How do plants know when it’s time to bloom?

An expert has answers for you about how plants know when to bloom.

Last December was the warmest on record for Washington state, according to the Washington State Climate Office.

As the mild winter continues, many of the plants in our gardens are starting to show signs of small buds, even though it’s only February.

Takato Imaizumi, a University of Washington professor of biology, studies the genes that plants use to monitor seasonal changes.

Here, Imaizumi talks about how plants know when to bloom and whether this might change in warmer winters:

The post How do plants know when it’s time to bloom? appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/gMw8mPz

A few changes to the home can cut adult asthma attacks

Improving the indoor environment reduces asthma attacks in adults, a new study finds.

For adults with asthma, having fans, air purifiers, or other ventilation and exhaust systems—especially in kitchens and bathrooms—is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of flare-ups at home.

That’s the key finding of a large, statewide survey of how household environments affect adults with asthma in Texas.

“Most studies of this type focus on children, but since most asthma cases in the US are in adults, we looked at them and their indoor environment,” says Alexander Obeng, a doctoral student at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health and the study’s lead author.

He adds that Texas was an ideal setting for the study because of its wide range of climates and housing conditions.

“Air conditioning is a constant across much of the state during warmer months, which reduces natural ventilation and may increase indoor pollutant levels,” he says.

“In addition, many older homes, mobile homes, and multi-unit residences have problems with excess moisture and pests.”

For the study in Atmosphere, the team looked at data on 1,600 adults with asthma collected between 2019 and 2022 to assess the effects between household and environmental determinants of asthma morbidity in Texas. The team analyzed four outcomes—asthma attacks, symptoms, sleep problems, and limitations with daily activities—and how they are linked to a person’s surroundings.

“We found two major triggers for asthma in the home—not having an exhaust fan in the kitchen and bathroom, and smoking—which affirms previous research,” Obeng says.

In addition, the team found that people were more likely to have asthma attacks, frequent symptoms, or trouble sleeping and staying active if they smoke cigarettes or do not use air purifiers. On the other hand, people living in homes that had no problems with mold, mice or rats, and had no furry pets had fewer asthma issues.

“The good news is that we can take steps to manage asthma at home by improving airflow, using air purifiers, not smoking indoors, and minimizing dust or pet allergens,” he says.

The data also showed that women, older adults, and Black adults suffer more from asthma complications than other groups, reflecting disparities in income, housing quality, and access to health care that Obeng says may worsen the asthma burden for some.

To help reduce the burden of asthma for these groups, the study recommended three strategies:

• Financial help. Offer vouchers or subsidies to help low-income families afford portable air purifiers, upgrade their homes, and improve household ventilation.
• Support for renters. Require landlords to maintain healthy air standards and fix ventilation issues.
• Better education. Have health care professions teach patients how to remove asthma triggers (like dust or mold) from their homes as part of their regular medical checkups.

“Adults spend as much as 90% of their time indoors, where the air can actually be dirtier than it is outdoors,” Obeng says.

“Adequate environmental changes at home could help adults with asthma manage their condition more effectively.”

Additional researchers from the Texas A&M School of Public Health and the University of Strathclyde in Scotland contributed to the work.

Source: Texas A&M University

The post A few changes to the home can cut adult asthma attacks appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/8UDJHbu

Listen: New treatments are changing lives after spinal cord injuries

When a two-year-old boy suffered a catastrophic injury that severed the connection between his skull and spine, doctors across Europe told his family there was no hope.

His spinal cord was completely severed, and the injury was not considered survivable.

But University of Chicago neurosurgeon Mohamad Bydon saw a possibility.

In this episode of Big Brains, Bydon walks us through the extraordinary, multi-stage surgery at UChicago that not only saved the boy’s life but helped him regain the ability to breathe, talk, and move his fingers and toes.

He examines the future of surgery for spinal cord injury patients—from minimally invasive surgery techniques to robotic surgery and AI to stem cell therapy—is even helping some paralyzed patients regain movement and even walk again after their injuries.

Read the transcript of this episode.

Source: University of Chicago

The post Listen: New treatments are changing lives after spinal cord injuries appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/81SLe7I

Ultraprocessed foods have addictive qualities similar to tobacco

Addictive qualities in ultraprocessed foods are similar to those of tobacco, researchers report.

The researchers from the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and Duke University argue that many ultraprocessed foods—including packaged snacks, sugary beverages, ready-to-eat meals, and many fast foods—aren’t simply junk food or bad nutritional choices. They’re industrially engineered products designed to keep you coming back—using strategies once used to sell cigarettes.

