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Soda-soaked eggs and a lost tooth: Med student teaches oral health in Lebanon
Moreen Ng, a medical student at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, recently visited Hanover Street Elementary School in Lebanon to provide oral health education to third-graders in the face of limited dental care available in the Upper Valley.
Eilers Family Sports and Human Performance Institute marks first-of-its-kind Notre Dame partnership across athletics and academics
Pat and Jana Eilers of Winnetka, Illinois, have made an additional $25 million gift to the University of Notre Dame to create the new Eilers Family Sports and Human Performance Institute, increasing their total investment in this area to $50 million. A first-of-its-kind partnership between Notre Dame Athletics and the University’s academic units, the institute will support cutting-edge research on physiology, neuroscience, data science, and athletic performance—integrating scholarship with one of the premier athletics programs in American higher education.
Tillamook teen wins national FFA title for flower business
Coastal town known for dairy, but students get well-rounded ag education Tillamook, Ore., is known for dairy, but a student from this coastal community won a national FFA title for […]
After Career in Business, Dave Winter Serves Hometown as Parish Life Director
The former investment manager and local shoe store owner now turns his skills, education, and experience to leading Holy Cross Parish in Springfield, Delaware County.
Rodrigo Martin Suarez on leadership and education in Fresno
Meet Rodrigo Martin Suarez of California Teaching Fellows Foundation. Discover how his journey shapes education and leadership in the Central Valley. Read more.
Rhode Island voters approve higher education bond, providing funds for new URI integrated health building
KINGSTON, R.I. – Nov. 5, 2026 – Rhode Island voters overwhelmingly approved Question 1 on Election Day, Nov. 3, authorizing a $275 million bond investment in the state’s public colleges and universities, including $165 million for a new integrated health building at the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus. The bond approval represents a significant […]
Why Youth Are Turning to AI for Mental Health Advice
Hannah Simon — a child and adolescent psychiatrist and the medical director of the Brandt Behavioral Health Treatment Center and Retreat at Rutgers, which provides evidence-based behavioral health care and outpatient services to New Jersey youth and young adults — discusses the increased use of chatbots for mental health advice and best practices for using it as an educational tool.
I lost my period for two decades — I wish I had known what I know now
A former patient shares her struggle with hypothalamic amenorrhea and advocates for better education on the menstrual cycle as a vital sign.
How Camp KEEP Turned a Love of Science into a Calling to Teach
Inspired by a transformative sixth-grade experience at Camp KEEP, Frontier High School student teacher Marissa Moseley went on to conduct important scientific research, develop drought-resistant crops, and pursue a career in education to inspire the...
‘ResearchED’: Building the Case for Learning Science, One Saturday a Time
MAPLEWOOD, Mo. — At your typical education conference, the keynote speaker takes the stage with a big, flashy multimedia slide show and innovative ideas guaranteed to pump up the crowd. But on a recen...
Public health experts demand tighter global restrictions on fireworks
Fireworks pose an underestimated danger to public health and require stronger regulations and sustained public education campaigns to help prevent devastating, yet entirely avoidable injuries, warn US experts in The BMJ today.
State Prize for VISTA Science Experience Center
The VISTA Science Experience Center was awarded the 2026 Austrian State Prize for Adult Education in the category “Science Education for Adults.” Federal Minister Eva-Maria Holzleitner presented the award on November 4 at the Haus der Begegnung in Vienna. The award recognizes the innovative concept
When papers become currency: a Chinese debate about trust in science
Last Saturday, 31 October, I went to the University of Hong Kong’s Beijing Centre for its Talent Forum. It was the fourth stop in the series this year, following events in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang, Shenzhen’s Qianhai, and on HKU’s main campus. The programme covered a remarkable distance in one afternoon. HKU’s Xiao-Jing Wang discussed computational neuroscience, intelligence, and the prefrontal cortex—before even delivering his inaugural public lecture to students back in Hong Kong. His colleague Bing Zhang took us from the Big Bang to artificial intelligence. Tsinghua’s Xue Lan asked how AI might reshape the institutional infrastructure underpinning higher education. There were lively panels featuring industry leaders from JD.com, Xiaomi, Haier—and Kaiser Y Kuo on the closing panel discussing innovation and international connections. I cannot pretend to have followed every detail of the brain models or the astrophysics. The talk that stayed with me was closer to something we have covered before: Zhou Zhonghe 周忠和 on papers, evaluation, and scientific trust. Zhou is a palaeontologist, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also editor-in-chief of The Intellectual (知识分子), China’s leading science commentary platform. His subject was uncomfortable enough for a room full of successful academics: what happens when the system for recognising good science starts rewarding something else? Part of my interest came from our sister newsletter, The East is Read, which covered the controversy around “Geng Tongxue” in May. A PhD dropout from Beihang University, Geng has publicly challenged papers by prominent researchers through detailed online allegations of manipulated images and fabricated data. At Tongji University, an investigation into a challenged Nature paper found academic misconduct, and the dean of its life sciences school was removed. The affair brought doubts about academic integrity well beyond laboratories and university committees. How could someone outside the established hierarchy spot problems in papers that had passed through prestigious journals and institutions? And what, exactly, had all that prestige guaranteed? Zhou approached these questions through two essays published in July by The Intellectual: one by Wang Xiaodong, director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, and a response by Wang Liming, of Shanghai’s Shangsi Institute of Natural Sciences. Both began with the controversy over Geng. Their arguments deserve a wider audience, so I want to put parts of them alongside what Zhou said on Saturday. Wang Xiaodong’s starting point is evolution. A research system selects for the behaviour it rewards. Grants, jobs, journals, talent programmes, and prizes collectively determine which scientists prosper and which practices get passed down from advisors to students. “Whatever the system rewards is what it will evolve to produce,” he writes, citing the ancient Chinese saying: The King of Chu loved slender waists, and many in the palace starved to death. That is a more demanding diagnosis than saying there are dishonest people in science. Punishing a fraudster does not change the selective environment that made a particular kind of research profitable. His account also gives scientific success an awkward role in the story. As Zhou put it on Saturday, science became a victim of its own success. Once research became central to industry, national power, and economic growth, universities and laboratories expanded, and public money followed. That created an administrative need for rapid decisions: who should get the next grant, the next laboratory, the next appointment? The difficulty is that the true value of a discovery may take years or decades of testing and building to become clear. Resource allocation cannot wait that long. Publication counts, journal prestige, impact factors, and citations therefore become convenient ways to make an instant judgement. “The real problem is not that these indicators have no value,” Wang Xiaodong writes, “but that they are trying to answer a question that only time can answer.” Telling administrators simply to stop counting papers will never be enough. They still have budgets to distribute and appointments to make. Something has to replace the shortcut. Zhou described the consequences inside publishing. Papers acquire ever more requirements: a complete story, polished presentation, extensive datasets, and accessibility to readers beyond the immediate field. Individually, those demands sound reasonable. Together, he warned, they produce formulaic “eight-legged” papers 八股文 and rigid reviewing, while genuinely original or non-consensus work struggles to get past journal editors—some of whom wield immense gatekeeping power despite having limited laboratory experience themselves. Meanwhile, the demands for sprawling, “complete” narratives have fuelled a wider replication crisis. Wang Xiaodong uses a mahjong metaphor to describe the result: put the complex papers published by the exact same lab over several years side by side, and they often look like “Thirteen Orphans” (十三不靠)—every tile completely unrelated to the next, and none of them reproducible by outsiders. Zhou also spoke frankly as an editor who has trouble finding reviewers. Everyone wants someone else to review their work; qualified senior researchers have little time to return the favour. The labour is anonymous, unpaid, and brings almost no institutional recognition, so it increasingly gets passed down to postdocs and graduate students. And while anonymity protects reviewers from rank and personal favours, hyper-specialisation means an author’s most qualified reviewer is often a direct competitor, shielded from accountability. The protection and the problem coexist. Wang Liming takes the argument a step further. The decisive change, in his essay, is the instant conversion of academic honour into material resources. Once a paper can be cashed in for funding, a job, students, commercial investment, or even a company valuation, scientists are alienated from their work: they must keep minting this “research currency” to keep their teams alive. He is careful not to romanticise the past. The old world of gentleman scientists—financially independent figures like Boyle and Darwin who needed nothing from external funders—was also a closed club that excluded people without inherited wealth, women, and much of humanity outside the West. Professional science allowed ordinary people, himself included, to become researchers. Nobody should want to undo that. The problem, in his account, is an exchange system that becomes too uniform and too difficult to correct. His most pointed Chinese example