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Sarcasm and humorous banter—if used purposively—can help teachers turn their classrooms into a trusting community for learning. That’s according to research by a team of scholars at the Warner School of Education and teachers at the East Upper & Lower Schools in Rochester.

“Sarcasm, as an ironic speech act, promotes critical language awareness and thinking instead of conditioned response, which is common in high schools,” write the coauthors. “A purposeful and reflective use of sarcasm and humor can support learning complex language.”

The study, which appears in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, was led by Joanne Larson, the Michael W. Scandling Professor of Education at Warner and the associate director of research at Warner’s Center for Urban Education Success. Coauthors include Timothy Morris, an English teacher, and Kristen Shaw ’09, ’10W (MS), an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher, both at East.

—Theresa Danylak

Researchers turn liquid metal into a plasma

For the first time, researchers at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics have found a way to turn a liquid metal into a plasma and to observe the temperature at which a liquid under high- density conditions crosses over to a plasma state. Their observations, published in Physical Review Letters, have implications for better understanding stars and planets and could aid in the realization of controlled nuclear fusion—a promising alternative energy source whose realization has eluded scientists for decades.

Plasmas consist of a hot soup of freely moving electrons and ions—atoms that have lost their electrons—that easily conducts electricity. Although plasmas are not common naturally on Earth, most of the matter in the observable universe, such as the surface of the sun, is made of them. Scientists can generate artificial plasmas on Earth, typically by heating a gas to thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, which strips the atoms of their electrons. On a smaller scale, that same process allows plasma TVs and neon signs to glow: electricity excites the atoms of a neon gas, causing neon to enter a plasma state and emit photons of light.

But as Mohamed Zaghoo, a research associate at the LLE, and his colleagues observed, there is another way to create a plasma.

Heating a liquid metal to very high temperatures under high-density conditions will also produce a dense plasma. “The transition to the latter has not been observed scientifically before and is precisely what we did,” Zaghoo says.

According to Zaghoo, understanding the fundamentals of liquids and plasmas allows researchers to develop new models to describe how materials at high densities conduct electricity and heat and can help explain matter in the extremes of the solar system as well as help in attaining fusion energy.

—Lindsey Valich

Using the laws of physics to untangle complex systems

Using GPS location tracking, check-ins on apps like Foursquare, geocaching from Twitter posts, and, under some circumstances, call data records from cell phones, Gourab Ghoshal, an assistant professor of physics, and the members of his lab have been able to find patterns in human mobility, traffic, and disease progressions with surprising accuracy and precision.

Such complex systems can be broken down into millions and even billions of data points. At that scale, “the simple ways of drawing diagrams don’t work; you need laws to dictate how the data interact,” Ghoshal says. Applying the universal rules of physics and mathematics, they have been able to build foundational models onto which other researchers—such as economists or city planners—can introduce more complex variables.

In a series of papers in Physics Reports and Nature Communications, Ghoshal and his colleagues distill a system to its basics and apply physical and mathematical laws. For example, there are a few essential factors that apply to almost all cases in which people move about. People want to move in some direction (what physicists call drift velocity). They don’t want to bump into other people or into buildings or other objects—demonstrating what’s known as repulsive potential. With just these basic elements, “I can more or less reproduce the pedestrian behavior of people anywhere on the planet,” Ghoshal says. “There are many things that come into play, such as cultural factors, but now you have a foundation to build upon, contained within these essential factors.”

The number of people moving from location A to location B, for example, also turns out to be inversely proportional to the distance squared, which is similar to a gravitational force. The flow is dependent on distance (the longer you have to travel, the less likely you are to travel) but is also a function of the population, which is akin to mass, Ghoshal says. “Sometimes, the way physicists think about dust particles moving in a room can be similarly applied to humans.”

—Lindsey Valich

Fitness trackers keep cancer survivors on the move

A new study shows that activity trackers such as pedometers and smartphone apps are linked to improved step counts and exercise engagement for cancer survivors. The home-based devices may also help with accuracy of exercise logs and in some cases serve as communications tools for health care teams.

Wilmot Cancer Institute investigators reviewed the outcomes of a dozen randomized, controlled clinical trials involving 1,450 cancer survivors who agreed to participate in evaluating the use of the devices for periods ranging from one to six months. Researchers found that adherence rates were sometimes higher than 70 percent and the trackers had a positive impact on general fitness and symptoms such as fatigue. The study was published by the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

People who spend time taking brisk walks or doing other moderate-to-vigorous activity rather than remaining sedentary tend to reduce their cardiovascular risk factors. They better manage their weight and improve their strength, endurance, and heart and lung function. That’s important because cancer survivors are often at heightened risk for short- and long-term conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, weakened bones, and diabetes.

“The number of ways that digital activity tracking devices can be used to encourage and improve physical fitness is countless,” says senior author Chunkit Fung, an associate professor in hematology/oncology. “Truly, almost everyone can benefit from engaging in exercise; the benefit of exercise spans all ages and health conditions.”

The patients who participated in the fitness-tracker trials were treated for a wide range of cancers, including breast and leukemia.

—Ruth Harper-Rhode