Author: Kevin Engel

Science Librarian Grinnell College Grinnell, IA, USA

Increasing death rates of children and adolescents in the United States

Featured Article

Featured article: *Woolf SH, Wolf ER, Rivara FP. (2023). The New Crisis of Increasing All-Cause Mortality in US Children and Adolescents. JAMA. Published online March 13, 2023. “Although life expectancy in industrialized countries has lengthened over the past century, increases in US life expectancy ceased after 2010, a trend attributed to rising mortality rates among individuals aged 25 to 64 years. Although midlife mortality rates…

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Fear — impacts on decision-making and behavior: update

Intersections

Fear is corrosive whether caused by events outside our control or if purposefully used (for example, by politicians trying to gain or consolidate power). Fear impacts the decisions we make and the actions we take. We do things we would not do if the fear was not present. We believe things we normally would not. We act against our own best interests. Featured articles: *Anestis,…

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Nuclear power and climate change: update

Featured Article

There has been vigorous debate for more than 20 years about whether nuclear energy can be considered a viable option to help mitigate/prevent warming global temperatures as a result of a changing climate. Can nuclear power be considered a low-carbon energy source? In this featured article, Nikolaus Muellner, et al. evaluate “the climate protection potential of nuclear power” and also factor in “the needed uranium resources.”…

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ChatGPT and generative AI: What is it all about?

Intersections

ChatGPT and generative AI (artificial intelligence): a quick primer … *Heaven, W.D. (2023). ChatGPT is everywhere. Here’s where it came from: OpenAI’s breakout hit was an overnight sensation—but it is built on decades of research. MIT Technology Review. “We’ve reached peak ChatGPT. Released at the end of November [2022] as a web app by the San Francisco–based firm OpenAI, the chatbot exploded into the mainstream…

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How ChatGPT robs students of motivation to write and think for themselves

Intersections

Naomi S. Baron, American University (from The Conversation) When the company OpenAI launched its new artificial intelligence program, ChatGPT, in late 2022, educators began to worry. ChatGPT could generate text that seemed like a human wrote it. How could teachers detect whether students were using language generated by an AI chatbot to cheat on a writing assignment? As a linguist who studies the effects of…

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Food and diet and impacts on human behavior

Featured Article

What are the connections between the food we eat and how we behave? In particular, is there a connection between diet and aggressive behavior? Can this connection be used to help reduce the aggressive behavior that leads to criminal acts? Featured article: *Tcherni‐Buzzeo, Maria. (2023). Dietary interventions, the gut microbiome, and aggressive behavior: Review of research evidence and potential next steps. Aggressive Behavior, 49(1), 15-32….

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