Latest news with #VirginiaCommonwealthUniversity
Harpers Bazaar Arabia
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Harpers Bazaar Arabia
Qatari Calligrapher Maryam Altajer Shares Her Life Lessons As A Regional Creative
From self-care secrets and splurges to temptations and tomes, Maryam shares personal and professional learnings Maryam looks through a unique introspective lens, exploring a multitude of realms that are then reflected in her contemporary pieces. The Doha-based creative, who holds both a BFA and MFA in Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University, delves into the contrast between our superficial selves and the depths within, prompting reflection on self-discovery and the transient nature of our internal dialogues. Maryam's innovative approach to portraying abstract Arabic calligraphy, has garnered recognition both the Middle East and internationally in galleries and exhibitions, with the artist citing a Ramadan collaboration with Bvlgari – a recent career highlight. Is it more important to be liked or respected? Respect is more important. And the most important form of respect is self-respect so you can be content with the way you live your life. What book changed your life? Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren. It helped me understand that beauty can be imperfect and that there's no need to explain what you find beautiful, whether it's aesthetically pleasing or not. What did your last Spotify Wrapped look like? Ambient pop for mellow ethereal vibes and R&B. What is your motto? Love what you do and do it from the bottom of your heart. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I'd like to slow down and not overwhelm myself with work. Find more balance even though I enjoy the fast-paced life. What's your biggest extravagance? Time off and a self-care splurge. What are you proudest of? My dedication to trying new things and the courage I've cultivated to expand my boundaries. What does success mean to you? Loving what I do, and doing what I love full time. What would you ban if you had the chance? Stress and procrastination. What's your most treasured possession? An album documenting my achievements. It reminds me to trust the process helps me realise how far I've come. If you could be anyone else, who would it be? I would still choose to be myself! I would want to experience the same things and enjoy every step of the journey. What's your guiltiest pleasure? Binge eating excessive amounts of dark chocolate. What inspires you most about your job? The freedom to transform raw emotion into abstract art. What experience taught you most about life? Meaningful lessons often come from unexpected situations – good or bad. If you could only wear one brand for the rest of your life, what would it be? Sticking to one brand is boring. I enjoy changing and mixing things up. What do you consider to be overrated? Minimalism is killing the beauty of details, patterns, and textures around us… erasing this sense of history and different periods of time. What would you tell your younger self? Stay dedicated and enjoy the process.
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Who's the real invasive species: us or them? Ecologists are rethinking urban biodiversity
Climate change is already having a profound impact on cities, as global urbanization pushes more and more people to live in them. The animals who cohabitate with human, whether we appreciate their presence or not, are changing too. Specifically, there's been an increase in invasive species — a term used to describe introduced organisms that bring dramatic and often destructive changes, and sometimes can drive other species to extinction. But here's the thing: Invasive species don't stop evolving themselves. Consider the infamous brown rats of New York City, which have evolved longer noses and shorter upper molar tooth rows, the better to enjoy the Big Apple's colder weather and higher-quality food. Other invasive species are adapting behaviorally, physically and genetically to life in cities as well. While invasive species pose major public health implications and can certainly affect humans' quality of life, their adaptive abilities can rival those of human migrants and pose a puzzling question: Who's the real invader here? Brian Verrelli, a professor in the Center of Biological Data Science at Virginia Commonwealth University, sees many of these questions as philosophical. "What does it mean to invade something, right?" he asked in a video interview. "What does it mean for humans to invade one area or another? Are there areas that we invade, or are humans welcome freely to move around the planet? We know that's the case in some places, and certainly not the case in others. "It's a bit of an interesting, hypocritical conversation," Verrelli added, given that "we are facilitating the movement of these organisms around the planet." Rats have invaded new continents because ships carrying them in the hold. Spiders move across continents inside our cars. And we have all literally "translocated" organisms from one place to another, Verrelli said, because we wanted to — flowers and household pets, for example. "Traveling globally, one can notice the same suite of species in many cities around the world — biological invasions creating a kind of global Cuisinart where the urban biota becomes homogeneous," Laura Meyerson, a professor at the University of Rhode Island who studies invasive species and ecological restoration, told Salon. " She cited the nearly ubiquitous tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), which is found in cities around the world. "This introduced tree is threatening important ancient ruins such as the Roman Colosseum. Interestingly, it is the host plant in its native range for the spotted lanternfly," an invasive pest that has recently gotten a lot of attention in North America. "Other common species in urban areas globally are Norway rats and English pigeons, both of which can spread disease," Meyerson said, along with "European starlings and the common reed (Phragmites australis), both of those being aggressive introduced species that displace native species." But Verrelli believes that if we can't exactly determine who counts as an invader, we also