
• https://advanced-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.library.und.edu/doi/epdf/10.1002/adfm.202526033
• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20849
• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20808
• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20776
• https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.24.701521v1
• https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.698081v1
• https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.701945v1
• https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/c026db8a-157d-42de-bac7-4baf5602cd0a

R Packages:

• glmSTARMA: (Double) Generalized Linear Models for Spatio-Temporal Data
• repfun: Create Tables, Listings and Figures using Functions Styled after SAS™ Macros
• GimmeMyStats: Statistics Utilities

Science Research Weekly is back, with new content, deeper dives, and all the science updates you’ve been craving. This week, from viruses in space to 3D visualizations of automotive undercarriages, we’re covering scientific articles, preprints, software, blogs, and grant opportunities. Science On.

References:

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003568

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-025-02962-9

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09971-3

https://www.jstatsoft.org/issue/view/v115

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.14213

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.14208

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.20.700692v1.full.pdf

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.17.700094v1.full.pdf

https://journal.r-project.org/issues/2025-3/

https://www.r-bloggers.com/2026/01/setting-up-a-cluster-of-tiny-pcs-for-parallel-computing-a-note-to-myself/

https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2026/01/07/9-dataviz-distrib-sas-part1.html

https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2026/01/14/9-dataviz-distrib-sas-part_2.html

https://www.vastspace.com/science-rfp-eligibility

R-PACKAGES:

col2hex2col: Convert Between Color Names and Hex Codes

VennItem: Generate Venn Diagrams with Items Listed in the Sections

Welcome to the final episode of Science Research weekly for 2025. Covering November and December.

Get ready for the PRIMA system to treat age-related blindness, surprising chemistry on Saturn's moon Titan, Kagome tubes for vibration damping in engineering, the R-Multiverse, and a grant on the Foundations of a Resilient Microbiome. Science On.

References:

• Subretinal Photovoltaic Implant to Restore Vision in Geographic Atrophy Due to AMD
• SnOx Nanoflakes as Enhanced Near-Infrared Photothermal Therapy Agents Synthesized from Electrochemically Oxidized SnS2 Powders
• Hydrogen cyanide and hydrocarbons mix on Titan
• Topological polarization of kagome tubes and applications toward vibration isolation
• Potassium-40 isotopic evidence for an extant pre-giant-impact component of Earth’s mantle
• Overlay multiple custom density curves on a histogram in SAS
• Go for Launch! Packages Shipped to the R-Multiverse
• What’s new for Python in 2025?
• leap: Foundations of a Resilient Microbiome
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative: Implementation of Synthetic Biology Principles in Immunology

R Packages:

• alpmixBayes: Bayesian Estimation for Alpha-Mixture Survival Models
• bayesQRsurvey: Bayesian Quantile Regression Models for Complex Survey Data Analysis
• arete: Automated REtrieval from TExt
• nbpInference: Inference on Average Treatment Effects for Continuous Treatments
• partialling.out: Residuals from Partial Regressions

Get ready for neuronal nanotubes, comet versus alien for interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, rain on the Sun, the R Journal 17/2, citation metric distortion, and more new Science Spotlight videos. Science On.

References:

• Intercellular communication in the brain through a dendritic nanotubular network
• Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology?
• Spatiotemporal Low First Ionization Potential Abundance: A Catalyst for Coronal Condensation
• Tree swallows as indicators of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance exposure and effects at select Department of Defense sites along the East Coast and at sites with different sources in the Upper Midwest, United States
• 90% of science is lost. This new AI just found it
• R Journal Volume 17/2
• New, work-in-progress book on spatial data visualization in R
• Beyond Fraud: How IHME Distorts Academic Metrics
• Science Spotlight

R Packages:

• descsuppRplots: Generate Plots for All Variables in Descriptive Tables
• medicalcoder: Tools for Working with ICD Codes and Comorbidity Algorithms
• GINAX: Performs Genome-Wide Iterative Fine-Mapping for Non-Gaussian Data using GINA-X
• easyRef: Easy Reference Generation for R Packages

Get ready for chromosomal instability suppression in breast cancer, the marine origins of leeches, metal-laced hydrogels, better simulations in R, and a grant on Precision Mitochondria. Science On.

