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)
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Virtual culturally grounded interventions for substance use in urban American Indian and Alaska Native emerging adults
JAMA Network Open
About the Study:
In this randomized clinical trial of 2 virtual culturally grounded interventions for substance use, virtual recruitment and intervention successfully reached urban American Indian or Alaska Native emerging adults with decreased access to resources. Both groups reduced consequences and cannabis use; however, only TACUNA participants reported decreases in quantity of alcohol and cannabis use and time spent around peers using cannabis and heroin and greater decreases in anxiety. These findings emphasize the role of bringing American Indian and Alaska Native emerging adults together to discuss ways to reduce alcohol and other drug use and socially connect with their tribal communities in the urban environment in a virtual setting.
Corresponding Author: Elizabeth J. D’Amico, PhD, RAND, 1776 Main St, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 (damico@rand.org).
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Journal
JAMA Network Open
KTU researchers eliminate one of the biggest drawbacks of perovskite solar cells
The KTU team has created a more stable interface between the different layers of the solar cell, enabling the device to operate more efficiently and maintain its performance for longer
Global electricity consumption continues to rise each year, while the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is creating new challenges for the energy sector. With electricity demand projected to surge by 2030, this trend is already being described as one of the fastest transformations in the history of energy. As a result, researchers are seeking solar energy solutions that are more efficient, more affordable and easier to deploy.
One of the most promising technologies is perovskite solar cells. They are highly efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, can be manufactured as thin and flexible devices, and require less energy and lower production costs than conventional silicon modules. However, their commercial adoption has long been limited by a fundamental challenge – insufficient long-term stability when exposed to moisture, heat and oxygen.
A study published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications presents a solution developed by researchers at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) and their international partners that addresses this challenge by eliminating one of the main causes of perovskite solar cell degradation. The team has created a more stable interface between the different layers of the solar cell, enabling the device to operate more efficiently and maintain its performance for longer.
A Microscopic Layer Determines the Performance of The Entire Device
According to Dr Kasparas Rakštys, a researcher at KTU, the weakness of perovskite solar cells often lies not in the light-absorbing material itself, but in the interfaces between the different layers.
“Simply put, a solar cell can be imagined as a multi-layered sandwich in which each layer is made of a different material and performs a specific function. For the device to operate efficiently, these layers must be perfectly interconnected,” explains Rakštys.
Until now, researchers have often relied on charge-transporting self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) developed by the research group of Professor Vytautas Getautis at KTU. Acting as molecular glue, these materials were first introduced in 2018 and represented a major breakthrough in perovskite solar cell technology.
“Over time, however, one significant drawback became apparent. Due to their acidic nature, these molecules can gradually corrode adjacent layers, creating defects at the interface that hinder charge transport. As a result, the solar cell becomes less efficient and its operational lifetime is reduced,” says Rakštys.
Although this layer is only a few nanometres thick, it plays a crucial role by transferring positive charge carriers (holes) to the electrode. If obstacles arise along this pathway, the overall performance of the device declines, even if the perovskite itself continues to absorb sunlight efficiently.
This is precisely the weak point the KTU researchers set out to improve. Their solution was to modify the part of the molecule responsible for attaching to the metal oxide contact layer. Traditionally acidic, this group was chemically transformed into an ionic salt.
“In this study, we simply neutralised the acidic molecules by converting them into chemically neutral salts, creating a non-aggressive interface that allows the solar cell to operate much more stably and efficiently. This approach is chemically neutral and offers several technological advantages. The salt molecules bind just as strongly to metal oxide surfaces, while also being water-soluble, meaning the layer can be deposited without using toxic solvents,” explains Rakštys.
According to the KTU researcher, the study successfully achieved two goals that are usually difficult to combine – stability and high efficiency.
