New research shows that small clusters of interacting units – “motifs” – can disproportionately trigger sudden changes in complex systems. In ecological networks, interactions among just two or three species can explain large, unexpected system responses. These motifs act as amplifiers, making minor disturbances cascade into major effects. Recognizing such critical clusters helps explain why ecosystems, power grids, supply chains, and social networks can collapse or surge unpredictably, offering a potential pathway to forecast and mitigate cascading failures across diverse networks.

Dr. Vadim Jucaud’s lab at the Terasaki Institute has developed a vascularized liver tissueoid-on-a-chip (LToC) platform that recapitulates key structural, functional, and immunological features of human liver tissue, enabling the study of liver regeneration and immune-mediated allograft rejection in a physiologically relevant human system.

University of Missouri researchers have released the world’s largest collection of protein models with quality assessment — a groundbreaking new resource that could accelerate drug development for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. The database, called PSBench, includes 1.4 million annotated protein structure models, all verified by independent experts. It gives scientists the reliable information they need to build more accurate artificial intelligence (AI) systems for assessing the quality of protein structure models, which is critical for developing future medical treatments.

Using commercially available technology and innovative methods, researchers at NBI have pushed the limits of how fast you can detect changes in the sensitive quantum states in the qubit. Their work allows researchers to follow rapid changes in qubit performance that were previously invisible.