AI News

Well-known Hollywood actor and lesser-known Silicon Valley investor Ashton Kutcher is leaving the venture capital firm he co-founded more than a decade ago, as he pivots to new bets on the resources and tech needed to support AI. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Kutcher is stepping away from Sound Ventures to start a new firm with Morgan Beller. Beller recently served as a general partner at venture firm NFX and previously helped create Meta

Credit: Kaitlyn Johnson/Texas A&M Engineering Doorbell cameras are already used for home security. But what if they could save you money on your water bill? Researchers from Texas A&M University have developed an innovative irrigation system that combines doorbell cameras and artificial intelligence (AI) to make lawn irrigation more efficient. Their recent paper details this sustainable irrigation system, dubbed ERIC by the researchers. The work is publish

Air ducts are a promising but challenging domain for drones. Credit: npj Robotics (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44182-025-00032-5 New research published in npj Robotics addresses the challenge of flying small quadrotors in air ducts as small as 35 cm (14 inches). This research, led by a team of researchers from Inria, CNRS, Université de Lorraine, and Aix-Marseille Université, opens a new way of accessing and inspecting highly-confined environments. Air ducts are

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Offshore wind power could provide far more electricity than the U.S. uses for residential, commercial and industrial purposes. But the federal government has recently stopped approving offshore projects in the ocean. Another option is available, though: the Great Lakes, where we are based as water policy researchers, and where state agencies rather than federal officials are the trustees of the lakes. A January 2025 execut

Datasets used to train AI algorithms may underrepresent older people. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain New technologies usually follow the technology adoption life cycle. Innovators and early adopters rush to embrace new technologies, while laggards and skeptics jump in much later. At first glance, it looks like artificial intelligence is following the same pattern, but a new crop of studies suggests that AI might follow a different course—one with signif

Maya Keely works with a robot as it is programmed to respond to input to create a pizza. Credit: Maya Keely. For the millions of Americans who live with a mobility issue, making a pizza can be a lot more challenging than just choosing between pepperoni or sausage. Now Virginia Tech researchers have developed a robotic arm with novel assistive grippers that can help those with disabilities accomplish complex everyday tasks, including building a pizza. The r

Credit: CC0 Public Domain More states are passing laws to protect information generated by a person's brain and nervous system as technology improves the ability to unlock the sensitive details of a person's health, mental states, emotions, and cognitive functioning. Colorado, California, and Montana are among the states that have recently required safeguarding brain data collected by devices outside of medical settings. That includes headphones, earbuds,

Credit: Armand Valendez from Pexels Apple is trying to bring machine learning to Motor City. The smartphone giant opened its Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit on Tuesday to offer free workshops on artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing to small and medium-sized businesses. Apple stands out as one of the companies most dependent on manufacturing as well as consumers in China. The new academy is a part of Apple's broader $500-billion U.S. in

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The unseen infrastructure powering artificial intelligence (AI) isn't digital—it's physical: massive data centers filled with thousands of computer servers. As the popularity of AI tools continues to grow, it has triggered a once-in-a-generation construction boom for larger and more powerful data centers. Now, the recently announced AI Action Plan is calling for even more infrastructure to power them. Virginia Tech's Land

Strategies’ frequency and total cooperation level as a function of the guilt cost, γ. Credit: Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2025). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2025.0164 Guilt is a highly advantageous quality for society as a whole. It might not prevent initial wrongdoings, but guilt allows humans to judge their own prior judgments as harmful and prevents them from happening again. The internal distress caused by feelings of guilt often—but not always—resul

Colorized image of nanoneedles. Credit: Chippani/King's College London A patch containing tens of millions of microscopic nanoneedles could soon replace traditional biopsies, scientists have found. The patch offers a painless and less invasive alternative for millions of patients worldwide who undergo biopsies each year to detect and monitor diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. The research is published in Nature Nanotechnology. Biopsies are among the mos

Credit: CC0 Public Domain The venom of a common species of Amazonian scorpion may give rise to a potential drug for treating a cancer that is one of the leading causes of death in women. Researchers at the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCFRP-USP) in Brazil have identified a molecule in the toxin of Brotheas amazonicus that acts against breast cancer cells similarly to a common chemotherapy drug. Preliminary res

Mario Soto, left, a master's student in the crop, soil and environmental sciences department, and Aurelie Poncet, assistant professor of precision agriculture in the crop, soil and environmental sciences department for the Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, demonstrate a piece of equipment used in a study to measure herbicide effectiveness on plants. Credit: U of A System Division of Agriculture By

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Snow leopards are known as the "ghosts of the mountains" for a reason. Imagine waiting for months in the harsh, rugged mountains of Asia, hoping to catch even a glimpse of one. These elusive big cats move silently across rocky slopes, their pale coats blending so seamlessly with snow and stone that even the most seasoned biologists seldom spot them in the wild. Travel writer Peter Matthiessen spent two months in 1973 searc

Self-assembled Maxwell lattice from gold nanocubes with structural degeneracy. Credit: Nature Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02253-3 A research team including members from the University of Michigan have unveiled a new observational technique that's sensitive to the dynamics of the intrinsic quantum jiggles of materials, or phonons. This work will help scientists and engineers better design metamaterials—substances that possess exotic properties

Credit: Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s11783-025-2020-9 Over the last two decades, the scientific community has made rapid strides in understanding climate change and air pollution—but progress on their combined effects remains limited. Traditional models often gloss over the complex web of interactions between land, sea, and sky, especially when simulating compound events like heat waves coinciding with stagnant air

Researchers estimate that most elementary students will have jobs in the future that don’t exist yet, and those careers will require advanced knowledge of AI, something not every country is prioritizing. Credit: Illustration by Kaiya Plagenhoef Artificial intelligence is spreading into many aspects of life, from communications and advertising to grading tests. But with the growth of AI comes a shake-up in the workplace. New research from the University of

Similarity algorithm. (a) Ego graph edge weight assignment based on the distance from the center adsorbate. (b) Computation of the significant eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of a given ego-graph. (c) Determining similarity score by combining a pairing protocol with the Normalized Euclidean Distance (NED) calculation between two configurations. Credit: Chemical Science (2025). DOI: 10.1039/D5SC02117K A new algorithm opens the door for using artificial