“The most surprising aspect is undoubtedly the simplicity of the idea. Considering that perovskite solar cells are currently one of the fastest-growing technologies, with thousands of researchers working in this field worldwide, successfully implementing such a simple concept was a genuine eureka moment. Science often involves constant experimentation and learning from failure, yet sometimes the most complex approaches lead nowhere, while the simplest ideas deliver the best results,” Rakštys says.
The Solution Works Beyond the Laboratory
One of the greatest challenges for emerging solar cell technologies is demonstrating that they perform well not only in small laboratory-scale samples but also over larger areas. As Rakštys points out, this is often where the difference between a scientific achievement and a commercially viable technology becomes evident.
“Achieving high efficiency in the laboratory is not enough – it is equally important to demonstrate that the same solution performs well in larger-area devices that are much closer to real solar modules,” he says.
Working together with partners in China, the KTU researchers demonstrated that the new concept enables large-area modules to be coated with a uniform, high-quality layer, allowing the technology to be evaluated under conditions much closer to practical application.
According to Rakštys, international collaboration is essential in this field because perovskite solar cell research combines expertise in chemistry, physics, materials science and device engineering.
The method was also tested in perovskite tandem solar cells. These devices are regarded as one of the most promising directions for the future of solar energy because their different layers absorb different parts of the solar spectrum.
“Using our new approach, we achieved a power conversion efficiency greater than 29 per cent in perovskite tandem solar cells – one of the highest values reported to date,” says Rakštys.
For consumers, such advances could eventually mean cheaper, more durable and more versatile renewable energy technologies. “They open up opportunities to integrate solar cells into places where this is currently difficult, such as building facades, windows and even textiles,” the researcher adds.
The KTU team is already moving towards commercialisation. They continue to develop the concept of neutralised self-assembled monolayers while investigating new molecules that could deliver even better performance.
“Recognising the strong commercial potential of this invention, we have filed a patent application. Moreover, after presenting these results at a specialised scientific conference of emerging solar cell technolgies, we attracted the interest of one of the world's largest chemical companies. We have already launched the commercialisation process, and our SAM salts will soon become commercially available. Our goal is to bring this innovation to the global market and make it accessible to other research groups as quickly as possible,” emphasises Dr Rakštys.
Solar Cells Attracting Growing Interest from The Space Industry
These properties are valuable not only on Earth. According to Rakštys, the lightweight, ultra-thin structure and excellent radiation resistance of perovskite solar cells are also attracting considerable attention from the space industry, where reliability requirements are exceptionally demanding.
“Together with colleagues, we founded the spin-out company SantakaPV, which focuses on an entirely different application area – the space sector. Interest in solar cells for space applications has now reached unprecedented levels. This is no longer science fiction,” the researcher says.
The space solar cell market is currently dominated by extremely expensive technologies. As space and security technologies become increasingly interconnected, private commercial spaceflight expands, and launch costs continue to fall, solar power is playing an ever more critical role. Demand is growing rapidly for new energy-generation technologies that are both significantly more affordable and capable of withstanding the harsh radiation conditions of space.
“It turns out that conventional silicon solar cells used on Earth may degrade rapidly under space radiation, whereas perovskites exhibit remarkable radiation resistance. The vacuum of space is also an ideal environment for perovskites because it contains neither moisture nor oxygen – the two greatest enemies of this material on Earth.
Recent studies show that perovskites retain more than 90% of their efficiency even after radiation doses that would render silicon solar cells unusable. In addition, perovskite solar cells are exceptionally thin and lightweight, offering a power-to-weight ratio that is 10 to 20 times better than today's expensive multi-junction solar cells used in satellites,” concludes Dr Rakštys.
The article “Ionic self-assembled monolayers enable neutral interfaces and synergistic charge extraction in high-efficiency perovskite solar cells” is available here.
For decades, obesity medications produced only modest weight loss. But in recent years, Ozempic and related GLP-1 therapies have transformed the field, enabling sustained weight loss of 10 to 15% or more. Despite their success, however, scientists have not fully understood how these drugs work in the brain.
