Society and Culture

School Shootings Lower Spending by Millions in Affected Communities

admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:50:47 +0000

School Shootings Lower Spending by Millions in Affected Communities admin Wed, 07/30/2025 - 08:50

School shootings occur almost weekly in the U.S., with effects rippling beyond the school district where a shooting happened. New research from Georgia Tech shows that spending at local businesses across an affected community declines for at least six months.

Following school shootings, community members are 2% less likely to shop at area grocery stores. Convenience shops and liquor stores lose 3% of their business during this period. Restaurant and bar patronage drops even further — to 8%.

Cumulatively, a local economy can lose $5.4 million over six months.

“We set out to explore whether school shootings would have a direct causal impact on community economic activity,” said Adithya Pattabhiramaiah, Sharon A. and David B. Pearce Professor in the Scheller College of Business. “It may seem like a 2% loss is small, but that can add up to a pretty sizable revenue impact for a retailer with small margins.”

The Data

The three-year study combined statistical data and experimental interviews. The researchers started by examining NielsenIQ data, which tracks what shoppers buy at stores by county. Their NielsenIQ sample included 63 fatal school shootings between 2012 and 2019. Next, the researchers combined this with a Center for Homeland Defense and Security dataset of school shootings. They also examined a study of the nutritional value of products people bought at grocery stores in areas with school shootings.

The researchers hypothesized that people buy unhealthier foods to cope with negative emotions. Instead, their analysis showed people don’t buy comfort food after school shootings — because they generally don’t shop at all.

Pattabhiramaiah and his collaborators compared these datasets with those of neighboring counties that did not experience a school shooting. They followed purchasing patterns for a year, from six months before the event through six months after. The study’s statistical controls helped rule out other reasons people might shop less, such as weather events or holidays.

The Emotional Impact

It was important to the researchers to show that people not only spend less, but also why. So, the team conducted experimental studies in which participants read a hypothetical shooting scenario and were asked to share their emotional response to it and discuss how such an event might affect their shopping.

This experimental data backed up the numbers. People are more likely to consolidate their shopping trips and dine out less. This often comes down to anxiety about being in public.

“We show the main driver isn’t fear, or even sadness,” Pattabhiramaiah said. “If that were the case, we would see evidence of people indulging in comfort foods, as past studies have shown. Rather, the main feeling is anxiety.”

One thing is clear from Pattabhiramaiah’s research. Policymakers need to think about how to help their communities recover when school shootings occur. Thriving local businesses are a sign of a community’s economic health — and also its emotional well-being.

Summary sentence

Georgia Tech researchers have discovered persistent community-wide economic effects from school shootings.

Summary

Dateline

Mon, 07/21/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Tess Malone, Senior Research Writer/Editor

tess.malone@gatech.edu

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Society and Culture

Categories

Business

Mercury ID

683197

Source updated

Wed, 07/30/2025 - 08:50

College ‘General Education’ Requirements Help Prepare Students for Citizenship — But Critics Say It’s Learning Time Taken Away From Useful Studies

admin — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:04:41 +0000

College ‘General Education’ Requirements Help Prepare Students for Citizenship — But Critics Say It’s Learning Time Taken Away From Useful Studies admin Thu, 07/24/2025 - 14:04

What do Americans think of when they hear the words “general education”?

By definition, general education covers introductory college courses in arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and mathematics. It has different names, including core curriculum or distribution requirements, depending on the college or university.

It is also sometimes called liberal education, including by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which describes it as providing “a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills.”

The liberal label can be fodder for conservative groups who argue that today’s general education is part of an indoctrination into higher education’s purported left-leaning belief systems. Some other conservatives support general education as a concept but want more emphasis on so-called traditional values and less on cross-cultural understanding. These initiatives position general education and college as a space for ideological battles.

As a scholar of historical connections between literacy and social class, I know that general education was designed to provide opportunity for all students without regard for their political preferences.

The value of a college education can be shaped by political affiliation. bernarddobo/iStock via Getty Images

An Education for All

Eighty years ago, a group of Harvard University faculty created what many colleges and universities still follow as a template for general education. This plan was outlined in the book “General Education in a Free Society.”

Harvard’s plan was meant for all students, including veterans studying under the GI Bill, and others we today refer to as first generation, where neither parent had a college degree.

General education made college more accessible to students who were not becoming doctors or lawyers but who also wanted careers outside the vocational trades. It helped make college a place for educating all citizens, not just students of socioeconomic privilege.

Expanding access to higher education was central to the 1947 special report Higher Education for American Democracy, commissioned by President Harry Truman. The goal was to provide a foundational education for all, especially in math and science. But the report, commonly known as the Truman Commission Report, also included disciplines that help students understand the world – such as writing and communication, literature, psychology and history.

The purposes of general education are central to two competing views of college today, views that I also hear expressed by students and parents I’ve met in my 28 years as a professor.

One view of college is of an on-campus experience steeped in the liberal arts that holistically prepares students to live in a functioning democracy. These benefits are seen as worth the time and costs.

The other view is of college as a sum of career-focused credentials that can begin and end anywhere, not specific to one college campus. These benefits are completely financial, to be gained via the cheapest, quickest means.

Both of these views are informed by national perspectives that further divide citizens on higher education as a whole, such as Vice President JD Vance’s 2021 statement that “there was a wisdom in what Richard Nixon said approximately 40, 50 years ago. He said, and I quote, ‘The professors are the enemy.’”

Both these groups of Americans, however, hope that obtaining a college degree will pay off for graduates who find employment and reach a standard of living better than their parents’ generation.

For the first group, general education is critical to developing the whole student for jobs and life. For the latter, it is an expensive obstacle to it.

Not surprisingly, these views on education and college often correspond to political party identification and whether a person attended college themselves.

