The time had come to open the envelope. But Stephan Schlamminger, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), wasn’t sure he wanted to know the secret number that was inside.

On paper, material testing looks like one of the most controlled and reliable parts of a construction project. Samples are collected, standardized procedures are followed, and results are documented with precision. Everything points toward certainty.

Pottery is a metaphorical gold mine for archaeologists. Well-preserved ceramics offer a rare glimpse into the lives of past societies, their cultures, traditions, and how they expressed status. When analyzing such finds, stamps and inscriptions are often key.

Across manufacturing floors, pharmaceutical labs, and industrial supply chains, AI is moving from experiment to infrastructure.

Right now, as tensions rise around Iran and the Persian Gulf, the headlines are doing what they always do: tracking missiles, drones, and the defense companies building them. That matters, obviously. But it’s not the whole story.

By now, ChatGPT, Claude, and other large language models (LLMs) have accumulated so much human knowledge that they’re far from simple answer generators; they can also express abstract concepts, such as certain tones, personalities, biases, and moods.

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology recently

A broken motor in an automated machine can bring production on a busy factory floor to a halt. If engineers can’t find a replacement part they may have to order one from a distributor hundreds of miles away, leading to costly production delays.

In a long-running collaboration with GE Aerospace, researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia have been steadily working to improve the performance of high-pressure turbine (HPT) engines through computer simulations on leadership-class computing systems.

In an emergency, knowing exactly where a first responder is can mean the difference between life and death. When a firefighter in a burning building fails to check in, how does the commander know where to look for them?