Now, in a new study, Yale researchers have identified an unexpected mechanism of action that challenges a long-held assumption about the brain’s hunger circuitry: that agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons, known as drivers of hunger, functioned solely to oppose weight loss. However, the new study shows that GLP-1 therapies like Ozempic instead recruit these neurons to help sustain fat loss.
“This completely changes how we think about the mechanism involved in these medications and provides new insight into the biology underlying their long-term effects, opening an avenue for the development of more efficient drugs,” said Mateus d’Ávila, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience working in Tamas Horvath’s lab in the Department of Comparative Medicine at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and first author of the study.
The study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Semaglutide, the active ingredient in GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, has become one of the most effective medications ever developed for obesity. Yet we still don’t fully understand why it works so well. Previous generations of weight-loss drugs suppress appetite almost as effectively as semaglutide, but none produce the same degree of sustained weight loss.
For Yale researchers, that suggested semaglutide was doing something beyond simply reducing appetite. Before their study, one prevailing view was that GLP-1 drugs promote weight loss by reducing the activity of neurons that drive hunger. Although this hypothesis has been widely discussed, the role of AgRP neurons in weight loss during chronic GLP-1 treatment had not been directly tested in vivo.
In the new study, the researchers wanted to uncover that missing biology. By understanding how the brain adapts to treatment, they hoped to reveal new therapeutic targets that could eventually lead to even better obesity medications. For the study, they combined several complementary approaches in a mouse model and monitored body weight, food intake, metabolism, and energy expenditure during semaglutide treatment. They also used genetic methods that allowed them to selectively remove or silence AgRP hunger neurons, enabling them to determine whether those neurons were necessary for the drug’s effects.
When treating mice genetically modified to lack the AgRP neurons, the researchers observed that GLP-1 drugs could no longer sustain weight loss. Further experiments using electron microscopy, molecular biology, and electrophysiology showed that these AgRP neurons were being activated rather than inhibited by semaglutide.
These findings, researchers say, suggest that the brain adapts to the calorie deficit created by GLP-1 treatment by increasing the activity of these AgRP hunger neurons, which also coordinate loss of fat. This reveals a previously unrecognized layer of complexity in how GLP-1 therapies work.
Because the study was performed in mice, additional research is needed before these findings can be translated to people. However, understanding exactly how these medications work in the brain is an important step toward developing future obesity treatments.
“By identifying a previously unrecognized neural mechanism involved in sustaining weight loss, our work provides new biological insights that could eventually help researchers design therapies that are even more effective or have fewer side effects,” d’Ávila said.
Other authors from YSM include Roberto Collado-Pérez, a postdoctoral associate; Zhong-Wu Liu, assistant professor adjunct; Joseph Schlessinger, the William H. Prusoff Professor of Pharmacology; and Horvath, the Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Comparative Medicine.
There are increasing calls for tighter legislation and restrictions on social media use, particularly for children and young people. Evidence shows potential harms co-exist on social media platforms alongside opportunities for crisis support and connection.
There are concerns from experts that extensive restrictions have the potential to remove supportive spaces from those who need them the most. Current evidence on the impact of restrictions remains sparse with early evaluations of the ban in Australia indicating roughly eight in 10 children were still using social media. Therefore more evidence is required understand how to create safe online spaces.
The team believe this is the first study to gain the perspectives of individuals with a history of self-harm on social media safety features.
For their research they conducted a survey of more than 5,000 respondents as well as in-depth interviews with 17 people - most with a history of self-harm and all of whom who had viewed self-harm content online. The team asked about experiences of self-harm and suicide content, the increased restrictions and safety messaging introduced by some platforms in 2019, as well as specific safety features.
