Oxford developing new AI tool to improve wildlife mentions in online media for more effective conservation efforts

University of Oxford

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A research team at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute is leading an innovative project to refine how wildlife is identified in digital news, helping conservationists direct their resources more effectively.

Reduce misclassification, prevent misinformation, and minimise misinterpretation of wildlife data in the media

In today’s digital age, online media plays a crucial role in shaping public perceptions of wildlife. Conservationists and researchers rely on media coverage to understand how people engage with and discuss wildlife-related issues. However, current keyword-based searches often misclassify content, leading to misleading insights. For instance, an article titled ‘Toronto Blue Jays Score Season High’ might be mistakenly flagged as wildlife-related when it actually refers to a baseball team.

To address this challenge, a team led by Dr Diogo Veríssimo is developing a machine learning (ML)-based filtering tool that can more accurately distinguish between genuine wildlife references and unrelated content. By comparing human-classified data with AI model outputs, the researchers aim to create a system that quickly and precisely identifies wildlife-related news, reducing misclassification, misinformation, and misinterpretation of wildlife data.

Why Does This Matter for Conservation?

Dr Veríssimo explains: ‘Understanding public sentiment towards wildlife is critical for conservation efforts. When people care about animals, they are more likely to support protection measures. However, tracking public attitudes isn’t always straightforward. Online media provides valuable insights, but only if we can accurately extract meaningful data. This is where AI can make a real difference. ‘

The project’s goal is to develop an advanced filtering tool that will help researchers and conservationists access clearer, more reliable insights from digital media. To ensure transparency and broad usability, the team plans to publish their findings as an open-access research paper, demonstrating how the tool can enhance media-based conservation research.

How You Can Get Involved

A key part of the project’s success relies on volunteers helping to create a ‘gold standard’ dataset by reviewing and classifying article titles to confirm whether they genuinely mention wildlife. This ground-truth data will be used to train and refine the AI model, making it even more accurate.

‘We’re inviting people from all backgrounds to take part in this effort’, says Dr Veríssimo. ‘By dedicating just a little time to sorting article titles, volunteers can play a direct role in improving conservation research. Together, we can build a tool that benefits scientists, conservationists, and, most importantly, the wildlife we all want to protect.’

Since the project launched just a few weeks ago, nearly 3,000 volunteers have already contributed, generating close to 2 million classifications—a testament to the power of people-driven research.

You can join the project, informally known as the ‘Nature SPAM Filter,’ on the Zooniverse citizen science platform.

Find out more and contribute to the Nature SPAM Filter project.

ENDS

 

About the Environmental Change Institute 

The Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford was established in 1991. Its aim is to organise and promote interdisciplinary research on the nature, causes and impact of environmental change and to contribute to the development of management strategies for coping with future environmental change.

www.eci.ox.ac.uk 

 

 

PTSD can undermine healthy couple communication when people fear their emotions

Penn State

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms often have trouble communicating and resolving relationship difficulties with their romantic partners, according to previous research by Steffany Fredman, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State, and others. In a new study, Fredman and others have found that some of these problems may stem from people’s fear of their emotions.

The researchers collected data from 64 opposite-sex couples in which both members of the couple had experienced a traumatic life event. The researchers analyzed PTSD symptom data from each member of the couple about perceived negative consequences if they feel strong emotions and how they and their partner tend to communicate.

Results published in Behaviour Research and Therapy demonstrated that people with higher levels of PTSD symptoms experienced greater fear of their emotions, which was associated with less constructive communication and more unproductive communication with their partners.

“In this study, we were trying to understand why people with PTSD symptoms have trouble resolving relationship difficulties with their romantic partners,” Fredman said. “Generally speaking, people with PTSD view themselves and other people negatively, and the resulting mistrust, anger, avoidance, withdrawal and emotional numbing put strain on their romantic relationships. Experiencing your feelings, trusting people and connecting with others are all important ingredients for healing from PTSD.”

PTSD can create a vicious cycle, according to Fredman. Behavior triggered by PTSD symptoms such as aggression, avoidance, withdrawal and numbing may strain relationships, and relationship discord can maintain PTSD symptoms. This cycle continues unless something changes.

Fredman co-developed couple-based treatment for PTSD to disrupt this cycle. Individuals with PTSD often experience emotions as dangerous and a trigger — or a trauma reminder — because strong emotions were felt during or after their trauma. Since romantic relationships evoke many strong emotions, people may experience emotionally evocative interactions with their partners as threatening and can engage in behaviors to neutralize this perceived threat, such as becoming aggressive and/or withdrawing.

When one or both partners develop unhealthy coping skills, strained romantic relationships can reinforce the symptoms of PTSD. On the other hand, relationships in which people can both express themselves and listen can promote recovery from PTSD, she said.

