Communications News

August 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Why Tiny Bee Brains Could Hold the Key to Smarter AI

Aug. 24, 2025 — Researchers discovered that bees use flight movements to sharpen brain signals, enabling them to recognize patterns with remarkable accuracy. A digital model of their brain shows that this movement-based perception could revolutionize AI and ...

Tiny Quantum Dots Unlock the Future of Unbreakable Encryption

Aug. 23, 2025 — By using quantum dots and smart encryption protocols, researchers overcame a 40-year barrier in quantum communication, showing that secure networks don’t need perfect hardware to outperform today’s best ...

A Star Torn Apart by a Black Hole Lit Up the Universe Twice

Aug. 22, 2025 — Astronomers using AI have captured a once-in-a-lifetime cosmic event: a massive star’s violent death triggered by its black hole companion. The explosion, known as SN 2023zkd, not only produced a brilliant supernova but also shocked scientists by ...

Cornell Researchers Build First ‘Microwave Brain’ on a Chip

Aug. 14, 2025 — Cornell engineers have built the first fully integrated “microwave brain” — a silicon microchip that can process ultrafast data and wireless signals at the same time, while using less than 200 milliwatts of power. Instead of digital steps, it ...

Tiny “Talking” Robots Form Shape-shifting Swarms That Heal Themselves

Aug. 13, 2025 — Scientists have designed swarms of microscopic robots that communicate and coordinate using sound waves, much like bees or birds. These self-organizing micromachines can adapt to their surroundings, reform if damaged, and potentially undertake ...

Scientists Discover the Moment AI Truly Understands Language

July 8, 2025 — Neural networks first treat sentences like puzzles solved by word order, but once they read enough, a tipping point sends them diving into word meaning instead—an abrupt “phase transition” reminiscent of water flashing into steam. By revealing ...

Quantum Dice: Scientists Harness True Randomness from Entangled Photons

June 23, 2025 — Scientists at NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder have created CURBy, a cutting-edge quantum randomness beacon that draws on the intrinsic unpredictability of quantum entanglement to produce true random numbers. Unlike traditional methods, ...

Scientists Create ‘Universal Translator’ for Quantum Tech

June 20, 2025 — Scientists at UBC have devised a chip-based device that acts as a "universal translator" for quantum computers, converting delicate microwave signals to optical ones and back with minimal loss and noise. This innovation preserves crucial quantum ...

Scientists Just Took a Big Step Toward the Quantum Internet

June 12, 2025 — A team of Danish and German scientists has launched a major project to create new technology that could form the foundation of the future quantum internet. They re using a rare element called erbium along with silicon chips like the ones in our ...

Self-powered Artificial Synapse Mimics Human Color Vision

June 2, 2025 — Despite advances in machine vision, processing visual data requires substantial computing resources and energy, limiting deployment in edge devices. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a self-powered artificial synapse that distinguishes ...

Five Things to Do in Virtual Reality -- And Five to Avoid

May 30, 2025 — A review of experimental research reveals how VR is best used and why it's struggled to become a megahit with ...

A Chip with Natural Blood Vessels

May 27, 2025 — Miniature organs on a chip could allow us to do scientific studies with great precision, without having to resort to animal testing. The main problem, however, is that artificial tissue needs blood vessels, and they are very hard to create. Now, new ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:39pm EDT

Harvard’s Ultra-Thin Chip Could Revolutionize Quantum Computing

July 25, 2025 — Researchers at Harvard have created a groundbreaking metasurface that can replace bulky and complex optical components used in quantum computing with a single, ultra-thin, nanostructured layer. This ...

Google's Deepfake Hunter Sees What You Can’t—even in Videos Without Faces

July 25, 2025 — AI-generated videos are becoming dangerously convincing and UC Riverside researchers have teamed up with Google to fight back. Their new system, ...

Affordances in the Brain: The Human Superpower AI Hasn’t Mastered

June 23, 2025 — Scientists at the University of Amsterdam discovered that our brains automatically understand how we can move through different environments—whether it's swimming in a lake or walking a ...

MIT's Tiny 5G Receiver Could Make Smart Devices Last Longer and Work Anywhere

June 20, 2025 — MIT scientists have built a tiny, ultra-efficient 5G receiver that can thrive in noisy wireless environments ideal for smartwatches, wearables, and ...

Nano-Engineered Thermoelectrics Enable Scalable, Compressor-Free Cooling

May 22, 2025 — Researchers have unveiled a breakthrough in solid-state cooling technology, doubling the efficiency of today's commercial systems. Driven by the Lab's patented nano-engineered thin-film ...

Infrared Contact Lenses Allow People to See in the Dark, Even With Their Eyes Closed

May 22, 2025 — Neuroscientists and materials scientists have created contact lenses that enable infrared vision in both humans and mice by converting infrared light ...

AI Is Good at Weather Forecasting. Can It Predict Freak Weather Events?

May 22, 2025 — Scientists found that neural networks cannot yet forecast 'gray swan' weather events, which might not appear in existing training data but could still happen -- like 200-year floods or massive ...

Imaging Technique Removes the Effect of Water in Underwater Scenes

May 21, 2025 — SeaSplat is an image-analysis tool that cuts through the ocean's optical effects to generate images of underwater environments reveal an ocean scene's true colors. Researchers paired the ...

