https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Confidence is persuasive. In artificial intelligence systems, it is often misleading. Today's most capable reasoning models share a trait with the loudest voice in the room: They deliver every answer with the same unshakable certainty, whether they're right or guessing. Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have now traced that overconfidence to a specific flaw in how these models are trained, and developed a method that fixes it without giving up any accuracy. The team's research is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-ai-im-cases-calibration-errors.html Computer Sciences Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:20:04 EDT news696092821 When you throw a ball in the air, the equations of classical physics will tell you exactly what path the ball will take as it falls, and when and where it will land. But if you were to squeeze that same ball down to the size of an atom or smaller, it would behave in ways beyond anything that classical physics can predict. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-classical-physics-quantum-weirdness.html General Physics Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:40:06 EDT news696077161 The next time you find yourself lulled by the patter of rain outside your window, think how that same sprinkle might sound if you were a tiny seed planted directly below a free-falling droplet. Would you still be similarly soothed? In fact, MIT engineers have found the opposite to be the case: Some seeds may come alive to the sound of rain. In experiments with rice seeds, the team found that the sound of falling droplets effectively shook the seeds out of a dormant state, stimulating them to germinate at a faster rate compared with seeds that were not exposed to the same sound vibrations. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-plants-can-sense-the-sound.html Plants & Animals Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:00:03 EDT news695979858 Every year, the countries competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad arrive with a booklet of their best, most original problems. Those booklets get shared among delegations, then quietly disappear. No one had ever collected them systematically, cleaned them, and made them available—not for AI researchers testing the limits of mathematical reasoning, and not for the students around the world training for these competitions largely on their own. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-world-largest-olympiad-math-problems.html Mathematics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:40:03 EDT news695898865 Recent studies suggest that animals and people alike have close and complex relationships with the bacteria around and within them. The human gut microbiome, for instance, has been associated with both depression and Parkinson's disease. To go beyond association toward understanding of the actual mechanisms that enable the bacterial microbiome to influence brain function, a new study by neuroscientists in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT examines the mechanisms at work in a model "bacterial specialist," the nematode C. elegans. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-neurons-bacteria-gut.html Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:00:06 EDT news695902381 Asian immigrants are both the fastest-growing and highest-earning immigrant ethnic group in the United States, facts that have caught the attention of many economists interested in how these groups—whether investors or residents—impact housing prices, K-12 education, and other important aspects of community life. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-community-effects-asian-immigrants-housing.html Economics & Business Fri, 17 Apr 2026 08:00:03 EDT news695625961 Cells are enveloped by a lipid membrane that gives them structure and provides a barrier between the cell and its environment. However, evidence has recently emerged suggesting that these membranes do more than simply provide protection—they also influence the behavior of the protein receptors embedded in them. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-cancer-hidden-cell-membrane-growth.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:10:01 EDT news695574421 A new study from MIT suggests that a carcinogen that has been found in medications and in drinking water contaminated by chemical plants may have a much more severe impact on children than adults. In a study of mice, the researchers found that juveniles exposed to drinking water containing this compound, known as NDMA, showed dramatically higher rates of DNA damage and cancer than adults. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-chemical-ndma-cancerous-mutations-early.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:20:08 EDT news695558761 On a calm day, a light breeze might barely ripple the surface of a lake on Earth. But on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, a similar mild wind would kick up 10-foot-tall waves. This otherworldly behavior is one prediction from a new wave model developed by scientists at MIT. The model is the first to capture the full dynamics of waves and what it takes to whip them up under different planetary conditions. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-titan-lakes-spawn-foot-gentle.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:00:06 EDT news695550271 Often hailed as the most successful international environmental agreement of all time, the 1987 Montreal Protocol continues to successfully phase out the global production of chemicals that were creating a growing hole in the ozone layer, causing skin cancer and other adverse health effects. