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Category: materials

Renal Oncocytic Neoplasms: Review of Classification Updates, Imaging, and Management

Renal oncocytic neoplasms present diagnostic challenges, both at imaging and pathologic evaluation. The World Health Organization classification of renal neoplasms defines a spectrum of oncocytic neoplasms, including emerging entities that help define previously uncharacterized or mischaracterized tumors. Low-grade oncocytic tumors and eosinophilic vacuolated tumors are distinguishable from other oncocytic neoplasms at pathologic evaluation and typically demonstrate indolent behavior. Nomenclature regarding hybrid neoplasms has been clarified in reference to hereditary cases associated with Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome. Preoperative diagnostic difficulties at imaging contribute to high rates of resected benign renal tumors, the majority being renal oncocytomas. The imaging appearances of oncocytic neoplasms are similar, and the inability to confidently diagnose them at imaging has led to increased resection rates. Preoperative renal mass biopsy may be preventative, but its utilization remains low, diagnoses can be equivocal, and establishing tumor aggressiveness may not always be reliable. Malignant renal oncocytic tumors, including chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, are generally considered the less aggressive subtypes of renal cell carcinoma. However, distinguishing them from the more aggressive clear cell subtype remains challenging, despite imaging frameworks designed to aid categorization. Active surveillance is a safe management option among biopsy-confirmed renal oncocytic neoplasms, but it remains uncertain which patients are suitable for this approach. Diagnostic imaging may assist in risk-stratifying oncocytic neoplasms, with mass enhancement, heterogeneity, and calcification potentially differentiating benign from malignant oncocytic neoplasms. Mass attenuation and heterogeneity may differentiate low-grade and high-grade cancers. Molecular imaging and other emerging techniques, such as MR fingerprinting, may play a role in the future.

©RSNA, 2026

Supplemental material is available for this article.

Consciousness Is the Only Thing That Truly Exists, Scientist Says

He compares our working minds to a flying kite, where the kite is the brain and the wind is consciousness as a fundamental part of reality. “The kite has to be built from the right materials in the right configuration with the right tether, but its flight depends entirely on the wind,” Reggente says.

A radio makes another good analogy, Reggente explains.

“[The radio] doesn’t produce the broadcast, it receives and transduces a signal that’s already present,” he says. “But unlike a radio, the brain isn’t merely reproducing that signal with high fidelity—it’s interacting with it. And that interaction is what gives rise to our particular subjective experience.”

Nickelate reveals nodeless gap, providing key clue to high-temperature superconductivity

The mechanism of high-temperature (TC) superconductivity is a key challenge in condensed matter physics. Recently, Chinese scientists made significant progress in the study of high-TC nickelate superconductors.

For the first time, scientists observed a nodeless superconducting gap and discovered electron-boson coupling by measuring the electronic structures of Ruddlesden-Popper bilayer nickelate superconducting thin films. These results provide crucial evidence for two fundamental issues in the mechanism of high-TC nickelates: “superconducting gap symmetry” and “superconducting pairing mechanism.”

This study, conducted by a team led by Prof. He Junfeng from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with a team led by Prof. Xue Qikun and Prof. Chen Zhuoyu from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), was published in Science.

Unusual nonlinear thermoelectric effect appears in chiral tellurium, confirming theoretical predictions

An unusual thermoelectric effect has been observed in the semiconductor tellurium by RIKEN physicists for the first time. This demonstration points to the potential of similar materials to be used in applications such as energy harvesting and advanced heat management.

Thermoelectric materials can convert electricity into heat and vice versa. For most of them, doubling the voltage across them will double the heat they produce. But for some special thermoelectric materials, there is a nonlinear relationship between voltage and heat. Such nonlinear thermoelectric materials are useful for applications that require heat to flow in one direction and for generating electricity from thermal fluctuations.

Some theoretical calculations have predicted that even more exotic nonlinear thermoelectric effects will occur in materials where the atoms or molecules have a chiral arrangement. But they hadn’t been observed in the lab—until now.

Piezoelectric effect in diamond membranes challenges century-old scientific dogma

A research team in China has reported a significant piezoelectric effect in ultrathin and ultra-flexible polycrystalline diamond membranes. This pioneering discovery challenges a century-long scientific dogma that diamonds are strictly non-piezoelectric.

The team was led by Professor Zhiqin Chu, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Professor Yuan Lin, Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Their study is published in Science Advances.

Since the 1900s, diamonds have been classified globally as non-piezoelectric material. Consequently, despite being a strong, hard and inert material with exceptionally high acoustic velocity, thermal conductivity, dielectric breakdown strength and ultrawide bandgap, diamond has only been used as a mechanical substrate supporting other piezoelectric material layers in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Indeed, the very idea of “generating electricity from diamonds” was initially deemed impractical by many.

Novel origami pattern turns flat sheets into load-bearing 3D technology

McGill University researchers have discovered a new way to fold flat sheets into smooth, curved shells that can switch from floppy and flexible to stiff and load-bearing on demand. By designing a special origami pattern and threading cable-like elements through it, they can control the material’s final three-dimensional shape and how rigid it becomes.

The result, a “doubly curved lens box,” could advance the technology of such objects as temporary emergency tents, morphing robots and smart fabrics, the researchers said. “Smooth doubly curved origami shells with reprogrammable rigidity,” by Morad Mirzajanzadeh and Damiano Pasini, was published in Nature Communications.

“Existing foldable structures face a trade-off: if they are smooth and nicely curved, they tend to be soft and floppy; if they are strong and stiff, they usually look faceted, jagged or uncomfortable, and their shape is hard to tune once built,” said Damiano Pasini, study co-author and professor of mechanical engineering.

Scientists use light to create tiny molecules that could transform medicine

Researchers have developed a light-driven method for creating tiny, high-energy “housane” molecules that are valuable for drug development and materials science. These compact ring-shaped structures are difficult to produce because of the intense internal strain they contain. By using photocatalysis and carefully tuning the starting molecules, the team managed to guide the reaction into a clean and efficient pathway.

Optoelectronic synapse shows exceptional photoresponse for neuromorphic vision

Like so much else in nature, the human visual system has both a complex structure and functional efficiency that is difficult for scientists to replicate. The system is both a sensor and a processor, with the eyes and the brain working together to resolve images with less energy use than anything people have invented.

But a technology called optoelectronic synapses can reproduce at least some of the phenomena that make human vision so successful, and a team of researchers at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) has discovered why certain materials perform so well at artificial vision and memory.

In their article “Interlayer Exciton Polarons in Mesoscopic V2O5 for Broadband Optoelectronic Synapses” published in Advanced Functional Materials, the NLR-led research team discovered the source of persistent photoconductivity—a mechanism that mirrors some of the functionality of biological synapses in the eye—for a particular vanadium-oxide material.

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