What sounds like an absurd premise might actually not be far off the mark.

Using data science, Bethany Lacina, an associate professor of political science, found that a recent Twitter spat that caused a science fiction writer to lose his job, was in part fueled by bots and sockpuppets—online identities used for purposes of deception. The automated and semi-automated accounts sowed discord, amplifying online outrage between ultra conservative and liberal Star Wars and science fiction fans on Twitter.

Chuck Wendig, by his own account, was fired as a freelance writer for Marvel’s Star Wars comic Shadow of Vader and a forthcoming Star Wars book because of the controversy his own tweets had generated.

Enter Lacina. To her, the ultra-conservative trolling that proved Wendig’s professional undoing seemed suspicious. In a study, detailed in a Vox article, Lacina dug deeper into the Twitter backlash, using Botometer, an algorithm developed by scientists at Indiana University. The Botometer allows closer examination of Twitter accounts to determine the likelihood of automated (so-called bots), anonymous, or semi-automated accounts (so-called sockpuppets).

Lacina discovered that fewer than 250 “people” (some of them also automated accounts), replied directly to Wendig’s tweets in the first 24 hours.

That changed dramatically after a conservative Star Wars fan, Ethan Van Sciver, made a YouTube video attacking Wendig, whose posts are liberal-leaning.

After the video, the number of tweets from real people spiked—and so did the numbers from bot and sockpuppet accounts. About 30 minutes following Van Sciver’s tweet to his video, Wendig received about 600 tweets from legitimate accounts—and about 400 from automated and anonymous accounts, amplifying and distorting the real outrage from ultra-conservative groups, who prior to the YouTube video had typically not followed Wendig’s tweets.

“What surprises me is that these puppet and bot accounts were active in a case that didn’t get mainstream media coverage and where the person involved is not that famous,” says Lacina. “I think we’re not too far away from non-famous people using this technology against other non-famous people. It is not that much more difficult than doxing.”

Doxing, by the way, means searching for and publishing private or identifying information about a particular person on the Internet, typically with malicious intent.

Just last month, Lacina used the same big data tool, the Botometer, to analyze the tweets of angry Star Wars fans and published her findings in the Washington Post blog The Monkey Cage.

Read more about Lacina’s research on Star Wars fans’ Twitter hate posts that take aim at the franchise’s newly found diversity.

Many of the inequities entrenched in the U.S. educational system are caused by broader disparities across a region, education policy experts argue in their latest book.  Striving in Common: A Regional Equity Framework for Urban Schools fills a critical void by looking more closely at the racial and economic inequities contributing to the deepening segregation and inequality in schools across the Untied States.

Kara Finnigan, professor of education policy at the Warner School of Education, and Jennifer Jellison Holme, associate professor of education policy in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin,  coauthored the six-chapter volume.

Educational inequality is a substantial issue in K-12 schools, particularly in urban schools, dramatically impacting achievement for students across the system.

In the past, the tendency has been to blame schools for some of these problems, such as labeling them as “failing” and requiring them to address their low performance or high dropout rates, without taking into account historical trends inside and outside of education.  The book’s coauthors hope to change that trend, which has relied too heavily on short-term, so-called ‘Band-Aid’ solutions.  Finnigan and Holme urge education policymakers to take a regional equity approach to addressing these underlying inequities in the educational system.

“Blaming students, teachers, and schools in urban areas is a misdiagnosis of the problem,” Finnigan says.  “We need to rethink this in a regional context and use a multi-prong approach that tackles the root causes of school failure by dealing with patterns of racial and economic segregation.  We’ve exacerbated patterns through high-stakes accountability instead of tackling the deeper underlying causes of regional inequity, in essence worsening the conditions of schools and ultimately hurting our students.”

Read more here.

Clerio Vision Inc. has announced its first-in-human clinical trial using femtosecond laser technology developed by University researchers to noninvasively write vision corrections in the cornea.

“We are excited to announce that we have now treated the first five partially-sighted subjects in our First-in-Human study,” says J. Mikael Totterman, CEO of Clerio Vision.

The technology, developed in the lab of Wayne Knox, professor of optics, can also be used to write vision correction in contact lenses and intraocular lenses.

Called laser-induced refractive index change (LIRIC), the technology uses femtosecond laser pulses lasting about 100 femtoseconds (100 millionths of a billionth of a second) to “change water concentration on a micron by micron basis, which changes optical properties,” says Totterman.

Read more here.

Despite years of research, physicians lack a method that consistently helps premature infants thrive. A study by Medical Center researchers suggests that the gut microbiome – the trillions of tiny bacteria that live in the digestive tract – could help doctors personalize nutrients and feeding patterns to help the most vulnerable babies get a stronger start to life.

