First-of-its-kind journal facilitates rapid publication of AI research

ACM AI Letters designed to keep pace with AI innovations

Association for Computing Machinery

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Bridging a crucial gap between traditional conferences and journals, AILET will feature short peer-reviewed contributions that accelerate knowledge dissemination across academia and industry.

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Credit: Association for Computing Machinery

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is pleased to announce a new journal, ACM AI Letters (AILET), a unique venue for rapid publication of impactful, concise, and timely communications in artificial intelligence. In keeping with ACM’s broader goals, all AILET papers will be open access, with no publication charges for the first three years. ACM AI Letters will open for submissions in summer 2025.

Bridging a crucial gap between traditional conferences and journals, AILET will feature short peer-reviewed contributions that accelerate knowledge dissemination across academia and industry. This unique publication prioritizes theoretical breakthroughs, algorithmic innovation, practical real-world applications, and critical societal implications including ethics, policy, and responsible AI. It also introduces a distinctive space for rigorously reviewed opinion pieces and policy briefs, promoting swift engagement with contemporary issues shaping the AI landscape.

ACM AI Letters welcomes concise summaries of work in the following areas:

• Theoretical AI: Reports on theoretical breakthroughs in AI
• Algorithmic Advances: Descriptions of significant algorithmic and scientific advances in AI
• Practical Applications: Accounts of novel or deployed applications of AI in real-world settings such as healthcare, finance, robotics, and autonomous systems
• AI & Society: Reports on AI applications addressing key societal challenges, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• Emerging Topics: Areas like AI ethics, explainable AI, policy, governance, and responsible AI will be covered, focusing on their implications in practical implementations
• Opinions and briefs: Policy, latest advances, comparative assessments

“Existing AI-related journals present research according to long-established models,” explained Dame Wendy Hall, Co-Chair of the ACM Publications Board and Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. “Authors often wait months before their research is published, and the field is hindered by slow access to important innovations. With AILET, we’re filling a need for a letters-style venue—one that accommodates rapid peer-review, late-breaking results, policy briefs, AI action plans, and highlights.”

The Co-Editors-in-Chief of ACM AI Letters are Nitesh Chawla, University of Notre Dame (USA); Barry O’Sullivan, University College Cork (Ireland); and Richa Singh, IIT Jodhpur (India). The new journal’s advisory board, made up of senior AI researchers from around the world, will be supported by a large international editorial board to facilitate rapid peer review of articles. For more information, please visit the journal homepage at https://dl.acm.org/journal/ailet.

About ACM’s Publications Program
ACM publishes more than 60 scholarly peer-reviewed journals in dozens of computing and information technology disciplines. ACM's high-impact journals constitute a vast and comprehensive archive of computing innovation, covering emerging and established computing research for both practical and theoretical applications. ACM journal editors are thought leaders in their fields, and ACM's emphasis on rapid publication ensures minimal delay in communicating exciting new ideas and discoveries.

About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.

 

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CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT

UC Berkeley scientists uncover neural mechanisms behind long-term memory

For the first time, neuroscientists have recorded activity from hundreds of neurons simultaneously in bats, providing new clues into how memories are stored

University of California - Berkeley

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Every day, our brain takes countless fleeting experiences — from walks on the beach to  presentations at work — and transforms them into long-term memories. How exactly this works remains a mystery, but neuroscientists believe that it involves a phenomenon called neural replay, in which neurons rapidly recreate the same activation sequences that occurred during the original experience. Surprisingly, neural replays can happen both before and after an experience, suggesting they help in both memory storage and also future planning.

In a new study, neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, recorded activity from hundreds of neurons simultaneously in freely flying bats. It is the first time that an ensemble of neurons — rather than just individual neurons — have been studied in concert in bats as they fly around and behave naturally. The data provided surprising new insights into neural replay and theta sequences, another phenomenon which is believed to be involved in memory and planning. 

“For the past 20 years, we’ve been recording single neurons in bats and asking the question, ‘When animals are doing interesting things, what do individual neurons do?’” said study senior author Michael Yartsev, an associate professor of neuroscience and bioengineering and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at UC Berkeley. “But in the brain, there are emerging properties that you only see when you're looking at ensembles of neurons. In this study, we looked at these two phenomena — replay and theta sequences — that are only visible when you track many neurons at the same time.”

Better understanding the role of replay and theta sequences in the brains of animals could shed light on how long-term memories are formed and stored in humans, potentially leading to new treatments for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. 

