Science & Tech
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How Harvard scientists built genomics outpost on Gloucester harbor
It started with idea to help beleaguered fishermen. Now marine science lab promotes healthy fisheries, trains local workforce, seeks clues to longevity
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Taming the Duck, for starters
David Malan says CS50’s AI tutor is a net positive — and getting better
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‘Lately, my algorithm is trash’
Are we shaping our feeds or are they shaping us?
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Curios and curiouser
With exhibits including a dodo, fish mummified in pearl, and a ‘King Kong’-connected Komodo, ‘discovering the stories is one of the best jobs’
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One effort to safeguard humanity: AI ‘constitutions’
Berkman Klein Center heard calls to keep models ‘honest, helpful, harmless.’ It’s a work in progress.
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Chatbot attachment issues
When AI companions get a personality update, some users respond with grief, study finds
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Seeding solutions for bipolar disorder
Brain Science grants promote new approaches to treat the condition and discover underlying causes
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Researchers uncover surprising limit on human imagination
Humans can track a handful of objects visually, but their imaginations can only handle one
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Possible clue into movement disorders like Parkinson’s, others
Rodent study suggests different signaling ‘languages’ in parts of brain for learned skills, natural behaviors
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‘Turning information into something physical’
Houghton exhibit looks at how punched cards — invented 300 years ago to streamline weaving — led to modern computing
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How do math, reading skills overlap? Researchers were closing in on answers.
Grant terminated at critical point of ambitious study following students for five years
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AI leaps from math dunce to whiz
Experts describe how rapid advances are transforming field and classroom and expanding idea of what’s possible — ‘sky’s the limit’
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Taking a second look at executive function
New study suggests what has long been considered innate aspect of human cognition may be more a matter of schooling
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You’re a deer mouse, and bird is diving at you. What to do? Depends.
Neural study shows how evolution prepared two species to adopt different survival strategies to take advantage of native habitats
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A step toward solving central mystery of life on Earth
Experiment with synthetic self-assembling materials suggests how it all might have begun
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Snapshots from front lines of federal research funding cuts
Faculty detail scramble to save work and talented researchers, both those in labs and in pipeline
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Does AI understand?
It may be getting smarter, but it’s not thinking like humans (yet), say experts
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Ancient DNA solves mystery of Hungarian, Finnish language family’s origins
Parent emerged over 4,000 years ago in Siberia, farther east than many thought, then rapidly spread west
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Hot dispute over impact
Harvard team argues oldest meteorite strike to Earth may be more recent, smaller than claimed; site may offer hints on asteroid craters, life on Mars
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Long in the tooth
Research finds 18-million-year-old enamel proteins in mammal fossils, offering window into how prehistoric animals lived, evolved
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3 tech solutions to societal needs will get help moving to market
Projects targeting heart health, data demands, quantum computing win Grid Accelerator awards
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Mounting case against notion that boys are born better at math
Elizabeth Spelke studies French testing data, finds no gender gap until instruction begins
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Highly sensitive science
David Ginty probes pleasure and pain to shed light on autism and other conditions
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Can AI be as irrational as we are? (Or even more so?)
Psychologists found OpenAI’s GPT-4o showing humanlike patterns of cognitive dissonance, sensitivity to free choice
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Stealing a ‘superpower’
Study finds some sea slugs consume algae, incorporate photosynthetic parts into their own bodies to keep producing nutrients
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Reading skills — and struggles — manifest earlier than thought
New finding underscores need to intervene before kids start school, say researchers
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Shining light on scientific superstar
Vera Rubin, whose dark-matter discoveries changed astronomy and physics, gets her due with namesake observatory, commemorative quarter
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A taste for microbes
New research reveals how the octopus uses arms to sense chemical clues from microbiomes
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Out of sight but not out of mind
By 15 months, children can learn the names of objects they’ve never seen
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A step in fight against tick-borne disease
New molecular method differentiates sexes, reveals whether females have mated
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Still waiting
75 years after Fermi’s paradox, are we any closer to finding extraterrestrial life?
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Numbers tell one story about climate change. People tell another.
Policy expert Dustin Tingley studies transition to renewable energy, knows from work, life how economic shifts rattle through communities
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Social media fueled divisions. Teaming up may help heal.
Study finds pairing members of opposing parties on the same side to compete in specially designed quiz eases partisanship
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‘We’re still standing … We can still do important work’
Climate researchers wrestling with losses of federal funding, data, and key tools
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Why are you cursing?
Steven Pinker breaks down the history of taboo words, different categories of swearing, and the meaning conveyed by a bleep
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Science that gives humans more say over their destinies
David Liu’s gene-editing technologies demonstrate game-changing potential in two recent cases