can't really say what's being invaded. That might sound like an abstruse philosophical argument, but he says it's a hot debate within the scientific community. "We have what are called 'stud books' for our primates at zoos all over the world," Verrelli said. "We don't count that as invasion, but we are directly facilitating that. I'm hitting this note because it very much underlies our idea of invasion and gene flow, how genetics moves around and what it means to point to an organism and say it belongs to a certain species." Verrelli has studied the spread of black widow spiders, an increasing medical health concern in cities along the West Coast. People now encounter these potentially deadly spiders, which used to be found in isolated desert areas, in urban or suburban garages and yards. "As we're altering the landscape within cities, these areas are becoming attractive to black widows," Verrelli said. "They're all around us now, so we need to be able to understand what's happening as they're moving into cities." There are important health and environmental questions about whether black widows are becoming more deadly or displacing other arachnid species, but Verrelli raises a different question: "They were here first. Are they really invading the urban area? Yes, because we plopped the urban area down in the middle of the desert." Verrelli spent nine years in Arizona, an arid environment where many organisms struggle to survive, but that has now been altered and made more hospitable by human habitation. Indeed, the American Southwest is particularly vulnerable to invasive species, including highly adaptive species that can affect human health, largely thanks to the rapid spread of urbanism — which can bring water to desert environments while also creating artificial heat islands in colder climates, and allowing tropical species to expand their ranges. Meyerson defines invasive species as "non-native species introduced either intentionally or accidentally by humans outside of their native range," while noting a crucial distinction between non-native but non-invasive species — tulips were imported to North America from Europe, for example, but do no ecological harm — and invasive ones. Most invasion scientists aim "to prevent introductions of harmful invasive species in the first place through public education, better screening tools and risk assessments," she said. But once such species are introduced, detecting and eradicating them quickly becomes the goal. If that doesn't work, the next goal is about managing and containing them, preventing further spread, and supporting native species by managing green spaces and natural habitats within the urban environment. "Urban areas can also be important stopover sites for migrating species," she added. "We need to manage these areas to help support these seasonal migrations." It's no longer reasonable, Verrelli believes, to draw a neat line between urban and wild spaces. "For a very long time, even most scientists studying urban areas as ecologists didn't really treat urban areas as 'natural' environments, because humans lived in them," he said. "That's something that I smile at, because if we don't believe humans are part of the natural world, we're in trouble. Most of our natural world is going to be consumed by humans, in which case we're ignoring a major influence on how organismal biodiversity is successful." Patterns of evolution play out in urban environments. A classic example often taught in high school biology classes is that of industrial melanism in the peppered moth, a British species tha looks, well, "peppered," with black dots on a mostly white background. There had always been occasional all-black moths, but from the mid-19th century, observers began to see more and more black moths in the industrial cities of England and Scotland. The mostly white moths stood out in the sooty environment and became easy prey for predators. Ultimately, the ones able to blend in were more likely to survive and reproduce. This is an adaptation — in evolutionary biology, a trait that arose due to natural selection. But when we casually talk about species adapting to life in the big city, that's not always what we're describing. A bear that overturns your trash can and figures out how to get your leftovers isn't "adapting"; it's just repurposing a behavior that evolved in its natural or ancestral environment. This kind of transfer of an evolutionary adaptation to a new context is called "exaptation." "It's really important that we know the difference between these two," Verrelli said. "We're not just trying to classify for the purpose of classification. If we can tell the exaptations versus the adaptations, then we are going to really understand the selective agents." Verrelli cites the work of Kristen Winchell at NYU, who has studied anoles lizards moving from forests into urban areas in Puerto Rico. In cities, she found, these lizards evolved longer legs relative to their body size, allowing them to crawl up metal pipes. That's not an exaptation, where the same structures that let them climb trees are applied to the new setting, but actual evolutionary adaptations. In Verrelli's view, understanding this difference isn't about discouraging these animals' presence, but making it easier for us and them to live in harmony and reasonable comfort. If an urban lizard can't climb up a pipe, an urban cat may select it right out of existence. "How do we design the urban environment to make them more readily livable to these organisms?" Verrelli asks. "What kind of surfaces should we be developing? What kind of areas? Where do we put light, where do we not put light?" Such questions will be "very important to understanding how organisms can move through urban environments." Sometimes our attempts to address invasive species can be counterproductive: Meyerson cites the example of the American elm, a formerly popular street tree appreciated not only for their beauty but also their hardiness under harsh urban conditions. But Dutch elm disease, an invasive fungus spread by bark beetles to which the native trees had no defense, has decimated the elm by tens of millions across the continent. "Ironically, many of these street trees were replaced by other introduced invasive