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A mathematical framework that builds on the economic theory of hidden-action models provides insight into how the unobservable nature of effort and risk shapes investigators' research strategies and the incentive structures within which they work, according to a new study.

Researchers have demonstrated a technique for printing thin metal oxide films at room temperature, and have used the technique to create transparent, flexible circuits that are both robust and able to function at high temperatures.

Physicists have uncovered new states of matter by exploring the behavior of flatland electrons in extreme conditions, revealing insights that could impact quantum computing and advanced materials.

Planets that orbit close to their parent stars are blasted with radiation and contorted by gravity – and the exoplanet TOI-6255b might be the most extreme example yet

Researchers have developed a new two-photon fluorescence microscope that captures high-speed images of neural activity at cellular resolution. By imaging much faster and with less harm to brain tissue than traditional two-photon microscopy, the new approach could provide a clearer view of how neurons communicate in real time, leading to new insights into brain function and neurological diseases.

Researchers have developed a new theoretical modelling technique that could potentially be used in the development of switches or amplifiers in molecular electronics.

Researchers have developed a new theoretical modelling technique that could potentially be used in the development of switches or amplifiers in molecular electronics.

Electron transfer is enhanced by minimal energetic driving force at the organic-semiconductor interface in upconversion (UC) organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), resulting in efficient blue UC-OLEDs with low extremely turn-on voltage, scientists show. Their findings deepen the understanding of electron transfer mechanisms in organic optoelectronic devices and can lead to the development of efficient new optoelectronics without energy loss.

A new algorithm may make robots safer by making them more aware of human inattentiveness. In computerized simulations of packaging and assembly lines where humans and robots work together, the algorithm developed to account for human carelessness improved safety by about a maximum of 80% and efficiency by about a maximum of 38% compared to existing methods.

A new algorithm may make robots safer by making them more aware of human inattentiveness. In computerized simulations of packaging and assembly lines where humans and robots work together, the algorithm developed to account for human carelessness improved safety by about a maximum of 80% and efficiency by about a maximum of 38% compared to existing methods.

As global warming intensifies, people increasingly suffer from extreme heat. For those working in a high-temperature environment indoors or outdoors, keeping thermally comfortable becomes particularly crucial. A team has now developed thermally-insulated and breathable soft robotic clothing that can automatically adapt to changing ambient temperatures, thereby helping to ensure worker safety in hot environments.

Decades after his voyage on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin became fascinated by why plants move as they grow -- spinning and twisting into corkscrews. Now, more than 150 years later, a new study may have solved the riddle.

A team of physicists envisions a modular system for scaling quantum processors with a flexible way of linking qubits over long distances to enable them to work in concert to perform quantum operations. The ability to carry out such correlated or 'entangling' operations between linked qubits is the basis of the enhanced power quantum computing holds compared with current computers.

A team of physicists envisions a modular system for scaling quantum processors with a flexible way of linking qubits over long distances to enable them to work in concert to perform quantum operations. The ability to carry out such correlated or 'entangling' operations between linked qubits is the basis of the enhanced power quantum computing holds compared with current computers.

Scientists have known for centuries that sunflowers wobble in seemingly random ways as they grow – but it seems that those movements actually optimise how much light each plant gets

Mpox was made a public health emergency of international concern for the first time in July 2022, with this being declared over the following May. Just 15 months on, the World Health Organization has sounded the alarm again

Five days ago I posted a tweet from Richard Dawkins, saying that his Facebook account had been suspended because he had tweeted that Olympic boxers who were biologically male (both of whom have since won gold medals in the welterweight and 57 kg category) should not be boxing in the women’s event.

Here’s his tweet:

Because there didn’t seem to be absolute proof that this was the reason his FB account was suspended, I asked him about this, and he gave me the story, which he’s now posted on his Substack site.

In short, Dawkins was wrong—Facebook said his account had been suspended because it was hacked and had simply been taken down for some kind of repairs, perhaps to strengthen the anti-hacking features. At any rate, he apologized for criticizing Facebook. And I, of course, must also apologize for reproducing what he said because that claim was erroneous. I didn’t do due diligence.

