Professor Tim Vogels from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) will receive $3 million as part of an ambitious new $80 million international research initiative exploring how energy shapes brain function. Contributing his expertise in computational neuroscience to the 10-year collaboration launched by the New York-based Simons Foundation, Vogels will develop computer models to investigate how the brain's energy supply affects its ability to process information and learn.

McGill researchers have developed a new way to study why the same heart-failure treatment can help some patients recover while others continue to get worse.

Combining “heart-in-a-dish” technology with advanced microscopy, the approach makes it possible to identify differences between patients that would probably be missed using conventional methods.

How did the human brain become so much larger than that of our closest evolutionary relatives? Part of the answer lies not in new genes, but in how humans and non-human apes use the genes they share. Using lab-grown brain organoids, an international team led by Prof. Mareike Albert at TUD Dresden University of Technology compared early brain development in humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas. They found that in humans, genetic switches make certain genes more active, which likely make the cells that build the brain more branched – a trait linked to producing more neurons and, in turn, a bigger brain. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers investigated how quantum computing could improve machine learning when healthcare data are limited. Testing five computing frameworks, the team found that a quantum support vector machine using D-Wave Quantum Inc. technology achieved up to 94.31% accuracy in predicting lung cancer from symptoms and risk factors. The findings demonstrate the potential of quantum machine learning for healthcare applications, while representing preliminary results that require further validation before clinical use.

Real-time precise point positioning (RT-PPP) depends on accurate satellite clock products, but phase jumps, frequency jumps and complex clock anomalies can destabilize network clock estimation. 

Heat transfer from a heated wall depends on the behavior of the thin layer of air rising along its surface. Researchers from the National Institute of Technology, Hachinohe College, Shibaura Institute of Technology and The University of Tokyo, Japan, used mirror-assisted three-dimensional background-oriented schlieren imaging to reconstruct changes in air density over 33 milliseconds. They observed smooth, sheet-like structures breaking into tilted, fragmented patterns farther downstream. The findings provide experimental insight into near-wall flow transition.