species such as Norway maple or callery pear," she said, "which in turn have their own impacts." Introduced species are wreaking havoc due to similar lack of evolved defenses in the American beech, many amphibian species and North American bats of different kinds. Generalist creatures, those that can thrive in a variety of environments, will most easily adapt to city life and may go on to decimate native species. There is general agreement that we are no longer dealing with either a purely urban, human environment or a purely wild and untouched one. But while Verrelli belongs to one side in the ongoing debate among conservation biologists, the other includes those who believe cities are an incurable blight and that their spread must be reduced or reversed. His side, roughly speaking, sees urbanization as a permanent reality and harmonious biodiversity — sharing these spaces with our plant and animal relatives — as the most important goal. They see the distinction between wild spaces and urban spaces collapsing, which is happening anyway, not always harmoniously. "In understanding invasion, we need to learn more about cities," Verrelli said. "We need to learn more about invaders. We need to learn more about how they're doing, what they're doing. That's why we study things like bedbugs and black widows, because these are good models to learn about how this is happening, and because it's going to keep happening. "Instead of the idea of, let's go study things outside of cities, because this are the important areas we need to conserve, I'm on the other side. We need to study invasions in cities, because this is largely the future, whether we like it or not. As we move into the future, we're preparing a new landscape that's evolving all the time. Let's prepare biodiversity for it as well."
Forbes
06-06-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Higher Ed's AI Evolution Starts With Asking The Right Questions
When students interact with artificial intelligence in the classroom, something interesting happens. In Pearson's new Asking to Learn report, researchers examined nearly 130,000 student queries to AI-powered study tools. The research showed that most students begin prompting AI with quick requests such as definitions, summaries, and straightforward clarifications. But a striking number go further. About one-third of student inputs reflected more advanced cognitive complexity, and 20% of all inputs were at levels consistent with higher-order critical thinking. This means that while 80% of queries focused on basic factual or conceptual knowledge, one in five went further, which demonstrates students actively using AI to engage in deeper inquiry, connect ideas, or challenge assumptions. Yet these moments of curiosity don't arise by accident. They're shaped—and either encouraged or constrained—by the systems and cultures that surround students. The future of higher education with AI depends not just on which tools institutions adopt, but on whether they build environments that reward questioning at every level. Some campuses are already leading the way, moving beyond technology for efficiency's sake to redesign the student experience itself. Their goal: to put inquiry and agency at the heart of learning. At Virginia Commonwealth University, the rollout of an AI-powered advising tool marked a turning point. Instead of simply automating course drop requests, the system shows students the downstream effects of each decision—credits lost, graduation timelines shifted, financial aid implications. What was once a perfunctory task is now a moment for students to pause, reflect, and ask, 'What if?' Students leave with answers, but more importantly, with the habit of questioning their own choices and understanding the consequences. Virginia Commonwealth University is a member of the University Innovation Alliance, a national coalition of public research universities focused on expanding student success through innovation. As Executive Director, Bridget Burns guides the UIA's collaborative efforts—including VCU's work—to pilot and scale AI-driven strategies for student engagement and support. She captures the ethos that the UIA aims to encourage: 'Every one of my institutions should be actively using AI and not hiding from it… in ways that are rigorous but ambitious.' AI, used intentionally to support student decision-making, can turn routine administrative moments into formative learning experiences. The technology becomes an inspiration for self-reflection and thoughtful decision-making, not just a means to create efficiency. A few years ago, South Carolina State University faced declining enrollment and the threat of closure. Instead of retreating, SCSU, in partnership with Ed Advancement—a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening mission-driven colleges and HBCUs—invested in a robust CRM and a 24/7 chatbot, making it effortless for students to ask about deadlines, billing, resources, or academic roadblocks—anytime, anywhere. The result was transformative. First-year enrollment grew by 32% in a single year, fueled by a staggering 176% increase in applications. Total enrollment jumped 13% after the first year, with another 15% increase the following year. The number of new students surged by 57% in year one alone. These technology-driven changes didn't just fill seats—they generated over a million dollars in new tuition and fees in 2023 and freed up more than 400 hours of administrative staff time. Behind every metric—enrollment gains, reduced summer melt—was a simple shift: students were empowered to ask, and the institution was ready to listen and respond. As Cecilia Marshall of Ed Advancement explains, 'For us it was really about meeting with the institutions, understanding what their needs were to grow enrollment and increase retention and then going into the space and seeing what [supports] Lesson: Removing barriers to inquiry is a force multiplier for student success. When students can ask questions without friction or delay, they're more likely to take ownership of their education and persist. Digital Promise focuses on a deeper challenge: ensuring that AI doesn't just make education faster or more convenient, but richer. Their approach is to train faculty and students