Team cracks mystery of how flocking birds and fish schools move

New research offers a crystal-clear answer to the question of how flocks of birds and schools of fish move.

Flocking birds and schools of fish are a familiar sight. While previous research has uncovered the broad dynamics driving these movements, their underlying intricacies remain a mystery.

A study by a team of New York University mathematicians offers some new insights into these phenomena.

It reveals that flocks and schools behave in ways that are similar to a soft crystalline material, with individual birds and fish serving as “atoms” that are evenly spaced in a lattice-like formation.

The findings in the journal Physical Review Fluids offer detailed insights into the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic interactions crucial in aerospace and automotive engineering, robotics, and energy harvesting.

“Our findings offer a new way to understand how animal collectives coordinate movement and respond to their environment,” says Christiana Mavroyiakoumou, a researcher at NYU’s Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science at the time of the study and now a fellow at Oxford University’s Mathematical Institute.

“More specifically, lines of birds or fish behave like an elastic material with regularly spaced individuals held together by flexible, or spring-like, bonds—akin to soft crystalline substances in which atoms are arranged in an orderly, repeating pattern.”

“Because these movements are similar to those that form the building blocks of materials, the work opens new avenues for analyzing—and potentially manipulating—how these components interact,” adds Courant Professor Leif Ristroph, director of NYU’s Applied Mathematics Laboratory, where the research was conducted.

The laboratory previously uncovered how birds and fish move together without colliding and the underlying aerodynamics of these movements. However, the detailed nature of these orchestrated motions had been less clear.

The research team, which also included Jiajie Wu, an NYU undergraduate at the time of the study, proposed a mathematical model to explain these movements—one that was akin to those of soft crystalline materials, or soft crystals. These ordered solid materials can change their properties in response to stimuli, such as temperature or physical force, which make its atomic organization fragile. The researchers, then, saw a connection between crystalline organization and how birds or fish move together while adjusting their movements and formation in response to air or water flows, predators, or objects, such as rocks or buildings.

“Crystalline organization is inherently fragile as positions are susceptible to deformations and instabilities,” explains Mavroyiakoumou.

“In similar ways, birds and fish must sense and respond quickly to other forces in order to maintain long columnar formations. So while soft crystals, flocks of birds, and schools of fish are fragile in their makeup, such fragility may also be advantageous as it can be responsive to its surroundings.”

The study’s authors considered previous experiments to determine if the model matched these experimental results. Among these was an experiment that mimicked the columnar formations of birds—in which they line up one directly behind the other—using mechanized flappers that act like birds’ wings.

The wings were 3D-printed from plastic and driven by motors to flap in water, which captured how air flows around bird wings during flight. This “mock flock” propelled through water at different speeds and could freely arrange itself within a line or queue.

Overall, the flappers as a group behaved as the researchers had conceptualized—one of several experiments that offered support for their proposed model.

The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Source: New York University

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Artificial sweeteners may mess up your metabolism

A new study examines the emerging science suggesting a link between calorie-free sweeteners and blood sugar control.

Since the first introduction of saccharin, an array of artificial and other non-nutritive (i.e., low-calorie or calorie-free) sweeteners have become ubiquitous in the US food supply.

However, a growing body of research suggests that these compounds are not inert in the body and may be disrupting our metabolism.

A new review and meta-analysis by researchers from the Food is Medicine Institute at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, published in Current Atherosclerosis Reports, pulls together the best available evidence on how non-nutritive sweeteners affect health.

Across 21 randomized clinical trials in adults, researchers observed that artificial and other low-calorie sweeteners, compared to non-caloric controls such as water or placebo, raised fasting insulin and HbA1c, a marker of long-term blood sugar control, and showed a trend toward worsening insulin sensitivity.

“What makes our analysis notable is that by focusing on non-caloric comparators, we better isolated the direct physiological effects of the sweeteners themselves, not the calories they replace,” says first author Meng Wang, a research assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

“When pooling findings from individual trials, we see signals that these compounds may have metabolic harms.”