The study, which was published online today (July 9) in the journal Nature, was supported by grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Office of Naval Research.

‘A whole different ball game’

Studying neural replay and theta sequences is tricky because it requires listening in on tens or hundreds of neurons in the brain simultaneously. Over the past decade, Michael Yartsev’s lab has pioneered wireless neural recording technologies in Egyptian fruit bats, giving his team an unprecedented view inside the brains of these navigational experts as they forage in large environments. 

Previously, the wireless recording devices were only able to detect signals from small numbers of neurons at a time. In the new study, co-first authors Angelo Forli, Wudi Fan and Kevin Qi successfully utilized high-density silicon electrode arrays that can record hundreds of neurons at once from flying bats. These electrodes can also record local field potentials, a measure of the overall electrical activity in a region of the brain.

“It's a whole different ball game to record such large ensembles of neurons wirelessly in a flying animal,” Yartsev said. “This was never possible before now.”

To study neural replay and theta sequences, the researchers tracked the activity of “place cells,” a type of neuron that is found in the hippocampus of many species. Individual place cells fire when an animal is in a specific location in space, creating an internal spatial map of their environment. 

“If you know that a place cell corresponds to a specific location in space, and the cell is active, then you can infer that the bat is in that location,” said Angelo Forli, who is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. “If you can track multiple cells, you can know the path that the bat took.”

But place cells aren’t only active when an animal is moving around. Experiments in rodents have shown that they exhibit hippocampal replay during rest, essentially refiring in the same sequence as they did during the movement but in a shorter, time compressed format.

Place cells in rodents also exhibit patterns called theta sequences, which happen during movement, and are believed to represent the animal “looking ahead” just a few steps from its current location.

“Previously, these phenomena were exclusively investigated in rodents, because that’s what the technology allowed. We wanted to find out if they also exist in bats, and if they do, are they any different from what we see in rodents?” said Forli. “We discovered a series of differences that challenge established models.”

A fundamental unit of information processing

In the experiment, the researchers recorded the activity of bats’ place cells as they flew freely around a large flight room and identified which sequences of place cells corresponded with specific trajectories. They were then able to identify replay events, or moments when these same neural sequences occurred when the bats were at rest.

Most of what we know about replay has been gleaned from experiments on rodents in unnatural settings, such as a “sleep box,” to record replay events following behavioral runs. This introduces artificial boundaries between active and inactive states. In contrast, bats have many natural active periods and rest periods within the same experimental session, allowing for the capture of replay under less restrictive conditions. This led to the discovery that replays mostly occur minutes after the experience, and often at locations distant from where the experience took place. 

Surprisingly, the researchers also found that the length of these replay events was the same for all flight trajectories, no matter how long the flight was. Essentially, if one neural sequence corresponded to a 10-meter flight, and another neural sequence corresponded to a 20-meter flight, the replays of both of those sequences were time-compressed to the same length.

“We saw that replays for short versus long trajectories had the same duration,” Forli said. “It seems that information is cut down to the same chunk of time regardless of the length of the experience.”

The researchers hypothesize that this constant replay duration may represent an elemental unit of information processing in the brain.

“From a computational perspective, it's incredibly advantageous to send fixed packets of information,” Yartsev said. “It’s very efficient because whatever is reading that information out knows it will arrive in these fixed sizes.”

The team’s next question concerned theta sequences, a type of ensemble phenomenon that is believed to support replay and to rely on theta oscillations in the hippocampus. However, unlike rodents, bats and humans both lack continuous theta oscillations, which occur at a frequency of approximately 8 Hertz, or eight wingbeats per second. Interestingly, the researchers found sequential network activity during flight in bats, akin to theta sequences in rodents, but with one major difference: unlike rodents, the fast sequences in bats had no relationship to theta oscillations, but were, instead, synced to the bats’ 8 Hz wingbeats. 

From the quivering of a mouse’s whiskers to the rhythms of human speech, there are countless other animal behaviors that occur at frequencies around 8 Hz. The researchers hypothesize that these theta sequences might provide a universal neural mechanism for how these behaviors are organized and directed in the animal brain. 

“There's something about this frequency which is ubiquitous across species, particularly mammalian species,” Yartsev said. “Our findings may provide the beginning of a mechanistic understanding of the neural basis of these behaviors, not only in rats and bats, but maybe also in other species like humans.”