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-regulatory-loophole-delay-ozone-recovery.html Environment Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:00:09 EDT news695464621 A special class of sensors leverages quantum properties to measure tiny signals at levels that would be impossible using classical sensors alone. Such quantum sensors are currently being used to study the inner workings of cells and the outer depths of our universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-multitasking-quantum-sensors-properties.html Quantum Physics Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:40:01 EDT news695461141 Oceans absorb roughly 25% to 30% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is released into the atmosphere. When this CO2 dissolves in seawater, it forms carbonic acid, making the water more acidic and altering its chemistry. Elevated levels of acidity are harmful to marine life like corals, oysters, and certain plankton that rely on calcium carbonate to build shells and skeletons. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-carbon-maine-blue-economy-broader.html Ecology Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:00:07 EDT news695384581 Though many studies approach the developmental disorder Rett syndrome as a single condition arising from general loss of function in the gene MECP2, a new study by neuroscientists at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT shows that two different mutations of the gene caused many distinct abnormalities in lab cultures. Moreover, correcting key differences made by each mutation required different treatments. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-rett-syndrome-highlights-potential-personalized.html Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:40:01 EDT news695403841 Challenging the classic view, two cognitive scientists argue in a new review that categorization is not a late, specialized stage of sensory processing. Instead, it is a core function operating at every level, anticipating bodily needs and motor plans. Categories are thus not fixed prototypes stored in "higher" areas of the cortex, but dynamically constructed from prior experience throughout all of sensory processing. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-rethinking-brains-categories-world.html Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:30:02 EDT news695304913 What if the Trojan horse had been pulled to pieces, revealing the ruse and fending off the invasion, just as it entered the gates of Troy? That's an apt description of a newly characterized bacterial defense system that chops up foreign DNA. Bacteria and the viruses that infect them, bacteriophages—phages for short—are ceaselessly at odds, with bacteria developing methods to protect themselves against phages that are constantly striving to overcome those safeguards. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-snipe-bacterial-defense-shreds-phage.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:00:10 EDT news695045401 Millions of students nationwide use text-supplemented audiobooks, learning tools that are thought to help those who struggle with reading keep up in the classroom. A new study by scientists at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research finds that many students do benefit from audiobooks, gaining new vocabulary through the stories they hear. But study participants learned significantly more when audiobooks were paired with explicit one-on-one instruction—and this was especially true for students who were poor readers. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-audiobooks-students-words-paired.html Education Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:20:04 EDT news695045461 Animal behavior reflects a complex interplay between an animal's brain and its sensory surroundings. Only rarely have scientists been able to discern how actions emerge from this interaction. A new study in Nature Neuroscience by researchers in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT offers one example by revealing how circuits of neurons within C. elegans nematode worms respond to odors and generate movement as they pursue smells they like and evade ones they don't. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-nematodes-scientists-brains-behaviors.html Fri, 10 Apr 2026 05:00:01 EDT news694973941 Training a large artificial intelligence model is expensive, not just in dollars, but in time, energy, and computational resources. Traditionally, obtaining a smaller, faster model either requires training a massive one first and then trimming it down, or training a small one from scratch and accepting weaker performance. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-compression-technique-ai-leaner-faster.html Computer Sciences Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:20:01 EDT news694960323 Muscles are remarkably effective systems for generating controlled force, and engineers developing hardware for robots or prosthetics have long struggled to create analogs that can approach their unique combination of strength, rapid response, scalability, and control. But now, researchers at the MIT Media Lab and Politecnico di Bari in Italy have developed artificial muscle fibers that come closer to matching many of these qualities. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-electrofluidic-fiber-muscles-enable-silent.html Robotics Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:20:01 EDT news694959583 When fundamental particles are heavier or lighter than expected, physicists' understanding of the universe can tip into the unknown. A particle that is just beyond its predicted mass can unravel scientists' assumptions about the forces that make up all of matter and space. But now, a new precision measurement has reset the balance and confirmed scientists' theories, at least for one of the universe's core building blocks. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-physicists-mass-fundamental-boson-particle.html General Physics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:08 EDT news694775101 In a discovery recently published in Nature, MIT chemists led by Professor Alison Wendlandt have developed a precision technique that allows scientists to seamlessly relocate alcohol functional groups from one spot on a molecule to a neighboring site. The paper is titled "Alcohol group migration by proximity-enhanced H atom abstraction." https://phys.org/news/2026-04-molecular-tool-relocates-alcohol-groups.