ScienceDaily: Computers & Math News

Researchers made the first observations of waves of atomic rearrangements, known as phasons, propagating supersonically through a vibrating crystal lattice -- a discovery that may dramatically improve heat transport in insulators and enable new strategies for heat management in future electronics devices.

The world is a big place, but it's gotten smaller with the advent of technologies that put people from across the globe in the palm of one's hand. And as the world has shrunk, it has also demanded that things happen ever faster -- including the time it takes to charge an electronic device.

A robotic system has been developed to automate the production of human mini-organs derived from stem cells. The ability to rapidly, mass produce organoids promises to expand the use of mini-organs in basic research and drug discovery. The system was tested in producing kidney organoids, including models of polycystic kidney disease. The robots were also programmed to analyze the organoids they produced.

A collaborative team of researchers from three major academic medical centers in New York City is showing that emergency contact information, which is included in individuals' electronic health records (EHRs), can be used to generate family trees. Those family trees in turn can be used to study heritability in hundreds of medical conditions.