Robots Learning Without Us? New Study Cuts Humans from Early Testing

May 21, 2025 — Humans no longer have exclusive control over training social robots to interact effectively, thanks to a new study. The study introduces a new simulation method that lets researchers test their ...

Empowering Robots With Human-Like Perception to Navigate Unwieldy Terrain

May 19, 2025 — Researchers have developed a novel framework named WildFusion that fuses vision, vibration and touch to enable robots to 'sense' and navigate complex outdoor environments much like humans ...

Researchers Take AI to 'Kindergarten' in Order to Learn More Complex Tasks

May 19, 2025 — We need to learn our letters before we can learn to read and our numbers before we can learn how to add and subtract. The same principles are true with AI, a team of scientists has shown through ...

Cyberbullying in Any Form Can Be Traumatizing for Kids

May 15, 2025 — New research shows that cyberbullying should be classified as an adverse childhood experience due to its strong link to trauma. Even subtle forms -- like exclusion from group chats -- can trigger ...

Tech Meets Tornado Recovery

May 14, 2025 — Traditional methods of assessing damage after a disaster can take weeks or even months, delaying emergency response, insurance claims and long-term rebuilding efforts. New research might change that. ...

Study Shows Vision-Language Models Can't Handle Queries With Negation Words

May 14, 2025 — Researchers found that vision-language models, widely used to analyze medical images, do not understand negation words like 'no' and 'not.' This could cause them to fail ...

Energy and Memory: A New Neural Network Paradigm

May 14, 2025 — Listen to the first notes of an old, beloved song. Can you name that tune? If you can, congratulations -- it's a triumph of your associative memory, in which one piece of information (the first ...

The Key to Spotting Dyslexia Early Could Be AI-Powered Handwriting Analysis

May 14, 2025 — A new study outlines how artificial intelligence-powered handwriting analysis may serve as an early detection tool for dyslexia and dysgraphia among young ...

New Survey Shows Privacy and Safety Tops List of Parental Concerns About Screen Time

May 13, 2025 — As kids spend more time on screens, a new national survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, founded by Nationwide Children's Hospital, identifies parents' ...

Ping Pong Bot Returns Shots With High-Speed Precision

May 8, 2025 — Engineers developed a ping-pong-playing robot that quickly estimates the speed and trajectory of an incoming ball and precisely hits it to a desired location on the ...

New Chip Uses AI to Shrink Large Language Models' Energy Footprint by 50%

May 8, 2025 — Researchers have developed a more efficient chip as an antidote to the vast amounts of electricity consumed by large-language-model artificial intelligence applications like Gemini and ...

Tiny Vibrations Have a Massive Impact: Transmitting Clear Signals Over Long Distances Using Nonlinear Math

May 8, 2025 — A research team has discovered a surprising phenomenon that could revolutionize how we think about signal amplification. Just two tiny vibrating units can, when connected with a delay, amplify their ...

'Universe's Awkward Handshake' -- Simplifying Information Processing Using Photons a Quantum Breakthrough

May 8, 2025 — Researchers have developed a technique that makes high-dimensional quantum information encoded in light more practical and reliable. The advancement could pave the way for more secure data ...

Piecing Together the Brain Puzzle

May 7, 2025 — Our brain is a complex organ. Billions of nerve cells are wired in an intricate network, constantly processing signals, enabling us to recall memories or to move our bodies. Making sense of this ...

AI Model Improves Delirium Prediction, Leading to Better Health Outcomes for Hospitalized Patients

May 7, 2025 — An artificial intelligence (AI) model improved outcomes in hospitalized patients by quadrupling the rate of detection and treatment of delirium. The model identifies patients at high risk for ...

Experimental Quantum Communications Network

May 6, 2025 — Researchers recently connected their campuses with an experimental quantum communications network using two optical ...

A New Method for Characterizing Quantum Gate Errors

May 5, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new protocol for characterizing quantum gate errors, paving the way toward more reliable quantum simulations and fault-tolerant quantum ...

Using Principles of Swarm Intelligence, Study Compared Platforms That Allow Brainstorming Among Large Groups

May 1, 2025 — A next-generation technology developed in 2023, conversational swarm intelligence (CSI), combines the principles of ASI with the power of large language ...

Making AI Models More Trustworthy for High-Stakes Settings

May 1, 2025 — Researchers made a technique that improves the trustworthiness of machine-learning models, which could help improve the accuracy and reliability of AI predictions for high-stakes settings such health ...

Artificial Sense of Touch, Improved

May 1, 2025 — While exploring a digitally represented object through artificially created sense of touch, brain-computer interface users described the warm fur of a purring cat, the smooth rigid surface of a door ...

Researchers Develop a Novel Vote-Based Model for More Accurate Hand-Held Object Pose Estimation

May 1, 2025 — Estimating the pose of hand-held objects is a critical and challenging problem in robotics and computer vision. While leveraging multi-modal RGB and depth data is a promising solution, existing ...

Engineers Develop Wearable Heart Attack Detection Tech

Apr. 30, 2025 — Every second counts when it comes to detecting and treating heart attacks. A new technology may be able to identify heart attacks faster and more accurately than traditional ...