The team of pediatricians and microbiologists collected stool samples from 95 preterm infants, born at an average of 29 weeks. Samples were taken weekly while the infants were treated in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for periods ranging from a few weeks to six months.

The researchers analyzed shifts in the gut microbiome over time and the type and amount of nutrients each baby received. They found that the gut bacteria go through changes as a baby matures and identified distinct phases where particular categories of good bacteria dominate.

They also discovered that when the good bacteria thrived, the infants matured more quickly. Infants whose bacterial colonies remained stagnant saw slower rates of growth.

Steven R. Gill, associate professor of microbiology and immunology and co-director of the Genomics Research Center, sees a future where a personalized microbiome analysis is done for every baby in the NICU.

“Because each baby has a unique microbiome, you can’t feed them exactly the same way or give them all the same probiotics because their bacteria are different,” he says. “By using personalized genomics you can tailor their nutrition and their medications to ensure that the microbiome develops in a healthy way.”

Read more here.

Nine dynamic scholars have been invited to the University’s inaugural UR Stars Program.

They will give research talks from 9:30 a.m. to noon November 12 in the Humanities Center Room D of Rush Rhees Library.

This Doctoral Career Advancement program is an opportunity to enhance the faculty recruitment of early career scholars from underrepresented backgrounds.

The program serves as a career advancement opportunity for graduate students nearing the completion of their studies and for post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty.

The program is supported by the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, and the Office for Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs.

Eugene Kim, genetics, “Mechanism Regulating Trachea-Esophageal Separation.” 1 p.m., November 9, 2018. Upper Auditorium 3-7619/Medical Center. Advisor: Jianwen Que.

Eric Stoutenburg, chemistry, “Studies Toward the Total Synthesis of Tetrapetalone A.” 11:15 a.m. November 13, 2018. 473 Hutchison Hall. Advisor: Alison Frontier.

Tejas Khire, biomedical engineering, “Silicon Nanomembranes for Advanced Microvascular Mimetics.” 9:45 a.m. November 15, 2018. Goergen 101. Advisors: James McGrath, Richard Waugh.

Xiaowen (Cindy) Wang, pharmacology, “Targeting the c-Cbl Tumor Suppressor Protein as a Novel Therapeutic Approach in Overcoming Acquired Tamoxifen Resistance in Luminal Breast Cancer.” 1 p.m., November 27, 2018. Adolph Auditorium 1-7619/Medical Center. Advisor: Mark Noble.

Nov. 12: Initial abstracts due for the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Scientific Advisory Committee’s (SAC) Incubator Program. See details and application instructions. Contact Anne Reed for more information.

Nov. 13: What’s in a Name? The Quirky Stories Behind Scientific Nomenclature. An evolutionary ecologist (John Jaenike), a molecular biologist (Elaine Sia), an astronomer (Judith Pipher) and a chemist (Lauren VanGelder) share the history of scientific nomenclature in their disciplines and discuss the constant struggle to organize, classify, and name everything in the universe. 4:30-5:30 p.m., second floor Carlson Library.

Nov. 13: Wilmot Cancer Institute annual scientific symposium. Keynote speaker is Judith Campisi, professor of biogerontology at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Oral presentations and poster session. 9 a.m. 3 p.m., Class of ’62 Auditorium and Flaum Atrium. Questions about submitting a poster or about the symposium in general can be emailed to Chelsea Costanzo or call 585-273-1447.

Nov. 19: Regional seminar on U.S. Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) with Gayle Vaday, CDMRP program manager for breast cancer research, and Angel Davey, CDMRP program manager for health sciences.  11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Class of ’62 Auditorium. Keynote session, panel discussion, grant writing workshop/panel discussion for early career investigators, and poster networking session. Boxed lunches will be provided free of charge. For more information, contact Laurie Chiumento at laurie_chiumento@urmc.rochester.edu or 585-273-5995.

Nov. 30: Annual CFAR World AIDS Day Scientific Symposium. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Keynote addresses by Marguerita Lightfoot, professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco, and Douglas Nixon, professor of immunology in medicine at Weil Cornell Medical College. Class of ’62 Auditorium. Poster session 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Flaum Atrium. Poster registration deadline is November 14.  Contact Laura Enders for more information about World AIDS Day events and poster registration.

Dec. 5:  Phelps Colloquium series: Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor of ophthalmology, “The Bionic Eye, Computer Vision, and Drug Discovery: The Gamut of Retina Research.” Kara Bren, professor of chemistry, “Making Fuel and Fertilizer from Sun, Air, and Water.” 4 p.m. Feldman Ballroom Douglass Commons. Register here. Questions? Contact Adele Coelho or call 273-2571.