A July 2023 Lumina Foundation and Gallup Poll showed that only 36% of Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in higher education, with significant partisan differences between the 20% of Republicans who have this confidence, the 56% of Democrats and the 35% of independents who have it. There are also measurable differences between those who have earned a postgraduate degree and those who have not.

To cut costs, more students are searching for ways to complete general education requirements before they begin college. PeopleImages/E+ via Getty Images

Questioning Value

As college costs continue to rise in 2025, families are struggling – even taking on payment plans for everyday purchases, also known as phantom debt – to make ends meet.

General education represents about a third of the requirements of a bachelor’s degree and most of an associate degree.

For those who see college as a waste of money, general education courses are a calculable loss on future income. In the past two decades, this – and the increasingly competitive admissions process for college – has contributed to a tenfold increase in low-income students who take Advanced Placement courses and a 50% increase since 2021 in the number of students in dual-credit coursework. Both programs allow students to complete general education-equivalent courses for free while still in high school.

Complete College America, a nonprofit advocacy group that works with states to increase college completion rates, supports these moves by students and parents, classifying general education under “gateway courses” to be completed “as soon as possible.”

Other groups promote stackable units of credit toward college degrees. This push to complete general education requirements before entering college is gaining momentum, despite studies that show Advanced Placement classes, and exams, favor and benefit mostly white, middle- to upper-class students because these students tend to have more time and resources to devote to AP coursework and also take multiple exams in order to earn college credit.

For college students, general education can offer benefits beyond career attainment. ferrantraite/E+ via Getty Images

Understanding the World

While arguments for streamlining college and its costs are evergreen, foundational lessons taught across fields of study are as relevant in 2025 as they were in 1945. The U.S. faces threats to its democracy, is navigating rapid advances in technology, and is adapting to population shifts that will change how its residents live and work.

General education gives students broad foundational knowledge that can be used in a variety of careers. By design, it teaches an understanding of the world outside one’s own and how to live in it – a core requirement for a functioning democracy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Summary sentence

What do Americans think of when they hear the words “general education”?

Summary

What do Americans think of when they hear the words “general education”?

Dateline

Thu, 07/17/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Author:

Kelly Ritter, professor of Writing and Communication, Georgia Institute of Technology

Media Contact:

Shelley Wunder-Smith
shelley.wunder-smith@research.gatech.edu

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Society and Culture

Mercury ID

683265

Source updated

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 14:03

Why the US Bombed a Bunch of Metal Tubes − a Nuclear Engineer Explains the Importance of Centrifuges to Iranian Efforts to Build Nuclear Weapons

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 15:57:41 +0000

Why the US Bombed a Bunch of Metal Tubes − a Nuclear Engineer Explains the Importance of Centrifuges to Iranian Efforts to Build Nuclear Weapons admin Tue, 07/01/2025 - 11:57

When U.S. forces attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 21, 2025, the main target was metal tubes in laboratories deep underground. The tubes are centrifuges that produce highly enriched uranium needed to build nuclear weapons.

Inside of a centrifuge, a rotor spins in the range of 50,000 to 100,000 revolutions per minute, 10 times faster than a Corvette engine’s crankshaft. High speeds are needed to separate lighter uranium-235 from heavier uranium-238 for further collection and processing. Producing this level of force means the rotor itself must be well balanced and strong and rely on high-speed magnetic bearings to reduce friction.

Over the years, Iran has produced thousands of centrifuges. They work together to enrich uranium to dangerous levels – close to weapons-grade uranium. Most of them are deployed in three enrichment sites: Natanz, the country’s main enrichment facility, Fordow and Isfahan. Inside of these facilities, the centrifuges are arranged into cascades – series of machines connected to each other. This way, each machine yields slightly more enriched uranium, feeding the gas produced into its neighbor to maximize production efficiency.

As a nuclear engineer who works on nuclear nonproliferation, I track centrifuge technology, including the Iranian enrichment facilities targeted by the U.S. and Israel. A typical cascade deployed in Iran is composed of 164 centrifuges, working in series to produce enriched uranium. The Natanz facility was designed to hold over 50,000 centrifuges.

Iran’s early intentions to field centrifuges on a very large scale were clear. At the peak of the program in the early 2010s it deployed over 19,000 units. Iran later scaled down the number of its centrifuges in part due to international agreements such as the since scrapped Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015.

Legacy of Enrichment

Iran has a long history of enriching uranium.

In the late 1990s, it acquired a Pakistani centrifuge design known as P-1. The blueprints and some components were supplied via the A.Q. Khan black market network – the mastermind of the Pakistani program and a serious source of nuclear proliferation globally. Today, the P-1 design is known as IR-1. IR-1 centrifuges use aluminum and a high-strength alloy, known as maraging steel.

About one-third of the centrifuges that were deployed at the sites of the recent strike on June 21 are IR-1. Each one produces on the order of 0.8 separative work units, which is the unit for measuring the amount of energy and effort needed to separate uranium-235 molecules from the rest of the uranium gas. To put this in perspective, one centrifuge would yield about 0.2 ounces (6 grams) of 60%-enriched uranium-235 per year.

A typical uranium-based weapon requires 55 pounds (25 kilograms) of 90%-enriched uranium. To get to weapons-grade level, a single centrifuge would produce only 0.14 ounces (4 grams) per year. It requires more work to go higher in enrichment. While capable of doing the job, the IR-1 is quite inefficient.

The author explains the uranium enrichment process to CBS News.

More and Better Centrifuges

Small yields mean that over 6,000 centrifuges would need to work together for a year to get enough material for one weapon such as a nuclear warhead. Or the efficiency of the centrifuges would have to be improved. Iran did both.

