It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
In the near future, you may not need to touch a keypad to select a tip or pay for large purchases. All it may take is a swipe, tap or other quick gesture.
Hygienic tips
The innovation utilizes near-field communication (NFC), the short-range wireless technology embedded in smartphones, payment cards and terminals, passports and key fobs. UBC computer scientists say it could help prevent the spread of germs through touchpads, speed up transactions, and improve accessibility for users unable to press buttons.
Researchers debuted the technology in a paper at the User Interface Software and Technology conference yesterday.
“Now, we can provide contactless interactions that didn’t even exist before: make a gesture with your existing card to input a PIN or pick a tip amount,” says senior author Dr. Robert Xiao.
How it works
Dr. Xiao and doctoral student Bu Li analyzed raw signals from NFC chips and introduced copper coils to manipulate the generated magnetic field. By examining changes in the field as a card moved through it, they were able to define nine distinct gestures, including swiping up and down, left to right, and double tapping. Using a custom AI model, the team found the reader could distinguish between gestures with about 92 per cent accuracy.
“Gesture interaction could also add an extra layer of security,” said Li.
Innovation on the cheap
The researchers estimate upgrades would cost at most $20 per payment terminal. “Many pay terminals already have the computing power required and if they don’t, it’s a cheap upgrade,” said Dr. Xiao.
The team is working with UBC to patent the technology.
Does walking influence how people process sensory information, like sounds, from the environment? In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Liyu Cao, from Zhejiang University, and Barbara Händel, from University of Würzburg, explored whether walking direction influences how people process sounds.
Thirty volunteers walked in an eight-shaped path as they listened to a continuous stream of sound with changing intensities while researchers collected recordings of brain activity. People had stronger neural responses to sound while walking as opposed to standing or walking in place. These responses changed to the same degree as manipulations to sound intensity. Notably, different walking directions changed how the brain responded to sound. Cao provides an example, “When people made a right turn, responses to sounds from the right ear were enhanced at the beginning of the turn and then suppressed, relative to the responses to sounds from left. This could reflect a change in attention during turns.”
When the authors introduced bursts of tones into the sound stream, these tones disrupted the brain’s associative response and elicited a different response. As before, this response was strongest during walking, but only when the sound bursts happened in one ear as opposed to both ears. This finding suggests that neural responses may be particularly sensitive to auditory input from the periphery when people are walking
Bridging the findings together, says Cao, “This could reflect a filtering operation of the brain: It might actively suppress predictable background sounds—like our own footsteps—while increasing sensitivity to unexpected sounds from the side. This might allow for faster reaction times and safer navigation in dynamic environments. It could also suggest that our auditory system appears to be optimized for detecting novelty and deviation during movement.”
JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.
About The Society for Neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries.
At the 18th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, which will be held in Malta on October 2-3, 2025, Iprona and Polyphenols Applications will announce a global call to action, inviting researchers to strengthen the quality and reproducibility of polyphenol science.
Through this initiative, ElderCraft®, a polyphenol-standardised European black elderberry (Sambucus nigra) water extract, is now available at no cost to qualified academic and clinical research groups worldwide.
ElderCraft® is a polyphenol and anthocyanin-rich extract, sourced exclusively from Austrian elderberries and produced using gentle ultrafiltration to preserve the natural profile of bioactive compounds. Each batch comes with Certificates of Analysis (CoAs), HPLC fingerprints, and stability data, ensuring traceability, batch-to-batch consistency, and study-ready analytics.
“Robust, comparable data begins with robust, comparable materials,” said Dr. Stephan Plattner, Scientific Director, Health & Nutrition Ingredients at iprona. “By sharing ElderCraft® with the research community, we aim to reduce study-to-study variability, enable stronger meta-analyses, and help unlock clearer dose–response and subgroup insights in polyphenol science.”
Polyphenols Applications 2025, organiser of the World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, fully supports this effort and encourages researchers across mechanistic, preclinical, and clinical fields to integrate highly characterised, standardised polyphenol extracts into their work.
Why It Matters
Improved reproducibility: Tight batch tolerances and full analytics reduce variability between studies.
Meta-analysis ready: Standardisation enables stronger dose–response and subgroup evaluation.
Translational relevance: ElderCraft® is already used in global consumer products, connecting research to real-world impact.
Compliance support: Full traceability and documented quality facilitate ethical and regulatory submissions.
Research areas include immune function, gut microbiome modulation, viral defence, cardiometabolic health, cognitive performance, healthy ageing, and energy metabolism.
