OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology)

How fast does smoke rise, rain fall, and a supernova explode? Fluid simulation at an unprecedented scale provides a new scientific toolkit for fundamental physics and applied fluid engineering.

“If the three-body problem is complex, imagine the 100,000-body problem.” Unprecedented simulation of sediment-filled fluids mixing uncovers new behaviors and enables new studies of supernovae, chemical refining, and beyond. @physrevlett.bsky.social www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Writing the catalog of plasma membrane repair proteins New study identifies 80 proteins involved in plasma membrane repair in budding yeast, laying the foundation for membrane repair studies and future therapeutic applications.

New catalog of plasma membrane repair proteins – including 72 newly identified – published in @elife.bsky.social helps establish baseline for future therapeutic applications and fundamental evolutionary cell research 👇 www.oist.jp/news-center/...

High-throughput phenomics of global ant biodiversity - Nature Methods Antscan is a publicly accessible database of synchrotron X-ray CT images of ants. The database covers almost 800 species from more than 200 genera and is coordinated with genome sequencing projects th...

Find the study here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Reconstructing the world’s ant diversity in 3D Antscan provides open access to high-resolution micro-CT scans of 800 different ant species and a revolutionary blueprint for large-scale digitization of small organisms.

Scientists, artists, and educators now have free access to more than 2000 high-resolution 3D ant models covering most ant genera, created from micro-CT scans. Read more about the revolutionary Antscan project in a new @natmethods.nature.com study @economo.bsky.social www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Explore our fully funded research internship or PhD program, offered in English within an international and diverse research community.

We are accepting applications now!

Research internship program: shorturl.at/fR7qB
PhD program: shorturl.at/clsx5

Social pressure forces baby clownfish to lose their bars faster Researchers investigate how and why fish color patterns form and change, revealing insights into the evolutionary origins of this environmental adaptability

Did you know #clownfish change their appearance at different rates as they age? A new PLOS Biology study reveals how and why the fish patterns change : www.oist.jp/news-center/...

🟢Visual Omics Series 14🟢 Do the same fungal species behave similarly across distant locations regardless of environment? We examined through multi-omics analysis. Colour theme inspired by Claude Monet's Water Lilies. @jgi.doe.gov @oistedu.bsky.social 🔗https://shorturl.at/fp5j9
#fungi #genomics 🍄

You can find the two papers here: journals.aps.org/pra/abstract... and journals.aps.org/pra/abstract...

A new class of strange one-dimensional particles For the first time, researchers describe the properties of one-dimensional anyons and provide the recipe for observing these particles with present-day setups.

Every particle in the universe is either a fermion or a boson – why not something in between? Two new @physreva.bsky.social papers describe one-dimensional anyons and provide the recipe for observing this mysterious third class of particles 👇 @ou.edu www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Quantum batteries could supercharge the future of quantum computing A new quantum-battery‑powered architecture could make future quantum computers faster, more efficient and easier to scale.

Scientists have unveiled a new way to power quantum computers using tiny quantum batteries - a step that could make future machines faster, more reliable, and far more energy-efficient.

Read the study by CSIRO, University of Queensland, and OIST: www.oist.jp/news-center/...

How do ecosystems respond to change? Ecologists exploring this question came together at an OIST Visiting Program symposium, where they formed the new Response Diversity Network. New survey shows the need for better sharing of scientific insights. nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Working Memory and Self-Directed Inner Speech Enhance Multitask Generalization in Active Inference Abstract. This simulation study shows how a set of working memory tasks can be acquired simultaneously through interaction between a stacked recurrent neural network (RNN) and multiple working memorie...

Read the full article in @mitpress.bsky.social Neural Computation: doi.org/10.1162/NECO...

AI learns better when it talks to itself Inner speech combined with working memory helps AI to learn and generalize across tasks

Inner monologues help us organize our thoughts. But it’s not just humans who can reap the benefits of self-talk. In @mitpress.bsky.social , OIST study finds AI can learn better when it talks to itself. www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Quantum ‘alchemy’ made feasible with excitons Researchers demonstrate a powerful new approach to Floquet engineering, which for decades has sought to imbue ‘trivial’ materials with exotic quantum properties.

What if you could create #quantum materials just by shining a light at semiconductors? Groundbreaking new @natphys.nature.com study brings this closer to practical realization with powerful excitonic Floquet effects 👇 www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Mass extinction triggered the early radiations of jawed vertebrates and their jawless relatives (gnathostomes) A mass extinction 445 million years ago triggered the rapid rise of armored and jawed vertebrates.

doi.org/10.1126/scia...

The Age of Fishes began with mass death New fossil database gives unique insights into the earliest vertebrate ecosystems, revealing how mass extinction events are key drivers of evolutionary diversification.