Before the strike by U.S. forces, Iran was operating close to 7,000 IR-1 centrifuges. In addition, Iran designed, built and operated more efficient centrifuges such as the IR-2m, IR-4 and IR-6 designs. Comparing the IR-1 with the latest designs is like comparing a golf cart with the latest electric vehicles in terms of range and payload.

Iran’s latest centrifuge designs contain carbon fiber composites with exceptional strength and durability and low weight. This is a recipe for producing light and compact centrifuges that are easier to conceal from inspections. According to the international nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, before the strike Iran was operating 6,500 IR-2m centrifuges, close to 4,000 IR-4 centrifuges and over 3,000 IR-6 centrifuges.

With each new generation, the separative work unit efficiency increased significantly. IR-6 centrifuges, with their carbon fiber rotors, can achieve up to 10 separative work units per year. That’s about 2.8 ounces (80 grams) of 60%-enriched uranium-235 per year. The International Atomic Energy Agency verified that the IR-6 cascades have been actively used to ramp up production of 60%-enriched uranium.

The most recent and advanced centrifuges developed by Iran, known as IR-9, can achieve 50 separative work units per year. This cuts down the time needed to produce highly enriched uranium for weapon purposes from months to weeks. The other aspect of IR-9 advanced centrifuges is their compactness. They are easier to conceal from inspections or move underground, and they require less energy to operate.

Advanced centrifuges such as the IR-9 drive up the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation significantly. Fortunately, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports that only one exists in testing laboratories, and there is no evidence Iran has deployed them widely. However, it’s possible more are concealed.

Bombs or Talks?

Uranium enrichment of 60% is far beyond the needs of any civilian use. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran stockpiled about 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium before the attack, and it might have escaped intact. That’s enough to make 10 weapons. The newer centrifuges – IR-2m, IR-4 and IR-6 – would need a bit over eight months to produce that much.

It’s not clear what the U.S. attack has accomplished, but destroying the facilities targeted in the attack and hindering Iran’s ability to continue enriching uranium might be a way to slow Iran’s move toward producing nuclear weapons. However, based on my work and research on preventing nuclear proliferation, I believe a more reliable means of preventing Iran from achieving its nuclear aims would be for diplomacy and cooperation to prevail.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 07/01/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Authors:

Anna Erickson, professor of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Media Contact:

Shelley Wunder-Smith
shelley.wunder-smith@research.gatech.edu

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Society and Culture

Mercury ID

682969

Source updated

Tue, 07/01/2025 - 11:55

Cyberattacks Shake Voters’ Trust in Elections, Regardless of Party

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 13:37:38 +0000

Cyberattacks Shake Voters’ Trust in Elections, Regardless of Party admin Tue, 07/01/2025 - 09:37

American democracy runs on trust, and that trust is cracking.

Nearly half of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, question whether elections are conducted fairly. Some voters accept election results only when their side wins. The problem isn’t just political polarization – it’s a creeping erosion of trust in the machinery of democracy itself.

Commentators blame ideological tribalism, misinformation campaigns and partisan echo chambers for this crisis of trust. But these explanations miss a critical piece of the puzzle: a growing unease with the digital infrastructure that now underpins nearly every aspect of how Americans vote.

The digital transformation of American elections has been swift and sweeping. Just two decades ago, most people voted using mechanical levers or punch cards. Today, over 95% of ballots are counted electronically. Digital systems have replaced poll books, taken over voter identity verification processes and are integrated into registration, counting, auditing and voting systems.

This technological leap has made voting more accessible and efficient, and sometimes more secure. But these new systems are also more complex. And that complexity plays into the hands of those looking to undermine democracy.

In recent years, authoritarian regimes have refined a chillingly effective strategy to chip away at Americans’ faith in democracy by relentlessly sowing doubt about the tools U.S. states use to conduct elections. It’s a sustained campaign to fracture civic faith and make Americans believe that democracy is rigged, especially when their side loses.

This is not cyberwar in the traditional sense. There’s no evidence that anyone has managed to break into voting machines and alter votes. But cyberattacks on election systems don’t need to succeed to have an effect. Even a single failed intrusion, magnified by sensational headlines and political echo chambers, is enough to shake public trust. By feeding into existing anxiety about the complexity and opacity of digital systems, adversaries create fertile ground for disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Just before the 2024 presidential election, Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Jen Easterly explains how foreign influence campaigns erode trust in U.S. elections.

Testing Cyber Fears

To test this dynamic, we launched a study to uncover precisely how cyberattacks corroded trust in the vote during the 2024 U.S. presidential race. We surveyed more than 3,000 voters before and after election day, testing them using a series of fictional but highly realistic breaking news reports depicting cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. We randomly assigned participants to watch different types of news reports: some depicting cyberattacks on election systems, others on unrelated infrastructure such as the power grid, and a third, neutral control group.

The results, which are under peer review, were both striking and sobering. Mere exposure to reports of cyberattacks undermined trust in the electoral process – regardless of partisanship. Voters who supported the losing candidate experienced the greatest drop in trust, with two-thirds of Democratic voters showing heightened skepticism toward the election results.

But winners too showed diminished confidence. Even though most Republican voters, buoyed by their victory, accepted the overall security of the election, the majority of those who viewed news reports about cyberattacks remained suspicious.

The attacks didn’t even have to be related to the election. Even cyberattacks against critical infrastructure such as utilities had spillover effects. Voters seemed to extrapolate: “If the power grid can be hacked, why should I believe that voting machines are secure?”

Strikingly, voters who used digital machines to cast their ballots were the most rattled. For this group of people, belief in the accuracy of the vote count fell by nearly twice as much as that of voters who cast their ballots by mail and who didn’t use any technology. Their firsthand experience with the sorts of systems being portrayed as vulnerable personalized the threat.

It’s not hard to see why. When you’ve just used a touchscreen to vote, and then you see a news report about a digital system being breached, the leap in logic isn’t far.

