ITHACA, N.Y. – Conversational agents (CAs) such as Alexa and Siri are designed to answer questions, offer suggestions – and even display empathy. However, new research finds they do poorly compared to humans when interpreting and exploring a user’s experience. CAs are powered by large language models (LLMs) that ingest massive amounts of human-produced data, and thus can be prone to the same biases as the humans from which the information comes. Researchers from Cornell University, Olin College and Stanford University tested this theory ...

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar system.  Renyu Hu from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is lead author on a paper published today in Nature. “Webb is pushing the frontiers of exoplanet characterization to rocky planets,” Hu said. “It is truly ...

New research from a multi-disciplinary team at Trinity College Dublin suggests a “tailored vaccine” might hold the key to treating bacteria-driven flares of eczema in children.  The team has taken several leaps forward in understanding how the immune response works in cases of eczema driven by the common, troublesome Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, and in doing so they have identified new cellular targets for a vaccine. Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, affects up to one in four children in Ireland. Common symptoms include itchy, dry skin, and – when bacteria are involved – weeping wounds that can ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. Recent developments at MD Anderson offer insights into expanding the use of FGFR inhibitors, maintaining radiation therapy as standard of care for locally recurrent endometrial cancer, an antibody-drug ...

In daily life, when two objects are “indistinguishable,” it’s due to an imperfect state of knowledge. As a street magician scrambles the cups and balls, you could, in principle, keep track of which ball is which as they are passed between the cups. However, at the smallest scales in nature, even the magician cannot tell one ball from another. True indistinguishability of this type can fundamentally alter how the balls behave. For example, in a classic experiment by Hong, Ou and Mandel, two identical photons (balls) striking opposite sides of a half-reflective mirror are always ...

Researchers in the emerging field of spatial computing have developed a prototype augmented reality headset that uses holographic imaging to overlay full-color, 3D moving images on the lenses of what would appear to be an ordinary pair of glasses. Unlike the bulky headsets of present-day augmented reality systems, the new approach delivers a visually satisfying 3D viewing experience in a compact, comfortable, and attractive form factor suitable for all-day wear. “Our headset appears to the outside world just like an everyday pair of glasses, but what the wearer sees through the lenses is an enriched world overlaid with vibrant, full-color 3D computed imagery,” said Gordon ...

About The Study: More than 320,000 children in the U.S. lost a parent to drug overdose between 2011-2021, with significant disparities evident across racial and ethnic groups. Given the potential short- and long-term negative impact of parental loss, program and policy planning should ensure that responses to the overdose crisis account for the full burden of drug overdose on families and children, including addressing the economic, social, educational, and health care needs of children who have lost parents to overdose.  Corresponding Author: To contact the ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that there is a high prevalence of harassment in OB-GYN despite being a predominantly female field for the last decade.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ankita Gupta, M.D., M.P.H., email ankita.gupta@louisville.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.10706) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, ...

A study examining childhood maltreatment in Australia has revealed the shocking burden for Australians, estimating it causes up to 40 percent of common, life-long mental health conditions. The mental health conditions examined were anxiety, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, self-harm and suicide attempts. Childhood maltreatment is classified as physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and emotional or physical neglect before the age of 18. Childhood maltreatment was found to account for 41 percent of suicide attempts in Australia, 35 percent for cases of self-harm and 21 percent for depression. The ...

Since the discovery of quantum mechanics more than a hundred years ago, it has been known that electrons in molecules can be coupled to the motion of the atoms that make up the molecules. Often referred to as molecular vibrations, the motion of atoms act like tiny springs, undergoing periodic motion. For electrons in these systems, being joined to the hip with these vibrations means they are constantly in motion too, dancing to the tune of the atoms, on timescales of a millionth of a billionth of a second. But all this dancing around leads ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ancient, expansive tracts of continental crust called cratons have helped keep Earth’s continents stable for billions of years, even as landmasses shift, mountains rise and oceans form. A new mechanism proposed by Penn State scientists may explain how the cratons formed some 3 billion years ago, an enduring question in the study of Earth’s history. The scientists reported today (May 8) in the journal Nature that the continents may not have emerged from Earth’s ...

The rapid advancement in photonic integrated circuits (PICs), whichcombine multiple optical devices and functionalities on a single chip, has revolutionized optical communications and computing systems. For decades, silicon-based PICs have dominated the field due to their cost-effectiveness and through their integration with existing semiconductor manufacturing technologies, despite their limitations with regard to their electro-optical modulation bandwidth. Nevertheless, silicon-on-insulator optical transceiver chips were successfully commercialized, driving information traffic through millions of glass fibers in modern datacenters. Recently, the lithium niobate-on-insulator ...

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have shed valuable light on the complex mechanisms by which a class of psychedelic drugs binds to and activates serotonin receptors to produce potential therapeutic effects in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. In a study published May 8 in Nature, the team reported that certain psychedelic drugs interact with an underappreciated member of the serotonin receptor family in the brain known as 5-HT1A to produce therapeutic benefits in animal models. “Psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin have entered clinical trials with promising early results, though we still don’t ...

LOS ANGELES — Keck Medicine of USC hospitals and USC Student Health, part of Keck Medicine, received the ‘LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader’ designation in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2024 Healthcare Equality Index (HEI).   HEI is the leading national benchmarking survey of health care facility policies and practices dedicated to the equitable treatment and inclusion of LGBTQ+ patients, visitors and employees. A record 1,065 health care facilities participated in the 2024 HEI survey; ...

