How much does education actually sharpen the mind? A study published in the Journal of Human Capital(link is external and opens in a new window) may help settle this long-standing debate by comparing adult siblings in Indonesia. Led by Yuan Zhang, assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences in the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the research reveals education’s impact on adult cognition—particularly for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Group work and giving students time to discuss their work helps to build their confidence in using maths in science lessons, a new study shows.

Researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University have unveiled a new AI system that filters out irrelevant video content and uses progressive reasoning to boost multi-turn video-chat accuracy by up to 7%, setting new benchmarks and enabling smarter visual assistants across fields.

Challenging traditional meritocratic models, this research calls for redefining the purpose of education in the age of AI. It argues that systems based on ranking and standardized testing ignore deep social inequalities and are misaligned with a world shaped by artificial intelligence and complexity. Instead, the authors propose an education model rooted in human interdependence—emphasizing collaboration, empathy, and creativity as essential skills for thriving in an interconnected, uncertain, and rapidly evolving global landscape.