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: 9-May-2026 01:16 ET (9-May-2026 05:16 GMT/UTC)

18-Nov-2025

Artificial Intelligence may help save lives in ICUs

D'Or Institute for Research and Education
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study published in the Journal of Critical Care, conducted with the participation of the D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), investigated how to measure efficiency in the use of resources for patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), an illness contracted outside hospital settings and most common among older adults.

Severe CAP represents one of the greatest challenges for ICUs. It requires complex resources, ranging from prolonged hospitalizations to respiratory support, directly affecting hospitals’ ability to deliver quality care. Despite its relevance, traditional methods of evaluating hospital performance do not always take patient severity into account, which undermines fair comparisons between institutions and hinders more effective management strategies.

Journal: Journal of Critical Care

18-Nov-2025

Decoding human thought, motion, and brain function with AI

Society for Neuroscience
Meeting Announcement

New applications of AI and machine learning techniques were presented at Neuroscience 2025, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.

Meeting: Neuroscience 2025

18-Nov-2025

Combating climate change with better semiconductor manufacturing

American Institute of Physics
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The IPCC has developed the Global Warming Potential metric, a unit that compares a specific gas’s contribution to climate change to that of carbon dioxide. Nitrogen trifluoride is particularly bad, with a GWP about 17,000 times higher than carbon dioxide. But NF3 is critical in the semiconductor industry for etching and cleaning, and its use has increased more than twentyfold over the past 30 years. In the JVST:B, researchers develop a machine learning framework to predict the GWP of potential alternative materials.

18-Nov-2025

Dynamic network plasticity and sample efficiency in biological neural cultures: A comparative study with deep reinforcement learning

Beijing Institute of Technology Press Co., Ltd

A research paper by scientists at Cortical Labs investigate the complex network dynamics of in vitro neural systems using DishBrain, which integrates live neural cultures with high-density multi-electrode arrays in real-time, closed-loop game environments..

The research paper, published on Aug 4, 2025 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems.

Journal: Cyborg and Bionic Systems

18-Nov-2025

Ancient and colonial legacies still shaping the Amazon’s forests

Universiteit van Amsterdam
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Human influence across centuries continues to define biodiversity and carbon storage in the world’s largest rainforest, according to a new collaborative and international study led by the University of Amsterdam. The study shows that the Amazon rainforest – often described as one of the last untouched wildernesses – still bears the deep ecological imprints of both pre-Columbian Indigenous communities and European colonists. The study was published on 17 November in the journal PNAS.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

18-Nov-2025

PolyU receives three awards at CES Innovation Awards 2026

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Three innovations developed by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and its startups have achieved remarkable success at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Innovation Awards 2026, garnering three prestigious Innovation Awards for their cutting-edge research and development achievements. Among the award-winning projects, the Smart Firefighting Robots received the highest score in the “Products in Support of Human Security for All” category, earning the coveted “Best of Innovation Award”, the best result PolyU has achieved since first participating in the event. PolyU is committed to nurturing startups through its unique PolyVentures innovation ecosystem. These outstanding results are a testament to the University’s dedication to world-leading research and innovation, as well as its efforts to translate research excellence into impactful solutions that benefit society.

18-Nov-2025

What calling and singing reveal about bowhead whales

Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Bowhead whales likely reproduce beneath the sea ice northwest of Spitsbergen, while using the open water in the eastern Fram Strait as a migration corridor. This conclusion comes from researchers in the Ocean Acoustics Group at the Alfred Wegener Institute, who recorded the calls of bowhead whales using underwater recorders and analysed the records with artificial intelligence. Their study on bowhead whale habitat use in relation to sea-ice cover has now been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Journal: Scientific Reports