Our data suggests that in a digital society, perceptions of trust – and distrust – are fluid, contagious and easily activated. The cyber domain isn’t just about networks and code. It’s also about emotions: fear, vulnerability and uncertainty.

Firewall of Trust

Does this mean we should scrap electronic voting machines? Not necessarily.

Every election system, digital or analog, has flaws. And in many respects, today’s high-tech systems have solved the problems of the past with voter-verifiable paper ballots. Modern voting machines reduce human error, increase accessibility and speed up the vote count. No one misses the hanging chads of 2000.

But technology, no matter how advanced, cannot instill legitimacy on its own. It must be paired with something harder to code: public trust. In an environment where foreign adversaries amplify every flaw, cyberattacks can trigger spirals of suspicion. It is no longer enough for elections to be secure − voters must also perceive them to be secure.

That’s why public education surrounding elections is now as vital to election security as firewalls and encrypted networks. It’s vital that voters understand how elections are run, how they’re protected and how failures are caught and corrected. Election officials, civil society groups and researchers can teach how audits work, host open-source verification demonstrations and ensure that high-tech electoral processes are comprehensible to voters.

We believe this is an essential investment in democratic resilience. But it needs to be proactive, not reactive. By the time the doubt takes hold, it’s already too late.

Just as crucially, we are convinced that it’s time to rethink the very nature of cyber threats. People often imagine them in military terms. But that framework misses the true power of these threats. The danger of cyberattacks is not only that they can destroy infrastructure or steal classified secrets, but that they chip away at societal cohesion, sow anxiety and fray citizens’ confidence in democratic institutions. These attacks erode the very idea of truth itself by making people doubt that anything can be trusted.

If trust is the target, then we believe that elected officials should start to treat trust as a national asset: something to be built, renewed and defended. Because in the end, elections aren’t just about votes being counted – they’re about people believing that those votes count.

And in that belief lies the true firewall of democracy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Summary sentence

Nearly half of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, question whether elections are conducted fairly.

Summary

Nearly half of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, question whether elections are conducted fairly.

Dateline

Fri, 06/27/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Authors:

Ryan Shandler, Professor of Cybersecurity and International Relations, Georgia Institute of Technology

Anthony J. DeMattee, Data Scientist and Adjunct Instructor, Emory University

Bruce Schneier, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Media Contact:

Shelley Wunder-Smith
shelley.wunder-smith@research.gatech.edu

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Society and Culture

Mercury ID

682964

Source updated

Tue, 07/01/2025 - 09:36

Nuclear Scientists Have Long Been Targets in Covert Ops – Israel Has Brought That Policy Out of the Shadows

admin — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 15:22:41 +0000

Nuclear Scientists Have Long Been Targets in Covert Ops – Israel Has Brought That Policy Out of the Shadows admin Tue, 06/24/2025 - 11:22

At least 14 nuclear scientists are believed to be among those killed in Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, launched on June 13, 2025, ostensibly to destroy or degrade Iran’s nuclear program and military capabilities.

Deliberately targeting scientists in this way aims to disrupt Iran’s knowledge base and continuity in nuclear expertise. Among those assassinated were Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, a theoretical physicist and head of Iran’s Islamic Azad University, and Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, a nuclear engineer who led Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

Collectively, these experts in physics and engineering were potential successors to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely regarded as the architect of the Iranian nuclear program, who was assassinated in a November 2020 attack many blame on Israel.

As two political scientists writing a book about state targeting of scientists as a counterproliferation tool, we understand well that nuclear scientists have been targeted since the nuclear age began. We have gathered data on nearly 100 instances of what we call “scientist targeting” from 1944 through 2025.

The most recent assassination campaign against Iranian scientists is different from many of the earlier episodes in a few key ways. Israel’s recent attack targeted multiple nuclear experts and took place simultaneously with military force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, air defenses and energy infrastructure. Also, unlike previous covert operations, Israel immediately claimed responsibility for the assassinations.

But our research indicates that targeting scientists may not be effective for counterproliferation. While removing individual expertise may delay nuclear acquisition, targeting alone is unlikely to destroy a program outright and could even increase a country’s desire for nuclear weapons. Further, targeting scientists may trigger blowback given concerns regarding legality and morality.

A Policy With a Long History

Targeting nuclear scientists began during World War II when Allied and Soviet forces raced to capture Nazi scientists, degrade Adolf Hitler’s ability to build a nuclear bomb and use their expertise to advance the U.S. and Soviet nuclear programs.

In our data set, we classified “targeting” as cases in which scientists were captured, threatened, injured or killed as nations tried to prevent adversaries from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Over time, at least four countries have targeted scientists working on nine national nuclear programs.

The United States and Israel have allegedly carried out the most attacks on nuclear scientists. But the United Kingdom and Soviet Union have also been behind such attacks.

Meanwhile, scientists working for the Egyptian, Iranian and Iraqi nuclear programs have been the most frequent targets since 1950. Since 2007 and prior to the current Israeli operation, 10 scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program were killed in attacks. Other countries’ nationals have also been targeted: In 1980, Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, allegedly bombed Italian engineer Mario Fiorelli’s home and his firm, SNIA Techint, as a warning to Europeans involved in the Iraqi nuclear project.

Given this history, the fact that Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear program is not itself surprising. Indeed, it has been a strategic goal of successive Israeli prime ministers to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and experts had been warning of the increased likelihood of an Israeli military operation since mid-2024, due to regional dynamics and Iranian nuclear development.

