Among the many predictions about the future of artificial intelligence is that models will one day be able to conduct scientific research on their own, leaving humans out of the equation. Already, they can write code, run experiments and search scientific literature, but carrying out open-ended research would require a significant leap in ability.

In a paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, researchers tested AI’s ability to conduct open-ended research and found that it came up short.

Putting AI to the test
The study authors gave frontier agents (cutting-edge, state-of-the-art AI tools designed to carry out complex, multistep tasks autonomously) six days to conduct research and write papers based on two then-unpublished AI conference submissi...

Astronomers may have uncovered an entirely new cosmic object: a gigantic “black hole star” that could explain the mysterious red dots filling the early universe...

Exposure to Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) that causes mild or no symptoms can trigger the body’s immune response and naturally build protection, potentially solving a nearly 100-year-old mystery of immunity.

New Griffith University research, with the help of clinical scientists from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), investigated how immunity developed over time as infection rates declined with age, suggesting progressive immune protection. The paper “Subclinical exposure to Streptococcus pyogenes drives the development of long-lived homologous immunity” has been published in Nature Communications.

Strep A is a common bacterium that can cause painful tonsillitis and impetigo in young children and teenagers...

A popular myth about black holes is that they act like giant cosmic vacuum cleaners, sucking in everything around them. But Wladimir Lyra’s research found a new mechanism around supermassive black holes that is more like a cosmic nursery, giving birth to planets more massive than Jupiter.

“We’re finding objects that are a thousand times the mass of the Earth, but built of pure dust,” Lyra said. “And not only that, but also some of these objects are approaching the mass of the sun.”

Lyra, an associate professor of astronomy at New Mexico State University, began this line of research as a postdoctoral fellow collaborating with Barry McKernan, Saavik Ford and Mordecai-Mark Mac Low at the American Museum of Natural History in 2010.

Bhupendra Mishr...