is the “hat” (帽子): the prestigious talent designation that brings continuing access to money, laboratory space, students, and institutional influence. “If papers are the circulating currency of the research system, then a ‘hat’ is a bond that pays interest over the long term,” he writes. A paper at least requires another round of peer review. A title in the Chinese context can lock in a judgement made years ago and turn it into permanent status rent, regardless of whether its holder is still doing good science. Here, official institutions hire, organise, and evaluate scientists. Unlike honours awarded by autonomous academic communities in the West, a Chinese “hat” blends non-scientist administrative power with state authority. Once granted, it turns a past judgement into permanent status rent that is nearly impossible to revoke—because taking a hat off would imply that official authority erred in putting it on. Both Wangs see China as experiencing, at compressed speed, pressures present across global science. Research expansion, rising investment, publication growth, and elaborate evaluation metrics arrived in China within two or three decades rather than two or three centuries. Zhou agreed with that international framing—noting that recent US White House science policy documents and the new president of the US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow palaeontologist who recently visited Zhou’s institute in Beijing, have raised strikingly similar warnings about consensus-bound peer review, short-term project grants, and the replication crisis. Still, Zhou emphasised that China’s traditional hierarchy, personal networks (guanxi), and the ethos that “a good scholar becomes an official” (学而优则仕) amplify those pressures at home. So what would change things? Here Zhou’s tone differed from the call for a revolution in scientific trust in Wang Xiaodong’s essay. As an evolutionary biologist, Zhou favoured patchwork repair (修修补补). Living systems survive through accumulated adjustments; dramatic mutations are usually fatal. Science cannot return to a small, slow-moving pastoral era, especially after the successive accelerations of professionalisation after the Second World War, the internet, and now artificial intelligence. But it can alter the local environment in which researchers work. He pointed to domestic experiments designed to support unconventional research and diversify funding, including Tencent’s New Cornerstone Investigator Program, the Xplorer Prize, and the Future Science Prize. He also mentioned participating in reviews for “major non-consensus projects” under the National Natural Science Foundation of China. One guiding principle he recalled was wonderfully direct: “Failure is allowed; corruption is not” (允许失败，不允许腐败). That distinction would mean quite a lot if taken seriously. An honest attempt that fails should not have to disguise itself as a success to survive an assessment. Wang Liming’s essay adds a sharp caveat to the optimism about new domestic funders. Multiple organisations do not automatically produce multiple ways of judging science. If the same pool of senior domestic scientists makes the decisions through the same two-round review procedures, it is still “fake diversity.” He argues for three distinct kinds of money: broad baseline funding governed by fair procedures; patient funding for questions that take ten years; and non-consensus funding based on individual taste, deliberately empowering a few genuine experts to make biased, contrarian bets on eccentric ideas that would inevitably be averaged out by a committee. Replacing one monopoly with another achieves little; a healthy ecosystem needs variance. Zhou’s proposals for publishing were similarly concrete: strip papers of their resource-allocation burden and return them to recording discoveries and establishing priority; separate dissemination from evaluation, as eLife and Peer Community In do; adopt more modular “micro-publications” and real-name endorsements; recognize the labour of editors and reviewers; and give replication work proper credit rather than treating it as an unpublishable dead end. AI makes every part of this debate more urgent—and Zhou wove it throughout his talk. In his own preparation, he used AI to survey the declining influence of academic monographs, noting how tools are already changing how scholars gather information. More fundamentally, he placed AI as the latest great acceleration in scientific history: just as the internet sped up the pace of research and tightened external resource pressures, AI is compressing the cycle again. In the essays Zhou cited, AI cuts both ways. Wang Xiaodong expects large language models to erase much of the English-writing disadvantage long faced by Chinese scientists, further swelling the flood of papers coming out of Chinese labs. Wang Liming sees AI accelerating both ends of the trust crisis: it lowers the cost of paper mills and fabricated images just as quickly as it lowers the cost of automated image forensics, data auditing, and code reproduction. “Whoever builds the verification layer wins,” Wang Liming writes. His proposed alternative to the static, packaged “story paper” is a continuously versioned “unit of discovery” containing a falsifiable claim, raw data, analysis code, experimental parameters, and an ongoing log of independent checks—where negative results and failed replications are recorded rather than buried. Zhou ended his keynote by bringing AI back to the question of scientific honour and credit. Citing a recent Intellectual discussion on “What AI Means for Mathematics” featuring Fields Medalist Deng Yu 邓煜—at a moment when AI is already batch-solving mathematical conjectures, as HKU Vice-President Lin Chen noted in his opening remarks—Zhou agreed that human researchers must remain the principal agents: AI is a tool that frees scientists from tedious calculation to think about deeper, messier real-world problems. Yet that partnership creates a thorny new evaluation problem. When a breakthrough is made with AI, what is the human contribution and what is the machine’s? And since AI models distil centuries of accumulated human scholarship, is it right that the credit and value flow so heavily to the private AI companies building the tools? The old struggle over how to assign scientific honour is acquiring a whole new layer. What I took away was a serious discussion of how science can remain trustworthy as its scale, incentives, and tools change. These were scientists with real standing inside China’s system questioning how that standing is produced, and proposing changes that would affect their own institutions and peers. That made the afternoon at HKU’s Beijing Centre worthwhile. At the close, Wang Feng, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at HKU, said the value of the forum series—which heads to Hangzhou in December and cities like Chengdu early next year—would lie in the real cooperation it helped bring about. The university has plenty to celebrate: this week it topped the QS Asia rankings for a second consecutive year, alongside its 11th-place position in the QS World University Rankings 2027. For me, bringing this debate to an audience beyond the people who review papers and allocate grants was a useful contribution. Share [ The East is Read PhD dropout’s exposé forces an academic fraud reckoning in China A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China’s academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media… Read more 5 months ago · 43 likes · 8 comments · Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/phd-dropouts-expose-forces-an-academic?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=47580)
Business Education Is at a Positive Tipping Point
By Laura Colombo The guest essay in The New York Times—with the title “I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down.”—by Academy of Management Scholar Chris Marquis of the University of C...
Fireworks are an underestimated danger to public health, warn experts
Fireworks pose an underestimated danger to public health and require stronger regulations and sustained public education campaigns to help prevent devastating yet entirely avoidable injuries, warn U.S. ...
Arizona Democrats celebrate, Republicans mourn power shift in state politics
Democrats point toward affordability, education and water as key priorities if the Arizona Legislature goes blue. Some key statehouse race results are still pending.
California professors challenge Trump administration over canceled science grants
Three researchers claim the National Science Foundation targeted federally funded projects involving climate change, diversity and STEM education.
UTC advances proposed 90-credit-hour degrees for Tennessee law enforcement and corrections professionals
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is advancing plans for two proposed 90-credit-hour bachelor’s degrees designed to expand access to workforce-focused higher education in Tennessee. The proposed programs are designed to recognize professional training, reduce the cost of earning a degree and create career advancement opportunities for law enforcement and corrections professionals.
Mustafa Foundation unveils programs for International Week of Science and Peace
TEHRAN – The Mustafa Science and Technology Foundation has organized a series of programs and educational and media productions to mark the International Week of Science and Peace (November 9–15) and World Science Day for Peace and Development (November 10).
Letters: Science isn’t scary, it’s educational | Book-ban hypocrisy
Science is wonder; evolution isn’t scary Regarding the claim that the state education plan is de-emphasizing evolution (“Florida education chief defends science plan as critics say it ‘danced around’ evolution,” Oct. 28): Science is won…
AI boosts operational efficiency but not systemic climate action, global study finds
Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely promoted as a tool for sustainable development, but whether its operational gains translate into deeper ecological transformation remains uncertain. A new global assessment examines how AI diffusion relates to seven core United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), covering health, education, clean energy, industry and infrastructure, sustainable cities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action. It also explores the channels behind
Banks moving to provide AI toolkits to small-business clients
Huntington plans to roll out an AI operating system aimed at time-strapped owner-operators. Goldman Sachs is focusing on education and research.
Morgridge Institute co-founder brought a public service vision to Wisconsin science
Tashia Morgridge, co-founder of the Morgridge Institute for Research and philanthropist devoted to education and public engagement across Wisconsin, passed away last week at age 93.
