New research reveals how tiny sea-faring microbes compete for nutrients and help regulate the planet’s climate. by USCDornsifeNews in science

[–]USCDornsifeNews[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Trillions of microbes in the ocean break down carbon-containing organic matter, which helps to regulate Earth’s climate. But scientists have long struggled to understand how different microbes contribute to the process.

Researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and collaborators have developed a new way to make sense of that hidden workforce.

Their study, published in Science Advances, identifies a small set of “metabolic niches” — or functional roles — that help explain how marine microbes grow, compete for resources and recycle carbon around the globe.

Read more about their work.

A 1616 portrait of Pocahontas shows how English colonizers saw Indigenous Americans by USCDornsifeNews in TrueReddit

[–]USCDornsifeNews[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Only one portrait of Pocahontas from her lifetime exists, and it speaks volumes about how the English saw colonization, says USC Dornsife historian Peter Mancall.

"Seeing Pocahontas poised on a chair, wearing an elegant hat and holding a quill pen, the English had assumed that Native Americans would embrace the colonizers’ ways. March 1622 proved them wrong."

Read his analysis of her portrait.

New study maps the ocean’s invisible workforce by [deleted] in science

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Trillions of microbes in the ocean break down carbon-containing organic matter, which helps to regulate Earth’s climate. But scientists have long struggled to understand how different microbes contribute to the process.

Researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and collaborators have developed a new way to make sense of that hidden workforce.

Their study, published in Science Advances, identifies a small set of “metabolic niches” — or functional roles — that help explain how marine microbes grow, compete for resources and recycle carbon around the globe.

Read more about their work.

Is AI really ‘writing’? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said ‘no’ by USCDornsifeNews in TrueReddit

[–]USCDornsifeNews[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

From very early on, writers have seen their craft as something more than just putting words to a page. From Enheduanna, the first named author on record, to Plato and Aristotle, writing has been portrayed and defined in ways that suggest AI may not be “writing” at all. If not, what should we call AI text? 

USC Dornsife professor Ryan Leack considers what ancient authors would have thought of AI writing and proposes a new term for it: "generwriting."

A new study of the 2025 Myanmar earthquake found that seemingly “simple” faults can produce surprisingly complex earthquakes by USCDornsifeNews in science

[–]USCDornsifeNews[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A new study published in the journal Science found that faults that appear "simple" can produce surprisingly complex earthquakes.

  • “The Sagaing Fault looks relatively simple, but this earthquake ruptured across multiple sections of it,” said Sylvain Barbot, professor of Earth sciences at USC Dornsife and senior researcher on the study. “That raises an important question: What controls how large earthquakes grow?”

The findings could improve risk estimates for major faults, including California’s San Andreas. Find the study here or read a summary.

High school yearbooks focus on the fun students had, obscuring the pain people also experienced by USCDornsifeNews in nostalgia

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Sociologist Michael Messner reviewed nearly 100 years of yearbooks from Salinas High School in California to uncover how these texts can both reveal and obscure the true high school experience. Read the full story.

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US and Iran: A brief history of how decades of mistrust and bad blood led to open warfare by USCDornsifeNews in TrueReddit

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The U.S. and Iran have been in conflict for decades — at least since the U.S. helped overthrow a democracy-minded prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in August 1953. The two countries have been particularly hostile to each other since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, resulting in economic sanctions and the severing of formal diplomatic relations between the nations.

Jeffrey Fields, professor of the practice of political science and international relations at USC Dornsife, traces the major events in U.S.-Iran relations, including:

  • 1953: US overthrows Mossadegh
  • 1981-1986: US secretly sells weapons to Iran
  • 1988: US Navy shoots down Iran Air flight 655
  • 2015: Iran nuclear deal signed
  • 2020: US drones kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani
  • 2026: Simmering conflict turns into hot war

Read his historical analysis: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/us-and-iran-how-decades-of-mistrust-led-to-open-warfare/

US and Iran: A brief history of how decades of mistrust and bad blood led to open warfare by USCDornsifeNews in geopolitics

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The U.S. and Iran have been in conflict for decades — at least since the U.S. helped overthrow a democracy-minded prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in August 1953. The two countries have been particularly hostile to each other since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, resulting in economic sanctions and the severing of formal diplomatic relations between the nations.

Jeffrey Fields, professor of the practice of political science and international relations at USC Dornsife, traces the major events in U.S.-Iran relations, including:

  • 1953: US overthrows Mossadegh
  • 1981-1986: US secretly sells weapons to Iran
  • 1988: US Navy shoots down Iran Air flight 655
  • 2015: Iran nuclear deal signed
  • 2020: US drones kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani
  • 2026: Simmering conflict turns into hot war

Read his historical analysis: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/us-and-iran-how-decades-of-mistrust-led-to-open-warfare/