Firearms were involved in 38.5 percent of suicides among older women from 2014-2023, up from 34.9 percent in 2014, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open. Even though older men had substantially higher firearm suicide rates than older women, the rates among older men remained relatively stable. Women represent nearly half of all new gun owners in the United States; as female gun ownership surges across many states, these findings highlight a need to better understand the immediate and long-term consequences of firearm suicides among older women, as well as develop tailored interventions to mitigate firearm suicides among all older adults. 

Researchers have unveiled Rainbow, a first-of-its-kind multi-robot self-driving laboratory that autonomously discovers high-performance quantum dots – semiconductor nanoparticles critical for next-generation displays, solar cells, LEDs and quantum-engineering technologies. Combining advanced robotics with artificial intelligence, Rainbow can conduct and analyze up to 1,000 experiments per day without human intervention, dramatically accelerating the pace of materials discovery.