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With the help of the world's most powerful X-ray laser, a research team has achieved an important breakthrough: Using the example of the pharmaceutically active substance 2-thiouracil, they applied a long-established imaging technique to complex molecules. Although 2-thiouracil is no longer applied therapeutically, it is part of a group of chemically similar active substances that are used today as immunosuppressants or cytostatics. The study shows how UV radiation deforms 2-thiouracil, making it dangerously reactive.

A recent study suggests that limiting screen time and promoting physical activity from childhood may help safeguard mental health in adolescence. The findings are particularly significant given that mental health problems affect up to 30% of young people and pose a growing societal challenge.

Researchers have achieved a remarkable result: capturing and studying phase changes in quantum hardware, which hold hold promise for next-generation technologies like quantum computing and ultra-sensitive sensors.

Researchers have achieved a remarkable result: capturing and studying phase changes in quantum hardware, which hold hold promise for next-generation technologies like quantum computing and ultra-sensitive sensors.

AI models often rely on 'spurious correlations,' making decisions based on unimportant and potentially misleading information. Researchers have now discovered these learned spurious correlations can be traced to a very small subset of the training data and have demonstrated a technique that overcomes the problem.

AI models often rely on 'spurious correlations,' making decisions based on unimportant and potentially misleading information. Researchers have now discovered these learned spurious correlations can be traced to a very small subset of the training data and have demonstrated a technique that overcomes the problem.

Newly achieved precise control over light emitted from incredibly tiny sources, a few nanometers in size, embedded in two-dimensional materials could lead to remarkably high-resolution monitors and advances in ultra-fast quantum computing, according to an international team.

The latest 8-9 minute comedy/news bit hasn’t yet been posted on YouTube, but there is a two-minute chuckle on new posters reflecting America’s new set of allies. It’s called “Rosie the Pivoter,” and here it is:

A mysterious phenomenon at the center of our galaxy could be the result of a different type of dark matter.

When downed trees are attacked by beetles, the wood becomes more flammable, demonstrating another way insects can alter the risk of wildfires

Quantum fridges, batteries and clocks are brilliant inventions but still limited in power. Now physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern is charting a path to take them to the next level

Some male octopuses tend to get eaten by their sexual partners, but male blue-lined octopuses avoid this fate with help from one of nature’s most potent venoms

One of the most odious forms of censorship in modern science. or in any discipline that produces empirical results, is to simply ignore the results of or even refuse to publish a study simply because it gives results you—or a journal or a newspaper—don’t like because they go against current ideology.

We’ve seen this before when Johanna Olson-Kennedy’s multi-year, federally funded study on the effects of puberty blockers was held back by the authors from publication because it didn’t give the results that the authors wanted. Instead of blockers increasing the mental well-being of children in a two-year study, there were no palpable improvements (I don’t know if there was a control group as the study hasn’t been published). As the New York Times reported:

In the nine years since the study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, and as medical care for this small group of adolescents became a searing issue in American politics, Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s team has not published the data. Asked why, she said the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court.

“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” she said. “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

How duplicitous and craven can you get? And given that it was taxpayer money that funded this study, don’t we (or the NIH) have the right to demand that it be published? Of course Olson-Kennedy had an excuse: she said that no improvements were seen because the kids were “in really good shape when they came in.” But earlier she had reported that one-quarter of the same group was depressed or suicidal when the study began! Something is fishy, and I think it’s the odor of mendacity. Publish the study and let us see for ourselves!

Now we have another case, with two media organizations—this time including the NYT—ignoring a study on the inimical (yes, inimical) effects of DEI training on intergroup harmony. Both articles are from late last year.

The first article below, from Lee Jussim’s “Unsafe Science” Substack site (click headline), is really a repost of something written by Colin Wright for his own Substack site. Lee planned to write something on this study but, as he says below, he deferred to Colin (second headline, click to read):

From Lee:

This post was written by Colin Wright and originally appeared at his Substack site, Reality’s Last Stand. It is on our research on the negative consequences of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion pedagogy and rhetoric based on ideas promoted by Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo (whose work was quoted exactly in our experimental manipulations). I was planning to do a post on this, but his was so good, I had little to add. Lee

. . . and an excerpt from Colin’s original.  As you can see from what’s below, the study was shelved by two organizations, certainly because it didn’t show that DEI training increased “inclusion”.