In the current study, the researchers recruited people with a broad range of PTSD symptoms and symptom severity. Studying people with a broad range of severity allowed the research team to understand the ways that more or less severe symptoms were likely to affect communication in a relationship.

The researchers interviewed participants about their PTSD symptoms and asked participants whether they feared their emotions. They also asked whether they typically communicate constructively — which involves collaborative problem solving, listening, suggesting compromises and expressing one’s feelings; whether they demand while their partner withdraws; and whether their partner demands while they withdraw when relationship issues arise.

In demand/withdraw communication, one partner complains, nags or otherwise tries to demand a response from their partner. The other partner responds by withdrawing and avoiding the interaction. Typically, Fredman said, the more one person withdraws, the more the other partner demands. This type of communication does not facilitate problem solving and often leaves issues unresolved. Unproductive and unresolved conflict can maintain PTSD symptoms by reinforcing perceptions of interpersonal threat and negative views of oneself and the other partner, Fredman continued.

Study participants who reported higher levels of PTSD symptoms were more likely to report fear of their emotions. Additionally, those who reported greater fear of their emotions were less likely to report constructive communication and were more likely to report that they demand while their partner withdraws and that their partner demands while they withdraw. This study is the first to identify that fear of emotions has interpersonal consequences, according to Fredman, meaning the fear influences how people interact with one another.

“When we only looked at PTSD symptoms and communication without considering a person’s fear of their emotions, there were relatively few direct connections we could identify,” Fredman said. “When we looked at the connections between PTSD symptoms and fear of emotions and then examined the connections between fear of emotions and communication styles, the connections became clear. This suggests that fear of emotions is an important influence on the communication style of couples where one or both people have PTSD symptoms.”

Prior work by Fredman and colleagues demonstrated that individuals with elevated PTSD symptoms had difficulties regulating their own emotional arousal during laboratory-based conversations with their partners about their relationships. More specifically, they responded to their own emotional arousal and the emotional arousal communicated through their partner’s voice in a manner consistent with emotional arousal serving as a trauma cue. The current study extended this prior work by demonstrating that individuals’ PTSD symptoms may predispose them to catastrophic thoughts about feeling strong emotions and that such thoughts may be why couples in which one or both partners have elevated PTSD symptoms tend to have a hard time communicating constructively.

“Other research we conducted has shown that couple therapy can effectively reduce PTSD symptoms and improve relationship communication, even in just a single weekend,” Fredman said. “This latest study reveals more nuance about how PTSD symptoms, fear of emotions and communication difficulties are connected and why they should be treated at the same time.”

Jeesun Lee, graduate student in human development and family studies at Penn State; Yunying Le, who earned her doctorate in human development and family studies in 2019 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State and is now research assistant professor at University of Denver; Emily Taverna, who earned her doctorate in 2023 psychology at Penn State and is now Advanced Fellow in Women’s Health at the Women's Health Sciences Division of the National Center for PTSD; and Amy Marshall, professor at Virginia Tech, also contributed to this research.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Science, the Karl R. Fink and Diane Wendle Fink Early Career Professorship for the Study of Families, the Edna P. Bennett Faculty Fellowship in Prevention Research and the Joseph and Jean Britton Graduate Fellowship from the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State funded this research.

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Journal

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Associations among PTSD symptoms, fear of emotion, and couple communication difficulties: A between-person dyadic analysis

 

My robot therapist: The ethics of AI mental health chatbots for kids

University of Rochester Medical Center

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Mental health care can be difficult to access in the U.S. Insurance coverage is spotty and there aren’t enough mental health professionals to cover the nation’s need, leading to long waits and costly care.

Enter artificial intelligence (AI).

AI mental health apps, ranging from mood trackers to chatbots that mimic human therapists, are proliferating on the market. While they may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in our system, there are ethical concerns about overreliance on AI for mental health care—especially for children.

Most AI mental health apps are unregulated and designed for adults, but there’s a growing conversation about using them with children. Bryanna Moore, PhD, assistant professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), wants to make sure these conversations include ethical considerations.

“No one is talking about what is different about kids—how their minds work, how they're embedded within their family unit, how their decision making is different,” says Moore, who shared these concerns in a recent commentary in the Journal of Pediatrics. “Children are particularly vulnerable. Their social, emotional, and cognitive development is just at a different stage than adults.”

In fact, AI mental health chatbots could impair children’s social development. Evidence shows that children believe robots have “moral standing and mental life,” which raises concerns that children—especially young ones—could become attached to chatbots at the expense of building healthy relationships with people.

