A team led by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher Nitin J. Sanket has shown that ultrasound sensors and a form of artificial intelligence (AI) can enable palm-sized aerial robots to navigate with limited power and computation through fog, smoke, and other challenging conditions during search-and-rescue operations.

As published in Nature, researchers from Purdue University and Columbia University report a naturally evolved gene-editing system that can activate genes, offering an advantage over existing CRISPR gene-editing systems that merely find and cut DNA. The research includes two complementary studies, one examining the biological function of the system and the other revealing the molecular mechanism that enables it.

MIT researchers discovered that dendrites, cracks that harm the performance of solid-state batteries, can grow at far lower stresses than previously understood. The findings reveal why developing stronger solid electrolytes alone hasn’t solved the dendrite problem; more chemically stable materials will be needed to finally fulfill the promise of these batteries.

MIT engineers designed an ultrasound wristband that precisely tracks a wearer’s hand movements in real time and communicates the information to a robot or a virtual environment. 

Natural yeasts ferment anything sugary, including fruit, flower nectar and sugar water in a hummingbird feeder. In the first study to analyze the ethanol content of nectar in a range of species, UC Berkeley biologists fought off the birds and bees to collect samples. Nearly all contained ethanol. Hummingbirds can sip up to twice their weight in nectar daily, which could provide a dose equivalent to a standard alcoholic drink for a human.

A new study shows that contributions from both highly and casually active citizen scientists can be equally valuable and — in some cases — even complement each other.

Insects are cold-blooded, so they cannot survive extreme temperatures. Snow flies, however, remain active in below-freezing weather. New research shows these flies counteract cold with a combination of strategies. Snow flies also are less sensitive to pain associated with extreme cold. Study is the first to sequence the snow fly’s genome.

Penn Engineers have redesigned a key component of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the delivery vehicles used in mRNA vaccines, to steer mRNA toward lymph nodes while reducing off-target accumulation in the liver. The modified “aroLNPs” delivered at least tenfold less mRNA to the liver than the lipid used in the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, while preserving strong immune responses. The advance could enable more precise, lower-dose vaccines and expand the potential of mRNA therapies for cancer and autoimmune disease.

A new study by UW–Madison geoscientists, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the obliquity cycle — a 40,000-year astronomical cycle tied to changes in Earth’s axial tilt — influenced ocean productivity in subtropical latitudes about 34 million years ago when the Antarctic ice sheet was first expanding.

A new Rice study reports an unusual quantum coherence of phonons in cubic boron arsenide, a semiconductor with promising electronic and thermal properties.