Mass extinctions drive biodiversity over millions of years. New study brings together the Ordovician fossil record, revealing how the evolution of jaws began in what is now South China and giving key insights into the ecology of the ancients👇 www.oist.jp/news-center/... #ScienceAdvances

Superradiant spins show teamwork at the quantum scale Powerful self-driven microwave signals open new possibilities in quantum sensing and communication.

New in @natphys.nature.com, OIST and @tuwien.at researchers demonstrate self-induced superradiant masing—a new quantum phenomenon which can open pathways for precision sensing, navigation, and communication technologies 🧪

Learn more: www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Full paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

OIST News Read web articles and press releases about OIST.

Hi Dani, we are a science and technology graduate school and our research spans both applied and theoretical STEM fields. You can see some of our latest research news here: www.oist.jp/about/news-c... We would love to join the feed!

The evolution of cheaper workers facilitated larger societies and accelerated diversification in ants Ants rose by favoring the power of many over the might of few.

Read the new #ScienceAdvances by researchers from OIST, University of Maryland, and @cam.ac.uk 👇 doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Ant societies rose by trading individual protection for collective power Building prolific ant legions takes tons of resources—but a new study finds that certain species cut corners by skimping out on protective armor.

Quality vs quantity, which is better? This ancient biological question has now received an answer for ants: larger colonies of ‘weaker’ ants were found to be more successful than smaller colonies of ‘stronger’ ants 👇 www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Disappointment alters brain chemistry and behavior Mouse study shows the importance of acetylcholine in behavioral flexibility, shedding light on addiction and OCD brain mechanisms.

In any given situation, we need to adapt our behavior for success. In @natcomms.nature.com , OIST researchers describe the neural basis of behavioral flexibility in mice, with insights which may help us understand a wide variety of diseases and disorders. www.oist.jp/news-center/...

'Jumping genes’ help scientists resolve tree of life Termite study provides researchers with template to solve ancient evolutionary mysteries.

In @currentbiology.bsky.social, scientists crack ambiguities in trees of life by using ‘jumping genes’. The new method can transform the way we evaluate evolutionary relationships in deep time. Learn more www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Or read the full paper doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Phylogenomics clarifies Balanophora evolution, metabolic retention in reduced plastids, and the origins of obligate agamospermy Holoparasitic plants are nongreen plants that depend entirely on their host plants for essential resources. The transition to parasitism often results in functional reduction and gene loss, but its ...

Find the study here 👇 @petrasvetlikova.bsky.social @filiphusnik.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The evolutionary mysteries of a rare parasitic plant New study maps the strange genomes of Asia-Pacific Balanophora species, giving new insights into the evolution of parasitic plants and an unconventional role of plastids.

The rare, mushroom-like Balanophora plant surprises researchers with their genetic makeup and unconventional role of plastids in biosynthesis, despite being entirely parasitic of a select few trees. New study in @newphyt.bsky.social 👇 www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Free radicals caught in the act with slow spectroscopy New experimental setup detects the faint signals of electrons, shedding new light on the physics of photodegradation and other long-term photoemission processes.

Why does paint fade – at the atomic level? New #ScienceAdvances paper shows the benefits of taking it slow with ingenious spectroscopy redesign. www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Cancer loses its sense of time to avoid stress responses New insights into mitotic stopwatch show how cancer escapes cell death and cell division arrest.

New in @natcomms.nature.com, OIST researchers describe how cancer cells lose their sense of time to evade stress responses – revealing new insights that could shape anti-cancer treatments. www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Or read the full paper at www.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66341-3

Animal behaviour: AI can help fill the gap Researchers from Cologne developed an AI method to recover missing data from animal movement recordings and to efficiently quantify behaviour / publication in “Nature Methods”

Or read the press summary by @unicologne.bsky.social

www.uni-koeln.de/en/universit...

Deep Imputation for Skeleton data (DISK) for behavioral science - Nature Methods Analysis of behavioral data often involves tracking animal keypoints in video and motion capture recordings. DISK imputes missing keypoints, thereby improving downstream analyses.

Neuroscientists rely on observations to decode animal behavior - but missing data often slows progress. OIST and global collaborators developed an AI method to bridge these gaps. Read the paper in Nature Methods 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes - Nature Analysis of eukaryotic gene sequences using a relaxed molecular clock methodology indicate that eukaryotes emerged 3.0–2.25 billion years ago as a result of mitochondrial endosymbiosis with complex archaea that already possessed an elaborated cytoskeleton, membrane trafficking, endomembrane, phagocytotic machinery and a nucleus.

Read the study here, which featured researchers from OIST, @bristoluni.bsky.social, @niozsearesearch.bsky.social and @uniofbath.bsky.social 👇https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09808-z

Complex life developed earlier than previously thought New evidence-based evolutionary model provides access to the beginning of complex life with unprecedented accuracy.

New evidence-based model of the evolution stretches out the differentiation of eukaryotes from prokaryotes over billions of years and places development of mitochondria much later than other cell structures. New @nature.com study 👇 @ssolo.bsky.social www.oist.jp/news-center/...