Never-before-seen 3D reconstructions of human liver tissue have been created at a cellular level. The details capture the spatial microstructure of multiple lobes of this multitasking organ. The reconstructions show how cirrhosis rearranges this intricate architecture and thereby alter the organ's biological activities. In addition, 3D liver maps with a high degree of cellular detail are critical to someday realizing the dream of bioprinting new organs for transplantation. 

Researchers at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA) and UT Knoxville have received a $362,000 grant to develop an automated sensor network to improve monitoring of compost piles.

Self-isolating when infected may be a natural survival strategy, says new University of Warwick led study - and policymakers can harness it for future epidemics

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Leipzig) have shown how natural ocean cycles and rainfall patterns prevent a synchronised, planet‑wide drought and global-scale agricultural collapse. Based on over 100 years of climate data, the study finds that though warming increases drought severity, synchronised droughts are rarer than expected, affecting only 1.8–6.5% of land at any time. By treating droughts as a connected global system, the research team has identified key “drought hubs” and early‑warning regions that can help stabilise food markets.

Orbitronics devices use an electron’s orbital angular momentum to store and process more information, much more efficiently. Typically, generating orbital currents requires magnetic metals that are heavy and expensive. For the first time ever, researchers prove that atomic vibrations can transfer orbital angular momentum directly to electrons in a non-magnetic material, quartz. The method will work on other chiral materials, such as tellurium, selenium and hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites, and is the most streamlined system yet for orbitronics research.

A lot has changed on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus since its founding in 1867, but a storied plot of land near the south quad has been preserved nearly intact for a century and a half. The Morrow Plots, famed in song and story, represent the oldest continuously running agricultural experiment in North America, and are the second oldest in the world. And this year, they turn 150.