‘Challenger Center’ planned for Waterloo to boost space science education
Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo plans to build a space education center for Iowa middle-schoolers. Bids are being taken on a project that will bring Iowa’s only Challenger Center to ca…
First ‘Challenger Center’ planned for Iowa to boost space science education
Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo plans to build a space education center for Iowa middle-schoolers. Bids are being taken on a project that will bring Iowa’s first Challenger Center to c…
First 'Challenger Center' planned for Iowa to boost space science education
Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo plans to build a space education center for Iowa middle-schoolers. Bids are being taken on a project that will bring Iowa’s first Challenger Center to campus, honoring the seven astronauts killed in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. The 32 other centers nationwide are run by a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit […]
Alpharus Health Expands Learning Institute to Strengthen Illinois Behavioral Health Workforce
Chicago, IL, Nov. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alpharus Health recently expanded its Learning Institute by adding two experienced workforce development leaders who will help advance the organization's commitment to professional education, training and workforce development across Illinois. The expansion is being led by the addition of Lisa Abrams, Director of the Learning Institute, and Kathrina St. Flavin, Learning and Development Specialist. Their combined expertise in training, instructional
UAPB associate professor appointed to Minority Health Commission
Leonard Williams Jr., Ph.D., a tenured associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, was recently appointed by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the Arkansas Minority Health Commission. In this role, he supports the commission’s mission of addressing health disparities, promoting health education, and improving health outcomes among minority and underserved communities […]
OpenAI: ChatGPT Search Is About 20% of Google’s, 250 Million People Speak With ChatGPT, and Chat Is Merging With Work
OpenAI says ChatGPT growth is accelerating. The company added 200 million users over just the past two months, jumping from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly active users in 60 days. Its search volume, it says, is approximately 20% of Google’s. Its users create 1.5 billion images with it per week. And its voice mode, between dictation and speaking with ChatGPT, now has 250 million combined weekly active users. ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry told me this during a brief fireside chat at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York City on Monday night. “The growth is just going big,” he said. During our conversation, Fry also revealed plans to merge ChatGPT’s Chat and Work modes (so that confusing toggle up top will soon go away), agreed with feedback that ChatGPT-created restaurant signage looks too uniform, and addressed the cost to serve its personal assistant Dots. Here’s a look at our full conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length. We also cover image generation, interactive interfaces, advertising, education, and public unease about AI: Alex Kantrowitz: OpenAI has analyzed ChatGPT’s search volume and compared it with Google’s. What did you find? Adam Fry: ChatGPT has been growing quite quickly. ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google. It’s a pretty amazing statistic when you think about it, mainly because we started just about a year and a half ago. It’s hard to remember this, but ChatGPT at a time didn’t have any up-to-date information. You’d ask a question, it would say something like, “It’s past my training date,” and nobody had any idea what that meant. You’re saying ChatGPT’s search volume is one-fifth of Google’s. Bing’s share of the search market is around 5%. Does that make you multiple times larger than Bing? To say that more directly, ChatGPT has gone from one billion to 1.2 in just the last two months. That’s roughly 100 million users in 30 days, and another 100 million in another 30 days. The growth is just going big, and we’re staying very focused on how fast ChatGPT is growing. What counts as a search? I might have 20 prompts back and forth in a ChatGPT conversation. Does each one count as a query? Story continues below… A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR Move upmarket without a rebuild Moving upmarket means saying yes to what enterprise buyers ask for first: SSO, directory sync, and audit logs. WorkOS gives you all three, so your team keeps building the product instead of the checklist. Get enterprise-ready. Continued from above…. Adam Fry: What people came to ChatGPT for to start, if you go back about two years, is really writing help and coding help. Those wouldn’t be things that you really search for. What we’ve seen over the last year is people have grown into all these other topics. Things like you’re looking up a person or people or a place or a thing, and it requires up-to-date information. That’s a key element. Another big part is finance questions or health questions, where you really want to make sure it’s up-to-date information that’s quite factual, and we’ll do a web search for those questions. It’s basically anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for, but is now deciding to go to ChatGPT for. Does each conversation with a search embedded count as one search, or does every question that requires a web search count? Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that’s a search. You used to work at Google. How would you say the nature of search is changing? One of the things that people really love about ChatGPT is this personalization and this understanding of the broader journey. If you look in the past, people would go for a Q&A box, and you’d ask a one-off question, like how tall is the Eiffel Tower. But there’s so much context in our lives around, “Maybe I’m taking a trip to Paris.” It’s actually helpful for ChatGPT to respond, “Here’s how tall the Eiffel Tower is, but I know you’re going on a trip to Paris.” It’s that ability for people to actually maintain context over time that has led them to start using ChatGPT in this way. You’ve also announced 250 million weekly active users of voice input, including dictation and conversations with voice mode. We are at 250 million weekly active users. What’s amazing about this is, if you look at those 250 million, what we’re seeing is it’s actually also incremental to the product. It’s no longer just a novelty. People aren’t just trying out voice. We’re seeing them use voice input day to day in their daily life, and it’s grown so quickly. Those 250 million users are using voice input, and that could just be a quick question or a long conversation. We’re seeing both behaviors. We’re seeing people just not want to type. You just hold it and start talking to it, or it turns into a longer conversation where people just sit with it. The big reason for this is the frontier capabilities of our models that we’ve shipped. We shipped what we call GPT Live 1, and then we shipped GPT Live 1.1. The big change with this is that it’s much more natural to speak with. It’s something we call backchanneling and interruptibility. Mhhhm… What you just did there is what the model does, because it’s really good at having a bidirectional conversation. That push to the frontier—we were the first to really release this at scale—has made it so much more natural for people to chat. That’s still only about 20% of the user base. From the outside, that looks small. Why is it exciting from the inside? It’s very exciting for a few reasons. We see from the data that when people start using voice, they stay around using voice. One of the things, transparently, we can do a better job of is bringing more people into discovering it. We see that the number of people who discover it could be a lot higher. But once they do, it’s a really new way for people to interact with AI. We’ve made a lot of improvements to it too, where we’re just going to see the number go up. You have background mode, so now by default, if you close the app, it’ll show, “Hey, the conversation’s still going.” If you want to walk around the house or you’re putting away the groceries, you can still have a chat. That kind of continuity has also changed how much people use it. Dots launched on September 29 and is about a month old. How’s it doing? It’s doing great. We talk to people about their Dot, and the first thing that everyone says is, “I love my Dot.” One of the reasons we’re seeing this is the proactivity, its ability to reach out to you and figure out things. The biggest use case I see all the time is, “Did I forget something today that I was supposed to do?” You can just say to your Dot, “Remind me of things at the end of the day that I may have forgotten. Somebody emailed me or messaged me,” and it’ll do that. This Dot changes the paradigm of the relationship with AI, where it’s actually helping you and giving you time back. You’re more conservative with permissions than some competitors. I tried to give my Dot my credit card, and it wouldn’t take it. With the creator of OpenClaw in-house, why are Dots’ permissions more limited? This is a space where we want to be very thoughtful and conservative because it’s a new space where you’re entrusting your Dot to take care of things on behalf of you that matter and are meaningful. We’ve just talked about how you go to this 1.2 billion user growth and asking questions. Now we’re asking people, “Can you ask ChatGPT or your Dot to help get things done?” But when you ask it to help get things done, it’s a whole new level of trust. We’ve built up a tremendous amount of trust in giving the right answers to your questions, and we want to make sure that when we build this new product, it has a high degree of trust. It’s a long game. We think this is going to be a new market for a very long time, and we want to make sure that we’re being this trusted player in the market to start. I initially thought Dots would be available on my $20 plan, then realized I had to spend $100 a month to get it. I upgraded, but I’d like to downgrade at some point…. We hope to keep earning your business and make the value good enough. It’s a really good point. ChatGPT’s goal more broadly, which I think is unique for us in the market, is we are focused on bringing intelligence to everyone safely across the entire world. For Dots in particular, there’s no difference. We don’t have anything to share tonight about the date of when Dots will go to a broader set of users. But you can rest assured we’re working very hard, and there are a couple things we have to get right. Over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The first one is, right now we wanted to make sure that your Dot is actually really helpful. We started with some of our best models, but over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The second thing is around proactivity. We’re still dialing in: How much do I message you to help you get things done? We can always play around with that to understand how much usage should a user use to have a successful Dot. We’re going to work on both, and our goal and ambition is to bring it out to all users. How much background computing does a Dot require? I’ve read estimates that serving a $100 subscriber might cost OpenAI $3,000 in compute, and mine seems to read every email that arrives. How often is it checking connected data sources? Right now, Dots are on the compute-heavier side, and this is one of the things we want to make sure that we can dial back over time. But the goal is to give you the best product. This is our premium, always-on personal assistant. Once we nail that, we’ll figure out how to dial back the compute needs. The thing we’re seeing also from our models, as we train frontier models, is just how—I can’t even keep up with how quickly we have a new model, and each new model is more efficient. If you looked at 6.1 Sol when it came out relative to Astra, much more efficient. I’m very excited about the next set of models we have coming too that’ll be even more