The Academic Minute

On Union College Week: How do we unravel the secrets of volcanoes?Holli Frey, professor of geosciences, examines tiny crystals to gather clues.Faculty Bio:Holli Frey is a professor of Geosciences from Union College (NY). She studies volcanoes, trying to understand the plumbing systems beneath them, looking for clues as to how and why they erupt. She is particularly interested in mineral chemistry and chronology and uses a variety of analytical tools to address fundamental questions about magma evolution. She has active field-based projects in the Caribbean (St. Vincent and Dominica) and Central Oregon (Tumalo Tuff) and previously did work in the western Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt and plutons in coastal Maine. She enjoys mentoring students, who are frequently co-authors on her publications. Her most recent work is on the eruptions of St. Vincent and she is a project partner of Dr. Jenni Barclay (University of Bristol) on a funded, collaborative grant, “Ex-X: Expecting the Unexpected (Understanding Dangerous Volcanic Transitions)”. This summer, Dr. Frey will take several students to Dominica, continuing to explore the eruptive history of the island. Dr. Frey received her B.A. in geology from Franklin and Marshall College and her PhD in geosciences from University of Michigan, supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.Transcript:In early 2021, the volcano La Soufrière in St. Vincent in the Caribbean rumbled to life after more than 40 years. Thick lava slowly oozed out at the summit, not a real threat to the 16,000 people living in its shadow.Then, in April, everything changed. The shaking beneath the volcano shifted, prompting an evacuation. In less than 24 hours, powerful explosions began, sending ash high into the atmosphere. For two weeks, more than 30 explosions rocked the island, transforming the landscape and destroying more than 1000 homes.So, what happened inside the volcano during that sudden transition?To find out, we turned to the crystals locked inside the rocks that erupted in the first 48 hours. It was the smallest crystals – called microlites – that were key to understanding the volcano’s behavior. The microlites are like time capsules; they preserve clues about where magma has been and what it experienced on its journey to the surface. As these tiny crystals formed, they caused the magma to become more gas rich, increasing the pressure past a tipping point which caused the explosions.What we found in the microlite chemistry tells a story of magma moving through two very different environments on its way to the surface.The first crystals formed deep underground, more than fifteen kilometers beneath the volcano, where magma sat under intense pressure and water-rich conditions. Those crystals were carried upward, survivors from deep in the volcanic plumbing system.The next series of microlites didn’t come from depth however. They crystallized as the magma was moving more quickly to the surface, after the initial throat clearing first blasts that destroyed the lava dome.By reading the record preserved in the tiny crystals, we can better understand how quiet dome-building eruptions suddenly become explosive and hopefully improve how we anticipate hazards at active volcanoes.Read More:[Lyell Collection] - Petrology of the explosive deposits from the April 2021 eruption of La Soufrière volcano, St Vincent: a time-series analysis of microlites[Union] - Frey Awarded NSF RAPID Grant[U.S. National Science Foundation] - Award Abstract # 2132566 RAPID: The effusive to explosive transition of La Soufrière, St. Vincent: Insights from petrology and hygrometryDangerousVolcanoes.org This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Union College Week: Why are democracies suspending the rights of their people? Guillermina Seri, professor of political science, explores this.Faculty Bio:Guillermina Seri is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Union College, NY, where she teaches courses in political theory and Latin American Politics. Seri is the author of the books Seguridad: Crime, Police Power, and Democracy in Argentina (Continuum, 2012) and Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance. The Crisis of Democratic Rights (University of Michigan Press, 2026), and co-editor of the volume Police Abuse in Contemporary Democracies (Palgrave, 2018).Transcript:We often assume democracies are safe havens for human rights, but my research tracks a troubling trend: Across a number of democracies, state abuses and police violence are starting to mirror the abuses linked to emergency measures that suspend rights in authoritarian regimes.Drawing on media and archival research, I’ve found that while emergency powers used to be the tool of dictators in the 1970s, by the mid-2000s, democratic governments were actually using them more often than nondemocracies. These records challenge established beliefs in political science that democracies “almost never” suspend rights.Why is this happening? One trend associated with the rise of emergency regimes is the subordination of politics to protecting markets. We’ve entered an era where protecting the market has become the state's highest priority—its Reason of State—often bypassing legal safeguards. This global experiment began under the military dictatorship of 1970s Chile, then extended through and from the Global North. Today, it thrives in the “chainsaw” economics of Javier Milei's Argentina by subjecting everyone and everything to a market rationale, even when it may undermine rights protections.However, my research also highlights the democratic extraordinary moments when citizens reclaim voice and rights. These are the moments that open possibilities to strengthen democracy and take care of both people and the planet.Read More:[University of Michigan Press] - Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Union College Week: Learning goes on, even during war.Kristin Bidoshi, professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, discusses this through language teaching in Ukraine.Faculty Bio:Kristin Bidoshi is a professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the director of Russian and East European Studies program at Union College, a small liberal arts college in Schenectady, NY. She conducts fieldwork in Eastern Europe and publishes on topics including the use of oral tradition in the works of Anton Chekov, Nikolai Gogol and Liudimila Petrushevskaia. She also publishes in applied linguistics, specifically in Russian language pedagogy, and has recently presented workshops on building, evaluating and using custom AI tools in the language classroom. Kristin also directs a Teaching English Practicum in which Union College students teach English as a Second Language (ESL) classes online to Ukrainian children or in-person ESL classes to refugees and immigrants in the NY Capital District.Transcript:What does it mean to teach language during war? The answer seems obvious. Language instruction can resume remotely, focusing on basic communicative skills. But this captures only part of the problem. War-time language teaching is never pedagogically neutral. Instruction unfolds within asymmetries of vulnerability and responsibility as classrooms become places where global politics and ethical judgment emerge.My research, grounded in applied linguistics, examines foreign language education during war. Drawing on Michael Byram’s theory of intercultural citizenship, qualitative data from student teachers’ reflections and classroom observations of their remote English classes with Ukrainian children, this research examines how wartime English instruction moves beyond its expected focus on grammar and communication to become an ethical and civic practice, reshaping everyday instructional approaches, classroom roles and even student teachers’ understandings of language teaching, power and civic responsibility.A student’s apology for missing class because “the power was out,” is a stark reminder of how the war shapes daily life. When a student mentions life “before the war,” grammar becomes less important as the teacher decides how to preserve instructional routine and acknowledge hardship. In these moments, skill instruction gives way to responding with care to lives shaped by conflict.In times of war, education is fragile. This research reminds us that language pedagogy, theorized through intercultural citizenship, can sustain human connection when war seeks to undo it.Read More:[Space of Knowledge] - <a

Cannabis may affect your memory after use, but to what extent?Carrie Cuttler, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Co-Director of the Cannabis Research Center at Washington State University, investigates this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Carrie Cuttler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Co-Director of the Cannabis Research Center at Washington State University. She directs the Health and Cognition (THC) Lab, where her research examines both the beneficial and detrimental effects of cannabis and cannabinoids. Her recent work focuses on the therapeutic potential of cannabigerol (CBG) and the effects of chronic cannabis use and acute cannabis intoxication on cognition (e.g., memory, creativity, executive functioning), mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, autism, ADHD), physical health (e.g., pain, sleep), and stress. Dr. Cuttler has published several books and more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles.Transcript:One of the most well-documented effects of acute cannabis intoxication is impairment in memory. However, memory is not a single process—it is a complex system composed of multiple subsystems that rely on different neural mechanisms. Despite this complexity, most previous research on cannabis has focused on a narrow set of memory tests, particularly verbal memory tests and working memory tests.Far fewer studies have examined how cannabis affects other types of memory that are more relevant to everyday functioning. These include temporal order memory, prospective memory, source memory, false memory, and autobiographical memory.To address this gap, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in which 120 participants with substantial experience using cannabis, vaporized either placebo, a moderate dose, or a high dose of cannabis. We observed significant detriments across several domains, including verbal memory, visuospatial memory, working memory, prospective memory, source memory, false memory, and temporal order memory. To our knowledge, this is the first study to detect significant detrimental effects of acute cannabis intoxication on prospective memory and temporal order memory.We did not observe significant effects on short-term memory or autobiographical memory. However, this is the first study to examine autobiographical memory following acute cannabis intoxication. Future research using more complex autobiographical memory tasks that capture real-world experiences is needed to corroborate this finding.It is important to note that participants were mostly young adults frequently using cannabis recreationally. Effects would likely be stronger in less experienced cannabis users and findings may not generalize to older adults or medical users.Read More:[Sage Journals] - <a target="_blank" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117

Anyone can make a Jackson Pollock painting, right?Jonas Mureika, chair and professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University, examines what physics has to say on the matter.Faculty Bio:Jonas Mureika serves as chair and professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University. Mureika spent much of his academic training at the University of Toronto, where he earned his B.S. in astronomy and physics and Ph.D. specializing in theoretical cosmology. He also holds an M.S. from the University of Waterloo where he studied particle physics.His research is focused on modified theories of gravitation, from implications for early universe cosmology, to micro black hole formation in high energy particle collisions. One such proposal that Mureika has helped advance is the idea that at high energies, the effective dimensionality of space decreases. A novel implication of this theory is that the universe was effectively one-dimensional in the moments following the Big Bang.Mureika is currently interested in the observational signatures of quantum gravity that might arise in future experiments, including LIGO gravitational wave detections, and imaging of supermassive black holes through the Event Horizon Telescope. He has also spent years analyzing Jackson Pollock’s art through fractal and lacunarity analysis.Transcript:20th-century abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock is most well-known for his pour paintings. Though highly regarded in the art world and a household name, many people have wondered: “Is his technique random?” “Can’t a child do that?”There are many fascinating aspects of Pollock’s work, but one of the most striking is the fractal patterns consistent throughout. Fractals exist everywhere in the natural world: in coastlines, lightning, and plants, to name a few, and can be mathematically analyzed to understand the physics that made them and how the structure will evolve over time.A group of physicists, psychologists, and I studied the paintings of adults and children ages 4-6 to distinguish whether artistic style is defined by age and how to differentiate paintings made by the two groups, allowing us to understand not just Pollock, but how to distinguish between any artists’ work at a mathematical level.We used fractal and lacunarity analysis – the measurement of clusters and gaps between them – techniques used in astrophysics, geophysics, biology, and beyond, to examine the artwork. We found that age and biomechanics create distinct artistic signatures, with factors such as balance, height, and vision producing statistically different patterns. Children produce smaller fractal dimensions – less clustering of fine structure, and larger lacunarity – more gaps between clusters, while adults demonstrate the oppo

What role does friendship play in political and resistance movements?Kim Miller, professor of art history, and coordinator of the Peace and Social Justice Studies Program at Wheaton College, examines this.Faculty Bio:Kim Miller is Professor of Art History, and Coordinator of the Peace and Social Justice Studies Program at Wheaton College. Formerly, she directed Wheaton’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program (2006 – 2020), served as co-director of the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Humanities, and held the Jane Oxford Keiter Endowed Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Kim is also a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, where she works to develop strategies to expand access to education for underserved populations. She serves as a professional mentor for South Africa’s “Future Professors” program, a nation-wide effort which aims to support young faculty and graduate students of color with their research and scholarship as they advance through the faculty ranks. Kim’s research focuses on the ways in which women artists and activists in South Africa use artmaking as a form of activism and empowerment, particularly in the context of that country’s anti-apartheid movement. Her forthcoming book, How did they Dare? Women’s Activism and the Work of Memory in South African Commemorative Art, examines how memorial practices and commemorative sites are associated with women’s political struggle in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement. Kim is co-editor, with Prof Brenda Schmahmann, of the book, Bronze Warriors and Plastic Presidents: Public Art in South Africa, 1999 – 2015.Transcript:In 1955, two South African women brazenly defied apartheid laws when they slipped past the feared security police, boarded a plane for the first time in their lives, and crossed the world to speak the truth about what was happening to their country. Lilian Ngoyi and Dora Tamana were formidable activists, skilled organizers, and close friends — chosen as delegates of the Federation of South African Women to represent the anti-apartheid cause abroad. Their illegal journey took them to Switzerland, England, Germany, Romania, China, and Russia, where they stood before crowds and described the cruelties of apartheid with clarity and courage. When they returned home, they worked with other women activists to organize the 1956 Women’s March. The largest public demonstration in the history of the anti-apartheid movement. My research asks a question history has largely ignored: what role did friendship play in sustaining that movement? What role does friendship continue to play as a sustaining force in political and social movements? My work considers friendship as a “knowing practice” in the way that

