International Conference on Science, Health and Engineering

Scientific publications can serve as key evidence to policymakers, as well as provide possible discussion points to inform public debate. For example, comprehensive, systematic reviews of literature regularly influence recommendations such as medical guidelines when it comes to public health policy around major issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing number of preprints available should in theory provide a faster, albeit less reviewed mechanism for researchers to share their work during the pandemic. However, what this entails is that the means to meddle with scientific communications are that much more available. But what would motivate a person, group of people, or even an organisation to intentionally game the scientific system? Personal, professional, or political – the motivations exist within people who want fame and fortune to fast-track their ambitions. Whether they use fair means or foul. Charlatans in science are sadly not new. Persons making grandiose claims about...

Part of the new Elizabeth line at Liverpool Street Station, London Underground. Photo courtesy of Ian Mansfield (ianVisits ). London’s Underground system was built on the back of the first industrial revolution – a key piece of physical infrastructure that led to a whole new way of thinking about transportation and which fundamentally changed the city in which it was built. It is easy to see parallels between the physical infrastructure building of the 19th century and the cyber infrastructures that we are building today, as the exponential industrial revolution, powered by computers, the internet and AI in which we currently sit develops. Much has been written about cyber infrastructures – there are over 5.7 million publications classified as “ Information and Computing Sciences ” (of which 3.1 million relate to AI and Image Processing ) in Dimensions at the time of writing. While good infrastructure is often invisible, in the sense that it merges seamlessly into ...

People who deny the existence of structural racism are more likely to exhibit anti-Black prejudice and less likely to show racial empathy or openness to diversity, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. However, there were no similar findings for people who claimed they ignore race, which was instead associated with greater openness to diversity, the study found. Researchers analyzed 83 previous studies on racism that included more than 25,000 participants. Denying structural racism and ignoring race are often considered to be two different types of colorblind racial ideology, but researchers and educators need to delineate between them because they appear to have very different outcomes, said lead researcher Jacqueline Yi, MS, a clinical-community psychology doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The research was published online in the  Journal of Counseling Psychology . “The denial of structural racism ...

Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to University of Copenhagen research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms. Since the only known planet with life, the Earth, orbits the Sun, planetary systems around stars of similar size are obvious targets for astronomers trying to locate extraterrestrial life. Nearly every second star in that category is a binary star. A new result from research at University of Copenhagen indicate that planetary systems are formed in a very different way around binary stars than around single stars such as the Sun. “The result is exciting since the search for extraterrestrial life will be equipped with several new, extremely powerful instruments within the coming years. This enhances the significance of understanding how planets are formed around different types of stars. Such results may pinpoint places which would ...

Salamanders that live their entire lives in the crowns of the world’s tallest trees, California’s coast redwoods, have evolved a behavior well-adapted to the dangers of falling from high places: the ability to parachute, glide and maneuver in mid-air. Flying squirrels, not to mention numerous species of gliding frogs, geckos, and ants and other insects, are known to use similar aerial maneuvers when jumping from tree to tree or when falling, so as to remain in the trees and avoid landing on the ground. Similarly, the researchers suspect that this salamander’s skydiving skills are a way to steer back to a tree it’s fallen or jumped from, the better to avoid terrestrial predators. “While they’re parachuting, they have an exquisite amount of maneuverable control,” said Christian Brown, a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa and first author of a paper about these behaviors. “They are able to turn. They are able to flip themselves over if they go upside...

Young children who grow up with a dog or in a large family may have some protection later in life from a common inflammatory bowel disease known as Crohn’s disease, according to a study to be presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2022. “Our study seems to add to others that have explored the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ which suggests that the lack of exposure to microbes early in life may lead to lack of immune regulation toward environmental microbes,” said Williams Turpin, PhD, the study’s senior author and a research associate with Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto. Researchers used an environmental questionnaire to collect information from nearly 4,300 first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease enrolled in the Crohn’s and Colitis Canada Genetic, Environmental, and Microbial (CCC-GEM) project. Using responses to the questionnaire and historical data collected at the time of recruitment, Dr. Turpin and his team analyzed several environmental factors, inc...