The research, which appears in the current issue of The Milbank Quarterly, draws on addiction science, nutrition research, and the history of tobacco regulation.

It found striking similarities between ultraprocessed foods and tobacco products—both deliberately formulated to amplify reward in the brain, encourage habitual use, and shape public perception in ways that protect profits.

In other words, it may not be by accident that certain snacks feel impossible to put down, says study first author Ashley Gearhardt, University of Michigan professor of clinical psychology and an expert at UM’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

This reframing matters—especially for young adults navigating food environments packed with cheap, hyperpalatable, always-available options, the researchers note. For decades, public health messaging has emphasized personal responsibility: make better choices, try harder, have more self-control.

But the newly published analysis argues it’s time to change the focus. Instead of focusing only on individual decisions, the authors call for a shift toward examining the larger systems that shape what’s on shelves, what’s affordable, and what’s heavily marketed. Just as tobacco regulation eventually moved beyond blaming smokers to holding companies accountable, the researchers suggest food policy may need a similar evolution.

Gearhardt says the takeaway isn’t that eating is the same as smoking. It’s that some of today’s most common foods may be designed in ways that make moderation unusually difficult.

For a generation that grew up surrounded by brightly packaged snacks, drive-thru convenience and 24/7 delivery apps, the question becomes bigger than diet trends or personal discipline.

“It’s about understanding how products are engineered—and who benefits when ‘just one more bite’ turns into a habit,” Gearhardt says.

The researchers hope the findings spark conversation, especially among young adults who are shaping the future of food culture, health policy, and consumer expectations.

Because if certain foods are designed to be hard to resist, the conversation about health might need to move beyond blame—and toward accountability, the researchers say.

Source: University of Michigan

The post Ultraprocessed foods have addictive qualities similar to tobacco appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/PIY3His

With just a few words, AI can tell what kind of person you are

A new study finds that widely available generative AI models (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, LLaMa) can predict personality, key behaviors, and daily emotions as or even more accurately than those closest to you.

“What this study shows is AI can also help us understand ourselves better, providing insights into what makes us most human, our personalities,” says the study’s first author Aidan Wright, University of Michigan professor of psychology and psychiatry.

“Lots of people may find this of interest and useful. People have long been interested in understanding themselves better. Online personality questionnaires, some valid and many of dubious quality, are enormously popular.”

Researchers looked into whether AI programs like ChatGPT and Claude can act like general “judges” of personality. To test this, they had the AI read people’s own words—either short daily video diaries or longer recordings of what happened to be on their mind—and asked it to answer personality questions the way each person would. The study included stories and thoughts from more than 160 people collected in real-life and lab settings.

The results showed that the AI’s personality scores were very similar to how people rated themselves, and often matched them better than ratings from friends or family. Older text-analysis methods did not perform nearly as well as these newer AI systems.

“We were taken aback by just how strong these associations were, given how different these two data sources are,” Wright says.

AI’s personality ratings could also predict real parts of people’s lives, like their emotions, stress levels, social behavior, and even whether they had been diagnosed with mental health conditions or sought treatment, according to the findings.

This research indicates that personality naturally shows up in our everyday thoughts, words, and stories—even when we’re not trying to describe ourselves.

Chandra Sripada, a professor of philosophy and psychiatry at the University of Michigan, says the findings support the long-held idea that language carries deep clues about how people differ in psychological traits such as personality and mood.

He adds that open-ended writing and speech can be a powerful tool for understanding personality. Thanks to generative AI, researchers can now analyze this kind of data quickly and accurately in ways that weren’t possible before.

At the same time, important questions remain. The study relied on people rating their own personalities and did not test how well AI compares with judgments from friends or family, or how results might differ across age, gender, or race.

The researchers also don’t yet know whether AI and humans rely on the same signals—or whether AI could one day outperform self-reports when predicting major life outcomes like relationships, education, health, or career success.

“The study shows that AI can reliably uncover personality traits from everyday language, pointing to a new frontier in understanding human psychology,” says Colin Vize, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Whitney Ringwald, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, says the results “really highlight how our personality is infused in everything we do, even down to our mundane, everyday experiences and passing thoughts.”

The findings appear in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

Source: University of Michigan

The post With just a few words, AI can tell what kind of person you are appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/FfAzI3e

Team pinpoints brain network responsible for Parkinson’s

Researchers have identified the brain network responsible for Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder affecting more than 1 million people in the US and more than 10 million globally. It is characterized by debilitating symptoms such as tremors, movement difficulties, sleep disturbances, and cognitive impairments.