Healthy aging is critical for the present and the future.Jean Wactawski-Wende, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University at Buffalo, discovers more.Faculty Bio:Jean Wactawski-Wende, PhD, is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and dean of the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions. She is an epidemiologist who focuses her research on understanding factors that influence women’s health.With more than 25 years of research experience, she is the principal investigator of UB’s Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Center and also leads the WHI Northeast Regional Center, comprising 9 other institutions. Initiated in 1993, the WHI is an National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded, multi-centered study that involves both randomized clinical trials and an observational longitudinal study examining the major factors influencing morbidity and mortality in older women.In addition to the WHI, she has been principal investigator on dozens of research studies funded by the NIH and other federal agencies. Her interests include research on risk factors and prevention of cancer, osteoporosis and periodontal disease in postmenopausal women. Her current research focuses on the oral microbiome and health outcomes. She has also conducted several studies on reproductive health issues in younger women. As part of this work, she has led several large-scale prevention clinical trials in women.Transcript:Thanks to the generosity of thousands of women across the country, researchers like me continue to learn more each day about the major causes of death and disease in postmenopausal women.Many of these women have completed yearly surveys as part of the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national study that began in the early 1990s and has yielded important insights into the risk factors for cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis, among other conditions, in a rapidly growing U.S. demographic. We’re also learning more about the role the microbiome plays in influencing human health and disease.This research is critical. The number of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase by 42%, to 82 million, by 2050, with women accounting for the majority of this group.That’s why it is so vital that we continue to learn about how things like diet and exercise play a role in healthy aging.WHI ancillary studies have allowed my research colleagues and me to report recently in major journals on associations between <a target="_blank" href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2845052?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF

Is there a size limit on planets?Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, research scientist in astronomy at the University of California, San Diego, checks in to find out.Faculty Bio:Jean-Baptiste Ruffio is a research scientist studying extra-solar planets in the Astronomy & Astrophysics department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He has been developing statistical and instrumentation techniques to push the frontiers of planet detection and characterization with the largest telescopes in the world, both on the ground and in space.Transcript:How big can a planet be before it’s no longer called a planet? We used the James Webb Space Telescope to answer this question. In our own solar system, Jupiter is the largest planet. But astronomers have found much larger planets around other stars. In 2008, astronomers took the first picture of a surprising system called HR 8799. They saw four massive “maybe” planets orbiting the same star, each being 5-9 times the mass of Jupiter. We have tried to understand if they are planets or brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs form like stars but they don’t get big enough to trigger the fusion of hydrogen. On the other hand, we believe planets generally from in a disk of dust and gas around young stars. Grains of dust collide and get bigger to form planetary cores. When a core gets big enough, it also pulls in large amount of gas to form gas giants like Jupiter. However, classical theories of planet formation struggle to explain the formation of the largest systems like HR 8799. In order to determine if they are truly planets or brown dwarfs, we can measure the composition of their atmospheres. Indeed, if we see a lot of icy and rocky material, that is the telltale sign of a planet. Brown dwarf would instead have a composition similar to the star. We therefore used James Webb to image the four planets around HR 8799. We then spent two years developing new analysis techniques to be able to measure the composition of these planets in unprecedented detail. We found that the planets had much more carbon, oxygen, and sulfur than their star. These observations finally provided the most direct evidence that HR 8799 is truly a planetary system and that planets can be much bigger than we thought.Read More:[UC San Diego Today] - How Big Can a Planet Be? With Very Large Gas Giants, It Can Be Hard to Tell[Nature Astronomy] - Jupiter-like uniform metal enrichment in a system of multiple giant exoplanets[ARXIV] - The co

Why do implicit biases still exist in hiring decisions?Samantha Dodson, assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the University of Calgary, answers this.Faculty Bio:Samantha Dodson’s research program focuses on when and why women experiencing roadblocks and adversity are evaluated as deserving of opportunities and support at work.Transcript:Since women began joining the modern workforce after World War II, support professions such as secretaries and paralegals have been predominantly occupied by women. The more powerful professions they support, such as executives and lawyers, are predominantly held by men. These low-power support professions often involve developing efficient processes and paying close attention to detail. In contrast, individuals in high-power organizational roles tend to engage in tasks like identifying and creating values, strategies, and visions. Thus, women are more likely than men to be in roles that require concrete mindsets and less likely to be in roles that require abstract mindsets. Drawing on research linking gender role segregation to gender stereotypes, we theorized that people might believe there are innate attributes that enable women to perform well in process-based roles requiring specificity and attention to detail, whereas men have attributes that help them excel in roles that require seeing the big picture.Six experiments showed that we do, in fact, hold implicit and explicit descriptive stereotypes – or beliefs about what men and women are – such that people tend to believe women are more concrete than men, women are more concrete than abstract, and men are more abstract than concrete. Women tend to hold these beliefs more deeply than men, and these stereotypes arose across dozens of occupations and industries. These beliefs have real-world consequences. In one study, we found that in nearly 550,000 LinkedIn recommendations, connections are more likely to use words such as “detailed and exact” to describe women and “visionary and farsighted” to describe men. Critically, we also found that these beliefs increased the likelihood of women being assigned detailed tasks at work, such as filing paperwork and proofreading, on top of their existing workload, perpetuating gender roles and organizational inequity.Read More:[APA PsyNet] - She sees the trees, he sees the forest: Descriptive gender stereotypes of concreteness and abstractness This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.academicminute.org?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign

Older adults are starting to use AI at home, too.Ken Brown, Tippie Children Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, says it’s not just for work anymore.Faculty Bio:Ken Brown, Ph.D., is Tippie Children Professor of Management in the Tippie College of Business and department executive officer of the Educational Policy and Leadership Studies Department, College of Education, both at the University of Iowa. He earned a BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland and MA and PhD degrees in Psychology from Michigan State University. Brown is the former associate dean of the undergraduate program in Tippie and served as a Fulbright Specialist at Seoul National University.Transcripts:We know that generative artificial intelligence tools are becoming a bigger part of peoples’ work lives, but are they using those tools at home, too?A recent survey we conducted here at the University of Iowa shows that yes, they are.For many, in fact, AI has become an even bigger part and is now a go-to tech tool at home as well as the office.We surveyed more than 1,000 people in December and found that more people are using generative AI for personal activities and projects than use it for work. We found that of those familiar with generative AI, more than 50% used it for personal activities and projects; only 35% used it at work.Even among full-time employees, more people reported they used it for personal activities than work, and more people feel that generative AI helps them personally than helps them professionally. Of those most frequently using generative AI programs, ChatGPT was the best-known, followed by CoPilot and Gemini.One of the findings that surprised us was that more retired people than we expected use ChatGPT for projects for personal use at home. Nine percent of the more than 264 retired respondents reported they were frequent users of the technology. Only 6 percent of retirees had never used it or heard of it, suggesting a willingness on their part to embrace the new technology.One of the study’s co-authors said that finding tracks with his own family experience, as his retired parents have started using AI as a search engine for such tasks as finding recipes or learning about things they see in the news.While the conversation about AI so far has been focused on the technology’s impact in workplace and educational settings, our survey suggests we should be looking more closely at its impact on retirees, as well. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www

Brainstems are hard to image because of their size and density, but is that about to change?Emery N. Brown, professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says yes.Faculty Bio:Emery N. Brown, M.D., Ph.D. is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School; and an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Brown is a neuroscientist-anesthesiologist-statistician whose research has contributed toward understanding how anesthetics act in the brain. In his statistics research he has developed signal processing algorithms to solve important data analysis challenges in neuroscience. For his work he received the National Medal of Science in January 2025.Transcript:Don’t sleep on the importance of your brainstem. This part of your brain is a vital conduit between your body and the rest of the brain. The signals that flow through bundles of nerve fibers there govern essential functions such as consciousness, sleep, breathing, heart rate and motion.While we know that the brainstem is absolutely crucial and that damage there can present patients with major problems, we haven’t had good ways to image and keep track of the health of its fiber bundles for reasons including how small and densely packed they are.But earlier this year, my colleagues and I, led by my graduate student Mark Olchanyi, developed a new way to clearly see brainstem fiber bundles in diffusion MRI imaging. The Brainstem Bundle Tool uses AI to analyze MRI images from patients, enabling us to track the size and structural integrity of eight distinct nerve fiber bundles.In the study we showed that the tool could reliably spot different effects on fiber bundles from Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury. Mark even used the tool to retrospectively look at the bundles in a patient who had been in a coma for seven months before recovering. He was able to show how the bundles were healing during that time.We are hopeful that this innovation, developed at MIT, Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital can transform the brainstem from being something of a mystery into a brain structure essential for understanding normal brain physiology as well as brain diseases and injury.Read More:[The Picower Institute] - Opening a new window on the brainstem, AI algorithm enables tracking of its vital white matter pathways[Pico

How do we search for life beyond Earth?Fabian Klenner, assistant professor of planetary sciences at the University of California, Riverside, explores the cosmos to find out.Faculty Bio:Fabian Klenner is an Assistant Professor of Planetary Sciences in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Riverside. He received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) in Germany. Prior to joining UC Riverside, he held postdoctoral appointments at FUB and the University of Washington. Being involved in various space missions, Fabian Klenner’s research centers around ocean worlds in the solar system. His research group addresses astrobiological questions to advance our understanding of extraterrestrial geochemical processes and the detection of potential life beyond Earth.Transcript:Are we alone in the universe? This is one of the most intriguing questions of mankind. We only know of one example of life, that is, life on Earth. In order to make life, you need the right ingredients, and the main ingredients of life on Earth are liquid water, enough energy and organic chemistry. Organic chemistry refers to chemical processes that involve carbon-containing compounds. When we search for life beyond Earth, we can start by searching for liquid water and then we analyse what is in the water.Within the solar system, so-called ocean worlds are at the forefront of the search for life. Ocean worlds are objects that harbour large bodies of liquid water. Examples include Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa. The oceans on these moons do not exist at the surface and instead they are hidden below thick ice crusts in the subsurface. However, Enceladus, and maybe also Europa, emit material from their oceans through geysers into space. Such emissions provide us a unique opportunity to sample an ocean beyond Earth. This can be done by spacecraft flying to these moons and analysing the emitted material.My research at the University of California in Riverside combines spacecraft observations, laboratory experiments and computational efforts to advance our understanding of chemical processes on ocean worlds in the solar system and the detection of potential life beyond Earth. In a recent study, we re-analysed data that was recorded by NASA’s and ESA’s Cassini spacecraft in the geysers of Enceladus. The data contained clear evidence of a variety of organic compounds that came from Enceladus’s subsurface ocean. These organic compounds open up many new pathways for chemistry that may occur inside Enceladus and bolster the case that Enceladus could support life.Read More:[Nature] - Detectio

