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)
Friday, June 06, 2025
Beyond the pandemic: Nurses on a mission to defeat the world’s deadliest disease
International cardiology congress brings hundreds of cardiovascular nurses and allied professionals to Sophia Antipolis
Sophia Antipolis, France, 4 June 2024: The Association of Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (ACNAP), a branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), will host its annual congress from 12 to 14 June 2025 at the European Heart House in Sophia Antipolis, France.
Under the theme “Nurses and Allied Professions Leading the Way: Transforming Healthcare for a Sustainable Future”, ACNAP 2025 will bring together hundreds of nurses and allied health professionals from around the globe to share knowledge, network and build the future of cardiovascular care.
“The burden of cardiovascular disease does not have a single cause. This year’s congress addresses the complex challenges of the field such as an aging population, multimorbidity, digital innovation, and staff wellbeing. Nurses and allied professionals are in a strong position to drive real change,” said Leonie Klompstra, president of ACNAP.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in Europe, affecting 62 million people across EU countries and accounting for approximately one in every three deaths.
While the situation in France is slightly more favourable than in its neighbouring countries, the situation remains concerning: 25 % of French women and 22 % of men die of cardiovascular disease. France infographic attached, for more information and infographics, please read EU 27 Cardiovascular Realities 2025.
Media Invitation Members of the media are warmly invited to attend ACNAP 2025 to learn about the latest developments in cardiovascular care and engage with leading nursing and allied health professionals from across the globe. Interviews with speakers and representatives can be arranged upon request.
Please note: The congress will be held in English, but interviews in French can be facilitated.
The ESC brings together health care professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people to live longer, healthier lives.
The Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (ACNAP) is a branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Its mission is to promote excellence in cardiovascular nursing and allied professions through practice, education and research.
About ACNAP 2025 ACNAP Congress is the annual meeting of The Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions. #ACNAP2025 will be held in the European Heart House in Sophia Antipolis, France. Address: European Society of Cardiology, 2035 Route des Colles, 06410 Biot, France
Free registration applies to members of the press
Please show your valid press card or appropriate letter of assignment with proof of three recent published articles. Read the ESC media and embargo policy.
Why AI can’t understand a flower the way humans do
AI needs to touch, feel and smell to have a sense of the world
Ohio State University
Even with all its training and computer power, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool like ChatGPT can’t represent the concept of a flower the way a human does, according to a new study.
That’s because the large language models (LLMs) that power AI assistants are based usually on language alone, and sometimes with images.
“A large language model can’t smell a rose, touch the petals of a daisy or walk through a field of wildflowers,” said Qihui Xu, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher in psychology at The Ohio State University.
“Without those sensory and motor experiences, it can’t truly represent what a flower is in all its richness. The same is true of some other human concepts.”
Xu said the findings have implications for how AI and humans relate to each other.
“If AI construes the world in fundamentally different way from humans, it could affect how it interacts with us,” she said.
Xu and her colleagues compared humans and LLMs in their knowledge representation of 4,442 words – everything from “flower” and “hoof” to “humorous” and “swing.”
They compared the similarity of representations between humans and two state-of-the-art LLM families from OpenAI (GPT-3.5 and GPT-4) and Google (PaLM and Gemini).
Humans and LLMs were tested on two measures. One, called the Glasgow Norms, ask for ratings of words on nine dimensions, such as arousal, concreteness and imageability. For example, the measure asks for ratings of how emotionally arousing a flower is, and how much one can mentally visualize a flower (or how imageable it is).
The other measure, called Lancaster Norms, examined how concepts of words are related to sensory information (such as touch, hearing, smell, vision) and motor information, which are involved with actions – such as what humans do through contacts with the mouth, hand, arm and torso.
For example, the measure asks for ratings on how much one experiences flowers by smelling, and how much one experiences flowers using actions from the torso.
The goal was to see how the LLMs and humans were aligned in their ratings of the words. In one analysis, the researchers examined how much humans and AI were correlated on concepts. For example, do the LLMs and humans agree that some concepts have higher emotional arousal than others?
In a second analysis, researchers investigated how humans compared to LLMs on deciding how different dimensions may jointly contribute to a word’s overall conceptual representation and how different words are interconnected.
For example, the concepts of pasta and roses might both receive high ratings for how much they involve the sense of smell. However, pasta is considered more similar to noodles than to roses – at least for humans – not just because of its smell, but also its visual appearance and taste.
Overall, the LLMs did very well compared to humans in representing words that didn’t have any connection to the senses and to motor actions. But when it came to words that have connections to things we see, taste or interact with using our body, that’s where AI failed to capture human concepts.
“From the intense aroma of a flower, the vivid silky touch when we caress petals, to the profound joy evoked, human representation of ‘flower’ binds these diverse experiences and interactions into a coherent category,” the researchers say in the paper.
The issue is that most LLMs are dependent on language, and “language by itself can’t fully recover conceptual representation in all its richness,” Xu said.
Even though LLMs can approximate some human concepts, particularly when they don’t involve senses or motor actions, this kind of learning is not efficient.