Here’s Dawkins’s apology (click to read)

And here’s the text of his explanation and apology (my bolding):

On July 30th my Facebook account was closed down, with no reason given. Associates of mine got in touch with a kind lawyer (@Steinhoefel), very experienced in exactly this kind of case, and he offered, pro bono, to negotiate with Facebook on my behalf. I appreciated his generosity and accepted his offer. He approached Facebook and received no reply.

Because no reason was given for the shut-down, and no reply to the lawyer’s overtures, I am sorry to say we jumped to the wrong conclusion: might it have some connection with my contemporaneous stand against genetically male boxers fighting women in the Olympics? I then tweeted what turned out to be a false suspicion of Facebook’s motives, and I deeply regret this.

On August 10th , I received an e-mail from an official at Facebook, saying he was looking into the question. He sent me a second e-mail the same day giving a full explanation. Facebook’s records showed, he explained, that one of the admins with access to my account had been hacked as long ago as June 22nd, and the hacker added “a flurry of unauthorized admins”. Their subsequent behaviour alerted Facebook, who closed the account down while they worked on the problem. My Facebook account was restored on August 11th , and I am very grateful.

We knew none of this until August 10 th, eleven days after the account was shut down. Now I am left in the mortifying position of having unjustly imputed an ignoble motive to Facebook. I must say it’s a pity that whoever decided to close my account (certainly not the kind official who eventually was brought in to investigate the problem) omitted to get in touch at the time. Nevertheless I accept responsibility, and publish this to correct the record and apologise.

This is the way a scientist should behave, admitting that he jumped to conclusions, even though he did initially float the possibility that his account hadn’t been taken down because of his tweets. (What made me wary was that I didn’t understand why a Facebook account should be closed because of something said on another and rival platform: Twitter).

Of course the Dawkins haters won’t accept this apology nor acknowledge the gracious admission of error, but how many people on the internet ever admit that they were wrong?

And I too, as I said, must share in this apology. I was wrong to post Dawkins’s tweet without thorough checking, and I accept Facebook’s explanation.

Finally, note that Richard does not retract the implication that there were biologically male boxers competing against women in the Olympics.  I don’t retract what I said, either: that the likelihood is that at least two such boxers were unfairly competing against women in the Olympics. More and more evidence is accumulating that these boxers were indeed XY males, perhaps with a disorder of sex development (see posts by Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, and Carole Hooven).

AI companies hope that feeding ever more data to their models will continue to boost performance, eventually leading to human-level intelligence. Behind this hope is the "transformer", a key breakthrough in AI, but what happens if it fails to deliver?

Should we be concerned about new research linking sugar alcohols like xylitol and erythritol?

The post Are dietary sugar alcohol sweeteners safe? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Congressional hearings about free speech and anti-semitism at Penn, Harvard, MIT and Columbia have now resulted in the resignation of the third of these Presidents. Yes, Columbia President Nemat Shafik, following Presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard and Liz Magill of Penn out the door, has resigned her post. President  President Sally Kornbluth of MIT remains in her job.

The brouhaha began last December when, facing two House panels, three Presidents said that in some cases, depending on context, calls for genocide of the Jews might not violate university regulations. Indeed, this was correct according to a First-Amendment construal of this kind of speech. The problem was that these universities, purporting to adhere to the First Amendment, didn’t really do so for other kinds of speech, so they were really guilty of hypocritical and unequal enforcement.  And their presentations on the Hill were stiff and unempathic. Shafik, grilled this April, angered those who said she’d done very little to curb antisemitism on her campus.

Further, Claudine Gay was later accused of serious and multiple incidents of plagiarism, and, in light of all the bad publicity, Harvard gave Gay the boot. Harvard now has now an interim President, Alan Garber, who will run Harvard for the next two years while it looks for a permanent President.

Click below to read the story. Shafik proved hamhanded in the face of pro-Palestinian and antisemitic behavior on campus, with apparently no students being disciplined, including those who stormed and occupied a Columbia building.

Click to read:

An excerpt:

Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, resigned on Wednesday after months of far-reaching fury over her handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and questions over her management of a bitterly divided campus.