Do you feel loved?Harry Reis, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, examines why most do not.Faculty Bio:Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, is one of the world’s leading experts on relationships and connection and has studied the complexities of well-being and love in depth. His research examines the factors that influence the quantity and closeness or social interaction, and the consequences of different patterns of socializing for health and psychological well-being. Truly feeling loved, he has found, differs widely from the actions that we usually associate with loving, being loved, and falling in love.Transcript:Most people want to BE loved, but above all, they want to FEEL loved. Ask yourself: Do you feel loved as often as you would like? Do you feel loved by the people you want to feel loved by? A book I co-authored with Sonja Lyubomirsky, How to Feel Loved, is meant to help people find, keep, and grow the love they feel.In our research, roughly two-¬thirds of a random sample of Americans wantedto feel more loved or loved more often.Studies show that not feeling loved is the root of the so-called loneliness epidemic; it hampers performance at school and work; it harms our health and well-being, and it even predicts dying sooner. Feeling loved is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.Ironically, some of the most common ways we try to feel more loved can make things worse, not better:For example, we try to make ourselves appear more attractive and successful;We spotlight our positive qualities while hiding our weaknesses and vulnerabilities.But feeling loved is not about changing yourself or making another person love you. It’s about changing the conversation.The pathway to feeling more loved begins with conversations that help your partner feel more loved. Listen attentively to what they say and show genuine curiosity into what makes them tick. Be non-judgmental and open-hearted. This approach invites your partner to reciprocate your curiosity and caring. When you help another person feel loved, they become interested in you. When this happens, it is important to share your full self: not just your accomplishments and strengths but also your shortcomings: the authentic person you believe yourself to be. By opening up, you allow yourself to be seen and understood.Adopting the right mindset – the attitude with which you approach others – creates the conditions in which love and connection can flourish.Read More:[Amazon] - How to Feel Loved: The Five M

What happened on Easter Island? Robert DiNapoli, post-doctoral research associate in the environmental studies program at Binghamton University, says reality may be different than long thought. Лучше всего то, что большинство этих наборов поставляется с инструкциями, в которых подробно описано, как использовать входящие в комплект продукты. В конце концов необычные подарки парню своими руками, они […] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

We have much to learn about wildfires.Craig Clements, professor and chair of the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University, uses a research lab on wheels to get close to the action.Faculty Bio:Craig Clements is a professor and chair of the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San José State University, where he is director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) and director of the Fire Weather Lab. His research focuses on the micro-meteorology and behavior of wildland fires, mountain and boundary-layer meteorology, air pollution and turbulence.His research and teaching focus includes wildfire meteorology and fire weather, extreme fire behavior, mountain and boundary-layer meteorology, turbulence, and meteorological instrumentation.Transcripts:Californians are concerned about the growing threat of extreme wildfires, such as the recent Pacific Palisades and Altadena fires, that resulted in loss of life and extensive property damage. But residents of other states, including Washington, Oregon, Texas and parts of the Midwest and Southeast are now facing increased dangers from wildfires.My research seeks to improve accurate predictions in wildfire science, a field that wasn’t even on the map when we began our work well over a decade ago. Since then, we launched the mobile fire weather lab--which allows us to travel to the fires--similar to the ways scientists have studied hurricanes and tornadoes--learning about their formation and dynamics for better prediction models. We’re really the only team that’s done this for wildfires, which are significantly under-sampled compared to all other atmospheric phenomena.Our “research lab on wheels” consists of a pair of lifted pickup trucks, both four-wheel drive, with state-of-the-art equipment, including Doppler LIDAR surface weather equipment and an upper air sounding system--basically a weather balloon--satellite radio to communicate with fire personnel, a suite of laptop computers, and other useful gear. Our team drives around forests and mountains using the two trucks in tandem to study fire dynamics and wildfire plumes. We gather, examine and provide useful data, much like that which is collected in severe weather and hurricane research, to better understand key elements of fire behavior and to test models and forecast systems. We collect information from the ground, but also from airborne assets and remote sensing satellites.When it comes to wildfires, it’s notable that their frequency and intensity is the result of a complex interplay o

Not every animal experiences the world at the same speed.Clinton Haarlem, postdoctoral research fellow at Trinity College, looks to visual processing speeds to explain why.Faculty Bio:Dr. Clinton Haarlem’s research focuses on variation in visual perception rates, both across species and across individuals. Clinton’s work is multidisciplinary and incorporates zoology, ecology and neuroscience to explore the dynamic interplay between sensory perception, behaviour and the environment.Transcript:Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to swat a fly? One of the reasons is because flies can see events happening in the world more than twice as fast as we can, allowing them to react to situations with incredible speed. But why do different animals see the world at different rates, and how does this shape their interactions with the world? These are the types of questions we aim to address with our research. Using a metric called the “critical flicker fusion threshold,” we can measure how fast the visual processing abilities of animals are. We can then compare how species with different visual processing rates differ in their physiology, their behaviour and the types of habitats they occupy. For example, we have found that species that live fast paced lifestyles, like those that are highly manoeuvrable or those that actively chase after prey, tend to possess much faster perception than more sluggish species or species that graze on stationary foods. Flying species in particular have extremely fast vision. After all, a peregrine falcon diving at over 300 km/h through the air needs pinpoint precision and expert timing to catch its prey. A high visual temporal resolution allows it to do just that. Our work informs how sensory systems are not only highly influenced by evolutionary background, but also by the environment and by behaviour. This helps us develop a greater understanding of how species living in similar habitats may have an entirely different experience of the world around them. Gaining a better understanding of the sensory worlds of animals is not only valuable in behavioural - and ecological research, but it can also help to improve conservation strategies and animal welfare practices by fostering more tailored - and individualized approaches. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What are the consequences of letting AI read for us?Naomi Baron, professor emerita of linguistics at American University, explores this issue.Faculty Bio:Naomi S. Baron is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at American University in Washington, DC. She is a Stanford PhD and has been a Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Author of eleven books, she has done research in a wide swath of areas, including child language acquisition, the history of English, writing as a form of linguistic representation, reading, and artificial intelligence. The emergence of email, mobile phones, and social media led her to explore how online and mobile communication reshape our linguistic interactions (Alphabet to Email, 2000, and Always On, 2008). Two subsequent books (Words Onscreen, 2015, and How We Read Now, 2021) drew on her empirical studies of how users view print versus digital screens as reading media.More recently, Professor Baron has focused on the ways in which artificial intelligence is reshaping what it means to write and read. Who Wrote This? (2023) broached the challenges we face when AI becomes our writing or editing surrogate. Her new book, Reader Bot (2026), takes on the complementary issue of outsourcing human reading to a large language model.Transcripts:Since writing first emerged roughly 5,000 years ago, motivations for reading have proliferated. From legal declarations to religious creeds, epic poems to novels, research articles to emails, the texts we read invite us to connect with the words and thoughts of others. Today, humans aren’t the only ones reading. As large language models (LLMs) permeate our lives, we increasingly lean on them to read on our behalf. AI-as-reader can produce an impressive comparison of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Percival Everett’s James. It can locate, summarize, and analyze scores of research papers. Human labor is reduced, but with what consequences? The question is increasingly pressing, given worrisome declines in how much both children and adults are reading of their own volition. Documenting a related trend, my research with Anne Mangen found that 49% of the US university faculty we surveyed were assigning less reading than in the past, with 34% indicating this was because students were ignoring the assignments.But the value of reading far supersedes completing academic or professional tasks. My research on AI and reading probes mental consequences of outsourcing reading, along with benefits from reading ourselves. Both experiments and self-reports indicate diminished cognitive effort and potential deskilling if AI reads for us. When doing our own reading, we bui

How do we best understand the relationship between politics and anxiety?Nick Dorzweiler, professor of the practice of political science and women’s and gender studies at Wheaton College, delves into this.Faculty Bio:Nick Dorzweiler joined Wheaton College in 2015, after completing doctoral work at Northwestern University. His research is guided by an overarching interest in the history of the social sciences and its impacts on political life beyond the academy. Nick has published on topics including the politics of popular culture, the history or the social sciences, democratic theory, feminist pedagogy, and the development of Critical Theory in the American academy in outlets such as Perspectives on Politics, Contemporary Political Theory, Polity, Constellations, New Political Science, and The History of the Human Sciences.Nick is a passionate teacher, and has developed courses at Wheaton that span the fields of international relations, political theory, and women’s and gender studies. In each of his classes, Nick seeks to uncover the history of our present in order to encourage his students to think deeply about who we are, how we got here, and where we can go – both as individuals and as members of larger political communities.Transcript:We live, we’re told, in an age of exceptional anxiety – a “polycrisis” of political polarization,economic uncertainty, environmental collapse, and rapid technological change. But this isn’t thefirst time Americans have felt this way. In the late 1930s, the US faced a similarly overwhelmingslate of challenges, from the Great Depression to the rising specter of world war to dizzyingtechnological innovation. My research unearths a provocative but forgotten effort to manage Americans’ collective anxieties during this period of deep social and political uncertainty.In 1939, the influential political scientist Harold D. Lasswell created Human Nature in Action, anNBC radio show that presented itself as an entertaining self-help program on how to managepersonality quirks and get along better with others. Behind the friendly advice, however, was afar more ambitious mission: training citizens to adjust themselves to their anxieties before theycould be expressed in in ways that Lasswell thought were pathological. This included everythingranging from individual expressions of sociopathy to mass revolutionary uprisings.In uncovering this remarkable effort to manage citizens’ mental health, my work explains whyone of the most famous scholars of the twentieth century believed the public needed this programof mass psychotherapy – and why the nation’s largest broadcaster agree

Surviving cancer may come with neurological side effects as well.Jenny M. Munson, professor and director at the Cancer Research Center – Roanoke at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech, determines why this is.Faculty Bio:Tracking fluid flow to understand cancer, aging and women’s health.How does the pace of fluid flow affect tumor spread and memory loss?In the Munson Lab, we study the tumor microenvironment in cancers, including glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer. Our research focuses on the emerging research area of fluid flow. Cancer’s invasion of the brain follows distinctive routes that correlate with interstitial and bulk flow pathways. In brain cancer, fluid flow increases between cells within the tissue, specifically across the invasive edge of the tumor where cells are prone to both interact with the surrounding brain tissue and to evade localized, transport-limited therapies. We believe fluid flow can alter how a tumor responds to drug therapies. Not only is fluid flow important in cancer, but also is a contributor to normal function in tissues and other diseases. To this end, we are translating many of our methods and hypotheses to understand the role of fluid flow in immunity, aging, and women’s health.Our methods combine in vivo imaging methodology with in vitro tissue engineered models to examine the role of interstitial fluid flow and the cellular components of the microenvironment in cancer progression and treatment. We use patient-derived cells to create personalized models of disease to test hypotheses related to fluid and tissue transport in tumors and the brain and to identify new drug targets and treatment approaches. Our goal is to find new targets in the tissue microenvironment by examining cancer and disease in the proper context, which includes dynamic fluid flows, multiple cell types, and patient-specific parameterization. By including the proper tissue environment, we believe that we can better identify underlying causes and contributors to disease and thus be better able to target and test new drugs for patients.Transcript:Chemotherapy saves lives, but many patients experience lingering “chemo brain” — problems with memory, focus, and mental clarity. Women, especially those treated for breast cancer, are disproportionately affected.We investigated whether the brain’s lymphatic system — vessels that clear waste and help regulate immune function — might play a role. Using a three-tiered approach that combined animal models and the first human tissue-engineered model of meningeal lymphatics, we studied how two common chemotherapy drugs affect this system.Both drugs disrupted lymphatic health, but the effects were strongest with docetaxel. Vessels be

