The Academic Minute

Why do we evaluate male and female beauty differently?

Eugen Wassiliwizky, senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Empirical Aesthetics, looks for an answer.

Faculty Bio:

Eugen Wassiliwizky has an interdisciplinary background in neuropsychology, classics, and musicology and has conducted research in Germany, Canada, and Norway. His work examines the neural and evolutionary foundations of aesthetic experience across domains including language, film, music, and facial perception. Alongside his academic research, he has extensive experience as a communication coach, helping researchers, policymakers, and professionals communicate complex ideas clearly and persuasively.

Transcript:

More than 150 years ago, Charles Darwin made an intriguing observation. Unlike many animal species, in which males are the more ornamented sex—think of lions or birds of paradise—he argued that humans are unusual because it is women who are generally regarded as “the beautiful sex.” In other words, the typical pattern of sexual ornamentation appears to be reversed in humans. Surprisingly, however, this idea remained untested for more than a century and a half. Yet the answer had been hiding in scientific data all along.Together with colleagues, we recently analyzed one of the largest collections of facial-attractiveness data ever assembled: more than 1.5 million ratings from around the globe. The result was remarkably consistent: across cultures, age groups, and sexual orientations, female faces received higher attractiveness ratings than male faces. On average, a female face outranked about 60% of male faces. We call this robust phenomenon the Gender Attractiveness Gap.The findings also revealed several surprising details. Women showed the strongest preference for female faces, even stronger than men did. Moreover, facial structure explained a substantial part of the effect: differences in facial femininity and masculinity accounted for roughly 40% of the observed GAP. Another unexpected pattern emerged when we looked beyond average ratings. Whereas female attractiveness followed an almost perfectly normal distribution, male faces exhibited a small but distinct group of exceptionally attractive individuals. This raises the intriguing possibility that exceptional male attractiveness occupies a more specialized role than previously assumed.Rather than closing a chapter, these findings open an entirely new one. Why do humans evaluate female and male beauty so differently? And what do attractiveness ratings actually reveal about the way our minds perceive human beauty? Sometimes important scientific discoveries are not entirely new, they are patterns that have been hiding in plain sight for decades, waiting to be recognized.

Read More:

[The Royal Society Publishing] - The gender attractiveness gap

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Student work can serve a larger purpose than simply earning a grade.

Christian Martinez, adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, tells us how.

Faculty Bio:

Christian A. Martinez is a graduate instructor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, where he teaches reproducible research and data science. His work focuses on open science, civic open data, and designing educational experiences that enable students to create publicly available research and open-source software.

Transcript:

What happens to most student assignments after they’re graded?In many courses, the answer is simple: they disappear. A paper is submitted, a project is graded, and the work ends there.In my teaching, I began exploring a different approach. Instead of designing assignments for a single reader—the instructor—I asked students to create work that could have a life beyond the classroom.Using reproducible research methods and publicly available government data, students developed analyses that could be shared openly. Some projects became published online portfolios. Others were incorporated into an open educational resource used by future students. Several students contributed directly to open-source software that is now freely available to researchers around the world.I call this the “Accidental Author” framework because many students never expected to become authors or software contributors. They simply completed a course assignment. But by designing assignments around authentic audiences, transparency, and reproducibility, their work became something larger than a grade.This approach also changes the educational experience. Students know their work may be read by peers, employers, or members of the public, encouraging greater attention to documentation, communication, and reproducibility. Rather than treating assignments as temporary products, they begin thinking like researchers, collaborators, and contributors.The goal isn’t simply to produce better assignments. It’s to create learning experiences where the knowledge students generate can continue to educate others, contribute to open science, and remain valuable long after the semester has ended.

Read More:

NYC Open Data Student Gallery - Brooklyn College

Reproducible Research Using R

Reproducible Research Using R: Student Work in Practice

The OpenData Package Developer’s Guide

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What are ‘teen takeovers’, and do we need to curb them?

Krista Mehari, associate professor of public health at Michigan State University, says teens themselves can be part of the solution.

Faculty Bio:

Krista Mehari is a licensed clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor in the Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health in Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine. Her work focuses on improving the safety and well-being of youth from minoritized groups in overburdened, underresourced communities, with a specific focus on youth violence and firearm injury prevention. She takes a participatory action research approach to partner with communities to develop, implement, and evaluate violence prevention strategies. Her work has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and others.

