Research Scientist

n a study published in IEEE Access on October 15 , researchers have highlighted the potential of using skin conductance to detect human emotions. The study examined how variations in sweat levels, which alter the skin's ability to conduct electricity, could provide insights into emotional states. According to the findings, these physiological responses, triggered by emotions like fear, humour, or familial bonding, could pave the way for more emotionally intelligent technology in the future. Skin Conductance and Emotion Analysis The research was carried out by scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University. During the study, 33 participants were shown videos designed to evoke specific emotions, ranging from horror scenes to family reunion clips. Measurements were taken using probes attached to their fingers. These probes recorded how quickly skin conductance peaked and returned to baseline. Distinct patterns were identified, with fear responses persisting the longest, while humour ...

The opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans grows in two forms: yeast and filament. The latter state contributes to the severity of infections, and elevated temperature promotes this morphological switch. However, the mechanisms that drive this transition are poorly understood. In a study published in mBio, a research team identified alternative splicing—the selective inclusion or excision of introns in a gene—as a contributor to filament formation in fever-like temperatures.1 Elucidating these pathways could offer novel strategies to target fungi during disease. The team cultured a collection of mutants at 39 degrees Celsius and used microscopy to identify genes important to filamentation. They found that strains lacking genes relating to mRNA splicing failed to undergo this transition. Alternative splicing promotes adaptation to environmental changes; in fungi, the most common example of alternative splicing is intron retention. To explore the relationship between splicing and fil...

NASA researchers combined years of data and new imaging techniques to learn more about a "tipped over" black hole that is moving in an unexpected way. The black hole is located in a galaxy called NGC 5084. Researchers have been aware of the galaxy for years, NASA said in a news release . New analysis techniques developed at NASA's Ames Research Center in California helped researchers see four long plumes of plasma emanating from the galaxy. Most galaxies don't have plumes, and when they do, only one or two are present. The plumes suggested the galaxy might house a supermassive black hole, NASA said. Spotting both pairs, which formed an "X" shape, led researchers to focus more on the area. Using archived data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Telescope based in Chile, researchers found that the galaxy also had a "small, dusty inner disk" rotating at the center of the galaxy, again suggestin...

INDIA – India’s market research industry grew 12.6% to a total of $3.2bn in the 2024 financial year, according to figures from the Market Research Society of India (MRSI). MRSI also projected that the Indian market would grow to $3.4bn in 2025, with customer and marketing analytics accounting for 58% of the total market. Analytics grew 17% from the previous year, which MRSI put down to the adoption of AI, machine learning and big data in retail, finance and media. Custom market research grew 9% from the previous year and accounted for 29% of the Indian market research sector, with sectors such as e-commerce and automotive increasingly focusing on personalised insights. International clients remain the top revenue source for the Indian research and insights industry, accounting for an 80% share . On the supply side, analytics remains a major driver of international demand. The research and insights sector employed around 145,000 full-time professionals in2024, with a growing demand f...

Crafting a unique and promising research hypothesis is a fundamental skill for any scientist. It can also be time consuming: New PhD candidates might spend the first year of their program trying to decide exactly what to explore in their experiments. What if artificial intelligence could help? MIT researchers have created a way to autonomously generate and evaluate promising research hypotheses across fields, through human-AI collaboration. In a new paper, they describe how they used this framework to create evidence-driven hypotheses that align with unmet research needs in the field of biologically inspired materials. Published Wednesday in Advanced Materials , the study was co-authored by Alireza Ghafarollahi, a postdoc in the Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics (LAMM), and Markus Buehler, the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering in MIT’s departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Mechanical Engineering and director of LAMM. The framework, which the res...

As more and more species near extinction , scientists have been collecting samples from animals, plants and other creatures and storing them in biorepositories across the globe (SN: 5/8/19). But climate change , environmental disasters and wars threaten these modern Noah’s arks (SN: 2/28/22). Now, a team of researchers is brainstorming an out-of-this-world solution: building one of these vaults on the moon. A biorepository in a permanently shadowed region at the moon’s south pole could be far more stable than those on Earth. Those areas usually remain around –196° Celsius, the minimum temperature required to store most animal cells long-term, research scientist Mary Hagedorn and colleagues report July 31 in BioScience. “It’s very good to have as many plans as possible, especially when it comes to saving our biodiversity and life on Earth,” says Hagedorn, of the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washington D.C. The need for a biobank on the moon Hagedorn ...

