Roland Ebel of the Sustainable Food Systems Program at Montana State University conducted a research project to determine the extent to which an ancient Aztec agricultural technique could benefit 21st century horticultural needs. Specifically, Ebel examined the use of “chinampas” with the hope of discovering their modern utility. A chinampa is a raised field on...
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Why Music Makes Us Feel, According to AI
In a new paper, a team of University of Southern California (USC) computer scientists and psychologists teamed up to investigate how music affects how you act, feel and think Your heart beats faster, palms sweat and part of your brain called the Heschl’s gyrus lights up like a Christmas tree. Chances are, you’ve never thought...
Online Tool Speeds Response to Elephant Poaching by Tracing Ivory to Source
A new tool uses an interactive database of geographic and genetic information to help authorities quickly identify where the confiscated tusks of African elephants were originally poached. Developed by an international team of researchers, the Loxodonta Localizer matches genetic sequences from poached ivory to those stored in the database. It relies on genetic information from a small, highly...
Value Chain Collaboration in New Product Development Yields Innovativeness and Performance
Businesses looking for a cutting edge with their new products when facing technological turbulence benefit from greater innovativeness and better results for both the product and the companies overall when working with other firms in the same value chain. Research from Lancaster University, the University of Leeds, the University of Reading and Newcastle University, published...
Dartmouth Engineers Develop New Way to Know Liars’ Intent
Dartmouth engineering researchers have developed a new approach for detecting a speaker’s intent to mislead. The approach’s framework, which could be developed to extract opinion from “fake news,” among other uses, was recently published as part of a paper in Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. Although previous studies have examined deception, this is...
What Reddit’s Basketball Fans Can Tell Us About Online Discourse
Basketball season kicked off last month and with it comes the return of the most enduring of fan traditions: trash talk. Now, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have taken a deeper look at the rivalries and insults to better understand how sports junkies interact with each other online. The researchers, led by CU...
Adults in Lower Walkability Neighborhoods Found to Have a Higher Predicted Cardiovascular Risk
A study led by researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health Toronto and ICES found that people living in neighbourhoods considered to be the least walkable were up to 33 per cent more likely to have a high predicted 10-year cardiovascular risk compared to individuals living in the most walkable neighbourhoods. The study, publishing...
Black and Elderly Patients Less Likely to Receive Lung Cancer Treatments
Only about 6 in 10 lung cancer patients in the United States receive the minimal lung cancer treatments recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines, according to new research published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. In “Disparities in Receiving Guideline-Concordant Treatment for Lung Cancer in the United States,” Erik F. Blom, MD, and...
Study Shows Media Overlook Best Practices When Reporting a Celebrity Suicide Death
Research shows media coverage of a celebrity suicide has the potential to increase the risk for contagion, especially among vulnerable individuals. To reduce possible harmful effects, suicide reporting guidelines for media were developed with input from journalists, suicide prevention researchers, and those impacted by suicide. Research suggests that when guidelines are followed and resources for...
Is It Ethical for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Accept a $1 Million Prize? Yes, but It’s Hard to Explain
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will donate to charity the US$1 million Berggruen Prize for Culture and Philosophy she recently won. The prize is given annually to a “thinker whose ideas are shaping human self-understanding to advance humankind.” The recipient of the award was decided by a five-member jury that chose among over 500 nominees and...