Black Friday is this week, and nearly every major retailer is offering discounts and deals on tech, like HBO Max for $3 per month. [...]

There is growing attention on the links between artificial intelligence and increased energy demands. But while the power-hungry data centers being built to support AI could potentially stress electricity grids, increase customer prices and service interruptions, and generally slow the transition to clean energy, the use of artificial intelligence can [...]

Europe is investing in a coordinated effort to develop high-power optical vortex technologies and train new specialists in the field. The HiPOVor network unites academia and industry to advance applications ranging from material processing to environmentally friendly photonic systems. [...]

The first fully biodegradable and biocompatible piezoelectric chitosan nanoparticle uses ultrasound to trigger localized stress signals in glioblastoma cells, reducing proliferation and promoting apoptosis. [...]

A new one-step process miniaturises OLEDs to smaller than their emitted wavelength, enabling precise control of light direction and polarisation for displays, sensors and optical uses. [...]

Welcome back to The State of AI, a new collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Every Monday, writers from both publications debate one aspect of the generative AI revolution reshaping global power. In this week’s conversation MIT Technology Review’s senior reporter for features and investigations, Eileen Guo, and [...]

In 2017, fresh off a PhD on theoretical chemistry, John Jumper heard rumors that Google DeepMind had moved on from building AI that played games with superhuman skill and was starting up a secret project to predict the structures of proteins. He applied for a job. Just three years later, Jumper [...]

Black Friday is less than a week away, but Amazon's Black Friday deals are already here. These are my favorite deals so far, like the Oura Ring 4 for 30% off. [...]

Gone are the days of drifting off and waking up a whole season later. [...]

A new study reveals African lions produce two types of roars, overturning long-held assumptions and opening the door to more precise wildlife monitoring. Using machine learning, researchers automatically distinguished between full-throated and newly identified intermediary roars with over 95% accuracy, eliminating much of the human bias in vocal identification. [...]

A nitrogen cycling bacterium turns toxic solvent wastewater into biodegradable plastic, using the solvent itself to block competing microbes and enable stable nonsterile production. [...]

About 4.5 billion years ago, a colossal impact between the young Earth and a mysterious planetary body called Theia changed everything—reshaping Earth, forming the Moon, and scattering clues across space rocks. By examining subtle isotopic fingerprints in Earth and Moon samples, scientists have reconstructed Theia’s possible composition and birthplace. [...]

A new recycling method breaks mixed plastics into their building blocks and selectively rebuilds each one, turning multilayer packaging and complex waste into usable materials again. [...]

Scientists flew the XL-Calibur telescope on a high-altitude balloon to measure polarized X-rays from Cygnus X-1. These measurements reveal details about the chaotic, superheated material swirling around black holes. The team also captured data from the Crab pulsar and achieved multiple technical breakthroughs during the 2024 mission. Another flight from [...]

Black Friday is less than a week away, and I'm already tracking great deals on TVs and home theater equipment from Samsung, Sony, and more live. [...]

Researchers discovered that copper oxide catalysts form metallic copper mid-reaction, triggering a dramatic boost in ammonia output. The insight offers a roadmap for designing cleaner, more efficient ammonia-production technologies. [...]

A new study demonstrates that an AI assistant can conduct psychiatric assessment interviews with greater diagnostic accuracy than widely used mental health rating scales. In a sample of 303 participants with confirmed psychiatric conditions, the AI assistant Alba provided DSM-based diagnostic suggestions after a brief conversational interview, outperforming rating scales [...]

A team of researchers used a massive dance video dataset and advanced AI models to map how the human brain interprets dance, revealing striking differences between experts and nonexperts. By pairing fMRI recordings with AI-derived cross-modal features, they found that higher-order brain regions outperform simple motion or sound cues when [...]

Digital resilience—the ability to prevent, withstand, and recover from digital disruptions—has long been a strategic priority for enterprises. With the rise of agentic AI, the urgency for robust resilience is greater than ever. Agentic AI represents a new generation of autonomous systems capable of proactive planning, reasoning, and executing tasks with [...]

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can write an essay or plan a menu almost instantly. But until recently, it was also easy to stump them. The models, which rely on language patterns to respond to users’ queries, often failed at math problems and were not good at complex reasoning. [...]

Manufacturing is getting a major system upgrade. As AI amplifies existing technologies—like digital twins, the cloud, edge computing, and the industrial internet of things (IIoT)—it is enabling factory operations teams to shift from reactive, isolated problem-solving to proactive, systemwide optimization. Digital twins—physically accurate virtual representations of a piece of equipment, a [...]

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is the go-to method for designing most of today’s physical products. Engineers use CAD to turn 2D sketches into 3D models that they can then test and refine before sending a final version to a production line. But the software is notoriously complicated to learn, with thousands [...]

“We’re here to talk about really substantive changes, and we want you to be a participant in that,” said Desirée Plata, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Climate and Energy in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Energizing@MIT: the MIT Energy Initiative’s (MITEI) Annual Research Conference that [...]

Electrons can freeze into strange geometric crystals and then melt back into liquid-like motion under the right quantum conditions. Researchers identified how to tune these transitions and even discovered a bizarre “pinball” state where some electrons stay locked in place while others dart around freely. Their simulations help explain how [...]

Aalto University researchers have developed a method to execute AI tensor operations using just one pass of light. By encoding data directly into light waves, they enable calculations to occur naturally and simultaneously. The approach works passively, without electronics, and could soon be integrated into photonic chips. If adopted, it [...]

Researchers have created a prediction method that comes startlingly close to real-world results. It works by aiming for strong alignment with actual values rather than simply reducing mistakes. Tests on medical and health data showed it often outperforms classic approaches. The discovery could reshape how scientists make reliable forecasts. [...]

Researchers showed that large language models use a small, specialized subset of parameters to perform Theory-of-Mind reasoning, despite activating their full network for every task. This sparse internal circuitry depends heavily on positional encoding, especially rotary positional encoding, which shapes how the model tracks beliefs and perspectives. [...]

USC researchers built artificial neurons that replicate real brain processes using ion-based diffusive memristors. These devices emulate how neurons use chemicals to transmit and process signals, offering massive energy and size advantages. The technology may enable brain-like, hardware-based learning systems. It could transform AI into something closer to natural intelligence. [...]