Transcript:

“Teen takeovers”—youth-led gatherings fueled by social media—have occurred in cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Raleigh. The headlines often focus on curfews and crackdowns, but beneath the headlines lies a bigger question: How could we partner with teens to come up with solutions, instead of deciding that teens are the problem?Teen takeovers demonstrate young people’s creative energy, their desire for community, and their capacity to spread information quickly.In my work as a youth violence prevention researcher, I have found that youth participatory action research—working with young people to identify problems and create potential solutions—works for the good of communities and for the young people themselves.Research shows that involving young people in participatory action promotes leadership skills, boosts academic engagement, grows strong social bonds, and builds safer communities for everyone.But here’s the catch: Sometimes youth partnership is just for show—adults pretend that they are including young people but still exclude them from real power. Teens don’t just spot hypocrisy; they call it out. To quote one frustrated youth leader: “Honestly, people are irrelevant after they hit 25.” This sentiment isn’t about age; it’s about adults who violate their trust and resist making real change. The research on youth partnerships shows that teens need more than empty promises. To make adult-youth partnerships successful, teens need mutual respect and trust, collaborative goal setting, shared decision making, and transparency. Adults can build successful youth partnerships through warmth, consistency, curiosity, and flexibility. Youth partnerships are most successful when adults are transparent, share decision-making power, collaborate in brainstorming solutions, and support implementation of solutions.By partnering with young people, decisionmakers can monitor the pulse of their communities and implement relevant, attractive, sustainable solutions in real time.

Read More:

[Sage Journals] - Project GRIP: An Illustration of Participatory Action Research with Communities of People Who Own and Use Firearms

[Taylor & Francis] - Transdisciplinary participatory action research: how philosophers, psychologists, and practitioners can work (Well) together to promote adolescent character development within context

[Taylor & Francis] - Impact of a participatory action approach to virtue promotion among early adolescents

[ScienceDirect] - Facilitating youth participatory action research (YPAR): A scoping review of relational practice in U.S. Youth development & out-of-school time projects

[Annual Reviews] - Youth-Led Participatory Action Research and Developmental Science: Intersections and Innovations

[Wiley Online Library] - Youth participation: Adultism, human rights and professional youth work

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How do we beat the heat in cities going forward?

Katherine Mach, professor and chair of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, explores some tools that can help.

Faculty Bio:

Katharine Mach is professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, & Earth Science. During Spring 2025, she was the Coleman P. Burke Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Environment. Her research assesses climate-related risks and response options to address increased flooding, extreme heat, wildfire, and other hazards. Through innovative approaches to integrating evidence, she informs effective adaptations to the risks. Mach was the 2020 recipient of the Piers Sellers Prize for world leading contribution to solution-focused climate research. Mach has served as a chapter author or lead in the Fourth through Sixth US National Climate Assessments and the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and as a member of the National Academies Climate Security Roundtable. She serves as Co-Editor in Chief for Climate Risk Management, an editorial board member for Oxford Open Climate Change and Environmental Research: Climate, and an advisory committee member for the Aspen Global Change Institute. Across all of her research projects, she engages in relevant policy processes and explores and discusses climate risk and adaptation with the media, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and communities.

Transcript:

As global temperatures rise, extreme weather isn’t just becoming more severe, it’s becoming continuous. Many people are grappling with new relentless hazards. Chronic heat is one of them, defined as dangerous conditions that persist for 90 days or more every year. The impacts of chronic heat add up. Our research shows that some residents are enduring indoor home heat indexes that average over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours a day, consecutively. Chronic heat can severely impact physical and mental health, household finances, and community well-being. This isn’t a brief spike, it’s an underrecognized, daily crisis happening in our communities. Meeting this threat requires what my colleagues and I call actionable knowledge. Our Chronic Heat Research Group brings together over 100 scientists, doctors, community leaders, and officials monthly. Together, practitioners are taking action, and we’re using complex climate modeling and analysis to provide evidence on the risks and the effectiveness of different responses. The tools for decision making range from hyper-local indoor heat risk mapping to policy blueprints. By connecting climate risk science to decision makers, we empower cities to deploy cooling resources preemptively to protect residents, and update the infrastructures needed, ideally before crisis points occur. Intensifying chronic heat isn’t just a temporary surprise, it’s a new normal. Treating chronic heat as a permanent adaptation challenge is how we build safer and more resilient cities worldwide. This work demands that we reimagine urban planning, public health systems, and energy grids for a hotter reality, turning short-term emergency response of the past into stable protection for people and the environment at large.

