24-Feb-2026 A research dive at minus 20 degrees air temperature? University of Konstanz Conducting field research in Antarctica means being exposed to the elements in addition to doing without creature comforts and time alone – for weeks at a time. This is where Elisa Merz dives for research. The Konstanz-based biogeochemist and scientific diver has worked at one of the most extreme places on our planet.
24-Feb-2026 UT receives gift to name Department of Accounting University of Texas at Austin A landmark naming gift is empowering one of the nation’s premier accounting programs to chart bold new directions for the profession. The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business announced today that a foundational gift from accounting alumnus Jon Shulkin, BBA ’97, will name the Jonathan K. Shulkin Department of Accounting. McCombs’ undergraduate and graduate degree programs in accounting have ranked in the top two by U.S. News & World Report for 20 consecutive years.
24-Feb-2026 Suya and Cisco join forces for cybersecurity University of Tennessee at Knoxville University of Tennessee, Knoxville researchers led by Electrical Engineering and Computer Science professor Fnu Suya identified HAMLOCKs—compound attacks where harmless-looking hardware flaws interact with AI/ML software vulnerabilities to create undetectable backdoors. Accepted to USENIX Security 2026, the work drew Cisco’s partnership and a $60,000 AI TechX grant to study and defend against these combined hardware-model threats.
23-Feb-2026 Tennessee cotton producers face second consecutive low-profit year in 2025 University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture In 2025, Tennessee cotton producers experienced a second consective low-profit year, resulting from poor growing conditions and unstable markets.
23-Feb-2026 Q&A: What happens when the Supreme Court strikes down tariffs? Penn State The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision on Feb. 20 that the president could not invoke the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy tariffs against other countries. Terrence Guay, clinical professor of international business and director of Penn State’s Center for Global Business Studies, and Daniel Cahoy, department head of risk management and professor of business law, explained the ruling and what it means for the business community in the following Q&A.
23-Feb-2026 Can Taylor Swift teach botany? Music videos boost meaningful learning and help combat “plant blindness” Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche In a student-centered teaching project, undergraduates analyzed botanical elements in Taylor Swift music videos to activate prior knowledge and reinforce complex plant science concepts. The experience reports improved comprehension, high student satisfaction, and potential to counter “plant blindness” through popular culture.
23-Feb-2026 ETRI unveils “Safe LLaVA,” a vision language model with enhanced safety National Research Council of Science & Technology Korean researchers have achieved a breakthrough in the safety of generative AI. They developed a vision language model optimized for safety and released it for the first time. In this model, AI can preemptively analyze both images and text, even detecting risks. The research team is paving the way for a safe AI era. ETRI announced that it has unveiled a new type of vision language model called “Safe LLaVA,” which structurally enhances safety in generative AI models. Funder Ministry of Science and ICT
23-Feb-2026 How natural language processing and AI can help policymakers address global food insecurity CGIAR Natural language processing (NLP), a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses computational techniques to interpret, analyze, and generate human language, encompasses a range of tasks and techniques. These include the large language models (LLMs) that power chatbots and other types of systems, as well as specific approaches (some employed by LLMs), including information extraction and text mining.
23-Feb-2026 The (microbe) highway to the danger zone La Jolla Institute for Immunology Kronenberg wants to know exactly how T cells do their jobs. Which molecular pathways push T cells into action when they meet an invader? He's especially interested in unusual T cell subsets—the ones that defy long-standing rules of immunology.
23-Feb-2026 The science of Ramadan fasting University of California - Riverside Dr. Sherif Hassan, an internal medicine professor at UC Riverside, explains the physiology, potential health benefits, and risks of fasting during Ramadan.