From Colin’s piece (bolding about the craven behavior is mine):

In a stunning series of events, two leading media organizations—The New York Times and Bloomberg—abruptly shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that raises serious concerns about the psychological impacts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) pedagogy. The study, conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in collaboration with Rutgers University, found that certain DEI practices could induce hostility, increase authoritarian tendencies, and foster agreement with extreme rhetoric. With billions of dollars invested annually in these initiatives, the public has a right to know if such programs—heralded as effective moral solutions to bigotry and hate—might instead be fueling the very problems they claim to solve. The decision to withhold coverage raises serious questions about transparency, editorial independence, and the growing influence of ideological biases in the media.

The NCRI study investigated the psychological effects of DEI pedagogy, specifically training programs that draw heavily from texts like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. The findings were unsettling, though perhaps not surprising to longstanding opponents of such programs. Through carefully controlled experiments, the researchers demonstrated that exposure to anti-oppressive (i.e., anti-racist) rhetoric—common in many DEI initiatives—consistently amplified perceptions of bias where none existed. Participants were more likely to see prejudice in neutral scenarios and to support punitive actions against imagined offenders. These effects were not marginal; hostility and punitive tendencies increased by double-digit percentages across multiple measures. Perhaps most troubling, the study revealed a chilling convergence with authoritarian attitudes, suggesting that such training is fostering not empathy, but coercion and control.

The implications of these findings cannot be downplayed. DEI programs have become a fixture in workplaces, schools, and universities across the United States, with a 2023 Pew Research Center report indicating that more than half of U.S. workers have attended some form of DEI training. Institutions collectively spend approximately $8 billion annually on these initiatives, yet the NCRI study underscores how little scrutiny they receive. While proponents of DEI argue that these programs are essential to achieving equity and dismantling systemic oppression, the NCRI’s data suggests that such efforts may actually be deepening divisions and cultivating hostility.

This context makes the suppression of the study even more alarming. The New York Times, which has cited NCRI’s work in nearly 20 previous articles, suddenly demanded that this particular research undergo peer review—a requirement that had never been imposed on the institute’s earlier findings, even on similarly sensitive topics like extremism or online hate. At Bloomberg, the story was quashed outright by an editor known for public support of DEI initiatives. The editorial decisions were ostensibly justified as routine discretion, yet they align conspicuously with the ideological leanings of those involved. Are these major outlets succumbing to pressures to protect certain narratives at the expense of truth?

You can see the study below (click to read it); I’ve quoted the first page with a précis of the methods and results.  Note that this study did have a random control—the usual method where one group reads material designed to produce the desired results (in this case by Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo) while the control group reads “neutral” material.  Any sources of the funding are not given the relatively short (23-page) report, so I don’t know if it was done using taxpayer money. The text has plenty of bar graphs that tell the tale (I won’t include them here).

They don’t pull any punches with the title.

Here’s the summary; bolding in the last paragraph is mine. The total sample was 423 undergraduates

Given both the lack of rigorous research on diversity initiatives and the documented potential of DEI efforts backfiring, a better assessment of the efficacy and effects of contemporary diversity training is warranted.

This study focused on diversity training interventions that emphasize awareness of and opposition to “systemic oppression,” a trend fueled by the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement and popularized by texts such as Ibram X. Kendi’s, How to Be an Antiracist. 10 While not representative of all DEI pedagogy, “anti-racism” and “anti-oppression” pedagogy and intervention materials have seen widespread adoption across sectors like higher education and healthcare. Yet this pedagogy lacks rigorous evaluation of effectiveness, particularly with respect to reducing bias and improving interpersonal/inter-group dynamics.

The prominent “anti-oppressive pedagogy” in DEI programming can carry perceived rhetorical threats for those whose politics or other beliefs run counter to the fundamental premises of the critical paradigm from which the pedagogy derives. Programming may reflexively cast members of so-called “dominant” groups or those who disagree with “anti-oppressive,” “anti-racist,” or modern-day “anti-fascist” framings as oppressive, racist, or fascist.

The studies reported herein assess a crucial question: Do ideas and rhetoric foundational to many DEI trainings foster pluralistic inclusiveness, or do they exacerbate intergroup and interpersonal conflicts? Do they increase empathy and understanding or increase hostility towards members of groups labeled as oppressors?

Across three groupings—race, religion, and caste—NCRI collected anti-oppressive DEI educational materials frequently used in interventional and educational settings. The religion-focused interventions drew on content from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), commonly used in sensitivity training on Islamophobia. For race, materials featured excerpts from DEI scholars like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. Caste interventions featured anti-oppression narratives from Equality Labs, one of the most prolific training providers for caste discrimination in North America.

Rhetoric from these materials was excerpted and administered in psychological surveys measuring explicit bias, social distancing, demonization, and authoritarian tendencies. Participants were randomly assigned to review these materials or neutral control material. Their responses to this material was assessed through various questions assessing intergroup hostility and authoritarianism, and through scenario-based questions (details on all demographic data, survey questions, essay conditions, responses and analyses can be found in a supplementary document to this report).

Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, they engendered a hostile attribution bias (Epps & Kendall, 1995), amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present 11 , and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice. These results highlight the complex and often counterproductive impacts of pedagogical elements and themes prevalent in mainstream DEI training.

One addition from the study:

It is beyond the scope of this research to evaluate DEI training writ large and our work therefore, should not be taken as evaluating the efficacy of an entire industry.

Yes, that caveat almost a given. But this isn’t the first study to show that DEI training doesn’t do what it purports to do.  But this one is a fairly comprehensive study, and any discussion of the efficacy of DEI training should take its results into account. Pity that the NYT or Bloomberg ignored it.

What shapes are made by a spinning needle? This seemingly innocent problem has puzzled mathematicians for decades, but now a new proof is being called the biggest result of the current century as it could help solve many other tricky problems

As a sociologist interested in the scientific study of social life, I’ve long been concerned about the ideological bent of much of sociology. Many sociologists reject outright the idea of sociology as a science and instead prefer to engage in political activism. Others subordinate scientific to activist goals, and are unclear as to what they believe sociology’s purpose should be. Still others say different things depending on the audience.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) does the latter. In December 2023, the Board of Governors of Florida’s state university system removed an introductory sociology course from the list of college courses that could be taken to fulfil part of the general education requirement. It seemed clear that sociology’s reputation for progressive politics played a role in the decision. Florida’s Commissioner of Education, for example, wrote that sociology had been hijacked by political activists.1 The ASA denied the charge and went on to declare that sociology is “the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.”

While that definition certainly aligns with my vision of what sociology should be, it contrasts with another recent statement made by the ASA itself when announcing last year’s annual conference theme. The theme is “Intersectional Solidarities: Building Communities of Hope, Justice, and Joy,” which, as the ASA website explains, “emphasizes sociology as a form of liberatory praxis: an effort to not only understand structural inequities, but to intervene in socio-political struggles.”2 It’s easy to see how Florida’s Commissioner of Education somehow got the idea that sociology has become infused with ideology.

The ASA’s statement in defense of sociology as the science of social life seems insincere. That’s unfortunate—we really do need a science of social life if we’re going to understand the social world better. And we need to understand the world better if we’re going to effectively pursue social justice. The ASA’s brand of sociology as liberatory praxis leads not only to bad sociology, but also to misguided efforts to change the world. As I’ve argued in my book How to Think Better About Social Justice, if we’re going to change the world for the better, we need to make use of the insights of sociology. But bad sociology only makes things worse.

Contemporary social justice activism tends to draw from a sociological perspective known as critical theory. Critical theory is a kind of conflict theory, wherein social life is understood as a struggle for domination. It is rooted in Marxist theory, which viewed class conflict as the driver of historical change and interpreted capitalist societies in terms of the oppression of wage laborers by the owners of the means of production. Critical theory understands social life similarly, except that domination and oppression are no longer simply about economic class but also race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, gender identity, and much more.

There are two problems with social justice efforts informed by critical theory. First, this form of social justice—often called “critical social justice” by supporters and “wokeism” by detractors—deliberately ignores the insights that might come from other sociological perspectives. Critical theory, like conflict theory more broadly, is just one of many theoretical approaches in a field that includes a number of competing paradigms. It’s possible to view social life as domination and oppression, but it’s also possible to view it as a network of relationships, or as an arena of rational transactions similar to a marketplace, or as a stage where actors play their parts, or as a system where the different parts contribute to the functioning of the whole. If you’re going to change the social world, it’s important to have some understanding of how social life works, but there’s no justification for relying exclusively on critical theory.

The second problem is that, unlike most other sociological perspectives, critical theory assumes an oppositional stance toward science. This is partly because critical theory is intended not just to describe and explain the world, but rather to change it—an approach the ASA took in speaking of sociology as “liberatory praxis.” However, the problem isn’t just that critical theory prioritizes political goals over scientific ones, it’s that it also sees science as oppressive and itself in need of critique and dismantling. The claim is that scientific norms and scientific knowledge—just like other norms and other forms of knowledge in liberal democratic societies—have been constructed merely to serve the interests of the powerful and enable the oppression of the powerless.

