The SETI Institute awarded its 2025 Cosmic Chronicles Literary Award to Cal Hunter. The Cosmic Chronicles Literary Award is a new contest for emerging authors from the SETI Institute’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program. This summer, we launched an Open Call inviting writers and poets working in literature, speculative fiction/sci-fi, experimental poetry, and philosophy to submit original, unpublished creative work reflecting on the themes of intelligence, consciousness, and communication. We received a remarkable number of submissions from 33 countries across six continents, including Peru, New Zealand, Ghana, India, Japan, throughout Europe, Canada, and the USA.

Boon is the project development manager at Bangkok Genomics Innovation (BKGI), a joint venture between BGI Genomics and local partners in Thailand. His role is at the intersection of global science and local healthcare.

BKGI itself is a good example of the Belt and Road Initiative, a bridge of technology and knowledge flowing between China and Thailand. For Boon, that bridge is the reason ideas once out of reach in Thai hospitals are now being shaped into real projects.

University of Missouri researchers are developing a process to transform abandoned mining waste into an untapped treasure chest of rare earth elements.

Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) students U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Max Leutermann and Swedish Armed Forces Maj. Patrik Liljegard, developed an innovative solution to NATO’s Bold Machina (BOMA) design challenge, a 90-day sprint “to understand the unique counter uncrewed aerial systems (c-UAS) challenges posed to maritime [special operations forces] combatant craft and propose next steps to close an existing capability gap.”

The NPS BOMA students leveraged their education, operational insights, and prototyping with industry at NPS’ Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) program. The result of the students’ efforts to capitalize on the NPS innovation ecosystem is a novel c-UAS detection system evaluated at sea during the Bold Machina (BOMA) exercise in the Netherlands this past September. 

Throughout the naval forces and across U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the need to advance national defense applications of artificial intelligence is profound. And the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) continues to answer the call. Announced today, NPS’ brand new Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) degree will confer the advanced knowledge, skills, and practices necessary to develop, assess, and deploy AI for the U.S. Navy, the joint force and our allied and partner militaries. Graduates through the new program will be prepared to lead AI integration within their communities and across the DOD.

As the New Year approaches, many people resolve to get in shape, but sticking with a new exercise routine can be as much a mental challenge as a physical one. FIU neuroscientist Marcelo Bigliassi says the mind – not the body – is often what holds exercisers back, but the brain can be trained to overcome mental barriers and learn to enjoy exercise. 

Bigliassi, an assistant professor who studies the brain-body connection, has found that even people with low tolerance for exercise discomfort can adapt by gradually exposing themselves to small challenges, effectively raising their threshold for what feels difficult.