Methanol, important for the manufacture of many everyday goods and for its green energy potential, may soon be produced faster and more efficiently.

Researchers have demonstrated a new suite of software tools that analyzes student behavior in an educational game in real time and uses that data to assess how well students are developing and making use of collaborative problem-solving (CPS) skills. These real-time assessments can be used to modify the game in response to student behavior in order to improve learning.

The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and NTT Research, Inc., a division of NTT, announced the publication of research showing an application of machine-learning directed optimization (ML-DO) that efficiently searches for high-performance design configurations in the context of biohybrid robots. Applying a machine learning approach, the researchers created mini biohybrid rays made of cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) and rubber with a wingspan of about 10 mm that are approximately two times more efficient at swimming than those recently developed under a conventional biomimetic approach.

Receiving simple, supportive texts from a romantic partner – however brief or affectionate – can help people cope with stressful events in their daily lives, new Cornell psychology research finds. The findings are among the first outside a controlled lab setting to show that reminders about a close partner can help regulate emotions.