A team of NYU chemists and physicists are using cutting-edge tools—holographic microscopy and super-resolution imaging—to unlock how cells build and grow tiny, dynamic droplets known as biomolecular condensates.

For the first time, scientists measured the protein content and growth dynamics of individual biomolecular condensates without disturbing them, gaining insights that may shape future drug development and disease modeling.

Scientists at ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute and the University of Delaware have discovered a surprisingly simple explanation for how our bodies stay so well-organized, even as billions of cells are replaced daily. In a new study, they identified just five basic rules—like when and how cells divide and die—that seem to guide how tissues like the colon maintain their structure over time. Using computer simulations, the team showed how these rules work together like choreography to keep tissues healthy and functioning. This breakthrough, which researchers call a potential “tissue code,” could help explain how our bodies heal, how diseases like cancer form, and even support global efforts like the Human Cell Atlas. It’s a powerful example of how math and medicine can come together to reveal the hidden instructions that keep us alive and well.

Active radiant cooling is a promising strategy for outdoor thermal comfort, but there are practicality and safety concerns with the typically opaque and dark structures that are needed. A team of UCLA engineers and researchers has tested a new design that lowered the mean radiant temperatures 10 degrees during field studies. The scalable design, which combines water-cooled aluminum panels and see-through, infrared-reflective thin polymer film, brings an additional level of cooling beyond shade to help people who have to be outdoors on hot days while preserving a sense of safe and open space.

A new federally funded study led by Brown University biologists and scientists at Yellowstone National Park revealed that different circumstances lead herbivores to eat a much wider variety of plants than previously believed.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the new research suggests that the traditional classification schemes that distinguish herbivores by their percent of grass consumption are oversimplifications that can fail to reflect dietary variation within and across species, said study co-author Tyler Kartzinel, an associate professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology at Brown.

A team of researchers, including several from UC San Diego, have shown, through theoretical calculations, how collapsing massive stars can act as a "neutrino collider,” which may result in either a neutron star remnant or black hole remnant, depending on the “flavor” of the neutrinos.