City Trees Have Their Own Microbiomes—and Urban Living Is Changing Them
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 […]
BU Scientists Advance Efforts to Predict the Behavior of Bacterial Colonies
Using COMETS simulations, researchers showed how metabolism, nutrient use, and physical growth shape colony structure and genetic diversity By Maureen L. 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 wield an outsized […]
AI Breakthrough Offers New Path to Designing Next-Gen Materials
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 […]
New AI Model PodGPT Blends Research and Podcasts for Smarter Health Answers
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 […]
NIH Awards $3.1M Grant to Kayhan Batmanghelich for Pulmonary Biomarker Research
AI-driven approach integrates Multi-Modal Data and Biomechanics for Better Diagnosis and Tracking of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) By Maureen Stanton Kayhan Batmanghelich, Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow and AIR Affiliate at Boston University, was awarded a $3.1 million competitive renewal R01 grant from the National Institutes of […]
Predicting the Future of Protein Science
By Maureen Stanton A BU-led interdisciplinary research team, bringing together expertise in biomedical engineering, applied mathematics, and theoretical physics, has won top honors at the internationally renowned CASP16 (Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction) competition. The group earned top ranking in predicting multiprotein complexes, a critical benchmark of accuracy and innovation in computational modeling. Multiprotein complexes […]
Mayank Varia and Collaborators Win Best Paper at ACM CS&Law 2025
By Maureen L. Stanton Legal-Tech Framework enables confidential reporting of private misconduct settlements At the intersection of technology and justice, Boston University Professor Mayank Varia, with an interdisciplinary research team from Northwestern University, introduces a new, fully-integrated policy and technical approach to balance private settlement confidentiality with public oversight. Their work, honored with the Best […]
New Research Tackles Future of Encryption in the Age of Quantum Computing
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 hacking attempts daily. But the bigger threat is on the horizon: “Q-Day”—the […]
The Heat Divide: Mapping America’s Unequal Burden of Heat
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 […]
How American Sign Language Helped Reveal Languages’ Hidden Patterns
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, […]