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3D imagery helps bring world’s ant diversity to life

For more than a decade, Evan Economo’s lab has been using micro-CT machines to scan insect specimens. The resulting X-ray images help researchers study the form and structure of insects—a subfield of entomology known as morphology—but the process is costly and time-consuming.

“One limitation is that you can get this rich 3D dataset, but it could take 10 hours to scan one specimen,” explained Economo, who chairs the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology and holds the James B. Gahan and Margaret H. Gahan Professorship.

As a senior author of a paper published in the journal Nature Methods, Economo tested a high-tech workflow to speed up their efforts.

‘Superconducting dome’ hints at high-temperature superconductivity in thin nickelate films

Superconductivity is a quantum state of matter characterized by an electrical resistance of zero and the expulsion of magnetic fields at low temperatures below a critical point. Superconductors, materials in which this state occurs, have proved to be highly advantageous for the development of various technologies, including medical imaging devices, particle accelerators and quantum computers.

While superconductivity typically only occurs at extremely low temperatures, recent studies showed that in some materials it can arise at higher temperatures. These unconventional superconducting materials are referred to as high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors.

Researchers at the National Laboratory of Solid-State Microstructures and Nanjing University recently gathered hints of high-Tc superconductivity in a thin film nickelate, a material that contains nickel and oxygen arranged in a thin layered crystal structure. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, maps the evolution of physical states in these materials under different conditions, unveiling a so-called “superconducting dome” in this phase diagram, which is associated with high-Tc superconductivity.

Hybrid ‘super foam’ uses 3D-printed struts to absorb up to 10 times more energy

Aerospace engineering and materials science researchers at Texas A&M University and the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory have developed a “super foam” that can absorb up to 10 times more energy than conventional padding.

The composite, published and described in the journal of Composite Structures, combines an ordinary foam with 3D-printed injections of stretchy, plastic columns known as struts.

The result? An affordable, lightweight and ultra-durable hybrid foam poised to redefine the defense, automotive, aerospace and consumer industries.

Gravitational waves reveal hidden structure of galactic centers

A new study published in Nature Astronomy indicates that the dense, star-and dark-matter–rich environments around supermassive black hole binaries pack on the order of a million solar masses into each cubic parsec. The team used gravitational-wave data from pulsar timing arrays to probe galactic centers that are otherwise impossible to observe directly.

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use precise measurements of timing residuals from millisecond pulsars to detect gravitational waves at nanohertz frequencies. These arrays revealed a stochastic gravitational-wave background, an incoherent hum from countless supermassive black hole binaries spiraling together across the universe.

However, the signal carries a twist. At the lowest frequencies, the spectrum appears to turn over, deviating from predictions for binaries evolving purely under gravitational-wave emission. That bend suggests that something in the environment, or highly eccentric orbits, is reshaping how these massive binaries lose energy and tighten over time.

Cheek cells may provide clues to schizophrenia risk

A simple cheek swab could one day provide a quick and noninvasive diagnostic test for schizophrenia. A new study published in Science Advances has identified higher levels of two biological markers in the cheek swabs of patients with schizophrenia compared with people who don’t have this mental health disorder. Schizophrenia is a long-term condition with a range of symptoms including hallucinations, delusions, muddled thoughts and loss of interest in everyday activities.

There is no single test for the illness, and diagnosis can be challenging because symptoms vary widely between people and typically relies on observing a patient’s behavior. It can, therefore, sometimes take months for a professional to make a diagnosis with any degree of certainty, as they have to rule out other possible causes. That is a lot of time for someone to wait without the right treatment if it is needed.

So researchers led by a team at Rutgers University in New Jersey decided to investigate whether molecular signatures in easy-to-collect buccal (cheek) cells could serve as reliable biomarkers.

Astronomers may have just found one of the missing links in galaxy evolution

A team of 48 astronomers from 14 countries, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has discovered a population of dusty, star-forming galaxies at the far edges of the universe that formed only a billion years after the Big Bang, believed to have occurred 13.7 billion years ago. The galaxies may represent a snapshot in the galactic life cycle, linking recently discovered ultradistant bright galaxies formed 13.3 billion years ago with early “quiescent” (dead) galaxies that stopped forming stars about two billion years after the Big Bang.

Challenging what we know about cosmos The new discovery challenges current models of the universe, making the findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a step toward revising cosmic history.

“My research involves trying to identify and understand a population of rare, dusty star-forming galaxies that were only discovered at the end of the 1990s,” says Jorge Zavala, assistant professor of astronomy at UMass Amherst and the paper’s lead author.

This new blood test could detect cancer before it shows up on scans

A new CRISPR-powered light sensor can detect the faintest molecular signs of cancer in a drop of blood. A new light-based sensor can spot incredibly tiny amounts of cancer biomarkers in blood, raising the possibility of earlier and simpler cancer detection. The technology merges DNAnanotechnology, CRISPR, and quantumdots to generate a clear signal from just a few molecules. In lung cancer tests, it worked even in real patient serum samples. Researchers hope it could eventually power portable blood tests for cancer and other diseases.

Scientists have designed a powerful light based sensor capable of detecting extremely small amounts of cancer biomarkers in blood. The innovation could eventually allow doctors to identify early warning signs of cancer and other diseases through a routine blood draw.

Biomarkers such as proteins, fragments of DNA, and other molecules can signal whether cancer is present, how it is progressing, or a person’s risk of developing it. The difficulty is that in the earliest stages of disease, these markers exist in extremely low concentrations, making them hard to measure with conventional tools.

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