A computer scientist has achieved a breakthrough in a nearly 25-year-old problem involving how computers calculate distances across enormous networks. The new algorithm delivers more reliable estimates for closely connected points without sacrificing speed, overcoming a longstanding limitation of earlier methods. Its secret lies in a smarter way of sampling network connections at multiple scales.
A powerful new AI system could help doctors detect pancreatic cancer years before it becomes visible on conventional scans. The technology, called REDMOD, identified hidden warning signs an average of 475 days before diagnosis and was nearly twice as sensitive as experienced radiologists. By spotting cancer-related changes at their earliest stages, it could dramatically improve the chances of successful treatment for one of the deadliest forms of cancer.
MIT engineers have built a paper-thin swimming robot powered by living muscle cells that respond to flashes of light, allowing it to swim and steer through water. The breakthrough could pave the way for tiny, self-healing biological robots capable of exploring fragile environments that ordinary machines cannot safely navigate.
Researchers have solved a long-standing challenge in understanding how tiny defects in materials like diamond and silicon carbide behave when exposed to light. Their new computational method revealed a surprisingly important energy-loss mechanism in silicon carbide that scientists had previously underestimated. The finding helps explain a mystery that has puzzled researchers for years and could improve the design of quantum computers and sensors.
Researchers analyzing nearly 150,000 Reddit posts uncovered unexpected symptom reports linked by users to unapproved versions of retatrutide, including increased appetite, sleep disturbances, and elevated heart rates. The findings differ from clinical trial results and highlight how AI could help identify potential drug safety signals that warrant further investigation.
A new study reveals that people draw a surprisingly sharp line between human consciousness and artificial intelligence, even when both behave identically. Researchers found that participants considered even the most responsive AI less conscious than the least responsive human. Yet when asked about "awareness" instead, people judged humans and AI much more similarly.
A single-celled organism can shrink to one-quarter of its length in milliseconds using a remarkable calcium-powered protein “fishnet.” Scientists hope its unusual machinery could inspire artificial muscles capable of moving far faster than today’s designs.
AI analysis of 400,000 Reddit posts found that users of drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound reported unexpected symptoms including menstrual changes, chills, hot flashes, and fatigue. Researchers cannot say the medications caused these problems, but the patterns may reveal overlooked signals worth studying.
Researchers have found a way to perform certain quantum operations more than 1,000 times faster, cutting thousands of repeated control cycles down to just one. The advance could reduce errors and bring reliable, fault-tolerant quantum computers closer to reality.
Scientists have devised a new way to switch magnetic computer memory while using far less energy than today's leading technologies. By mathematically optimizing the pulses used to flip digital bits, the method could reduce energy consumption by several orders of magnitude. Simulations suggest it may bring future memory devices surprisingly close to the fundamental physical limit for processing information. The same idea could eventually work with electrical currents or ultrafast lasers.
Princeton researchers have tested an AI system that can monitor and control fusion plasma in milliseconds, reacting far faster than a human operator. In one experiment, it predicted a damaging instability about 200 milliseconds before it appeared and adjusted the plasma to stop it from forming.
Researchers used AI to search through more than 100 million possible settings for 3D-printing a high-performance NASA alloy. After only 40 experiments, the system identified six successful configurations, including one that worked at a record-low 500 watts. That could allow GRCop-42, currently difficult and expensive to print, to be made with much more widely available equipment.
Researchers have used AI to uncover the DNA signature of a key genetic “switch” involved in turning genes on. After analyzing about 500,000 DNA sequences, the model identified the initiator in roughly 60% of human genes. The breakthrough could help predict the effects of harmful mutations and eventually contribute to decoding the broader genetic instructions that control gene activity throughout the body.
Researchers combined synthetic DNA with a semiconductor to create an ultra-low-power memory device capable of storing and processing information in the same place. The bio-hybrid technology could eventually help make AI systems and next-generation computers far more energy efficient.
A mathematician working at Anthropic says he used the AI model Claude Fable 5 to uncover a remarkably simple counterexample to the Jacobian conjecture, a famous problem that has resisted mathematicians for more than a century. The result shows that the conjecture is false in three dimensions and above, although the original two-dimensional version remains unsolved.