Researchers from Princeton and MIT have found a way to intercept underwater messages from the air, overturning long held assumptions about the security of underwater transmissions. The team created a device that uses radar to eavesdrop on underwater acoustic signals by decoding the tiny vibrations those signals create on the water’s surface. The technique could also roughly identify the location of an underwater transmitter. In the paper, the researchers detail the technology and offer ways to guard against the attakcs it enables.

Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA — that molecular blueprint for life — over 70 years ago. Today, scientists are still uncovering new ways to read it.

In 2010, Jianxin Ma, a professor of agronomy, and his collaborators built the first reference genome for soybeans on the widely studied Williams 82 variety. Thousands of scientists and plant breeders have since used that genome in their own research on the genetic makeup underlying various characteristics, such as seed protein and oil content, plant architecture and productivity, and disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance in soybeans.

Through the last decade, Ma, who is the Indiana Soybean Alliance Inc. Endowed Chair in Soybean Improvement, has been recognized internationally for his contribution to the soybean genome as well as for his continued research and innovation in the field. His most recent work, published in The Plant Cell, used advancements in genomic research to fill in gaps of the original soybean reference genome. 

Genes aren’t the sole driver instructing cells to build multicellular structures, tissues, and organs. In a new paper published in Nature Communications, USC Stem Cell scientist Leonardo Morsut and Caltech computational biologist Matt Thomson characterize the influence of another important developmental driver: cell density, or how loosely or tightly cells are packed into a given space. In both computational models and laboratory experiments, the team of scientists used cell density as an effective tool for controlling how mouse cells pattern themselves into complex structures. The research represents progress towards the big picture goal of engineering synthetic tissues. Synthetic tissues could have endless medical applications, ranging from testing potential drugs or therapies to providing grafts or transplants for patients.

A speed record has been broken using nanoscience, which could lead to a host of new advances, including improved battery charging, biosensing, soft robotics and neuromorphic computing. Scientists have discovered a way to make ions move more than ten times faster in mixed organic ion-electronic conductors. These conductors combine the advantages of the ion signaling used by many biological systems, including the human body, with the electron signaling used by computers. The new development speeds up ion movement in these conductors by using molecules that attract and concentrate ions into a separate nanochannel creating a type of tiny “ion superhighway.”