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On Florida International University Week: Sleep disorders may be changing your brain.

Matthew Sutherland, associate professor of psychology, explores how.

Faculty Bio:

Matthew Sutherland is a cognitive neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at Florida International University. His research uses brain imaging to better understand how conditions such as substance use, sleep disorders and other health challenges affect brain function and behavior.

Transcript:

Most people know that poor sleep can leave them feeling tired, unfocused or irritable. But sleep disorders may do more than affect how you feel. They may actually be associated with changes in the brain itself.We wanted to better understand what happens in the brain across different types of sleep disorders. Sleep disorders affect an estimated 50 to 70 million Americans, yet most research has only examined these conditions one at a time.Our team conducted a meta-analysis of 57 brain imaging studies, looking at disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea, as well as sleepwalking, nightmare disorder and sleep terrors. By analyzing many studies together, we were able to identify patterns that might not be visible in individual investigations.Across multiple sleep disorders, we found structural changes in a region of the brain called the thalamus. More specifically, changes appeared in an area known as the pulvinar, which helps direct attention, filter information and support higher-level thinking.These findings may help explain why people with chronic sleep problems often report brain fog, difficulty concentrating, slower reaction times and challenges with decision-making.We also found unique changes among people with parasomnias, disorders that disrupt the sleep cycle itself. These changes occurred in a brain region involved in motivation, emotional regulation and decision-making, which may help explain some of the mood and behavioral symptoms associated with these conditions.Understanding how sleep disorders affect the brain could help researchers develop better diagnostic tools, identify problems earlier and create more personalized treatments.

Read More:

[Nature] - Sleep disorders and structural alterations in brain regions linked with motivation: a neuroimaging meta-analysis

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On Florida International University Week: How much salt is in your drinking water?

Rajiv Chowdhury, chair and professor of global health, explores this question.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury is chair of the Department of Global Health at FIU’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work. An internationally recognized global health researcher and educator, he previously held faculty roles at the University of Cambridge and the University of Exeter. His research focuses on the causes of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia, and how social, biological and environmental factors shape health outcomes. He has authored more than 150 scientific publications, with work informing global health guidelines and appearing in outlets such as The New York Times, CNN and BBC.

Transcript:

Most people think about salt as something that comes from food.But for millions of people, salt may also be coming from another source: the water they drink.My research looks at drinking water salinity: the amount of dissolved salts, mainly sodium, in a water supply, and how it may affect cardiovascular health.This issue is becoming more important in coastal areas. As sea levels rise, saltwater can push into freshwater sources, including underground aquifers. This process is called saltwater intrusion.For communities that rely on groundwater, that can mean drinking and cooking with water that contains more sodium than expected.My team and I wanted to understand whether this matters for blood pressure.We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis, bringing together data from 27 population-based studies involving more than 74,000 people across several countries.We found a consistent pattern. People exposed to higher-salinity drinking water had higher blood pressure than those exposed to lower-salinity water.On average, systolic blood pressure — the top number in a reading — was about 3.2 points higher. Diastolic blood pressure — the bottom number — was nearly 2.8 points higher.Higher drinking water salinity was also associated with a 26 percent increased risk of hypertension, especially in coastal populations.These numbers may seem modest for one person. But across large communities, even small increases in blood pressure can have major public health effects.Food remains the main source of sodium for most people. But our findings suggest that water quality should also be part of the conversation, especially as saltwater intrusion becomes a growing concern for coastal regions.

Read More:

[BMJ Journals] - Association of drinking water salinity with elevated blood pressure and risk of hypertension among coastal and other populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

[FIU News] - Salty drinking water could be increasing your blood pressure – people living in coastal areas are most at risk

[FIU News] - Could salty drinking water be a risk factor for high blood pressure?

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On Florida International University Week: Using generative AI in creative work may come at a cost.

Joel Carnevale, assistant professor of management, examines how your reputation could be affected.

Faculty Bio:

Joel Carnevale is an assistant professor of management in FIU Business’ Department of Global Leadership and Management whose research examines the interpersonal dynamics that shape how people think, feel and behave at work. His work focuses on leadership, behavioral ethics and, most notably, reputation — including how creative reputations are built, perceived and managed inside organizations. Carnevale’s research has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Business Ethics and the Journal of Organizational Behavior, and has drawn media attention from outlets such as Bloomberg News, Forbes, Fast Company, Business Insider, Entrepreneur and TIME.

