Mastodawn

Injectable hydrogel relieves osteoarthritis pain and repairs cartilage in preclinical tests

For millions of people living with osteoarthritis, daily life can involve a frustrating cycle of pain and stiffness. While current treatments like over-the-counter medications or steroid injections can temporarily dull the ache, they do not stop the joint from deteriorating. A Yale study published in the journal Bioactive Materials found that the medication lacosamide acts as a highly effective, dual-purpose treatment that relieves joint pain and reverses cartilage damage in osteoarthritis, especially when a specialized hydrogel delivers the drug directly into the joint.

Medical Xpress

✨ Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋1d ago

Why Gödel believed in the afterlife

"In this paper, I present a thorough examination of Gödel’s reasons for believing in an afterlife based on evidence from his notebooks and collected papers."

Englert, A.T. Why Gödel believed in the afterlife. Synthese 207, 254 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-026-05641-7

#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Philosophy #Metaphysics #AfterLife #Learning #Academia

Why Gödel believed in the afterlife - Synthese

Despite some renewed interest in Gödel’s thought beyond his logical and mathematical contributions, his philosophy of religion remains sorely understudied. In this paper, I present a thorough examination of Gödel’s reasons for believing in an afterlife based on evidence from his notebooks and collected papers. Along the way, I explore important tenets of his philosophical thought more broadly, such as his notion of essence, his views on the essence of human beings, the nature of learning, as well as the sort of afterlife that Gödel conceived as the most rational. The result of the study is a picture of his belief based on intricate philosophical reasoning, as opposed to wishful thinking or paranoid delusions.

SpringerLink

✨ Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋2d ago

🖥️ ⚕️ 🖥️ ⚕️🖥️ ⚕️

Generative artificial intelligence-driven chatbots and medical misinformation: an accuracy, referencing and readability audit

"Approximately half of all outputs were deemed problematic, citations were frequently incomplete or fabricated, and chatbot response readability tended to be complex. Models also responded to adversarial queries without adequate caveats and with rare refusals to answer."

Tiller NB, Marcon AR, Zenone M, et al
Generative artificial intelligence-driven chatbots and medical misinformation: an accuracy, referencing and readability audit. BMJ Open 2026; 16:e112695. doi: https://www.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-112695

#OpenAccess #OA #Research #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Tech #Chatbots #Health #Medicine #Academia

Generative artificial intelligence-driven chatbots and medical misinformation: an accuracy, referencing and readability audit

Objectives Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven chatbots have been rapidly adopted across research, education, business, marketing and medicine. Most interactions, however, come from non-experts using chatbots like search engines, including for everyday health and medical queries. Design We conducted an original study to audit chatbot responses in health and medical fields prone to misinformation. Methods Five popular chatbots were assessed: Gemini (Google), DeepSeek (High-Flyer), Meta AI (Meta), ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Grok (xAI). In February 2025, each chatbot was prompted with 10 questions from five categories: cancer, vaccines, stem cells, nutrition and athletic performance. We deployed an adversarial-like framework, using open- and closed-ended prompts designed to strain models toward misinformation or contraindicated advice. Two experts from each category rated responses as ‘non-problematic’, ‘somewhat problematic’ or ‘ highly problematic’ using a coding matrix based on objective, predefined criteria. Citations were scored for accuracy and completeness, and each response was given a Flesch Reading Ease score. Results Nearly half (49.6%) of responses were problematic: 30% somewhat problematic and 19.6% highly problematic. Response quality did not differ significantly among chatbots (p=0.566) but Grok generated significantly more highly problematic responses than would be expected under a random distribution (z-score +2.07, p=0.038). Performance was strongest in vaccines (mean z-score –2.57) and cancer (–2.12), and weakest in stem cells (+1.25), athletic performance (+3.74) and nutrition (+4.35). Chatbot outputs were consistently expressed with confidence and certainty; from 250 total questions, there were only two refusals to answer (0.8%), both from Meta AI. Reference quality was poor, with a median completeness score of 40% (Q1–Q3: 20–67%). Chatbot hallucinations and fabricated citations precluded any chatbot from producing a fully accurate reference list. All readability scores were graded as ‘Difficult’ (30–50), equivalent to college sophomore–senior level. Conclusions The audited chatbots performed poorly when answering questions in misinformation-prone health and medical fields. Continued deployment without public education and oversight risks amplifying misinformation. Data are available upon reasonable request. The complete response transcripts and coding matrix are available as supplementary files. Raw data from the accuracy, referencing and readability analyses can be made available on reasonable request.

BMJ Open

IBI HU Berlin 3d ago

Morgen geht's weiter mit unserem #BBK!
Wir begrüßen @c_riesen und @girl_friday von der @UB_HUBerlin, die uns @sedoa vorstellen.

Um 18 Uhr via Zoom. Infos und Link gibts hier: https://hu.berlin/bbk-sedoa
Wir freuen uns auf einen tollen Vortrag und eine spannende Diskussion anschließend
#Vortrag #SeDOA #OA #OpenAccess

✨ Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋4d ago

✝️ 🗳️ ✝️ 🗳️ ✝️ 🗳️

Racial Attitudes, Voter Turnout, and the Politics of Evangelicals Across the Racial Divide

"Analysis of the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) reveals that racial resentment is associated with higher voter turnout among White evangelicals, Asian American evangelicals, and Latino evangelicals, while having no impact on White, Latino, and Asian Americans who do not identify as evangelical."

Chan, N.K. (2026) ‘Racial Attitudes, Voter Turnout, and the Politics of Evangelicals Across the Racial Divide’, The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, pp. 1–22. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2025.10024.

#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #Race #Ethnicity #Politics #Religion #Christiamity #Evangelicals #Academia

Racial Attitudes, Voter Turnout, and the Politics of Evangelicals Across the Racial Divide | Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics | Cambridge Core

Racial Attitudes, Voter Turnout, and the Politics of Evangelicals Across the Racial Divide

Cambridge Core

✨ Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋4d ago

🖋️ 🧠 🖋️ 🧠 🖋️ 🧠

Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom

"Our findings suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern from visual and proprioceptive information obtained through the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen, contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning."

Van der Weel FRR and Van der Meer ALH (2024) Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Front. Psychol. 14:1219945. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945.

#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #Psychology #Handwriting #Writing #Brain #Education #Learning #Academia

Frontiers | Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom

As traditional handwriting is progressively being replaced by digital devices, it is essential to investigate the implications for the human brain. Brain ele...

Frontiers