HistotripsySpaceSoft Matter Physics
Explore the science behind the 2026 Golden Goose Awards, from ultrasound that destroys tumors to NASA’s night lights and the deep physics of everyday life.
What connects a noise complaint, holiday lights seen from space, and the physics of a coffee stain? Three unexpected paths from basic research to discoveries with real-world impact. Krishna Choudhary and Lester Nare unpack the science behind the 2026 Golden Goose Awards, tracing three research stories from their surprising beginnings to advances in cancer treatment, disaster response, and soft matter physics. First, we follow University of Michigan researcher Zhen Xu and her colleagues as they develop histotripsy: focused ultrasound that creates tiny, collapsing bubbles to mechanically break apart targeted tissue. We explain the physics of cavitation, the work needed to control it, and the progression from early experiments to clinical research on liver tumors. Along the way, we separate results in patients from promising preclinical work on immune responses and treatment through the skull. Next, NASA's Black Marble team turns Earth's nighttime lights into a tool for understanding life on the ground. From holiday celebrations to Hurricane Maria, COVID-19 lockdowns, and access to electricity, we explore how researchers extract useful signals from satellite images and what those signals can and cannot tell us. Finally, University of Chicago physicist Sidney Nagel shows how everyday puzzles can reveal deep physics. Falling drops, coffee rings, splashes, and jammed grains lead us into disordered systems, robotic grippers, and materials that can be trained to respond differently to force. Together, these stories show why the value of federally funded basic research can be difficult to predict at the outset. This is Part 1 of our Golden Goose coverage. Part 2 will feature conversations with the award-winning researchers and AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh. The episode follows the papers behind the headlines, explaining the physical mechanisms and the limits of what each study demonstrates. The histotripsy story distinguishes clinical liver-tumor research from preclinical immune and brain studies. The satellite story examines the corrections needed to interpret changing lights. The soft matter story shows how understanding disorder can become a tool for engineering.
- Scientific Reports
Tracking COVID-19 urban activity changes in the Middle East from nighttime lights
Black Marble observations of 584 urban areas in 17 Middle Eastern countries tracked changes during early COVID-19 restrictions. Comparing these patterns with earlier years helped distinguish pandemic responses from recurring changes such as Ramadan.
- Earth's Future
A Global Stocktake on Electricity Access and Gaps From NASA Black Marble Nighttime Lights
This study combines corrected nighttime-light time series with settlement and population data to map electricity-access gaps at one-kilometer resolution. It provides geographically detailed estimates that complement national surveys.
- Nature
Satellite imagery reveals increasing volatility in human night-time activity
Daily satellite observations from 2014 to 2022 reveal frequent, overlapping brightening and dimming. The study shows why a single global net increase obscures local changes associated with infrastructure, economic activity, policy, and conflict.
- Science
A Cascade of Structure in a Drop Falling from a Faucet
Experiments and simulations examine how a liquid drop separates from a faucet. Viscous drops develop a cascade of progressively smaller necks, revealing intricate behavior within an everyday fluid phenomenon.
- Nature
Capillary flow as the cause of ring stains from dried liquid drops
The original coffee-ring study explains how evaporation from a drop with a pinned edge drives outward flow. That flow carries suspended particles toward the boundary, leaving a concentrated ring after drying.
- Physical Review E
Contact line deposits in an evaporating drop
This follow-up develops the theory of flow and particle deposition in an evaporating drop in greater detail. It connects contact-line behavior and transport inside the drop to the pattern of the dried deposit.
- Nature
Suppression of the coffee-ring effect by shape-dependent capillary interactions
Changing suspended particles from spheres to elongated shapes can suppress coffee-ring deposits. Shape-dependent interactions at the liquid interface help particles resist accumulation at the edge, offering a route toward more uniform coatings.
