International Research Awards on New Science Inventions

Scientific publications can serve as key evidence to policymakers, as well as provide possible discussion points to inform public debate. For example, comprehensive, systematic reviews of literature regularly influence recommendations such as medical guidelines when it comes to public health policy around major issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing number of preprints available should in theory provide a faster, albeit less reviewed mechanism for researchers to share their work during the pandemic. However, what this entails is that the means to meddle with scientific communications are that much more available. But what would motivate a person, group of people, or even an organisation to intentionally game the scientific system? Personal, professional, or political – the motivations exist within people who want fame and fortune to fast-track their ambitions. Whether they use fair means or foul. Charlatans in science are sadly not new. Persons making grandiose claims about...

Part of the new Elizabeth line at Liverpool Street Station, London Underground. Photo courtesy of Ian Mansfield (ianVisits ). London’s Underground system was built on the back of the first industrial revolution – a key piece of physical infrastructure that led to a whole new way of thinking about transportation and which fundamentally changed the city in which it was built. It is easy to see parallels between the physical infrastructure building of the 19th century and the cyber infrastructures that we are building today, as the exponential industrial revolution, powered by computers, the internet and AI in which we currently sit develops. Much has been written about cyber infrastructures – there are over 5.7 million publications classified as “ Information and Computing Sciences ” (of which 3.1 million relate to AI and Image Processing ) in Dimensions at the time of writing. While good infrastructure is often invisible, in the sense that it merges seamlessly into ...

The MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) has awarded 20 projects a total of $5 million over two years in its first-ever 2022 MCSC Seed Awards program. The winning projects are led by principal investigators across all five of MIT’s schools. The goal of the MCSC Seed Awards is to engage MIT researchers and link the economy-wide work of the consortium to ongoing and emerging climate and sustainability efforts across campus. The program offers further opportunity to build networks among the awarded projects to deepen the impact of each and ensure the total is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, to drive progress under the awards category Circularity and Materials, the MCSC can facilitate connections between the technologists at MIT who are developing recovery approaches for metals, plastics, and fiber; the urban planners who are uncovering barriers to reuse; and the engineers, who will look for efficiency opportunities in reverse supply chains. “The MCS...

Sometimes when we are reading a good book, it’s like we are transported into another world and we stop paying attention to what’s around us. Researchers at the University of Washington wondered if people enter a similar state of dissociation when surfing social media, and if that explains why users might feel out of control after spending so much time on their favorite app. The team watched how participants interacted with a Twitter-like platform to show that some people are spacing out while they’re scrolling. Researchers also designed intervention strategies that social media platforms could use to help people retain more control over their online experiences. The group  presented the project  May 3 at the CHI 2022 conference in New Orleans. “I think people experience a lot of shame around social media use,” said lead author  Amanda Baughan , a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “One of the things I like about th...

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have boosted the sensitivity of their atomic radio receiver a hundredfold by enclosing the small glass cylinder of cesium atoms inside what looks like custom copper “headphones.” The structure — a square overhead loop connecting two square panels — increases the incoming radio signal, or electric field, applied to the gaseous atoms in the flask (known as a vapor cell) between the panels. This enhancement enables the radio receiver to detect much weaker signals than before. The demonstration is described in  a new paper . The headphone structure is technically a split-ring resonator, which acts like a metamaterial — a material engineered with novel structures to produce unusual properties. “We can call it a metamaterials-inspired structure,” NIST project leader Chris Holloway said. NIST researchers previously demonstrated the  atom-based radio receiver . An atomic sensor has the potential to be physic...

People who deny the existence of structural racism are more likely to exhibit anti-Black prejudice and less likely to show racial empathy or openness to diversity, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. However, there were no similar findings for people who claimed they ignore race, which was instead associated with greater openness to diversity, the study found. Researchers analyzed 83 previous studies on racism that included more than 25,000 participants. Denying structural racism and ignoring race are often considered to be two different types of colorblind racial ideology, but researchers and educators need to delineate between them because they appear to have very different outcomes, said lead researcher Jacqueline Yi, MS, a clinical-community psychology doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The research was published online in the  Journal of Counseling Psychology . “The denial of structural racism ...

Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to University of Copenhagen research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms. Since the only known planet with life, the Earth, orbits the Sun, planetary systems around stars of similar size are obvious targets for astronomers trying to locate extraterrestrial life. Nearly every second star in that category is a binary star. A new result from research at University of Copenhagen indicate that planetary systems are formed in a very different way around binary stars than around single stars such as the Sun. “The result is exciting since the search for extraterrestrial life will be equipped with several new, extremely powerful instruments within the coming years. This enhances the significance of understanding how planets are formed around different types of stars. Such results may pinpoint places which would ...

Salamanders that live their entire lives in the crowns of the world’s tallest trees, California’s coast redwoods, have evolved a behavior well-adapted to the dangers of falling from high places: the ability to parachute, glide and maneuver in mid-air. Flying squirrels, not to mention numerous species of gliding frogs, geckos, and ants and other insects, are known to use similar aerial maneuvers when jumping from tree to tree or when falling, so as to remain in the trees and avoid landing on the ground. Similarly, the researchers suspect that this salamander’s skydiving skills are a way to steer back to a tree it’s fallen or jumped from, the better to avoid terrestrial predators. “While they’re parachuting, they have an exquisite amount of maneuverable control,” said Christian Brown, a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa and first author of a paper about these behaviors. “They are able to turn. They are able to flip themselves over if they go upside...

Young children who grow up with a dog or in a large family may have some protection later in life from a common inflammatory bowel disease known as Crohn’s disease, according to a study to be presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2022. “Our study seems to add to others that have explored the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ which suggests that the lack of exposure to microbes early in life may lead to lack of immune regulation toward environmental microbes,” said Williams Turpin, PhD, the study’s senior author and a research associate with Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto. Researchers used an environmental questionnaire to collect information from nearly 4,300 first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease enrolled in the Crohn’s and Colitis Canada Genetic, Environmental, and Microbial (CCC-GEM) project. Using responses to the questionnaire and historical data collected at the time of recruitment, Dr. Turpin and his team analyzed several environmental factors, inc...

  Eating low glycaemic index foods promotes a healthier body shape in patients with coronary artery disease, according to a study presented at ACNAP-EuroHeartCare Congress 2022, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). 1 The glycaemic index (GI) ranks carbohydrate-containing foods according to how quickly they affect blood sugar levels. High GI foods cause a rapid increase in blood sugar and include white bread, white rice, potatoes and sweets. Low GI foods are digested more slowly and gradually raise blood sugar; they include some fruits and vegetables such as apples, oranges, broccoli and leafy greens, pulses such as chickpeas, lentils, and kidney beans, and wholegrains such as brown rice and oats. Meat, poultry and fish do not have a GI rating because they do not contain carbohydrates. Observational studies have previously indicated that high GI diets are associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease 2  and type 2 diabetes...