EurekAlert! In the Spotlight - Artificial Intelligence

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

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.

Latest News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 10-May-2026 00:15 ET (10-May-2026 04:15 GMT/UTC)

18-Feb-2026

The hidden workload: Student data work in multimodal algorithmic evaluations

Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral

As universities increasingly adopt digital tools and automated analytics systems, attention often centers on these tools’ gains in accuracy and efficiency. Far less visible, however, is another critical dimension: the additional work students must do to produce, organize, and interpret their own data within these systems.

Journal: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

18-Feb-2026

Ancient mind-body practice proven to lower blood pressure in clinical trial

American College of Cardiology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A traditional Chinese mind-body practice that combines slow, structured movement, deep breathing and meditative focus lowered blood pressure as effectively as brisk walking in a large randomized clinical trial published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology. Blood pressure reductions were seen after three months and sustained for one year.

Journal: Journal of the American College of Cardiology

18-Feb-2026

Merck and Mayo Clinic announce new research and development collaboration to support AI-enabled drug discovery and precision medicine

Mayo Clinic
Business Announcement

Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside of the U.S. and Canada, and Mayo Clinic, the world's top-ranked hospital system, today announced a research and development agreement to apply artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics and multimodal clinical data to support drug discovery and development.

18-Feb-2026

AI-powered ECG could help guide lifelong heart monitoring for patients with repaired tetralogy of fallot

The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Heart Center led a multicenter effort to develop and validate an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can analyze a standard electrocardiogram (ECG) to identify patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot who may be at risk for harmful heart changes typically detected by cardiac MRI.

Journal: European Heart Journal

18-Feb-2026

Making AI-based scientific predictions more trustworthy

University of Missouri-Columbia
Reports and Proceedings

University of Missouri researchers have released the world’s largest collection of protein models with quality assessment — a groundbreaking new resource that could accelerate drug development for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. The database, called PSBench, includes 1.4 million annotated protein structure models, all verified by independent experts. It gives scientists the reliable information they need to build more accurate artificial intelligence (AI) systems for assessing the quality of protein structure models, which is critical for developing future medical treatments.

Meeting: Thirty-Ninth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2025)

18-Feb-2026

People are overconfident about spotting AI faces, study finds

University of New South Wales
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Many of us rely on outdated visual cues when trying to distinguish real faces from highly realistic AI-generated ones, with even people who have exceptional face-recognition skills being fooled.

Journal: British Journal of Psychology

18-Feb-2026

Study finds that learning of genetic health risks drives preventive action

23andMe Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

23andMe Research Institute study finds that learning of genetic health risks drives preventative action. The study included data from more than 1,000 research-consented 23andMe participants who learned they had an increased genetic risk for serious health conditions such as hereditary cancers and cardiovascular disease. Among those who learned of a serious genetic health risk: - 82% had not undergone prior genetic testing for these conditions, despite most (68%) having a relevant personal or family history. - 86% of those who shared results with their doctor received medical recommendations to address the risk, which included nearly 1,500 personalized recommendations from early screening to prophylactic surgeries. - 88% of the medical recommendations were adhered to by participants.

Journal: Genetics in Medicine Open