Transcript:

Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of creative work, from music composition and advertising to design and content creation. But while AI may improve efficiency and even enhance creative output, our research suggests it can also change how creators themselves are perceived.Along with my co-authors Anand Benegal and Lynne Vincent, I studied how people evaluate creators who use AI in the creative process.In one experiment, participants evaluated the same piece of music written for a fictional video game soundtrack. Some participants were told the composer was Hans Zimmer, the well-known film composer associated with movies like Dune and The Dark Knight. Others were told the exact same composition came from a first-year college music student.We then varied whether participants were told the music had been created in collaboration with artificial intelligence.What we found was consistent across both high- and low-reputation creators: once AI use was disclosed, evaluations became significantly more negative. Participants rated creators lower in both creative competence and reputational prestige, even when the creator had an elite reputation.In a second experiment focused on the workplace, we found similar results involving an employee in an advertising firm. The key driver behind these negative evaluations was authenticity. When people believed AI played a role in the core creative process, they became more likely to question whether the creativity felt genuine or human.Our findings suggest that creators today must manage not only the work they produce, but also perceptions surrounding how that work was created.As AI becomes more integrated into creative industries, understanding those perceptions may become increasingly important for organizations, managers and creative professionals alike.

Read More:

[Academy of Management] - Creative or Contrived? How AI Use Shapes the Social Evaluations of Individuals with Creative Reputations

[The Conversation] - Artists and writers are often hesitant to disclose they’ve collaborated with AI – and those fears may be justified

[FIU News] - AI may boost productivity — but it can hurt a creator’s reputation, new research finds

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On Florida International University Week: We’re learning more about how to treat blood cancers.

Charles J. Dimitroff, professor of cellular and molecular medicine, explores new approaches.

Faculty Bio:

Charles J. Dimitroff, Ph.D. is a global leader in the study of sugars, known as glycobiology, and is highly motivated to translate glycobiological findings to help cure diseases and improve the overall health of humans. His research focuses on understanding how complex sugars or ‘glycans’ regulate immune and cancer cell functions with the goal of developing new approaches to boost the immune system to fight diseases and to treat cancer progression. As an NIH-funded investigator for more than 25 years, his efforts have helped identify the nature and impact of glycans on inflammation and cancer, while operating one of the most reputable translational glycobiology programs in the world.Dimitroff studies the nature of lectin – carbohydrate interactions and their impact in inflammation and cancer for more than 3 decades. He has a unique knowledge-base on the glycobiological (glycome) mechanisms relating to tumor biology, metastasis, and adaptive immunity, and is highly skilled in performing pre-clinical investigations on how glycome-related molecules contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammation and cancer. He conducts both in vitro and in vivo experiments designed to characterize the identity and function of lectins and their carbohydrate-binding ligands on leukocytes and cancer cells.

Transcripts:

In 2026, more than 67,000 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with leukemia, and more than 20,000 will be diagnosed with lymphoma, another type of blood cancer.Advances in medical technology have transformed how doctors treat blood cancers.CAR-T therapy is one of these treatments. It helps fight cancer using a patient’s own immune cells. However, the cancer fights back. Cancer behaves like a gated community. It has its own residents, rules and security systems. Together, they create what scientists call the tumor microenvironment.This harsh environment can exhaust CAR-T cells, so they shut down before they can finish their job. My research team discovered a way to give these cancer-fighting cells a protective shield. While studying blood samples from both healthy volunteers and patients with lymphoma, my team found that those with cancer had high levels of a protein called galectin-3. This weakens CAR-T cells. That’s where glycoengineering comes in. This method changes the sugar coating of CAR-T cells, making them more resistant to the harsh tumor environment. This enhanced sugar coating acts as a shield against the tumor. In preclinical studies, tumors shrank significantly.Compared with conventional CAR-T therapy, the number of CAR-T cells doubled. Their survival time also increased, allowing the cells to attack the cancer longer. Our research shows that the fight against cancer is stronger than ever. The next step is to determine whether these enhanced CAR-T cells can be used to fight cancers beyond lymphoma, including ovarian cancer.