Critical theory makes declarations about observable aspects of social reality, but because of its political commitments and its hostile stance toward scientific norms, it tends to act more like a political ideology than a scientific theory. As one example, consider Ibram X. Kendi’s assertions about racial disparities. Kendi, a scholar and activist probably best known for his book How to Be an Antiracist, has said, “As an anti-racist, when I see racial disparities, I see racism.”3 The problem with this approach is that while racism is one possible cause of racial disparities (and often the main cause!), in science, our theories need to be testable, and they need to be tested. Kendi doesn’t put his idea forward as a proposition to be tested but instead as a fundamental truth not to be questioned. In any true science, claims about social reality must be formulated into testable hypotheses. And then we need to actually gather the evidence. Usually what we find is variation, and this case is likely to be no different. That is, we’re likely to find that in some contexts racism has more of a causal role than in others.

We often want easy answers to social problems. Social justice activists might be inclined to turn to would-be prophets who proclaim what seems to be the truth, rather than to scientists who know we have to do the legwork required to understand and address things. Yes, science gives us imperfect knowledge, and it points to the difficulties we encounter when changing the world… but since we live in a world of tradeoffs, there are seldom easy answers to social problems. We can’t create a perfect world—utopia isn’t possible—so any kind of social justice rooted in reality must try to increase human flourishing while recognizing that not all problems can be eliminated, certainly not easily or quickly.

What does it all mean? For one, we should be much more skeptical about one of critical theory’s central claims—that the norms and institutions of liberal democratic societies are simply disguised tools of oppression. Do liberal ideals such as equality before the law, due process, free speech, free markets, and individual rights simply mask social inequalities so as to advance the interests of the powerful? Critical theorists don’t really subject this claim to scientific scrutiny. Instead, they take the presence of inequalities in liberal societies as selfsufficient evidence that liberalism is responsible for these failures. Yet any serious attempt to pursue social justice informed by scientific understanding of the world would involve comparing liberal democratic societies with other societies, both present and past.

Scientific sociology can’t tell us the best way to organize a society and social justice involves making tradeoffs among competing values. We may never reach a consensus on what kind of society is best, but we should consider the possibility that liberal democracies seem to provide the best framework we yet know of for pursuing social justice effectively. At the very least, they provide mechanisms for peacefully managing disputes in an imperfect world.

Researchers have criticised Microsoft's new Majorana 1 quantum computer, saying it has made claims about the way it works that aren't fully backed up by scientific evidence

Ask almost any physicist what the most frustrating problem is in modern-day physics, and they will likely say the discrepancy between general relativity and quantum mechanics. That discrepancy has been a thorn in the side of the physics community for decades. While there has been some progress on potential theories that could rectify the two, there has been scant experimental evidence to support those theories. That is where a new NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts grantee comes in - Selim Shahriar from Northwestern University, Evanston, was recently funded to work on a concept called the Space-borne Ultra-Precise Measurement of the Equivalent Principle Signature of Quantum Gravity (SUPREME-GQ), which he hopes will help collect some accurate experimental data on the subject once and for all.

For my entire career as a neurologist, spanning three decades, I have been hearing about various kinds of stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Now a Phase I clinical trial is under way studying the latest stem cell technology, autologous induced pluripotent stem cells, for this purpose. This history of cell therapy for PD tells us a lot about the potential and challenges of stem cell therapy.

PD has always been an early target for stem cell therapy because of the nature of the disease. It is caused by degeneration in a specific population of neurons in the brain – dopamine neurons in the substantial nigra pars compacta (SNpc). These neurons are part of the basal ganglia circuitry, which make up the extrapyramidal system. What this part of the brain does, essentially, is to modulate voluntary movement. One way to think about it is that is modulates the gain of the connection between the desire the move and the resulting movement – it facilitates movement. This circuitry is also involved in reward behaviors.

When neurons in the SNpc are lost the basal ganglia is less able to facilitate movement; the gain is turned down. Patients with PD become hypokinetic – they move less. It becomes harder to move. They need more of a will to move in order to initiate movement. In the end stage, patients with PD can become “frozen”.

The primary treatment for PD is dopamine or a dopamine agonist. Sinemet, which contains L-dopa, a precursor to dopamine, is one mainstay treatment. The L-dopa gets transported into the brain where it is made into dopamine.  These treatments work as long as there are some SNpc neurons left to convert the L-dopa and secrete the dopamine. There are also drugs that enhance dopamine function or are direct dopamine agonists. Other drugs are cholinergic inhibitors, as acetylcholine tends to oppose the action of dopamine in the basal ganglia circuits. These drugs all have side effects because dopamine and acetylcholine are used elsewhere in the brain. Also, without the SNpc neurons to buffer the dopamine, end-stage patients with PD go through highly variable symptoms based upon the moment-to-moment drug levels in their blood. They become hyperkinetic, then have a brief sweet-spot, and then hypokinetic, and then repeat that cycle with the next dose.

