EurekAlert! In the Spotlight - Artificial Intelligence

This month, we’re focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), a topic that continues to capture attention everywhere. Here, you’ll find the latest research news, insights, and discoveries shaping how AI is being developed and used across the world.

U.S. Department of Defense awards $61.9 million contract to SUNY Polytechnic Institute to advance AI and defense-focused innovation

SUNY Polytechnic Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) has been awarded a landmark $61.9 million contract by the U.S. Department of Defense to equip the U.S. Army with advanced, data-driven analytical tools. The award, one of the largest in SUNY Poly’s history, solidifies the institute’s position as a premier leader in applied artificial intelligence and defense-focused innovation.

Funder: U.S. Department of Defense

18-Aug-2026

SUNY Poly joins $19.9 million National Science Foundation initiative to accelerate AI-driven materials discovery

SUNY Polytechnic Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) is playing a key role in a new national research initiative led by Rice University, which has received a $19.9 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The project will use artificial intelligence, robotics, and cloud-based laboratories to accelerate the discovery and manufacturing of next-generation electronic and quantum materials.

18-Aug-2026

Caregivers are active agents in their infants’ learning and socialization, but how they do this differs across cultures

Northwestern University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Parent-infant interactions, often characterized by direct eye contact and ‘proto’ conversations, have long been thought to be the key to infants sense of their own ‘agency’: how infants begin to understand the intentions of people around them, and to influence them. But there is scant evidence of how infant development unfolds in other cultural contexts and environments.

Extraordinary new research published in the July/August issue of the journal Infancy reveals how mothers from two distinct communities foster infants’ sense of agency.

Journal: Infancy

18-Aug-2026

New imaging method reveals hormone-driven brain changes

University of Delaware
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Fluctuations in estrogen influence the brain, helping reshape connections between neurons. In a new study, University of Delaware researchers showed that a specialized imaging technique called magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) can detect estrogen-dependent mechanical changes in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory and learning, across the reproductive cycle.

Journal: Brain Communications

18-Aug-2026

Dying radio galaxies reveal a shorter, more dynamic afterlife of black hole jets

University of Cape Town - Faculty of Science
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Astronomers have uncovered evidence that the fading phase of some radio galaxies may be considerably shorter and more dynamic than previously recognised. Led by researchers at the University of Cape Town and the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA), the study examined 14 candidate remnant radio galaxies in the XMM–LSS deep field using sensitive observations spanning 144 MHz to 1.5 GHz.

Detailed spectral modelling confirmed 12 of the 14 sources as genuine remnant radio galaxies and revealed comparatively young spectral ages of approximately 8–42 million years. Many of the sources are faint and lie at relatively high redshifts, representing a population that has been difficult to detect in previous radio surveys. The findings suggest that radio lobes can fade rapidly after the supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy stops powering its jets, providing an important preview of the populations that will be discovered by future Square Kilometre Array (SKA) surveys.

Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Welcome to In the Spotlight, where each month we shine a light on something exciting, timely, or simply fascinating from the world of science.

Latest News Releases

U.S. Department of Defense awards $61.9 million contract to SUNY Polytechnic Institute to advance AI and defense-focused innovation

SUNY Poly joins $19.9 million National Science Foundation initiative to accelerate AI-driven materials discovery

Caregivers are active agents in their infants’ learning and socialization, but how they do this differs across cultures

New imaging method reveals hormone-driven brain changes

Dying radio galaxies reveal a shorter, more dynamic afterlife of black hole jets

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