efficient that we can use. Elon Musk said the cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue. Is efficiency the key to winning against competitors, or is there more to it? There are a couple of factors that go into it. One is the cost side, but the other is the revenue side. On ChatGPT and on our consumer business, we’ve been extremely proud of our ability to diversify different revenue streams in a way that’s growing really fast. To give you another stat, we announced several months back that we had passed 50 million subscriptions, and the number has grown considerably since then. On ads, within 200 days, we reached more than a billion in ARR, and that business is growing extremely quickly. We also have credits. Rather than paying for subscriptions, users can buy more credits. Between credits, subscriptions, and ads, I’m confident that the value of a Dot is going to be able to pay for itself. Elon has subscriptions too. This is clearly an expensive product to serve. One thing we continue to bet on at OpenAI and ChatGPT more broadly is that the models will continue to get much better and much cheaper, way faster than any of us think. If you look back at the historicals on it, it continues to be true. From what I’ve seen, I see no slowing down of that. What is Meta doing right with Muse? It has spent a lot of time atop the App Store charts. There are a couple of things they’ve done well. The first is people have been craving simplicity in their products. One of the things we have stated publicly as well is, at times AI products can be too complex. We’ve announced we’re merging ChatGPT’s Chat and Work. We’re making it much more simple in the products. You don’t have as many toggles or sliders between efforts and different model pickers. One of the things they’ve done well is this simplicity. You just go in and you can ask a question. You don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing. That’s one thing that seems to have resonated with users, which we also believe in. Second, there’s something really nice about being able to access your agent across many different channels. We just announced and launched Dots on iMessage. Whether you talk to your Dot on email or iMessage or within the ChatGPT app, the ubiquity in getting your assistant out there is going to be key. Those are two things that, if I had to be nice to our competitors, I would say were two big ones. So Alexandr Wang’s meme-tweeting strategy isn’t something you’re going to emulate? I have a different tweeting style. ChatGPT still asks me to choose between Chat and Work, even though some people call this technology AGI. Will that distinction go away? Couldn’t agree more. We have to solve this. Asking users to choose — we’ve heard repeatedly from all of our users it’s too much to understand. When should you go to Chat? When should you go to Work? It’s solvable. There’s real research to solve to make sure the models can understand what your intent is. Are you asking for a fast, quick reply? Are you asking me to go do a long agentic task? We’re going to solve it, and the plan is to bring Chat and Work together. So one interface will work out whether I’m asking for a conversation or a task. When? Coming soon. You told me the majority of ChatGPT’s 1.2 billion users are using image functionality. What are they doing? Today, 1.5 billion images are created per week. It’s hard to even wrap my head around that number. They’re doing a wide range of things. One of the most interesting things they’ve started to do is really use it for productivity use cases. The first thing it started with—I don’t know if you saw the ’80s trend, but it was quite fun. You could take a photo of yourself and say, “Put me and my family in ’80s outfits.” I did this for my family, and it was a really fun poster. But what we’re also seeing is businesses for their menus, or posters for birthdays. People are using it almost in a productivity-like fashion to create visual diagrams of what they would like to see. We’ve actually brought the latency down on images as well, so it’s gotten a lot faster. It went from a very high number of seconds to getting much faster. As it comes down even further, the number of images people are creating and the number of use cases is going to grow a lot. My feature request: When a restaurant makes a menu or sign, prompt it for more specificity so it doesn’t look like every other AI-generated restaurant sign. Or offer a shuffle button for a different style. I agree with the feedback, and we’ll take it to the team. I’m seeing ChatGPT generate little interactive interfaces within its answers. What’s the direction for Intelligent UI, and how are people using it? I am extremely excited about Intelligent UI. If you go back a couple years, these chat apps were all text, and now that’s changing. They’re going to be visuals. Intelligent UI and our first attempt at this with GPT-6 Intelligent UI is really just the beginning. As you go to the extreme, what you can imagine is, let’s say you’re using voice mode, and you just say, “Show me how offside works.” Immediately it should show you a visual diagram, and you say, “No, I don’t quite understand it.” It should just repopulate. That’s where the future of this technology goes. It’s almost like you’re talking to a canvas that will update and change. People are finding it helpful for a lot of things. My favorite one is—it’s hard to admit that I had no idea how hearts work. The last biology course I took was in high school. I just asked it, “How does the heart work?” and it instantly gave me a beautiful interactive diagram of where blood flows and how it goes through. I’m really, really bullish on this for learning in particular. You’ve described useful applications in finance, health, and learning, and ChatGPT has 1.2 billion users. If people are getting so much value, why is public polling on AI so negative? The reality with AI is it is going to change the nature of how work gets done. For a lot of people, that is something that can feel scary at times, and we’ve all felt that. But I remain confident that when people actually use the product and they use AI, it very quickly changes how they perceive it. We’re at 1.2 billion, but there are still a lot of people who haven’t used it. The more people use it, get familiar with it, how it can actually help you in your life, it’s going to feel a lot less scary. Big Technology is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thanks!! Subscribe
Dairy Science Club launches holiday cheesebox sale supporting educational opportunities for students
The Penn State Dairy Science Club is kicking off its holiday cheesebox fundraiser, an annual partnership between the club and the Penn State Berkey Creamery dating back to 1978. Cheese products are available at the Penn State Berkey Creamery and also by mail order.
Health and Career Fair set for Thursday at Black Oak | Lewis County Herald The Lewis Co. Herald
Free health screenings, discounted laboratory testing, blood donations, employment opportunities, and workforce training information will be available The Lewis County Health and Career Fair will be held Thursday, November 5, at the Black Oak Volunteer Fire Department, bringing together healthcare providers, employers, and workforce development organizations for health screenings, blood donations, employment opportunities, and educational […]
How a Democrat in Iowa and a Republican in Oregon are making education a campaign issue
In two states where the political odds seem stacked against them, candidates have found an unexpected way to appeal to voters: talking about schools.
CMS student adviser finalists discuss mental health, campus safety, AI, and more
Nine high school student finalists for the 2027 Student Advisor to the CMS Board of Education met and discussed their platforms
Pharr Manufacturing Roundtable Examines Industrial Growth and Workforce Challenges
Growing demand for skilled workers, increasing automation, and competition for manufacturing investment are challenging the Rio Grande Valley's industrial expansion, according to government, business, and education leaders who gathered in Pharr to discuss how the region can prepare for new industries and emerging technologies.
'Sex Education' Star Asa Butterfield Signs With Linden Entertainment
The "Sex Education" actor has signed with Linden Entertainment for representation.
Brownsville BCIC Earns Four International Economic Development Awards
The Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation received four 2026 Excellence in Economic Development Awards from the International Economic Development Council, recognizing its strategic planning, community grants, public reporting, and business education programs, BCIC announced Aug. 20.
Iowa opens applications for federal education tax credit program
Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that nonprofit organizations can now apply to serve as scholarship granting organizations under the new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit program, which is set to begin in 2027. Established under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed in July 2025, the program provides federal income tax credits for contributions to approved…
Work begins on first phase of CREST Center in Jonesboro
Civic, business, and education leaders in Northeast Arkansas have spent decades to develop tools and relationships that would help better the workforce in the region. One of those multifaceted tools...
These 20 local projects are 2026 Excellence in Construction winners
Photos and insights into the 20 winners of North Bay Business Journal’s 2026 Excellence in Construction Awards celebrating new healthcare and education facilities, housing, hospitality, office and transportation improvement projects.
Preparing for the Pathogen We Can’t Predict: Lessons from Dr. Stephen Morse
National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center
Professor receives Department of Education grant to support teaching and research in computer science
Dr. Dennis Brylow has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to promote high-quality teaching and research in computer science.
Clemson faculty to use research award to study rural student success in science
A College of Education faculty member with an extensive background in rural education outreach and research will use an award from the National Science Foundation to better understand how rural students can excel in the study of life science.
Allergy & Asthma Network to Highlight Digital Health Innovation and Patient-Centered Communication at APHA 2026
Allergy & Asthma Network, a national leader in patient-centered research, education and advocacy, is highlighting its expertise in digital health engagement and evidence-based communication at the American Public Health Association (APHA) 2026 Annual Meeting and Expo, taking place November 1–4 in San Antonio, Texas.
Amid private equity slowdown, Vistria’s capital returns are surging
Vistria founder Kip Kirkpatrick credited the firm’s robust activity to its focus on the healthcare, education and financial services sectors.
Hunger affects health, education and the future
Many among us are hungry. Some don’t have enough food for themselves or their families, consequently parents go to bed hungry so their children will have enough to eat.
Diabetes Awareness Month: Education and support for better health
November is National Diabetes Month, a time to raise awareness about diabetes and the importance of education, prevention, and ongoing support. Whether someone is newly diagnosed or has been living
Business and engineering majors need ethical education
This October, the film “You Can See Everything” hit United States theaters. Featuring Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos, it quickly rose to the top of the box office rankings, a r…
Neil Garg wins 2026 Science and Education Pioneer Award
Indian American UCLA professor honored for inspiring public engagement with science education, particularly among young people.
Global sexual health: Why communal knowledge about pleasure and well-being matters
For decades, discussions and decisions about access to contraception, abortion, maternal health care, HIV prevention and treatment, comprehensive sexuality education, gender equity and protection from ...
