Lipstick vines get their name from their bright red, tube-shaped flowers. But one member of this group of plants has lost its lipstick-like appearance— its flowers are shorter, wider, and yellowish green in color. It also attracts shorter-beaked birds than its crimson cousins do, and it’s found in different places. Scientists wanted to know how this plant evolved from its lipstick-like relatives. After observing birds visiting hundreds of plants and examining the plants’ DNA, the researchers found that the story of the green flower’s evolution contradicts a long-standing scientific “rule” about how plants evolve into new species.

Researchers at AppliedPhysics.org report early evidence that cells respond selectively to mathematically structured sound, not just acoustic power. In an exploratory Biosystems study, Fibonacci based acoustic signals triggered distinct responses across different cell types, suggesting sound can be tuned to cellular size and mechanics rather than applied as brute force.

The findings point to a potential new direction for cancer research: using low intensity, physics driven acoustic design to target physical differences between cancer and healthy cells. While preliminary and based on model organisms, the work opens the door to a future of more precise, less invasive, mechanically selective therapies.

A pioneering study establishes a standardized CT angiography protocol for systematically mapping the vascular anatomy of the submental island flap, characterizing common anatomical patterns and providing surgeons with a critical preoperative planning tool to enhance the safety and reliability of this reconstructive technique.

Researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have developed deepBlastoid, the first deep-learning platform specifically designed for the high-throughput, automated classification of human stem cell-derived embryo models (blastoids). By leveraging a ResNet-18 architecture and a novel Confidence Rate metric, the model achieves up to 97% accuracy and processes images 1,000 times faster than human experts. This tool facilitates large-scale drug screening and basic research into early human development by providing a standardized, objective evaluation framework.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain a leading cause of global morbidity and mortality, with significant residual risk unexplained by traditional factors. The discovery of novel therapeutic targets or the repurposing of existing drug targets could improve the prevention and treatment for different CVDs. However, previous studies have encountered different analytic challenges, such as failing to cover the whole spectrum of CVDs, not including cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) traits or lack of large-scale replication analysis and multidimensional downstream analysis.