The wrecked cars in which four of Iran’s nuclear scientists were assassinated in recent years are displayed on the grounds of a museum in Tehran in 2014. Scott Peterson/Getty Images

By then, the balance of power in the Middle East had changed dramatically. Israel systematically degraded the leadership and infrastructure of Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. It later destroyed Iranian air defenses around Tehran and near key nuclear installations. The subsequent fall of Syria’s Assad regime cost Tehran another long-standing ally. Together, these developments have significantly weakened Iran, leaving it vulnerable to external attack and stripped of its once-feared proxy network, which had been expected to retaliate on its behalf in the event of hostilities.

With its proxy “axis of resistance” defanged and conventional military capacity degraded, Iranian leadership may have thought that expanding its enrichment capability was its best bet going forward.

And in the months leading up to Israel’s recent attack, Iran expanded its nuclear production capacity, moving beyond 60% uranium enrichment, a technical step just short of weapons-grade material. During Donald Trump’s first term, the president withdrew the U.S. from a multilateral nonproliferation agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program. After being reelected, Trump appeared to change tack by pursuing new diplomacy with Iran, but those talks have so far failed to deliver an agreement – and may be put on hold for the foreseeable future amid the war.

Most recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors declared Iran in non-compliance with its nuclear-nonproliferation obligations. In response, Iran announced it was further expanding its enrichment capacity by adding advanced centrifuge technology and a third enrichment site.

Even if the international community anticipated the broader attack on Iran, characteristics of the targeting itself are surprising. Historically, states have covertly targeted individual scientists. But the recent multiple-scientist attack occurred openly, with Israel taking responsibility, publicly indicating the attacks’ purpose. Further, while it is not new for a country to use multiple counter-proliferation tools against an adversary over time, that Israel is using both preventive military force against infrastructure and targeting scientists at once is atypical.

Additionally, such attacks against scientists are historically lower tech and low cost, with death or injury stemming from gunmen, car bombs or accidents. In fact, Abbasi – who was killed in the most recent attacks – survived a 2010 car bombing in Tehran. There are outliers, however, including the Fakhrizadeh assassination, which featured a remotely operated machine gun smuggled into Iranian territory.

Israel’s Logic In Going After Scientists

Why target nuclear scientists?

In foreign policy, there are numerous tools available if one state aims to prevent another state from acquiring nuclear weapons. Alongside targeting scientists, there are sanctions, diplomacy, cyberattacks and military force.

Targeting scientists may remove critical scientific expertise and impose costs that increase the difficulty of building nuclear weapons. Proponents argue that targeting these experts may undermine a state’s efforts, deter it from continuing nuclear developments and signal to others the perils of supporting nuclear proliferation.

Countries that target scientists therefore believe that doing so is an effective way to degrade an adversary’s nuclear program. Indeed, the Israel Defense Forces described the most recent attacks as “a significant blow to the regime’s ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”

Posters featuring images of Iranian nuclear scientists are displayed in Tehran, Iran, on June 14, 2025. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

Despite Israel’s focus on scientists as sources of critical knowledge, there may be thousands more working inside Iran, calling into question the efficacy of targeting them. Further, there are legal, ethical and moral concerns over targeting scientists.

Moreover, it is a risky option that may fail to disrupt an enemy nuclear program while sparking public outrage and calls for retaliation. This is especially the case if scientists, often regarded as civilians, are elevated as martyrs.

Targeting campaigns may, as a result, reinforce domestic support for a government, which could then redouble efforts toward nuclear development.

Regardless of whether targeting scientists is an effective counter-proliferation tool, it has been around since the start of the nuclear age – and will likely persist as part of the foreign policy toolkit for states aiming to prevent proliferation. In the case of the current Israeli conflict with Iran and its targeting of nuclear scientists, we expect the tactic to continue for the duration of the war and beyond.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Thu, 06/19/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Author:

Jenna Jordan, associate professor and associate chair, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
Rachel Whitlark, associate professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology

Media Contact:

Shelley Wunder-Smith
shelley.wunder-smith@research.gatech.edu

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Society and Culture

Mercury ID

682869

Source updated

Tue, 06/24/2025 - 11:22

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:11:41 +0000

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 11:11

The way a ladybug folds its wings can help aerospace engineers design more compact satellites. Studying how ants dig tunnels could help us create our own tunnels more efficiently.

The idea of using nature’s examples to develop products and designs that benefit society is the cornerstone of a new project at Georgia Tech that aims to get more high school students interested in engineering.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks. The teachers will be embedded with engineers and scientists, working at the forefront of what’s called biologically inspired design, and creating a curriculum for the teachers to use in their classrooms.

“Lots of people think animals and what they do is insanely cool — and the internet agrees — which means we can engage interest in engineering by making a link to biology as a way to solve engineering challenges,” said Marc Weissburg, project leader and professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “The act of trying to see how an animal might help find a solution to a problem is a very creative process. It challenges the notion that engineering is boring. High school engineering experiences vary widely, but they generally do not include the most cutting-edge topics, like bio-inspired design, which gets people really excited,” he said.

For the next four years, Weissburg will collaborate with researchers Meltem Alemdar, Michael Helms, Roxanne Moore and Michael Ryan at Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing. They’ll create and assess units for 10th, 11th and 12th graders that explore bio-inspired design in the context of problems that are relatable to teenagers.

In particular, the researchers see their approach as a way to reach girls, who may not have considered engineering as a potential career. Weissburg pointed to data from the Center for Digital Education that showed 24% of male high school students expressed interest in engineering. For young women, the number was just 11%.

“Too often, engineering is depicted as applied math and science, which completely neglects how human-centered engineering is,” said Weissburg, who also co-directs the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at Georgia Tech and is a Brook Byers Professor.

The project will generate a curriculum with design and build exercises, background materials for teachers, examples to spark discussion, tests, and other resources that can be used by teachers across the country. Researchers will examine how well the curriculum engages students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in engineering.

“States have different standards, and teacher goals and classes have to be responsive to their unique student audience,” Weissburg said. “Our series of resources, all of which will be online, will allow teachers to easily slot in material that fits for them. It will allow them to talk to us and each other about best practices.”