Their findings, which have just been published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), included:
Half the respondents felt the introduction of the additional restrictions made social media safer; 34.9 per cent said it changed what they saw and 9.9 per cent said it changed what they posted;
79.4 per cent felt restrictions could make someone feel bad or isolated. Interviewees discussed supportive spaces being hindered by censorship of recovery narratives and , increases in isolation for those who depend on these communities;
More than 90 per cent of respondents said they would be likely to click on a post with generic content warning, whereas just 40 per cent would view a post with a self-harm specific warning – having self-harm and suicide specific warnings allowed them to make a choice;
21.1 per cent had had a post censored or removed because their self-harm scars were visible. This was experienced as harmful by 90 per cent of respondents, with similar findings for stories of recovery;
87.8 per cent wanted more control over the content they see; and,
There was a desire to increase safety for younger people, for example by tailoring platforms for younger users with more limited features.
The study’s first author Dr Amanda Marchant said: “While restrictions may reduce harmful content, they may also unintentionally limit recovery narratives and community support. There needs to be ongoing evaluation to ensure there are supportive oenvironments while still minimising harm.“As well as changes for safety we should also be optimising social media as an opportunity for signposting, reducing stigma and supportive communities.”
The researchers are calling for restrictions and policies to be developed with young people and those with lived experience and then trialled thoroughly before being implemented.
They say analysing any restrictions and features is essential so platforms can continue to improve and create safe spaces while mitigating potential harms.
Professor Ann John, senior author and Director of NCSR said: “There is lots of uncertainty in the current evidence base of social media bans for under-16s with the potential for unintended consequences, including reduced access to supportive spaces, isolation, and pushing young people to darker more concealed spaces on the internet.
“Bans mean children and young people are less likely to discuss their social media experiences or any concerns with trusted adults. They are also difficult to implement. Online interventions should be co-designed, tested and evaluated before mass roll-out.”
Dr Marchant added: “Almost 90 per cent of survey respondents said they wanted more personal control over what they view, highlighting that controls need to be easy to use and intuitive. This would increase young people’s agency online and can be implemented by platform providers.”
Notional rendering of UNITY-3, a first-of-its-kind breeding blanket test facility to be jointly delivered by Kyoto Fusioneering and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has officially committed funding to establish UNITY-3, a world-class fusion breeding blanket test facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with Kyoto Fusioneering (KF) relocating its U.S. headquarters to Tennessee to help build and operate it. The facility is part of the recent public-private strategic partnership established between DOE, ORNL and KF to build critical fusion infrastructure required for commercial fusion energy.
UNITY-3 will be the newest facility in KF and its partners’ existing Unique Integrated Testing Facility™ (UNITY) Program, a global ecosystem of dedicated test platforms for fusion blanket and fuel cycle subsystems, including the UNITY-1 blanket and thermal cycle test facility operational in Japan and the UNITY-2 deuterium-tritium fuel cycle facility under development in Canada.
Breeding blankets are a critical component of fusion reactors, responsible for capturing energy from fusion neutrons and producing tritium, an isotope of hydrogen used as fuel in a fusion reaction. UNITY-3 will be a first-of-its-kind accelerator-based breeding blanket test facility capable of generating high-energy neutrons at 14 megaelectronvolts (MeV), typical of those produced by a burning plasma. The strong neutron source will enable researchers to evaluate candidate commercial blanket designs in fusion-like conditions and validate the computational models used to simulate tritium fuel production.
"Oak Ridge National Laboratory has helped lead the nation in nuclear science advancements for more than eight decades, and fusion is an important part of that legacy,” said ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer. “Pairing Kyoto Fusioneering’s deep expertise in fusion technology and integrated systems with ORNL's strengths in neutron science, materials, advanced manufacturing, and computing gives the United States a place to answer one of fusion's hardest questions — how breeding blankets perform in a real nuclear environment. We're proud to partner on UNITY-3 and to help build the shared infrastructure the fusion community depends on."
Establishing UNITY-3 at ORNL supports the priorities outlined in DOE’s Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap to develop the scientific basis and enabling technologies to make fusion a reality, and expands the laboratory’s capabilities in tritium handling, blanket design and high-energy neutron science.