Read More:

[The Conversation] - Killing cancer requires immune cells to infiltrate tumors’ hostile microenvironment – sugar shields can help them break in

[ScienceDirect] - Protecting the sugar coat on anti-tumor T cells to conceal destruction by tumor microenvironmental landmines

[Frontiers] - Glycoengineering CAR-T cells to overcome galectin-3-mediated immunosuppression

Original artwork by FIU student Lulu Perez

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On Florida International University Week: First responders at Ground Zero on 9/11 are aging.

What effects could their exposure be having on their brains? Roberto Lucchini, professor of environmental health sciences, looks into this.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Roberto G. Lucchini is a professor of environmental health sciences at FIU. A physician specializing in occupational medicine, his research examines how environmental and occupational exposures affect the nervous system across the lifespan, from neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration. At FIU, he leads the World Trade Center research program studying the long-term health effects of toxic exposures and trauma among 9/11 responders who relocated to Florida. His work also addresses global environmental health issues, including mercury contamination and co-exposures such as microplastics and agrochemicals in Amazon Basin communities.

Transcript:

Nearly 25 years after September 11, thousands of World Trade Center responders are still living with the health effects of that day.For years, much attention has focused on lung disease, cancer, PTSD and depression. But another question is now emerging: what did 9/11 exposure do to the aging brain?At Ground Zero, responders were exposed to more than trauma. They breathed dust, smoke and fumes from collapsed buildings, burning materials and contaminated debris. These exposures included particulate matter, chemicals and metals that may contribute to inflammation in the body and brain.At the same time, many responders experienced chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. PTSD can keep the body’s stress response activated long after the danger has passed.Our research looks at how these combined exposures — toxic substances and psychological trauma — may influence brain aging and cognitive health.In World Trade Center responder studies, researchers have found signs of cognitive impairment, changes in memory and processing speed, and brain changes that resemble features seen in neurodegenerative disease.One study found that nearly 18 percent of responders already showed cognitive impairment at their first evaluation. Another 14 percent developed mild cognitive impairment over about two and a half years.These findings do not mean every responder will develop dementia. But they show why brain health must be part of long-term disaster response.For responders who served at Ground Zero, monitoring should not stop at the lungs, cancer or mental health. We also need to watch the brain.

Read More:

[The Conversation] - 9/11 survivors’ exposure to toxic dust and the chronic health conditions that followed offer lessons that are still too often unheeded

[FIU News] - Professor reflects on his work helping first responders exposed to 9/11 toxic dust

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Artificial intelligence can be a boon to conservation science.

Daniel Thornton, associate professor of wildlife ecology at Washington State University, details why.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Thornton studies the spatial ecology and conservation of mammals, with an emphasis on mammalian carnivores. His work spans the Americas, and integrates a variety of partners from agencies, NGOs, and communities. Dr. Thornton’s research interests include the influence of human activities on the distribution of species, methods for studying carnivores, and transboundary conservation.

Transcript:

One of the most common methods to study elusive and threatened species like wolves, jaguars and lynx are motion-activated cameras placed in forests and other wild landscapes that can collect millions of images of wildlife during a project. However, a major challenge is processing the images - somebody must go through all those photos and identify what species appears in each one. Traditionally, that’s meant graduate students and undergraduate volunteers spending months reviewing images before the actual science begins.

Our new research asked a simple question: what if artificial intelligence could handle that process almost entirely on its own?

We tested a Google AI system called SpeciesNet using wildlife images collected in Cascade Mountains, Glacier National Park, and Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve. Then we compared statistical models of species distribution that were produced either using AI or human-based identifications of species.

What surprised us was how close the results were.

The AI-based models matched the human-based models for about 85 to 90% of the species. Even when AI occasionally misidentified animals in the images, the overall ecological patterns were still remarkably accurate. In other words, our conclusions about where species were located and what factors influence their presence were the same, whether we used the AI identifications or the human ones.

That matters because it changes the timeline of camera-based studies dramatically, from several months to less than a week.

For conservation, speed is important. The faster researchers can process information, the faster wildlife managers can make decisions. For example, if cameras detect fewer lynx in one area or show wolves moving into a new region, managers could spot those trends sooner and make decisions rapidly. Smart use of AI can remove a major bottleneck so scientists can spend less time sorting photos and more time understanding and protecting wildlife.

Read More:

[British Ecological Society] - Identification of camera trap images by artificial intelligence and human experts produces similar multi-species occupancy models

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