Request research material Link: https://www.craft-ingredients.info/references/eldercraft-research-material-request
Contact Scientific queries/material: Dr. Stephan Plattner (Scientific Director, Health & Nutrition Ingredients, Iprona Lana) – stephan.plattner@iprona.com
About ElderCraft® https://www.craft-ingredients.info/our-ingredients/eldercraft
The 18th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications is the global forum where polyphenol science meets clinical translation. By joining forces, iprona and Polyphenols Applications aim to accelerate high-quality, reproducible studies that advance the field and clarify the health potential of polyphenols.
About iprona
Iprona is a global leader in fruit processing and bioactive ingredient development. With decades of expertise in polyphenol-rich extracts, iprona supports science-driven innovation and the creation of evidence-based health applications.
About Polyphenols Applications
Polyphenols Applications is an international scientific platform and organiser of the World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, fostering collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and industry to advance understanding and application of polyphenols in health and disease.
Disclosure: ElderCraft® is provided by iprona for research use only. This announcement is issued in collaboration with Polyphenols Applications and supported by iprona.
Yang receives funding for welfare and poverty mapping project
George Mason University
Ruixin Yang, Associate Professor, Geography Geoinformation Science, College of Science, received funding for: “Welfare and Poverty Mapping with Satellite-Derived Data, Spatial Analysis and Machine Learning Application.”
The objective of this consultancy is to provide technical and advisory support in:
processing satellite imagery and geospatial datasets;
designing and implementing machine learning models for spatial analysis; and
supporting documentation and dissemination of findings through project reports and scientific publications.
This assignment will directly support the spatial analytics team under the Science Action program, strengthening the quality and scalability of geospatial research outputs.
Yang received $15,000 from International Food Policy Research Institute for this research. Funding began in July 2025 and ended in Aug. 2025.
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Electric space heating, appliances reduce US residential energy consumption
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Electric space heating systems and appliances like water heaters can help American homeowners reduce their energy use, and possibly their utility bills, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State.
The researchers set out to identify the most important factors driving U.S. on-site residential energy consumption, which the team said accounts for approximately 21% of primary energy consumption in the country and is more complex than commercial energy use. They found that electric heating systems like heat pumps, compared to systems that rely on natural gas and oil, had the largest impact on reducing on-site energy usage at the national and state levels. Switching to energy-efficient electric appliances could also help homeowners reduce their energy consumption, the team reported in the journal Energy Policy.
“The most surprising finding was that homes relying on natural gas for space heating were using more on-site energy compared to electric homes,” said co-author Rahman Azari, associate professor of architecture at Penn State. “But it makes sense because it’s an issue of heating system efficiency as well as the efficiency of appliances, and electric appliances tend to be more efficient than natural gas appliances.”
Electric and gas systems have different transmission losses, but the bigger driver is equipment efficiency, said lead author Sepideh Korsavi, assistant professor of architecture at Mississippi State University who completed the work as a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State.
“Modern heat pumps often deliver two to three times more heat per unit of energy than typical gas furnaces,” she said. “When you account for delivery and efficiency together, electrified systems can lower household energy use and emissions in many regions.”
The researchers used the 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey from the U.S. Energy Information Administration to examine more than 300 determinants affecting household energy use. Published in 2023 and based on the responses of nearly 18,500 households, the survey represents the energy profiles of about 123.5 million individual homes, according to the researchers.
The team used a machine learning model, a form of artificial intelligence, to examine how the presence or absence of each determinant changed the model’s performance. They removed the determinants with the least impact on the model until they had a list of 41 factors that had the greatest impact on the model and, in turn, residential energy consumption.
They found that using electricity for space heating had the largest impact on decreasing on-site household energy consumption. Other factors that decreased energy consumption included the use of electric water heaters and other energy-efficient electric appliances; the construction of multi-family buildings, like apartment complexes and row homes, whose shared walls reduce heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer; and a set thermostat temperature in winter when no one is home.
“We found that by reducing the set point temperature in winter, we can reduce energy consumption significantly,” Korsavi said.
People assume that it’s costly to bring down household energy usage, said co-author Lisa Iulo, professor of architecture and director of the Hamer Center for Community Design in the Penn State Stuckeman School.
“People often jump to expensive solutions like replacing windows or adding solar power to address home energy demands,” she said. “That is not the place to start. Many interventions, like air sealing, changing out incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs or replacing an outdated water heater with an electric water heater — especially a hybrid one with a heat-pump boost, are lower-hanging fruit. Those incremental differences can add up to big overall energy savings and lower utility bills. Long-term affordability is important to homeowners and in the work we’re doing.”
Mehrdad Mahdavi, the Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Penn State, also contributed to this work. The Penn State Hamer Center for Community Design and its Resource and Energy Efficiency Lab, the College of Art & Architecture’s Stuckeman Center for Design Computing and Penn State’s Institute of Energy and the Environment supported this research.
