As Australia marks 50 years of NAIDOC Week, honoring the world's oldest living culture, humanity's newest technology has yet to reckon with a simple principle: "nothing about us, without us." The concern is that artificial intelligence (AI), like so many technologies before it, will become another extractive force that "takes" Indigenous Knowledges without consent, credit or return.
Diseases spread by insects in the Brazilian Amazon are not randomly distributed but form distinct regional patterns linked to land use, rural economies and environmental change, according to new research led by the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford.
Throughout human ecological history, we have played a variety of roles within ecosystems around the world. In this so-called Anthropocene era, genomic innovations have given us new and powerful ways to influence the environment and the countless species with whom we share the planet.
The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has developed a room-temperature single-photon source built into a compact 19-inch rack-mounted device that operates without cryogenic cooling. Designed as a plug-and-play system that works as soon as it is powered on, the device moves quantum light source technology beyond the laboratory and closer to practical, onsite use.
By 2050, scientists estimate that antibiotic-resistant infections will be associated with more than 8 million deaths around the world every year.
Museums are supposed to be havens for the collective cultural and scientific heritage of the planet, but specimens sometimes go missing.
In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers led by Dr. Wang Yu from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed PRINCE and Little Prince, dual small-molecule-controlled genome editing systems that allow CRISPR activity to be switched on by drug inducers and kept largely silent in their absence.
Gentle purchase incentives can lead customers to choose groceries with higher animal husbandry standards more often. A recent study at the University of Bonn at least suggests this. The researchers used two different animal welfare label posters as "nudges." Each poster changed the consumer behavior of participants shopping in a virtual supermarket. The share of products with higher animal welfare standards in the shopping cart was highest when both posters were combined. Further studies have yet to clarify the extent to which the results can be transferred to real shopping situations.
Why do people make the choices they do? Researchers from the Center Synergy of Systems (SynoSys) at TUD Dresden University of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the University of Basel present their new approach to finding answers to that question. The approach combines observed choices with participants' own descriptions of their decision processes, allowing researchers to study human behavior in greater detail than is possible with behavioral data alone.
Scientists have grown wheat containing supersized starch granules—a leap forward in biological engineering with potential benefits for our daily diets and a raft of industrial applications.
