At first, some parents were wary: An audio chatbot was supposed to teach their kids to speak positively to themselves through lessons about a superhero named Zip. In a world of Siri and Alexa, many people are skeptical that the makers of such technologies are putting children’s welfare first. Researchers at the University of Washington created a new web app aimed to help children develop skills like self-awareness and emotional management. In Self-Talk with Superhero Zip, a chatbot guided pairs of siblings ...

The University of Texas at Arlington is part of a new consortium funded by the Department of Energy that involves the development of new technologies and college courses covering everything from radiation detection to nuclear engineering. The grant also will help UTA develop 2D materials that can be integrated into new hand-held photonic technologies with multiple uses. Electrical Engineering Professor Weidong Zhou and Associate Professor Alice Sun will use the five-year, $1.8 million grant to work with collaborators at UT Arlington, University of North Texas, University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, ...

Researchers at Texas A&M University are taking a traditional manufacturing tool — metal cutting — and developing a more accessible method for understanding the behavior of metals under extreme conditions. Metal cutting – scraping a thin layer of material from a metal’s surface using a sharp knife (not unlike how we scrape butter) – might not be the first thing that comes to mind for studying material properties. However, Drs. Dinakar Sagapuram and Hrayer Aprahamian, assistant professors ...

People with bipolar disorder—characterised by extreme mood swings—are 6 times more likely to die before their time from external causes, such as accidents, violence, and suicide, than those without the condition, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health. And they are twice as likely to die from somatic (physical) causes, with alcohol a major contributing factor, the findings show. A heightened risk of an early death from any cause has been consistently reported in those with ...

The proportion of smokers’ duty free tobacco purchases in England has tripled since 2019, rising from just over 5% to just over 16%, but there’s been no reported change in black market purchases, reveals a time-trends analysis published online in the journal Tobacco Control. Between 2002 and 2014, between 12% and 20% of UK adult smokers said their last tobacco purchase had been from a low or untaxed source. And smokers who buy their tobacco from low/untaxed sources—and those who switch to cheaper products—are less likely to try to quit smoking than those ...

It’s time to stop prevaricating and explore the use of psilocybin—the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’—and other psychedelics to ease the often overwhelming distress faced by women with late stage gynaecological cancers, urge doctors in a commentary published online in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer. Conventional ‘gold standard’ psychotherapeutic approaches, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), take too long to change old habits and require too much stamina, suggest the authors from the University of Texas ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — If, as the saying goes, ‘nothing in life is free,’ then corals might pay a price for being resilient to climate change. Indeed, the prevailing belief among scientists has been that corals must suffer reduced growth or other tradeoffs when they partner with symbiotic algae that help them tolerate warmer water. Yet, new research led by Penn State demonstrates that certain corals can have their cake and eat it too, and as a result, these coral-symbiont partnerships may come to dominate ...

An Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study sheds new light on some of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of opioid addiction, which accounted for three-quarters of the more than 100,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States in 2021. The Mount Sinai researchers found that inpatients with heroin use disorder exhibited a bias in favor of processing drug cues over cues related to natural, non-drug rewards, as observed during passive viewing of the cues and when the patients were asked to try two emotional regulation strategies. Results of the study were published in the July 12 issue of the American Journal ...

How do you study a predator with both camouflage and stealth that make it virtually invisible in the forest? Even jaguars poop. A team of researchers led by the University of Cincinnati applied genetic and isotopic analyses to jaguar scat to investigate the habitat needs of the big cats in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Preserve of Belize in Central America. The study demonstrates a novel and noninvasive technique for identifying the landscape use and conservation needs of elusive wildlife. Researchers used scat-detecting dogs named Billy and Bruiser to find telltale evidence left behind by jaguars ...

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 100,000 Americans die each year from an overdose, most due to the use of synthetic opiates like fentanyl. While naloxone, currently the only an antidote for opiate overdose, has become more common, it is less effective against fentanyl-class synthetic opioids. Researchers at Indiana University have identified a new method of reversing the effects of fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Their study, published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, could lead to a new way to reverse overdoses either through a new product or working synchronously with naloxone. "The synthetic opiates bind very ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Kathleen Wilber PhD, FGSA, of the University of Southern California (USC) as the 2023 recipient of the Donald P. Kent Award. This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member who best exemplifies the highest standards for professional leadership in gerontology through teaching, service, and interpretation of gerontology to the larger society. It was established in 1973 in memory ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen David Almeida, PhD, FGSA, of The Pennsylvania State University as the 2023 recipient of the Robert W. Kleemeier Award. This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member in recognition for outstanding research in the field of gerontology.  It was established in 1965 in memory of Robert W. Kleemeier, PhD, a former president of the Society whose contributions to the ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University (MSU) and the French research organization, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, or CNRS, today signed an agreement to establish the International Research Laboratory on Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics (IRL NPA) during a ceremony at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at MSU.  CNRS has nearly 80 international research laboratories worldwide, and IRL NPA at FRIB is the first dedicated to nuclear physics and astrophysics.  Leveraging FRIB’s world-unique research capabilities, the IRL NPA will be located at FRIB and dedicated to answering fundamental nuclear physics and astrophysics research questions.   With ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Jacqueline L. Angel, PhD, FGSA, of the University of Texas at Austin as the 2023 recipient of the James Jackson Outstanding Mentorship Award. This distinguished honor is given annually and recognizes individuals who have exemplified outstanding commitment and dedication to mentoring minority researchers in the field of aging. It was renamed in 2021 in memory of James Jackson, PhD, FGSA, a pioneering psychologist in the fields of race and culture and the impact of racial disparities on minority health, and himself ...

The lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles are key to a clean energy economy. But their electrodes are usually made using a wet slurry with toxic solvents, an expensive manufacturing approach that poses health and environmental risks. Early experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have revealed significant benefits to a dry battery manufacturing process. This eliminates the solvent while showing promise for delivering a battery that is durable, less weighed down by inactive ...

A new study of UCLA Health’s large genetic biobank is giving researchers new insights into the disease risks faced by the region’s diverse communities and their access to health care. The effort, published in Nature Medicine, may prove useful in developing personalized medicine and treatment approaches to groups often overlooked by the medical system. UCLA Health researchers identified 376 population clusters based on shared genetic ancestry by leveraging information from nearly 36,000 patients enrolled in the UCLA ATLAS Precision Health Biobank. The ATLAS ...

EL PASO, Texas (July 18, 2023) – In a new landmark chemistry study, researchers describe how they have achieved the highest level of energy storage — also known as capacitance — in a supercapacitor ever recorded.   The study, led by Luis Echegoyen, Ph.D., professor emeritus at The University of Texas at El Paso, and Marta Plonska-Brzezinska, Ph.D., of the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland, was recently featured in the journal Scientific Reports, which is published by leading research publisher Nature Portfolios.   Supercapacitors ...

Engineers and scientists at West Virginia University are developing an advanced hydrogen flexible boiler to help decarbonize the food and beverage industry and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The technology, proposed by Hailin Li, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, will supply thermal energy by burning clean fuel rather than traditional fossil fuels. Researchers will also work with Morgantown businesses ...

With cancer rates rising throughout sub-Saharan Africa – home to 1.1 billion people, or about 14 percent of the world’s population – researchers with the Botswana-Rutgers Partnership for Health are seeking solutions. Cancer is among the top three causes of premature death in the vast majority of nations in the region. Without significant interventions, predictions indicate the number of cancer deaths per year in this region would nearly double by 2030, to about 1 million. In a study published in PLOS Global Public Health, researchers associated with the partnership address the need to improve access to oncology drugs in sub-Saharan Africa, ...

Berkeley — During the summer of 2018, the Mendocino Complex Fire ripped through UC’s Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC), transforming the Northern California property’s grassy, oak-dotted hillsides into a smoldering, ash-covered wasteland. “It felt like something out of the Lord of the Rings — like Mordor. It was hard to imagine much surviving,” said Justin Brashares, a professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley. But mere months after the fire, animals like coyote, gray foxes and black-tailed jackrabbits were seen returning to the area, spotted by grid of motion-sensor camera traps that ...

URBANA, Ill. — Over half of forests in the United States are privately owned, especially in the Eastern part of the country. This can make control of invasive species challenging, as efforts need to be coordinated among many different landowners. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looks at how family forest landowners in Maine and New Hampshire approach invasive species management and what factors influence their decisions. “We have mostly public land on the West Coast and privately owned family forestland in the Midwest ...

Dan M. Frangopol, the inaugural Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture at Lehigh University, has been elected into the Academy of Engineering of Mexico (AEM) as a Corresponding Member. According to AEM, the academy was “established to recognize the most accomplished and prominent engineers in Mexico,” and it “selects a number of internationally recognized individuals from around the world with outstanding contributions to engineering following a rigorous nomination and evaluation process.” An induction ...

Groundbreaking research from UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology is shifting the understanding of human decision-making processes by highlighting the importance of goal-oriented rewards. Conducted by Berkeley Psychology Professor Anne Collins and Berkeley Psychology doctoral student Gaia Molinaro, the study suggests that the value people attribute to outcomes is subjective, and heavily influenced by their personal goals and the context of the decision. "Value isn't just determined by an objective reward or outcome,” Collins said. “Our research suggests that people's perception of value is largely shaped by their personal goals and ...

Virtually delivered rehabilitation for seniors living with frailty is a feasible way for delivering care, shows new research led by researchers from McMaster University and the Geras Centre for Aging Research. The study, published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies on July 17, defined frailty, a consequence of aging, as a decline in function and physiological reserve in multiple bodily systems. Frailty impacts approximately 1.5 million older adults in Canada, and frail seniors account for a large proportion ...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers used images from a photo-sharing website to identify crude oil train routes across the nation to provide data that could help transportation planners better understand regional impacts. More than 300 crude oil rail incidents have occurred in the U.S. over the past decade, causing adverse consequences from fire and hazardous materials leakage. However, only limited information on the transport routes has been publicly available. In a study, ORNL researchers used geotagged online photos from Flickr to reconstruct transport paths. By linking geotagged crude oil train images with national railway networks, the team ...