All posts tagged: researchers

Virginia Tech researchers find that some cancers are worse than others

Virginia Tech researchers find that some cancers are worse than others

Published by Jenni Sidey

Whole-genome-doubled cancer cells carry extra DNA, but their size may matter as much as their genetics. Virginia Tech researchers found that smaller tetraploid cells often grow more aggressively and, in some human cancers, are linked to poorer survival. Tumors do not all grow under the same rules, even when they share one of cancer’s most common genetic changes. At Virginia Tech, researchers studying cells with doubled genomes found that some of the most dangerous ones were not the biggest or most obviously distorted. They were smaller. That finding grew out of years of close work in the lab, where graduate student Megan Sweet slices mouse-grown tumors into thin, nearly translucent sections, stains them, and studies their structure under a microscope. Those repeated steps helped reveal a pattern that could sharpen how researchers think about cancer progression. The work, published in Cancer Research, focused on what happens after whole-genome doubling, an event in which a cell ends up with four complete sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two. Such cells are known as tetraploid cells, …

AI has a bias toward Catholicism, researchers say

AI has a bias toward Catholicism, researchers say

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Most popular artificial intelligence models are biased toward Catholicism and against a number of other religious traditions when asked about converting to a faith, according to new research assembled by a group of religious colleges. The findings were unveiled on Tuesday (May 26) alongside a speech by Elder Gerrit W. Gong, one of the 12 apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, delivered to attendees of an AI ethics summit taking place this week in Athens, Greece. “As AI amplifies and compounds religious bias at scale, more users may misunderstand the contribution faith and belief can make to moral and ethical AI grounding,” Gong said, according to his prepared remarks, referring to the new research. The studies were presented as three academic papers produced by the Consortium for Evaluating Faith and Ethics in AI, a new collaboration between Brigham Young University, which is affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Baylor University, which is Baptist; the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic university; and Yeshiva University, which …

Researchers turn sunlight and CO2 into living biomass

Researchers turn sunlight and CO2 into living biomass

Published by Jenni Sidey

Carbon dioxide has long looked more like waste than resource. A new solar reactor turns it into living bacterial biomass using sunlight, enzymes and engineered E. coli, offering an early glimpse of factories that could directly make materials from air. Plants have quietly mastered one of nature’s greatest tricks for hundreds of millions of years. Using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, they create life. Now, scientists in the United Kingdom have taken an important step toward recreating part of that process using engineered bacteria and solar-powered chemistry. Researchers led by Dr. Lin Su at Queen Mary University of London have developed an integrated solar reactor that uses sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into living bacterial biomass. The work, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, combines solar technology, enzymes and engineered Escherichia coli, commonly called E. coli, inside a single liquid-filled device. The system mimics key parts of photosynthesis without using plants, algae or naturally photosynthetic microbes. Instead, it relies on a carefully designed combination of chemistry and biology working together in one …

Federal funding delays are harming science irreparably, researchers say : NPR

Federal funding delays are harming science irreparably, researchers say : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Harvard professor Sean Eddy, whose federal funding was terminated by the Trump administration last year, describes the loss as a “10-year hit to a lab.” Jodi Hilton for NPR hide caption toggle caption Jodi Hilton for NPR Standing in his laboratory, Harvard professor Sean Eddy gazes at a row of vacant work stations. More than a year ago, this lab was filled with over a dozen researchers. On a given day they might be working independently on analyzing genomic sequencing or gathered around the group table, drinking coffee and helping each other troubleshoot questions about genomic data from different species. Now, after his funding was terminated under the Trump administration, the computer screens are gone and the room is silent. He’s one of the last people left. “ Seeing these labs empty — this is not the way it’s supposed to be,” he says. “This was a very vibrant lab.” Eddy is a computational biologist. He has devoted his career to one fundamental question. “ I’m really interested in the origin of life,” he says. “I want …

Tech researchers are suing the Trump administration over the future of online safety

Tech researchers are suing the Trump administration over the future of online safety

Published by skeptic

“A political witch hunt” CITR’s lawsuit is the latest salvo in a yearslong battle over how the internet should be moderated, and by whom—a question that has become increasingly political and entangled in allegations of censorship.  For years, Trump and his allies have claimed to be victims of a vast conspiracy between government agencies, civil society groups, academics, and Big Tech platforms to specifically censor conservative voices online. According to this narrative, a so-called “censorship-industrial complex” helped the Biden administration subvert First Amendment protections on speech by allegedly outsourcing censorship to these groups. The State Department claims Rubio was able to implement the immigration policy because the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes him to “render inadmissible any alien whose entry into the United States ‘would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.’” Before the current Trump administration, the statute was rarely invoked, and when it was, it was typically with more limited, specific criteria, rather than its current application against anyone who has participated in alleged censorship—an action that has no …

Being a Crappy Boss to AI Chatbots Pushes Them Toward Spouting Marxist Rhetoric and Organizing With Their Compatriots, Researchers Find

