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.

AI-driven atomic force microscopy platform developed for decoding human immune cell mechanics

Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In this study, an integrated artificial intelligence (AI)-atomic force microscopy (AFM) platform is introduced that enables label-free, mechanophenotyping of macrophages at single-cell resolution.

Journal: Small Methods

9-Sep-2025

AI tool developed at Oxford helps astronomers find supernovae in a sky full of noise

University of Oxford
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new AI-powered tool has reduced astronomers’ workload by 85% - filtering through thousands of data alerts to identify the few genuine signals caused by supernovae (powerful explosions from dying stars). The findings have been published today (10 Sept) in The Astrophysical Journal.

Journal: The Astrophysical Journal

9-Sep-2025

Indiana University and Instructure receive NSF funding to develop TOPSAIL, the first-of-its-kind infrastructure for testing AI tools in education

Indiana University
Grant and Award Announcement

In fields ranging from cybersecurity to autonomous vehicles testbeds provide realistic environments where innovations can be safely piloted before widespread deployment. TOPSAIL, developed by Indiana University and leading educational technology company Instructure and funded through a planning grant from the National Science Foundation, will bring this proven methodology to education research for the first time, creating infrastructure that enables research teams to conduct pilot evaluations in authentic classrooms responsibly, rigorously, and rapidly.

Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

9-Sep-2025

NCCN Policy Summit explores whether artificial intelligence can transform cancer care safely and fairly

National Comprehensive Cancer Network
Meeting Announcement

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)—an alliance of leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education—hosts a Policy Summit exploring where artificial intelligence (AI) currently stands as a tool for improving cancer care, and where it may be going in the future.

9-Sep-2025

Explore or exploit: Research that decodes animal decision-making earns NIH grant

University of Maryland Baltimore County
Grant and Award Announcement

Researchers led by Noah Cowan at Johns Hopkins University have secured NIH funding to probe how animals alternate between "explore" (sensing) and "exploit" (task-oriented) behaviors in uncertain environments, using the weakly electric glass knifefish as a model. The team includes researchers from four universities who will integrate their expertise in neuroscience, math, engineering, and machine learning to build on 2023 findings in Nature Machine Intelligence that revealed the explore/exploit pattern across species from amoebas to humans. The project aims to decode decision triggers, with implications for robotics and medicine.

Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

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

AI-driven atomic force microscopy platform developed for decoding human immune cell mechanics

AI tool developed at Oxford helps astronomers find supernovae in a sky full of noise

Indiana University and Instructure receive NSF funding to develop TOPSAIL, the first-of-its-kind infrastructure for testing AI tools in education

NCCN Policy Summit explores whether artificial intelligence can transform cancer care safely and fairly

Explore or exploit: Research that decodes animal decision-making earns NIH grant

Challenges with motor coordination drive differences in imitation and learning in children with autism, research reveals

Frontiers Forum Deep Dive series: Well-publicized polar geoengineering ideas will not help and could harm, warn experts