Science

A Utah State University researcher exposed guinea pigs and hamsters to radiation outside of a project’s approved scope and also withheld pain medication after performing surgeries on the animals, according to a newly released report.

The report from the university says 75 rodents were irradiated and notes some died, though it doesn’t specify how many.

Now an animal rights and research watchdog group is calling for the employees involved to be terminated from the northern Utah school.

Call for consultants: Technologies that impact science systems | deadline: 28 September

https://council.science/news/call-consultants-technologies-profiles/?utm%5C_source=rss&utm%5C_medium=rss&utm%5C_campaign=call-consultants-technologies-profiles

The Sun is the most energetic particle accelerator in the Solar System. It whips up electrons to nearly the speed of light and flings them out into space, flooding the Solar System with so-called ‘Solar Energetic Electrons’ (SEEs).

Researchers have now used Solar Orbiter to pinpoint the source of these energetic electrons and trace what we see out in space back to what’s actually happening on the Sun. They find two kinds of SEE with clearly distinct stories: one connected to intense solar flares (explosions from smaller patches of the Sun’s surface), and one to larger eruptions of hot gas from the Sun’s atmosphere (known as ‘coronal mass ejections’, or CMEs).

From the abstract:

How do protest actions impact public support for social movements? Here we test the claim that extreme protest actions—protest behaviors perceived to be harmful to others, highly disruptive, or both— typically reduce support for social movements. (...) participants indicated less support for social movements that used more extreme protest actions. (...) Negative reactions to extreme protest actions also led participants to support the movement’s central cause less, and these effects were largely independent of individuals’ prior ideology or views on the issue

Taken together with prior research showing that extreme protest actions can be effective for applying pressure to institutions these findings suggest an activist’s dilemma

In March, Joanna Sadler, an organic chemist at the University of Edinburgh, received an unusual email. It promised £35,000 to advance her research—no strings attached. The offer came from a program at Imperial College London that had developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to spot promising climate-related research that was close to commercialization.

Sadler’s work on engineering bacteria to convert disposable cutlery into acetone—an industrial solvent currently derived from fossil fuels—had made the cut. At first, Sadler didn’t really understand what the email was. But after meeting with members from Imperial’s Climate Solutions Catalyst (CSC) team, she realized it was legitimate and decided to take them up on the offer.

As AI continues to improve, universities, public funding agencies, and venture capitalists are all considering how machines could be used to identify breakthrough research. In addition to speeding up grant reviews, some researchers say the technology could help level the playing field for researchers who may be hesitant to seek out commercialization opportunities. But others warn that relying on AI for funding decisions could introduce biases and compromise confidentiality.

It's amazing to me that we can still find new heavenly bodies within our own solar system in 2025. Not to mention the possibility that we have data that suggests there might be yet another beyond Pluto, but that's still speculative.

Science: one of the only topics that doesn't suck in 2025.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/48384923

This study shows that playing an open-world game, such as The The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and nostalgia evoked by Studio Ghibli films significantly foster a sense of exploration and calm in life, as well as a feeling of mastery and skill, and purpose and meaning, hence ultimately contributing positively to one’s overall happiness in life.

Source: Arigayota A, Duffek B, Hou C, Eisingerich A Effects of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Studio Ghibli Films on Young People’s Sense of Exploration, Calm, Mastery and Skill, Purpose and Meaning, and Overall Happiness in Life: Exploratory Randomized Controlled Study JMIR Serious Games 2025;13:e76522 DOI: 10.2196/76522

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/40821384

Archived

On the night of July 29, 2018, Chinese authorities raided the home of Dr. Abdulqadir Jalaleddin, a celebrated Uyghur poet. Police placed a black hood over his head and took him away. Jalaleddin’s arrest was part of the state campaign to erase Uyghur identity, a key aim of the genocide against the Uyghur people.

While in detention, Jalaleddin wrote the poem “No Way Home,” memorized by fellow detainees and translated by one of his former students. The poem concludes:

In December 2017, Dr. Rahile Dawut, a renowned Uyghur ethnographer and the founder of a folklore institute at Xinjiang University, was planning to travel to Beijing. But before she could make the trip, Dawut disappeared. Five years later, in 2023, her family finally learned that she had been sentenced to life in prison for “endangering state security.”

Seven years later, Jalaleddin and Dawut remain in incommunicado imprisonment. Their children in the United States do not know where they are, or what conditions they are being held in.

[...]

Meanwhile, the world looks away. Universities and publishers of academic and scholarly work have a special responsibility to make academic freedom, and freedom of expression more generally, a condition of cooperation with institutions in China.

This lesson was learned the hard way by Princeton University Press (PUP). In June, its director joined a Chinese government-sponsored tour of the Uyghur region, and issued a statement praising “the incredible power of Uyghur poetry,” while saying not a single word about the brutal treatment of Uyghur poets like Jalaleddin. This decision made PUP an “instrument of disinformation,” showing “shocking naïveté,” as noted in a roundup of the critical response published in The Uyghur Times.

[...]

By targeting the scholars and interpreters of our history, literature, and traditions, China is attacking the core of Uyghur identity. These intellectuals are the living memory of a people who have thrived for over a millennium at the crossroads of Eurasian civilizations. Uyghur poetry, folklore, and literature draw on Turkic oral verse, Persian literature, influences from the Arab world, and elements from East Asia and Europe to create something entirely our own. Erasing Uyghur culture is a deep loss.

[...]

Now Beijing presents a Potemkin version of Uyghur traditions, creating genocide-denying propaganda out of our heritage. A handful of our mosques may still stand, but inside they are empty. Our children are forcibly separated from their parents in state-run boarding schools where they are punished for speaking our language. Even their names are changed. Our language is restricted, our mosques and graveyards are bulldozed, and our books are burned.

[...]

China wants the world to accept its genocidal policies, and forget the eliticide of Uyghur scholars. We cannot let this happen. It is an urgent imperative for governments and global scholarly communities to once again speak their names, demand their release, and hold China accountable.

Physical constants sometimes show unexpectedly simple mathematical relationships that may signal deeper theoretical connections. According to Amir, Lemeshko and Tokieda, the ratio of proton mass to electron mass (1836.15267245) matches 6π⁵ (1836.1181) to five significant figures[^1]. The researchers developed a probability model to determine whether such matches are coincidental or meaningful, finding that for 5-digit numbers like 1836.1, there is only a 1.2% chance of a random match with simple mathematical expressions[^1].

The study also highlights proven cases where numerical coincidences revealed real physics, such as the Stefan-Boltzmann law's "funny prefactor" of 40.802624638, which exactly equals 2π⁵/15 and emerges from Planck's theory[^1]. The researchers created a framework for evaluating these potential connections by analyzing expressions built from common mathematical constants (π, e, γ, φ) using basic operations like addition, multiplication and exponents[^1].

[^1]: Surprises in numerical expressions of physical constants