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Basic Search

Reference management. Clean and simple.

How to efficiently search online databases for academic research

How to access academic databases

How to search academic databases, 1. use the campus network to access research databases, 2. find databases that are specifically related to your topic, 3. set up the search parameters within a database to be as narrow as possible, 4. ask a librarian for help, 5. slowly expand your search to get additional results, 6. use the pro features of the database, 7. try a more general database, if needed, 8. keep track of seminal works, frequently asked questions about searching online databases, related articles.

University libraries provide access to plenty of online academic databases that can yield good results when you use the right strategies. They are among the best sources to turn to when you need to find articles from scholarly journals, books, and other periodicals.

Searching an online research database is much like searching the internet, but the hits returned will be scholarly articles and other academic sources, depending on the subject. In this guide, we highlight 8 tips for searching academic databases.

• Use college and university library networks.
• Search subject-specific databases.
• Set up search parameters.
• Ask a librarian for help.
• Narrow or broaden your search, as needed.
• Use the pro features, where applicable.
• Try a more general database.
• Keep track of seminal works.

Tip: The best practice is to use the links provided on your library's website to access academic databases.

Most academic databases cannot be accessed for free. As authoritative resources, these multi-disciplinary databases are comprehensive collections of the current literature on a broad range of topics. Because they have a huge range of publications, public access is sometimes restricted.

College and university libraries pay for subscriptions to popular academic databases. As a student, staff, or faculty member, you can access these resources from home thanks to proxy connections.

➡️ Check out our list of EZProxy connections to see if your institution provides such a service.

Tip: Searching the right databases is key to finding the right academic journals.

Around 2.5 million articles are published EACH year. As a result, it's important to search the right database for the reference you need. Comprehensive databases often contain subject-specific resources and filters and these will help you narrow down your search results. Otherwise, you will have to screen too many unrelated papers that won't give you the reference you want.

Ask a librarian or check your library's A-Z resource list to find out which databases you can access. If you do not know where to start, you can check out the three biggest academic database providers:

➡️ Take a look at our compilations of research databases for computer science or healthcare .

Unlike in a Google search, typing in full sentences will not bring you satisfactory results. Some strategies for narrowing search parameters include:

• Narrowing your search terms in order to get the most pertinent information from the scholarly resources you are reviewing
• Narrowing results by filters like specific date range or source type
• Using more specific keywords

If your university library has a subject specialist in your field, you may want to contact them for guidance on keywords and other subject- and database-specific search strategies. Consider asking a librarian to meet you for a research consultation.

A specific search might not return as many results. This can be good because these results will most likely be current and applicable. If you do not get enough results, however, slowly expand the:

• type of journal

From there, you'll be able to find a wider variety of related technical reports, books, academic journals, and other potential results that you can use for your research.

Academic search engines and databases are getting smart! In the age of big data and text mining, many databases crunch millions of scientific papers to extract connections between them. Watch out for things like:

• related relevant articles
• similar academic resources
• list of "cited by" or "citations"
• list of references

When you have thoroughly finished searching a comprehensive database, you can move on to another to find more results. Some databases that cover the same topics might give you the same search results, but they might also cover an entire range of different journals or online resources.

You might prefer the search system of one database over another based on the results you get from keyword searches. One database might have more advanced search options than the other. You can also try a more general database like:

• Web Of Science

➡️ Visit our list of the best academic research databases .

There are experts in every field, people who have published a lot of scholarly content on your topic, people who get quoted or interviewed a lot and seem to be present almost everywhere. Pay attention to those names when searching a database and once you have found someone interesting, you can search for more from that person.

Also, take note of seminal articles, or those works that have been cited repeatedly within your field. Many major databases for academic journals have features that allow you to quickly determine which articles are cited most frequently.

➡️ Ready to start writing your paper? Visit our guide on how to start a research paper .

Your institution's library provides access to plenty of online research databases. They are among the best sources to turn to when you need to find articles from scholarly journals and periodicals.

Searching the right databases is key to finding the right articles. Ask a librarian or check your library's website to access details. If you do not know where to start, check out the three biggest academic database providers:

Or take a look at our compilation of research database for computer science or healthcare .

You can narrow your search by only including articles within a specific date range or unchecking certain types of journals or magazines that are included in the database but have nothing to do with your topic. Make sure to also use very specific keywords when searching.

Unlike in a Google search, typing in full sentences will not bring you satisfactory results. There are different methods to search different databases. Ask a librarian or do an internet search on how to best search your particular database.

Narrowing down a search might not return many results. If you do not get enough results, slowly expand the date range, type of journal, or keywords.

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Research methods--quantitative, qualitative, and more: overview.

• Quantitative Research
• Qualitative Research
• Data Science Methods (Machine Learning, AI, Big Data)
• Text Mining and Computational Text Analysis
• Evidence Synthesis/Systematic Reviews
• Get Data, Get Help!

About Research Methods

This guide provides an overview of research methods, how to choose and use them, and supports and resources at UC Berkeley. 

As Patten and Newhart note in the book Understanding Research Methods , "Research methods are the building blocks of the scientific enterprise. They are the "how" for building systematic knowledge. The accumulation of knowledge through research is by its nature a collective endeavor. Each well-designed study provides evidence that may support, amend, refute, or deepen the understanding of existing knowledge...Decisions are important throughout the practice of research and are designed to help researchers collect evidence that includes the full spectrum of the phenomenon under study, to maintain logical rules, and to mitigate or account for possible sources of bias. In many ways, learning research methods is learning how to see and make these decisions."