Psychiatrists and mental health professionals have a new standard for managing major depression, thanks to refreshed clinical guidelines published today by the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT). The CANMAT guidelines are the most widely used clinical guidelines for depression in the world. The new version integrates the latest scientific evidence and advances in depression care since the previous guidelines were published in 2016. The update was led by researchers at the University of B.C. and the University of Toronto, alongside ...

Children who experience chronic lack of sleep from infancy may be at increased risk of developing psychosis in early adulthood, new research shows.  Researchers at the University of Birmingham examined information on nighttime sleep duration from a large cohort study of children aged between 6 months and 7 years old. They found that children who persistently slept fewer hours, throughout this time period, were more than twice as likely to develop a psychotic disorder in early adulthood, and nearly four times as likely to have a psychotic episode.  While ...

In the past decade, fires from electronic devices and batteries, from small smartphones to electrical vehicles and airplanes, have repeatedly made headlines. Enhanced computational power has led to a large amount of waste heat generation and undesirable temperature rise of electronics. Poor heat management is the cause of over half of electronic device failures. To tackle this issue, it is crucial to develop advanced cooling technologies to effectively manage heat and maintain temperatures in the working conditions. Among various cooling technologies, liquid-vapor phase-change cooling, which utilizes the boiling or evaporation of ...

This study is led by Prof. Xu (State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University), Prof. Yu (College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University), Prof. Han (Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering, Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information Technology, Tianjin University and Guangxi Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information Processing, School of Optoelectronic Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology), and Prof. Sun ...

Hypertension is among the leading cardiovascular diseases. Despite extensive research, evidence concerning the relationship between long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter and hypertension remains limited and inconsistent, particularly with regard to submicron particulate matter (PM1). While randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard for causal inference, environmental epidemiological studies typically rely on observational data. Traditional approaches in observational studies are less effective than randomized controlled trials in fully controlling for confounding factors to achieve results with causal interpretability. With the advancement of causal ...

Recently, Science Bulletin published a research conducted by Prof. Pingqing Fu and Dr. Libin Wu from Tianjin University, Peng Wang from Fudan University, and their Chinese and foreign collaborators. They explored the source of ammonium in PM2.5 at different heights of the atmospheric boundary layer in Beijing, and found that combustion-related ammonia is very important to ammonium in PM2.5 during haze pollution in winter. Air pollution and treatment in Beijing have been widely concerned by both the scientific community and the public. Although its PM2.5 has decreased significantly in the past few years, there is still haze pollution in Beijing, especially in winter. The chemical compositions ...

The researchers conducted a study over four days, including overnight stays, with 18 subjects at :envihab, the DLR medical research centre in Cologne. At a simulated altitude of 2500 meters above sea level, the influence of hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) on various hemodynamic and metabolic parameters was investigated. The central venous pressure via a catheter and the blood flow in the lungs using real-time magnetic resonance imaging were evaluated. The results showed that neither the pulmonarypressure nor the blood flow changed significantly. All patients able to tolerate a longer stay at altitude of 24 to 30 hours without complications. Oxygenation ...

The Australian brook lamprey (Mordacia praecox) is part of a group of primitive jawless fish. It’s up to 15 cm long, with rows of sharp teeth. Surprisingly, it doesn’t use these teeth to suck blood like most lamprey species – it’s non-parasitic. As larvae, the Australian brook lamprey lives buried in the bottom of streams for around three years, filter-feeding. Its adult phase is about one year long, in which it doesn’t feed at all. Prior to this study – funded in part by the Australian Government through the National Environmental Science Program’s (NESP) Resilient Landscapes Hub – the species was widely believed to only live in a few streams ...

A unique $3.7m plant lab will put researchers on the frontline in the fight against climate change and create crops for “tomorrow’s atmosphere today”.   The new flagship facility at the University of Essex will allow scientists to adapt plants for a hotter drier planet as food security is increasingly threatened.  It boasts a cutting-edge commercially standard vertical farm, an indoor field that replicates real environments anywhere in the globe, and suites that imitate a warming world – with researchers able to raise CO2 concentration and temperature levels at will.   Computer ...

Scientists at the University of Surrey are developing a new way to power low-orbit spacecraft using – literally – thin air.  Surrey Space Centre aims to enable extremely low-altitude spacecraft orbits in the upper atmosphere, thanks to funding from the UK Space Agency.   This new spacecraft concept could offer new capabilities in Earth observation,  climate monitoring and satellite communications.  Dr Andrea Lucca Fabris, principal investigator from Surrey Space Centre and an electric propulsion specialist, said:  “There are benefits to flying in very low altitude orbits, like being able to operate Earth observation at much ...

The author of a disaster novel couldn't have dreamed it up any better: On a Friday, the thirteenth of all days, the potentially dangerous asteroid (99942) Apophis will come extremely close to humanity. On 13 April 2029, there will only be around 30,000 kilometres between the cosmic rock and Earth. It will then be possible to see Apophis with the naked eye as a point of light in the evening sky, even from Würzburg. What makes the asteroid so dangerous: its average diameter is an impressive 340 metres. If it were to hit the Earth, the ...