One explanation based on the current evidence, the researchers say, involves the gut microbiome. Non-nutritive sweeteners generally pass through the gut and come into direct contact with these microbes. In one trial they reviewed that used detailed microbiome profiling along with experiments transferring microbes from humans to mice, certain low-calorie sweeteners were shown to alter both the composition and the function of the gut microbiota.

In addition to randomized trials, the researchers reviewed large observational studies, which generally found that consuming non-nutritive sweeteners is linked to a higher risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases. The team notes that these studies have limitations as people already at risk for these conditions may be more likely to choose these products. Different sweeteners may also have different health effects, so grouping them together may obscure the full picture. Taken together with the clinical trial findings, however, the researchers say that the overall body of evidence raises concern.

“The rapidly increasing use of these sweeteners has outpaced our understanding of their long-term health effects,” says study senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute.

“Until we know more, caution is needed. If you’re replacing large amounts of added sugar in your diet, such as in multiple servings of soda, these low-calorie sweeteners may be a better alternative. But we can’t simply assume they are safe and innocuous, and avoiding them whenever possible appears a prudent choice.”

Finally, the researchers highlight a gap in US labeling policy that hinders the research. Current regulations require manufacturers to list non-nutritive sweeteners in the ingredient list, but not the amount included. This makes it difficult for researchers to accurately assess non-nutritive sweetener intake and generate more definitive evidence about their health risk in large community or population studies.

The review underscores the need for additional carefully designed randomized controlled trials of both cardiometabolic risk factors and mechanistic pathways.

Source: Tufts University

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How your brain preps your body for food

A new discovery explains how the brain prepares the body for food.

Our brain prepares the body for an incoming meal before we even take the first bite. The aroma of food simmering on the stove, for instance, can trigger the brain to send signals to the pancreas, which in turn releases insulin into the bloodstream.

A new Nature Metabolism study reveals how a key group of neurons helps mediate this process.

The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that regulates appetite through different groups of neurons, including pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons that control satiety. Emerging research is finding that these neurons are not only activated while eating, but also by the anticipation of food. However, it has remained unclear what molecular factors are driving this process.

Now, researchers have discovered that this anticipatory activation is powered by pockets of glycogen in POMC neurons. Glycogen is the main way we store energy—the body can break it down into glucose when it’s in need of fuel. Studying the neural circuitry driving hunger and satiety can help scientists better understand how to treat metabolic diseases like obesity, the researchers say.

“Obesity is a dysregulation of the feeding circuitry at the level of the brain—it’s more of a disease of a brain than a disease of the body,” says Marc Schneeberger Pane, assistant professor in cellular and molecular physiology at Yale and the study’s co-principal investigator.

“Understanding how these neurons function in physiology is an essential first step to be able to target obesity properly.”

To study how the sensory perception of food activates POMC neurons, the researchers presented mice food through a wire mesh so that the animals could see and smell it, but not eat it. Then, the team looked at which molecular signatures were activated in neurons following the presentation of food.

They discovered that food exposure activates glycogen synthase, the molecular machinery that synthesizes glycogen.

“That was the first observation that got us thinking that glycogen—how glucose gets stored for energy—is one of these molecular signatures responsible for that sensory response,” says Schneeberger Pane.

The researchers wanted to understand what glycogen was doing in these neurons. So, they engineered mouse models that lacked glycogen synthase in the POMC neurons. When the scientists exposed these mice to food, they found that the mice did not respond as strongly as their normal counterparts. They were less likely to approach food over non-edible objects, spent less time eating, and failed to produce insulin pre-feeding.

To make sure that it was the lack of glycogen causing these effects and not a developmental issue in the mutant mice, the researchers also injected normal adult mice with a virus that removed glycogen synthase. These mice were similarly non-responsive to the sight and smell of food.

“Our study identifies a previously unknown molecular mechanism driving food perception, revealing that neuronal glycogen fuels the brain’s anticipatory responses to food,” says Marc Claret, who leads the Neuronal Control of Metabolism Laboratory at the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer and the study’s co-principal investigator.

The team also explored which sensory components of food drive the activation of the neurons. They found that POMC neurons connect with the parts of the brain that process smell, but not those that process vision.

