In a landmark study published in Science Advances, Vanderbilt researchers have created the first high-resolution lipid atlas of the human kidney, mapping over 100,000 functional tissue units across 29 donors. By integrating advanced imaging mass spectrometry with microscopy using machine learning, the team identified distinct lipid signatures that could transform diagnostics and precision treatments for kidney disease.

New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History sheds light on the ancient origins of biofluorescence in fishes and the range of brilliant colors involved in this biological phenomenon. Detailed in two complementary studies recently published in Nature Communications and PLOS One, the findings suggest that biofluorescence dates back at least 112 million years and, since then, has evolved independently more than 100 times, with the majority of that activity happening among fish that live on coral reefs.

MIT researchers built an ultrasmall, low-power receiver that is designed to block a certain type of interference. The chip could be utilized in 5G-enabled smart devices that would be smaller, have longer battery lives, and be more reliable in crowded radio environments.  

Co-senior authors Jeremy Levy of Pitt and Andrew Daley of Oxford, collaborators from the early days of the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, wrote an explanatory analysis of their group’s chiral-electron findings publishing in Science Advances Friday. In this study that combines  quantum physics, physics, biology, chemistry and organic systems, they developed in essence a programmable platform that could ultimately provide new ways to explore electrons in chiral systems — such as DNA, amino acids, proteins and more.

Newly uncovered evidence from fossil corals found on an island chain in the Indian Ocean suggests that sea levels could rise even more steeply in our warming world than previously thought.