Honesty is the best policy… most of the time. Social norms help humans understand when we need to tell the truth and when we shouldn’t, to spare someone’s feelings or avoid harm. But how do these norms apply to robots, which are increasingly working with humans? To understand whether humans can accept robots telling lies, scientists asked almost 500 participants to rate and justify different types of robot deception.  “I wanted to explore an understudied facet of robot ethics, to contribute to our understanding of mistrust ...

Researchers at Tohoku University have successfully increased the capacity, lifetime durability, and cost-effectiveness of a capacitor in their pursuit of a more power-efficient future. A capacitor is a device used as part of a circuit that can store and release energy, just like a battery. What makes a capacitor different from a battery is that it takes much less time to charge. For example, your cellphone battery will power your phone instantly, but charging that battery back up to 100% when it dies is far from instantaneous. While this makes capacitors sound like the superior choice, they have some big drawbacks that need to be overcome. Firstly, their capacity is much smaller ...

New research has discovered a unique and promising avenue for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) earlier – by analysing AD biomarkers in blood – so that the impacts of dementia can be reduced. AD is the most common form of dementia, estimated to contribute to 60-70 per cent of cases, or more than 33 million cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation. Currently incurable, AD is usually diagnosed when a person is having significant difficulties with memory and thinking that impact their daily life. University of Melbourne researcher Dr Brandon Mahan leads a group of analytical geochemists from the Faculty ...

WEHI’s Bioinformatics division head, Professor Gordon Smyth, has won the 2024 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software. The award recognises Prof Smyth’s lead role in developing and designing the limma software package, which helps researchers detect changes in gene activity.   limma has helped researchers around the world detect changes in gene activity – a crucial element to finding new treatments for a range of diseases, like cancer – and has been used or cited in more than 70,000 published papers worldwide.  The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes are ...

Termites have a bad reputation. Most think of them as pests, a status that isn’t helped by their recent reclassification into the cockroach family. But not only do the termites that cause serious problems for humans only make up 3.5% of all termite species, termites also serve as crucial ecosystem engineers, maintaining the infrastructure of various environments. Like earthworms, they circulate nutrients by decomposing plant materials, and they play the important role of bioturbators: much like plowing a field, termites aerate the soil, expose underground nutrients, and let water infiltrate deeper layers of soil – ...

Drought stress has long been a limiting factor for crop production around the world, a challenge exacerbated by climate change. For more than a century­, scientists have targeted a key plant trait known as water use efficiency (WUE) to help crops grow with less water and avoid suffering from drought stress. Greater WUE can help plants avoid drought stress — but for most crops it’s also associated with lower productivity when water is plentiful. In a pair of new studies published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, ...

Learning new languages, sending emails, attending a virtual class, or speaking to loved ones halfway around the world are just some of the tasks accomplished by touching a button on a smartphone. Unfortunately, the ease and convenience of modern devices have also come with a painful crick in the neck. The sedentary nature of work and prolonged use of hand-held devices and computers have contributed to a sharp increase in neck pain. While fatigue in neck muscles has long been suspected of causing pain, the actual mechanical changes in the spine and muscles that precede weakness remain an outstanding question. Now, using high-precision X-ray ...

Long term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution is linked to a higher risk of infertility in men, whereas road traffic noise is linked to a higher risk of infertility in women over 35, finds a Danish study published by The BMJ today. If these findings are confirmed in future studies, they could help guide strategies to regulate noise and air pollution to protect the general population from these exposures, say the researchers. Infertility is a major global health problem affecting one in seven couples trying to conceive.  Several ...

Rates of prostate cancer across Europe since 1980 are “indicative of overdiagnosis”, say researchers in a study published by The BMJ today. Overdiagnosis refers to the detection of harmless cancers that are unlikely to cause symptoms or death during a patient’s lifetime, which can lead to unnecessary treatment, negative impacts on quality of life, and wasted healthcare resources. The findings show rapid increases in the number of new cases (incidence) in parallel with uptake of so far predominantly opportunistic ...

Four in ten children in Central London who travelled to school by car switched to more active modes of transport, such as walking, cycling, or public transport, following the introduction of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), according to new research. In the comparison area with no ULEZ, Luton, only two in ten children made this switch over the same period. Car travel contributes to air pollution, a major cause of heart and lung diseases including asthma attacks. Beyond this, it limits children's opportunities for physical activity, hindering their development and mental health, and increasing their risk of obesity and chronic illnesses. Despite ...

A major new scientific review of evidence published in the journal Addiction has identified three top strategies for quitting smoking: Varenicline -- a prescription drug sold under the brand names Chantix and Champix among others. Cytisine -- a plant-based compound available under prescription in the United Kingdom, in Canada as an over-the-counter natural health product (Cravv®) and throughout central and eastern Europe. Nicotine e-cigarettes. These work best when combined with behavioural support, ...

A major new review of evidence by a team of scientists, including a University of Massachusetts Amherst public health researcher, has identified the three best strategies for quitting smoking:  Varenicline – a prescription drug sold under the brand names Chantix and Champix, among others. Cytisine – a plant-based compound not widely available in the U.S. but sold as an over-the-counter natural health product (Cravv®) in Canada and throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and available under prescription in the United Kingdom. Nicotine e-cigarettes. The review, published ...

