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Leaf arrangement steers vascular pattern evolution in ferns, research finds

Research by Assistant Professor Jacob S. Suissa at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is revealing complexity in how ferns have evolved. Instead of the vascular structure inside fern stems changing as a direct adaptation to the environment, he discovered that shifts in vascular bundle arrangement in the stem are developmentally covaried with leaf placement on the stem.

“As leaf number increases, we see a direct 1:1 increase in vascular bundle number, and as the placement of leaves along the stem changes, we also see a shift in the of vascular bundles in the stem,” said Suissa, a member of UT’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

For 150 years, researchers have focused on how vascular bundles adapt to the environment. Suissa’s new research, published in Current Biology, suggests leaves are steering the evolution of vascular patterns inside the stem.

An old fish fossil tells a new story about lamniform shark evolution

An international, multi-university research team, including scientists from Columbus State University, has unearthed a crucial new piece of the puzzle in the evolution of sharks.

A recent study published in Communications Biology, “Early gigantic lamniform marks the onset of mega-body size in modern shark evolution,” has identified a new, extinct lamniform shark—a group that includes modern-day great white and mako sharks. It marks the earliest known example of a gigantic shark, suggesting that the trend of mega-body size in modern shark evolution began much earlier than previously thought.

The team, led by Dr. Mohamad Bazzi of Stanford University, included Dr. Mike Newbrey of Columbus State’s Department of Biology and 2020 alumna Tatianna Blake. They derived their conclusions after studying specimens from the Darwin Formation that outcrops at Darwin, Australia. These specimens, collected by other researchers in the 1980s, had been stored in a museum collection and remained unstudied until recently, when the team examined them in detail.

Starship could cut the travel time to Uranus in half

The ice giants remain some of the most interesting places to explore in the solar system. Uranus in particular has drawn a lot of interest lately, especially after the 2022 Decadal Survey from the National Academies named it as the highest priority destination. But as of now, we still don’t have a fully fleshed out and planned mission ready to go for the multiple launch windows in the 2030s.

That might actually be an advantage, though, as a new system coming online might change the overall mission design fundamentally. Starship recently continued its recent string of successful tests, and a new paper presented at the IEEE Aerospace Conference by researchers at MIT looked at how this new, much more capable launch system, could impact the development of the Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) that the Decadal Survey suggested.

Uranus is one of the least explored planets—the last probe to visit it was Voyager 2 during a flyby 40 years ago. Neither it, nor its ice giant cousin Neptune, have ever had an orbiter visit it, nor any consistent mission presence in their system, marking them out as the only two planets that haven’t been studied in detail up close so far.

Iontronic Circuits: Building Intelligence in Brine

Experiments with membranes offer a path toward scalable neuromorphic computing.

Imagine a future in which computers process information not with streams of electrons but with hydrated ions flowing through salt water, a system that mimics how the brain itself computes. This emerging field—known as iontronics, a portmanteau of ions and electronics—is rapidly growing as researchers design neuromorphic computing devices, inspired by animal nervous systems and powered by electrolyte solutions at the nanoscale [1–3]. Since Leon Chua introduced the memory resistor or “memristor” in the 1970s [4], these components have been considered revolutionary building blocks for neuromorphic computing. A memristor’s electrical resistance depends on the current that flowed through it before it was powered off, offering a way to store information. Unlike solid-state memristors, fluidic ones still face challenges in terms of scalability and integration with a circuit.

Organic solar cells reach 21% efficiency with two-step crystallization process

While most solar cells on the market today are based on silicon, energy engineers have recently been assessing the performance of alternative cells based on other photovoltaic (PV) materials. These alternative options include so-called organic solar cells (OSCs), lightweight and flexible cells that are based on organic semiconducting materials.

The operation of OSCs relies on a so-called active layer, a structure made of two different types of materials, referred to as donor and acceptor materials. Both materials absorb sunlight and generate excitons which dissociate into electrons and holes at the interface between donor and acceptor materials. Then holes are transported in donor materials, while the acceptors transport electrons and facilitate their flow through the device to generate electricity.

Compared to conventional silicon-based solar cells, OSCs could be more flexible, lighter, more affordable and easier to tailor for specific applications, for instance by changing their color or transparency. Nonetheless, the efficiency with which they convert solar energy into electricity remains significantly lower than that of commercially available photovoltaics (PVs).

Chemists discover antibiotic for drug-resistant bacteria ‘hiding in plain sight’

Chemists from the University of Warwick and Monash University have discovered a promising new antibiotic that shows activity against drug-resistant bacterial pathogens, including MRSA and VRE

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world’s most urgent health challenges, with the WHO’s new report showing there are ‘too few antibacterials in the pipeline. Most of the ‘low-hanging fruit’ has already been found, and the limited commercial incentives deter investment in antibiotic discovery.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers from the Monash Warwick Alliance Combating Emerging Superbug Threats Initiative have discovered a promising new antibiotic—pre-methylenomycin C lactone.

More friends, more division: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

Between 2008 and 2010, polarization in society increased dramatically alongside a significant shift in social behavior: the number of close social contacts rose from an average of two to four or five people. The connection between these two developments could provide a fundamental explanation for why societies around the world are increasingly fragmenting into ideological bubbles.

“The big question that not only we, but many countries are currently grappling with, is why polarization has increased so dramatically in recent years,” says Stefan Thurner from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH), explaining the study’s motivation. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers’ findings confirm that increasing polarization is not merely perceived—it is measurable and objectively occurring. “And this increase happened suddenly, between 2008 and 2010,” says Thurner. The question remained: what caused it?

Imaging technique maps fleeting intermediates in hydrogen electrocatalysis

Electrocatalytic transformations not only require electrical energy—they also need a reliable middleman to spark the desired chemical reaction. Surface metal-hydrogen intermediates can effectively produce value-added chemicals and energy conversion, but, given their low concentration and fleeting lifespan, they are difficult to characterize or study in depth, especially at the nanoscale.

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