New AI tool predicts how cells choose their future—helping uncover hidden drivers of development

Tree shade is one of the fastest ways to make heat more bearable. It cuts direct sunlight, protects people walking or working outdoors, and remains essential for heat action plans. A new study by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) adds a sharper planning question: If greening is so important, why does the same strategy cool some urban areas more reliably than others?

Feelings of despair at the state of the world can be overwhelming. Social and environmental problems persist, but political discourse is polarized, divisive and often ineffective.

In new research published in Nature Materials, a team of researchers led by Columbia University chemist Xiaoyang Zhu, in collaboration with fellow Columbians Xavier Roy, Milan Delor, Dmitri Basov, and James McIver, has observed coherent ferrons for the first time.

Advances in DNA sequencing have expanded our view of the microbial world, but the inability to cultivate most microbes has been a major constraint. Now, a systematic, predictive framework that combines existing genomic and computational modeling approaches to accelerate the discovery and cultivation of novel prokaryotic taxa has been proposed by KAUST researchers, in collaboration with an international team of scientists. The work is published in The ISME Journal.