Connecting Science and Society

Sustainable decision-making requires balancing the costs borne by today’s society with those that will fall on future generations. Climate change is intensifying extreme weather, making floods more severe because a warmer atmosphere can hold and deliver a larger volume of water as precipitation. It may also be the case that severe floods are becoming more frequent as drought becomes more frequent, average conditions rarely occur, and weather oscillates between short duration wet and long duration dry extremes. Worryingly, traditional infrastructure (often designed using outdated, backward-looking models) risks failing under these evolving conditions.
Nick Martin from Vodanube LLC, and his colleagues have applied Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) to flood inundation. Their research optimises current adaptation and future mitigation strategies, even while acknowledging PRA’s limitations. The team demonstrates how this approach can guide more resilient water resource management, and highlights opportunities for further study.

Parkinson’s disease is the most rapidly growing neurological disease worldwide. At present, there are no treatments that can prevent or reverse the damage caused by this disease. Therefore, there is a demand for therapies that ease and manage symptoms. Professor Rebecca States of Hofstra University collaborated with colleagues from Long Island University to evaluate the effects of exercise on the balance and postural control of individuals with Parkinson’s disease. The outcomes shed light on how exercise should be used for healthcare practitioners and researchers working with Parkinson’s disease.

Studying the behaviour of plasma – a state of matter beyond the familiar three: solid, liquid, and gas – is crucial for our understanding of planets, stars, and the possibility of generating unlimited energy on Earth through the process of nuclear fusion. Specialist equipment is needed to produce extreme kinds of plasma in the laboratory but, once created, they last for less than a billionth of a second. How do you study something so fleeting? To address this problem, a team of researchers from Spain have proposed a design for a simple new device so that proton beams may be used to study faster and faster processes.

The brain’s ability to manage stress and guide behaviour, including making decisions or interacting with others, relies in part on an area called the medial prefrontal cortex. But exactly how this region controls the body’s internal responses has remained unclear. New research on mice led by Prof Hong-Wei Dong and his team at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) sheds light on a little-studied part of the brain that may play a key role.
The work reveals a complex network, unconvering a previously undefined “primary visceromotor cortex” in the mouse brain, that helps link thoughts, feelings, and physical state. This discovery could reshape our understanding of how the brain controls stress, emotion, and internal bodily functions, and offer new insights into human mental health disorders.

Modern life exposes us to a staggering array of synthetic substances—over 350,000 chemicals are registered for use worldwide, found in products as diverse as pesticides, plastics, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Ensuring the safety of all these compounds is a daunting task. Researchers led by Prof Jinhee Choi at University of Seoul are developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence models to predict the potential dangers toxicity of chemicals, with the aim of reducing the need for controversial animal experiments. By analysing vast toxicology databases and pioneering new AI techniques, Prof Choi’s team is working towards a future where the safety of everything from industrial compounds to household products can be assessed more quickly, cheaply, and humanely.

Scientists have a growing body of data that could bring them a step closer to being able to ‘instruct’ skin collagen to resist the effects of ageing, according to a review of the latest research undertaken by Dr Peter Kim, biochemist and founder of private tuition company Veribera.

New research led by Dr Nathaniel R. Johnson of UND and his mentors at NDSU, Drs Julie Garden-Robinson and Sherri Stastny, reveals a strong link between protein type and mental health in older adults. Analysing data from 637 North Dakotans aged 50+, the study found that self-reported average meal patterns that included lean proteins, like chicken, fish, eggs, and legumes, were associated with fewer days of depression and anxiety. In contrast, processed meats such as bacon and deli slices correlated with increased mental distress, especially in rural communities. These findings suggest that protein quality may significantly influence emotional well-being in later life, offering a simple, everyday strategy to support mental health, one nourishing meal at a time.

Do you find data analysis dense and impenetrable, like a quantitative jungle? You’re not alone. Many of the most useful statistical tools have steep-learning curves and often demand both sophisticated mathematical ability and advanced programming skills. But, in a world where data is constantly generated and recorded, it’s essential that data analysis tools are as accessible as possible. And there’s no reason they can’t be; with such powerful digital tools at our disposal, data visualisation can be made as straightforward as the click of a button.

That’s the goal behind Professor David Gerbing’s latest project – lessR. lessR is a free, open-source package for one of the most popular analysis programming languages, R, designed to make data visualisation as simple as possible. See Professor Gerbing’s written and video introduction to using the R language for data analysis at the website he provides for his students.

As technology advances, physical experiments are performed by bigger, more powerful, and more sophisticated machines. Research conducted using these large-scale facilities (LSF) typically involves collaboration between the operating staff, instrument scientists, and external research groups, who propose specific experiments to be performed. With many people involved and such large volumes of data generated by each experiment, it has become challenging to make sure that results are collected, catalogued, stored, and distributed efficiently.

The German consortium DAPHNE4NFDI has been working to integrate Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs) into the Photon and Neutron (PaN) research community. One of their main goals has been to develop the decision-making process behind how research facilities, universities, and researchers can evaluate the range of ELNs available and decide on which solution to integrate into their operations.

The holy grail of brain-computer interfaces is an electrode that lasts a lifetime. Dr Philip Kennedy of Neural Speech Inc. has examined the landscape of neural recording technologies, comparing their longevity and effectiveness in helping paralysed patients communicate and regain mobility.