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Brown University researchers have developed an artificial intelligence model that can generate movement in robots and animated figures in much the same way that AI models like ChatGPT generate text.

A paper describing this work is published on the arXiv preprint server.

The model, called MotionGlot, enables users to simply type an action— walk forward a few steps and take a right— and the model can generate accurate representations of that motion to command a or animated avatar.

Hypertension and other health risks accelerate brain aging, as shown in a 16-year study using MRI data and predictive modeling.

Chinese scientists have conducted a population-based cohort study to examine the long-term impact of unhealthy lifestyles, metabolic abnormalities, and other risk factors on brain aging. The findings showed that these factors significantly accelerate brain aging, and the researchers proposed strategies to support brain health. Their study was published in Research.

Background.

Do we know everything about the Milky Way? A team of astronomers has arrived to change everything we know about our universe, and they have found strong evidence that super-Earths (planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune) could be much more common than previously thought! They discovered it thanks to a technique called gravitational microlensing. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it, keep reading and we’ll explain everything.

The study was led by scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and it reveals that one in three stars in the Milky Way could have a super-Earth. Isn’t that exciting?

It might sound like something out of an apocalyptic movie, but a supercomputer has predicted the end of the world.

But don’t worry too much because it’s not supposed to happen soon.

According to an April 2025 article in LaGrada, a group of scientists used a supercomputer to “determine that survival on planet Earth will be impossible in about 1 billion years, when conditions become too extreme for life as we know it.”

Distal regulation — the ability to control genes from far away, over many tens of thousands of DNA letters — appeared at the very dawn of animal evolution, between 650 and 700 million years ago — around 150 million years earlier than previously thought.

As director of the MIT BioMicro Center (BMC), Stuart Levine ’97 wholeheartedly embraces the variety of challenges he tackles each day. One of over 50 core facilities providing shared resources across the Institute, the BMC supplies integrated high-throughput genomics, single-cell and spatial transcriptomic analysis, bioinformatics support, and data management to researchers across MIT. The BioMicro Center is part of the Integrated Genomics and Bioinformatics core facility at the Robert A. Swanson (1969) Biotechnology Center.

“Every day is a different day,” Levine says, “there are always new problems, new challenges, and the technology is continuing to move at an incredible pace.” After more than 15 years in the role, Levine is grateful that the breadth of his work allows him to seek solutions for so many scientific problems.

By combining bioinformatics expertise with biotech relationships and a focus on maximizing the impact of the center’s work, Levine brings the broad range of skills required to match the diversity of questions asked by investigators in MIT’s Department of Biology and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, as well as researchers across MIT’s campus.