The American Association for the Advancement of Science has named four New York University faculty as 2025 AAAS Fellows: Eray Aydil, Anirban Maitra, André Fenton, and Liina Pylkkänen.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is honoring Mississippi State University Professor John Bickle as an AAAS Fellow for his distinguished contributions to the philosophy of science and neuroscience.

For many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), learning to navigate romance safely has long been overlooked. Researchers tested a video-based program using realistic dating scenarios, from texting to in-person interactions. Participants’ accuracy rose sharply – from 20% at baseline to 76% during training – and skills largely persisted over time. The program also sparked honest conversations, boosted confidence, and showed that with the right tools, individuals with IDD can pursue relationships safely and on their own terms.

Diversification and specialization are central to complex adaptive systems, yet overarching principles across domains remain elusive. Vicky Chuqiao Yang, assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and James Holehouse, a mathematical biologist with the Santa Fe Institute led a research project that has  introduced a general theory that unifies diversity and specialization across disparate systems, including microbes, federal agencies, companies, universities, and cities, characterized by two key parameters. The research team show from extensive data that function diversity scales with system size as a sublinear power law-resembling Heaps’ law-in all but cities, where it is logarithmic. Their theory explains both behaviors and suggests that function creation depends on system goals and structure: federal agencies tend to ensure functional coverage; cities slow new function growth as old ones expand; and cells occupy an intermediate position. Once functions are introduced, their growth follows a remarkably universal pattern across all systems.