“They obtain what they know by consuming vast amounts of text – orders of magnitude larger than what a human is exposed to in their entire lifetimes – and still can’t quite capture some concepts the way humans do,” Xu said.
“The human experience is far richer than words alone can hold.”
But Xu noted that LLMs are continually improving and it’s likely they will get better at capturing human concepts. The study did find that LLMs that are trained with images as well as text did do better than text-only models in representing concepts related to vision.
And when future LLMs are augmented with sensor data and robotics, they may be able to actively make inferences about and act upon the physical world, she said.
Co-authors on the study were Yingying Peng, Ping Li and Minghua Wu of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Samuel Nastase of Princeton University; and Martin Chodorow of the City University of New York.
“AI is great at generating lots of ideas quickly,” says the study’s co-author, Zhikun Wu, a master’s candidate at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. “But quantity doesn’t always mean quality.”
Can AI do humor? A new study suggests artificial intelligence can create internet memes as funny as those made by humans. But when it comes to gags that truly connect with viewers, people still have the edge.
Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, LMU Munich, and TU Darmstadt recently conducted the first large-scale study exploring how humans and AI collaborate to create internet memes. The team compared three groups: humans working alone, humans co-creating with a cutting-edge language model (LLM), and the LLM generating memes entirely on its own.
Participants created memes using classic templates like Doge, Futurama Fry, and Boromir’s iconic “One does not simply…” line. A second group of nearly 100 people then rated the memes for creativity, humor, and shareability.
The researchers found that on average, memes made entirely by AI scored higher than those made by humans or human-AI teams. But the top-performing memes told a different story: humans were funniest, while human-AI collaborations stood out in creativity and shareability.
Published on the ACM Digital Library, the paper was presented at the 2025 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces in Cagliari, Italy.
“AI is great at generating lots of ideas quickly,” says the study’s co-author, Zhikun Wu, a master’s candidate at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. “But quantity doesn’t always mean quality.”
Able to draw from vast datasets, AI models can produce content that appeals to a wide audience, the authors wrote. But many of the top-rated memes were created with human involvement, suggesting that AI models primarily produce “solid but average quality.”
“The best results came when humans curated and refined what the AI produced,” Wu says.
Participants who worked with the AI assistant generated more ideas and reported less effort—but many didn’t fully engage with the system. Fewer than half interacted with the AI more than once, and only a handful used it iteratively. This limited use may have held back the potential of true co-creativity.
The study highlighted a key challenge in human-AI collaboration: while AI can produce content that appeals to a broad audience, human creativity is still essential for content that resonates deeply—especially in humor, Wu says.
“Humor isn’t just about punchlines,” Wu says. “It’s about surprise, cultural context, and emotional nuance—things AI doesn’t fully grasp.”
The researchers argue that future AI tools should better support iterative, dialog-based creativity, helping users stay connected to their work while amplifying their ideas. In other words, systems shouldn’t just generate content, but help people shape it into something meaningful.
“While AI can increase productivity and produce content that appeals to a wide audience, human creativity is still key for creating content that connects more deeply in certain areas,” the authors wrote.
A meme which was rated among the best created by human-AI collaboration, in a recent study.
Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, discover just how crucial the molecular structure of water is to ice formation
Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan – Water is everywhere and comes in many forms: snow, sleet, hail, hoarfrost… However, despite water being so commonplace, scientists still do not fully understand the predominant physical process that occurs when water transforms from liquid to solid.
Now, in an article recently published in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have carried out a series of molecular-scale simulations to uncover why ice forms more easily on surfaces than in bodies of water.
While it is common knowledge that water freezes at 0°C (32°F), water does not instantly turn into ice the moment this temperature is reached. Instead, ice crystals begin forming at tiny ‘nuclei’ and spread throughout the body of water in a process called nucleation. Lower temperatures promote nucleation events and hence speed up the freezing process. Although, at the microscopic level, other factors can also play a role.
“If you watch a glass of water freezing, you will notice that the ice first forms at the water–glass interface and gradually moves inward,” says Gang Sun, lead author of the study. “So, it is clear that the way in which water molecules interact with surfaces is important to the nucleation process.”
To understand the microscopic effects responsible for ice formation, the team employed sophisticated, state-of-the-art molecular dynamics simulations. The simulations considered many physical parameters, such as temperature and intermolecular interaction strength, but one stood out as particularly surprising.
“Most people would assume that a surface’s affinity for ice dictates the nucleation pathway,” explains Hajime Tanaka, senior author. “However, our simulations show that the arrangement of water molecules in the two layers closest to the surface is even more important. This structured layering promotes the formation of a low-dimensional hexagonal crystal lattice at the surface, which then propagates into the bulk.”
That said, the surface’s hydrophilicity (the strength with which it attracts water) remains a key factor. Excessive hydrophilicity disrupts the bilayered hexagonal ordering of water molecules, hindering nucleation. However, there is a ‘Goldilocks zone’ for ice formation: where the surface interaction is neither too strong nor too weak to interfere with crystallization.
This knowledge lends researchers a tool with which they could potentially control ice formation, which would be useful for anti-ice coatings and other materials. The proposed mechanism may also apply to other liquids with other tetrahedrally bonding liquids, such as silicon and carbon. This could then inform crucial fields such as climate science and semiconductor manufacturing, where the control of nucleation events has societal and economic applications.
