NEWS RELEASES

The fate of a stressed plant—whether it thrives despite the stress, merely copes with it, or succumbs—is heavily influenced by its genetic makeup and the coordinated expression of key stress response regulators that mediate that shift into survival mode. In work newly published in The Plant Cell, researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) integrated visible stress responses with changes in gene expression, metabolism, and physiology to identify a conserved mechanism of stress signaling in plants.

NYU researchers have made microscopic oil droplets in water do something usually reserved for living cells: change shape in complex, controllable ways, and even engulf their surroundings. 

The findings, published in Nature Communications, show that some of life's signature behaviors—like morphing into complex shapes and capturing material—can emerge from physics and chemistry alone, without genes, proteins, or active cellular machinery. 

To enable next-generation energy devices like fuel cells and water electrolyzers, researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) collaborated with scientists at New York University to study the backbone chemistry of different types of ion-exchange membranes to better understand how their chemical make-up governs their structure and ability. They found that the nanostructures within these membranes evolve when water passes through and are affected by the stiffness of the polymer backbone. Different backbone architectures promote distinct ionic nanostructures, which govern how water is distributed within the membrane. Flexible backbones achieve higher ion conductivity with less water uptake, overcoming a trade-off that has long challenged membrane design. The results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. 

Existing computer models used to guide decisions about energy infrastructure and contamination often treat microbes as fixed and unchanging, even though they constantly adapt to their surroundings. University of Maine researchers are aiming to close the gap by analyzing microbial genetic information using artificial intelligence to identify the biological processes that most strongly influence underground chemical reactions. Those insights will then be integrated into existing subsurface models, allowing scientists to better simulate how microbes, minerals and groundwater interact in changing environments.