Spotlights

A growing number of clinical trials gauging the effects of inhibiting transposons, so-called “jumping genes,” have yielded encouraging results for treating Alzheimer’s and a wide range of other conditions.

Vera Gorbunova, a molecular biologist at the University of Rochester whose research on the causes of aging and cancer is widely regarded as pioneering, says researchers tackling aging “need something new, and inhibiting transposons shows great promise.”

Gorbunova’s comments were recently featured in Science magazine, a leading news outlet for
cutting-edge research in all areas of science.

Researchers say clinical trials of transposon inhibitors are important not just to identify potential treatments, but also to test whether jumping genes do, in fact, drive human diseases, as many suspect.

Transposon genes are found in a diverse variety of organisms, from miniscule bacteria to humans, and they are known in biological terms as “transposable elements” because they literally jump around the genome. Their vagrancy has been implicated in illnesses such as lupus, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, and aging.

Gorbunova is a recognized expert in aging and cancer whose research has been featured in high-profile publications ranging from Nature to The New York Times. Reach out to Gorbunova by clicking on her profile.

University of Rochester scientists have discovered that twisting together two atom-thin flakes of molybdenum diselenide at high angles produces artificial atoms that can act as quantum information bits, or qubits.

The discovery was made in the laboratory of Nickolas Vamivakas, the Marie C. Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Optical Physics, who says he hopes the artificial atoms can be used like memory or nodes in a quantum network.

“These could be the backbone for devices like the next generation of lasers or even tools to stimulate quantum physics,” Vamivakas says.

The revelations built on experiments that found twisting a pair of one-atom-thick layers of graphene at the “magic” angle of 1.1 degrees created a superconductive material.

Molybdenum diselenide, like graphene, is a 2D material. When monolayers of it are twisted at angles up to 40 degrees, they produce excitons, or artificial atoms, that retain information when activated by light.

The discovery was recently published in Nano Letters. To learn more about Vamivakas’s research, read about it at the University of Rochester News Center and contact him at nick.vamivakas@rochester.edu.

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence tools such as generative pre-trained transformers, or GPTs, high school students may be tempted to use the tools to perfect their college applications, particularly their entrance essay.

Robert Alexander, a vice provost and the dean of enrollment management at the University of Rochester, cautions prospective college students from relying too heavily on AI tools in their applications.

“The sentiment among college admissions professionals is that while AI tools may be helpful in generating essay topics and refining or editing students’ writing, we discourage their use to compose application essays or short answers because AI stifles an applicant’s authentic voice,” Alexander says.

That personal voice becomes paramount when admissions officers are sifting through applications and considering how each student will contribute to the campus community and fit into the incoming class.

“No college or university is trying to admit perfectly identical automaton students,” Alexander says. “At the University of Rochester, for instance, we’re not looking for 1,300 perfect students. We’re trying to craft the perfect class of 1,300 very different and highly-imperfect, but great-fit students.”

The goal, he says, is to invite great students, inclusive of their imperfections, and guide them on a transformative journey through their next four years.

“Colleges want students to come in with a growth mindset and potential,” Alexander says. “So, if students think they can use AI to help make their application ‘perfect,’ I think they’re chasing the wrong brass ring.”

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management who speaks on the subjects to national audiences and whose work has been published in national publications. Click his profile to reach him.

Neurons, the cells in brains and spinal cords that make up the central nervous system, communicate by firing electrical pulses. But scientists have found hints that neurons may transmit light as well, which would profoundly change our current understanding of how the nervous system works.

Researchers from the University of Rochester have begun an ambitious project to study if living neurons can transmit light through their axons — the long, tail-like nerve fibers of neurons that resemble optical fibers.

“There are scientific papers offering indications that light transport could happen in neuron axons, but there’s still not clear experimental evidence,” says the principal investigator, Pablo Postigo, a professor at the university's Institute of Optics. “Scientists have shown that there is ultra-weak photon emission in the brain, but no one understands why the light is there.”

If light is at play and scientists can understand why, it could have major implications for medically treating brain diseases and drastically change the way physicians heal the brain.

To learn more about Postigo's research, contact him at ppostigo@ur.rochester.edu.

Are test-optional colleges being straight with students when they say the absence of SAT and ACT scores on an application won’t affect a student’s chances of being admitted?

“Colleges are not trying to trick or trap applicants,” says Robert Alexander, who oversees the admissions process at the University of Rochester, where he is a vice provost and the dean of enrollment management. “No one is trying to fool anyone into thinking, ‘I don’t have to submit a test score,’ when that test score is secretly make-or-break.”

Much more important in any academic assessment, Alexander says, is and always has been the four years of academic performance detailed in an applicant’s high school transcript.

He says most colleges, including Rochester, take a deep dive into the transcript to not only consider the student’s grade point average, but also the rigor of the high school and its curriculum and why the student selected certain courses.

“Some students are limited by the opportunities offered at their schools,” Alexander says. “In that case, colleges look for what they have done to utilize their resources and push beyond those limitations.”

