The current practice of freezing embryos – used to assist reproduction in humans or animals or to conserve endangered species – routinely causes ice to form within the cells, ripping through cell membranes, changing the way proteins behave and ultimately leading to fewer viable embryos. Now a multidisciplinary team has found that speeding up the freezing process – by 30 times – prevents ice and the damage it causes.

The way bugs and birds flap their wings may look effortless, but the dynamics that keep them aloft are dizzyingly complex and difficult to quantify. Cornell researchers created a computational model that shows the effect of insects’ morphology on stabilizing their flight. The findings could lead to a new way to understand the evolution of animal flight while also providing a blueprint for designing flapping-wing robots.

By measuring the movement of soundwaves rather than the flow of heat, researchers identified a new intrinsic effect in a quantum material.