Columbia University scientists have mapped the 3-D structure of the human sweet taste receptor, the molecular machine that allows us to taste sweet things. This could lead to the discovery of new regulators of the receptor that would significantly alter our attraction to and appetite for sugar.

Research led by climate scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) reveals that millions of today’s young people will live through unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves, crop  failures, river floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical storms under current climate policies. If  global temperatures rise by 3.5°C by 2100, 92% of children born in 2020 will experience unprecedented heatwave exposure over their lifetime, affecting 111 million children. Meeting the  Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target could protect 49 million children from this risk. This is only for one  birth year; when instead taking into account all children who are between 5 and 18 years old today, this adds up to 1.5 billion children affected under a 3.5°C scenario, and with 654 million  children that can be protected by remaining under the 1.5°C threshold. The study also highlights that children with high socioeconomic vulnerability face an even greater likelihood of  unprecedented exposure to climate extremes in their lifetime. Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed to safeguard the lives of children all around the world.

Our brain is a complex organ. Billions of nerve cells are wired in an intricate network, constantly processing signals, enabling us to recall memories or to move our bodies. Making sense of this complicated network requires a precise look into how these nerve cells are arranged and connected. “LICONN”, a new microscopy method developed by scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and Google Research, now helps piece together this puzzle. The method, which makes use of off-the-shelf light microscopes, hydrogel and deep learning, was published in Nature.

The UK will be getting a new centre to pioneer brain-inspired, energy-efficient computing technologies. The UK Multidisciplinary Centre for Neuromorphic Computing is led by Aston University and will receive £5.6 million over four years from the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The aim of the centre is to become a focal point for networking and collaboration on fundamental research and technology of neuromorphic computing to address the sustainability challenges facing today’s digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence systems.

The most effective way to harness the power of artificial intelligence when screening for breast cancer may be through collaboration with human radiologists — not by wholesale replacing them, says new research co-written by Mehmet Eren Ahsen, a professor of business administration at Illinois. 

Satellite constellation has been applied in communication, reconnaissance, navigation, and other space missions, such as GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Starlink, etc. With the rapid development of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations, mega constellation will inevitably become an important means of Earth observation and a key point in the development of future satellite technology. The configuration optimization design of LEO observation mega constellation in complex space environment is a nonlinear problem that is difficult to solve analytically. During the development, constellation design principles have shifted from the uniform coverage requirement to application requirements. However, previous method cannot provide solutions to constellation configuration optimal design based on high-precision orbital propagation.