From smart virtual assistants and self-driving cars to digital health and fraud prevention systems, AI technology is transforming almost every aspect of our daily lives—and education is no different. For all its promise, the rise of AI, like any new technology, raises some pressing ethical and equity questions. How can we ensure that such a powerful tool can be accessed by all students regardless of background?  Inspired by this call to action, USC researchers have created a low-cost, accessible learning kit to help college and high school students build their own “robot friend.” Students can personalize the robot’s ...

  A special 13-article supplement to the peer-reviewed journal Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT) examines the “Development and Future of Automated Insulin Delivery (AID) Systems. Click here to read the supplement now. Included in the supplement is the article titled “A Peek Under the Hood: Explaining the MiniMed™ 780G Algorithm with Meal Detection™ Technology", by Benyamin Grosman, PhD and his Medtronic algorithm team with co-authors Ohad Cohen, MD, and Robert Vigersky, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Medtronic. James Thrasher, MD “Early ...

RENO, Nev. – A multi-agency study, spearheaded by researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, underscores the impacts of strategic cattle grazing, particularly on restoring the declining population of the greater sage-grouse bird, a keystone species in the Great Basin region.   Amidst ongoing decline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted by listing the sage-grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2011. This move prompted the Bureau of Land Management to develop a federal conservation plan for the species ...

Recent clinical trials utilizing high doses of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors have highlighted a new challenge to AAV gene transfer – activation of the complement system. A new article in the peer-reviewed journal Human Gene Therapy describes how a convergence of AAV-specific, environmental, and patient-specific factors shaping complement responses likely contribute to differential outcomes seen in clinical trials. Click here to read the article now. Complement responses may contribute to priming of the adaptive immune system or serious adverse events ...

By Ann Kellett, Texas A&M University School of Public Health A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that city dwellers who have more exposure to urban green spaces require fewer mental health services. The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, was conducted by Jay Maddock, Ph.D., Regents Professor of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M, and colleagues from the Center ...

University of Queensland researchers have identified an opportunity to reduce infections in people living with cystic fibrosis. Professor Matt Sweet, Dr Kaustav Das Gupta and Dr James Curson from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience have discovered a fault in the bacteria-killing function of immune cells in people with CF and a potential way to get around it. CF is a chronic disease in which defects in the CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) channel cause a build-up of mucus in the lungs, airways and digestive system, leading to ...

New research published in Anaesthesia (the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) shows that for children undergoing emergency surgery for appendicitis in the UK, black children had a four times greater risk of postoperative complications compared with white children. The study was led by Dr Amaki Sogbodjor, from Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London (UCL), and Professor Ramani Moonesinghe, UCL Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, London, UK and Director, Central London National ...

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site of a recently observed supernova. The supernova, known as SN 1987A, was a core-collapse supernova, meaning the compacted remains at its core formed either a neutron star or a black hole. Evidence for such a compact object has long been sought, and while indirect evidence for the presence of a neutron star has previously been found, this is the first time that the effects of high-energy ...

Study finds guided parent-child discussions are effective at addressing subtle racism When parents discuss racism with their children, negative biases toward Black people are significantly reduced in both parent and child EVANSTON, Ill. --- Experts have long pointed out the need for white parents to have conversations that directly address racism with their children to reduce racial bias. But many parents fail to have these crucial discussions. Psychology researchers at Northwestern University have published ...

When a recession takes a bite out of an entrepreneur’s personal stock portfolio, does that person’s business suffer more than those of older and larger competitors?  New research by Marius Ring, assistant professor of finance at Texas McCombs, finds a link between the wealth of small-business owners and the health of their companies during economic downturns. When their stock portfolios lose value, their businesses suffer ripple effects: less financing and curtailed hiring.  “Entrepreneurial wealth follows the ups and downs of economic cycles,” Ring says. “I show that for entrepreneurs whose stock portfolios take a hit, their businesses ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Biomedical engineers at Duke University have uncovered a key link between the spread of antibiotic resistance genes and the evolution of resistance to new drugs in certain pathogens. The research shows bacteria exposed to higher levels of antibiotics often harbor multiple identical copies of protective antibiotic resistance genes. These duplicated resistance genes are often linked to “jumping genes” called transposons that can move from strain to strain. Not only does this provide a mechanism for resistance to spread, having multiple copies of a resistance ...

BEAUFORT, N.C. – When it comes to protecting a crucial resource in the face of changing conditions, it’s important to know how the humans reliant on that resource have organized themselves. Especially if there isn’t a lot of government supervision. A new study of small-scale fisheries in Mexico’s Gulf of California has found that the fishers’ response to a changing climate can be strongly influenced by what they fish for and how they’re organized. The work appears in the January 2024 issue of Global Environmental Change. “When we ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn probability, fire size and number of blazes as the climate continues to get warmer and drier, according to new modeling led by an Oregon State University scientist. Understanding how fire regimes may change under future climate scenarios is critical for developing adaptation strategies, said the study’s lead author, Alex Dye. Findings were published today in JGR Biogeosciences. Dye, ...

