An unreleased Anthropic model helped solve a longstanding problem in quantum computing — another major math problem solved with AI.
Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.
Scientists may be closer to explaining a long-standing autism mystery
The study author told Newsweek that disrupting one autism-linked gene can have “rippling effects” on many others.
The components of agent memory
“Do Androids dream of electric sheep?”
Philip K. Dick posed the question in 1968 as science fiction. In 2026, it turns out “dreaming” is the precise architectural breakthrough required to solve enterprise AI’s biggest bottleneck: agentic amnesia.
Every time an autonomous workflow resets, it burns expensive tokens re-learning lessons it paid for yesterday. Without long-term memory maintenance, scaling AI agents doesn’t increase efficiency—it just compounds API costs and error rates.
In Anthropic’s research (“Components of Agent Memory”), they outline why agents need dedicated offline “dreaming” phases to transform raw logs into reliable enterprise tools:
* Token Optimization: Converts bulky, high-token session logs into lean, curated reference wikis—preventing context window bloat on routine runs.
* Production Reliability:* Audits past execution transcripts to turn real-world failures into permanent system rules, eliminating repeated failure modes.
Superconducting detector can count one, two or three photons at once
A Dutch physicist has reportedly come up with a superconducting light detector that can distinguish between one, two, and even three or more photons at once, and make quantum computers more accurate.
Built by Erik Baalbergen, PhD, a physicist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, the detector can not only identify whether light is present. It can also count how many individual light particles, or photons, hit its surface.
New tech passes the smell test
Our sense of smell shapes how we navigate our environment, but it’s a sensation that’s notoriously difficult to recreate in the digital world.
To overcome this challenge, researchers have developed a device that uses an artificial intelligence e-nose to detect and analyze odors. Combined with a wearable release system called Scentronic, which uses machine learning algorithms to classify data in real time, the system passed the smell test in the lab by encouraging better interactions between humans and machines.
“This work combines innovations in hardware and software to bring new solutions to societal challenges,” said Jinghua Li, senior author of the study and an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at The Ohio State University. “Our long-term goal here is to incorporate these systems into compact and personalized devices.”
2 ‘forever chemicals’ associated with higher risk of breast cancer: Study
An NIH study found that two common “forever chemicals” may be associated with a higher risk of aggressive ER-negative breast cancer.
Vibrating mirrors of light create analog of a black hole event horizon
Optical cavities are pairs of light-trapping mirrors and underpin the operation of lasers, atomic clocks and many types of precision sensors. If the distance between the mirrors is changed rapidly enough, some theories predict that the waves inside them should bunch together into short, intense pulses. So far, however, this prediction has never been tested directly.
Through new experiments, David Weld and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have confirmed it for the first time by swapping the roles of light and matter. Strikingly, they found that the cavity behaves in ways that mimic the strange physics of curved spacetime.
Their results have been published in Physical Review Letters.
How a metabolite protects the enzyme that consumes it
Metabolites are consumed by enzymes to produce other vital molecules as well as to control metabolite levels. But how do cells avoid consuming too much? Researchers from the MPI of Biochemistry, with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the de Duve Institute in Brussels, have deciphered such molecular regulation in tryptophan metabolism. The essential amino acid tryptophan binds to a second site on the enzyme TDO2, distinct from where it is consumed. This sequesters a region needed by two effectors, the kinase CK2 and the ubiquitin ligase CUL1–β-TrCP, which act sequentially to signal TDO2 degradation. The findings are now published in Molecular Cell.
The essential amino acid tryptophan is a key building block for proteins and also serves as a precursor for serotonin, melatonin, niacin (vitamin B3) and NAD+. These molecules are vital for the nervous and immune systems and the cell’s energy supply. As tryptophan can only be obtained through dietary supply, the body must maintain tryptophan levels within a physiological range.
The enzyme tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO2) carries out the first and rate-limiting step of the kynurenine pathway. While the cell requires the downstream products of TDO2, it must also avoid consuming too much tryptophan.
New method measures microplastics in the air using an uncrewed aerial system
Microplastics have been found in our bodies and the food we eat—and even in remote environments around the world, including seawater and ice in the Arctic. Despite their prevalence, little is known about how they move through the atmosphere. New CIRES-led research, which demonstrates a new method for sampling microplastics in the atmosphere using an uncrewed aerial system (UAS), aims to change that. The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Atmospheric microplastics are usually sampled from a rooftop, ground-based location or ship,” said Radiance Calmer, a former CIRES researcher who is now working at the Norwegian Polar Institute and lead author of the paper. “Our proof-of-concept study shows we can sample atmospheric microplastics using UAS flights for a specific height.”
Their results not only indicate microplastics are present 100 meters (328 feet) high in the atmosphere near areas with intense human activity but also confirm the team’s UAS sampling method is a feasible approach for measuring microplastics in the atmosphere. They are the first team to successfully use an environmental cyclone sampler on a UAS to collect microplastics.
From chaos to ‘intelligent’ soft matter—how tiny chemical differences guide droplets into ordered structures
Disorder can make sense, and understanding its logic can be genuinely useful. A study by a research group at the University of Trento shows how a minimal chemical difference can turn chaotic, disordered motion into a highly coordinated and reproducible structure.
The study, carried out together with researchers from Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Copenhagen, was published in the journal npj Soft Matter.