  Eating low glycaemic index foods promotes a healthier body shape in patients with coronary artery disease, according to a study presented at ACNAP-EuroHeartCare Congress 2022, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). 1 The glycaemic index (GI) ranks carbohydrate-containing foods according to how quickly they affect blood sugar levels. High GI foods cause a rapid increase in blood sugar and include white bread, white rice, potatoes and sweets. Low GI foods are digested more slowly and gradually raise blood sugar; they include some fruits and vegetables such as apples, oranges, broccoli and leafy greens, pulses such as chickpeas, lentils, and kidney beans, and wholegrains such as brown rice and oats. Meat, poultry and fish do not have a GI rating because they do not contain carbohydrates. Observational studies have previously indicated that high GI diets are associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease 2  and type 2 diabetes...

A study using 10 years of citizen science data from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s BeeWalk scheme has found that a variety of targeted conservation approaches are needed to protect UK bumblebee species. The findings are published the British Ecological Society’s  Journal of Applied Ecology . Researchers at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Edinburgh, have used 10 years of bumblebee abundance data, collected by citizen scientists, to provide the most detailed overview currently possible of bumblebee habitat requirements across the UK. The researchers found a wide range of differences between bumblebee species in the types of habitat they are associated with. This suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach to bumblebee conservation will not effectively protect all species and that conservation efforts need to be carefully tailored to particular species. The study identified types of habitat that could be targeted for bu...

The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT has awarded eight MIT principal investigators with 2022 J-WAFS seed grants. The grants support innovative MIT research that has the potential to have significant impact on water- and food-related challenges. The only program at MIT that is dedicated to water- and food-related research, J-WAFS has offered seed grant funding to MIT principal investigators and their teams for the past eight years. The grants provide up to $75,000 per year, overhead-free, for two years to support new, early-stage research in areas such as water and food security, safety, supply, and sustainability. Past projects have spanned many diverse disciplines, including engineering, science, technology, and business innovation, as well as social science and economics, architecture, and urban planning.  Seven new projects led by eight researchers will be supported this year. With funding going to four different MIT departments, the projects a...

Forming metal into the shapes needed for various purposes can be done in many ways, including casting, machining, rolling, and forging. These processes affect the sizes and shapes of the tiny crystalline grains that make up the bulk metal, whether it be steel, aluminum or other widely used metals and alloys. Now researchers at MIT have been able to study exactly what happens as these crystal grains form during an extreme deformation process, at the tiniest scales, down to a few nanometers across. The new findings could lead to improved ways of processing to produce better, more consistent properties such as hardness and toughness. The new findings, made possible by detailed analysis of images from a suite of powerful imaging systems, are reported today in the journal Nature Materials , in a paper by former MIT postdoc Ahmed Tiamiyu (now assistant professor at the University of Calgary); MIT professors Christopher Schuh, Keith Nelson, and James LeBeau; former student Edward Pang;...

Researchers have developed a low-cost device that can selectively capture carbon dioxide gas while it charges. Then, when it discharges, the CO2 can be released in a controlled way and collected to be reused or disposed of responsibly. The supercapacitor device, which is similar to a rechargeable battery, is the size of a two-pence coin, and is made in part from sustainable materials including coconut shells and seawater. Designed by researchers from the University of Cambridge, the supercapacitor could help power carbon capture and storage technologies at much lower cost. Around 35 billion tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere per year and solutions are urgently needed to eliminate these emissions and address the climate crisis. The most advanced carbon capture technologies currently require large amounts of energy and are expensive. The supercapacitor consists of two electrodes of positive and negative charge. In work led by Trevor Binford while completing his Master...

Male pheromones just might be the fountain of youth for aging female animals’ eggs, according to a new Northwestern University study. In the new study, researchers used the tiny transparent roundworm C. elegans, a well-established model organism commonly used in biology research. Exposure of female roundworms to male pheromones slowed down the aging of the females’ egg cells, resulting in healthier offspring. Not only did the exposure decrease embryonic death by more than twofold, it also decreased chromosomal abnormalities in surviving offspring by more than twofold. Under the microscope, egg cells also looked younger and healthier, rather than tiny and misshapen, which is common with aging. The researchers believe this finding potentially could lead to pharmacological interventions that combat infertility issues in humans by improving egg cell quality and delaying the onset of reproductive aging. “Reproductive aging affects everyone,” said Northwestern’s Ilya Ruvinsky, who led ...