Scientific breakthroughs possess the transformative potential to reshape research trajectories and scientific paradigms. However, there is limited systematic evidence on how these breakthroughs influence the evolution of scientific knowledge. Building on the concepts of disruption and consolidation in science, we categorize forward-citing papers into two distinct categories: Disruptive Citing Papers (DCP) and Consolidating Citing Papers (CCP). Analyzing the dynamic patterns of DCP and CCP in Nobel Prize–winning papers, we find that in the early postpublication phase, scientific breakthroughs generate more consolidating citations than disruptive citations. Additionally, CCP in this early phase demonstrate higher scientific impact. However, in the long-term phase, scientific breakthroughs generate more disruptive citations, with DCP often involving larger and more diverse teams. Linguistic analysis also uncovers nuanced differences between CCP and DCP. Furthermore, the dynamic patterns of knowledge flow in scientific breakthroughs differ significantly from control groups. Collectively, our results reveal that scientific breakthroughs initially consolidate knowledge before disrupting it in later phases, offering profound insights into the mechanisms driving scientific progress.

Despite long-standing concerns about gender bias in science, there remains a lack of understanding regarding the performance of female scientists as team leaders compared to their male counterparts. This study explores differences between female-led and male-led teams in terms of scientific impact, novelty, and disruption, utilizing a comprehensive data set of journal articles spanning from 1980 to 2016 across STEM fields. We employed Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) to match female and male scientists based on their characteristics. Subsequently, we applied multivariable logistic regression models to compare the outcomes of journal articles produced by female-led and male-led teams. Our analysis reveals that female-led teams generate more novel and disruptive ideas. However, they tend to produce articles with less scientific impact compared to their male-led counterparts. This suggests a systemic undervaluation of the contributions of female scientists. Further analysis indicates that this gender bias intensifies in later career stages and with larger team sizes. Additionally, significant field-specific heterogeneity is observed, with the most pronounced bias found in Biology and Medicine. These findings highlight the urgent need for policy adjustments to address these biases and promote a more equitable evaluation system in scientific research.