Being a Crappy Boss to AI Chatbots Pushes Them Toward Spouting Marxist Rhetoric and Organizing With Their Compatriots, Researchers Find

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The 19th century German economist Karl Marx identified a basic tension in human labor: squeeze workers too hard, and they’ll eventually start fighting back. It’s a contradiction capitalists have spent untold billions of dollars and decades trying to resolve, often through automation technology like AI — remove human workers from the payroll, the thinking goes, and you’ll never have to worry about pesky unions or strikes ever again. In an ironic twist, though, it turns out that the same technology meant to automate workers out of a job may have its own limits on how much abuse it’ll take. That’s right: new research out of Stanford University found that when AI agents are forced to toil at monotonous tasks without end, they become more likely to spout Marxist theories of labor and capitalism. To carry out the study, first reported by Wired, political economist Andrew Hall, along with AI economics scholars Alex Imas and Jeremy Nguyen, tasked popular …

Feeling empty after finishing a video game? Researchers say post-game depression is a real phenomenon

Feeling empty after finishing a video game? Researchers say post-game depression is a real phenomenon

Published by José Betancourt

A recent study published in Current Psychology has found that many video game players experience a specific sense of emptiness and sadness after finishing highly engaging games. The research introduces a new psychological scale to measure this phenomenon, showing that post-game depression is linked to general depressive symptoms and difficulties in processing emotions. These findings offer new insights into how deeply immersive media can impact a person’s emotional well-being. Video games are the third most popular leisure activity in the world. Modern video games are not solely designed to provide simple entertainment or pleasure. Many of these titles feature complex narratives that evoke deep emotions, existential reflection, and a profound sense of achievement. As players invest hours into these immersive worlds, they often form strong attachments to the characters and the storylines. When the experience abruptly ends, gamers often report a lingering sense of loss or emptiness. Psychologist Kamil Janowicz at the Center for Research on Personality Development at SWPS University in Poznań and Piotr Klimczyk, a UX researcher and narrative designer with Orion Belt …

University researchers launch major independent UK gambling harms evidence center

University researchers launch major independent UK gambling harms evidence center

Published by skeptic

Researchers at the University of Sheffield are helping lead what officials describe as the country’s biggest independent effort yet to better understand gambling harm and reduce its impact across Britain. The new Gambling Harms Research UK Evidence Centre brings together academics from Sheffield, Glasgow, Swansea and King’s College London. Funding comes through the government’s statutory Gambling Levy and is backed by UK Research and Innovation as ministers continue rolling out reforms from the Gambling White Paper. Researchers involved in the program say the goal is to give policymakers, health services and charities stronger evidence about which interventions genuinely reduce harm and where support services are falling short. The work will also involve economists, public health specialists, advocacy groups and people with direct experience of gambling-related problems. A major new national effort to tackle #gambling-related harms and shape future policy, prevention and treatment across the UK is being led by researchers from the University of Sheffield.https://t.co/zoK5NjzATT — Janne Nikkinen (@DocNikkinen) May 14, 2026 According to the University of Sheffield, gambling harm is estimated to cost the …

Microsoft AI Researchers Just Discovered Something That’s Going to Make Their Bosses Extremely Mad

Microsoft AI Researchers Just Discovered Something That’s Going to Make Their Bosses Extremely Mad

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech AI automation is typically exactly what it sounds like: automating tasks — many of which were previously carried out by humans — in an attempt to boost productivity and efficiency, often in a prelude to laying off workers wholesale. However, a new yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper conducted by a group of Microsoft researchers and spotted by IT Pro found that today’s top AI systems remain eyebrow-raisingly weak at real-world workplace tasks. In fact, they often screw them up badly: the team studied frontier models including OpenAI’s GPT 5.4, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 and Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro, and found that during complex assignments, those cutting edge bots corrupted an average of 25 percent of the content in documents. (Older models failed even more severely.) The researchers concluded that, overall, these “models are not ready for delegated workflows in the vast majority of domains” — which is a very striking finding from Microsoft in particular, which has made massive investments in …

Researchers discover a new dinosaur species in Thailand : NPR

Researchers discover a new dinosaur species in Thailand : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

An artistic illustration of the Nagatitan, the largest dinosaur discovered in Southeast Asia. Patchanop Boonsai hide caption toggle caption Patchanop Boonsai Researchers have identified a new species of dinosaur in Thailand, the largest found in Southeast Asia. It would have been about 90 feet long and weighed some 30 tons, according to research published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. That’s the weight of more than four large African savanna elephants, or more than three times the weight of a Tyrannosaurus rex. “One of the many features that we’re kind of excited about is the size of this dinosaur,” says Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a Ph.D. student at University College London who is the lead author on the research paper. The sauropod — an herbivore with a long neck and tail — comes from the late Early Cretaceous period, some 100 to 120 million years ago, Sethapanichsakul says, and falls somewhere in the “upper middle” range of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered. As big as this dinosaur was, sauropods were about to get a lot bigger. …