Beyond analysis: let’s teach business students to act
How to help postgraduate students interpret real-time data and system behaviour to detect early warning signals, identify emerging disruptions and guide decisions – rather than simply report after the fact
Rethinking Computer Science Education: Why Students Should Build Before They Master Theory
Computer science students learn theory before building real software. In the AI era, should we reverse the curriculum and teach through practical experience?
Getting past the misconceptions about evolution - Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology
Explore misconceptions about evolution, scientific theories and Darwin’s contributions, and how addressing these beliefs can improve science education.
South Texas Health System (@stxhealthsystem)
1 likes, 0 comments - stxhealthsystem on November 1, 2026: "Shaping the Future of Stroke Care: In healthcare, learning never stops. New research, treatment advances and best practices are constantly emerging, making ongoing education essential for improving patient outcomes and delivering high-quality care. Recently, Amanda Rubalcado, BSN, SCRN, Stroke Educator at South Texas Health System McAllen, presented an in-depth session on stroke recognition, treatment and prevention to students participating in the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Program through the @vida_careers at @stcjaguars. The PACE program helps low-income, unemployed and underemployed Rio Grande Valley residents gain the education and training needed to pursue high-demand, high-wage careers, including careers in healthcare. Understanding the warning signs of stroke and the importance of timely treatment can make the difference between life and death. Through partnerships like this, STHS is helping prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals to deliver exceptional, compassionate care and build a healthier future for the Rio Grande Valley. #STHS #HealthcareEducation #STC #VIDA #CareerAdvancement #StrokeEducation".
CCPS Plans New Paths Into Skilled Trades, Data Science And Student-Run Businesses
LA PLATA, Md. — Learning to weld, studying data science or helping run a school-based business could become part of the high school experience for more Charles County students as the school system develops new career opportunities. School officials laid out the plan Monday, Oct. 26, during the Board of Education’s work session, along with […]
Is China’s ‘dark tourism’ turning disaster education into entertainment?
Miami Dade College-School of Health Sciences: Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene Program to Meet Workforce Needs - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
Dr. Ron Winston, Dean of the School of Health Sciences Miami Dade College (MDC), through its renowned School of Health Sciences, has launched a new Florida Department of Education-approved Bachelor […]
Miami Dade College-School of Health Sciences: Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene Program to Meet Workforce Needs - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
Dr. Ron Winston, Dean of the School of Health Sciences Miami Dade College (MDC), through its renowned School of Health Sciences, has launched a new Florida Department of Education-approved Bachelor […]
Bridging Education and Industry: A Shared Responsibility for Healthcare Workforce Readiness in the Digital Age - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
By Cristina Bermudez, DHSc, MBA The healthcare industry continues to experience significant transformation driven by the growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI), health informatics, and emerging digital technologies. Innovations such […]
Training the Next Generation of Physicians: Why Quality Matters as Graduate Medical Education Expands - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
By Saima Chaudhry, MD Florida is projected to face a shortage of nearly 18,000 physicians by 2035, highlighting the need to expand the state’s physician workforce. As hospitals and healthcare […]
People on the move in Indian Country
November’s People on the Move highlights appointments and honors across Native business, finance, health care, education and tribal enterprises.
U.S. Department of Education demands changes to Illinois school mental health screening plan
The Department of Education raisse parental consent and privacy concerns over mental health screening plans.
“Is It Magic or Science?” comes to Heights Terrace Elementary
The Joe Romano Science Show “Is It Magic or Science?” was an exciting and engaging educational event for 4th- and 5th-grade students and their families at Heights Terrace Elementary/Middle School. More than 100 parents attended…
Survivors gather in Georgetown to support heart health awareness
Survivors of heart disease and stroke joined the community on Saturday for the annual Scott County Heart Walk in to promote heart health and raise awareness through educational activities.
Children’s safety fair brings Halloween fun, health education to Weston
Stonewall Jackson Memorial Hospital held its 16th annual Children’s Safety Fair, giving children in Weston an early start on Halloween while they learned how to stay safe.
Monument Health opens second Community Heart Hub in Sturgis
Monument Health opened its second Community Heart Hub at the Sturgis Public Library, offering free automated blood pressure checks and educational materials.
OU Health welcomes group of Ukrainian surgeons for month-long educational program
A group of 10 Ukrainian surgeons has come to Oklahoma to be a part of Operation Ukraine. The program aims to equip the surgeons with advanced techniques they can take back to hospitals and military centers across Ukraine.
FAU expands youth mental health services and graduate counseling training through the OWLS-FLY initiative
Florida Atlantic University’s College of Education is expanding its clinical training opportunities for graduate counseling students while providing free mental health services to underserved children ages 6 to 17 and their families. This initiative vis through OWLS-FLY (Opportunity, Wellness, Le
Health Literacy Is An Overlooked Healthcare Crisis
Health education from hospital systems and insurance companies is outdated and ignores patient preferences for consuming health information. It is time for innovation.
Florida education chief defends science plan
Education Commissioner Henry Mack pushed back Tuesday against criticism that Florida is de-emphasizing evolution in its new plan for teaching science, insisting the state is still covering a subject he agreed was a bedrock of biological science.“Evolutionary biology and the theory of evolution is in the standards,” Mack said. But several parents and teachers who attended an evening forum on the state’s proposed science standards criticized the proposal by the Florida Department of Education, which Mack runs, specifically the handling of evolutionary science.Joshua Garrett, a teacher in Orange County Public Schools, said the state’s proposed standards “danced around” evolution.State standards are benchmarks for what students should learn in their classes kindergarten through 12th grade, guiding what lessons are taught, what subjects are in state-approved textbooks and what concepts are tested on state exams.Florida’s current science standards call evolution a “big idea” and “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology.”The proposed ones barely mention evolution — a scientific theory explaining change in living species over time from natural selection that has been a cornerstone of biology for more than a century. The term “evolution,” in fact, is never defined in the new high school life sciences standards, though the concepts are sprinkled across several units.The education department has made revisions to its proposal, officials said, but it was not immediately clear at the Tuesday forum, held at Lake Buena Vista High School in southwest Orange County, what those changes were.Mack interjected during Garrett’s comments asking him where specifically he wanted the state to mention evolution more prominently. Then he said, “Consider it done.”Mack also asked Garrett to join the state’s faculty committee on the standards.The state released the new standards in September, and several experts quickly criticized them, saying they lacked depth and skirted around both evolution and climate change, important topics for Florida students to learn.The state has since hosted a “listening tour,” including a virtual forum and two other in-person meetings in Walton and Hillsborough counties. Tuesday’s meeting drew a small crowd of about 30 people, six of whom spoke.Mack described the state’s public forums as a chance for “myth busting” and to make clear Florida’s position.He wants to students to learn “above ideology,” he said, and added that evolution isn’t settled science. TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-middle-asset', slot: 1, fold: "span"}); “I want to cultivate skeptics in the healthy sense of that term. As a result of these standards, students should not be walking away convinced of anything other than the rigor of the scientific method,” Mack said.The new standards would replace the current set, adopted after a monthslong, statewide fight over the inclusion of evolution as a required subject of study. Those who opposed the 2008 standards argued creationism, or the biblical story that God created all living things, should be taught alongside evolution.Thomas Simon, a Winter Park parent, compared Florida adopting the new standards to Nazi Germany ignoring the findings of Jewish scientists — which in part lost them World War II.“If this board could explicitly name communism in the history standards last year — because words matter — you must explicitly name the foundations of modern medicine, agriculture, and energy,” Simon said.Florida last year adopted new standards that require students learn about the “dangers and evil of communism.”Teri O’Connor, an elementary science teacher in Orange County, urged Mack to curtail the total number of standards, as they list more than 1,000 benchmarks teachers are to cover during their classes.“It’s only 180 days of school. That right there is an issue, especially if you want to dive in. If we need to teach the rigor of it and to critically think about each one, that’s difficult,” she said.Kathleen Murray, who spoke on behalf of the conservative political group Citizens Defending Freedom, said she was in “strong support” of the proposed standards. Science should teach children how to think, not what to think, she said.“When teaching the origins of life and the universe, the curriculum owes it to the Florida students to be honest about the limits of what scientific models can actually prove,” Murray said.State education officials said they’d received about 1,800 comments on the benchmarks, and they have updated them based on that criticism.With Tuesday the state’s final scheduled public forum, Mack said his biggest takeaway was that the standards needed to be more explicit about teaching students how to evaluate scientific studies and evidence and how to understand the scientific method.“We might have to do a better job of helping students question more as a result of these standards,” he said.In his original statement when the standards were announced in September, Mack wrote in a social media post that “science begins in wonder, not in ideology,” and “the classical tradition taught that nature is intelligible because it is ordered — that the book of creation can be read by reason.”Some read that to mean he was trying to interject religion into public school education. 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USA Health receives $20K grant to expand stroke prevention education
When it comes to a stroke, every second counts.USA Health Stroke Program Director Emily Dahlmann says too many people don't know what to look for, let alone, wh
Salem-Keizer social studies teachers focus on political education ahead of 2026 election
As part of a mock gubernatorial election, secondary students across Salem-Keizer were given lessons to help them analyze and connect with current politics.
