A team of researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed an ionic circuit comprising hundreds of ionic transistors and performed a core process of neural net computing.

Researchers followed the birth and death of tens of thousands of nematode worms using the 'Lifespan Machine' , which collects lifespan data at unprecedented statistical resolution. They found that worms have at least two distinct 'biological ages', and that these have consistent correlations between each other, suggesting the existence of an invisible hierarchical structure that regulates the ageing process. The findings challenge the idea of living organisms having a single, universal biological age. It also means mean that biomarkers used to assess biological age can be changed by interventions such as diet, exercise, or drug treatments without actually turning a ‘fast ager’ into a ‘slow ager’. The study calls into question the use of ageing biomarkers – what exactly are they measuring?

The University of Houston will launch a new mentoring scholarship program to improve graduation rates for STEM students, increase diversity in the STEM workforce, and to help promote economic mobility for low-income families.

Today, machine learning helps determine the loan we qualify for, the job we get, and even who goes to jail. But when it comes to these potentially life-altering decisions, can computers make a fair call? In a study published September 29 in the journal Patterns, researchers from Germany showed that with human supervision, people think a computer’s decision can be as fair as a decision primarily made by humans.