The University of Rochester has a test-optional policy.

The average standardized test score of incoming students has been trending upward, in part because the students who are most likely to submit their scores on their applications are those with strong scores.

Alexander says prospective students and their families can use the average test scores at the college or university they’re considering as a barometer, but not the arbiter of whether a student will gain acceptance.

“I think admissions officers are being as transparent as possible in telling students what they require,” Alexander says.

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management who speaks on the subjects to national audiences and whose work has been published in national publications. Click his profile to reach him.

Generative artificial intelligence tools, like OpenAI’s GPT-4, are sometimes full of bunk.

Yes, they excel at tasks involving human language, like translating, writing essays, and acting as a personalized writing tutor. They even ace standardized tests. And they’re rapidly improving.

But they also “hallucinate,” which is the term scientists use to describe when AI tools produce information that sounds plausible but is incorrect. Worse, they do so with such confidence that their errors are sometimes difficult to spot.

Christopher Kanan, an associate professor of computer science with an appointment at the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Rochester, explains that the reasoning and planning capabilities of AI tools are still limited compared with those of humans, who excel at continual learning.

“They don’t continually learn from experience,” Kanan says of AI tools. “Their knowledge is effectively frozen after training, meaning they lack awareness of recent developments or ongoing changes in the world.”

Current generative AI systems also lack what’s known as metacognition.

“That means they typically don’t know what they don’t know, and they rarely ask clarifying questions when faced with uncertainty or ambiguous prompts,” Kanan says. “This absence of self-awareness limits their effectiveness in real-world interactions.”

Kanan is an expert in artificial intelligence, continual learning, and brain-inspired algorithms who welcomes inquiries from journalists and knowledge seekers. He recently shared his thoughts on AI with WAMC Northeast Public Radio and with the University of Rochester News Center. Reach out to Kanan by clicking on his profile.

The Earth’s magnetic field plays a key role in making the planet habitable. It shields lifeforms from harmful solar and cosmic radiation. It helps limit erosion of the atmosphere and keeps water from escaping into space.

But new data show a prolonged near collapse of Earth’s magnetic field that took place some 575-565 million years ago coincided with the blossoming of macroscopic complex animal life.

We now face the possibility of a new, unexpected twist in how life might relate to the magnetic field, says John A. Tarduno, the William R. Kenan Professor of Geophysics and the dean of research at the School of Arts and Sciences and the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Rochester.

“That twist could reach deep into Earth’s inner core,” says Tarduno, who recently wrote about the findings for Physics Today magazine. Tarduno is frequently cited by news outlets, like CNN, The Washington Post, and Smithsonian magazine, on matters related to the Earth’s inner core, or dynamo, and magnetic field. He can be reached at john.tarduno@rochester.edu.

Washington is touting the proposed Black Sea ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, but there are signs that Russia could emerge from the deal with the upper hand.

Hein Goemans, a political science professor at the University of Rochester whose research focuses on territorial disputes and what starts and ends wars, says the agreement “doesn’t really mean much.”

“What matters is territorial divisions,” Goemans says. “I see this ceasefire deal as Russia trying to play the United States.”

Goemans says the deal would be reasonable if the U.S. were willing to enforce it with sanctions if, or when, Russia reneges.

“Ukraine should not believe this deal is in any way credible if the U.S. is not willing to commit to sanctions if Russia reneges, which it will,” Goemans says.

He adds that the deal also favors Russia if other parts of it, like the repatriation of Ukrainian children, are not effected.

“The chance that Russia would effectively help with the repatriation of Ukrainian abducted children is zero,” Goemans says. “It appears Russia has not compromised on any dimension.”

Goemans recently shared similar thoughts with Newsweek, and is regularly tapped by news outlets around the world for his insights on the war in Ukraine and territorial disputes in hotspots across the globe. Reach Goemans by clicking on his profile.

QR codes are used everywhere nowadays – to pay for metered parking, to read menus at restaurants, to win a free cup of coffee. Cybercriminals are using them, too – redirecting users to harmful websites that harvest their data.

The practice is known as “quishing,” derived from QR code phishing, and it is a fast-growing cybercrime. But it doesn’t have to be.

University of Rochester engineers Gaurav Sharma and Irving Barron have devised a new form of QR code – called a self-authenticating dual-modulated QR (SDMQR) – that protects smartphone users from quishing attacks by signaling when users are being directed to a safe link or a potential scam.

Gaurav is a professor of electrical and computer engineering, computer science, and biostatistics and computational biology. Barron is an assistant professor of instruction in electrical computer engineering.

Their creation involves allowing companies to register their websites and embed a cryptographic signature in a QR code. When the code is scanned, the user is notified that the code is from an official source and safe.

Gaurav and Barron recently wrote about their technology in the journal IEEE Security and Privacy, and spoke about their work on the National Science Foundation's Discovery Files podcast. They can be reached by email at gaurav.sharma@rochester.edu and ibarron@ur.rochester.edu.