The destructive power of language

Hate expressions can take many forms - they can also be very subtle in the field of language.
Credit: Roberto Schirdewahn

Artificial intelligence can well identify swear words. But it can also recognize more hidden forms of linguistic violence?

"Piss off, you bitch!"" I'll get the bum. I'll stab you."" You should all pop them off. "Just a few examples of the form that language can take on social media. People are insulted, threatened or incited to crime. Prof. is interested in what distinguishes hate speech and other forms of damaging language from a linguistic perspective and how you can automatically recognize them. Dr. Tatjana Scheffler. She conducts research at the RUB in the field of digital forensic linguistics.

"Language processing in general has made big leaps in recent years," says Scheffler. Anyone who uses translation programs such as Google Translator or language assistants such as Siri today will achieve significantly better results than a few years ago. The classification of texts is now working quite well. Artificial intelligence algorithms can learn to assign statements to different categories. For example, you can decide whether a text passage contains a direct insult or not. The algorithms learn the categories using large training data sets that people have previously classified. Later they can transfer the knowledge of the learned categories to new data.

Fermilab is home to a new baby bison!

This year, Fermilab is expecting up to 20 new calves.
Credit: Ryan Postel, Fermilab

World-class particle physics research isn’t the only thing Fermilab is known for. The iconic sight of the Midwestern bison graces the acres of prairie land surrounding the lab, beckoning visitors from across the country. On April 13, baby bison season officially began at the lab, a sure sign spring is truly on its way. The first calf of the year was born in the morning, and we’re pleased to announce that both mother and baby are doing well.

 Currently, the herd comprises 32 bison — 30 females and two bulls. The bulls are changed out periodically to maintain the herd’s health and genetic diversity.

This year, Fermilab is expecting up to 20 new calves. For a front-seat view of the bison, visit Fermilab’s new bison cam to glimpse the activities of the mighty herd.

Robert Wilson, Fermilab’s first director, established the bison herd in 1969 as a symbol of the history of the Midwestern prairie and the laboratory’s pioneering research at the cutting-edge of particle physics.

Study finds an unexpected upside to imposter syndrome

People who report “impostor workplace thoughts” are often still successful, by being strong team players in the office, and being recognized as such, according to a new study. The research was led by MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Basima Tewfik.
Credit: MIT

Even many successful people harbor what is commonly called impostor syndrome, a sense of being secretly unworthy and not as capable as others think. First posited by psychologists in 1978, it is often assumed to be a debilitating problem.

But research by an MIT scholar suggests this is not universally true. In workplace settings, at least, those harboring impostor-type concerns tend to compensate for their perceived shortcomings by being good team players with strong social skills, and are often recognized as productive workers by their employers.

“People who have workplace impostor thoughts become more other-oriented as a result of having these thoughts,” says Basima Tewfik, an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of a new paper detailing her findings. “As they become more other-oriented, they’re going to be evaluated as being more interpersonally effective.”

Tewfik’s research as a whole suggests we should rethink some of our assumptions about impostor-type complexes and their dynamics. At the same time, she emphasizes, the prevalence of these types of thoughts among workers should not be ignored, dismissed, or even encouraged.

Putting Tried-and-True Theories to the Test

Assistant Professor of Physics Katerina Chatziioannou
Source: California Institute of Technology

Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity is a triumph of science, celebrated by scientists around the world for, among other truths, explaining how gravity works. Whereas Isaac Newton proposed in the late 17th century that gravity is a force tugging on objects, Einstein taught us, in the early 20th century, that gravity is in fact a warping of space and time. The more massive an object, the more it curves space and produces stronger gravity.

Now, many decades later, scientists are using a prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity—gravitational waves—to study the universe and to even poke holes in the theory itself. Einstein predicted these ripples in spacetime 100 years ago but they were not directly detected until 2015, when the National Science Foundation-funded LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detected the waves from a collision between two black holes.

Assistant Professor of Physics Katerina Chatziioannou, who joined the Caltech faculty in 2020 and is part of the LIGO team, is using gravitational waves to explore these extreme events. She is using the waves to study the space-bending objects themselves, such as black holes and neutron stars, as well as to look for places where our current knowledge of gravity might break down. Any deviations from the tried-and-true theory could lead to new discoveries in physics.

Stroke cuts life expectancy by one third

Almost two thirds of acute stroke patients fail to survive more than a decade and have high risk of recurrence, prompting researchers to call for better patient care.

University of Queensland researchers analyzed data from more than 300,000 patients admitted to hospital following a sudden stroke between 2008 and 2017 in Australia and New Zealand.

The team also investigated how many years were lost to stroke by comparing a patient’s predicted life expectancy with the length of actual survival.

Study leader and UQ epidemiologist, Dr Yang Peng, a Research Fellow with the Prince Charles Hospital Northside Clinical Unit, said only 36.4 per cent of patients survived beyond 10 years, and 26.8 per cent had another stroke.

“We found that a stroke reduced a patient’s life expectancy by five and a half years on average, compared with the general population,” Dr Peng said.

“In proportional terms, this meant a stroke reduced a person’s life expectancy by one third.