References:

• Epigenetic regulation of chromosomal instability by EZH2 methyltransferase
• The first leech body fossil predates estimated hirudinidan origins by 200 million years
• Hydrogel-Based Vat Photopolymerization of Ceramics and Metals with Low Shrinkages via Repeated Infusion Precipitation
• Deploy Multiple Shiny Apps from One R Package
• A new simstudy function to make simulating replications easier
• ARIA: Precision Mitochondria

R Packages:

• mda.biber: Functions for Multi-Dimensional Analysis
• pwranova: Power Analysis of Flexible ANOVA Designs and Related Tests
• summarytabl: Generate Summary Tables for Continuous, Ordinal, and Categorical Data

Get ready for direct pain relief, pollutant breakdown with biochar, shark-attack resistant wetsuits, an updated timetree for Fungi, edible electronics, simulating the Monty Hall problem in R, the Top 40 New CRAN Packages for August 2025, and the DARPA Young Faculty Award. This episode covers material from September 26th to October 2nd. Science On.

References:

• Targeting prostaglandin E2 receptor 2 in Schwann cells inhibits inflammatory pain but not inflammation
• The geologic history of marine dissolved organic carbon from iron oxides
• Structure-performance relationship of biochar for direct degradation of organic pollutants
• DOLPHIN advances single-cell transcriptomics beyond gene level by leveraging exon and junction reads
• Effectiveness of bite-resistant materials to reduce injuries from white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) and tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) bites
• Nanotechnology-driven coordination of shoot–root systems enhances rice nitrogen use efficiency
• Detection of organic compounds in freshly ejected ice grains from Enceladus’s ocean
• A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers
• Printed Integrated Logic Circuits Based on Chitosan-Gated Organic Transistors for Future Edible Systems
• Simulating Monty Hall’s Problem
• Plotting Distributions in R
• August 2025 Top 40 New CRAN Packages
• Spurious Correlations in R – Correlation is not Causation
• Learning And Exploring The Workflow of RNA-Seq Analysis – A Note To Myself
• DARPA: Young Faculty Award (YFA) 2026

R Packages:

• eDNAfuns: Working with Metabarcoding Data in a Tidy Format
• spuriouscorrelations: Datasets with Strong and Spurious Correlations

Get ready for a review of acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders, dehydration and stress response, Hycean world woes, hints at the compositional protein code, fraudulent publishing in mathematics, R Journal Volume 17/1, and a grant on microbial dust control for mining operations. Science On.

References:

• Evaluation of the evidence on acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders using the Navigation Guide methodology
• Habitual fluid intake and hydration status influence cortisol reactivity to acute psychosocial stress
• Sub-Neptunes Are Drier than They Seem: Rethinking the Origins of Water-rich Worlds
• A domed pachycephalosaur from the early Cretaceous of Mongolia
• Tracing the Origin of the Genetic Code and Thermostability to Dipeptide Sequences in Proteomes
• Tiny protein pairs may hold the secret to life’s origin
• How to Fight Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences: Joint Recommendations of the IMU and the ICIAM

• Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences
• The R Journal Volume 17/1
• Birthdays and the coupon collector's problem
• NIH: Pilot Projects to Enhance the Human Virome Program
• NIH: Clinical Trial Readiness for Rare Diseases, Disorders, and Syndromes
• NSF/CASIS Transport Phenomena Research at the International Space Station to Benefit Life on Earth
• Microbial dust control and surface stabilization

R Packages:

• bnpMTP: Bayesian Nonparametric Sensitivity Analysis of Multiple Testing Procedures for p Values
• MicrobTiSDA: Microbiome Time-Series Data Analysis
• plumber2: Easy and Powerful Web Servers
• ggDNAvis: 'ggplot2'-Based Tools for Visualising DNA Sequences and Modifications