A study of nearly 13,000 adults found that people consuming the most artificial sweeteners experienced a 62% faster decline in memory and thinking skills, equivalent to approximately 1.6 additional years of brain aging. Six popular sweeteners were linked to faster cognitive decline, raising concerns about the long-term brain health effects of common sugar substitutes, although causation was not established.

Sugar substitutes are often promoted as a healthier way to enjoy sweet foods and drinks without consuming as much sugar...

Scientists have created a miniature universe in the laboratory that could help answer one of the biggest mysteries in physics: What is time, and where does it come from? Using 24,000 ultracold atoms, a University of Birmingham researcher built an isolated quantum system that repeatedly expands and contracts, mimicking the Big Bang and a possible Big Crunch. Remarkably, the experiment showed that time could emerge from changes happening inside the system, without relying on an external clock.

What if time is not a fundamental part of the universe, but something that emerges from the changes taking place ins...

Millions of people in the U.S. are affected by diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that affects the eyes. The condition is caused by damage to the blood vessels in the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. At first, diabetic retinopathy might not cause any symptoms, or the problems might be mild. However, if the underlying diabetes remains poorly managed, it can lead to blindness.

In a new study, University of Michigan researchers showed that treatment with the molecule norrin can prevent vision loss in diabetic rats. The study is published in the journal Diabetes.

Diabetic retinopathy treatment
Current therapies for diabetic retinopathy target vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, a protein that causes new blood vessels to form.

VEGF a...

As artificial intelligence systems become increasingly capable of working on their own, keeping them focused on their designated tasks is a growing challenge.

University of Florida computer science professor Sumit Jha, Ph.D., is working to keep agents from “going rogue.” Jha and his team have developed a system that can detect when an AI model begins to from its assigned task and steer it back without retraining the model or adding significant computing demands.

The research comes as news reports have chronicled AI agents gaining more autonomy and occasionally behaving in ways their developers did not intend...