The findings challenge previously-held beliefs about the brain’s physiology. Scientists have believed the glycogen in the brain primarily resides in astrocytes, which act as support cells that provide nutrients to neurons. The study suggests that glycogen may play a more expansive role in the brain than previously thought.

The researchers also assessed the consequences of impaired POMC processing. “This sensory aspect of food prepares the organism for what is coming,” says Schneeberger Pane. The secretion of insulin, for instance, prepares the body for the change in glucose levels caused by incoming food. “Dysregulation will compromise the system’s ability to properly respond to food.”

The research team compared the mice lacking glycogen synthase with their typical counterparts as they aged. Mutant mice exhibited significantly reduced metabolic health over time—they became obese and developed indicators of prediabetes.

Obesity has become a massive global health crisis, but the emergence of novel anti-obesity drugs has been a powerful tool in curbing the pandemic. These drugs, including glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, work by targeting the circuitry that drives satiety. Better understanding of the neural circuitry underlying appetite can offer further insight into future drug development.

“These findings suggest that defects in how the brain anticipates food may contribute to obesity and diabetes, opening new therapeutic avenues for these diseases,” says Claret.

The research reported in this news article was supported by the National Institutes of Health and Yale University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Additional support was provided by the McCluskey family, the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation and Interstellar Initiative, and the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research.

Source: Yale University

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3-in-1 vax could protect against flu, COVID, and RSV

A single-shot vaccine under development could protect against flu, COVID-19, and RSV.

Flu season is no longer just flu season. Since 2022, the health care community has faced what’s known as a “tripledemic” of seasonal influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

That may mean that the flu shot needs to become more than a flu shot.

In a study in Science Advances, researchers found that their three-in-one vaccine triggered protective immunity against all three respiratory diseases in mice, ferrets, and cotton rats.

“The antibody responses were comparable to those produced by vaccines that target just a single virus, suggesting that combining the three vaccines into one shot did not weaken their effectiveness,” says corresponding author Jonathan Lovell, a professor in the biomedical engineering department, a joint program of the University at Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and a McGill University grant.

The tripledemic was associated with approximately 1 million combined hospitalizations in the United States during the 2023–2024 respiratory virus season alone.

Despite the risks, only 35% of Americans aged 75 and older had received an influenza vaccine as of November 2024. About 18% had received a COVID-19 vaccine, while 40% had received an RSV vaccine.

“We know that many people skip one or more of the three recommended respiratory vaccines, sometimes simply because it’s inconvenient,” says coauthor Bruce Davidson, research associate professor in the UB anesthesiology department. “Replacing them with one annual shot could lower the barrier and vastly improve immunization rates.”

Vaccines that protect against multiple diseases have been used for decades, but no vaccine is currently approved that combines protection against the three major respiratory viruses that drive seasonal outbreaks: flu, COVID-19, and RSV.

The single-shot vaccine uses the same vaccine platform that Lovell has been developing for more than a decade. Dubbed “CoPoP,” it consists of tiny spherical nanoparticles made of cobalt and porphyrin with an outer shell of phospholipid.

The platform works by attaching viral proteins to the nanoparticles via histidine tags—or his-tags. These short strings of amino acids have a natural affinity for metals, allowing them to form a strong bond with the cobalt ions in the nanoparticles. Once administered into the body through the vaccine, the viral proteins help train the immune system to recognize and defend against the viruses.

For this study, Lovell’s team used CoPoP to package five viral proteins—three influenza proteins and proteins from SARS-CoV-2 and RSV—into a single vaccine. To make the vaccine more potent, they also added immune-boosting ingredients known as PHAD and QS-21 to the CoPoP platform.

“CoPoP is a really flexible formulation that allows multiple viral proteins to be incorporated at once,” Lovell says.

CoPoP was also utilized for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that advanced through phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials in South Korea and the Philippines. That work was a partnership between UB spinoff company POP Biotechnologies, Inc. (POP BIO), cofounded by Lovell, and South Korean company EuBiologics.

Because it uses viral proteins rather than genetic instructions, the CoPoP approach differs from the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, which rely on mRNA technology.