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:20:01 EDT news694791481 To improve data center efficiency, multiple storage devices are often pooled together over a network so many applications can share them. But even with pooling, significant device capacity remains underutilized due to performance variability across the devices. MIT researchers have now developed a system that boosts the performance of storage devices by handling three major sources of variability simultaneously. Their approach delivers significant speed improvements over traditional methods that tackle only one source of variability at a time. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-software-pooled-ssd-centers.html Software Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:12:57 EDT news694782611 The electrons that power our society flow left and right through the circuitry in our electronics, back and forth along the transmission lines that make up our power grid, and up and down to light up every floor of every building. But the electrons in newly discovered "moiré crystals" move in much stranger ways. They can move left and right, back and forth, or up and down in our three-dimensional world, but these electrons also act as if they can teleport in and out of a mysterious fourth dimension of space that is perpendicular to our perceivable reality. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-electrons-moir-crystals-explore-higher.html Condensed Matter Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:00:03 EDT news694685941 Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said that AI could surpass "almost all humans at almost everything" shortly after 2027. While AI's capabilities are certainly improving, such rapid progress might seem at odds with findings that show AI is still failing at 95%+ of remote freelance projects, and continues to struggle with hallucination, long term planning, and forms of abstract reasoning that humans find easy. But recent work from METR has found evidence that LLMs can gain capabilities in rapid surges—jumping from succeeding almost never to almost always in just a few years. If this is true across the economy, it could mean that workers could be blindsided by AI advances. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-tides-overturning-prior-views-ai.html Business Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:20:01 EDT news694364439 Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to help optimize decision-making in high-stakes settings. For instance, an autonomous system can identify a power distribution strategy that minimizes costs while keeping voltages stable. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-ai-method-flags-fairness-autonomous.html Computer Sciences Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:20:04 EDT news694349461 In a study focused on New York City, MIT researchers have shown that existing sensors and mobile data can be used to generate a near real-time, high-resolution picture of auto emissions, which could be used to develop local transportation and decarbonization policies. The paper, "Ubiquitous Data-driven Framework for Traffic Emission Estimation and Policy Evaluation," is published in Nature Sustainability. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-traffic-emissions-block-real.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:03 EDT news694348321 Designers, makers, and others often use 3D printing to rapidly prototype a range of functional objects, from movie props to medical devices. Accurate print previews are essential so users know a fabricated object will perform as expected. But previews generated by most 3D-printing software focus on function rather than aesthetics. A printed object may end up with a different color, texture, or shading than the user expected, resulting in multiple reprints that waste time, effort, and material. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-visiprint-generates-realistic-3d-previews.html Engineering Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:20:07 EDT news694263782 We are what we eat. And in the ocean, most life-forms source their food from phytoplankton. These microscopic, plant-like algae are the primary food source for krill, sea snails, some small fish, and jellyfish, which in turn feed larger marine animals that are prey for the ocean's top predators, including humans. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-climate-fast-food-phytoplankton.html Environment Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:20:01 EDT news694180261 In biology, defects are generally bad. But in materials science, defects can be intentionally tuned to give materials useful new properties. Today, atomic-scale defects are carefully introduced during the manufacturing process of products like steel, semiconductors, and solar cells to help improve strength, control electrical conductivity, optimize performance, and more. But even as defects have become a powerful tool, accurately measuring different types of defects and their concentrations in finished products has been challenging, especially without cutting open or damaging the final material. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ai-based-atomic-defects-materials.html Engineering Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:20:03 EDT news694104719 Proteins are far more than nutrients we track on a food label. Present in every cell of our bodies, they work like nature's molecular machines. They walk, stretch, bend, and flex to do their jobs, pumping blood, fighting disease, building tissue, and many other jobs too small for the eye to see. Their power doesn't come from shape alone, but from how they move. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-proteins-motion.html Biotechnology Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:20:04 EDT news693825061