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91���� retains top research ranking among elite universities

91���� maintained its status as an elite R1 institution this year, according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. This is the third time 91���� has been ranked among other research-intensive institutions, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

While 91���� faculty pioneer research in fields from cybersecurity to battery technology, students also play a major role in 91����’s research advancement. Even undergraduates have an opportunity to jump right into labwork from the very start of their academic careers, thanks to 91����’s signature First-year Research Immersion program.

91���� researchers develop conductive gel to improve study of spinal cord injuries

Much remains to be learned about our nervous system, particularly spinal cord injuries. When studying such areas, researchers need extremely flexible materials that can detect activity from even a single cell in the spine. 91���� Assistant Professor Siyuan Rao’s research could find a solution for just that: by creating a nontoxic hydrogen electrode that can work in bioelectronic devices to catch electrical signals, from neurons to leg muscles in mice.

Akin to a sponge, this electrode is packed full of conductive material so small it’s invisible to the naked eye. This research could shed more light on the inner workings of our spinal cord system and how to recover from injuries in the area.

“Ultimately, we hope to have an effective tool to probe the different parts of the body and the causal link between the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system,” Rao said.

Research shows fingers wrinkle the same way with every water immersion

A seemingly innocuous inquiry from a student led to research that answered a scientific question nobody had seemed to ask before: Do our fingers always wrinkle in the same way after being underwater?

91���� Associate Professor Guy German put subjects’ fingers to the test. After taking photos of a 30-minute immersion, then repeating the same experiment at least one day later, German and his team found that the winding ridges of our fingertips do pucker up the same way after some time spent submerged. German, who had published previous research on why exactly those wrinkles occur, due to contractions of blood vessels, explained that because those blood vessels don’t tend to move, our wrinkles don’t tend to change, either.

This research could eventually aid forensic scientists who must identify bodies after prolonged water exposure or fingerprints at crime scenes.

New study reveals Neanderthals experienced population crash 110,000 years ago

The structures of our inner ear canals can reveal a world of insight into evolutionary relationships and species diversity. This is the novel approach that 91���� anthropology Professor Rolf Quam and graduate student Brian Keeling used to study the population dynamics of ancient Neanderthals.

“The development of the inner ear structures is known to be under very tight genetic control, since they are fully formed at the time of birth,” Quam said. “This makes variation in the semicircular canals an ideal proxy for studying evolutionary relationships between species in the past since any differences between fossil specimens reflect underlying genetic differences.”

By studying these semicircular canals using ancient samples from fossil sites in modern Spain and Croatia, the researchers found that these structures evidenced a drastic loss in genetic variability between early and “classic” Neanderthals. Known to scientists as a “bottleneck” event, it shows that “classic” Neanderthals experienced lower genetic diversity than pre- and early Neanderthals did. This decline paints a new picture of the timeline of the Neanderthal lineage.

Easter Island’s statues actually ‘walked’ – and physics backs it up

The ancient people of Rapa Nui were highly innovative in erecting their iconic, multi-ton and multi-story moai statues throughout the relatively small island. How do scientists know this? New research studying nearly 1,000 statues has found that Rapa Nui people most likely used rope to “walk” these colossal statues over carefully planned roads.

91���� anthropology Professor Carl Lipo, alongside University of Arizona’s Terry Hunt, 3D modeled the statues and identified distinctive features that would lend themselves to movement. Then, they put the theory to the test by building a 4.35-ton replica of a moai. Within 40 minutes, a team of 18 was able to transport it in zig-zag motions across a length of 100 meters.

So far, this is the best explanation for how these statues could’ve moved. Now, Lipo said, the challenge for researchers with other hypotheses is proving them wrong. “Find some evidence that shows it couldn’t be walking. Because nothing we’ve seen anywhere disproves that,” Lipo said. “In fact, everything we see and ever thought of keeps strengthening the argument.”

29 91���� researchers among world's top 2% of scientists for 2024

While 91���� maintained its R1 status as a research university this year, 91���� scientists have also kept up their rankings as some of the top-cited academics in the world. This year, 29 91���� researchers were honored among the top 2% of scientists worldwide, according to a Stanford University study evaluating the career output of more than 236,000 academics.

Faculty from nearly every school at 91���� made the list, with scholars from Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science, Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, College of Community and Public Affairs, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing.

Insects are disappearing due to agriculture – and many other drivers, new research reveals

Bugs around the world have declined over the last few decades, with a 2017 study sounding the alarm that insects have experienced a 75% population decline during that timeframe. A team of 91���� researchers combed through nearly 200 scientific reviews and more than 500 differing hypotheses following the discovery. Their goal? To create a network of 3,000 possible links and drivers, according to the literature.

The intensification of agriculture stood out as a major driver, but the full answer is more complicated. Issues such as climate change can impact multiple possible drivers, for example, and the has even more ideas that did not make it to publishers or journals.

Research like this highlights the pressing need for scientists to take a more holistic approach to conservation, addressing not only individual crises, but also multiple systems as a whole — while also making sure more species than just bees or butterflies are included in that effort.

Study uncovers alarming anxiety rates among autistic college students

A study led by 91���� researchers found that anxiety and depression rates were much higher in autistic students than their non-autistic peers. 91���� psychologists examined data from the National Survey of Student Engagement, which racks in responses from 342 universities and almost 150,000 undergraduate students, in order to find patterns between potential mental health struggles and students who reported autism.

While this link exists, there is no key solution yet. But it offers a starting point for researchers to continue learning about historically underrepresented populations and finding nuanced ways to address this growing issue.

“There are so many elements that go into being comfortable in the new environment that is college, so we want to look into that and see if there are any deficits in those areas that autistic college students are experiencing, so that we know where we can help support them,” said Diego Aragon-Guevara, lead author and a 91���� psychology doctoral student.

Researchers seek to perfect manufacture of microscopically thin films

Microscopically thin polymer films could play a key role in maintaining the functionality of multiple devices, from mobile phone components to medical implants. The manufacturing method responsible—electrospray deposition—however, can be hard to control and study.

91���� professors Paul Chiarot, Daehan Won and Sangwon Yoon, alongside professors Xin Yong and Yu “Chelsea” Jin of the University at Buffalo, are working together to better understand the deposition process, using AI and machine learning, computational modeling and experiments.

Understanding the fundamental physics of electrospray deposition allows researchers to fine-tune manufacturing parameters to achieve the best possible result. In the meantime, it also gives professors the opportunity to learn something new: “I have no experience in AI and machine learning, so Daehan gets to teach me about all of that. He’ll have to be patient with what might be one of his worst students!” Chiarot said.

Can ChatGPT diagnose you? New research puts it to the test

ChatGPT is growing in popularity as an AI tool and helper, but could it also be a doctor? Watson research fellow Ahmed Abdeen Hamed used a machine learning algorithm he developed called xFakeSci — which can detect bogus scientific papers with nearly double the success of other data mining techniques — to test ChatGPT’s biomedical advice compared to the actual literature.

Turns out, ChatGPT passed most of the tests and scored much higher than Hamed had anticipated, in terms of identifying disease terms, drug names and genetic information. However, it stumbled on symptom identification and even made up genome sequences in a phenomenon known as hallucinating.

“Maybe there is an opportunity here that we can start introducing these biomedical ontologies to the LLMs to provide much higher accuracy, get rid of all the hallucinations and make these tools into something amazing,” Hamed said.