Building digital twins as decision infrastructure for a complex world
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 26-Oct-2026 19:16 ET (26-Oct-2026 23:16 GMT/UTC)
As digital twins expand across fields ranging from healthcare to climate forecasting, concerns about privacy, cybersecurity, and transparency are also growing. A review of nearly 22,500 publications argues that digital twins should be understood as decision infrastructures that integrate sensing, modeling, artificial intelligence, and data systems to support smarter, more explainable, and secure decisions in complex real-world settings
Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging enables recovery of hidden scenes but is constrained by a speed-resolution trade-off in conventional scanning systems. We propose a scanning-free approach based on laser reflective tomography, using a diffuse relay surface as a natural beam expander and requiring only single-point detection. This method achieves twofold higher resolution and 91-fold faster imaging, and enables 3.3 km long-range reconstruction with 3 cm resolution in just 3 minutes.
Cronkhite–Canada syndrome (CCS) is a rare, non-hereditary hamartomatous polyposis syndrome of the gastrointestinal tract accompanied by ectodermal changes. The cause has remained unknown for decades, with no clear germline mutations identified. A new multi-omics study reveals that expanded TNF-α-producing CD4+ T cells and IL-1β-secreting macrophages drive excessive mucus secretion and colonic hamartoma formation through a positive feedback loop inducing epithelial prostaglandin E₂ (PGE2) production, offering potential therapeutic targets for this puzzling disease.
A recent study identified carbonic anhydrase III (CAR3) as a previously unrecognized protein critical for healthy bone development and regeneration. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, genetically modified mice, and bone repair models, researchers found that CAR3 helps osteoblasts mineralize collagen and strengthen bone tissue by interacting with collagen and bone sialoprotein. Mice lacking CAR3 developed low bone density and impaired bone formation, while CAR3-functionalized scaffolds significantly improved bone healing and regeneration following skeletal injury.
Before a seedling reaches light, it must grow through darkness with speed and precision. A new tomato study reveals how this hidden phase is controlled at cellular resolution, showing that ethylene and target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling act differently across tissues and cell types.
Nanomedicines often acquire a protein corona in the bloodstream before reaching the brain. A new Perspective in Science Bulletin argues that this evolving layer should be engineered as a programmable interface that can guide recognition, transcytosis and release across the blood-brain barrier.
Freshwater ecosystems worldwide have been suffering from declining oxygen levels—a trend known as deoxygenation—that threatens biodiversity, fisheries, and ecosystem stability. However, a new study published on June 26 in Nature Geoscience offers hope: targeted nutrient management via wastewater control can reverse this trajectory, even in the face of rapid climate warming.
Objective: This commentary outlines how single-cell and multi-omic approaches can advance biomarker discovery and translational validation in exercise medicine.
Methods: The article synthesizes emerging evidence from human and animal exercise studies using single-cell RNA sequencing, single-nucleus RNA sequencing, single-cell ATAC sequencing, spatial transcriptomics and related multi-omic technologies. It focuses on skeletal muscle, immune regulation, ageing-related cellular states, chronic disease contexts and translational validation strategies.
Results: Single-cell approaches can resolve exercise-responsive cell types, cellular states, regulatory programmes and cell-cell communication that are masked by tissue-level or bulk measurements. The article highlights applications in muscle repair and fibre-type adaptation, immune redistribution and inflammatory regulation, vascular and metabolic adaptation, biological ageing and responder profiling. It proposes a pipeline that links discovery of cell-derived signatures to validation through accessible assays, including flow cytometry, targeted RNA panels, proteomics, methylation assays, immunoassays and routine clinical chemistry platforms.
Conclusions: Single-cell sequencing is best viewed as a discovery engine for precision exercise biomarkers rather than a near-term routine clinical test. Future work should combine well-defined exercise protocols, longitudinal sampling, spatial and tissue-specific profiling, physiological outcomes, human-animal comparisons and rigorous independent validation.
Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of East Anglia have shown that carefully shaped light can reveal important chiral effects in free space, without the complex materials or extreme focusing conditions that scientists once thought were necessary. The finding could help improve optical sensing, imaging, communication and future quantum technologies.
Fruit peel color is more than a surface trait: it shapes consumer preference, market value, and breeding direction.