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From brain scans to alloys: Teaching AI to make sense of complex research data

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used to analyze medical images, materials data and scientific measurements, but many systems struggle when real-world data do not match ideal conditions. Measurements collected from different instruments, experiments or simulations often vary widely in resolution, noise and reliability. Traditional machine-learning models typically assume those differences are negligible—an assumption that can limit accuracy and trustworthiness.

To address this issue, Penn State researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence framework with potential implications for fields ranging from Alzheimer’s disease research to advanced materials design. The approach, called ZENN and detailed in a study that was featured as a showcase in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, teaches AI models to recognize and adapt to hidden differences in data quality rather than ignoring them.

ZENN, short for Zentropy-Embedded Neural Networks, was developed by Shun Wang, postdoctoral scholar of materials science and engineering; Wenrui Hao, professor of mathematics, Zi-Kui Liu, professor of materials science and engineering, and Shunli Shang, research professor of materials science and engineering.

Designer enzyme enables yeast to produce custom fatty acids, reducing need for palm oil

Whether they are laundry detergents, mascara, or Christmas chocolate, many everyday products contain fatty acids from palm oil or coconut oil. However, the extraction of these raw materials is associated with massive environmental issues: Rainforests are cleared, habitats for endangered species are destroyed, and traditional farmers lose their livelihoods.

A research team led by Prof. Martin Grininger at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, has now developed a biotechnological approach that could enable a more environmentally friendly production method. The team’s work appears in Nature Chemical Biology.

A new valve for quantum matter: Steering chiral fermions by geometry alone

A collaboration between Stuart Parkin’s group at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle (Saale) and Claudia Felser’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden has realized a fundamentally new way to control quantum particles in solids. Writing in Nature, the researchers report the experimental demonstration of a chiral fermionic valve—a device that spatially separates quantum particles of opposite chirality using quantum geometry alone, without magnetic fields or magnetic materials.

The work was driven by Anvesh Dixit, a Ph.D. student in Parkin’s group in Halle, and the first author of the study, who designed, fabricated, and measured the mesoscopic devices that made the discovery possible.

“This project was only possible because we could combine materials with exceptional topological quality and transport experiments at the mesoscopic quantum limit,” says Anvesh Dixit. “Seeing chiral fermions separate and interfere purely due to quantum geometry is truly exciting.”

Researchers harness nonlinear Compton scattering to create sharper, multicolor gamma-ray beams

Researchers from Skoltech, MEPhI, and the Dukhov All-Russian Research Institute of Automation have proposed a new method to create compact gamma-ray sources that are simultaneously brighter, sharper, and capable of emitting multiple “colors” of gamma rays at once.

This opens up possibilities for more accurate medical diagnostics, improved material inspection, and even the production of isotopes for medicine directly in the laboratory. The work has been published as a Letter in the journal Physical Review A.

Gamma rays produced using lasers and electron beams represent a promising technology, but until now they have had a significant drawback: the emission spectrum was too “blurred.” This reduced brightness and precision, limiting their applications in areas where clarity is crucial—such as scanning dense materials or medical imaging.

Radio waves enable energy-efficient AI on edge devices without heavy hardware

As drones survey forests, robots navigate warehouses and sensors monitor city streets, more of the world’s decision-making is occurring autonomously on the edge—on the small devices that gather information at the ends of much larger networks.

But making that shift to edge computing is harder than it seems. Although artificial intelligence (AI) models continue to grow larger and smarter, the hardware inside these devices remains tiny.

Engineers typically have two options, neither are ideal. Storing an entire AI model on the device requires significant memory, data movement and computing power that drains batteries. Offloading the model to the cloud avoids those hardware constraints, but the back-and-forth introduces lag, burns energy and presents security risks.

New Clues Suggest Life’s Building Blocks Were Sorted in Space Before Reaching Earth

New research suggests that amino acids, the fundamental components of life, may have arrived on Earth carried by interstellar dust grains, possibly contributing to the origins of life as we know it. In a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Stephen Thompson, I

Astronomers Weigh “Cotton Candy” Planets and Solve a Cosmic Mystery

Astronomers have captured an exceptionally rare view of young planets in mid-transformation, revealing how bloated, giant worlds may shrink into the most common planets in the galaxy. Astronomers have been startled in recent years by a striking pattern around Sun-like stars. Many of them host a p

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