University of Vermont scientists developed a first-of-its-kind study that tracks thousands of generations of digital organisms replaying evolution hundreds of times. Their results were surprising. In some cases, changing the environment helped populations find higher fitness peaks; in others, it hindered them. This gives a bird’s-eye view of how evolution played out across many different environments—something that would be impossible to test in the lab. The biggest takeaway is that starting point really matters. A population’s history shapes how high it can climb and how hard the path is to get there, which means one population may not represents an entire species.

A research team at Duke University has developed a new AI framework that can uncover simple, understandable rules that govern some of the most complex dynamics found in nature and technology. The research is part of a long-term mission in Chen’s General Robotics Lab, where the team aims to develop “machine scientists” to assist automatic scientific discovery.

Astronomers have found evidence for a possible first-of-its-kind "superkilonova," or a kilonova spurred by a supernova. Such an event has been hypothesized but never seen.