Blockchain technology has revolutionized various industries worldwide, leading to innovations in information handling, security, and decentralization. Whether you are a developer, investor, or enthusiast, it is important to know how to conduct research on blockchain to make informed decisions. Bitcoin was launched in 2008, and since then, it has changed and developed significantly, including its blockchain development and the price spike of more than $100,000. Like any other digital currency, it was first conceived as decentralized. Still, over the years, it has evolved into a platform that can reshape many sectors. When smart contracts were introduced in 2015, this brought in new opportunities, like increasing supply chain efficiency or the security of healthcare records. While this is potential, Gartner’s prediction that 30% of large companies will use blockchain for supply chain tracking by 2023 hasn’t come to fruition yet. Last year, the cryptocurrency market experienced a serio...

The country's first diabetes biobank, a repository of population-based biological samples aimed at supporting scientific research, has been established in Chennai by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in collaboration with the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF). The biobank set up at the MDRF, Chennai aims to gather, process, store and distribute biospecimens to assist scientific studies with the permission of the ICMR. The biobank will facilitate advanced research on the causes of diabetes, the variations of the Indian type of diabetes and related disorders, said Dr V Mohan, chairman of the MDRF and Dr Mohan's Diabetes Specialities Centre. The biobank has blood samples from two ICMR-funded studies -- the ICMR- ?India Diabetes (ICMR-?INDIAB) study conducted in all states and Union territories in phases from 2008 to 2020 and the "Registry of people with diabetes in India at a young age at the onset", which was launched in 2006 and is still ongoing....

The deep neural network models that power today’s most demanding machine-learning applications have grown so large and complex that they are pushing the limits of traditional electronic computing hardware. Photonic hardware, which can perform machine-learning computations with light, offers a faster and more energy-efficient alternative. However, there are some types of neural network computations that a photonic device can’t perform, requiring the use of off-chip electronics or other techniques that hamper speed and efficiency. Building on a decade of research, scientists from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new photonic chip that overcomes these roadblocks. They demonstrated a fully integrated photonic processor that can perform all the key computations of a deep neural network optically on the chip. The optical device was able to complete the key computations for a machine-learning classification task in less than half a nanosecond while achieving more than 92 percent accuracy...

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays, which emerge in extreme astrophysical environments—like the roiling environments near black holes and neutron stars—have far more energy than the energetic particles that emerge from our sun. In fact, the particles that make up these streams of energy have around 10 million times the energy of particles accelerated in the most extreme particle environment on earth, the human-made Large Hadron Collider . Where does all that energy come from? For many years, scientists believed it came from shocks that occur in extreme astrophysical environments—when, for example, a star explodes before forming a black hole, causing a huge explosion that kicks up particles. That theory was plausible, but, according to new research published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , the observations are better explained by a different mechanism. The source of the cosmic rays’ energy, the researchers found, is more likely magnetic turbulence. The paper’s authors found...

Where do America's most racist people live? "The rural Northeast and South," suggests a new study just published in PLOS ONE. The paper introduces a novel but makes-tons-of-sense-when-you-think-about-it method for measuring the incidence of racist attitudes: Google search data . The methodology comes from data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. He's used it before to measure the effect of racist attitudes on Barack Obama's electoral prospects . [Data suggest Republicans have a race problem] "Google data, evidence suggests, are unlikely to suffer from major social censoring," Stephens-Davidowitz wrote in a previous paper . "Google searchers are online and likely alone, both of which make it easier to express socially taboo thoughts. Individuals, indeed, note that they are unusually forthcoming with Google." He also notes that the Google measure correlates strongly with other standard measures social science researchers have used to study raci...

Part 3 in the AI and Your Tech Career Series Welcome to Part 3 of our "AI and Your Tech Career," Dice's 10-part article series walking through the basics of how to successfully integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning into your tech career journey. We'll cover everything from the most popular jobs and skills, to AI tech hubs, to industry applications and more. You can build your dream tech career, and AI can help! The landscape of employment is undergoing rapid transformation, fueled by the relentless advance of artificial intelligence (AI). Industries ranging from healthcare to finance are integrating AI at a brisk pace, creating a robust demand for professionals skilled in AI technologies. This blog post provides an in-depth analysis of current trends and future forecasts in the AI job market, spotlighting the fastest-growing roles and offering insights for aspiring AI professionals and businesses looking to harness AI talent. Let’s take a look at so...

Becoming a research scientist is quite the dream role for many individuals passionate about discovering new things and pushing the boundaries of what is known. They’ve also become essential in advancing science, technology, and our understanding of the world. If you’re wondering, “How can I become a research scientist?”, this guide will explain what a research scientist does, how to become a research scientist, their importance, the skills required, the different types of research scientists, their average salary, career opportunities, and the future of this exciting field. What Does a Research Scientist Do? In summary, research scientists conduct experiments, analyze data, and develop new theories or products. Their work is often performed in laboratories through fieldwork and theoretical research. They specialize in specific study areas, mainly biology, chemistry, physics, environmental and climate, or social sciences. They design and conduct experiments, collect and analyze data, ...