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Engineers have developed a new computational approach to accurately model and predict the properties of a class of magnetic molecules called chiral helimagnets. Their work could accelerate the discovery of new materials for spintronics technologies.

Engineers have developed a new computational approach to accurately model and predict the properties of a class of magnetic molecules called chiral helimagnets. Their work could accelerate the discovery of new materials for spintronics technologies.

Researchers are opening up new horizons in chemistry: They present the world's first triple bond between the atoms boron and carbon.

Hydrogen energy is widely recognized as a sustainable source for the future, but its large-scale production still relies on expensive and scarce platinum-based catalysts. In order to address this challenge, researchers have developed Bis(diimino)palladium coordination nanosheets (PdDI), a novel two-dimensional electrocatalyst that effectively facilitates the hydrogen evolution reactions while minimizing the use of precious metals like platinum, paving the way for affordable hydrogen production.

Everyday smartwatches are extremely accurate in detecting viral infection long before symptoms appear -- now, research shows how they could help stop a pandemic before it even begins.

Water is an essential part of life on Earth, and possibly elsewhere – and now it we know it may have formed not long after the start of the universe

A strange new conception of how time warps across the universe does away with cosmology's most mysterious entity, dark energy

Barnard College was founded in 1889 as a woman’s school because only men were allowed in the nearby Columbia University. Now the two institutions are affiliated and share considerable resources, including classes and dining halls. Barnard students also get their diplomas from Columbia University.

As you may know, three Barnard students were expelled this month for sit-ins in University buildings, and the expulsions are, so far, still in force. Because of that, a passel of pro-Palestinian protestors of unknown origin held their own illegal sit-in in Barnard’s Milbank Hall, a sit-in that included vandalism.  And students also marched on Columbia University, injuring one worker and also committing vandalism. In neither of these last two cases were any protestors punished.

Over the last two years, Columbia has been an epicenter of pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic activity, so much so that the HHS has decided to review Columbia’s federal funding in light of their accused violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting “discriminationon the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.” (There’s a whole Wikipedia article on “Antisemitism at Columbia University,” a practice that goes back nearly 100 years but of course has ramped up since the Gaza War. Before she resigned as President of Columbia, Minouche Shafik created a Task Force on Antisemitism, but, given their laxity towards protestors who violated Columbia’s rules, I’m not expecting much from it.  All I can say is that if I were a Jewish parent or student, even a secular one, I wouldn’t ever send my kids to either Barnard or Columbia, not only because of their pervasive antisemitism but also because loud and illegal demonstrations are constantly interrupting academic activities.

Columbia is also uber-woke, which is another reason to avoid it, since it practices indoctrination of students. To see how it works, let’s just look at one ideologically-based department, Women’s Gender and Sexuality studies. Click on icon below to see some stuff about it:

 

Here are two of the three pictures on the front page. I don’t think this department is going to abide by institutional neutrality! (There is of course no pro-Israel photo.)

As the reader who sent this to me said:

I guess the “Inclusive” part of DEI at the school does not include Jews or white males.  But yeah — AAUP opposes institutional neutrality, arguing that it violates the academic freedom of departments to express their communal voice.

And on that front page, check out the articles.

Spotlight on Faculty Research:

Neferti Tadiar, “Why the Question of Palestine is a Feminist Concern”: “During our weeklong investigative trip, we were witness to multiple and varied testimonies to and clear evidence of the daily acts of violence, harassment and humiliation that Palestinians are subjected to, both massive and intimate.” Read the full article here.

See also: Neferti Tadiar, “Powers of Defending Freedom”

I’d suggest checking out Tadiar’s article for a real word salad that ignores the fact that Palestine, like many Arab countries, is explicitly anti-feminist. Dr. Tadiar, who is head of this department, includes this as the closing of her essay:

Ultimately, however, what makes the question of Palestine a feminist concern does not rest on any one of these analytical perspectives or points of critique. It rests rather on the connections that the oppression and struggle of Palestinians enables us to draw across those differences on which the oppression depends and that the question as it is now posed presumes. It is a feminist concern because it calls us to forge new relations beyond the province of interests and inherited forms of social belonging to which we might have become tethered and, for those of us not already called, to feel the suffering and aspirations of Palestinians as also our own. The strangulation of Palestinian life is, after all, not the accomplishment of one aberrant state, inasmuch as the latter is supported by a global economy and geopolitical order, which condemns certain social groups and strata to the status of absolutely redundant, surplus populations – an order of insatiable accumulation and destruction that affects all planetary life. The question of Palestine is thus an urgent question of a just and equitable future that is both specific to this context and to this people, and a general and paradigmatic global concern. To take a stand in solidarity with and to be involved in the struggle of Palestinians to resist and transform the conditions of their own dispossession and disposability – to join in their aspiration for collective freedom and self-determination – is also to participate in the remaking of global life, which cannot but be a paramount feminist act.

Also, have a look at the course offerings, which are heavily larded with Social Justice, though I do note one course on “Contemporary American Women’s Jewish Literature.” The rest of the courses comprise a farrago of courses with explicitly political aims, concentrating on victims.

But I wonder what kind of job a graduate in this department is suited for. I can think of only two: to become an academic in a similar department elsewhere, or go to work for a DEI organization.

We are starting to understand how Greenland sharks can live for centuries without commonly developing tumours

After an absence, Tara Tanaka is back with a new wildlife video (nice title!) showing two female gobblers (Meleagris gallopavo).  Here are her notes:

We did a prescribed burn between our yard and the swamp last month, and for only the second time in 32 years we had a wild turkey in the yard – the other time was also right after a burn.  We had a single bird three days in a row, then we didn’t see her for two days and I thought she’d moved on, but last night she appeared and brought a friend.

Don’t miss the wood duck (Aix sponsa) at 1:42.

Tara’s Flickr page is here and her Vimeo page is here.

We can describe the quantum realm using straightforward mathematics – but once we try to translate these ideas into the real world, things get weird. Our quantum columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan explains why

Colossal Biosciences has altered several genes in mice to make them look more mammoth-like, but the company is far from its goal of fully resurrecting woolly mammoths by 2028

Soil fungi can make a compound that disrupts how cow stomachs produce the potent greenhouse gas methane

Encryption would normally be expected to slow down computation, but applying the tools of cryptography to "trick" an algorithm can actually make it work faster

A look at recent studies finding leaded gasoline caused 151 million mental health illnesses in the United States.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

"RFK Jr. switching sides on vaccines now is like an arsonist urging people to put out the fire he started."

The post RFK Jr.: Vaccines Not Only Protect Individual Children From Measles, But Also Contribute To Community Immunity first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

For decades, scientists have relied on electrodes and dyes to track the electrical activity of living cells. Now, engineers have discovered that quantum materials just a single atom thick can do the job with high speed and resolution -- using only light.

For decades, scientists have relied on electrodes and dyes to track the electrical activity of living cells. Now, engineers have discovered that quantum materials just a single atom thick can do the job with high speed and resolution -- using only light.

Researchers have developed an innovative tool that enhances surgeons' ability to detect and remove cancer cells during cryosurgery, a procedure that uses extreme cold to destroy tumors. This breakthrough technology involves a specialized nanoscale material that illuminates cancer cells under freezing conditions, making them easier to distinguish from healthy tissue and improving surgical precision.

A new study sheds light on ventilator-induced lung injury, a complication that gained increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a surge in patients requiring mechanical ventilation. The study suggests that repeated collapse and reopening of tiny alveoli -- air sacs in the lungs essential for breathing -- during mechanical ventilation may cause microscopic tissue damage, playing a key role in ventilator-related injuries that contribute to thousands of deaths annually.