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The article, “The secret role of water’s structure near surfaces in ice formation,” was published in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science at 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.137812.
About Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
The Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS) is one of the largest university-attached research institutes in Japan. UTokyo-IIS is comprised of over 120 research laboratories—each headed by a faculty member—and has over 1,200 members (approximately 400 staff and 800 students) actively engaged in education and research. Its activities cover almost all areas of engineering. Since its foundation in 1949, UTokyo-IIS has worked to bridge the huge gaps that exist between academic disciplines and real-world applications.
Rubén Bernardo-Madrid and the other researchers were surprised to find that the pattern of species distribution was the same, regardless of the life form.
A new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution has found a simple rule that seems to govern how life is organised on Earth. The researchers believe this rule helps explain why species are spread the way they are across the planet. The discovery will help to understand life on Earth – including how ecosystems respond to global environmental changes.
At first glance, Earth seems like a collection of wildly different worlds. Each region has its own species and environmental conditions. Yet, beneath this variety, there is a universal organising pattern, new research led from Umeå University shows. This finding can help scientists explore how biodiversity has been shaped through time and how biodiversity can response against global change.
The planet is divided into large biogeographical regions, or bioregions, separated by oceans, mountain ranges or extreme climates. These barriers limit the movement of species, turning each region into a natural experiment where distinct groups of species have evolved under different conditions, timescales, and histories.
In this study, an international collaboration of research institutions from Sweden, Spain, and the UK examined species from very different life forms in bioregions across the world: amphibians, birds, dragonflies, mammals, marine rays, reptiles, and trees. Given the vast differences in life strategies – some species fly, others crawl, swim, or remain rooted – and the contrasting environmental and historical backgrounds of each bioregion, the researchers expected that patterns of species distribution would vary widely across bioregions. Surprisingly, they found the same pattern everywhere.
“In every bioregion, there is always a core area where most species live. From that core, species expand into surrounding areas, but only a subset manages to persist. It seems these cores provide optimal conditions for species survival and diversification, acting as a source from which biodiversity radiates outward,” explains Rubén Bernardo-Madrid, lead author and researcher at Umeå University.
These findings support the disproportionate ecological role that some small areas play in sustaining the biodiversity of entire bioregions, and their conservation value.
The research also identifies the plausible mechanisms driving this pattern: the environmental filtering – the principle that only species able to tolerate local conditions, like heat or drought, can survive and colonise new areas. While this has long been a central theory in ecology, global empirical evidence has been scarce. This study provides broad confirmation across multiple branches of life and at a planetary scale.
“The predictability of the pattern and its association with environmental filters can help to understand better how biodiversity may respond to global change,” says Joaquín Calatayud, co-author from Rey Juan Carlos University
A simple rule that seems to govern how life is organised on Earth is described in a new study published today (Wednesday, 4 June) in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The research team led, by Umeå University and involving the University of Reading, believe this rule helps explain why species are spread the way they are across the planet. The discovery will help to understand life on Earth – including how ecosystems respond to global environmental changes.
The rule is simple: in every region on Earth, most species cluster together in small 'hotspot' areas, then gradually spread outward with fewer and fewer species able to survive farther away from these hotspots.
Rubén Bernardo-Madrid, lead author and researcher at Umeå University (Sweden), said: “In every bioregion, there is always a core area where most species live. From that core, species expand into surrounding areas, but only a subset manages to persist. It seems these cores provide optimal conditions for species survival and diversification, acting as a source from which biodiversity radiates outward.”
This pattern highlights the disproportionate ecological role these small areas play in sustaining the biodiversity of entire bioregions. Jose Luis Tella, from the Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC (Spain), said: “Safeguarding these core zones is therefore essential, as they represent critical priorities for conservation strategies.”
Environmental filtering
Researchers studied bioregions across the world, examining species from very different life forms: amphibians, birds, dragonflies, mammals, marine rays, reptiles, and trees. Given the vast differences in life strategies—some species fly, others crawl, swim, or remain rooted—and the contrasting environmental and historical backgrounds of each bioregion, the researchers expected that species distribution would vary widely across bioregions. Surprisingly, they found the same pattern everywhere.
The pattern points to a general process known as environmental filtering. Environmental filtering has long been considered a key theoretical principle in ecology for explaining species distribution on Earth. Until now, however, global empirical evidence has been scarce. This study provides broad confirmation across multiple branches of life and at a planetary scale.
Professor Manuela González-Suárez, co-author of the study at the University of Reading, said: “It doesn’t matter whether the limiting factor is heat, cold, drought, or salinity. The result is always the same: only species able to tolerate local conditions establish and persist, creating a predictable distribution of life on Earth.”
The existence of a universal organising mechanism has profound implications for our understanding of life on Earth. Joaquín Calatayud, co-author from the Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain), said: “This pattern suggests that life on Earth may be, to some extent, predictable”. Such predictable patterns can help scientists trace how life has diversified through time and offer valuable insights into how ecosystems might react to global environmental changes.
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