A provoked flare-up of chronic back pain raised default mode network activity in 114 adults
A study with UC San Diego co-authors scanned 114 adults with chronic back pain after a provoked flare and saw default mode network activity rise. An outside neuroscientist praised the design but said lingering pain or anxiety could also explain the signal.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence50
Briefly liquid grain boundaries lift UC San Diego-led perovskite devices to 24% to 26% efficiency
UC San Diego-led researchers report perovskite solar cells and LEDs at around 24% to 26% efficiency, grown with a temporary liquid phase. In the one durability result the report describes, the solar cells kept most of their efficiency through eight weeks of simulated sunlight.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence45
Toyota and UC San Diego researchers dissolve a battery binder in water to free electrode materials
UC San Diego and Toyota researchers built a fluorine-free battery binder that dissolves in water, so electrode coatings come off their foils with a soak. For a cell maker, the first payoff is on the production line, where water replaces toxic solvents.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption5
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives50
- Confidence40
UC San Diego team builds a 'butterfly fly' with nine light-detecting cells per eye unit
Michael Perry's UC San Diego lab found the genetic switch behind the butterfly's ninth light-detecting cell per eye unit and rebuilt it in fruit flies. The flies' brains wired the extra cell to spare neurons they would normally discard, so the change to the eye was enough on its own.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence50
Givers set the minimum for a small gift about 70% above what recipients would take
People in a Wharton-led study set the smallest worthwhile gift about 70% above what recipients would accept, so many holding only a small sum gave nothing. For anyone running a giving drive, the authors' field test shows a lower ask brings in more contributors while pulling gifts down toward the amount asked.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives45
- Confidence50
Healthy-reef recordings pull coral larvae onto the structures nearest the speaker
Of 37 artificial structures placed in Kane'ohe Bay, Scripps-led trials found coral larvae settled most on those nearest a speaker playing healthy-reef sound. The result puts sound beside living coatings and 3D-printed surfaces as a restoration tool, so far tested in a single Hawaiian bay.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence40
Oceanside teen with SCN2A epilepsy took his first unassisted steps after a drug made for his mutation
Connor Dalby, who had tried 12 or 13 anti-seizure drugs, took unassisted steps about four months after starting a drug built for his SCN2A mutation. His case, now in Nature Medicine, is a single patient, so how often made-to-order drugs like his work is still unknown.
Publishers:kpbs.org
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption3
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence45
Merriam-Webster adds AI words its own lexicographer says take programming knowledge to explain
Merriam-Webster added at least six AI and computing terms, including 'agentic' and 'vibe coding', to its online dictionary in September. The entries show that specialist AI terms now circulate in mainstream print, but the dictionary's method cannot tell how many general readers understand them.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption40
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives25
- Confidence60
UC San Diego test pits Planck's detectors against each other to vet a 0.37-degree twist in the oldest light
UC San Diego physicists compared eight Planck polarization maps against each other and recovered the same 0.37-degree twist as the standard analysis. The agreement gives cosmologists a second way to ask whether the rotation is in the sky or in the instrument, though the authors stress it does not confirm the twist is real.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives30
- Confidence55
Forging a 1024-bit RSA signature through an HSM costs under 0.3% of factoring the key
UC San Diego and Inria researchers forged a 1024-bit RSA signature through an HSM in 1,380 core-years, against at least 500,000 to factor the key. The attack only works with raw, unpadded signing access, so how exposed a custodian is depends on how its HSM is configured.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence52
Researchers forge RSA signatures from a hardware security module by making it sign 4 billion raw numbers
UC San Diego and INRIA researchers forged RSA signatures on a 1,024-bit key inside a hardware security module after about 4 billion signing requests. The key stayed inside the device throughout, so for custodians the exposure is in signing settings, starting with the FIPS mode the researchers switched off.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence40
Academic researchers hijacked the link between two Boeing 737 flight computers with a coin-sized board. The constraint was never budget or code. It was who can reach the nose bay.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence58
Half a million variants later, the initiator becomes a sequence you can design
A UC San Diego lab measured expression across about 500,000 initiator variants and fit a model to the result. The prevalence headline is the least useful part of it.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives50
- Confidence45
buildOne report1 publisher UC San Diego and Inria oracle attack cuts textbook RSA-2048 security by 22 bits
UC San Diego and Inria researchers report an attack, not yet peer reviewed, that cuts textbook RSA-2048 from 2^112 to 2^90 operations. It needs billions of queries against a raw RSA private key, so unmonitored HSMs and key-management services are the first place to look.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence40
UC San Diego's cross-check reproduces the standard calibration pattern across eight Planck maps
UC San Diego physicists cross-checked eight Planck polarization maps and found their relative calibration matches the standard analysis. The test cancels any rotation all detectors share, so the hinted 0.37-degree twist still needs an absolute angle reference.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives35
- Confidence55
Escape neurons in glassfish fire when a virtual neighbour vanishes from the screen
A UC San Diego team imaged thousands of neurons in transparent 12-millimetre fish watching computer-generated schools, and found midbrain cells that treat a partner's sudden absence much as they treat a partner's flight.
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives58
- Confidence66
TU Wien slides high-harmonic X-rays continuously between the comb's fixed teeth
High-harmonic X-ray sources normally emit only at integer multiples of their driving laser. A TU Wien and UC San Diego method detunes the driver instead, filling in the frequencies between two neighbouring harmonics.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives66
- Confidence55
Feeding a classifier 4D movies of mitochondria lifts drug-mechanism accuracy from 56% to 75%
UC San Diego researchers treated cancer cells with 25 mitochondria-perturbing compounds, collected 40,000 single-cell 4D movies, and trained a model that sorted the drugs by mechanism with the labels withheld.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption12
- Hype gap+24
- Incentives68
- Confidence55
NSF backs a diatom-inspired route to the rare earths locked in coal ash
A five-year, $3.3 million project led at Worcester Polytechnic Institute will test whether the biology that builds sea sponge skeletons can break silicon-rich industrial waste apart gently enough to free the minerals inside.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives70
- Confidence50
A 10,000-dog button study moves dog cognition's evidence off owner surveys
For years, dog cognition mostly asked owners what their dogs were like. Rossano's soundboard project and two newer studies measure the dogs instead, though the published account is short on samples and controls.
Reality
- Evidence38
- Adoption40
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives55
- Confidence45