A child’s social context—their relationships with family and peers—is integral to their mental health.  That’s why pediatric therapists don’t treat children in isolation. They observe a child’s family and social relationships to ensure the child’s safety and to include family members in the therapeutic process. AI chatbots don’t have access to this important contextual information and can miss opportunities to intervene when a child is in danger.

AI chatbots—and AI systems in general—also tend to worsen existing health inequities.

“AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. To build a system that works for everyone, you need to use data that represents everyone,” said commentary coauthor Jonathan Herington, PhD, assistant professor of in the departments of Philosophy and of Health Humanities and Bioethics. “Unfortunately, without really careful efforts to build representative datasets, these AI chatbots won’t be able to serve everyone.”

A child’s gender, race, ethnicity, where they live, and their family’s relative wealth all impact their risk of experiencing adverse childhood events, like abuse, neglect, incarceration of a loved one, or witnessing violence, substance abuse, or mental illness in the home or community. Children who experience these events are more likely to need intensive mental health care and are less likely to be able to access it. 

“Children of lesser means may be unable to afford human-to-human therapy and thus come to rely on these AI chatbots in place of human-to-human therapy,” said Herington. “AI chatbots may become valuable tools but should never replace human therapy.”

Most AI therapy chatbots are not currently regulated. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only approved one AI-based mental health app to treat major depression in adults. Without regulations, there’s no way to safeguard against misuse, lack of reporting, or inequity in training data or user access.

“There are so many open questions that haven't been answered or clearly articulated,” said Moore. “We're not advocating for this technology to be nixed. We're not saying get rid of AI or therapy bots. We’re saying we need to be thoughtful in how we use them, particularly when it comes to a population like children and their mental health care.”

Moore and Herington partnered with Şerife Tekin, PhD, associate professor in the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical, on this commentary. Tekin studies the philosophy of psychiatry and cognitive science and the bioethics of using AI in medicine.

Going forward, the team hopes to partner with developers to better understand how they develop AI-based therapy chatbots. Particularly, they want to know whether and how developers incorporate ethical or safety considerations into the development process and to what extent their AI models are informed by research and engagement with children, adolescents, parents, pediatricians, or therapists.

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Journal

The Journal of Pediatrics

DOI

10.1016/j.jpeds.2025.114509 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Integration of Artificial Intelligence-Powered Psychotherapy Chatbots in Pediatric Care: Scaffold or Substitute?

 

Social factors help explain worse cardiovascular health among adults in rural vs. urban communities

NIH-funded study reveals variables, such as poverty and education, that may underpin higher rates of heart disease and its risk factors

NIH/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

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Social factors help explain worse cardiovascular health among adults in rural vs. urban communities
NIH-funded study reveals variables, such as poverty and education, that may underpin higher rates of heart disease and its risk factors

WHAT: A research team funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) uncovered higher rates of heart disease and worse heart health affecting adults living in rural communities compared to urban areas and the factors that likely drive these differences. They found adults living in rural areas were more likely than those living in large cities to have heart disease (7% vs. 4%), high blood pressure (37% vs. 31%), high cholesterol (29% vs. 27%), obesity (41% vs. 30%), and diabetes (11% vs. 10%). Across all age groups, the differences in high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes were largest among adults ages 20–39 living in rural areas vs. cities.

Investigators reviewed data from more than 27,000 adults who participated in the 2022 National Health Interview Survey to understand geographical differences in rates of heart disease and risk factors for conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. Since higher rates of heart disease among adults in rural areas compared to cities have been established, they also sought to understand factors driving these variations.

They found that factors such as levels of income and education, having enough food to eat, and owning a home mostly explained the higher rates of people in rural areas who had high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. Prior research has also shown how difficult circumstances, such as living in poverty, can affect cardiovascular health, including increasing inflammation in the body. Additionally, having access to healthcare, which is important for overall health, did not factor into these differences. Lifestyle risk factors for heart disease such as smoking and being less active also didn’t explain these differences, although adults living in rural areas were more likely to smoke and be less active.

The researchers also found that rates of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease were largest in rural areas compared to cities in the South. Rates of obesity were higher across rural areas throughout the U.S., especially in the Northeast.

More than 60 million U.S. adults live in rural communities, and heart disease remains the nation’s leading cause of death. In this study, 1 in 7 adults lived in rural areas (counties of less than 50,000 people), 1 in 2 lived in small or medium-sized cities (counties of 50,000 to less than 1 million people), and 1 in 3 lived in large cities (counties of 1 million or more).

Identifying factors driving the higher burden of heart disease and risk factors in rural regions remains a critical research priority. The authors note that insights from their study could inform public health efforts and policies to support and improve the cardiovascular health of people — especially younger adults — living in rural areas.

The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) grant R01HL174549.