As genetic sequencing technology becomes more accessible and efficient, researchers have made significant strides in understanding the genetic underpinnings of various diseases. This knowledge has led to a surge in clinical applications of genetic testing, offering hope and improved outcomes for individuals affected by many genetic diseases and disorders. Despite these successes, scientists continue to try to improve genetic testing technologies, because many individuals with rare diseases remain undiagnosed even after current state-of-the-art genomic testing. Scientists at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology ...

A new study, published in Nature Communications this week, led by Jake Gavenas PhD, while he was a PhD student at the Brain Institute at Chapman University, and co-authored by two faculty members of the Brain Institute, Uri Maoz and Aaron Schurger, examines how the brain initiates spontaneous actions. In addition to demonstrating how spontaneous action emerges without environmental input, this study has implications for the origins of slow ramping of neural activity before movement onset—a commonly-observed but poorly understood ...

(Millbrook, NY)  The Hudson River Foundation for Science and Environmental Research (HRF) has awarded $1.7 million to Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies to monitor the Hudson River’s lower food web for three years. The project is an integral component of the $6.5 million Hudson River Ecosystem Monitoring Program, a collaboration of HRF and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to develop and implement the next generation comprehensive ecosystem monitoring program on the Hudson. Cary’s Chris Solomon will lead the Interim Lower Food Web Survey to provide ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University researchers will lead a multi-institutional team of experts in areas such as informatics, psychology, communications and folklore to assess the role that artificial intelligence may play in strengthening the influence of online communications — including misinformation and radicalizing messages — under a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. The project is one of 30 recently funded by the department’s Multidisciplinary University ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Butterflies can see more of the world than humans, including more colors and the field oscillation direction, or polarization, of light. This special ability enables them to navigate with precision, forage for food and communicate with one another. Other species, like the mantis shrimp, can sense an even wider spectrum of light, as well as the circular polarization, or spinning states, of light waves. They use this capability to signal a “love code,” which helps them find and be discovered by mates.   Inspired ...

Fruit flies walking on miniature treadmills are helping scientists learn how the nervous system enables animals to move in an unpredictable and complex world.  Insights from using these fruit fly-sized treadmills were reported Aug. 30 in Current Biology, a Cell Press journal. Several videos of the flies running on the treadmills are available for viewing on the online research paper. The lead author is Brandon G. Pratt, a recent physiology and biophysics Ph.D. graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and a National Science Foundation ...

A physics student at The University of Texas at Arlington studying ways to measure the mass of tiny particles called neutrinos has earned a prestigious national award for her research. Senior Kara Stogsdill received the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award from the Society of Physics Students, an organization of the American Institute of Physics. The award is given to students based on exceptional research achievements in any physics-related field. Stogsdill’s research is part of the Project 8 Neutrino Mass Experiment, which includes faculty and students from UTA and 13 other universities and national laboratories ...

Pennington Biomedical Research Center is formally launching Greaux Healthy, a public service initiative designed to help improve kids’ health at every age. Developed with funding from the State of Louisiana, Greaux Healthy implements 35 years of Pennington Biomedical research and discoveries to inform tools, resources and programing for children, parents, physicians and educators throughout the state.   The Greaux Healthy initiative is developing a wide variety of educational materials distinctly tailored to four priority populations, including expectant families and parents of infants, ...

Highlights:   Researchers from Michigan State University and South Shore Hospital in Massachusetts have uncovered a connection between two common diabetes drugs — insulin and metformin — identified in wound exudates of diabetic foot ulcers, which may improve their healing.   While analyzing wound exudate (the fluid the body moves and secretes to the site of an injury), researchers discovered the presence of metformin in patients who take the drug orally.   The researchers then explored metformin’s relationship ...

Stroke patients who survive a blood clot in the brain’s blood vessels are prone to developing new blockages during their recovery periods, even if they receive vessel-clearing interventions. In an effort to avoid further clots, doctors at 57 sites around the U.S. tested a possible solution: the addition of anti-coagulant drugs to medicine that dissolves blood clots. But results from the clinical trial, led by Opeolu Adeoye, MD, head of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, indicate two such drugs did not improve outcomes. The findings are available Sept. 4 in The New England Journal ...

A new Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC), supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and led by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, was awarded $14.4 million over four years to advance manufacturing of microelectronics by investigating approaches to building their components in fundamentally new ways.  Instead of moving electrons through conducting metallic interconnects in the miniscule and ever shrinking parts of devices such as microchips used in computers and cell phones, the researchers propose to move information via spin waves that can propagate through semiconductors ...

The built environment — which includes the construction and operation of buildings, highways, bridges and other infrastructure — is responsible for close to 40 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. While many building codes and benchmarks have focused on constructing “greener,” more energy-efficient new buildings, it is not enough to seek to reduce emissions in operations, said Ming Hu, the associate dean for research, scholarship and creative work in Notre Dame’s School of Architecture. Rather, policymakers and industry leaders ...

DALLAS (SMU) – When SMU researcher Alexander Chase was a young boy, the sheer diversity of plants in Earth’s tropical rainforests fascinated him. He found himself wondering, what new species were out there, waiting to be unearthed? That curiosity is why Chase now collects samples from Earth’s oceans using a new technique called Small Molecule In situ Resin Capture (SMIRC), which could be the first step in uncovering compounds that lead to next-generation antibiotics. Microbial natural products come from microorganisms, or microbes, and account for many of today’s essential medicines, including most antibiotics. Microbes are too small to see without ...