The research team has partnered with Gwinnett County Public Schools to identify the first group of teachers they’ll invite to participate. Weissburg said that will happen in late Spring 2020.

“Bio-inspired engineering is a unique way of thinking, and so we have to help the teachers understand how to encourage this in their students.”

Summary sentence

Four-year project will bring teachers into Georgia Tech labs and create new curriculum materials for them to use in class.

Summary

The way a ladybug folds its wings can help aerospace engineers design more compact satellites. Studying how ants dig tunnels could help us create our own tunnels more efficiently.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks.

Center for Urban Research Receives Grant to Help Improve Atlanta Neighborhoods

admin — Fri, 16 May 2025 13:18:41 +0000

Center for Urban Research Receives Grant to Help Improve Atlanta Neighborhoods admin Fri, 05/16/2025 - 09:18

The Southern Company Foundation awarded a $2.5 million grant to the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Research to support Mayor Andre Dickens’ effort to address socioeconomic inequities in Atlanta neighborhoods.

“This investment is a major step forward in Mayor Dickens’ effort to improve the quality of lives of all Atlantans,” said David Edwards, the founding executive director of the Center for Urban Research and the policy advisor for neighborhoods in the City of Atlanta Office of the Mayor.

“My goal is to ensure that the city of Atlanta is the best city in the country to raise a child,” said Mayor Andre Dickens. “And we’re going to achieve that by ensuring every child in the city lives in a healthy, thriving, and accessible neighborhood. This investment by the Southern Company Foundation will help us ensure that we track and evaluate our progress against that goal. I am very appreciative of their willingness to support this critical work.”

What: The Center for Urban Research, hosted in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, is a collaboration between Georgia Tech and the mayor’s office. It brings together university, community, nonprofit, and municipal leaders to develop and evaluate solutions that address inequities in urban centers. Current projects include neighborhood improvement plans and climate-oriented engineering for housing and facilities on public land.

Why: The Center will use the $2.5 million from the Southern Company Foundation to evaluate and inform the mayor’s “Achieving Fairness of Place” initiative, which is investing in seven historically disinvested neighborhoods to improve outcomes in housing, education, health, and economic mobility.

How: The Center for Urban Research will develop an impact measurement strategy for the project and track the results of the investments. It will also lead the research, informing the work on the ground and conducting and supporting local and national work on issues related to place-based transformation and neighborhood health. The Center is collaborating with more than 40 researchers at colleges and universities across the region.

“With this funding, we hope to establish the Center as a leader in research, practice, and partnerships and use Atlanta as a blueprint of what can happen nationwide to address urban inequity,” said Ishita Chordia, the associate director of the Center.

“Policymakers in Atlanta and beyond desperately need research support,” added Center Co-Director Brian An, an assistant professor at the Carter School.

The Southern Company Foundation’s grant will allow the Center to create fellowships and build an interdisciplinary team of master’s and doctoral students from the Carter School, the School of City and Regional Planning, the College of Computing, and others to provide the research analytics that policymakers often don’t have the time or money to procure themselves, An said.

“We are pleased to support the mayor’s Fairness of Place initiative with the Center for Urban Research to conduct research and determine best practices in community transformation,” said Myra Bierria, president of the Southern Company Foundation.

“This initiative, taking shape in several economically disadvantaged communities to provide residents with access to quality housing, education, workforce development, and public spaces, aligns with our focus on elevating our communities for generations to come. This grant reflects our commitment to these efforts and supporting the Atlanta communities we are privileged to serve.”

Summary sentence

The Southern Company Foundation awarded a $2.5 million grant to the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Research to support Mayor Andre Dickens’ effort to improve Atlanta neighborhoods.

Summary

The Southern Company Foundation awarded a $2.5 million grant to the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Research to support Mayor Andre Dickens’ effort to improve Atlanta neighborhoods.

Dateline

Wed, 05/07/2025 - 12:00

dminardi3@gatech.edu

Contact

Di Minardi

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Associated importer

News room topics

Society and Culture

Categories

City Planning, Transportation, and Urban Growth

Mercury ID

682259

Source updated

Fri, 05/16/2025 - 09:18

Over the Rainbow and Into 15K: Alumni Help Bring Oz to Life at the Las Vegas Sphere

admin — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 14:39:41 +0000

Over the Rainbow and Into 15K: Alumni Help Bring Oz to Life at the Las Vegas Sphere admin Fri, 04/25/2025 - 10:39

For anyone who has only seen the movie on television, The Wizard of Oz is an incredible movie theater experience. Its larger-than-life characters, vivid colors, and memorable soundtrack were made for the big screen.

Now, a Georgia Tech professor and several alumni are helping bring the 1939 classic Hollywood film to what will likely be its largest screen ever: the Las Vegas Sphere's 160,000-square-foot interior screen.

Summary sentence

Debuting in August, "The Wizard of Oz at Sphere' has a solid connection to Georgia Tech's AI community.

Summary

Debuting in August, "The Wizard of Oz at Sphere' has a solid connection to Georgia Tech's AI community. A Georgia Tech professor and several alumni are helping bring the 1939 classic Hollywood film to what will likely be its largest screen ever: the Las Vegas Sphere's 160,000-square-foot interior screen.

Dateline

Tue, 04/22/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Ben Snedeker

Communications Manager

Georgia Tech College of Computing

albert.snedeker@cc.gatech.edu

Associated importer

Keywords

alumni

Alumni Association

Daily Digest

Georgia Tech News Center

artificial intelligence (AI)

go-researchnews

generative AI

News room topics

Society and Culture

Categories

Alumni

Mercury ID

681971

Source updated

Fri, 04/25/2025 - 10:39

Heart Fellows: BME Grad Students Training to Become Next Generation Cardiovascular Leaders

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 19:02:45 +0000

Heart Fellows: BME Grad Students Training to Become Next Generation Cardiovascular Leaders admin Tue, 03/18/2025 - 15:02

In 2023 the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering launched a new program designed to train the next generation of leaders in cardiovascular research. Five first-year graduate students formed the first cohort that fall.