While the microchips inside electronic devices like cell phones and computers are incredibly small, transistors — the tiny electrical switches inside of microchips — are approaching the atomic level. Today’s microchips pack over 100 million transistors in an area the size of a pin head. Despite their almost unimaginable size, the total number of such microelectronic devices consume an enormous amount of energy, which is growing exponentially. Predictions indicate that 20% of the world’s energy could be consumed ...

A Weill Cornell Medicine-led research team has been awarded a 2024 Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award from the Clinical Research Forum in recognition of an influential 2023 New England Journal of Medicine study on early-stage lung cancer resection. The award is one of 10 given annually by the Clinical Research Forum for highly innovative and clinically translatable research with the potential to provide major benefits to patients. The Washington, D.C.-based organization is an influential advocate for government funding of clinical research and the interests of American clinical research institutions generally. The winners will present their award-winning ...

When certain connections in the brain do not function correctly, disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and Tourette’s syndrome may result. Targeted stimulation of specific areas in the brain can help alleviate symptoms. To pinpoint the exact therapeutic target areas of the brain, a team led by researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin and Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzed data from patients across the globe who had undergone implantation of tiny electrodes to stimulate ...

Join Gunther Eysenbach, the founder, CEO, and executive editor of JMIR Publications, in this new video as he reflects on the company's 25th anniversary and its remarkable journey in the scholarly publishing industry. Eysenbach discusses the inception of the Journal of Medical Internet Research and the driving forces behind creating an open access eHealth journal. He emphasizes the significance of innovation both in content and form, highlighting the company's early adoption of internet-based technologies ...

URBANA, Ill. – Black Americans experience racial discrimination as a chronic stressor that influences their quality of life. But it exists in conjunction with other social factors that may modify the impact in various ways. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explores how discrimination, gender, and social class affect individual well-being and relationship quality for Black Americans. “It’s well documented that discrimination negatively impacts individual quality of life, but research on how it affects relationships is mixed. Some studies find it has a negative effect, others that it has no effect, and some even find a positive effect, ...

Compound vital for all life likely played a role in life’s origin A chemical compound essential to all living things has been synthesised in a lab in conditions that could have occurred on early Earth, suggesting it played a role at the outset of life, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The compound, pantetheine, is the active fragment of Coenzyme A. It is important for metabolism - the chemical processes that maintain life. Earlier studies failed to synthesise pantetheine effectively, leading to suggestions that it was absent at life’s origin. In the new ...

New York, NY (February 22, 2024)—Recent developments in cancer research have highlighted the vital role of the immune system, particularly in the notable successes of cancer immunotherapy. Now, a paradigm-shifting study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York in collaboration with the University of Helsinki and Massachusetts General Hospital sheds light on how variations in immune genetics influence lung cancer risk, potentially paving the way for enhanced prevention strategies and screening. The findings were described in the February 22 online issue of Science [DOI number: 10.1126/science.adi3808]. The investigators ...

Cedars-Sinai investigators have discovered why some injured kidneys heal while others develop scarring that can lead to kidney failure. Their findings, detailed in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, could lead to the development of noninvasive tests to detect kidney scarring and, eventually, new therapies to reverse the condition. “The key to this discovery was our ability to directly compare injured kidney cells that successfully regenerated with those that did not,” said Sanjeev Kumar, MD, PhD, a nephrologist-scientist in the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai and senior author ...

Data from a series of randomized trials in the United States suggests that if teachers move genetics instruction toward more complex genomics concepts, they can help students have a more scientifically accurate understanding of race. This can protect students from believing in unscientific notions of genetic essentialism, including the idea that inequality is genetic. People who believe in genetic essentialism believe – among other ideas – that most racial differences are determined by genes. Essentialist ...

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have found conclusive evidence of a neutron star in the remnant of Supernova 1987A, the only supernova visible to the naked eye in the last 400 years and the most studied supernova in history. Although Supernova 1987A has been observed for more than three decades, scientists have not seen the compact object expected to have been produced during the explosion. Some indirect evidence had suggested that the supernova produced a neutron star, but a black hole wasn’t ruled ...

Roughly a third of the climate cooling that forests achieve by removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere is offset through changes to atmospheric composition and decreased surface reflectivity, researchers report. The findings suggest that the benefits of wide-scale forestation efforts may be overestimated and do not represent a single solution for addressing climate change. They also highlight the urgency of simultaneously focusing on emissions reductions. Planting trees has been widely promoted as a nature-based solution to remove anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere to help mitigate ...

More than 100 million years ago, the ancestors of the first snakes were small lizards that lived alongside other small, nondescript lizards in the shadow of the dinosaurs.   Then, in a burst of innovation in form and function, the ancestors of snakes evolved legless bodies that could slither across the ground, highly sophisticated chemical detection systems to find and track prey, and flexible skulls that enabled them to swallow large animals.   Those changes set the stage for the spectacular diversification of snakes over the past 66 million years, allowing them to quickly exploit new opportunities ...