The fact that PD is the result of a specific population of neurons making a specific neurotransmitter makes it an attractive target for cell therapy. All we need to do is increase the number of dopamine neurons in the SNpc and that can treat, and even potentially cure, PD. The first cell transplant for PD was in 1987, in Sweden. These were fetal-derived dopamine producing neurons. There treatments were successful, but they are not a cure for PD. The cells release dopamine but they are not connected to the basal ganglia circuitry, so they are not regulating the release of dopamine in a feedback circuit. In essence, therefore, these were just a drug-delivery system. At best they produced the same effect as best pre-operative medication management. In fact, the treatment only works in patients who respond to L-dopa given orally. The transplants just replace the need for medication, and make it easier to maintain a high level of control.

They also have a lot of challenges. How long do the transplanted cells survive in the brain? What are the risks of the surgery. Is immunosuppressive treatment needed. And where do we get the cells from. The only source that worked was human ventral mesencephalic dopamine neurons from recent voluntary abortions. This limited the supply, and also created regulatory issues, being banned at various times. Attempts at using animal derived cells failed, as did using adrenal cells from the patient.

Therefore, when the technology developed to produce stem cells from the patient’s own cells, it was inevitable that this would be tried in PD. These are typically fibroblasts that are altered to turn them into pluripotent stem cells, which are then induced to form into dopamine producing neurons. This eliminates the need for immunosuppression, and avoid any ethical or legal issues with harvesting. PD would seem like the low hanging fruit for autologous stem cell therapy.

But – it has run up against the issues that we have generally encountered with this technology, which is why you may have first heard of this idea in the early 2000s and here in 2025 we are just seeing a phase I clinical trial. One problem is getting the cells to survive for long enough to make the whole procedure worthwhile. The cells not only need to survive, they need to thrive, and to produce dopamine. This part we can do, and while this remains an issue for any new therapy, this is generally not the limiting factor.

Of greater concern is how to keep the cells from thriving too much – from forming a tumor. There is a reason our bodies are not already flush with stem cells, ready to repair any damage, rejuvenate any effects of aging, and replace any exhausted cells. It’s because they tend to form tumors and cancer. So we have just as many stem cells as we need, and no more. What we “need” is an evolutionary calculation, and not what we might desire. Our experience with stem cell therapy has taught us the wisdom of evolution – stem cells are a double-edged sword.

Finally, it is especially difficult to get stem cells in the brain to make meaningful connections and participate in brain circuitry. I just attended a grand round on stem cells for stroke, and there they are having the same issue. However, stem cells can still be helpful, because they can improve the local environment, allowing native neurons to survive and function better. With PD we are again back to – the stem cells are a great dopamine delivery system, but they don’t fix the broken circuitry.

There is still the hope (but it is mainly a hope at this point) that we will be able to get these stem cells to actually replace lost brain cells, but we have not achieved that goal yet. Some researchers I have spoken to have given up on that approach. They are focusing on using stem cells as a therapy, not a cure – as a way to deliver treatments and improve the environment, to support neurons and brain function, but without the plan to replace neurons in functional circuits.

But the allure of curing neurological disease by transplanting new neurons into the brain to actually fix brain circuits is simply too great to give up entirely. Research will continue to push in this direction (and you can be sure that every mainstream news report about this research will focus on this potential of the treatment). We may just need some basic science breakthrough to figure out how to get stem cells to make meaningful connections, and breakthroughs are hard to predict. We had hoped they would just do it automatically, but apparently they don’t. In the meantime, stem cells are still a very useful treatment modality, just more for support than replacement.

The post Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Our new Secretary of Health and Human Services wants to change CDC messaging about vaccines to emphasize "informed consent." What he really means is misinformed refusal.

The post Misinformed refusal: What antivaxxers really mean when they invoke “informed consent” first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Meet Aaryan Shukla, a 14-year-old boy from India, and one of those kids who has this mysterious ability to do mathematics in his head–very rapidly. Here he tries to set a number of Guinness records in one day. He set six!

The records (he tried for ten): all involve the speed with wich Aaryan got a successful answer.

Adding  100 4-digit numbers
Adding 200 4-digit numbers
Adding 50 5-digit numbers
Dividing a 20-digit number by a 10-digit number
Multiplying two five digit numbers (a set of 10)
Mutiplying two eight-digit numbers (a set of 10)

Of course you could produce an infinite number of categories to test, but it’s clear this young man has amazing abilities. Does anyone know how he does it? I have no idea! And I wonder if this skill could help him get a job, or whether his abilities translate into other abilities that could secure lucrative employment.