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YouTube video by SMU Why We Love Being Scared: SMU Experts on the Psychology of Horror

Why do we love being scared? Dean Bryan Stone (Perkins School of Theology) and film professor Rick Worland (Meadows School of the Arts) unpack our fascination with horror films at SMU's G. William Jones Film & Video Collection.

Happy #Halloween! 😱🎃

New research by SMU highlights potential privacy risks in video conferencing applications. A man participates in a video conference with several people on a laptop.

SMU computer scientists have discovered that even with cameras turned off and virtual backgrounds in use, attackers can actively and covertly probe a user’s physical location by exploiting the two-way audio channels of video conferencing apps. www.smu.edu/news/researc... 💻👀

Smithsonian's "Sea Monsters Unearthed" is going on a road trip. A collaboration between Angolan, American, Portuguese and Dutch paleontologists excavated and studied the fossils, which were then prepared for the exhibition by a team of SMU scientists and students.🦕🦖🧪
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

With a $2.7M grant, SMU's Darwin Deason Institute for Cybersecurity aims to identify cyber vulnerabilities in AI- and machine-learning-powered autonomous systems. Picture of drone flying.

Mitch Thornton, Executive Director of the Darwin Deason Institute for Cybersecurity, has been awarded $2.7 to lead research in autonomous systems testing, establishing SMU as a leader against emerging cybersecurity threats in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. 💻👨‍💻👩‍💻
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

"I truly believe that it's only when head and heart work in harmony that we can achieve our true human potential."
~Jane Goodall

YouTube video by Bloomberg Originals The Looming Disaster Under America’s Biggest Oil Field

Toxic wastewater from dormant West Texas oil wells has alarmed residents. A @bloomberg.com investigation found that the reasons for the leaks may jeopardize fossil fuel development across the Permian basin. Heather DeShon , professor of geophysics at SMU, was one of the experts interviewed. 🧪🌎

Jacobs is emeritus professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU. He studies the fossils of animals with backbones to understand their evolution & how it fits together with the Earth & the environment, presenting a holistic picture of our world. 🦕🦖 🌍🧪@pbtscience.bsky.social

Picture of person with band-aid on arm after shot administered.

Asking people to imagine future regret could be a tool for increasing flu vaccination rates, according to new research from SMU. The research suggests the technique could apply to other preventive health behaviors involving single decisions, such as cancer screenings. 🧪🩺
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Want to hear dinosaurs ‘sing’? These instruments bring prehistory back to life Southern Methodist University professor Courtney Brown has been building musical instruments modeled on dinosaur skulls for over a decade.

The roar of a T. rex, made iconic by Jurassic Park, has become the soundtrack of prehistory.

In reality, no one — not even paleontologists — can say for certain what dinosaurs sounded like, though there have been plenty of guesses.

@smuguildhall.bsky.social

SMU PhD student Jake Klinkert is testing LLMs to create non-playable characters that act and respond more like real people. Klinkert and colleagues found GPT-4 achieved 73.98% accuracy in maintaining consistent personality traits.
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

To drink or not to drink: SMU researchers’ AI tool makes choosing the best wine easy Beyond wine, SMU researcher Jing Cao sees her AI helping decode the sentiment in other jargon-heavy worlds.

If wine adjectives feel like riddles, you’re not alone.

It's why SMU researchers turned to a technique called sentiment analysis — using AI to bring clarity to the tasting-note chaos for everyday wine drinkers.

A forest of burnt pine trees in Arizona with light snow covering the ground.

Research shows small, frequent #fires by Western Apache mobile hunter-gatherer groups controlled landscape-scale fire activity and and increased resiliency in their homelands. The study, published in @pnas.org by Southern Methodist University: cires.colorado.edu/spotlights/i...

Chemiluminescent compounds.

In a breakthrough that could significantly improve medical imaging techniques used to detect cancer and monitor treatments, SMU researchers have solved a decades-long puzzle about why certain light-producing molecules glow brighter in thicker solutions. 🧪⚕️
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Picture of two dinosaurs and an asteroid in the background.

With fossils and seismic images, a team led by SMU paleontology researchers has chronicled the history of Louisiana in the interval leading up to, during and soon after the dinosaur-killing asteroid hit Earth roughly 66 million years ago.🧪🦖🌎 www.smu.edu/news/researc...