Heidelberg High students meet one-on-one with business, education representatives at college and career fair
Students at Heidelberg High School met one-on-one with representatives from business, education and the armed forces during a college and career fair Friday.
German Minister Targets American Businesses With AI Tax Proposal
Germany’s education and family minister, Karin Prien (CDU), wants to impose a new tax on value created by artificial intelligence. A tax focused on AI
2026-2027 Audree V. Fowler Fellows in Protein Science
Graduate students Lenka Milojević (Zhou group), Akshaya Narayanasamy (Lindert group), Sarah Singleton (Conway group), and Janet Zhong (Feigon group) have been selected as 2026–27 Fowler Fellows and shared their research at a special event on Oct. 13, 2026. 2026-27 Fowler Fellows – Sarah Singleton, Lenka Milojević, Janet Zhong, and Akshaya Narayanasamy. Akshaya Narayanasamy and Prof. Steffen Lindert. Sarah Singleton and Prof. Stuart Conway. Janet Zhong and Prof. Juli Feigon. About the 2026-27 Audree Fowler Fellows in Protein Science Lenka Milojević is a fifth-year Biophysics Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Professor Z. Hong Zhou at UCLA. As an undergraduate at Maastricht University, she studied the structural basis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence and amyloid-β fibril nucleation in the lab of Professor Peter Peters. She completed her bachelor’s thesis research at UCLA in the lab of Professor David Eisenberg, focusing on amyloid disaggregation, before beginning her doctoral studies. In the Zhou lab, Lenka uses cryo-electron tomography to visualize and characterize membrane-associated protein assemblies across a range of viral and cellular systems. Akshaya Narayanasamy is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA, mentored by Professor Steffen Lindert. She earned her B.S.-M.S. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, where she worked in Professor Mahesh Hariharan’s lab investigating how single-atom substitutions influence crystal packing and charge transport behavior. She received her M.S. in Physical Chemistry from The Ohio State University before moving with the Lindert lab to UCLA. At UCLA, Akshaya develops integrative modeling methods that combine deep learning and Rosetta with experimental data, such as ion mobility mass spectrometry and cryo-EM, to improve protein structure prediction. Her current work focuses on developing an experimentally guided diffusion model and designing de novo protein binders with potential antibacterial activity. Ultimately, she aims to bridge AI-based structure prediction and experimental data to make computational protein models more reliable for drug discovery and therapeutic design. Sarah Singleton is a 4th year BMSB student, working in Professor Stuart Conway’s lab. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry at Simmon University (Fenway, MA). Her research is centered on drugging the previously undruggable class of proteins—transcription factors. Zinc finger (ZF)-containing transcription factor proteins typically contain multiple ZF motifs, but little is known about the principles that govern the recognition of multi-ZF arrays by immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs). In a multi-ZF array that contains several potentially targetable ZFs, which will be accessible and why? How does the surrounding protein architecture inform IMiD recognition? Sarah’s research aims to utilize her findings on the fundamental principles of ZF recognition to design IMiD therapeutics for transcription factors involved in health and disease. Janet Zhong is a fourth-year BMSB student, working in Professor Juli Feigon’s laboratory. She received her BSc and MRes from Imperial College London. At UCLA, Janet combines cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and biochemical approaches to investigate how proteins and RNAs assemble into ribonucleoprotein structures. Her research focuses on telomerase, the enzyme that maintains chromosome ends, with interests in its structure, assembly, and mechanisms. She has also worked on capturing the cryo-EM structure of a small bacterial non-coding RNA called raiA motif RNA. About Dr. Audree Fowler A strong supporter of the basic sciences and medicine at UCLA, alumna Dr. Audree Fowler (B.S. ’56 chemistry, Ph.D. ’63 biochemistry) established the Audree V. Fowler Fellows in Protein Science in 2008. Fowler was Director UCLA Protein Microsequencing Facility from 1984-1999 and is a Researcher Emeritus of the UCLA Department of Biological Chemistry. She is one of the first four women to receive a Ph.D. from the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. In 2018, the women were awarded the department’s 2018 Alumni Legacy Awards in recognition of their achievements in life, and generous support and service to UCLA. “The sciences gave me a great life. Now I want to help others have access to the same opportunities I enjoyed,” Fowler explained when she established the Fowler Fellowships endowment. Applications for the fellowships are solicited from graduate students in the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental (MBI) Ph.D. Program, Biological Chemistry, and Chemistry & Biochemistry Departments. In addition to presenting their research at a special seminar, the recipients each receive a $5,000 award. Previous Fowler Fellows from the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry 2025-26 – Nikki Cheung (Clubb Group), Jonathan Jih (Zhou Group), Eileen Olivares (Loo Group), and Lily Taylor (Rodriguez Group) 2024-25 – Andrew Goring (Clubb lab), Eric Pang (S. Clarke and Rodriguez labs), and Miranda Villanueva (Backus lab) 2023-24 – Alexandra Turmon (Backus lab), Cindy Wang (S. Clarke and C. Clarke labs) 2022-23 – Cody Gillman (Gonen lab), Declan Evans (Houk lab), Troy Lowe (S. Clarke lab), Ashley Julio (Backus lab), and Alex Stevens (Hong Zhou lab) 2021-22 – Weixian Deng (Wohlschlegel/Plath labs), Yi Xiao “Sean” Jiang (Eisenberg lab), Maria Flores (Rodriguez lab), Carter Lantz (Loo lab), and Logan Richards (Rodriguez lab). 2020-21 – Janine Fu (Loo lab), Calina Glynn (Rodriguez lab), and Jiahui Lu (Eisenberg lab) 2019-20 – David Boyer (Eisenberg lab), Orlando Martinez (Clubb lab) and John Muroski (Loo lab) 2018-19 – Scott McConnell (Clubb lab), Kevin Murray (Eisenberg lab), Rebeccah Warmack (S. Clarke lab) 2017-18 – Michael Hughes (Eisenberg lab), Yuxi Liu (Yeates lab), Kanishk Jain (S. Clarke lab) 2016-17 – Brendan Amer (Clubb Lab) and Jeff Vinokur (Bowie Lab) 2015-16 – Henry Chan (Feigon lab), Smriti Sangwan (Eisenberg lab), Nicholas Woodall (Bowie lab) 2014-15 – Dan McNamara (Yeates lab) 2013-14 – Alex Jacobitz (Clubb lab), Alexander Patananan (S. Clarke lab), Carly Ferguson (Loo lab) 2012-13 – Letian Xie (C. Clarke lab), Anni Zhao (Eisenberg lab) 2011-12 – Timothy Anderson (Clubb lab), Soohong Kim (Weiss lab) 2010-11 – Zeynep Durer (Reiser lab), Cecilia Zurita-Lopez (S. Clarke lab) 2009-10 – Luki Goldschmidt (Eisenberg lab), Kristofer Webb (S. Clarke lab), Sheng Yin (Loo lab) 2008-09 – Nathan Joh (Bowie lab), Neil King (Yeates lab) Photos courtesy of Helen Houldsworth, the Molecular Biology Institute.