“ORNL and Kyoto Fusioneering share a common goal of accelerating the technologies needed to make fusion energy a practical power source,” said Troy Carter, director of ORNL’s Fusion Energy Division. “This collaboration will establish a truly unique resource for the global fusion community to test innovative blanket concepts and advance our understanding of the fusion fuel cycle. We welcome KF to East Tennessee and look forward to developing our partnership over the coming years.”
UNITY-3 will be instrumented with advanced sensors capable of measuring neutron energies and tritium production levels with unprecedented sensitivity and precision. These high-fidelity measurements will help train and validate AI-accelerated digital twins of breeding blanket concepts and advance the technologies needed for fusion systems to create their own fuel.
"Every D-T fusion power plant being designed assumes a breeding blanket that works — yet no one has ever validated one under real fusion-nuclear conditions. UNITY-3 is where that changes: a shared proving ground that replaces assumptions with measured data for the entire industry,” said Bibake Uppal, president of Kyoto Fusioneering America. “We came to Oak Ridge because nowhere else brings together the fusion nuclear science and computing this challenge demands."
Kyoto Fusioneering is the world’s premier fusion technology and integrated systems developer. It delivers essential plasma heating, breeding blanket, power generation, and tritium fuel cycle systems to advanced fusion programs worldwide. KF operates globally across Japan, U.S., U.K., Europe, and a joint venture in Canada. Visit us at kyotofusioneering.com. Join the conversation on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.
This pizza delivery study will change the way sellers view delivery services well beyond the foodservice industry
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
BALTIMORE, Aug. 3, 2026 – What can a pizza shop teach us about the dramatic shifts taking place in consumer marketing? Quite a lot, actually. New research that focused on pizza delivery has found that consumer impatience is now driving so much consumer decision-making that even location, price, and quality can take a back seat. While this study focused on pizza delivery, the study’s findings have ramifications for all business-to-consumer firms.
The new research published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science took a closer look at how faster delivery influences consumer choice. The researchers found that consumer impatience—the desire for rapid delivery—reduces the likelihood that the consumer will comparison-shop, it reduces substitution among sellers, it softens price competition, and it allows lower-quality providers to survive.
The findings challenge conventional wisdom, which holds that faster delivery mostly expands consumer choice and intensifies competition.
The study, “Consumer Impatience, Technological Innovation, and Market Structure,” by Chaewon Seol and Federico Rossi of Purdue University, Sara Valentini of Bocconi University, and Elisa Montaguti of the University of Bologna, analyzed nearly 98,000 pizza-delivery orders placed by more than 6,800 consumers across 51 independently owned pizzerias in a major Northern Italian city between 2010 and 2011.
“Our findings challenge the common assumption that faster delivery simply intensifies rivalry,” said Seol. “Instead, impatience fragments the market, protecting lower-quality providers that rely on proximity while limiting the reach of higher-quality ones.”
The study’s findings show that consumers are highly sensitive to waiting. For the median consumer, a 50% reduction in delivery time is worth more than 20% of the order price. This impatience sharply limits competition, more often giving the order to the establishment which can deliver the product the fastest. The faster delivery time often also negates lowest-price competition.
At the same time, the study authors found that when technology substantially shortens delivery times, however, the market shifts: high-quality firms gain share while many lower-quality establishments exit. So, even while delivery times, combined with consumer impatience, shape the market, the higher quality competitors tend to perform better, ultimately driving lower-quality firms out.
“When delivery time falls by more than 75%, the pattern reverses: market share concentrates among high-quality pizzerias, and many low- and mid-quality establishments exit,” said Rossi. “This is because proximity to the customer is no longer an advantage for some of those lower-quality sellers.”
The researchers also found that the platform consumers use to make decisions and place orders can monetize impatience. Offering a premium delivery service that is 10% faster for an additional fee equal to 10% of the basic menu price increases platform profits by 18.7%.
“For platforms and marketing decision-makers, understanding the dual role of delivery speed is essential,” said Valentini.