- Physical Review E
Jamming at zero temperature and zero applied stress: The epitome of disorder
Simulations investigate how disordered particles become mechanically rigid as packing increases, without thermal motion or applied stress. The work characterizes the jamming transition that connects flowing grains with solid-like behavior.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Universal robotic gripper based on the jamming of granular material
A flexible bag of grains conforms to an object and becomes rigid when a vacuum is applied. The resulting robotic gripper can hold diverse shapes using granular jamming, with friction, suction, and interlocking contributing to its grip.
- Physical Review Letters
Drop Splashing on a Dry Smooth Surface
High-speed experiments show that ambient gas pressure can determine whether a drop splashes on a smooth, dry surface. Lowering pressure can suppress the splash, demonstrating that the surrounding gas is part of the mechanism.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Training and retraining liquid crystal elastomer metamaterials for pluripotent functionality
Disordered liquid-crystal-elastomer networks can be trained to change their mechanical response, then reset and retrained. The study demonstrates tunable behavior including an auxetic response and another localized mechanical function.
- Radiology
The #HOPE4LIVER Single-Arm Pivotal Trial for Histotripsy of Primary and Metastatic Liver Tumors
The prospective HOPE4LIVER trials evaluated histotripsy for primary and metastatic liver tumors. The study met its technical-success and safety endpoints; those endpoints should be distinguished from proof of long-term cancer control or cure.
- Earth's Future
Holidays in lights: Tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services
Satellite observations show changes in nighttime lighting around Christmas, New Year, and Ramadan. The study connects energy-use patterns with cultural and social routines rather than treating electricity demand as purely economic.
- Remote Sensing of Environment
NASA's Black Marble nighttime lights product suite
The foundational Black Marble methods paper describes a nighttime-light product suite derived from satellite observations. Corrections for effects such as moonlight and atmospheric conditions help turn raw radiance into useful measurements of human activity.
- PLOS ONE
Satellite-based assessment of electricity restoration efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
Nighttime satellite data tracked electricity loss and restoration after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Combining observations with other spatial data revealed large differences in the duration of outages and recovery across communities.
- IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
Controlled Ultrasound Tissue Erosion
An early laboratory study tested whether focused ultrasound could erode tissue in a controlled way. Motivated by congenital heart disease, it helped establish the experimental foundations of histotripsy rather than a ready-to-use clinical treatment.
- IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
Histotripsy beyond the intrinsic cavitation threshold using very short ultrasound pulses: microtripsy
Very short ultrasound pulses can confine cavitation to the part of the focal region that exceeds a pressure threshold. This microtripsy approach offers precise control over where tissue disruption occurs.
- Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
Non-thermal histotripsy tumor ablation promotes abscopal immune responses that enhance cancer immunotherapy
In mouse tumor models, mechanical histotripsy ablation stimulated immune responses at treated and untreated sites and enhanced checkpoint immunotherapy. These are preclinical findings, not evidence of the same benefit in human patients.
- Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology
Transcranial Magnetic Resonance-Guided Histotripsy for Brain Surgery: Pre-clinical Investigation
This preclinical investigation tested MRI-guided histotripsy in pig brains through an excised human skull. It explored whether ultrasound could create localized tissue disruption despite the acoustic challenges posed by skull bone.
- EP 58
What OpenAI Actually Did to Navier-Stokes
From Newton’s laws to finite-time blowup: what OpenAI’s Navier-Stokes claim means for fluid mathematics, scientific credit and AI research.
- EP 57
What’s Next in Science? Nobel Prizes, Space Missions & More
Nobel season, the value of basic research, and the space missions to watch: Roman, Mars’ moons and Mercury. Plus a tour of FFP’s favorite episodes.
- EP 56
The Yak Mutation That Could Help Repair the Brain
A high-altitude genetic adaptation led researchers to a new neuron-to-glia signaling pathway that promotes myelin repair in preclinical models.
- EP 55
Why Spin Qubits Will Win the Quantum Race (Part 2)
Part II of our quantum computing deep dive compares the leading hardware architectures, and asks whether silicon’s greatest advantage is not simply making good qubits, but making quantum computers that can actually scale.
