Urban trees play a vital role in maintaining the health of cities and their residents by cooling neighborhoods, filtering air pollution, supporting biodiversity, and enhancing human well-being. However, these benefits are deeply connected to the tree microbiome—the community of microorganisms that supports tree health and resilience. As urbanization increases and cities face growing challenges from […]
Hariri Faculty Keith Brown (ENG) Leads the Next Evolution of Self-Driving Labs By Maureen Stanton Self-driving laboratories (SDLs) — research systems that combine robotics, AI, and autonomous experimentation — are transforming discoveries of new and better materials. Capable of running and analyzing thousands of experiments in real time, SDLs accelerate discovery at a scale previously […]
Using COMETS simulations, researchers showed how metabolism, nutrient use, and physical growth shape colony structure and genetic diversity By Maureen Stanton Microbes — tiny organisms invisible to the naked eye — rarely live in isolation. They form dynamic communities that shape ecosystems in our bodies, soils, oceans, and industries. Despite their microscopic size, these communities […]
By Maria Yaitanes Every material’s properties—like strength or flexibility—depend entirely on how its atoms are arranged and bonded. Even with the same element, like carbon, small structural changes can lead to vastly different results: a diamond’s tight geometric bonds makes it hard, while graphite’s loose, layered structure makes it soft. Amorphous carbon describes a carbon […]
Kolachalama Lab Launches PodGPT to Revolutionize Health and Science By Maeve Smillie In an age where medical misinformation runs rampant and science communication often falls flat, a new artificial intelligence tool promises to bridge the gap between expert knowledge and everyday understanding. Introducing PodGPT: a tool trained not just on written material like textbooks and […]
BU-led Team Pioneers Physics-inspired Scheme for Computation on Encrypted Data at Scale By Maureen L. Stanton Today’s encryption faces mounting risks—from escalating cyberattacks to the looming threat of quantum computing. As digital systems grow more complex and reliant on cloud and third-party services, vulnerabilities multiply. JP Morgan, for instance, reports that it blocks 45 billion […]
BU Study Maps Climate Change, Demographics, and Disaster Risk, Providing Actionable Insights By Maeve Smillie and Maureen Stanton By mid-century, the U.S. will be a much hotter place. Heatwaves will last longer, summer temperatures will soar, and the number of dangerously hot days will rise sharply—especially in the US South. But not everyone will feel […]
Discoveries could transform how we learn, recover, and model language By Maureen L. Stanton Are words arbitrary? For centuries, scientists believed that words are essentially random sounds that are given meaning. For example, there’s nothing about the sound of the word “dog” that tells you what it means—it’s just something we’ve learned. Following this logic, […]
Task force members include Hariri Institute faculty affiliates By Maria Yaitanes Boston University President Melissa Gilliam, MD, announced the launch of the BU Task Force on Convergent Research and Education in a recent memo. Convergent research is a collaborative approach that goes beyond interdisciplinary research to solve specific, complex societal problems that require diverse disciplinary […]
By Hariri Institute Staff A collaborative team of researchers, including Hariri Institute faculty affiliates Vijaya Kolachalama, PhD, FAHA, associate professor of medicine, and Rhoda Au, professor of epidemiology, anatomy & neurobiology, has developed a new computational framework that can detect early signs of cognitive impairment from digital voice recordings—while protecting individual privacy. The findings, published in […]