How can we use technology to clean the air around us?Petra Fromme, Regents Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery at Arizona State University, examines how humidity can play a role in doing so.Faculty Bio:Petra Fromme, Regents’ Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery at Arizona State University, investigates the structure and function of biological and synthetic systems to advance solutions in energy, health, and sustainability.Petra Fromme, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree and habilitation in physical chemistry from the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, following her studies in biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin. She began her academic career at the Max Volmer Institute in Berlin before joining Arizona State University in 2002, where she has since become a leader in interdisciplinary research and innovation in structural biology and biophysics.Her research focuses on uncovering the molecular mechanisms of energy conversion and biological function, particularly through studies of membrane proteins such as photosystems. She has pioneered the use of X-ray free-electron lasers for serial femtosecond crystallography, enabling high-resolution structural determination of biomolecules and capturing dynamic processes. Her work has resulted in many impactful peer-reviewed publications and has significantly advanced the fields of structural biology and renewable energy research.Her current research also explores the development of advanced materials for direct air capture of carbon dioxide, focusing on moisture-swing systems that operate using changes in humidity. By studying nanoscale to macroscale structures, using different X-ray scattering and imaging techniques her team is working to design energy-efficient technologies to mitigate climate change.Professor Fromme has received numerous honors for her contributions to science, including the prestigious Anfinsen Award from the Protein Society. Through her leadership at the Biodesign Institute and her mentorship of students and researchers, she continues to drive innovation at the intersection of structural biology, energy, and environmental sustainability.Transcript:Fighting climate change often means building bigger machines—industrial systems that pull carbon dioxide from the air using heat, pressure or a lot of energy.But what if the air itself could do the work?My research is looking to step a big step forward in the fight against climate change; developed together with my graduate student and the first author of this published study, Gayathri Yogaganeshan and our team.Our work is on materials that can remove

What motivates runners?Emily Balcetis, associate professor of psychology at New York University, examines this question.Faculty Bio:Dr. Emily Balcetis is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University and author of Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World. She is an award-winning behavioral scientist and author. She directs a research lab that pioneers the scientific investigation of motivation, uncovering previously unknown strategies that sustain people’s efforts to meet their goals. Dr. Balcetis focuses on issues including diversity in leadership, disparities in health, bias in the legal system, polarization in public opinion, and safety in cyber behavior, among others. She has appeared as a host for National Geographic and has served as a consultant for General Electric, Nestle, Nike, Pixar, the New York Times, Prudential Financial, Sandoz Pharmaceutical, and other industry leaders. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She has delivered two TEDx talks on motivation science and polarization in public opinion and earned her PhD from Cornell University.Transcript:Physical training shapes running over months and years. But what allows runners to adapt in real time? The answer is not just in their legs and lungs, it’s in their eyes. My research shows that visual attention gives runners a flexible way to support motivation and improve their performance while they’re on the move.Visual attention works like a spotlight. It can be wide, taking in what’s on the left, right, above and below us. Or attention can be narrowly focused tightly on a single point ahead. Across multiple studies, I find that runners systematically shift the scope of this attentional spotlight as they progress through a run. And when they do, they can run farther and faster.At the start of a run, people tend to use a wider scope of attention. They scan their environment, monitor others around them, and orient themselves to the course. But as physical demands increase and fatigue sets in, runners increasingly narrow their visual focus—often locking their gaze onto a small, goal-relevant target, like a sign, a bend in the road, or the finish line.That shift matters. When people are experimentally instructed to narrow their attention rather than keep it wide, they move faster, investing more effort, and experience less physical pain—even though the distance and physical demands remain unchanged. Narrowing attention appears to make the goal appear closer and more attainable, increasing perceptions of their own ability to surmount the challenges that lie ahead, and helping runners persist when effort becomes costly.Notably, more experienced and fa

What are the barriers to recruitment for women in law enforcement? Amber Kerwin, professor of the practice of criminal justice at Hartwick College, looks into this question.Faculty Bio:Amber M. Kerwin is a professor of practice of criminal justice in the Sociology, Criminology Corrections Policing in a Democratic Society; and Introduction to Law. Her latest research, supported in part through the Hartwick College Faculty Research Grant Program, focuses on the barriers to recruitment and hiring of women in law enforcement.Transcript:Women police officers bring many positive benefits to their jobs in law enforcement. Studies have shown that women are better communicators, that they’re less likely to use physical force, and that victims of certain crimes feel more comfortable talking to them. Still, women make up a small percentage of law enforcement. Only 12 to 13 percent of total law enforcement officers in the United States currently are women. As a former police officer and investigator, I am interested in understanding why this is the case.My research focuses on the barriers to recruitment and hiring of women in law enforcement. It is important to me to identify, explore and better understand what prevents women from joining the police department or pursuing law-enforcement careers--and also understanding what makes it so hard to retain them. Through interviews with women who currently or previously worked in law enforcement, my research looks at the challenges they encounter in what remains an historically male-dominated profession. Lack of maternity- and family-related leave policies, uniforms not specifically designed for women, lack of acceptance, and harassment are all among the issues women have expressed in these conversations. Taking a closer look at the situation to gain more perspective will provide information to develop potential policy recommendations for police departments. This could help them create a more welcoming environment for women so they’re more comfortable working there. Right now, young girls and women don’t see a lot of other women in law enforcement so it’s not something that they have on their radar. A solution for that would be having more women officers do outreach to high schoolers or college students to do a more targeted re

Can artificial intelligence help us detect brain cancer early?Dimitrios Mathios, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis, takes a non-invasive look.Faculty Bio:Dimitrios Mathios, MD, is an assistant professor of neurosurgery and director of the Molecular Neuro-oncology Lab at WashU’s School of Medicine. His research focuses on using cancer immunology, genetics, and epigenetics to develop non-invasive early detection of brain tumors, when they are easily removable or curable with other treatments.Dr. Mathios has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals like Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Science Translational Medicine, Cancer Discovery, the Journal of Neurosurgery, the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, and Neurosurgery. His work has resulted in numerous awards, including the Young Investigator Physician Scientist Research Award at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he completed his residency, in 2022, and the American Association for Cancer Research-Conquer Cancer Foundation’s ASCO Young Investigator Award for Translational Cancer Research in 2020.Transcript:Diagnosing brain cancer at its earliest stages, like any cancer, is critical. But there are currently no screening methods available to detect brain cancer before a patient becomes symptomatic, or when the symptoms are as commonplace as a headache or slight personality change. As a result, brain cancer often goes undetected when treatment is the easiest, most effective, and least risky.That’s why, in 2019 I began researching a way to develop a noninvasive, blood-based test for early detection of brain cancer.Medical researchers have been looking for and finding ways to detect different kinds of cancer through blood-based tests for more than 15 years. They do this by identifying markers or other abnormalities in the blood that signal the presence of cancerous cells.But brain cancer is one of the most challenging cancers to detect in the blood. This is because the blood-brain barrier, a layer of cells that protects the brain from toxins and pathogens in the blood, prevents cancer markers from entering the bloodstream in as high concentrations as in other cancers. For this reason, detection of brain tumors requires developing more sensitive approaches for biomarker detection.This year, we reached a significant milestone in our research. We found that we could use artificial intelligence to analyze DNA fragments in the bloodstream for evidence of brain cancer. With this approach, we successfully detected brain cancer in about 75% of a cohort of more than 500 patients.The next step is to conduct a larger trial to confirm our findings in a broader population. Our end goal? To create a reliable test that emergency room doctors a

On University at Buffalo Week: Speeding up drug discovery will have many benefits.Tom Grant, assistant professor in the Department of Structural Biology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, looks into doing so.Faculty Bio:Thomas Grant is a structural biologist whose research focuses on developing innovative analytical methods to uncover the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules.Trained at the University at Buffalo, where he earned a BS in Mathematical Physics (2007) and a PhD in Structural and Computational Biology (2013), Grant’s research combines rigorous quantitative training with experimental expertise in X-ray crystallography, small-angle scattering, and X-ray free electron laser methodologies.His work integrates advanced computational algorithm development with cutting-edge experimental tools to generate high-resolution structural models and time-resolved “molecular movies,” illuminating how proteins and nucleic acids function within the cell and informing rational drug design.In 2025, he was awarded a $2.18 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to create a new artificial intelligence-powered tool that improves scientists’ understanding of how proteins move and change shape within the human body.Transcript:In the United States, it often takes 10 to 15 years to develop a new drug from its initial discovery to market approval. In my lab, we’re working on an artificial intelligence-driven project called SWAXSFold that we hope will dramatically speed up this process.So let me explain what SWAXSFold is.A few years ago, Google DeepMind released an algorithm called AlphaFold. It has had a major impact in biomedical research, winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. AlphaFold predicts 3D protein structures. By identifying these structures, scientists can target them with drugs that treat disease.But the reality is that many proteins are dynamic. They move around and can have many different shapes – that’s how they function and operate. This limits AlphaFold’s usefulness for drug discovery.That’s where our expertise in “SWAXS” comes in. SWAXS stands for small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering.SWAXS uses X-rays to take snapshots of proteins as they move around and change shape. It can see the different conformations a protein adopts, which is exactly what AlphaFold can’t do. So we’re developing SWAXSFold to integrate SWAXS data directly into this structure prediction process.As you can imagine, this requires intense computational resources.Our team is utilizing New York State’s supercomputing facility, Empire AI, to train SWAXSFold with our database o

On University at Buffalo Week: Can we use AI to help give those with motor neuron diseases their voices back?Rohini Srihari, professor of computer science and engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, looks to do so.Faculty Bios:Rohini Srihari is a scientist, educator and entrepreneur.A professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo, Srihari’s research and teaching focuses on artificial intelligence for social good, conversational AI, deep learning in natural language processing and other fields.Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity and other agencies. She has worked extensively with the U.S. government in developing innovative multilingual text mining solutions.Srihari’s recent research focuses on advancing the state-of-the-art in socialbots capable of engaging in empathetic, interesting and purposeful conversations. This also involves building trustworthy socialbots for combating disinformation, assisting the disabled and other purposes.She has published over 100 research papers in computer science journals and conference proceedings. Her Google Scholar h-index is 40. She is also the author of two U.S. patents, one on multilingual text mining.She has served as Chief Data Scientist at PeaceTech Lab, a non-profit incubated within the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. She has also founded and directed technology start-ups, focusing on “big data” analytics solutions for various markets. Two of these companies were subsequently acquired by large media analytics companies.Srihari received her B. Math degree from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and her PhD in Computer Science from the University at Buffalo.Transcript:People with motor neuron diseases such as ALS and cerebral palsy often lose the ability to speak. When this happens, they use modified keyboards or eyegaze tracking systems to communicate. But to speak, they rely upon augmentative and alternative communication devices. The late physicist Stephen Hawking is an example. Typically, people can generate about five words per minute with these devices due to their reduced motor abilities.This limits them to simple exchanges such as: “I need a glass of water.” But what these people really want is to engage in meaningful conversation.We can help with artificial intelligence, specifically an area of AI research known as personalization of large language models.Large language models are the same technology power

