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April 10, 2025—Funding freeze threatens research on military safety, expressive faces are more likeable, and the hypocrisy of the Breakthrough Prizes. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Cornell's Electron Storage Ring (CESR) is a particle accelerator that is used as an x-ray source for the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. Cornell Wilson Wilson Synchrotron Lab | | - The federal government froze research grants to Cornell University, which works on 75 Department of Defense grants investigating robotics, superconductors and military safety. | 3 min read
- 2024 was a "breakthrough year" for small, sleek AI models that rival the behemoths, a state of the industry report shows. | 4 min read
- President Trump signed executive orders on Tuesday that keep aging coal generators running and undermine efforts to rein in pollution, including mercury and arsenic emissions. | 7 min read
- Want more respect? Get a better microphone. From job interviews to dating, we subconsciously judge one another based on sound quality when we interact digitally. | 3 min read
| | People produce, on average, 101 facial movements per minute in a typical social interaction. Scientists measured facial movements of more than 1,300 people during conversations with others. They then had a subset of those people rate how much they liked their conversation partners. The team found that people who had more expressive faces were more liked by a new social partner. Why this is interesting: Expressive faces appear to be easier to understand and are overall more predictable, the researchers hypothesize, which makes those faces more likeable. The trend was clear no matter the emotion: Although happy expressions were highly likable, expressive people were better liked even when they weren't especially smiley. What the experts say: Throughout human history, close human bonds have been crucial to our survival as a species. "Any skill or behavior that improved someone's ability to create and maintain lifesaving bonds was likely to persist in our gene pool and cultural repertoires over the generations," write the researchers, a group from Nottingham Trent University in England. "And our research suggests that facial expressivity may fall in this category." | | Better Long Bridges"The bridge shown is composed of a middle truss and two end trusses. The arches under the end trusses constitute compression chords. The [heavy] curved line is a chain which is under constant tension, anchored at each end, and the ends sit on curved beds of rollers. The arches and chords are hinged, so the structure is free to move according to thermal demands, and hence maintain its rigidity." —From the April 24, 1875 issue of Scientific American | | (Nani Welch Keliihoomalu for Nature) | | Oceanographer Andrea Kealoha sets up sampling stations in the waters surrounding the Hawaiian island of Maui to monitor the impact of a 2023 wildfire on the neighboring coral reefs. "The cage holds a sophisticated electronic sensor that measures the water's temperature, salinity and pressure, as well as its oxygen, pH and chlorophyll levels and turbidity, or clarity, every 10 seconds for months and months," she says. "Our community and our culture are so heavily connected to the ocean. We really need our ocean to be healthy, to support our community and our culture — and our economy, as well." (Nature | 3 min read) | | | | |
- This week, the Breakthrough Prizes handed out $3 million in awards to scientific innovators. But it's ironic that the billionaire backers of the prizes, "rolled out the red carpet for science while the autocrat they helped take office ruthlessly carpet-bombs the U.S. scientific enterprise," writes Megha Satyanarayana, chief opinion editor for Scientific American. Her advice for the prize sponsors: "Fund more basic research. Back more science. Put your money into the beginning of the next Breakthrough Prizes instead of at the end." | 4 min read
| | Making goofy faces at babies turns out to be good science. Many studies have shown that within the first six months of life, infants are especially sensitive to emotional information in facial and vocal expression—after a mere four months, babies can determine happy, sad or fearful faces. If likability is linked to expressiveness, then sharpening babies' face-reading skills seems essential (no matter how silly you look doing it). | | You can't see my face, but it's expressing gratitude that you're reading this newsletter. Send feedback to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | | |
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