For a century, scientists pondered whether bird flight evolved by animals gliding down from trees or by creatures running and flapping from the ground up. A landmark 1974 paper reset the debate to focus on the evolution of the flight stroke instead.

Words and images experienced by an infant wearing sensors during their daily life have led to efficient machine learning, pointing to the power of multimodal training signals and to the potentially exploitable statistics of real-life experience.

In organic chemistry, finding conditions that enable a broad range of compounds to undergo a particular type of reaction is highly desirable. However, conventional methods for doing so consume a lot of time and reagents. A machine-learning method has been developed that overcomes these problems.

Burning events that occur at night have been revealed as a driver of large wildfires. Prolonged drought conditions are to blame, making it easier for fires to spread at night when they would ordinarily slow or extinguish completely.