“Strategies that treat impatience solely as a cost to be minimized may miss both the competitive advantages it provides,” Montaguti added.
While this study focused on pizza delivery, the findings of this study add to the empirical research on consumer behaviors in an online world. The same dynamics at play in this study can be transferred to any business that sells products online and relies upon delivery channels.
INFORMS is the world’s largest association for professionals and students in operations research, AI, analytics, data science and related disciplines, serving as a global authority in advancing cutting-edge practices and fostering an interdisciplinary community of innovation. Marketing Science, a leading journal published by INFORMS, publishes research on quantitative marketing, consumer behavior, pricing, and strategy that informs managerial and policy decisions. INFORMS empowers its community to improve organizational performance and drive data-driven decision-making through its journals, conferences and resources. Learn more at www.informs.org or @informs.
High-tech alternatives to animal testing, modular µSiM (m-µSiM) tissue chip platform components are mass-produced and primarily acrylic, which allows for the assembly of highly reproducible devices.
Animal testing has long been the standard for evaluating new drugs before they reach human patients. But when it comes to cancer immunotherapy drugs, animal models often fail to predict which immunotherapies might produce harmful side effects in humans because they do not have the same responses or the same cell receptors. Researchers from the University of Rochester’s Translational Center for Barrier Microphysiological Systems (TraCe-bMPS) are working on a high-tech solution: tissue chips, also known as organs-on-a-chip.
TraCe-bMPS is attempting to create drug discovery tools that could ultimately be accepted by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in evaluating new drugs. The tools are built using the modular, mass-producible µSiM chips with ultrathin membranes of human cells pioneered by center director James McGrath, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biomedical Engineering. The platform also leverages sensors integrated directly into the chips, developed by Professor Benjamin Miller, that allow researchers to monitor barrier function and inflammatory signaling in real time.
Immunotherapies heighten the immune system’s ability to detect and kill cancer cells. But they can produce adverse effects such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS)—an inflammatory response that can lead to organ failure—and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS), which causes the immune cells to attack nerves.
“The goal is to predict these toxicities from human cells on a chip, before a drug ever reaches a patient, and to do it without relying on animal models that have repeatedly failed to predict CRS in people,” says McGrath.
An important regulatory milestone
Previous studies have demonstrated the technology’s promise, and the team recently overcame a significant hurdle by being accepted into the FDA’s Innovative Science and Technology Approaches for New Drugs (ISTAND) pilot program, which helps evaluate new tools for developing drugs.
“We’re excited the FDA sees value in developing tissue chips, and we will work hard to go through the remaining steps to ensure the research community can more widely leverage this technology for drug discovery,” says Joan Adamo, director of regulatory support services at URochester Medicine’s Clinical & Translational Science Institute.
The team is now working to submit a detailed qualification plan to the FDA with clinical considerations, timelines, data sharing plans, and the statistical methods that will be used to evaluate the tissue chip technology. They can then apply for full qualification. If the technology becomes FDA-qualified, companies could use it to have a more human-like way to test potential medicines and include those results when filing new drug applications with the FDA.
Beyond animal testing
The FDA began efforts to move away from animal testing with the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 in 2022, and the pace increased with the FDA’s 2025 Roadmap to Reducing Animal Testing in Preclinical Safety Studies. While very few tissue chip systems have made it to this stage in the regulation process so far, Adamo says it is a rapidly changing field, and the demand for this technology is quickly growing.
“The FDA was very interested from the outset in making sure there will be companies that want to use this technology,” says Adamo. “It has been easy to interest pharmaceutical companies in the development of this tool, as there are many immunotherapies in clinical trials that carry the risk of CRS and ICANS.”
McGrath and Adamo say they collaborated closely with Graham Marsh ’14 (PhD) from the nonprofit Critical Path Institute to submit the candidate drug discovery tool, and acknowledge Pfizer scientists for helpful discussions on the utility of the tool in drug development.