New research on fire-scarred trees reveals Western Apache communities had far greater control over landscape fire patterns than scientists previously thought possible. Picture of wildfire in forest.

A new study led by SMU fire scientist Christopher Roos reveals that Western Apache communities had far greater control over fire patterns across Arizona than scientists previously believed possible. 🧪🌎 www.smu.edu/news/researc...

SMU researchers explore "sandbox" solutions to Affordable Housing Crisis A summer program at SMU is teaching high school students how compressed earth bricks could help solve the affordable housing crisis.

SMU researchers explore "sandbox" solutions to Affordable Housing Crisis https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/smu-compressed-earth-bricks-affordable-housing-texas/

Current Dinosaur Choir instruments were inspired by the Corythosaurus, a duck-billed dinosaur that used its large head crest and nasal passages to create resonant vocal calls. SMU faculty member Courtney Brown plays one of the instruments during a performance at SMU.

Dinosaurs were singers. That revelation struck SMU faculty member Courtney Brown during a cross-country road trip, inspiring her to spend over a decade recreating the voices of creatures that went silent millions of years ago. 🧪🦕🎶
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Recent research reveals how AI is revolutionizing the centuries-old practice of wine evaluation, with implications for the industry and consumers alike. SMU researcher Jing Cao has been conducting research in wine economics since the early 2010s. www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Picture of Amin Salehi-Khojin, who led a team of researchers who created a more cost-effective, energy-efficient nanoribbon material that can better resist harsh conditions than current materials.

An SMU-led research team has developed a more cost-effective, energy-efficient material called high-entropy oxide (HEO) nanoribbons that can resist heat, corrosion and other harsh conditions better than current materials.
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Our graduating @SMU Master's students will exhibit their Thesis work in game development on May 9th from 11am-2:30pm. Come visit us to see the inspiring work they have completed in game art, design, production, programming, applied technologies, and gamification. RSVP: conta.cc/4cIdQRD

Native American tribe teams up with genomicists to confirm link to iconic ancient site DNA from ancient and present-day members of Picuris Pueblo confirm oral histories linking the tribe to the famed Chaco Canyon centre.

DNA from ancient and present-day members of Picuris Pueblo confirm oral histories linking the tribe to the famed Chaco Canyon centre.

https://go.nature.com/42ZHm0P

Pueblo Bonito is the largest Great House built by Chacoans as a gathering place for visitors throughout the region. Ancient DNA has established a genetic link to Pueblo Bonito for the Picuris Pueblo tribe.

For more information: www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Picuris tribal leadership reached out to SMU researchers Michael Adler and David Meltzer to initiate conversations with geneticist Eske Willerslev at Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen and Department of Genetics at University of Cambridge. 🧪

SMU researchers present new glacial erosion rates from Lago Argentino, Patagonia. Here is a picture of glaciers in that area.

A recent study by SMU researchers reveals that glaciers don't necessarily erode mountains faster now than in the past. Instead, glacial erosion occurs in episodic bursts followed by periods of minimal activity. 🧪⛰️❄️
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

Tony Award-winning set designer and SMU alumnus John Arnone has donated his archives to the university! 🎭

The collection spans 40+ years of groundbreaking designs, sketches, and papers and is a treasure trove of theatrical innovation for researchers and artists. www.smu.edu/news/latest/...

SMU and George Washington University have created a magnetic tweezer system that could one day make it possible for doctors to do remote, non-invasive, highly precise medical procedures on their patients using a microrobot. www.smu.edu/news/researc... 🧪🤖⚕️

SMU nanotechnology expert MinJun Kim is working with Applied Research Associates, Inc. to create tiny robots that could offer a less invasive way to treat vitreous hemorrhage. 🧪 🤖⚕️
www.smu.edu/news/researc...

A teacher works with two young students on learning fractions. An understanding of fractions is key to understanding proportions, ratios, algebra and higher levels of math.

SMU professor Leanne Ketterlin-Geller was awarded a $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to nationally scale a math intervention designed to help students improve their fraction skills. The five-year project will provide support to 4th and 5th graders. www.smu.edu/news/researc...