Currently, there are nine students in the Cardiovascular Biomechanics Graduate Training Program at Emory and Georgia Tech (CBT@EmTech). The program offers two years of training in an assortment of disciplines, including cardiovascular biomechanics, mechanobiology, medical imaging, computational modeling, medical devices, therapeutics discovery and delivery, and data science.

“The goal of the program is to stimulate interdisciplinary training,” so we expose the students to multiple areas of research,” says Hanjoong Jo, CBT@EmTech director, Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Professor.

“And we have a very diverse group of trainees interested in various aspects of cardiovascular research and medicine,” Jo added. “Four out of five students from our first cohort already have secured prestigious fellowships, demonstrating the caliber of the trainees in the program.”

The students from that cohort brought a wide range of experiences, interests, and ambitions to the program. Now in their final months as CBT@EmTech trainees, they took time to share their stories.

Yohannes Akiel

Principal Investigator: Michael Davis

Campus: Emory

Undergraduate: University of Texas-San Antonio
I've always had a passion for helping people and I feel that I’m doing this through my research on aortic valve tissue engineering for pediatric patients. Aortic valve disease is found in 1-2% of live births, because of congenital heart defects or infections. Current valve replacements are limited — for one thing, they’re incapable of growing and remodeling with the patient. This presents a need for a new tissue-engineered valve that can address these challenges. In the Davis lab, we’re working on a tissue engineered heart valve to provide a better, long-term solution.

Throughout my time in the CBT@EmTech program, I've gained a range of knowledge in the cardiovascular space, learning about atherosclerosis, peripheral artery disease, valve disease, as well as computational and imaging techniques to help solve some of these problems. As part of the program, we are also required to take an Advanced Seminar class in the cardiovascular area.

Through this class, I was able to participate in some interesting clinical observations in the Emory University Hospital cardiology department. For example, I watched a cardiologist perform a transesophageal echocardiogram. The doctor was checking for heart blockages on a patient who had atrial fibrillation. This procedure was followed by a cardioversion to restore a normal heart rhythm. This was a profound demonstration of biomedical technology in action that left a lasting impression on me.

Leandro Choi

Principal Investigator: Hanjoong Jo

Campus: Emory

Undergraduate: Duke University

As a PhD student in the Jo Lab, I am studying how disturbed flow influences transcriptional regulation in endothelial cell reprogramming and atherosclerosis. Our goal is to identify and develop therapeutics that target non-lipid residual pathways contributing to this widespread and deadly disease.

I initially became interested in this line of research due to a family history of cardiovascular disease. As an undergraduate, I worked in a tissue engineering lab where I employed stem cell and tissue engineering methods to model the circulatory system. A desire to further explore the role of mechanosensitive genes and proteins in cardiovascular disease led me to pursue a PhD in this field.

One of the most valuable aspects of the CBT@EmTech program has been the opportunity to connect with a network of students and faculty who are leaders in cardiovascular research. Through monthly meetings, we share our work and gain insights into the diverse engineering applications our interdisciplinary program brings to the field, with the common goal of improving cardiovascular health.

Aniket Venkatesh

Principal Investigator: Lakshmi Prasad

Campus: Georgia Tech

Undergraduate: Georgia Tech

October 2024 marked the three-year anniversary of my uncle’s passing due to complications from a mild heart attack. His angiogram showed 30% vessel blockage, leading to heart surgery. Sadly, he suffered a brain stroke days later, resulting in deteriorating speech, muscle movement, and eventually death at 48. This personal tragedy brought urgency to my research questions: Can the risk of complications following cardiovascular treatments be predicted? Can underlying cardiovascular pathology be treated before it progresses to a heart attack or stroke? Was my uncle’s death preventable? These questions drive my cardiovascular research, focused on predicting post-procedural heart valve outcomes through computational modeling.

Being part of the prestigious CBT@EmTech program at Emory and Georgia Tech has significantly advanced my research journey. Learning from fellow trainees, presenting my research, and attending academia-focused workshops (like one about grant writing) have helped me stand out in heart valve computational modeling. The program, along with my PI, Dr. Lakshmi Prasad Dasi, and co-PI, Dr. John Oshinski, has provided the resources needed to translate my research from the lab to the clinic through regular meetings with clinicians and data transfer to and from hospitals. I am grateful for the opportunity to pursue my long-term goal of predicting risks of complications before cardiovascular treatments and helping prevent adverse clinical outcomes like those experienced by my uncle.

Isabel Wallgren

Principal Investigator: Simone Douglas-Green

Campus: Georgia Tech

Undergraduate Degree: University of Virginia

Peripheral artery disease (PAD) occurs when atherosclerotic plaque accumulates in limb arteries, blocking blood flow. Current interventions limit disease progression, but surgery is often needed to prevent critical limb ischemia. A less invasive approach promotes angiogenesis and arteriogenesis to strengthen collateral vessels and bypass blockages. The Hansen Lab studies satellite cells (SCs), which repair muscle fibers and release growth factors, as a potential PAD therapy.

My research focuses on improving the delivery of SCs using a special fibrin scaffold in a mouse model of blocked blood flow in the legs. By adjusting the properties of the fibrin scaffold, we can create an environment that helps these cells grow and renew themselves. We study how quickly the fibrin forms to ensure the cells stay where we inject them and how it breaks down to keep a steady supply of renewing SCs. We believe that with fibrin, the cells will move into the damaged tissue, repair muscle fibers, and release growth factors to encourage new blood vessel growth.

