CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Large language model-based chatbots have the potential to promote healthy changes in behavior. But researchers from the ACTION Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have found that the artificial intelligence tools don’t effectively recognize certain motivational states of users and therefore don’t provide them with appropriate information. Michelle Bak, a doctoral student in information sciences, and information sciences professor Jessie Chin reported their research in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Large language model-based chatbots — also known as generative conversational agents ...

AUSTIN, Texas -- The Securities and Exchange Commission acts as Wall Street’s traffic cop, fining companies for such infractions as securities fraud and insider trading. New research from Texas McCombs finds another parallel between the SEC and traffic enforcement: pressure to meet self-imposed quotas. Assistant accounting professors Matthew Kubic and Sara Toynbee find that the agency files twice as many enforcement cases in September as in other months, a phenomenon they call the September spike. They also link the increase in cases to smaller fines that reduce what the government takes in from violators. The reason for the ...

As researchers search for new insights into Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), there is an ever-greater need for data from clinical trials and research studies. However, many people living with ALS are not certain how to get involved with clinical research, and the demographics of current ALS clinical trial participants are not representative of the full population of people living with the disease worldwide.  To address the critical need for diversity and accessibility in ALS clinical trials and research studies, the Illinois-based Les Turner ALS Foundation has published a new ...

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago announces the launch of the Journal of Health Advocacy (JHA), the first of its kind peer-reviewed open access journal housed within the organization’s Patrick M. Magoon Institute for Healthy Communities. This new journal bridges the gap between knowledge and action to empower individuals and groups to address real-world challenges to health equity. It opened for submissions May 1, 2024. “Disseminating and recognizing advocacy that is so often successful ...

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Ochsner Health is proud to announce its recognition as one of America’s Best Employers for Diversity for 2024. This honor, awarded by Forbes in collaboration with market research firm Statista, places Ochsner Health among the elite 500 companies leading the way in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the United States. Dedicated to enhancing access and opportunities for all its employees, Ochsner Health is a frontrunner in fostering a professional environment where diversity is celebrated, and every employee is empowered to contribute ...

About The Study: This study found significant sex differences in primary care–based chronic kidney disease management among patients at a care network affiliated with an academic medical center in the U.S., with females overall receiving worse care than males. Though many differences were of small magnitude, the disparity deserves further examination.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jorge A. Rodriguez, M.D., email jarodriguez1@partners.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our ...

Being stressed while witnessing injustice may push your brain towards altruism, according to a study published on May 14th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Huagen Wang from Beijing Normal University, China, and colleagues. It takes more cognitive effort to punish others than it does to help them. Studies show that when witnessing an act of injustice while stressed, people tend to behave selflessly, preferring to help the victim than to punish the offender. This aligns with theories proposing that distinct brain networks drive intuitive, fast decisions and deliberate, slow decisions, ...

Organic solid-state lasers (OSLs) hold immense promise for a wide range of applications due to their flexibility, colour tunability, and efficiency. However, they are difficult to make, and with over 150,000 possible experiments required to conduct to find successful new materials, discovering them all would be the work of several lifetimes. In fact, in the previous few decades, only 10-20 new OSL materials have been tested. Researchers with the Acceleration Consortium based at the University of Toronto, took up this challenge and used self-driving lab (SDL) technology that, once set up, enabled them to synthesize and test over 1000 potential OSL materials ...

Sea otters are one of the few animals that use tools to access their food, and a new study has found that individual sea otters that use tools — most of whom are female — are able to eat larger prey and reduce tooth damage when their preferred prey becomes depleted. The study researchers and their enlisted volunteer “otter spotters” followed 196 radio-tagged southern sea otters off the coast of California to better understand how the threatened species uses tools in a rapidly changing environment. The research team from The University ...

Military physicians give patients whose military rank is higher better treatment than those who rank lower, according to a new study involving 1.5 million patient encounters. The findings provide evidence that the powerful enjoy better resources and support in a clinical context, often at the expense of the less powerful. “Our concern does not lie with the doctor-patient power imbalance itself, which is likely necessary for effective physician performance,” write the authors. “Rather, it lies with the inequitable variation in how that power is exercised, with the most vulnerable patients likely bearing the burden of this disparity, as ...

Using tools, like shells and rocks, to open their often thick-shelled mollusk prey increases foraging success in sea otters and protects their teeth from damage by allowing the animals to eat prey that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. The findings suggest that this behavior is a necessity for the survival of some otters in environments where competition is high and preferred prey is in short supply. Sea otters are well-known tool users. Aside from crushing prey with their teeth, sea otters have been observed using rocks, shells, human litter, and even the hulls of boats to bash open hard prey, including ...

Scientists have made several advances in the design of a class of HIV vaccines that could offer broad protection against the virus, according to four new research papers published this week in Science, Science Translational Medicine, and Science Immunology. “The studies […] exemplify progress in the rational design of [germline-targeting] HIV-1 vaccines, and what is being learned will guide [germline-targeting] programs for inducing [broadly neutralizing antibodies] against other human pathogens,” Rogier Sanders and John Moore write in a related ...

The energy invested in animal reproduction is as much as 10 times greater than previously estimated when the metabolic load of bearing and caring for offspring is accounted for, according to a new study. The findings fundamentally challenge longstanding theories and biological models of animal growth and life histories. The act of reproduction is one of the largest energy investments an animal can make. This investment includes direct cost, the energy directly invested in the offspring themselves, and indirect costs, the energy expended to create, carry, and care for offspring before they are born. While the direct costs of reproduction are well understood, the indirect ...