HEALTH INSURERS AND PHARMACY BENEFIT MANAGERS URGED TO ASSIST FAMILIES AFFECTED BY LULU M. ROSS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FIRE
State calls for swift, flexible action to help affected families replace essential medications DOVER, Del. (October 30, 2026) – This week, the Delaware Department of Insurance was notified by Secretary of Health and Social Services, Christen Linke Young and Secretary of Education Cindy Marten that the October 25 fire at Lulu M. Ross Elementary School […]
Young students give new teachers infections; the daylight saving time debate; circadian depression; plus other stories with Vanderbilt Health sources
William Schaffner, MD, Professor of Preventive Medicine, was quoted by several news outlets about public health issues, including: Axios Nashville (flu season beginning early); Prevention (how long does norovirus last?); Education Week (how young students make new teachers sick). AAMC News posted a story about the debate about whether to eliminate the twice-yearly time change, and, if so, whether to permanently stay on standard or daylight time. Beth Malow, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Sleep Center, is quoted in the piece. A Men’s Health story on circadian depression, a type of depression caused by an out-of-synch internal clock in the brain, quotes Aaron Brinen, PsyD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Michael Lester, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, was quoted in a Medscape story about treating chronic bronchitis with bronchial rheoplasty. Shravani Durbhakula, MD, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, was quoted in a CNN piece about the drug cychlorphine. Art Dalley, PhD, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, emeritus, was quoted in a story in The Guardian about anatomical donation. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society quoted Subramaniam Sriram, MBBS, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Vanderbilt Multiple Sclerosis Center, in a story on its website about the differences in brain and spinal cord lesions in MS. (Note: some links may require registration or subscription)
SEEDA Trying To Move Forward With Hi-Tech Business Park And Full-Time Administrator
Work could start soon in 2 different ways in regards to Phase II of the Sheridan Hi-Tech Business Park. The Sheridan Economic Development and Education Authority (SEEDA) has opened up bidding to add 5-foot gravel shoulders on Yellowtail Drive, from the Weatherby building northward to an area near the Agripark. The bid closes on November […]
Collaboration is not optional – and conservation science shows why
Today’s research challenges are too complex to be solved in isolation. Conservation science offers lessons for academics everywhere about how to build collaborations that genuinely work
Neil Garg named recipient of the 2026 Science and Education Pioneer Award
Distinguished Professor Neil Garg has been named the recipient of the UCLA College, Division of Physical Sciences’ 2026 Science and Education Pioneer Award for his contributions to science and education. He will be honored at Exploring Your Universe, UCLA’s free science festival, on Sunday, Nov. 8, in the Court of Sciences. The ceremony and Garg’s remarks will take place at noon in Young Hall CS50, and will be livestreamed here. He will also give a family-friendly lecture, “Organic Chemistry in the Movies”, at 3 pm in Young Hall CS76. The Pioneer Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to science and inspired public engagement with science education, particularly among young people. Previous award recipients include astronaut and UCLA alumna Dr. Anna Lee Fisher (2017), mathematician and UCLA alumna Danica McKellar (2018), actress, author and neuroscientist Dr. Mayim Bialik (2019), Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Andrea Ghez (2020) and UCLA mathematics professor and Fields Medalist Terence Tao (2025). Garg is the Distinguished Kenneth N. Trueblood Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA. He received his B.S. from New York University and Ph.D. from Caltech, and completed postdoctoral studies at UC Irvine before joining the UCLA faculty in 2007. Garg is an internationally recognized organic chemist whose research focuses on developing new chemical reactions, often challenging long-standing rules in chemistry. He has published more than 200 scientific papers. Beyond his research accomplishments and award-winning classroom teaching, Garg is passionate about making chemistry accessible and engaging for students and the broader public. He has developed innovative websites, apps, and games used in more than 175 countries, authored The Organic Coloring Book series, and created outreach programs that introduce children to chemistry, including his popular Chem Kids camp. His honors include the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Horizon Prizes for both research and education, the Cherry Award for Great Teaching, the California Professor of the Year Award, and the AAAS Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science. In 2026, he received the Royal Society of Chemistry’s prestigious Centenary Prize.
Nine Iowa charter schools receive $8.5 million in grants
The Iowa Department of Education has awarded more than $8.5 million in grants to nine public charter schools to support the opening of new schools and expansion of existing programs. Five new charter schools will receive up to $1.2 million each in start-up funding, while four existing schools will receive $780,000 each for expansion. The…
Commerce Expands Access to Business Credit Program
The program looks to bolster access to financing, technical assistance, and financial education that may otherwise be out of reach.
Momentum builds among Philly-area doctors, farmers, nonprofits to grow ‘food as medicine’ approach
Coalition members aim to address food waste, access to fresh produce, food supply chain issues, availability of nutrition education and more.
Statewide Spotlight on PSJA ISD Learning Tactics
At the invitation of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD leaders presented the district’s approach to expanding learning opportunities and supporting teachers during a statewide superintendents call with the Mike Morath Commissioner of Education for Texas on Thursday, October 22, 2026.
PSJA ISD Hosts 10th Annual Early Childhood Education Conference
Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District (PSJA ISD) welcomed over 300 early childhood educators and childcare professionals to its 10th Annual Early Childhood Conference on Saturday, October 24, 2026, at PSJA Early College High School.
Oglala Lakota College approved for environmental science master’s degree
The Higher Learning Commission approved Oglala Lakota College’s 36-credit Master of Science in Environmental Science, expanding tribal graduate education.
Student unlocks potential in juvenile detention centers with STEM ed
Emily Cho ’28 has grown the nonprofit she founded as a 13-year-old into a national network of volunteers giving incarcerated students access to education.
University of Indianapolis offers free vaccinations to help keep Central Indiana healthy
The University of Indianapolis is proud to partner with the Indiana Immunization Coalition and the Central Indiana Area Health Care Education Center to offer a free vaccination clinic at the Schwitzer Student Center on Tuesday, Nov. 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The clinic is open to all members of the public and will
American College of Education Launches a Doctor of Business Administration for Under $22,000
The fully online DBA from ACE started its first cohort in October, with a second to follow in November.INDIANAPOLIS, IN / ACCESS Newswire / October 29, 2026 / (ACE) recently expanded its academic offerings by launching an online Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree program.
Only about half of social science findings held up when retested, major replication project finds
Psychology’s replication problems drew wide attention after 2015. A new study in Nature suggests the challenge is not unique to psychology: across economics, education, business, sociology, and political science, success rates were similar.
‘She could have gotten away with’ murder: The dangerous science behind the Queen of Crime
New explorations reveal the early education and adventures of bestselling author Agatha Christie, who did more than dip her toe in the world of science.
Change or continuity? Benson and James battle down stretch run for governor’s office
The successor to term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could chart a new course on education, economic development and a range of other issues, though much will depend on which party controls the Legislature.
‘That goes beyond party’: Democrat superintendent candidate Jennettie Marshall talks priorities, politics
The Oklahoma general election is days away, and education issues are at the top of voters’ minds. StateImpact’s Beth Wallis sat down with the Democratic nominee for state superintendent, Jennettie Marshall. Marshall is a pastor and former Tulsa Public Schools board member.
'That goes beyond party': Democrat superintendent candidate Jennettie Marshall talks priorities, politics
The Oklahoma general election is days away, and education issues are at the top of voters' minds. StateImpact's Beth Wallis sat down with the Democratic nominee for state superintendent, Jennettie Marshall. Marshall is a pastor and former Tulsa Public Schools board member.
Global Health & WASH
The US National Institutes of Health reopened its center and program-project machinery in force. NIGMS is funding Collaborative Program Grants for interdisciplinary teams, NIAID opened both its Immune Tolerance Network and a next-generation R&D call, the NCI runs its Carcinogen Hazard Assessment Monographs program, the National Library of Medicine is funding institutional training in biomedical AI and data science, and NIH reopened its Centers for AIDS Research. The tell: these pay for standing centers and multi-year consortia at institutions with an existing funded research base, not one-off projects, so the fit is an established US research institution, not a single investigator. Disease-specific foundations are again funding the researcher, not just the research. The Parkinson’s Foundation opened its Paul Oreffice Innovations in Care Award and the National Ataxia Foundation its Research Seed Money Grant. The tell, the same one we flagged last cycle, is a named early-career or seed award that builds a pipeline of scientists committed to one condition, so what wins is a researcher willing to specialize. The post-USAID global-health money is routing through a State Department program statement and multilateral innovation funds. The US Department of State’s Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy opened its Advancing Global Health Annual Program Statement, Grand Challenges Canada opened Nexa Lighthouse for climate and health innovation in Asia and the Pacific at USD $250,000 to $2,000,000, and CEPI opened a rolling call on vaccine-manufacturing analytics. The tell: the largest health money this cycle sits in a standing program statement and in staged innovation vehicles, not in a single bilateral grant. Total Estimated Funding Pool: ~$35.4M across discrete grants. (Separately, large national-formula envelopes not counted in this total: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy (GHSD).) This post is for paid subscribers. This helps support the time and effort it takes to curate and organize these opportunities. Subscribe To keep this accessible to everyone who needs it, we’re happy to offer pay what you can rates. You can find more details here. New opportunities: Paul Oreffice Innovations in Care Award, Parkinson’s Foundation. *New!* *Closing soon!