Feeling safe, happy, cared for at school may help kids be more active

Students, particularly girls, engage in less physical activity when they feel socially disconnected

University of Georgia

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How comfortable a child is in their school may influence their physical activity levels, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

Researchers from the UGA College of Public Health found students who feel connected and safe at their school are more active. However, overall activity levels fell for this age range, especially among girls.

“There is a trend of declining physical activity in Georgia and across the world among students, and that declining trend is increasing,” said Biplav Tiwari, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in epidemiology. “We’re learning that a positive school environment not only supports academic rigor but also helps promote healthy lifestyle decisions, such as being physically active.”

Previous research has suggested this may also lead to better academic outcomes for students and improved mental well-being both in and out of the classroom.

Increased activity levels improve well-being, lead to academic success

Using five years of data from the Georgia Student Health Survey, the researchers analyzed over 685,000 responses from middle and high school students (ages 11 through 17) on the following eight aspects of school climate:

• School connectedness.
• Peer social support.
• Adult social support.
• Cultural acceptance.
• Physical environment.
• School safety.
• Peer victimization.
• School support environment.

The study found that students who reported feeling unsafe, unhappy or not cared for in their school were also less likely to be physically active.

Of the students who said they felt supported, connected and safe at their school, one in five increased their activity levels as they aged and reported being physically active at least four to five days per week.

“Students who are physically healthy are mentally healthy, and physical and mental health is associated with improved academic achievements. To reach the academic potential that our students are all capable of, they need social support and adult support in school,” said Janani Rajbhandari, senior author of the study and an associate professor in health policy and management.

Activity levels decline as kids age, especially for girls

Overall, reported activity levels declined as the children aged, the study found.

Activity levels peaked at the end of middle school and then tapered off in high school, which could be attributed to state requirements.

The state only requires one credit hour of physical exercise or wellness for high schoolers, and that course can even be completed online. That is little required activity, so unless kids participate in team sports in high school, there is low engagement in physical activity.

This was especially the case for girls, who were 17% less likely than boys to report being physically active in high school, the researchers said. Past studies from the authors have also shown gender differences in the association between school climate and physical activity among high school students.

"Adolescence is a very important phase for establishing habits to last a lifetime. Healthy behaviors … have a lifelong impact.”

— Janani Rajbhandari, College of Public Health

Once those habits are established, they may be hard to break.

“Adolescence is a very important phase for establishing habits to last a lifetime. Healthy behaviors or habits that are formed have a lifelong impact,” said Rajbhandari.

The study suggests continued efforts to promote school climate for its role beyond academics to combat unhealthy behaviors and risks of obesity, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. And that means focusing on boosting the atmosphere of the place where kids spend most of their time.

“It’s really important that investment in adolescents continues to happen, and our findings suggest schools can be one of the important avenues for us to intervene to promote healthy lifestyles,” said Tiwari. “There is a need to recognize the importance of school climate and implement a holistic approach to improve the health of our future: the students.”

This study was published in Frontiers in Public Health and was co-authored by Jacob Matta Linlin Da, Kiran Thapa, Ye Shen and Justin Ingels of the UGA College of Public Health, as well as the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Michael Thomsen.

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Journal

Frontiers in Public Health

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2025.1582693 

Article Title

Physical activity level among male and female middle to high school students and impact of perceived school climate: a longitudinal analysis

 

Researchers develop new indicators to detect loneliness risk in remote work

By analyzing workplace chat data, the study examines employees’ online activity and social connectedness, helping organizations detect isolation risks and take timely action.

Kyushu University

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Loneliness can be seen in a physical workplace, but remote work hides the signs. Researchers at Kyushu University analyzed chat logs from platforms like Slack and developed new indicators to identify employees at risk of loneliness.

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Credit: Kyushu University

Fukuoka, Japan—Messages sink without a reply, and mentions disappear from group chats. Small oversights quietly fuel workplace loneliness. 

In today’s increasingly digital workplaces, flexible hours and remote work offer freedom and convenience, but also bring risks of developing mental health issues. While subtle cues in face-to-face settings can reveal when employees are struggling, how can organizations detect signs of loneliness online before it’s too late?

A team led by Professor Yutaka Arakawa of Kyushu University’s Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering is looking for clues in our digital footprints—the traces left by everyday online communication. In a recent paper published in the Journal of Information Processing, they analyzed workplace chat data to identify employees potentially at risk of loneliness.

“Digital footprints can actually tell us a lot about people’s internal states,” Arakawa explains. “Office platforms such as Slack provide statistics on channel activity, but they don’t cross-analyze interactions to reveal the patterns between individuals. We wanted to visualize the network of relationships by sensing and analyzing online communication.”

Using data from public Slack channels, Arakawa’s team developed two new indices: contribution level and adjacency level. The former measures how actively someone initiates discussions and replies to messages, and the latter captures how connected one is to others through mentions and reactions. 

The team applied the two metrics to their lab’s Slack workspace, analyzing the digital footprints of 48 members and clustering individuals into groups. The results were visualized in a network graph, where each person was represented as a colored dot. Larger dots with many connecting lines indicated individuals who interacted widely across the organization, while smaller dots with fewer connections showed those who might be more isolated.