Researchers discover new pathway to cancer cell suicide Chemotherapy kills cancer cells. But the way these cells die appears to be different than previously understood. Researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, led by Thijn Brummelkamp, have uncovered a completely new way in which cancer cells die: due to the Schlafen11 gene. "This is a very unexpected finding. Cancer patients have been treated with chemotherapy for almost a century, but this route to cell death has never been observed before. Where and when this occurs in patients will need to be further investigated. This discovery could ultimately have implications for the treatment of cancer patients." They publish their ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Artificial intelligence (AI) has numerous applications in healthcare, from analyzing medical imaging to optimizing the execution of clinical trials, and even facilitating drug discovery. AlphaFold2, an artificial intelligence system that predicts protein structures, has made it possible for scientists to identify and conjure an almost infinite number of drug candidates for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. However recent studies have sown doubt about the accuracy of AlphaFold2 in modeling ligand binding sites, the areas on proteins where drugs attach and begin signaling ...

A team of chemists from the University of Vienna, led by Nuno Maulide, has achieved a significant breakthrough in the field of chemical synthesis, developing a novel method for manipulating carbon-hydrogen bonds. This groundbreaking discovery provides new insights into the molecular interactions of positively charged carbon atoms. By selectively targeting a specific C–H bond, they open doors to synthetic pathways that were previously closed – with potential applications in medicine. The study was recently published in the prestigious journal Science. Living ...

In an important step toward more effective gene therapies for brain diseases, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have engineered a gene-delivery vehicle that uses a human protein to efficiently cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver a disease-relevant gene to the brain in mice expressing the human protein. Because the vehicle binds to a well-studied protein in the blood-brain barrier, the scientists say it has a good chance at working in patients. Gene therapy could potentially treat a range of severe genetic brain disorders, which currently ...

If you zoom in on a chemical reaction to the quantum level, you’ll notice that particles behave like waves that can ripple and collide. Scientists have long sought to understand quantum coherence, the ability of particles to maintain phase relationships and exist in multiple states simultaneously; this is akin to all parts of a wave being synchronized. It has been an open question whether quantum coherence can persist through a chemical reaction where bonds dynamically break and form. Now, for the first time, a team of Harvard scientists has demonstrated the survival of quantum coherence in a chemical reaction involving ultracold molecules. These findings highlight the potential of ...

In what they believe is a solution to a 30-year biological mystery, neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have used genetically engineered mice to address how one mutation in the gene for the light-sensing protein rhodopsin results in congenital stationary night blindness. The condition, present from birth, causes poor vision in low-light settings. The findings, published May 14 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate that the rhodopsin gene mutation, called ...

Teltonika’s TeltoHeart, a multifunctional smart wristband system developed in cooperation between Lithuanian industry and universities has been given the CE MDR (Class IIa) medical device certification. This approval confirms that the product meets the comprehensive quality standards for medical devices and opens up new markets worldwide for this innovative product. "This is an important recognition that we have been working towards since the start of this project in 2020. The CE MDR certification proves that TeltoHeart is a safe ...

·  One region is related to olfaction and reward, the other to negative feelings like pain  ·  When the connection between these brain regions is weak, people have higher BMI ·  Food may continue to be rewarding, even when these individuals are full CHICAGO --- Why can some people easily stop eating when they are full and others can’t, which can lead to obesity? A Northwestern Medicine study has found one reason may be a newly discovered structural connection ...

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 16, 2024 – The COVID-19 pandemic changed life in many ways, including stopping nearly all commercial flights. At the Toronto Pearson International Airport, airplane traffic dropped by 80% in the first few months of lockdown. For a nearby group of researchers, this presented a unique opportunity. Julia Jovanovic will present the results of a survey conducted on aircraft noise and annoyance during the pandemic era Thursday, May 16, at 11:10 a.m. EDT as part of a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and ...

Partnering with LASP was an obvious decision for COSPAR. LASP stands out with its distinguished track record in space science research, having deployed scientific instruments to every planet in our solar system, the Sun and numerous moons. In particular, LASP has been at the forefront of pioneering Cube-Sat missions, consistently achieving remarkable success in gathering scientific data. With seven completed CubeSat missions and nine more in active development or orbit, LASP has demonstrated unparalleled expertise in this field. ...

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 16, 2024 – Oscar Wilde once said that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence. Perhaps that is due to how difficult it is to use and understand. Sarcasm is notoriously tricky to convey through text — even in person, it can be easily misinterpreted. The subtle changes in tone that convey sarcasm often confuse computer algorithms as well, limiting virtual assistants and content analysis tools. Xiyuan Gao, Shekhar Nayak, and Matt Coler of Speech Technology Lab at the University of Groningen, Campus Fryslân developed a multimodal algorithm ...

Many people are concerned about residues of chemicals, contaminants or microplastics in their food. However, it is less well known that many foods also contain toxins of completely natural origin. These are often chemical compounds that plants use to ward off predators such as insects or microorganisms. These substances are found in beans and potatoes, for example, and can pose potential health risks. However, according to a recent representative survey by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), only just under half of the respondents (47 per cent) were even aware of plant toxic substances. The BfR Consumer Monitor Special on naturally occurring plant toxins ...