The goal is to create alternative treatments for PAD that prevent disease progression and improve patients' quality of life.

The CBT@EmTech program has given me a supportive network of peers and mentors, enhancing my growth as a researcher. The program chairs have tailored the curriculum to our needs and allowed us to shape it. For example, I’ve had the privilege of co-planning our biannual retreat. We recruited guests for two panels and invited a guest speaker for a storytelling workshop. This retreat shows how the program imparts knowledge beyond research, aiming to improve our scientific storytelling and self-presentation skills, valuable for any career.

Deborah Wood

Principal Investigator: Simone Douglas-Green

Campus: Georgia Tech

Undergraduate Degree: University of Virginia

As a researcher, I am challenged to explore the unknown. Moreover, my role as an engineer is rooted in using knowledge that has already been conceptualized. Combining these perspectives as a biomedical engineer has led me to pursue research with an emphasis on improving human health.

Today, cardiovascular diseases represent the global leading cause of death. While this glaring statistic indicates the egregious burden of cardiovascular diseases, my parents' lived experiences with cardiovascular diseases is what drives me to use my life’s work to address critical challenges at the intersection of the cardiovascular field and biomedical engineering.

My research seeks to alleviate cardiovascular diseases by using nanoparticles to target endothelial cells, which line the innermost layer of blood vessels and contribute to blood vessel function. The Cardiovascular Biomechanics and Mechanobiology Program at Emory (CBT@EmTech) has given me an avenue to pursue this research.

Through my CBT@EmTech co-mentorship, I have developed a foundation in endothelial cell biology and atherosclerosis. I have also been challenged to think critically about how my research benefits both science and society through my exposure to prominent cardiovascular researchers. My experiences with CBT@EmTech have made me eager to use my training to pursue a postdoc in the and eventually lead a lab answering critical questions in cardiovascular research.

Summary sentence

Launched in 2023, CBT@EmTech trains future cardiovascular research leaders through interdisciplinary study, clinical exposure, and impactful research.

Summary

The Cardiovascular Biomechanics Graduate Training Program (CBT@EmTech) was launched in 2023 to develop future leaders in cardiovascular research. Meet some of the students who are getting interdisciplinary training in biomechanics, imaging, modeling, and therapeutics, and gaining clinical exposure, conducting impactful research, and securing prestigious fellowships.

Dateline

Tue, 03/18/2025 - 12:00

jerry.grillo@bme.gatech.edu

Contact

Jerry Grillo

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

doctoral trainees

cardiovascular disease

go-bio

News room topics

Campus and Community

Health and Medicine

Science and Technology

Society and Culture

Categories

Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics

Education

Engineering

Life Sciences and Biology

Mercury ID

681214

Source updated

Tue, 03/18/2025 - 15:02

Paid Family Leave Helps Reduce Infant Abuse, School of Public Policy Study Finds

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 14:38:35 +0000

Paid Family Leave Helps Reduce Infant Abuse, School of Public Policy Study Finds admin Tue, 03/18/2025 - 10:38

Infant maltreatment drops significantly when parents gain access to paid family leave, according to a new study led by School of Public Policy researcher Lindsey Rose Bullinger.

The study indicates such policies are not only good for children but also could reduce the burden on child protection agencies — and maybe even ease the associated budgetary strain on governments.

“There are potentially vast implications for government budgets and other macroeconomic factors,” the authors wrote in their paper. “In addition to demonstrating possible cross-program interactions between family services and employment services, this work may in turn offer a more complete cost-benefit analysis of PFL programs.”

Read the full story at https://iac.gatech.edu/featured-news/2025/03/paid-family-leave-reduces-abuse-georgia-tech-study.

Summary sentence

Paid family leave programs not only reduce infant maltreatment, they may have also have a fiscal benefit: reducing the need for spending on child protective services, according to new Georgia Tech research.

Summary

Dateline

Fri, 03/14/2025 - 12:00

michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu

Contact

Michael Pearson
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Society and Culture

Mercury ID

681170

Source updated

Tue, 03/18/2025 - 10:37

Society and Culture

School Shootings Lower Spending by Millions in Affected Communities

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

College ‘General Education’ Requirements Help Prepare Students for Citizenship — But Critics Say It’s Learning Time Taken Away From Useful Studies

An Education for All

Questioning Value

Understanding the World

Author:

Media Contact:

Related links

Keywords

News room topics

Why the US Bombed a Bunch of Metal Tubes − a Nuclear Engineer Explains the Importance of Centrifuges to Iranian Efforts to Build Nuclear Weapons

Legacy of Enrichment

More and Better Centrifuges

Bombs or Talks?

Authors:

Media Contact:

Related links

Keywords

News room topics

Cyberattacks Shake Voters’ Trust in Elections, Regardless of Party

Testing Cyber Fears

Firewall of Trust

Authors:

Media Contact:

Related links

Keywords

News room topics

Nuclear Scientists Have Long Been Targets in Covert Ops – Israel Has Brought That Policy Out of the Shadows

A Policy With a Long History

Israel’s Logic In Going After Scientists

Author:

Media Contact:

Related links

Keywords

News room topics

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools

Read More...

Related links

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Center for Urban Research Receives Grant to Help Improve Atlanta Neighborhoods

News room topics

Categories

Over the Rainbow and Into 15K: Alumni Help Bring Oz to Life at the Las Vegas Sphere

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Heart Fellows: BME Grad Students Training to Become Next Generation Cardiovascular Leaders

Yohannes Akiel

Leandro Choi

Aniket Venkatesh

Isabel Wallgren

Deborah Wood

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Paid Family Leave Helps Reduce Infant Abuse, School of Public Policy Study Finds

Keywords

News room topics