To see whether this graph mirrored actual feelings, the research team used a widely adopted psychological measure, the UCLA Loneliness Scale. The results showed that members reporting lower levels of loneliness had significantly higher adjacency levels, suggesting a potential link between active online communication and stronger in-person social connections. However, employees who communicate less online do not necessarily feel lonelier. 

“One possible reason is that our analysis focused only on public channels, excluding private messages,” Arakawa explains. “Some lab members may rarely post in group chats but maintain active one-on-one communication with their supervisors.”

Recognizing the limits of their sample size, the team is now collaborating with companies to refine the algorithms behind these indicators and broaden their applicability. Meanwhile, Arakawa is partnering with experts in occupational health and policy research as part of a larger research project on social loneliness, funded by the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX). Besides developing measurable indicators of workplace loneliness, the initiative explores its underlying causes and turns the findings into practical strategies, including prevention and timely interventions.

Arakawa is also working on guidelines for using workplace chat platforms to reduce isolation risks. 

“Even a small action, like reacting with an emoji, shows that someone’s message has been acknowledged,” he says. “I hope we can build a society where such gestures of consideration come naturally, even in digital environments.”

 

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For more information about this research, see " Visualization of Online Communication and Detection of Lonely Users Using Social Graphs Based on Contribution Level and Adjacency Level," Ryosuke Takizawa, Isshin Nakao, Kensuke Taninaka, Akihisa Takiguchi, Toshiki Hayashida, Shusaku Kita, and Yutaka Arakawa, Journal of Information Processing, https://doi.org/10.2197/ipsjjip.33.765

 

About Kyushu University  


Founded in 1911, Kyushu University  is one of Japan's leading research-oriented institutes of higher education, consistently ranking as one of the top ten Japanese universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World Rankings. The university is one of the seven national universities in Japan, located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu—the most southwestern of Japan’s four main islands with a population and land size slightly larger than Belgium. Kyushu U’s multiple campuses—home to around 19,000 students and 8000 faculty and staff—are located around Fukuoka City, a coastal metropolis that is frequently ranked among the world's most livable cities and historically known as Japan's gateway to Asia. Through its VISION 2030, Kyushu U will “drive social change with integrative knowledge.” By fusing the spectrum of knowledge, from the humanities and arts to engineering and medical sciences, Kyushu U will strengthen its research in the key areas of decarbonization, medicine and health, and environment and food, to tackle society’s most pressing issues. 

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Journal

Journal of Information Processing

DOI

10.2197/ipsjjip.33.765 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Visualization of Online Communication and Detection of Lonely Users Using Social Graphs Based on Contribution Level and Adjacency Level

Article Publication Date

15-Oct-2025

 

Programming robots with rubber bands

New approach uses robot’s physical structure for function

Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

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Researchers created a physically intelligent robot through mechanical design alone. 

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Credit: Harvard SEAS Communications

Key Takeaways

• A Harvard team has demonstrated that robots can be designed to react to their environment and perform tasks by programming intelligence into their structure.
• They created a robot capable of autonomously moving away from obstacles, with minimal electronics.
• The work presents an alternative to traditional robotic sensing and control systems.

From sorting objects in a warehouse to navigating furniture while vacuuming, robots today use sensors, software control systems, and moving parts to perform tasks. The harder the task or more complex the environment, the more cumbersome and expensive the electronic components.

Mechanical engineering researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) think there’s another way to design robots: Programming intended functions directly into a robot’s physical structure, allowing the robot to react to its surroundings without the need for extensive on-board electronics.

A team from the lab of Katia Bertoldi, the William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Applied Mechanics at SEAS, designed a proof-of-concept walking robot with just four moving parts connected by rubber bands and powered by one motor. With its movements programmed via the placement of the rubber bands, the robot can find its way through mazes and avoid obstacles; its movements change based only on how it is touched or pressed by its environment, with no electronic brain. They also show that the same mechanical programming can be used to make a robot capable of sorting objects by mass.

The demonstration could spark new inquiry into fundamentals of robotic design, potentially leading to smaller, simpler robots that can perform a variety of functions.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the work was led by Leon Kamp, a graduate student in Bertoldi’s lab whose secondary graduate study is in Critical Media Practice. Trained in engineering and architecture, Kamp turned to robotics as a practical application of his interest in form, material, and mechanics. He wondered if robotic intelligence could be infused into structure using mechanical principles.

“This is kind of an extreme version of ‘form follows function,’ where functionalities like memory, adaptability and intelligence can be enabled by geometry and material parameters,” Kamp said.

Kamp and colleagues built their robotic mechanism from a chain of flat plastic blocks joined by levers and rubber bands. The stretching of the rubber bands assigns a certain energy cost to rotating each lever. The movement of the mechanism can be “programmed” as it follows the order of rotations that has the lowest energy cost. By attaching a leg to this mechanism, they built a robot that can walk forward and backward using one motor for different configurations of rubber bands.