alike to treat AI as a thinking partner. Through research-practice partnerships and the creation of inclusive, AI-powered courseware, Digital Promise is raising the bar. Here, students are guided to ask better questions, critique AI responses, and reflect on their own reasoning. Inquiry isn't just permitted—it's required. Barbara Means of Digital Promise is blunt about the risks: 'We don't believe in banning [AI] because it's ineffectual… but if we don't attend to how students use AI—and really scaffold the metacognitive side—we're actually likely to increase equity gaps rather than closing equity gaps.' She's clear about the essential skills: 'Just because you can get the answers from generative AI doesn't mean that students don't need to have their own deep domain knowledge and expertise in those fields in order to be sort of well equipped to use the tools.' While quantitative outcomes from Digital Promise's programs are still emerging, their focus on faculty development and metacognitive scaffolding is aligned with evidence showing AI can increase students' engagement in higher-order thinking. Lesson: The most meaningful uses of AI in education do more than deliver answers—they sharpen metacognition and critical thinking. The goal isn't just digital literacy, but AI literacy: developing learners who question, adapt, and think about their own thinking. Across all these innovations—whether it's a late-night study tool, an advising dashboard, or a campus chatbot—the common thread is clear. When students have the freedom and encouragement to ask, reflect, and connect, technology becomes a launchpad for agency and deeper learning. Pearson's data makes the case: when AI is woven into a culture that values curiosity and self-awareness, it's not just a tool for efficiency—it's a catalyst for equity, engagement, and transformation.
Gizmodo
29-05-2025
- General
- Gizmodo
RFK Jr.'s ‘Make America Healthy Again' Report Cites Fake Studies
President Donald Trump held an event at the White House last week to announce the release of something called the MAHA Report, a product of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new commission that's supposed to 'Make America Healthy Again.' But if you weren't already skeptical of the report's findings, an article from the nonprofit news outlet NOTUS should give you pause. Several of the studies cited in the report don't even exist. NOTUS reporters spent five days combing through the 522 citations in the report. They found dozens of broken links and studies with missing or incorrect authors. There were also issues with citations having the wrong issue numbers for the journals they appeared in, according to NOTUS. But the most damning instances were at least seven studies that simply didn't exist. For instance, the MAHA Report claims that drug advertising has led to a rise in ADHD and depression prescriptions being written for children. But try to find the study that's cited in the report for that claim: Findling, R. L., et al. (2009). Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern. Journal of Child and Adolescent Pyschopharmacology, 19(5), 487-492. You can't find that study because it doesn't exist. Not in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, or anywhere else. The supposed author of that report, Robert L. Findling, is a real person and currently teaches at the Virginia Commonwealth University. But a spokesperson for that school told NOTUS he didn't author any such study. The MAHA Report also tries to claim that 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed, citing a 2017 paper titled, 'Overprescribing of Corticosteroids for Children with Asthma.' Again, the paper doesn't exist. NOTUS has other examples of fake studies it found, but even the real studies cited have issues. The report references a paper published in the journal Pediatrics that referred to how screen time impacted sleep in children. The paper was realm but it wasn't in Pediatrics and it didn't actually study children—it looked at adults. The report appears to be littered with errors like that. The White House responded to questions about the fake studies when asked about what NOTUS had found during a regular press briefing Thursday. In typically evasive fashion, press secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to any errors as 'formatting issues' and said those were being addressed and the report would be 'updated.' 'I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed in the report will be updated, but it does not negate the substance of the report, which as you know is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government, and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government,' Leavitt said. Leavitt was asked whether reports like this are created using artificial intelligence tools, and the press secretary told the journalist she 'can't speak to that' and would 'defer [sic] you to the Department of Health and Human Services.' And while it's unclear whether the MAHA Report really was created with the help of AI, it wouldn't be surprising. The White House has been a big booster of AI, touting investments in data centers by companies like OpenAI and Oracle. But generative AI is known to frequently just make things up, including entire books or studies when asked for a list. A freelance writer for the Chicago Sun-Times recently used AI to create a list of new books everyone should be excited for this summer. Ten of the 15 books on the list simply don't exist, though many of the authors named were real. The problem, of course, is that anyone using AI to create lists or citations needs to actually check to see if those things are real. And when you have to do that kind of research to fact-check your robotic tool, it can start to become more work than just doing the research yourself using existing tools like Google Scholar. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a dangerously fringe antivax figure who suggested in a 2021 book that he doesn't even believe in germ theory. But this is the guy who's overseeing a complete overhaul of the U.S. public health system, and it seems like nothing—not even a scandal showing his first hallmark report to be fraudulent—will unseat him from his position of power over our lives.