WHO: Sean Coady, M.A., Deputy Chief of the Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, NHLBI

Study: Liu M, Marinacci LX, Joynt Maddox KE, Wadhera, RK. Cardiovascular Health Among Rural and Urban US Adults—Healthcare, Lifestyle, and Social Factors. JAMA Cardiol. 2025; doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2025.0538.

                                                                           

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About the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders that advances scientific knowledge, improves public health, and saves lives. For more information, visit https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/.            
                

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov/.                

 

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health

 

 

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Journal

JAMA Cardiology

DOI

10.1001/jamacardio.2025.0538 

Article Title

Cardiovascular Health Among Rural and Urban US Adults—Healthcare, Lifestyle, and Social Factors

Article Publication Date

31-Mar-2025

 

Study shows groundwater gains in Arizona yet climate risks still threaten water supply

University of Texas at Austin

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image: 

After decades of depletion, groundwater levels are stabilizing in the three largest active management areas in Arizona. These groundwater gains are due in part to policies that encourage groundwater banking, according to research. Credit: Scanlon et al.

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Credit: Scanlon et al.

A combination of water management practices has contributed to notable groundwater gains in Central Arizona despite the region dealing with long-term water stress, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and collaborators in Arizona and Colorado.

Since 1980, Central Arizona has been working to recharge its depleted aquifers. Much of that recharge depends on water from the Colorado River of the southwestern United States. That water, which accounts for 36% of Arizona’s water supply, is brought to the state from over 300 miles away via the Central Arizona Project’s system of aqueducts.

Some of the state’s policies incentivize farmers to use surface water from the river rather than tap into groundwater. Other policies channel the river water directly to aquifer recharge zones, where it can seep down to the groundwater.

According to the study, which was published in Communications Earth & Environment, these policies have helped bank a total of 10.5 cubic kilometers of groundwater water from 1989 – 2019 in the Phoenix, Tucson and Pinal active management areas, where these policies are in place. What’s more, the researchers found that an additional 14.2 cubic kilometers in the aquifers can be attributed to water seeping in from surface-water irrigation that’s not part of an active management program.

Together, the nearly 25 cubic kilometers of water is about five times the annual demand for water in the three active management areas, which are the largest of the state’s seven. These are sizeable agricultural districts with a combined size larger than the state of Maryland.

“The research shows the value of conjunctive management of surface and groundwater,” said lead author Bridget Scanlon, a research professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences Bureau of Economic Geology.

The researchers note that these gains demonstrate that Arizona’s groundwater recharge policies are working – and that these policies could provide a roadmap for other water strapped regions. However, the water provided by the Colorado River faces an uncertain future. Two decades of extreme drought have led to big water declines: the country’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have gone from 90% capacity in 2000 to about 30% capacity in 2025 due to the river’s declining flow, and the river is expected to face further declines due to climate change.

That means that even with these groundwater gains, sound aquifer management in central Arizona will face new challenges, said co-author Kathryn Sorensen, the director of research at the director of research at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy and the former director of Phoenix Water Services. 

“It's a lot of water, and that's great. We should celebrate that. But shortage on the Colorado River means we’ll have less water to boost our aquifers, and more pressure to pull groundwater out as a replacement supply,” Sorensen said.

The research findings on the Arizona aquifers are just one aspect of the study, which tracked surface water and groundwater gains and losses across the entire Colorado River Basin over decades. The researchers drew on GRACE satellite data, regional models and groundwater level monitoring data to show how water levels have changed in response to wet and dry periods and human interventions.

In addition to showing the importance of intentional groundwater banking policies, the study showed how incidental seepage from irrigation has also helped recharge the aquifers, which were initially depleted by intensive groundwater pumping from the 1940s – 1970s, and how a wet period from the 1980s – 1990s provided an additional boost.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever see a wet period like the 70s through the early 90s again, but we need to take advantage of those wet periods and get the water into the ground whenever and wherever we can,” said study co-author Don Pool, a retired former hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Arizona Water Science Center.

Water allocations from the Colorado River are governed by a 1922 compact and reservoir operating rules that are set to expire in 2026. Policy makers from different states, indigenous communities and Mexico are convening to renegotiate water draws. Scanlon said that the broad scope and span of the research can help with planning sustainable water use from the river.

“You can see how things have been changing over time,” Scanlon said. “And that’s important if you’re trying to understand climate variability, variations in irrigation pumpage, conjunctive management and put it into context.”

The study’s additional co-authors are Ashraf Rateb and Robert Reedy of the Bureau of Economic Geology, Brain Conway of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, and Bradley Udall of Colorado State University.

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Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02149-9 

The Superstition Mountains Recharge Project is part of the Phoenix active management area. Water from the Colorado River is brought to the basins so they can recharge groundwater levels. 

Credit

Credit: Central Arizona Project and Philip A. Fortnam