By combining fieldwork, manual sorting and machine learning, researchers found the warbling duets of Yellow-naped Amazon parrots have language-like properties, including syntax, collocates and an impressive lexicon.  

In a recent paper published in Geology, scientists propose that certain kinds of wrinkle structures in sedimentary rock are the remnants of ancient microbial communites, similar to those found in deep ocean whale falls today. Geologists have long considered these wrinkle structures as physical in nature, formed by underwater landslides, because the deepsea environment wasn't thought to be hospitable to photosynthetic microbes. In their paper, the researchers demonstate how chemosynthetic microbes, which need no light to grow, could thrive in these environments and leave these wrinkles structures behind. 

A new AI-based system can generate high-resolution soybean yield maps across Brazil using only limited local data, improving yield estimates for this key agricultural region and potentially providing strategic benefits to global soybean markets. The newly published work by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign demonstrates an innovative approach that enables high-performance national yield estimates for Brazilian soybeans, even in areas where directly reported local yield data are very limited.

Matthew Troia, a UT San Antonio assistant professor, was awareded the distinguished Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award by the National Science Foundation. The award will support his investigation on how climate change and urbanization are affecting freshwater ecosystems by enabling exotic tropical fish species to expand northward. During the next five years, Troia will integrate lab experiments, extensive field monitoring, and computer modeling to better understand the vulnerability of Texas waterways.

A multi-institutional team of researchers led by Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute has for the first time identified specific patterns of brain chemical activity that predict how quickly individual honey bees learn new associations, offering important insights into the biological basis of learning and decision-making.

Xingjie Ni, associate professor of electrical engineering at Penn State, and his team recently developed a new device that can accelerate and dramatically reduce the energy cost of AI computation, which they detailed in a paper published in Science Advances. Their system routes light through an “infinity mirror” like loop of tiny optical elements, encoding data directly into the beams of light and capturing the resulting light patterns with a microscopic camera.

Rice University scientists have developed the first complete, label-free molecular atlas of the Alzheimer’s brain in an animal model.

A collaboration centered at MIT discovered that mice modeling the autism spectrum disorder fragile X syndrome exhibit the same pattern of differences in low-frequency waves as human patients, identifying a new biomarker for treatment studies