Additional support for this research was provided by the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the Vallee Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09341-z 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Replay and representation dynamics in the hippocampus of freely flying bats

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2025

 

Orange is the new aphrodisiac—for guppies

University of British Columbia

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Male guppies have an extraordinary diversity of colours

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Credit: Wouter van der Bijl

It turns out colour isn’t just fashionable for guppies: According to a new UBC study, the more orange a male, the more virile it is.

The research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution shines light on an enduring evolutionary mystery: why male guppies have such vibrant and varied colours and patterns.

Virile me up

Zoologists Drs. Wouter van der Bijl and Judith Mank used deep learning, genetic studies and bred three generations of increasingly orange guppies to investigate. They found the more colourful males were up to two times more sexually active, performing for females at a greater rate and for longer periods of time, and attempting to sneakily copulate more often.

Orange you glad to see me, baby?

It’s known that female guppies prefer orange, and unusual, patterns in their male partners, but the team found that the colour diversity of guppies comes from the same cells that are responsible for forming the brain, suggesting a genetic link between how guppies look and how they behave.

“Previously, people thought perhaps males realized that if they were more orange, they were more sexy. With the genetic link, it may be that they’re healthier and fitter,” said Dr. Mank.

Let’s recombine sometime

The researchers found the guppy colour genes, and the locations they appeared in, were tied to multiple chromosomes, creating a vast architecture of genetic possibilities. Seven orange and eight black colour types were identified overall, allowing for a potential 32,768 unique pattern combinations.

“Genetic variation is the raw material that evolution uses to produce resilient, adapted animals and plants, including for things like climate change or disease,” said van der Bijl. “We often look at extreme examples to understand where genetic variation comes from and how it’s maintained.”

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Journal

Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

10.1038/s41559-025-02781-w 

 

Murals boost Cincinnati’s vitality, community development

UC study on the impact of street murals appears in leading journal

University of Cincinnati

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2023 UC alumni mural in Over-the-Rhine. Photo/UC Alumni Association.

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Credit: UC Alumni Association

Cities across the U.S. are increasingly turning to murals as tools for placemaking, cultural expression and neighborhood revitalization — and Cincinnati is a standout among them. With more than 300 murals across the city, including 55 in one historic district alone, public art has become a defining feature of Cincinnati’s streetscape.

Now, a new study published in the international urban design journal Cities offers fresh insights into how murals contribute to vibrant, walkable neighborhoods. The study is led by Hyesun Jeong, assistant professor of urban design in the University of Cincinnati’s School of Art at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP).

“Murals are associated with higher foot traffic, underscoring their ability to attract people and energize public spaces,” Jeong says.

The study, which began in 2023, looked at how murals fit into Cincinnati’s neighborhoods by analyzing maps and data on foot traffic, crime and local populations. It was initially funded by a UC Faculty Scholars grant and extended by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

“It’s rewarding to see this research project come to fruition,” Jeong says. “More importantly, I hope the findings can help citizens, organizations and city officials better understand the social and economic impact of public art — and contribute to making Cincinnati an even better place.”

The findings come at a pivotal moment for cities seeking low-cost, high-impact strategies to foster walkability, cultural identity and neighborhood vitality, says Jeong. The research provides actionable data, she says, that can inform urban policy, guiding decisions about where and how to invest in public art to achieve broader community development goals.

The key findings are:

• Murals cluster near vibrant urban features: Murals are strongly associated with food-related businesses (like restaurants and cafés), retail shops, cultural venues (galleries, theaters), historic landmarks and transit hubs. They are rarely found near vacant lots or auto-related sites.

• Linked to revitalization — and signs of gentrification: Areas with murals tend to have denser housing, more college-educated residents and higher rates of walking to work. These areas have seen faster increases in income, rent and home values from 2010 to 2020, though they still show higher vacancy rates and slightly lower median incomes than non-mural areas. Artist populations also remain more concentrated in mural zones.

• Murals boost foot traffic: Even after accounting for demographic and density factors, murals are significantly linked to increased pedestrian activity — suggesting they help draw people to public spaces.

• No link between murals and crime: The study found no statistically significant relationship between murals and either violent or nonviolent crime rates.

Cincinnati’s public art scene has garnered national attention, recently earning the No. 1 spot on USA Today’s 2024 list of top U.S. cities for street art. From colorful staircases near the UC campus to iconic works like the UC Alumni Association’s “Boldly Defining Next” mural on a major thoroughfare, murals serve not only as visual landmarks but as catalysts for economic and cultural growth.

