A bioengineered enzyme reverses age-related protein damage, long thought of as irreversible damage, in human lens, skin, and artery tissues.
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Sonic microrobots burst into motion without batteries or motors
Not just any sound, but specifically Helmholtz resonance. In simple words, it’s the same phenomenon that happens when you blow air across the neck of a bottle. The air trapped inside the bottle vibrates strongly at a certain frequency – that’s why you can hear a humming sound. A glass bottle is an example of what scientists call an acoustic cavity. A cavity can really be any hollow structure, round or bell-shaped, made from 3D-printed plastics, glass, or rubber-like polymers.
When sound waves make the air trapped inside a cavity vibrate, the cavity creates a concentrated stream of air going out. The air coming back in is more spread out than the air going out, and this imbalance is what produces the pushing force, or thrust, needed to move an object.
This is not the first time scientists have used sound to move things. Researchers have long known how to levitate objects with sound waves, but there is an important difference here: in the previous experiments, the passive objects relied on external sound waves to physically push them. But in the current research, the scientists found a way to harness ambient acoustic energy and convert it into mechanical thrust – using sound to generate movement.
SolarWindow launches self-adhesive solar film
The product targets applications where conventional PV modules face limitations due to weight, rigidity, or mounting requirements.
The company describes ElectroFlex as a “peel-and-stick” solution that can be applied directly to various surfaces without frames, rigid glass, or conventional support structures. Its size and color can be customized to meet customer specifications.
The new product consists of a five-layer composite laminate measuring 0.85 mm in total thickness. The stack comprises a 0.10 mm front encapsulant, 0.16 mm high-efficiency solar cells, a 0.04 mm copper cell backing, a 0.30 mm composite laminate and a 0.25 mm rear substrate.
New advanced spine surgery tech unveiled at MercyOne Genesis in Davenport
Officials said the technology will give patients advanced surgical capabilities from experienced spine specialists without having to travel outside of the region…
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Previewing the Model Hardware Standard
We’re opening a research preview of the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a shared specification for AI agents to safely operate physical devices, to a first group of scientific research labs and advanced manufacturers. MHS enables AI agents to operate multiple lab and manufacturing instruments, such as microscopes, liquid handlers, and robotic arms, in parallel, and perform intricate tasks ranging from routine drug discovery experiments to laser calibration on a quantum computer. The development of MHS began as a collaboration between Anthropic and HHMI Janelia Research Campus.
It typically takes a lab or manufacturing facility weeks, if not months, to set up and integrate their hardware. Most devices don’t communicate with each other, instead requiring specialists to build bespoke integrations. MHS reduces this integration work to hours or minutes. And by incorporating AI into these tools, MHS also helps researchers and engineers more readily orchestrate autonomous, round-the-clock experiments and workflows, with agents able to reason through each step in an experiment, update parameters in real time, and, in some cases, recover from hardware errors without intervention.
We’re sharing an early version of MHS with partners across science, robotics, electronics, and manufacturing so we can collaborate to build safety evaluations and develop best practices for AI systems operating physical equipment, ahead of making the standard open source. MHS works with any device that has a programmable interface. It is also model-agnostic, and any agent harness can access it using standard protocols, such as the Model Context Protocol. To apply for access to the research preview, head here.
LLMs Anticipate Everyday Verbal Behavior
MIT built an AI that predicts what you’ll say next… before you open your mouth. In the research paper titled “Before You Say It: Anticipating Verbal Behavior from Longitudinal Everyday Conversations with LLMs,” researchers set out to test whether Large Language Models (LLMs) can build this same level of intuitive, person-specific understanding.
In this AI Research Roundup episode, Alex discusses the paper: ‘Before You Say It: Anticipating Verbal Behavior from Longitudinal Everyday Conversations with LLMs’ Understanding an individual deeply requires anticipating how they will likely react and communicate across different real-world situations. In this paper, the authors introduce an LLM-based predictive behavioral modeling framework designed to forecast personal verbal behavior from everyday conversational interactions. The researchers collected over 1,000 hours of naturalistic speech from 14 participants using wearable smartwatches and evaluated LLM predictions against actual recorded behaviors. Semi-structured interviews further explored user perceptions and identified promising directions for proactive behavioral assistance. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that longitudinal conversation data enables person-specific behavioral anticipation for future personalized assistive systems. Paper URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.13454 #AI #MachineLearning #DeepLearning #LLM #ConversationalAI #BehavioralModeling #WearableTech
Altered ribosomes help explain how an enzyme fuels tumor growth
A new Northwestern Medicine study has identified a previously unknown mechanism by which an enzyme promotes cancer cell proliferation, establishing it as a promising therapeutic target for cancer, according to findings published in Nature Communications.
N-acetyltransferase 10 (NAT10) is a multifunctional enzyme with oncogenic properties and has been associated with multiple types of cancer, including hepatocellular carcinoma—an aggressive type of liver cancer—and acute myeloid leukemia, among others.
NAT10 is known to acetylate, or chemically modify, RNA, but whether this mechanism supports the oncogenic properties of this protein has remained uncertain, said Daniel Arango, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology and a co-corresponding author of the study.
Mitochondrial genome editing
Advances in mitochondrial genome editing have expanded efforts to manipulate mitochondrial DNA and model mitochondrial disease. This Review discusses the development of programmable nucleases and mitochondrial base editors, their applications in disease modelling and therapeutic correction, and the key challenges to clinical translation.
Glacier surging and surgerelated hazards in a changing climate Reviews Earth & Environment
Glacier surges are rapid ice flow acceleration and mass transport events, which can threaten nearby communities, infrastructure and habitats. This Review discusses the global distribution, behaviour and associated hazards of glaciers that are prone to surging and how these are being affected by climate change.