“Patients with a hemorrhagic stroke who have bleeding in the brain are at greater risk of death, another stroke and reduced life expectancy, than those with an ischemic stroke, which is caused by a burst blood vessel.”

Acute stroke is one of the most common causes of hospitalization and disability in Australia and has been linked to risk factors such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, diabetes, smoking and heart disease by the Stroke Foundation.

Nationwide maps of bird species can help protect biodiversity

Researchers mapped the number of bird species found across the contiguous U.S. Blue areas host fewer bird species than green or yellow areas do. 
Images by Kathleen Carroll and Anna Pidgeon

New, highly detailed and rigorous maps of bird biodiversity could help protect rare or threatened species.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison developed the maps at a fine-enough resolution to help conservation managers focus their efforts where they are most likely to help birds — in individual counties or forests, rather than across whole states or regions.

The maps span the contiguous U.S. and predict the diversity of birds that live in a given area, related by traits such as nesting on the ground or being endangered. Those predictions are based on both detailed observations of birds and environmental factors that affect bird ranges, such as the degree of forest cover or temperature in an area.

Changes in vegetation shaped global temperatures over last 10,000 years

Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral research associate in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, updated simulations from an important climate model to reflect the role of changing vegetation as a key driver of global temperatures over the last 10,000 years.
Source: Washington University in St. Louis

Follow the pollen. Records from past plant life tell the real story of global temperatures, according to research from a climate scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Warmer temperatures brought plants — and then came even warmer temperatures, according to new model simulations published in Science Advances.

Thompson had long been troubled by a problem with models of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures since the last ice age. Too many of these simulations showed temperatures warming consistently over time.

But climate proxy records tell a different story. Many of those sources indicate a marked peak in global temperatures that occurred between 6,000 and 9,000 years ago.

Thompson had a hunch that the models could be overlooking the role of changes in vegetation in favor of impacts from atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations or ice cover.

Scientists resurrect ancient enzymes to improve photosynthesis

 Maureen Hanson, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Molecular Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Myat Lin, research associate, work in their lab in the Biotechnology Building.
Credit: Ryan Young/Cornell University

A Cornell study describes a breakthrough in the quest to improve photosynthesis in certain crops, a step toward adapting plants to rapid climate changes and increasing yields to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2050.

The study, “Improving the Efficiency of Rubisco by Resurrecting Its Ancestors in the Family Solanaceae,” published in Science Advances. The senior author is Maureen Hanson, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Molecular Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. First author Myat Lin is a postdoctoral research associate in Hanson’s lab.

The authors developed a computational technique to predict favorable gene sequences that make Rubisco, a key plant enzyme for photosynthesis. The technique allowed the scientists to identify promising candidate enzymes that could be engineered into modern crops and, ultimately, make photosynthesis more efficient and increase crop yields.

Their method relied on evolutionary history, where the researchers predicted Rubisco genes from 20-30 million years ago, when Earth’s carbon dioxide (CO2) levels were higher than they are today and the Rubisco enzymes in plants were adapted to those levels.

Researcher identifies peptide active against certain cancers

Shugeng Cao in his lab.
Credit: University of Hawaiʻi

A University of Hawaiʻi researcher has identified a rare bacterium that is active against certain cancers. The bacterium, Lentzea flaviverrucosa, that produces petrichorin A, was discovered by Shugeng Cao, associate member of the Cancer Biology Program at the UH Cancer Center, and co-investigators Chunshun Li and Xiaohua Wu, in collaboration with Joshua Blodgett of Washington University in St. Louis. The research team proved that petrichorin A is active against cancers such as ovarian cancer, fibrosarcoma, prostate cancer and T-cell leukemia.

These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Petrichorin A is a peptide that contains special amino acids, and each amino acid has a nitrogen-nitrogen bond. Petrichorin A, a dumbbell-like natural product, was evaluated for anti-cancer activity against multiple cancer cell lines. The researchers conducted a preliminary test and discovered that petrichorin A was not toxic to a normal human cell line. With this observation, his team proved that petrichorin A was active against ovarian cancer, fibrosarcoma, prostate cancer and T-cell leukemia. This highlighted the importance of including petrichorin A in future research of pharmaceutical design and discovery programs.

Cloud server leasing can leave sensitive data up for grabs

Renting space and IP addresses on a public server has become standard business practice, but according to a team of Penn State computer scientists, current industry practices can lead to "cloud squatting," which can create a security risk, endangering sensitive customer and organization data intended to remain private.

Cloud squatting occurs when a company, such as a bank, leases space and IP addresses — unique addresses that identify individual computers or computer networks — on a public server, uses them, and then releases the space and addresses back to the public server company, a standard pattern seen every day. The public server company, such as Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, then assigns the same addresses to a second company.  If this second company is a bad actor, it can receive information coming into the address intended for the original company — for example, when you as a customer unknowingly use an outdated link when interacting with your bank — and use it to its advantage — cloud squatting.

"There are two advantages to leasing server space," said Eric Pauley, doctoral candidate in computer science and engineering. "One is a cost advantage, saving on equipment and management. The other is scalability. Leasing server space offers an unlimited pool of computing resources so, as workload changes, companies can quickly adapt." As a result, the use of clouds has grown exponentially, meaning almost every website a user visits takes advantage of cloud computing.