She was the third leader of an Ivy League university to resign in about eight months following maligned appearances before Congress about antisemitism on their campuses.

Dr. Shafik, an economist who spent much of her career in London, said in a letter to the Columbia community that while she felt the campus had made progress in some important areas, it had also been a period of turmoil “where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.”

What she means is that she can’t manage to stop violations of campus rules for encampment and behavior by pro-Palestinian students. This is because Columbia won’t discipline violators.  A lot of the lack of discipline stems from the attitudes of Columbia faculty, many of whom supported the illegal protests and called for Shafik’s resignation after she called the police to dismantle the local encampment. Caught between Jewish faculty and students on one hand and pro-Palestinian faculty on the other, Shafik was rendered powerless. More:

She added that her resignation was effective immediately, and that she would be taking a job with Britain’s foreign secretary to lead a review of the government’s approach to international development.

The university’s board of trustees named Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, a medical doctor who has been the chief executive of Columbia’s medical center and dean of its medical school since 2022, as the interim president. The board did not immediately announce a timeline for appointing a permanent leader.

. . . But as much as its sudden end, the brevity of Dr. Shafik’s presidency underscores how profoundly pro-Palestinian demonstrations shook her campus and universities across the country.

Facing accusations that she was permitting antisemitism to go unchecked on campus, Dr. Shafik made a conciliatory appearance before Congress in April that ended up enraging many members of her own faculty. She summoned the police to Columbia’s campus twice, including to clear an occupied building. The moves angered some students and faculty, even as others in the community, including some major donors, said she had not done enough to protect Jewish students on campus.

Dr. Shafik’s tenure was among the shortest in Columbia’s 270-year history, and much of it was a sharp reminder of the challenges facing university presidents, who have sometimes struggled recently to lead upended campuses while balancing student safety, free speech and academic freedom.

Few university leaders were as publicly linked to that dilemma as Dr. Shafik, whose school emerged as a hub of the campus protests that began after the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year.

Those protests, as well as accusations of endemic antisemitism, drew the attention of House Republicans, who orchestrated a series of hearings in Washington starting last year.

But make no mistake about it: the protests will continue this next academic year at Columbia and at other schools. The war in Gaza continues, and Israel is still demonized by many academics (remember that the American Association of University Professors just eliminated their two-decade opposition to academic boycotts, undoubtedly to allow boycotts of Israel).

And so Columbia has a color-coded system to indicate the degree of protest occurring on the campus. This is ridiculous:

To prepare for the possibility of renewed protests in the fall, the university announced a new color-coded system to guide the community on protest risk level on campus, similar to a Homeland Security advisory system. The level was recently set from Green to Orange [JAC: there’s also red], the second-highest, meaning “moderate risk.” Only people with Columbia identification are permitted to enter the central campus, which in the past has been open to the public.

College protesters have vowed to come back stronger than ever to push their main demand that Columbia divest from weapons manufacturers and other companies that profit from the occupation of Palestinian territories.

“Regardless of who leads Columbia, the students will continue their activism and actions until Columbia divests from Israeli apartheid,” said Mahmoud Khalil, a student negotiator on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the main protest movement. “We want the president to be a president for Columbia students, answering to their needs and demands, rather than answering to political pressure from outside the university.”

I doubt that Columbia, like Chicago and many other schools, will agree to divest, for that is eliminating institutional neutrality in the investment of college funds. As so long as there are calls for divestment, and the universities refuse to divest, the protests will continue.  Coming this fall: Code Red, when almost nobody will be allowed on Columbia’s campus.

Of course free speech, along the lines of the Chicago Prnciples, should reign at all campuses, but there should also be time, place, and manner restrictions so that speech doesn’t impede the functioning of the university (e.g. deplatforming speakers, sit-ins in campus buildings, use of bullhorns during class).  So far these restrictions have largely been ignored by schools like Columbia, loath to have officials or police “lay hands” on protestors since that creates bad “optics.”. But if these illegal protests continue, then we can kiss higher education in America goodbye.  But who cares? The pro-Palestinian protestors aren’t interested in holding universities to their mission. Rather, they want to bend universities to their own ideology, and many, in the end, want to efface the principles of Western democracy.