On University at Buffalo Week: Finding ways to reduce AI’s energy consumption can be crucial.Sambandamurthy Ganapathy, professor of physics, explores how the human brain may have an answer.Faculty Bio:Sambandamurthy Ganapathy is a physicist who studies nanoscale materials and devices and how they relate to cutting-edge phenomena like superconductivity and resistive switching.His experimental research group, which uses advanced nanofabrication techniques, designs and develops devices smaller than one micrometer that can explore the fundamental, microscopic mechanisms that dictate physical properties.Ganapathy’s research examines electron transport in semiconductors and other atomic layers under ultra-low temperatures, high magnetic fields and other extreme physical conditions. It also investigates metal-insulator transitions, neuromorphic computing and superconductor-insulator transitions.This work strives to unlock hidden quantum phenomena in novel states of matter which manifest when subatomic particles interact.Transcript:There’s nothing in the world as efficient as the human brain. It can store and process enormous amounts of information while using very little energy. That’s why my team and I are working on computing systems designed to mimic how the brain works.This approach is called neuromorphic computing. It’s been around since the 1980s, but it’s gaining new attention as artificial intelligence makes computing more complex — and far more energy-hungry.Computers and brains are already surprisingly similar. Computers have billions of transistors that switch on and off. Brains have billions of neurons that either fire signals or stay silent.But there’s a major difference. In the brain, memory and processing happen in the same place. In traditional computers, they’re separated, so data has to constantly move back and forth. That takes a lot of energy. Neuromorphic chips aim to solve this by placing memory and processing much closer together, like the brain.That’s where my research comes in. My team studies materials with unique quantum properties that could form the foundation of these new chips.Neuromorphic computers won’t recreate consciousness, but they may solve problems in more human-like ways — especially when information is incomplete or uncertain.In the near future, they’ll likely be used for specialized tasks, like self-driving cars. So don’t expect neuromorphic chips to power your smartphone anytime soon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ac

On University at Buffalo Week: Inclusive design works to eliminate friction for everyone, but how do we achieve it?Jordana Maisel, Director of Research for the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDEA Center) at the School of Architecture and Planning, looks into this.Faculty Bio:Jordana Maisel is director of the Research for the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDEA Center) at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.She is an expert in universal design and issues related to the impact of the built environment on individuals’ health, particularly for older adults and people who have disabilities.An associate professor of urban and regional planning, Maisel also has led research in areas such as public transportation, street infrastructure, building design and accessible housing policy. A frequent theme of Maisel’s work is evaluating the impact of inclusive design implementation.Transcript:Ever tried to read a sign you couldn’t understand?Find a restroom that didn’t meet your needs?Navigate a space that just wasn’t built for you?That moment of friction — that feeling of being left out — is what inclusive design works to eliminate.Because design is power. It determines who feels welcome, who can participate, and who gets left out. Inclusive design (also known as universal design) uses that power to create spaces that work better for more people.Many people think inclusive design is just grab bars or ramps. Those are important, but they’re actually accessibility features. Inclusive design goes further. It’s a design process that improves human performance, health and wellness, and social participation across age, ability, language, and culture.Take, for example, the Pittsburgh International Airport, the first transportation facility in the U.S. to earn innovative solutions for universal design, or isUD, certification. Think of isUD as the inclusive design equivalent of the LEED program for sustainable buildings. Developed by our Center, isUD helps projects go beyond minimal code requirements and toward meaningful usability for everyone.At the Pittsburgh airport that includes adult changing tables in restrooms, intuitive digital signage, and a play area designed for children of all ages and abilities.For more than four decades, our multidisciplinary team has advanced research and real-world projects that make environments more responsive, resilient, and inclusive. Most recently, we’re investigating ways the built environment can better respond to a ch

On University at Buffalo Week: What can we learn from embracing historically marginalized students on campuses? Stephen Santa Ramirez, associate professor of higher education at the Graduate School of Education, explores this.Faculty Bio:Stephen Santa-Ramirez is an associate professor of higher education at the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education.His experiences in U.S. higher education and student affairs include work in multicultural and LGBT+ affairs, residential life and housing services, and migrant student services. In addition to UB, Santa-Ramirez has taught for the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, Michigan State University, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Arizona State University.Santa-Ramirez’s personal and professional experiences in higher education – and identity as a scholar-practitioner-advocate – have played formative roles in the development of his research agenda, which centers on the lives and knowledge of historically marginalized and economically neglected students. Broadly, he investigates the historical, ideological, and structural inequities that impact Black, Latinx, Indigenous, migrant and other marginalized communities.By employing critical, student-centered, and asset-based frameworks, he investigates campus racial climate, transitions and belongingness of first-generation students of color, college student activism and resistance, and the various ways race, ethnicity, im/migration status and policy inform the educational experiences of collegians who are undocumented.In addition to authoring a host of book chapters, some of his published peer-reviewed articles can be located in The Review of Higher Education, The Journal of Higher Education, Journal of First-generation Student Success, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, among others. Additionally, he was the 2023 special issue editor for New Directions for Higher Education titled “Equitable and Humanizing Research, Policy, and Practice With and For Undocumented Collegians in the United States.”Santa-Ramirez is a 2024-2026 co-chair of the Latinx Network via ACPA-College Student Educators International, an associate editor for the College Student Affairs Journal (CSAJ), and is on the ASHE 2026 conference leadership team as a co-chair for local and community engagement.Transcript:Growing up in a mixed-status family, I saw early on how immigration policy creates very real inequities. Those experiences shape my work today, which centers on the lives, knowledge and resistance of historically marginalized and econo

What can protein shape tell us about Alzheimer’s disease?John Yates, John Lytton Young Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at The Scripps Research Institute, discusses this question.Faculty Bio:John R. Yates III is the John Lytton Young Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at The Scripps Research Institute. He received a B.A in Zoology and an M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Maine at Orono. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Virginia in the laboratory of Donald F. Hunt with a dissertation entitled Protein Sequencing by Tandem Mass Spectrometry. He performed postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Leroy E. Hood at California Institute of Technology. At the University of Washington, he obtained the rank of Associate Professor with tenure before moving to The Scripps Research Institute in LaJolla, CA. His research interests include development of integrated methods for tandem mass spectrometry analysis of protein mixtures, bioinformatics using mass spectrometry data, and biological studies involving proteomics. He is the lead inventor of the SEQUEST software for correlating tandem mass spectrometry data to sequences in the database and developer of the shotgun proteomics technique for the analysis of protein mixtures. His laboratory has developed the use of proteomic techniques to analyze protein complexes, posttranslational modifications, organelles and quantitative analysis of protein expression for the discovery of new biology. He has received numerous awards such as the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) research award, the Pehr Edman Award in Protein Chemistry, the ASMS Biemann Medal, the HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in Proteomics, Herbert Sober Award from the ASBMB, and the Christian Anfinsen Award from The Protein Society, the 2015 ACS’s Analytical Chemistry award, 2015 The Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, the 2018 Thomson Medal from the International Mass Spectrometry Society, the 2019 John B. Fenn Distinguished Contribution to Mass Spectrometry award from the ASMS, the 2019 HUPO Award in Discovery, and the 2024 Pittsburgh Society Award in Analytical Chemistry. Dr. Yates served as an Associate Editor at Analytical Chemistry for 15 years and is currently the Editor in Chief at the Journal of Proteome Research.Transcript:Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most challenging medical problems today. By the time symptoms such as memory loss appear, damage in the brain has often been developing for years. That makes early detection one of the most important goals in Alzheimer’s research.A key feature of the disease is protein misfolding. Proteins are the molecular machines that carry out most of the work in

Do you have a junk food craving?Ross Hollett, psychology lecturer at Edith Cowan University, says a brief message may be able to cut right through it.Faculty Bio:Ross Hollett is a psychological scientist whose work examines how media exposure shapes social attitudes, body image and health behaviours. Primarily using experimental methods, his research investigates how junk‑food, alcohol and public‑health advertisements influence cravings and consumption intentions in real time. He also collaborates across disciplines such as marketing and computer science to advance research on fashion imagery and body image outcomes in women.Transcript:From Netflix to social media, most of us are exposed to a steady stream of food advertising everyday. While concerns are often raised about the impact of junk food advertising, evidence about how these messages influence adults in the moment has been surprisingly mixed. My colleagues and I set out to better understand what actually happens in the minutes after people see different types of food advertisements.We showed 505 adults a single short advertisement, either a typical junk food commercial or a public health message discouraging junk food, and immediately measured their cravings and intentions to eat junk food. We also examined whether responses differed between adults with a body mass index in the normal range and adults classified as overweight or living with obesity.Across all groups, one finding was clear: seeing a single junk food advertisement did not increase immediate cravings or intentions to eat junk food, even when the ad featured foods people said they enjoyed. But the opposite was true for health focused messages. Anti junk food advertisements reduced cravings and reduced intentions to eat junk food across all BMI groups. We also discovered that the length and framing of these health messages mattered. For adults in the normal BMI range, a brief 15 second anti junk food message was more effective than a 30 second version. For adults classified as overweight or living with obesity, messages that encouraged healthy alternatives worked better than messages that criticised junk food. This suggests that short, positively framed health messages may offer a practical advantage: they cost less to air, can be shown more frequently, and may resonate with the very people who stand to benefit most.As unhealthy food marketing continues to dominate our media environment, even small, well targeted moments of positive health messaging may help tip the balance toward healthier choices.Read More:[Wiley] - <a target="_blank" href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1

Why is the turnover rate so high for CFOs, and what can we do about it?Adrienne Rhodes, assistant professor and Rocca Fellow in accounting at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, examines this question.Faculty Bio:Adrienne Rhodes is assistant professor of accounting and Rocca Fellow at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from New Mexico State University and her PhD from Penn State.Transcript:We’ve all heard about the mind-blowing pay packages public companies are giving their executives. They typically defend these practices by pointing to the difficulty in attracting and retaining executive talent, and there seems to be some credibility to this defense. In recent years chief financial officers, or CFOs, are stepping down in record numbers, and losing a key C-suite executive is costly for corporations. They take with them a raft of institutional knowledge and replacing them can be a long and costly endeavor.The media has often speculated that high CFO turnover is due to their overwhelming responsibilities. In fact, the demands and scope of the CFO role have expanded in recent years. New regulations, put in place after a string of accounting scandals in the early 2000s, have increased the burden of financial reporting for CFOs. And in that same time, CFOs are increasingly expected to act as a strategic partner to the CEO; taking on responsibility for investor relations, cybersecurity, and other corporate risks.In a recent study, my co-authors and I investigate what factors help firms retain their CFO and we look specifically at firms that delegate financial reporting to a Chief Accounting Officer. We find that when firms have a Chief Accounting Officer take the lead on financial reporting, they are nearly 20% less likely to have their CFO step down, greatly increasing the stability of firm leadership. Importantly, the benefits of a Chief Accounting Officer don’t only accrue to the firm. While CFOs who delegate accounting stay in their role longer, when they do depart, they are more likely to become a CEO themselves.So when it comes to retaining executive talent, it’s not all about the money. Our study suggests that delegating financial reporting to a Chief Accounting Officer is a valuable resource to both the firm and the CFO. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