* The Parkinson’s Foundation created the Paul Oreffice Innovations in Care Award to fund clinicians rethinking how people with Parkinson’s disease receive care. The Foundation is using pilot funding to move promising ideas into testable projects, backing work across four lanes: strengthening community clinician capability, redesigning care models, building patient-centered technologies, and defining the minimum clinical datasets that make better standards possible. It wants hypothesis-driven, clinically grounded projects that can generate evidence strong enough to attract further funding. By opening the door to clinicians at every career stage and strongly preferring projects that involve people with Parkinson’s in their design, the Foundation signals that it values practical, patient-shaped innovation over prestige. The strongest fits are US-licensed clinicians with a focus on Parkinson’s and an institutional home for applied care research. Geographies: united states. Who can apply: Clinicians of all career stages, from fellows to established faculty, who are licensed to care for patients in the United States and have a significant focus on Parkinson’s disease. Physicians must have completed a neurology residency (or justify how their training pathway benefits people with PD); allied health professionals must hold an advanced degree, typically a PhD. Fellows, those in mentored positions, and those within two years of starting an independent position require a mentor and a mentor support letter. The sponsoring institution’s grants office is the authorized recipient and funds are disbursed to the institution. Funding amount: Maximum of $200,000 over two years; up to three awards. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology. Deadline: November 1, 2026. Learn more and apply here. Design and Deliver the Next EIT Health Bootcamps, EIT Health. *New!* *Closing soon!* EIT Health is opening its call for consortia to design and deliver the next generation of its health start-up bootcamps, funding the curriculum, masterclasses, mentoring, and investor engagement that turn early health ventures into fundable companies. The organization is using these learning paths to strengthen Europe’s health innovation pipeline across digital health evidence, deep tech and AI commercialization, cross-border investment, and patient access. What EIT Health wants to back is not a single course but durable delivery capacity built by partners who span industry, education, and research. Requiring multi-country consortia and a revenue-sharing stake in the programs signals that EIT Health expects these bootcamps to outlast the grant. The strongest fits are established training providers, universities, and industry partners with proven reach into health entrepreneurs. Geographies: Europe. Who can apply: Consortia only (individuals cannot apply), comprising a minimum of two and a maximum of five independent legal entities. Partners must cover at least two sides of the Knowledge Triangle (industry, education, research), including at least one industry organisation, and at least two entities must be legally established in different Horizon Europe countries. Funding amount: Foundational Learning Path: up to EUR €112,000; Thematic Learning Paths: up to EUR €124,500 per path (up to four thematic projects); up to EUR €610,000 total EIT Health funding available under the call. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology; Economic Development & Livelihoods. Deadline: November 2, 2026. Learn more and apply here. Technology Transfer Offices & Entrepreneurship Support Call (Beyond the Lab: From Research to Venture), EIT Health. *New!* *Closing soon!* EIT Health is opening its Technology Transfer Offices and Entrepreneurship Support Call to fund consortia that will deliver the Beyond the Lab: From Research to Venture program for healthcare researchers. EIT Health is using the grant to build local capacity for turning laboratory science into incorporated start-ups, paying experienced technology transfer offices and entrepreneurship support providers to run masterclasses, structured mentoring, and a closing Pitch Day across two cohorts. It wants to back organizations that can walk researchers from discovery to company formation, not just teach theory. Requiring two transfer offices plus one venture-building provider signals that EIT Health values proven commercialization experience alongside academic reach. The strongest fits are European research-commercialization teams with a track record of moving health innovations toward investable ventures. Geographies: Europe. Who can apply: A consortium of two Technology Transfer Offices (representing higher education institutions or research organisations) and one Entrepreneurship Support Provider with demonstrated experience in venture building and start-up support. Applicants may apply for more than one learning path where they can demonstrate the required expertise and capacity for each. Funding amount: Up to EUR €77,000 in 2027 and up to EUR €77,000 in 2028 (up to EUR €154,000 total per consortium over two years). Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology; Economic Development & Livelihoods. Deadline: November 2, 2026. Learn more and apply here. EIT Health RIS Country Representatives Call (2027-2028), EIT Health. *New!* *Closing soon!* EIT Health is seeking organizations to serve as Country Representatives across eleven Regional Innovation Scheme countries in central and eastern Europe for the 2027 to 2028 period. The money funds a national anchor in each country, an organization that maps the local health innovation ecosystem, connects startups and researchers to EIT Health programs, and builds the stakeholder relationships that let health ventures grow. EIT Health is backing local capacity rather than individual projects, which is why it accepts both single organizations and national consortia that span education, research, and industry. The requirement for co-financing signals that it wants representatives already embedded in their national systems. The strongest fits are established ecosystem builders with deep ties to health innovation stakeholders in one eligible country. Geographies: Croatia; Czech Republic; Estonia; Greece; Hungary; Latvia; Malta; Romania; Serbia; Slovenia; Turkey. Who can apply: Registered legal entities established in one of the eligible EIT RIS countries. Single organisations or national consortia may apply. Consortia must include at least two sides of the Knowledge Triangle (education, research and industry), and all consortium partners must be established in the same eligible country. Suitable applicants have demonstrated experience in healthcare innovation ecosystem development, innovation support and entrepreneurship, start-up acceleration, technology transfer, research and higher education, business support, and stakeholder engagement, with strong links to national innovation stakeholders. Funding amount: Up to EUR €182,000 per Country Representative (maximum funding per project); total call budget up to EUR €1,274,500; EIT Health funds up to 60% of total eligible project costs. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology; Economic Development & Livelihoods. Deadline: November 2, 2026. Learn more and apply here. Architects of Trust: Community-Driven Demand Creation for New TB Vaccines, Treatment Action Group (TAG). *New!* *Closing soon!* Treatment Action Group, with funding from Wellcome, is opening its Architects of Trust call to help communities prepare for the new tuberculosis vaccines now moving through late-stage trials. The money backs civil society and community-based organizations to raise awareness, surface local questions and concerns, and press policymakers toward equitable national rollout. By pairing each grantee with an advocacy mentor and running a strategy workshop alongside the Global TB Vaccine Forum, Treatment Action Group is building a durable advocacy bench rather than funding one-off outreach. The two-stage design, starting with a short expression of interest, signals that fit and community rootedness matter more than polished proposals. The strongest fits are locally trusted groups with real TB, immunization, or health advocacy experience and a committed project lead. Geographies: Brazil; Ethiopia; India; Indonesia; Kenya; Malawi; Mozambique; Nigeria; Peru; Philippines; South Africa; Tanzania; Vietnam; Zambia. Who can apply: National, subnational, or regional civil society organizations (CSOs) or community-based organizations based in one of the 14 eligible countries or in Eastern Europe/Central Asia regional networks, with experience in TB, immunization, or other health advocacy and in community engagement or policy advocacy; well integrated into stakeholder networks with membership or affiliation to other CSO or community networks; naming a dedicated project lead (’architect of trust’) who can attend the April 2027 Zaragoza forum in person; and holding (or committing to adopt) organizational policies on safeguarding (bullying, harassment, abuse, and harm), equity, diversity and inclusion, and legal compliance, research practice and governance. Funding amount: Grants of up to US$45,000 will be awarded to 8 CSO partners across 14 high-TB-burden countries plus regional networks in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; each grant funds 12 months of work. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Governance; Policy & Advocacy. Deadline: November 4, 2026. Learn more and apply here.
School board takes care of business at monthly meeting
SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor A number of routine business and personnel matters were tended to during Wednesday’s monthly meeting of the Van Wert City Schools Board of Education. The board approved the recommendation of the Van Wert Area School Insurance Group for the 2027 plan year premiums, which include an eight percent increase for health insurance […]
What climate scientists teach us about research communication
People are more likely to engage with research when they understand why it matters to them. Andrew Charlton-Perez and Laura Tobin explore strategies to make academic work feel relevant to a wider audience
Students Exploring Studying Abroad Opportunities, talking to a rep from Eberly college of science
A student talks with a representative from the Eberly College of Science at their booth table during the Education Abroad Fair in Alumni Hall, HUB-Robeson Center in University Park, Pa.,
New teachers union president wants to steer educators away from partisan politics
The new president of the nation's largest labor union, Princess Moss, talks about the challenges facing educators and the next steps for the National Education Association.
Legends Radio highlights Claudio Jaffé’s musical passion
Claudio Jaffé COURTESY PHOTO This week's Legends Radio Local Artist Spotlight shines on internationally celebrated cellist Claudio Jaffé.For Claudio, a lifelong passion for music began at an early age. At just eleven years old, he made his orchestral debut in his native Brazil, launching a career that would take him to celebrated stages across the globe, including New York, London and Tokyo.A prizewinning performer and Yale University graduate, Jaffé has dedicated much of his career not only to musical excellence but also to sharing his knowledge with aspiring musicians. He previously served as Dean of the Lynn University Conservatory of Music.Today, Claudio serves as principal cellist of the Palm Beach Symphony, performing in the orchestra's Masterworks Concert Series at the Kravis Center. He also hosts “Symphony Sessions: Lunch & Learn,” giving music lovers an opportunity to explore the stories, composers, and preparation behind upcoming concerts. His scheduled sessions for the 2026–2027 season include February 4 and April 22.Beyond the stage, Jaffé remains deeply involved in community outreach and music education. Through school residencies, student coaching, and educational performances, he continues to share his experience with young musicians throughout Palm Beach County.His contributions reflect a career dedicated not simply to performing beautiful music but also to ensuring its appreciation continues for generations to come. His commitment to both performance and education continues to make a lasting impact on South Florida's cultural community.That is why Claudio Jaffé is this week's Legends Radio Local Artist Spotlight.