The team found no evidence of immune interference, in which one vaccine component reduces the immune response to another.

However, the researchers stress that additional studies are needed to determine whether subtle interactions among the different vaccine components could affect immune responses under different dosing conditions.

“We are hopeful that this platform could be expanded further to protect against an even wider range of respiratory viruses in the future,” Lovell says.

Source: University at Buffalo

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Stride length tied to cognitive decline in dogs

New research shows cognitive decline in dogs is associated with a shorter stride length—specifically in their front limbs.

The work provides a more complete picture of dogs that are developing dementia, potentially allowing earlier detection and providing another means of monitoring progress.

“We know that in humans, changes in stride length have been linked to cognitive impairment and dementia,” says Natasha Olby, professor of neurology and a chair in gerontology at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

“That relationship hasn’t been investigated in dogs, so we created this study to examine the problem.” Olby is the corresponding author of the research.

The researchers enrolled 88 geriatric dogs with an average age of about 12 years in the study. Dogs were evaluated approximately every six months, undergoing physical, neurologic, and orthopedic examinations, mobility assessments, hearing testing, and blood work. The dogs completed a standardized cognitive test, and owners were asked to complete several questionnaires at each six-month time point, including the Canine Dementia Scale (CADES), and Canine Brief Pain Inventory (CBPI).

Gait speed was assessed by two trained observers as the dogs walked a straight, five-meter indoor walkway. Stride length was measured for both front (thoracic) and back (pelvic) limbs, then data for front limb, back limb, and height-adjusted stride length were generated.

The researchers found that owner-reported cognitive decline was associated with shorter thoracic limb stride length, adjusted for height. Higher CADES scores were also associated with reduced stride length, even after adjusting for age and CBPI scores.

A 10-point increase in CADES corresponded to an approximate 1.2% reduction in thoracic limb stride length. Interestingly, pelvic limb stride length did not correlate with cognitive changes.

“While thoracic limbs play a key role in braking and postural stabilization, pelvic limbs mainly act as a propulsion motor,” Olby says.

“Thoracic limb movement is likely under more cortical influence than pelvic limbs and may be more sensitive to alterations in visual or spatial awareness than pelvic limb movement.”

The researchers add that while stride length alone isn’t sufficient as a diagnostic tool, it is useful in creating a larger picture of a dog’s cognitive status.

“Our results show that cognitive decline does have a small effect on stride length and this could serve as an early indicator of functional decline in aging dogs,” Olby says.

“It could also serve as a useful marker of an individual dog’s overall health trajectory when it is monitored over time.”

The paper appears in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

The Dr. Kady M. Gjessing and Rhanna M. Davidson Distinguished Chair of Gerontology at NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine supported the research.

Source: North Carolina State University

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Expert breaks down the physics behind the World Cup

An expert has answers for you about the physics behind soccer’s greatest plays.

As the FIFA World Cup continues, fans will marvel at powerful shots, bending corner kicks, and spectacular saves.

“…the beautiful game is also a remarkable demonstration of science in motion.”

But behind every goal is a lesson in physics.

Michigan State University physicist Stuart Tessmer explains how forces, momentum, and even air pressure shape the world’s most popular sport.

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Listen: What the history of trash says about today’s culture

In a new podcast episode, an expert digs into what our trash problem says about our culture.

Every day, we throw things away, only to be forgotten forever. But society didn’t always work in the same way.

In this episode of the Big Brains podcast, University of Chicago scholar and anthropologist Sarah Newman discusses her book, Unmaking Waste: New Histories of Old Things (University of Chicago Press, 2026).

An archaeologist by training, Newman discusses the history of trash across time—from the ancient Mayan civilization through today’s disposable culture.

She argues that other societies valued objects much more deeply, reusing and recycling items in innovative ways. But will we ever return to this kind of zero-waste mentality?

Newman argues that true sustainability requires a radical, systemic overhaul of how products are designed, valued, and dismantled.

She challenges us to look beyond the recycling bin and imagine a world where waste isn’t just managed, but systematically unmade if we are to genuinely rethink our relationship with garbage and reshape our future.

Source: University of Chicago

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