The creation of NASA’s space shuttle years ago may still spark innovation today.Francisco Polidoro, Jr., professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin, looks at the design to learn more.Faculty Bio:Francisco Polidoro Jr. is a professor of management at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Polidoro has taught courses on technology strategy, technology transfer in the global economy, general management and strategy, and special issues in strategic management. Before working at McCombs, he taught corporate strategy and special issues in strategy at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.Polidoro has established himself as an esteemed researcher of strategic management, having won many international awards and honors for his work on technology strategy, technology and innovation management, entrepreneurship and innovation, social networks, and corporate venture capital. His research has appeared in the most prestigious management journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. In addition to being invited to speak in major international conferences in the field of strategic management, he has also been invited to present his research at numerous institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including Cornell University, Imperial College London, INSEAD, Johns Hopkins University, the London Business School, Seoul National University, Singapore National University, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania.Along with his academic interests in strategic management, Polidoro has an extensive history in the field of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, as well as sociology in drug discovery and development. His expertise has been noted in research media such as Lab Manager, Pharmafile, and Big Think. Before his career in research and teaching, Polidoro gained extensive managerial experience in the automotive industry, where he worked for 13 years. During that time, he had several senior management positions at Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler and a variety of assignments in the U.S., China, Europe, and Latin America.Polidoro received a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Michigan. He also earned an MBA from Henley Business School in England, a postgraduate diploma in general management and industrial relations from Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil, and a diploma in French literature and civilization from the Université de Nancy II in France.Transcript:Today’s breakthrough inventions, such as the iPhone, blend interdependent features in unique ways to unleash tremendous value. But creating them is challenging

Choosing between collecting fingerprints or the DNA is often a decision crime-scene investigators must make; but why can they not get both?Carol Ritter, senior instructor in the Forensic Science Program at Cedar Crest College, says a new method may help fix this problem.Faculty Bio:Carol Ritter is a full-time senior instructor in Forensic Science Program in the Chemical, Physical, and Forensic Sciences Department at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she also serves as the assistant director of the college’s Joni Berner Expert Witness Training Center and Crime Scene Lab. Ritter teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses in pattern evidence, DNA analysis, forensic biology, bloodstain pattern reconstruction and crime scene reconstruction. She began her career in 1997 with the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Laboratory, analyzing controlled substances, sexual assault, homicide cases, and bloodstain patterns. Certified by the American Board of Criminalistics, Ritter has testified over 50 times at the state and federal levels. She previously served as technical coordinator for the PSP serology section, auditing state labs and training law enforcement personnel. Since joining the Berner Center, she as mentored students and taught courses in forensic pattern analysis, DNA analysis, and crime scene reconstruction. Her applied research focuses on bloodstain patterns, firearm-related patterns, and DNA analysis, bridging laboratory science with real-world forensic practice.Cedar Crest College’s Joni Berner, Esq. ’75 Expert Witness Training Center and Crime Scene Lab provides real-world environments where first responders, legal professionals, and community partners can strengthen their skills in evidence preservation, courtroom testimony, and crime-scene investigation. The state-of-the-art facility features realistic spaces for training, practice, and collaboration, and has been designed to meet a critical justice-system need: preparing professionals to handle crime scenes and deliver courtroom testimony with confidence, accuracy, and integrity.Transcript:Anyone who has watched a crime-scene investigation on TV understands the importance of obtaining fingerprints and DNA when gathering evidence. What doesn’t often make it to the screen are some behind-the-scenes dilemmas about how to approach evidence containing both fingerprinting and DNA collection. That’s because once fingerprint analysis is complete, DNA is typically collected from fingerprints by swabbing with water —but when Super Glue is used to enhance a print, the result is an excellent fingerprint, but DNA is trapped under the glue so swabbing with water often results in little to no DNA. In my lab, we are developing a chemical reagent that will help crime-scene

On New York University Week: How do animals make inferences?Christine Constantinople, assistant professor of neural science, tests rats with juice rewards.Faculty Bio:Christine Constantinople is an Assistant Professor in Neural Science at NYU. After obtaining a PhD in neurobiology from Columbia University, and postdoctoral research at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Dr. Constantinople joined NYU in 2019. Her lab studies the mechanisms by which neural circuits compute and represent cognitive variables for decision-making.Transcript:To survive in a changing and unpredictable world, animals cannot simply react to stimuli theyencounter, but must make inferences that help them predict future outcomes, like when theymight encounter food or predators. This process is among the most important cognitiveoperations that brains perform. To study how brains perform inference, we trained laboratoryrats on a task in which they revealed how much they valued different amounts of juice rewardsbased on how long they were willing to wait for them. The task had hidden reward states withdifferent average rewards. In high reward states, rats were offered 3-5 drops of juice, and threedrops was disappointing. But in low reward states, rats could only expect 1-3 drops of juice, sothree drops was a big win. Indeed, rats waited less time for three drops in high versus lowreward states. We showed that rats inferred the reward state when deciding how long to wait:for instance, they immediately changed their wait times following a single reward that revealed a state transition.We trained hundreds of rats to perform this task using a high-throughput training facilitydeveloped in my lab. The facility, which I call the “rat factory,” uses computers to train about 100rats per day. A major goal is statistical power and rigor.We found that inactivating a part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex or OFC made rats worse at inferring the reward state. We used state-of-the-art silicon probe technology to record electrical signals from thousands of neurons in OFC, and identified neural correlates of single trial inferences. These results show that OFC supports inference based on prior knowledge, and lay the groundwork for figuring out how the OFC interacts with other brain regions to mechanistically implement inference. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Think you can match inaugural address quotes to the presidents who spoke them? Think again.Joe Salvatore, clinical professor and director of educational theatre, says it may be harder than you think.Faculty Bio:Joe Salvatore is a Clinical Professor and Director of Educational Theatre at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, where he teaches courses in ethnodrama, verbatim performance, community-engaged theatre, and new play development, and co-leads the MA in Theatre for Social and Civic Engagement. He also serves as the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs for the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions. In 2017, Joe founded the Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL), which, under his direction, has created over 30 video and live performance projects exploring a range of political, cultural, and social topics and facilitated outreach and education programs throughout the United States. Current projects include an international research collaboration examining how interview-based verbatim performance interventions can disrupt discrimination in healthcare delivery; an ethnodrama exploring the impact of clergy sexual abuse on survivors’ spirituality and health; and an interview project examining perceptions of migration in the United States. Joe is the author of Creating Ethnodrama: A Theatrical Approach to Research (Guilford Press)..Transcript:In the Verbatim Performance Lab, we ask actors to replicate the exact speech and gestural patterns of individuals in an original recording, such as a political speech or a public hearing, to investigate how the speaker’s gender, race and ethnicity might contribute to what a listener hears.Our most recent experiment, The Inauguration Project, focused on how audiences engage with a president’s inauguration speech when the president’s identity is unknown. We took excerpts from five inaugurals since 1969 and had actors who are different-bodied than the presidents who delivered them perform them verbatim for an audience. We then invited the audience to guess which president was speaking. We conducted this performance experiment in New York City, Washington, DC, and Austin, Texas, with slight variations each time. One theme emerged: the decoupling of the president’s identity from the speech allowed the audience to hear the similarities between the presidents and their messages rather than their partisan differences. One young woman remarked, with surprise, that she would have voted for Ronald Reagan based on a passage from his second inaugural address delivered by a young Black woman. When another audience heard the same excerpt performed by a mixed-race woman, 34% believed it was Joe Biden’s address. An excerpt from Bill Clin

On New York University Week: Boomeranging back to live with your parents may be necessary, but not helpful in the long term.Sewin Chan, associate professor of public policy, explores why.Faculty Bio:Sewin Chan is an economist whose research focuses on economic and financial risks faced by households as they interact with housing, labor and credit markets. She has studied mortgages and housing market risk, consumer credit behavior, pensions, work and retirement decisions, job loss, geographic mobility, and accessible housing.Transcript:When young adults boomerang, or move back to their parents, we often think of millennials living in basements. To move beyond this stereotype and get a granular look at who these young adults actually are, my colleagues and I developed a new method to identify boomerangers.We used the American Community Survey that’s conducted each year by the Census Bureau. By tapping into this enormous dataset, we could finally link personal demographics to the actual geography of where boomerangers are moving to.What we found is that for young adults who’ve already left home, the option to boomerang acts like insurance. When there’s a major life event—like a job loss, a break-up, or a new baby—the parental home can serve as a vital safety net.But as we dug into the geographic data, we found a troubling spatial trend. Usually, in a healthy economy, people move toward opportunity. If you lose your job in a struggling town, you head to a thriving city. But boomerangers often do the exact opposite. Because they’re moving back to their parents, their destination is determined by where Mom and Dad happen to live, and not by job prospects. We found that young adults are frequently staying in weaker labor markets, or moving away from higher-opportunity places towards weaker ones.And the data shows this burden isn’t shared equally. Black and Hispanic young adults, and those from lower-income backgrounds, are much more likely to boomerang back to areas with higher unemployment and lower wages. Moving home might provide immediate help—like free housing or childcare—but it can also damage their longer-term career prospects.By identifying these patterns, we’ve revealed another channel through which disadvantage can be passed down from one generation to the next.Read More:[Taylor & Francis Online] - Moving back: Spatial and demographic differences in boomeranging to parents This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a h

On New York University Week: Does discrimination affect our immune system? Emiko Kranz, PhD student in the School of Global Public Health, says yes.Faculty Bio:Emiko Kranz is a mixed Japanese American PhD student whose work draws on her background in cancer immunotherapy, ethnic studies, and community health science. As a PhD student at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, Kranz researches how discriminatory stress may impact immune health. With a particular interest in T cells, she aims to better understand how chronic discrimination can “wear down” our ability to fight off infections. Kranz is also interested in looking at how historical oppression has shaped neighborhoods, influencing the ways communities adapt to care for themselves and others.Transcript:I grew up immersed in my grandparents’ storytelling; most memorably, my Granpa’s stories of what it was like growing up during World War II. He’d often describe life in “Camp”: when he, a 7-year-old U.S.-born citizen, was incarcerated along with over 120 thousand people of Japanese descent, due to what is now recognized as discriminatory wartime hysteria. “It wasn’t bad,” he’d claim, because he held onto the Japanese value of gaman—to endure dire circumstances with dignity—but I always wondered how his body carried this gaman for the rest of his life.Because my Granpa persevered, I get to be here today—talking about my research on how experiencing discrimination impacts health down to the molecular level. Many endure discrimination in subtle, “everyday” forms: maybe due to the color of our skin, who we love, or the faith that we hold. The frequency of this “everyday discrimination” has been linked to a variety of immune health outcomes; as such, our team sought to understand how everyday discrimination may impact immune cells in particular. Specifically, we looked at two cell types: T cells and B cells, which are key to a swift and strong response to infections. In a sample of middle-aged adults, we found everyday discrimination was linked with higher amounts of what we call “exhausted” T and B cells, which can be less effective at protecting us against future health issues. This gives important insight on how minute everyday interactions may become biologically embedded, potentially changing the course of our health outcomes. It also calls attention to the need for better systems of support to buffer discriminatory stress—perhaps to help us leave gaman in the past.Read More:[NYU] - Discrimination Linked to Diminished Immune

On New York University Week: How does housing affect which older adults go into a nursing home? Melissa Bergh, PhD student at the Rory Meyers College of Nursing, takes a look at three ways. Faculty Bio:Marissa Bergh, BSN, RN, is a PhD student at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her research focuses how housing environments shape long-term care trajectories for older adults. Working as geriatric care nurse in New York City, she found her passion supporting older adults to age in their homes — regardless of if that home was a fourth-floor walk-up, a single-room occupancy unit, or a luxury high-rise. Recognizing the vast disparities within the healthcare system surrounding effective delivery of this care, she decided to pursue her doctorate degree at NYU to research how to improve the integration of housing services and long-term care.Transcript:The United States is grappling with an ongoing housing crisis that profoundly affects older adults. Today, 20% of older adults spend more than a third of their income on housing, and only 4% of U.S. housing units are considered age friendly. Without affordable, accessible housing, older adults may be unable to remain at home, making a nursing home move more likely. To understand exactly what aspects of housing play a role in whether older adults end up in a nursing home, we synthesized nearly 25 years of research from a range of disciplines, including economics, sociology, and healthcare. We found three key ways that housing shapes whether someone moves to a nursing home. First, housing costs and ownership status are key drivers of financial strain. Homeowners can leverage their home’s value to help fund community-based care, such as hiring a home health aide. Renters, by contrast, face far greater financial vulnerability: rising housing costs and limited affordable housing can price them out of their communities, making nursing home placement more likely. Second, as people age, their homes often can’t keep pace with their changing needs. When homes can’t be adapted to match declining mobility or memory issues, nursing homes may seem like the only safe alternative. Third, housing-related inequities compound risks for marginalized communities. Older adults in racially and socioeconomically marginalized communities disproportionately face housing challenges — including living in under-resourced neighborhoods, experiencing homelessness, and facing greater housing cost burdens — all of which increase their risk of nursing home placement. Our review underscores that housing is a healthcare issue. Where someone lives shapes whether they can age in their community or move to a nursing home.Read More:[National Library of Medicine] - <a

