Research papers, breakthroughs, and academic work.
30 stories
Google DeepMind, Meta, and Isomorphic Labs are jointly investing $300 million into Biohub, a nonprofit co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg, to create AI datasets for a "virtual cell" project aimed at digital disease research.
NVIDIA's Nemotron 3 foundation model has been fine-tuned to achieve gold-medal level results in both the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) and the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) 2026.
Israeli scientists have developed 'Brain-IT', an AI system that reconstructs images from thoughts using fMRI data. It offers a faster and more accurate method for thought-to-image translation.
JNU professor Suneel Kateriya's doctoral research in Germany, identifying light-sensing genes in a single-celled alga, formed a crucial foundation for optogenetics, the technology recognized by the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Anthropic's AI, Claude, has identified a novel enzyme system in bacteriophages, featuring DNA repeats similar to CRISPR. This discovery, made with minimal human direction, highlights AI's potential in accelerating biological research.
Karl Deisseroth, an American neuroscientist and psychiatrist, has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside two German scientists for their optogenetics discoveries.
This edition of The Download covers a new competition challenging participants to biologically de-age over six months, alongside an opinion piece arguing that current large language models (LLMs) lack true reasoning capabilities.
A new competition called "Younger" challenges 500 participants to reverse their biological age over six months, aiming to generate a comprehensive dataset on aging clocks.
Anthropic announced its AI-powered molecular biology lab made a scientific discovery, identifying a novel repeating pattern around a known enzyme. This claim has drawn criticism from biologists who argue the AI performed 'grunt work' rather than a true breakthrough.
Two graduates from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Rawan Alghamdi and Banan Alhazmi, have been awarded the prestigious MIT–KACST Ibn Khaldun Fellowship for Saudi Arabian Women.
AI model Claude discovered a new molecular machine in virus DNA, named ART. While intriguing, its function and utility are currently unknown.
A Chinese study suggests a pathway connecting the spleen to the brain may explain why women are more prone to cognitive decline with age, identifying a microRNA called miR-10a-5p.
Rhizomatica has developed HERMES, an open-source digital shortwave radio system that offers improved data rates and encryption for remote locations, utilizing the ionosphere as a communication medium.
China's Ministry of Science and Technology reported that in 2025, the nation's science popularization workforce grew to over 2.25 million, with funding reaching nearly 24.4 billion yuan, marking significant increases from the previous year.
The 2026 World Public Science Literacy Promotion Conference commenced in Beijing, with Li Shulei and Wang Guangqian delivering speeches. The event highlighted China's efforts in enhancing science literacy and fostering international cooperation, particularly in the contex…
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea is offering a scholarship for Pakistani students to pursue graduate studies in various science and technology fields.
Mathematicians express deep concerns about AI's impact on attribution and the future of their field, yet many, including those who accuse AI companies of using their work without credit, continue to use AI tools for research and writing due to their efficiency.
AI research company Anthropic has a wet biology lab in the Bay Area where it uses AI models for real experiments. The company has faced backlash for potential competition with the pharma industry and has launched a verification program for bio researchers.
New AI-powered software called TACLS uses satellite data and machine learning to help meteorologists predict flash floods sooner, potentially saving lives.
Scientists have identified a new wild cat species, the Tilcayo tiger cat, in Bolivia's Yungas region, marking the first such discovery in over a century.
Anthropic's Claude AI has significantly optimized open-source biomolecular modeling tools, achieving an average 4x speedup and enabling larger system predictions on single GPUs. This advancement makes complex protein design and drug discovery research more accessible.
A newsletter highlights scientific advancements like mice with human brain cells and digital organ twins, alongside AI developments including new safety proposals, ethical concerns at OpenAI, and AI's first major forecasting win.
WIRED's AI Lab newsletter explores a project that uses a fruit fly's brain to generate story ideas.
China has surpassed its phased compliance goals for the Montreal Protocol, significantly reducing ozone-depleting substances and contributing to global environmental governance.
Researchers at the University of Manchester are using NVIDIA's Earth-2 AI platform to forecast air pollution across the UK. This approach significantly reduces computational costs compared to traditional methods, enabling more detailed and frequent predictions.
Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) may exhibit a failure mode where function values are accurate but derivatives are not, a problem highlighted by new benchmark evidence.
The 2026 Pujiang Innovation Forum unveiled the "Shanghai Declaration," advocating for open sharing of scientific data in the AI era and calling for a global, collaborative data governance ecosystem. It outlines eight action directions to integrate data elements into scien…
Chinese researchers have significantly improved the durability of wurtzite ferroelectrics, a promising next-generation memory material, achieving 10 billion writing cycles.
Chinese Fields Medal winner Deng Yu humorously stated he would write yuri novels if AI solved all mathematical problems, reflecting a broader sentiment of unease within the mathematics community regarding AI's rapid advancements.
MIT Technology Review highlights nine young innovators under 35 who are transforming biotechnology, with five featured for their groundbreaking work in areas like maternal health, brain interfaces, gene therapy, age reversal, and AI-designed viruses.