This physical programming allows the robot to passively sense and respond to forces from its environment. It “feels” its surroundings via a pair of antennae attached to the front. When one antenna hits an obstacle, the robot responds and adapts from walking straight to turning away. It can autonomously navigate mazes or move away from obstacles.

In another configuration, the mechanism can be used to automatically sort objects based on their mass. In this case the rubber bands are used to “program,” where objects are picked up and dropped off at different locations for specific targeted masses.

While the mechanism can only accomplish a small number of simple tasks, the concept could be expanded to robots that move faster or jump over obstacles. In the future, robots like this could be made of flexible materials that are lightweight and easy to manufacture. Such designs could lead to autonomous machines that are physically intelligent and rely on fewer electronics or traditional control systems to function.

The paper was co-authored by Mohamed Zanaty, Ahmad Zareei, Benjamin Gorissen, and Professor Robert J. Wood. The research received federal support from the National Science Foundation through the Harvard Materials Research Science and Engineering Center grant (DMR-2011754) and the Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program (W911NF-22-1-0219).

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZKxr8COXBI

A robot fully controlled with rubber bands instead of electronic components. 

Credit

Bertoldi Lab / Harvard SEAS

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2508310122 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Reprogrammable sequencing for physically intelligent underactuated robots

 

Innovations in organoid engineering: Construction methods, model development, and clinical translation

Xia & He Publishing Inc.

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As an emerging 3D cell culture system, organoid technology has demonstrated substantial potential in basic research and translational medicine by recapitulating in vivo organ structures and functions. Generated through methods like ALI culture, bioreactor systems, and vascularization strategies, organoids create representative models of kidneys, livers, lungs, and brains for multi-dimensional simulations of organ development, disease pathogenesis, and drug responses. By mimicking the in vivo microenvironment, this technology plays a pivotal role in biomedical research, facilitating HTS, establishing physiologically relevant toxicity assessment models, and advancing disease modeling and biobanking for precision medicine.

This review also explores emerging organoid technologies, such as 3D bioprinting for scalable model fabrication, microfluidic systems for dynamic microenvironment control, and genetically engineered organoids for gene-disease association studies. These innovations address traditional limitations in model consistency and complexity, opening new frontiers for mechanistic research and clinical applications, as well as offering novel technical support for accelerating the modernization and translational application of TCM.

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Credit: Hongtao Jin

As a revolutionary 3D cell culture system, organoids bridge the gap between traditional 2D models and animal studies. This review synthesizes the current state of organoid engineering, from fundamental methods to transformative applications.

Organoid Construction
Key methods enable the generation of complex organoids:

• Air-Liquid Interface (ALI) Culture: Ideal for modeling hollow organs and co-culturing with immune cells to study the tumor microenvironment.

• Bioreactor Culture: Uses agitation to enhance nutrient exchange, supporting the growth of large, complex organoids like brains and enabling scalable production.

• Vascularization: A critical advancement where organoids are integrated with blood vessels to improve survival and model neurovascular interactions.

Representative Models
The review details the construction of organoids for major organs, including kidneys, livers, lungs, brains, and intestines. These models are derived from pluripotent or adult stem cells using specific signaling pathways and scaffolds to recapitulate organ-specific structure and function.

Applications in Biomedicine
Organoids are transforming biomedical research:

• Disease Modeling: They accurately mimic diseases like cancer, Zika virus infection, and cystic fibrosis.

• Drug Screening & Biobanking: Patient-derived organoid biobanks allow for high-throughput drug testing and personalized treatment prediction.

• Precision Medicine & Toxicity Assessment: They enable the selection of effective therapies for individual patients and provide human-relevant platforms for safety testing.

Application in TCM
Organoids offer a modern platform for TCM research, enabling the screening of active components, studying multi-target mechanisms, and evaluating the safety and efficacy of herbal compounds.

Frontier Technologies
The integration with cutting-edge technologies is pushing the field forward:

• Gene Editing creates precise disease models.

• Single-Cell RNA Sequencing reveals cellular heterogeneity.

• 3D Bioprinting allows for the precise fabrication of complex structures.

• Artificial Intelligence analyzes complex organoid data for patterns and predictions.

Conclusion
Despite challenges in standardizing complexity and addressing costs, organoid technology is a powerful tool rapidly advancing our understanding of biology and disease. Its continued integration with other technologies promises to accelerate drug discovery and usher in a new era of personalized and integrative medicine.

 

Full text:

https://www.xiahepublishing.com/2835-6357/FIM-2025-00023

 

The study was recently published in the Future Integrative Medicine.

Future Integrative Medicine (FIM) is the official scientific journal of the Capital Medical University. It is a prominent new journal that promotes future innovation in medicine.It publishes both basic and clinical research, including but not limited to randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, cohort studies, observational studies, qualitative and mixed method studies, animal studies, and systematic reviews.

 

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Journal

Future Integrative Medicine

DOI

10.14218/FIM.2025.00023 

Article Title

Innovations in Organoid Engineering: Construction Methods, Model Development, and Clinical Translation