Automated insulin delivery (AID) systems such as the UVA Health-developed artificial pancreas could help more type 1 diabetes patients if the devices become fully automated, according to a new review of the technology.

A team of researchers at the University of Oxford have unveiled a pioneering ‘microstent’ which could revolutionise treatment for glaucoma, a common but debilitating condition. The study has been published in The Innovation journal, Cell Press.

Cerebrovascular diseases, often driven by vascular stenosis, are notoriously difficult to study due to the complexity of brain vessel physiology. Traditional lab models fail to capture the structural and mechanical nuances of human vasculature. Now, researchers have developed a 3D-bioprinted brain vessel model that not only mimics anatomical features but also recreates realistic blood flow. This breakthrough platform offers an unprecedented opportunity to decode disease mechanisms and test therapies in a more accurate, human-relevant setting.

As bones weaken with age, the culprits may be the aging cells within. A new review uncovers how cellular changes—like senescence, inflammation, and loss of regenerative capacity—disrupt the delicate balance of bone formation and breakdown. By mapping these age-related mechanisms across multiple skeletal diseases, the study offers a clearer picture of how bones decline over time, and where potential therapies might intervene to slow or even reverse the process.

Flexible dispersion manipulation is critical for holography to achieve broadband imaging or frequency division multiplexing. Within this context, metasurface-based holography offers advanced dispersion control, yet dynamic reconfigurability remains largely unexplored. This work develops a dispersion-engineered inverse design framework that enables 3D multi-plane frequency-reconfigurable holography through a twisted metasurface system. The physical implementation is based on a compact bilayer configuration that cascades the broadband radiation-type metasurface (RA-M) and phase-only metasurface (P-M). The RA-M provides a phase-adjustable input to excite P-M, while the rotation of P-M creates a reconfigurable response of holograms. By employing the proposed scheme, dynamic switching of space-frequency multiplexing and achromatic holograms is designed and experimentally demonstrated in the microwave region. This method advances flexible dispersion engineering for metasurface-based holography, and the compact system holds significant potential for applications in near-field computational imaging/detection, high-speed high-data-capacity near-field wireless communication, and switchable meta-devices.

A review published in National Science Review highlights recent progress at the intersection of machine learning and quantum science, focusing on how AI techniques are revolutionizing the estimation and control of complex quantum systems.

New research from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa (Wits University), has shown that heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury accumulate in the scales of Black Mambas (Dendroaspis polylepis).

The study, conducted on snakes captured in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal and published in Environmental Pollution, was the first of its kind to examine heavy metal accumulation in an African snake species. The results mean that researchers can use scale clippings from these snakes to accurately measure spatial patterns of environmental pollution levels, without harming the snakes.