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Category: education

Approach improves how new skills are taught to large language models

Researchers have developed a technique that significantly improves the performance of large language models without increasing the computational power necessary to fine-tune the models. The researchers demonstrated that their technique improves the performance of these models over previous techniques in tasks including commonsense reasoning, arithmetic reasoning, instruction following, code generation, and visual recognition.

Large language models are artificial intelligence systems that are pretrained on huge data sets. After pretraining, these models predict which words should follow each other in order to respond to user queries. However, the nonspecific nature of pretraining means that there is ample room for improvement with these models when the user queries are focused on specific topics, such as when a user requests the model to answer a math question or to write computer code.

“In order to improve a model’s ability to perform more specific tasks, you need to fine-tune the model,” says Tianfu Wu, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of computer engineering at North Carolina State University.

How an MIT professor introduced hundreds of thousands of students to neuroscience

From the very beginning, MIT Professor Mark Bear’s philosophy for the textbook “Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain” was to provide an accessible and exciting introduction to the field while still giving undergraduates a rigorous scientific foundation. In the 30 years since its first print printing in 1995, the treasured 975-page tome has gone on to become the leading introductory neuroscience textbook, reaching hundreds of thousands of students at hundreds of universities around the world.

“We strive to present the hard science without making the science hard,” says Bear, the Picower Professor in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. The fifth edition of the textbook is out today from the publisher Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Bear says the book is conceived, written, and illustrated to instill students with the state of knowledge in the field without assuming prior sophistication in science. When he first started writing it in the late 1980s — in an effort soon joined by his co-authors and former Brown University colleagues Barry Connors and Michael Paradiso — there simply were no undergraduate neuroscience textbooks. Up until then, first as a graduate teaching assistant and then as a young professor, Bear taught Brown’s pioneering introductory neuroscience class with a spiral-bound stack of photocopied studies and other scrounged readings.

Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution generalized to real gases

The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution describes the probability distribution of molecular speeds in a sample of an ideal gas. Introduced over 150 years ago, it is based on the work of Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) and Austrian mathematician and theoretical physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906).

Today, the distribution and its implications are commonly taught to undergraduate students in chemistry and physics, particularly in introductory courses on or statistical mechanics.

In a recent theoretical paper, I introduced a novel formula that extends this well-known distribution to real gases.

“These Students Just Built the Future”: Stanford Team Unleashes Mini AI Robot Dog Created From Scratch, Stuns Experts With Breakthrough DIY Engineering

IN A NUTSHELL 🤖 Stanford University‘s course teaches students to build AI-powered robot dogs, blending education with technology. 🔧 Students learn hands-on robotics skills, from motor control to AI programming, using the “Pupper” quadruped kit. 🧠 The course shifts focus to AI, with students training neural networks to enhance Pupper‘s capabilities. 🌟 The program aims

Cutting to the core of how 3D structure shapes gene activity

In biology textbooks and beyond, the human genome and DNA therein typically are taught in only one dimension. While it can be helpful for learners to begin with the linear presentation of how stretches of DNA form genes, this oversimplification undersells the significance of the genome’s 3D structure.

To fit in the nucleus of our cells, six feet of DNA is wound up like thread on protein spools called histones. In its packaged form called chromatin, coiled up DNA features many loops and clumps. While it may look random and messy to the untrained eye, these tumbleweed-like shapes bring certain genomic regions into close contact while sheltering others.

Problems with this 3D structure are associated with many diseases including developmental disorders and cancer. Almost 12% of in have incurred issues with their , while other structural issues are known to cause T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Andrew Ng: Building Faster with AI

Andrew Ng on June 17, 2025 at AI Startup School in San Francisco.

Andrew Ng has helped shape some of the most influential movements in modern AI—from online education to deep learning to AI entrepreneurship.

In this talk, he shares what he’s learning now: why execution speed matters more than ever, how agentic workflows are changing what startups can build, and why concreteness beats vagueness when turning ideas into products. He reflects on the rise of AI coding assistants, the shifting bottlenecks in product development, and why, despite faster software, it’s still human judgment and responsibility that will shape what comes next.

Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply.
Work at a startup: https:/workatastartup.com.

Chapters:
00:00 — Introduction.
00:31 — The Importance of Speed in Startups.
01:13 — Opportunities in the AI Stack.
02:06 — The Rise of Agent AI
04:52 — Concrete Ideas for Faster Execution.
08:56 — Rapid Prototyping and Engineering.
17:06 — The Role of Product Management.
21:23 — The Value of Understanding AI
22:33 — Technical Decisions in AI Development.
23:26 — Leveraging Gen AI Tools for Startups.
24:05 — Building with AI Building Blocks.
25:26 — The Importance of Speed in Startups.
26:41 — Addressing AI Hype and Misconceptions.
37:35 — AI in Education: Current Trends and Future Directions.
39:33 — Balancing AI Innovation with Ethical Considerations.
41:27 — Protecting Open Source and the Future of AI.

What is the optimal setting for your air conditioner? We asked a physics professor

Ahh, summer, a time of vacations at the beach or mountains—and sky-high electricity bills as your air conditioner labors against the heat and humidity.

But what is the optimal temperature setting for your air conditioner?

And how does your body adapt to heat?

Northeastern University’s Stefan Kautsch, a teaching professor in physics, explains and how the concepts he discusses in the classroom can also help humans survive sweltering temperatures.

Degrees of intelligence: Where Meta’s top AGI scientists studied and why it matters

Meta’s Superintelligence Lab has assembled a world-class team of AI researchers from institutions like OpenAI, DeepMind, and Google. Their educational paths—often beginning in top universities in China or India and leading to elite Western institutions—reflect the global and interdisciplinary nature of AGI development. This article explores their academic journeys, highlighting how rigorous training in mathematics, computer science, and safety research underpins the next frontier of artificial intelligence.

Rolling for science: Mars orbiter learns new moves after nearly 20 years in space

After nearly 20 years of operations, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is on a roll, performing a new maneuver to squeeze even more science out of the busy spacecraft as it circles the Red Planet. Engineers have essentially taught the probe to roll over so that it’s nearly upside down. Doing so enables MRO to look deeper underground as it searches for liquid and frozen water, among other things.

The new capability is detailed in a paper recently published in The Planetary Science Journal documenting three “very large rolls,” as the mission calls them, that were performed between 2023 and 2024.

“Not only can you teach an old spacecraft new tricks, you can open up entirely new regions of the subsurface to explore by doing so,” said one of the paper’s authors, Gareth Morgan of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.