Experts in the News

A new study by Professor Francesca Storici’s research team along with collaborators at multiple institutions has uncovered an unexpected feature of human DNA linked to gene activity and the physical organization of DNA. The findings, published in Cell, could change how scientists think about DNA organization, transcription, and genome function.

If you dropped the exact same pulse of food onto two identical bacteria, you'd expect the exact same response. That's not what happened. In a study published in PRX Life in May 2026, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Georgia Tech found that E. coli exposed to unstable, feast-and-famine conditions adapted to new food far faster than bacteria pulled from a stable environment, even when the immediate conditions in front of them were identical.

You may think that one cell has no place to keep things such as memories. Scientists, including Josiah Kratz, a postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics, observed tens of thousands of individual E. coli bacteria through a special microfluidic apparatus and found that the cause was ribosomes, the components of the cell responsible for building proteins and determining the growth rate.

Karl Lang, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, joined FOX Weather to discuss what is driving the Nepal disaster, the risks posed by glacial lake outburst floods, and the long-term challenges communities face.

After 10 days in isolation, a group of Georgia Tech students will be returning from Arkansas having completed their first simulated Mars mission. Southeast Analog is a program run by students at Georgia Tech interested in spaceflight. 

The SEA-1 Thalassa mission included six "astronauts" on a simulated Mars habitat in Arkansas and 30 crew in mission control on campus. Students in the Southeast Analog program worked in three shifts around the clock to do astronaut training, spaceflight operations, and research.

Similar news stories: Atlanta News First, Fox 5 Atlanta, Hoodline

Dangerously high heat levels forced at least one metro Atlanta school district to pull students inside Monday as heat index values head toward triple digits this week. 

Georgia Tech biology adjunct professor Mike Sawka explained that extreme heat creates severe cardiovascular strain during exercise. "The main problem with heat stress is it puts stress on the cardiovascular system," Sawka said. "The blood flow that would normally go to the muscles has to be shared by the skin. So as you exercise, you're cheating the blood flow from the heart called your cardiac output". 

Sawka noted that extended exertion in hot weather puts the human body into overdrive, triggering a progression of severe health risks. "That can lead to either heat exhaustion, heat injury, or heat stroke, which is a continuum of serious heat illnesses, with heat stroke being the most severe," Sawka said. 

Instructors say open-ended student comments are the most valuable kind of course feedback. But reading through hundreds or thousands of such comments is time-consuming, so the insights often go unused. Georgia Tech researchers have developed an AI platform that sorts written feedback into themes, with student comments aggregated. Next steps include deploying the platform as a secure cloud service; connecting it to campus systems that manage teaching and learning; and running a pilot at Georgia Tech. • Georgia Tech lab of Gregory Mayer

In an article published by The Conversation, Professor Joseph Montoya, Postdoctoral Fellow Xing Zhou, and their collaborator discuss sargassum blooms and their impact on the Caribbean and Gulf coasts and the coasts of the tropical Atlantic. According to their research, the vast mats of smelly, brown seaweed affecting these areas may have entered a "self-sustaining cycle, effectively feeding their own expansion."

Researchers in the School of Physics, working with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, have found that standard methods for identifying chirality in topological phases fail when applied to mixed quantum states. The study reveals that established diagnostics, including bulk-boundary correspondence and the modular commutator, are unreliable in these complex systems. Consequently, the research presents two new measures, based on relative entropy, to accurately diagnose chirality and determine the chiral central charge in decohered topological phases, indicating a need for a new set of tools when investigating mixed-state topology.

A recent study by researchers from Georgia Tech’s School of Biological Sciences reveals a new connection between sulfoxaflor — a next-generation pesticide — and disruptions to bumblebee reproduction and gene expression. And while its use may be well-intentioned, it's also crippling the DNA of many worker bees responsible for our pollination. This link matters more than ever as the world slowly watches our pollinators meet an uncertain fate.

A similar story appeared in SciTech Daily.

Urban beekeeping as a hobby has grown across America. There has been a push everywhere to understand the role our pollinators play in agriculture and gardening. If you look closely around metro Atlanta, there are hives in neighborhoods, hotel rooftops, near parking decks. We begin our spotlight with the buzz of a Georgia Tech science building, home of the Georgia Tech Urban Honeybee Project's hives.

The first named storm of the hurricane season weakened Wednesday night, but forecasters warned that it still posed a threat of massive amounts of rain and continued flash flooding.

Zachary Handlos, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the potential for flash flooding will be determined by how quickly Tropical Storm Arthur moves through the region.

“What it comes down to is, is the rainfall going to park itself or become stationary over any of these locations?” Handlos said. “That is a little harder to predict.”