USC Dornsife researchers studying the history of Utah’s Great Salt Lake identified two brief, deep-lake phases when the water was much fresher than now. Their analysis of core samples spanning the past 240,000 years shows that the most recent freshwater phase, which formed Lake Bonneville, lasted longer and was fresher than the earlier Little Valley lake phase. The researchers found that both lakes shrank and became salty as the regional climate warmed and dried, offering possible insights into Great Salt Lake’s future in the face of climate change.

Artificial intelligence (AI) models prioritize starkly different attributes than humans when making high-stakes decisions, and they don't express indecision like humans do, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers, raising questions about the role of AI in decision support for ethically sensitive situations like medical decisions.

The University at Buffalo is leading a $2 million National Science Foundation project to improve wildfire resilience. The three-year REKINDLE initiative combines artificial intelligence, infrastructure modeling, Earth-observation data, and social science to understand cascading impacts such as debris flows, flash floods, and failures in power, water, and transportation systems. Researchers will study communities in California, develop predictive tools, and examine household responses. The project aims to guide infrastructure investments, emergency planning, recovery efforts, education, and workforce development.

The National Science Foundation awarded North Carolina State University a five-year, $20 million grant to support research on AI tools that can generate interactive narratives effective at engaging K-12 students and improving learning.

An artificial intelligence model that analyzes women’s past and recent annual 3D mammograms is more effective at predicting five-year risk of developing breast cancer than a tool that uses only the most recent, single 3D mammogram, as well as an AI model that analyzes 2D mammograms, a new study shows.

Editing a plant’s genes is only half the battle. Before a new, improved trait can ever reach a farmer’s field, scientists must be able to grow a whole plant from just a few edited cells — a process that can be slow, unreliable and, for some plant species, impossible.