However, the study also cautions that as neighborhoods revitalize, issues like rising property values and displacement may follow. To address this, Jeong suggests strategies for balancing cultural development and affordable housing for residents and artists.

The research, Jeong says, underscores the growing importance of public art in shaping cities — not just aesthetically, but socially and economically.

“When embedded in thoughtful urban design,” she says, “murals can help cities build vibrant and culturally rich public spaces.”

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Mural representing Ukraine for Blink 2022. Mural by UC faculty member Jenny Ustick in the DAAP School of Design. Photo/UC Marketing + Brand.

Credit

UC Marketing + Brand

Journal

Cities

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

The role of public murals in street vitality

 

Ad blockers may be showing users more problematic ads, NYU Tandon study finds

Privacy-conscious users relying on "acceptable ads" programs encounter 13.6% more problematic content than those without ad blockers, researchers discover

NYU Tandon School of Engineering

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Ad blockers, the digital shields that nearly one billion internet users deploy to protect themselves from intrusive advertising, may be inadvertently exposing their users to more problematic content, according to a new study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

The study, which analyzed over 1,200 advertisements across the United States and Germany, found that users of Adblock Plus's "Acceptable Ads" feature encountered 13.6% more problematic advertisements compared to users browsing without any ad blocking software. The finding challenges the widely held belief that such privacy tools uniformly improve the online experience.

"While programs like Acceptable Ads aim to balance user and advertiser interests by permitting less disruptive ads, their standards often fall short of addressing user concerns comprehensively," said Ritik Roongta, NYU Tandon Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) PhD student and lead author of the study that will be presented at the 25th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium on July 15, 2025. Rachel Greenstadt, CSE professor and faculty member of the NYU Center for Cybersecurity, oversaw the research.

The research team developed an automated system using artificial intelligence to identify problematic advertisements at scale. To define what constitutes "problematic," the researchers created a comprehensive taxonomy drawing from advertising industry policies, regulatory guidelines, and user feedback studies.

Their framework identifies seven categories of concerning content: ads inappropriate for minors (such as alcohol or gambling promotions), offensive or explicit material, deceptive health or financial claims, manipulative design tactics like fake urgency timers, intrusive user experiences, fraudulent schemes, and political content without proper disclosure.

Their AI system, powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o-mini model, matched human experts' judgments 79% of the time when identifying problematic content across these categories.

The study revealed particularly concerning patterns for younger internet users. Nearly 10% of advertisements shown to underage users in the study violated regulations designed to protect minors. This highlights systematic failures in preventing inappropriate advertising from reaching children, the very problem that drives many users to adopt ad blockers in the first place.

Adblock Plus’s Acceptable Ads represents an attempt at compromise in the ongoing battle between advertisers and privacy advocates. The program, used by over 300 million people worldwide, works by maintaining curated lists of approved advertising exchanges (the automated platforms that connect advertisers with websites) and publishers (the websites and apps that display ads). The program allows certain advertisements to bypass ad blockers if they meet "non-intrusive" standards.

However, the NYU Tandon researchers discovered that advertising exchanges behave differently when serving ads to users with ad blockers enabled. While newly added exchanges in the Acceptable Ads program showed fewer problematic advertisements, existing approved exchanges that weren't blocked actually increased their delivery of problematic content to these privacy-conscious users.

"This differential treatment of ad blocker users by ad exchanges raises serious questions," Roongta noted. "Do ad exchanges detect the presence of these privacy-preserving extensions and intentionally target their users with problematic content?"

The implications extend beyond user experience. The researchers warn that this differential treatment could enable a new form of digital fingerprinting, where privacy-conscious users become identifiable precisely because of their attempts to protect themselves. This creates what the study calls a "hidden cost" for privacy-aware users.

The $740 billion digital advertising industry has been locked in an escalating arms race with privacy tools. Publishers lose an estimated $54 billion annually to ad blockers, leading nearly one-third of websites to deploy scripts that detect and respond to ad blocking software.

"The misleading nomenclature of terms like 'acceptable' or 'better' ads creates a perception of enhanced user experience, which is not fully realized," said Greenstadt.

This study extends earlier research by Greenstadt and Roongta, which found that popular privacy-enhancing browser extensions often fail to meet user expectations across key performance and compatibility metrics. The current work reveals another dimension of how privacy technologies may inadvertently harm the users they aim to protect.

In addition to Greenstadt and Roongta, the current paper's authors are Julia Jose, an NYU Tandon CSE PhD candidate, and Hussam Habib, research associate at Greenstadt’s PSAL lab.