What can sororities teach us about belonging?Charlotte Hogg, professor of rhetoric and composition at Texas Christian University, delves in the question.Faculty Bio:Dr. Charlotte Hogg is a professor at Texas Christian University specializing in rhetoric and composition. She has authored, co-authored, or co-edited five books, most recently White Sororities and the Cultural Work of Belonging. Her work has also ap­peared in Inside Higher Education, The Washington Post, College English, Rhetoric Review, Peitho, and elsewhere. She teaches women’s rhetorics and literacies, creative nonfiction, and composition.Transcript:What is it about sorority life that remains so appealing? Greek-life, even with its bad press, comprises roughly 10% of the college population nationally and as high as 50% on some campuses. I researched National Panhellenic Conference (aka historically-White) sorority life behind the highly curated recruitment videos to better understand what sorority systems can teach us about how subcultures enact belonging. Belonging seeks to erase differences for insiders, leaving others as outsiders. This kind of ideological work is done rhetorically through creating a shared space of making meaning connected to cultural values. In sororities, this happens by tethering sorority practices, activities, and values to their histories. Constantly connecting the present to the past creates a lineage that can also maintain what is fraught about the system: the divide between insiders and outsiders and who has been able to be a part of that lineage. Participating in activities that emulate principles of the sorority stoke belonging such as songs, rituals, and learning about the organization’s founders and their lasting relevance across time. Repeatedly hearkening the founders, for example, suggests the ways members are tethered to one another and to the sorority whether they joined in 1851 or 2025, bypassing the fact that sororities began at a time when only privileged, White women were afforded the opportunity of a college education. This erasure occurs subtly by emphasizing positive, admirable qualities all members should carry on from the founders such as seeking knowledge, service, loyalty, and friendship. Understanding how belonging happens through rhetorical practices can teach us lessons about the double-sided coin of belonging and exclusivity, be it on college campuses, the workplace, or social media we follow. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What happens when platforms recommend opinions instead of users? Sriniwas Pandey, lecturer at the School of Computing at Binghamton University, details this.Faculty Bio:Pandey is a lecturer in the School of Computing at Binghamton University. He received his PhD degree in system science from Binghamton University. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science engineering from UTU India and IIITDMJ India, respectively. His research interests include complex systems, networks and machine learning. His research aims to comprehend the intricacies of eccentric behavior within society, focusing on identifying the underlying factors contributing to such behaviors and its impact on network dynamics.Transcript:Although social media can serve as a civil digital meeting place, pockets of users with intense opinions that clash with others that have different views has become a common occurrence. There are plenty of reasons for this, but one factor is content recommendations by the platform itself.I co-authored a study with Binghamton University Professor Hiroki Sayama that explores how these content recommendation systems affect the overall social climate on social media.We created a computer simulation of a social media platform with users connected to each other. Each user had a default set of opinions. However these users could form new opinions or be influenced by what they saw from other users. The strength of connection between users could change over time based on how similar their ideas were.We found that when the platform only recommended similar users without adjusting what opinions people saw, users broke apart into tight communities that had very different ideologies.However, when the platform recommended opinions, rather than users, there was far less network fragmentation. This worked even when people naturally preferred users similar to them. This also led to more unusual or off-center opinions. We experimented with different initial social network configurations.When people were exposed to diverse opinions, their “knowledge base” expanded, giving them more room to generate creative ideas within their community.This implies that echo chambers are less likely when people see diverse opinions. The findings drive home the importance of social media design – and how choice of recommendation strategy can impact the cohesion of the platform’s community and the extent to which users are able to express less mainstream viewpoints. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers

There are stark mortality differences between pregnancy and abortion.Maria Steenland, assistant professor of family science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, explores this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Steenland is an Assistant Professor in Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a health services and health policy researcher focused on maternal and reproductive health policy in the United States. Her research useseconometric methods to evaluate maternal and reproductive health programs and policies, with a particular focus on Medicaid policy. The overarching goal of her research is to identify policy options to increase the equity and quality of women’s health services. Her previous researchhas examined the effect of Medicaid payment policies for immediate postpartum contraception, and expansions of Medicaid eligibility in pregnant and postpartum populations.Transcript:After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June of 2022, some advocates and academics expressed concern that abortion bans would harm maternal health. They argued that banning abortion could increase maternal mortality in part because the risk of death from childbirth is much higher than the risk from abortion. Continuing a pregnancy places significant physiologic stress on the body, which can lead to life-threatening complications, such as hemorrhage, sepsis, stroke, and heart failure. A prior study, using data from 1998 through 2005, found that the risk of death from childbirth was about 14 times greater than the risk of death from abortion. In the years since that estimate, the measurement of maternal death has improved, increasing the number of pregnancy-related deaths identified annually. At the same time, abortions are taking place earlier in pregnancy, reducing the risk of complications. Given these changes, my colleagues — Kerra Mercon, Ben Brown, Marie Thoma — and I re-estimated the difference between pregnancy-related death and abortion-related death using national data. Using figures from 2018 to 2021, we calculated a range of mortality ratios. We found that the risk of death from ongoing pregnancy was 44 to 70 times greater than the risk of death from abortion. Importantly, even our most conservative estimate was still three times higher than the previously reported figure. We don’t yet know what effect abortion bans will have on overall maternal mortality in the US. However, we can say that people who are forced to continue their pregnancies because of abortion bans will face a dramatically greater risk of death than had they been able to access an abortion.Read More:[University of Maryland School of Public Hea

How do we pull back the curtain on China’s use of AI in its military?Cole McFaul, senior research analyst at Georgetown University, explores this key question.Faculty Bio:Cole McFaul is a Senior Research Analyst and an Andrew W. Marshall Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where he mainly focuses on emerging technology competition in the Asia-Pacific and China’s science and technology ecosystem. Prior to joining CSET, Cole researched the political economy of China’s international engagement strategies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Cole holds a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University.Transcript:It’s no secret that China is using AI to modernize its military and compete with the U.S. and other rivals. However, what has remained secret is civilian firms’ involvement in these efforts and China’s fusion of commercial innovation with military power.My colleagues Sam Bresnick, Daniel Chou and I set out to answer a key question: who supplies the PLA with AI-related goods and services? Our project relies on a novel data set of 2800 AI-related contract award notices published by the PLA between January 2023 and December 2024. We define an AI-related award as any contract supporting AI-enabled or autonomous technologies, like language and vision models, unmanned vehicles, augmented and virtual reality, simulation and training environments, and smart manufacturing and robotics.From this data set, we identified 338 entities awarded two or more AI-related contracts. Using open-source information, we classified each into one of three groups: state-owned enterprises, research institutions, and nontraditional vendors (which are firms without self-reported state ownership).We found that state owned enterprises and defense-affiliated research institutions led in AI-related military procurement. Institutions like AVIC, NORINCO, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Seven Sons of National Defense dominate the top of the list.But a deeper look at who supplies the PLA with AI-related goods and services reveals that a wide range of other organizations are also active. Nearly 70 percent of the entities awarded two or more AI-related contracts were nontraditional vendors. Civilian universities like Shanghai Jiao Tong, Tsinghua University, and Peking University were also awarded AI-related contracts.Our research reveals that, at least in the public procurement of AI-related goods and services, military-civil fusion is no longer aspirational—it’s operational. Unless the United States adapts to this real

What is Gulf War Illness and why is recognition important?Beatrice Golomb, professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, seeks to inform.Faculty Bio:Dr. Golomb is a Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego with over 15 years of experience treating veteran patients, including veterans with Gulf War Illness (GWI). She was the inaugural Scientific Director for the Congressionally directed Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC) and her research for RAND and with funding from the Department of Defense have expanded knowledge of exposure relations, mechanisms, markers and treatment for GWI. Dr. Golomb and her team remain committed to research to improve the lives and health for our heroes from the Gulf War.Transcript:For decades, Gulf War veterans have battled for recognition of the often devastating health challenges they experience as a consequence of their honorable service. Next month, we will mark an immensely important milestone for Gulf War veterans, their families, clinicians and researchers. Gulf War illness will finally receive its own International Classification of Diseases — or ICD — diagnostic code. This is more than just administrative coding. This is long-overdue validation for the suffering of the quarter-million affected veterans. It is a formal acknowledgment that Gulf War illness is real, it is physical, and it is service-related. Gulf War illness affects about one-third of the nearly 700,000 U.S. troops who served in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. It manifests as a consistent profile of symptoms: persistent fatigue, cognitive difficulties, chronic pain, respiratory issues, skin problems, gastrointestinal distress. Decades of study have linked Gulf War illness to chemical exposures and identified objective abnormalities such as structural brain changes. With this new ICD code, health care providers will be better able to recognize, diagnose, and treat Gulf War illness. Insurance, medical records, research, and public health tracking will now explicitly acknowledge the condition, rather than forcing patients to substitute related diagnoses. For researchers like me, the change accelerates our ability to study Gulf War illness in large populations, monitor treatment outcomes rigorously, and understand how this condition may overlap or interact with other diseases. To all veterans whose symptoms were dismissed and whose needs went unmet: this new diagnostic code is for you. It’s a recognition of your service. It’s a commitment to your care. And it represents hope — hope that research, medicine, and policy will now move forward more fully, more justly, to give you the answers and the support you deserve.Read More:[PNAS] - <a target="_blank" href="https://www.p

On Old Dominion University Week: A non-invasive method for detecting an aggressive brain tumor could be key for patients. But how does it work?Khan Iftekharuddin, Professor and Eminent Scholar, delves into this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Khan Iftekharuddin is a professor and Batten Endowed Chair in Machine Learning in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Old Dominion University (ODU). He concurrently serves as a Director, ODU Vision Lab and an Inaugural Director, Institute of Data Science. Dr. Iftekharuddin has been cited among the top 2% researchers in the globe for both career-long impact and single-year impact, and his Vision Lab has consistently ranked among top teams in Global Brain Tumor Segmentation and Patient Survivability Prediction Challenges co-organized by MICCIA and NCI since 2014.Prior to his current roles, he served as an Interim Dean in Batten College of Engineering and Technology, Associate Dean for Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies, and Chair of the ECE Department at ODU. He received his MS (1991) and PhD (1995) degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Dayton, OH.Transcript:Glioblastoma Multiforme, or GBM, is the most aggressive and deadly type of brain cancer, killing about 10,000 Americans each year and accounting for half of all brain cancer deaths in the U.S. The fast-growing cancer spreads microscopic cancer cells in surrounding healthy tissue and has an average survivability of 18-24 months from diagnosis. Prognosis for GBM is poor, with recurrence in 90% of patient cases within six to nine months, even after aggressive treatment protocol including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Diagnosing brain tumor recurrence on standard imaging scans like MRIs is challenging because treatment-related changes in the brain tissues, such as scar tissue, necrosis (dead tissues) and edema (swelling), often appear like recurrent tumor tissue. Currently, the only way to confirm tumor recurrence is through an invasive brain biopsy. My colleagues and I are investigating how computational modeling, AI, and machine learning methods can help distinguish true tumor recurrence from surrounding abnormal tissues, without needing to do a biopsy. This work builds on long-standing research of brain tumor volume segmentation and tracking, tumor sub-typing, and patient survivability prediction. We’re working with about half a dozen clinical collaborators across the US to analyze and process large amounts of high-resolution Magnetic Resonance imaging alongside molecular and patient clinical data. This analysis will help us develop non-invasive AI models that classify tumor recurrence and radiation-induced challenges. These tools could improve early detection, tracking, and treatm

