Xinyu Dong, a materials scientist at the National University of Singapore, is adapting freeze casting—a method traditionally used to build ceramic bone-repair scaffolds—to engineer hydrogels with improved structural properties. The technique involves freezing a water-based slurry in a controlled direction so ice crystals push material particles into an organized porous network, which is later preserved after the ice is removed. Dong began this work during her PhD in 2020 and has since extended the approach to aerogels and, in 2024, proposed a new variation of the freeze-casting process for hydrogels.
nature.com
· 2026-10-14
A technical deep-dive explains functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI), a technique first demonstrated by Macé et al. in 2011, which rapidly captures video of blood-flow changes in brain tissue linked to neural activity. Unlike structural ultrasound's static images, fUSI isolates rapidly changing pixels to map vasculature, and the author describes researching the topic extensively, including reading a full ultrasound textbook, because technical details are scattered across application papers and specialized books.
neuroai.science
· 2026-09-30
A new developmental biology paper examining how the vertebrate nervous system forms its major segments—forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord—was mischaracterized in press coverage as showing humans have two brains. The confusion originated from a university press release, and the underlying research actually explores how the embryo's ectoderm gives rise to distinct neural segments during development.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-23
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