While current treatments, including long-term medication and invasive deep brain stimulation (DBS), can alleviate symptoms, they cannot halt progression or cure the disease.

The new study led by China’s Changping Laboratory, in collaboration with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and others, identifies the region of the brain responsible for the core problems of Parkinson’s disease.

Targeting this brain network—the somato-cognitive action network (SCAN)—with a noninvasive, experimental therapy called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) more than doubled the improvement in symptoms in a small group of patients, compared to TMS acting upon surrounding brain areas.

The study in Nature redefines the neurological basis of Parkinson’s and lays the groundwork for more effective, precision treatment of the disease.

“This work demonstrates that Parkinson’s is a SCAN disorder, and the data strongly suggest that if you target the SCAN in a personalized, precise manner you can treat Parkinson’s more successfully than was previously possible,” says coauthor Nico U. Dosenbach, a professor of neurology at WashU Medicine.

“Changing the activity within SCAN could slow or reverse the progression of the disease, not just treat the symptoms.”

Dosenbach first described SCAN in Nature in 2023. The network lies within the motor cortex—the part of the brain that controls body movements—and is responsible for turning action plans into movements and receiving feedback on how executing those plans went.

Given that Parkinson’s disease causes a broad range of symptoms, affecting bodily functions such as movement, digestion, and sleep as well as cognition and motivation, Hesheng Liu, the study’s senior author, teamed up with Dosenbach to explore whether dysfunction of SCAN, which links cognition with movement, could explain Parkinson’s disease symptoms and serve as a target for treatment.

Liu’s team collected various brain imaging data from more than 800 participants across multiple institutions in the US and China. The group included patients with Parkinson’s disease receiving DBS, which uses surgically implanted electrodes to send electrical impulses to specific brain areas, or noninvasive treatments such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, focused ultrasound stimulation and medications. There were also healthy individuals and patients with other movement disorders included as controls.

The authors’ analysis revealed that Parkinson’s disease is characterized by hyperconnectivity between the SCAN and the subcortex, the part of the brain responsible for emotion, memory and motor control. All four therapies included in the study were most effective when they reduced hyperconnectivity between the SCAN and the subcortex, ultimately normalizing activity in the circuit responsible for planning and coordinating action.

“For decades, Parkinson’s has been primarily associated with motor deficits and the basal ganglia,” the part of the brain that controls muscle movements, Liu says. “Our work shows that the disease is rooted in a much broader network dysfunction.

“The SCAN is hyperconnected to key regions associated with Parkinson’s disease, and this abnormal wiring disrupts not only movement but also related cognitive and bodily functions.”

Leveraging this insight, the researchers developed a new precision treatment system capable of targeting the SCAN noninvasively with millimeter accuracy. They applied transcranial magnetic stimulation, which sends magnetic pulses to the brain from a device on the head.

In a clinical trial, 18 patients receiving SCAN-targeted transcranial magnetic stimulation showed a 56% response rate after two weeks, compared to 22% in a group of 18 patients receiving stimulation at adjacent brain areas—a 2.5-fold increase in efficacy.

“With noninvasive treatments, we could start treating with neuromodulation much earlier than is currently done with DBS” because they don’t require brain surgery, says Dosenbach.

Dosenbach adds that there’s more basic research to be done to understand if and how different components of the SCAN affect different Parkinson’s symptoms.

Dosenbach is planning clinical trials with Turing Medical, a WashU Medicine startup he cofounded, to test a noninvasive treatment using surface electrode strips placed over SCAN regions to treat gait dysfunction in Parkinson’s patients. He also plans to investigate modulating the SCAN with low-intensity focused ultrasound, a noninvasive way to change brain activity using acoustic energy.

Support for this work came from the Changping Laboratory, the US National Institutes of Health, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key R&D Program of China, the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center; the Kiwanis Foundation; the Washington University Hope Center for Neurological Disorders; and the Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health of Anhui Province.

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

The post Team pinpoints brain network responsible for Parkinson’s appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/G5T9nav

How data and tech are changing the Olympics

An expert has answers for you about how data science, computer vision, and wearable tech are changing how athletes train and fans watch the Olympics.

Behind the scenes of every skating routine, ski jump, and slalom race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, sophisticated analytics are at work, turning super athletes into record-breakers—and helping fans understand what makes these games extraordinary.

Hassan Rafique, assistant professor of sport analytics in the David B. Falk College of Sport at Syracuse University, studies how data transforms both athletic performance and sports storytelling.

Here, he shares how analytics are changing the Olympic experience for fans and athletes:

The post How data and tech are changing the Olympics appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/vuPBJA6