On Old Dominion University Week: How fast can a viral variant spread?Hong Qin, associate professor in the School of Data Science and the Department of Computer Science at Old Dominion University, analyzes the data to find out.Faculty Bio:Hong Qin is an Associate Professor in the School of Data Science and the Department of Computer Science at Old Dominion University. His work develops AI and statistical methods for genomic surveillance, pandemic prediction, and trustworthy health AI.Transcript:Viruses evolve as they spread, and when a new viral variant begins to outcompete others, it can quickly reshape an outbreak. But measuring a variant’s advantage is tricky, because case counts and sequencing volume rise and fall for reasons unrelated to biology.A new approach called the differential population growth rate, or DPGR, focuses on comparisons instead of absolute numbers. In a given region and short time window, DPGR looks at two variants that are sampled side-by-side. It tracks the ratio of their weekly sequence counts and takes a logarithm. If that log-ratio changes roughly as a straight line, the slope estimates how much faster one variant is growing than the other. A positive slope means variant A is gaining on variant B; a negative slope means variant A is losing ground.This pairwise design makes one variant an internal control, helping reduce distortions from shifting testing, reporting, or sequencing intensity. DPGR also has an additive property: if variant A overlaps with B, and B overlaps with C, their slopes can be combined to estimate a comparison of A versus C, even when A and C rarely appear together.Using DPGR with genomic surveillance data, researchers can map how variants’ advantages change across places and over time. For example, COVID-19’s Omicron variant outpaced the Delta variant worldwide, but the estimated advantage of Omicron differed by region. DPGR can also compare sublineages and build a “fitness staircase” that summarizes stepwise gains.The result? A simple, interpretable signal that complements other epidemic models and can help anticipate which variant may dominate next.Read More:[Wiley] - A data-driven sliding-window pairwise comparative approach for the estimation of transmission fitness of SARS-CoV-2 variants and construction of the evolution fitness landscapeYouTube This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: When it’s hot out, some places are hotter than others. Maryam Golbazi, research assistant professor of climate science, examines why.Faculty Bio:Maryam Golbazi is a Research Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University working with the Joint Institute on Advanced Computing for Environmental Studies (JI-ACES). She specializes in numerical weather prediction models, atmospheric chemistry modeling, wind energy, and data assimilation. Her work integrates advanced numerical modeling with satellite and in-situ observations to improve forecasts of air pollution, wind energy resources, and extreme weather events. She is currently leveraging data science and AI/ML methods to develop localized weather models, while maintaining the rigor and integrity of established physical modeling techniques. With prior research experience at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and many collaborative projects, Dr. Golbazi’s research bridges science and application to address pressing environmental and energy challenges. She aims to leverage fundamental science and state of the art data-driven techniques to produce actionable insights that help protect communities, inform policy, and guide sustainable infrastructure planning.Transcript:On a summer afternoon in Hampton Roads, Virginia, the heat doesn’t feel the same everywhere. In some neighborhoods, the air lingers thick, heavy, slow to cool even after sunset. In others, just a few miles away, temperatures drop faster, offering relief once the sun goes down. These differences aren’t random. They’re shaped by concrete, roads, buildings, and the environment.In our study, which I conducted with my colleague Frank Liu, we used some of the highest-resolution weather simulations ever applied to a real U.S. city to understand how extreme heat behaves at the neighborhood scale. Instead of looking at cities from satellites, we zoomed in, down to city blocks, using advanced atmospheric models.During two intense heat waves in the summer of 2024, our simulations revealed that dense urban areas were, on average, up to five or six degrees hotter than nearby rural regions. And at night urban neighborhoods stayed warm far longer.But temperature was only part of the story.When we combined heat exposure with census data, a pattern emerged: lower-income communities experienced higher heat stress. And that translated directly into energy demand. That matters, because cooling isn’t free. For families already struggling with energy costs, extreme heat becomes both a health risk and a financial burden.As heat waves become longer and more intense, understanding where heat concentrates, and who pays the price, may be just as important as predicting the tempe

On Old Dominion University Week: Can AI chatbots spread generalizations?Tiffany Zhu, assistant professor of global ethics and technology, examines why this could be the case. Faculty Bio:Tiffany Zhu is a philosopher. She is an Assistant Professor of Global Ethics and Technology in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. Prior to joining ODU in Fall 2025, she was a Faculty Fellow in AI Ethics at the California Center for Ethics and Policy at California State Polytechnic University PomonaTranscript:AI chatbots powered by large language models are increasingly shaping our understanding of the world. Some of my research examines how they use a linguistic device called “generics,” which expresses generalizations without explicit quantification. An example of a sentence using a generic to talk about a social group would be: “Immigrants work low-wage jobs”. These statements are consequential because they can spread stereotypes. One study looking at ChatGPT 3.5 found, among other tendencies, that the chatbot often paired social generics with what I call individuation hedges, which emphasize diversity within groups. For instance, when asked “Are women more likely to get attacked while walking alone at night?,” the chatbot affirmed the trend but added that “the likelihood of getting attacked depends on an individual’s characteristics.” Not only are these hedges too formulaic to counteract unfair generalizations, they also reduce the accuracy of some responses, obscure the structural causes of social patterns including oppression, and could lead users to form false or even harmful beliefs about themselves and others.To improve their use, I proposed a strategy with three elements. First, I suggest requiring democratic and interdisciplinary guidance during the process of reinforcement learning through human feedback. Second, I advise shifting away from a transactional toward a dialogical model of AI-human interaction, meaning chatbots should probe for context and user goals and assumptions rather than simply providing answers. Finally, I suggest chatbots should use generics in conjunction with historical framing and asking counterfactual questions, in order to help AI users to think flexibly about how social reality is contingent, changeable, and sometimes unjust. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: Coastal resilience will be key going forward in a warming climate.George McLeod, director of the Center for Geospatial Science, Education, and Analytics, shows how virtual worlds can help us protect our own.Faculty Bio:Dr. George McLeod is the Director of the Center for Geospatial Science, Education, and Analytics at Old Dominion University and Senior Fellow with Virginia’s Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency. He oversees the creation of vital location intelligence for a wide range of academic research questions, including those focused on the intersection of the built landscape and environmental hazards. His expertise in ocean science, geovisualization, remote sensing, and UAV operations has allowed him to play an important role in advancing coastal hazards and flooding resilience research in Virginia.Transcript:When I tell people what we’re working on, the first question is almost always the same: “Okay… what exactly is a digital twin?”At its simplest, a digital twin is a virtual version of a real place or object. Most of us have seen something like this before—think about the detailed, three-dimensional cities you move through in video games. They look real, but they’re mostly just scenery.In our work on coastal resilience, the digital twin isn’t the backdrop; it’s the main character.We’re building virtual versions of real coastal communities and entire regions so we can study very real challenges: sea-level rise, storm flooding, water quality, and the public-health impacts that come with all of that. And unlike a static 3D model, these digital twins are alive. They combine physical models of land and water with models of how systems behave, things like transportation networks, population movement, and hydrology.That lets us ask big, practical questions. For example: If a Category 3 hurricane hits Virginia on top of an extra foot of sea-level rise, which neighborhoods flood first? Which roads are cut off—and for how long? How much damage might we see? Who could be displaced, and where should emergency responders focus their efforts?Our most ambitious project takes this idea even further. We’re working with colleagues at NASA to build what we call the Coastal Zone Digital Twin of the entire Chesapeake Bay. It’s a dynamic system that’s constantly updated, showing what’s happening now, what’s likely to happen next, and letting us test “what if” scenarios, so communities can prepare for the coastal future that’s already on the way. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.academicminute.org?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign

Are you good at multitasking?Jinglu Jiang, associate professor at the School of Management at Binghamton University, reveals how this behavior may allow harmful emails to slip by.Transcript:The ability to juggle multiple tasks is a defining feature of modern work. But that constant multitasking may make people more vulnerable to phishing attacks.In a recent study, my co-authors and I examined how multitasking affects people’s ability to detect phishing emails. We conducted two online experiments with nearly one thousand participants. In both experiments, participants worked in multitasking settings. They first completed a mentally demanding primary task, like memorizing numbers or work-related information, while being interrupted with a secondary task: deciding whether incoming emails were legitimate or phishing. This setup mirrors everyday work environments, where email alerts arrive while people are focused on other tasks.We found that when the primary task placed a high demand on people’s working memory, phishing detection performance dropped substantially. However, we also identified an important countermeasure. When participants received a simple reminder that some emails might be phishing attempts, detection performance improved—even under heavy cognitive load.We also found that message design plays a role. Reminders were especially effective against phishing emails that promised rewards. By contrast, loss-framed messages—such as warnings about account suspension—tended to trigger vigilance on their own, leaving less room for reminders to add value.Together, these findings suggest that phishing defenses should account for multitasking, not assume users are fully attentive. Organizations may benefit from context-aware reminders that support attention when cognitive demands are highest and risks are most likely to go unnoticed. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

The intersection of race, gender, and financial access needs further study.Carlena Ficano, professor of economics at Hartwick College, discusses why.Faculty Bio:Dr. Ficano’s areas of expertise include: labor economics, applied econometrics, social policy on low income family well-being, the economics of higher education and, most recently, local economic development.Recent courses taught include:* Econometrics* The Marketplace* Microbes, Markets, and Food* Labor Economics* The Economics of Race and Gender* Principles of microeconomicsHer current research in collaboration with Lawrence Ogbeifun, assistant professor of economics at Hartwick College, https://www.hartwick.edu/people/lawrence-ogbeifun/ investigates barriers that women and racial minorities face in accessing small business loans. This research project engages the authors in applied macroeconomic (Ogbeifun) and microeconomic (Ficano) work that directly relates to and could be used as examples in their regular course offerings in labor economics, the economics of race and gender, principles of microeconomics, principles of macroeconomics, econometrics and macroeconomic theory.Transcript:Is it possible to quantify what is lost both by the entrepreneurs and by the larger society, when access to credit is limited by the intersection of one’s race and gender?Small businesses success is a well-recognized driver of community well-being. But not everyone seeking to secure a small-business loan is viewed equally by lenders--and differential access to credit for minority and women entrepreneurs has the potential to impose significant constraints on local and regional economies.My current research, conducted jointly with co-author Dr. Lawrence Ogbeifun, aims to shed new light on the systemic barriers faced by minority and women entrepreneurs in accessing small business loans and the broader economic consequences of this inequity.Using confidential data on credit application success over a seven-year period and building upon earlier work that examined gender-differences in lending, this current project applies an important new lens to questions of lending discrimination and its implications.By using an intersectional approach that examines race and gender, we are seeking to quantify how small business lending discrimination limits business growth and innovation, ultimately hindering overall economic development.It is our hope that this work will contribute meaningfully to the field