Time of India
29-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Replacing THIS food from one meal can be beneficial for liver health, experts reveal
A recent study reveals that swapping meat for plant-based protein in just one meal can significantly benefit individuals with liver disease. Researchers found that this dietary change lowers harmful ammonia levels, which are linked to cirrhosis and cognitive decline. Experts emphasize that even small dietary adjustments can positively impact liver health. Liver diseases are a growing health concern. Many factors contribute to the disease, and one among them is diet. Scientists have confirmed the link between a poor diet and increased risk of developing liver disease, particularly non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Recently, researchers have found that avoiding one food item can significantly benefit liver function. A new study by researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine and the Richmond VA Medical Center found that replacing meat with plant-based proteins for one meal can be beneficial for liver patients. Swapping meat with plant-based proteins in just one meal lowers harmful ammonia levels, found in people with advanced liver disease. High levels of ammonia in the blood are linked to cirrhosis and a type of cognitive decline called hepatic encephalopathy. Cirrhosis affects the liver's ability to process toxins like ammonia, which is produced in the intestines when gut bacteria break down food. In healthy individuals, ammonia is processed by the liver and excreted by the kidneys. However, in patients with cirrhosis, this ammonia accumulates in the bloodstream and can reach the brain, causing hepatic encephalopathy, which is a potentially life-threatening condition. This condition impairs cognitive function and can lead to confusion, delirium, coma, or death. To understand how removing meat from one meal could help liver patients, the researchers followed 30 adults with cirrhosis, all of whom typically ate a Western-style diet rich in red meat and low in fiber. The categorized the participants randomly and assigned them to eat one of three types of burgers—beef/pork, vegan meat substitute, or vegetarian bean-based, each containing 20 grams of protein. The meal also included low-fat potato chips, a whole-grain bun, and water. No condiments or toppings were added to this meal. The researchers then tested blood and urine samples, and compared it with before the meal, to examine the ammonia levels and gut bacteria composition. They found that people who consumed meat burgers had higher levels of amino acids linked to ammonia production and hepatic encephalopathy, compared to those who ate the plant-based options. 'It was exciting to see that even small changes in your diet, like having one meal without meat once in a while, could benefit your liver by lowering harmful ammonia levels in patients with cirrhosis,' Jasmohan Bajaj, a world-renowned expert in hepatic encephalopathy with the Richmond VA Medical Center said in a statement. 'We now need more research to learn if consuming meals without meat goes beyond reducing ammonia to preventing problems in brain function and liver disease progression. ' Smriti Mandhana Flaunts Fit Look in Masked Athleisure in Andheri 'It can be so hard to make long-term dietary and behavioral changes. We wondered if making an occasional change could be an option for these patients. Liver patients with cirrhosis should know that making positive changes in their diet doesn't have to be overwhelming or difficult,' Bajaj added. What should you do So, does that mean skipping meal in just one meal can help liver patients? 'The main take-home message was that occasionally skipping meat from just a single meal can have benefits for patients with cirrhosis. A simple change to a patient's diet or substituting some parts of it could be a simple and accessible method to reduce ammonia generation,' Bajaj said. One step to a healthier you—join Times Health+ Yoga and feel the change