The choice of methods varies by discipline, by the kind of phenomenon being studied and the data being used to study it, by the technology available, and more.  This guide is an introduction, but if you don't see what you need here, always contact your subject librarian, and/or take a look to see if there's a library research guide that will answer your question. 

Suggestions for changes and additions to this guide are welcome! 

START HERE: SAGE Research Methods

Without question, the most comprehensive resource available from the library is SAGE Research Methods.  HERE IS THE ONLINE GUIDE  to this one-stop shopping collection, and some helpful links are below:

• SAGE Research Methods
• Little Green Books  (Quantitative Methods)
• Little Blue Books  (Qualitative Methods)
• Dictionaries and Encyclopedias  
• Case studies of real research projects
• Sample datasets for hands-on practice
• Streaming video--see methods come to life
• Methodspace- -a community for researchers
• SAGE Research Methods Course Mapping

Library Data Services at UC Berkeley

Library Data Services Program and Digital Scholarship Services

The LDSP offers a variety of services and tools !  From this link, check out pages for each of the following topics:  discovering data, managing data, collecting data, GIS data, text data mining, publishing data, digital scholarship, open science, and the Research Data Management Program.

Be sure also to check out the visual guide to where to seek assistance on campus with any research question you may have!

Library GIS Services

Other Data Services at Berkeley

D-Lab Supports Berkeley faculty, staff, and graduate students with research in data intensive social science, including a wide range of training and workshop offerings Dryad Dryad is a simple self-service tool for researchers to use in publishing their datasets. It provides tools for the effective publication of and access to research data. Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF) Provides leadership and training across a broad array of integrated mapping technologies on campu Research Data Management A UC Berkeley guide and consulting service for research data management issues

General Research Methods Resources

Here are some general resources for assistance:

• Assistance from ICPSR (must create an account to access): Getting Help with Data , and Resources for Students
• Wiley Stats Ref for background information on statistics topics
• Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) .  Program for easy web-based analysis of survey data.

Consultants

• D-Lab/Data Science Discovery Consultants Request help with your research project from peer consultants.
• Research data (RDM) consulting Meet with RDM consultants before designing the data security, storage, and sharing aspects of your qualitative project.
• Statistics Department Consulting Services A service in which advanced graduate students, under faculty supervision, are available to consult during specified hours in the Fall and Spring semesters.

Related Resourcex

• IRB / CPHS Qualitative research projects with human subjects often require that you go through an ethics review.
• OURS (Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarships) OURS supports undergraduates who want to embark on research projects and assistantships. In particular, check out their "Getting Started in Research" workshops
• Sponsored Projects Sponsored projects works with researchers applying for major external grants.
• Next: Quantitative Research >>
• Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 11:09 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/researchmethods

Research-Based Learning: Connecting Research and Instruction

• First Online: 01 January 2013

Cite this chapter

• Dirk Ifenthaler 3 &
• Maree Gosper 4  

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Research-based learning (RBL) is a multifaceted approach for orchestrating a variety of learning and teaching strategies in order to connect research and instruction. This chapter presents a theoretical insight into RBL and teaching which integrates learning, teaching, and research. Further, a curriculum for descriptive and inferential statistics using the RBL and teaching approach is introduced. The chapter wraps up with reflections on further implementation of RBL and teaching, including the adoption of new technologies to assist this important approach of university education.

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Ifenthaler, D., Gosper, M. (2014). Research-Based Learning: Connecting Research and Instruction. In: Gosper, M., Ifenthaler, D. (eds) Curriculum Models for the 21st Century. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7366-4_5

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Created by the Great Schools Partnership , the GLOSSARY OF EDUCATION REFORM is a comprehensive online resource that describes widely used school-improvement terms, concepts, and strategies for journalists, parents, and community members. | Learn more »

Research-Based

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Evidence-Based? Research-Based? What does it all Mean?

Have you ever felt puzzled by trying to discern the difference between the terms, evidence-based and research-based ? Or have you ever found yourself feeling intimidated when someone asked you, “But is that program/practice evidence-based?” I know I have. To help me clarify my understanding, I reached out to my colleagues here at the Center and my old friend, Google. I’ve come to the following understandings and a bit of friendly advice – stay curious! Please keep reading if you’re feeling as perplexed as I am.

Clarifying the Difference between Research-Based and Evidence-Based

My current working definition of research-based instruction has come to mean those practices/programs that are based on well-supported and documented theories of learning. The instructional approach is based on research that supports the principles it incorporates, but there may not be specific research or its own evidence to directly demonstrate its effectiveness.

Defining evidence-based practice has been more headache-inducing as the term is frequently and widely used to mean a myriad of things. Currently, I have come to understand that evidence-based practices are those that have been researched with either experimental studies (think randomly assigned control groups), quasi-experimental studies (comparison groups that are not randomized), or studies that were well-designed and well-implemented correlational studies with statistical controls for selection bias. In brief, a specific study (or studies) has been done to test its effectiveness.

By no means are these definitions ready for Merriam-Webster, but they are helping me to make sense of the terms.

So what do you say or ask when “research” is thrown your way?

Recently, I met with a group of literacy coaches and we discussed how to respond when a fellow educator approaches them with “research” either supporting or refuting an instructional practice or program. My best advice to them probably sounded like a Viking River Cruise commercial – “Be curious!” Below are some examples of ways to respond to demonstrate that you are open to learning more.

• Thank you for bringing that information to my attention. Can you share your source of information or the article so I can read it too and we can talk about it together?
• Please talk more about what you have learned (or read or heard). I’m curious to learn more about: a. Whether the research was published in a peer-reviewed journal or if the research was sponsored by a publisher or other interested party. b. The sample size or the number of schools/students involved in the study. c. The demographics of the subjects involved in the study. d. The type of research conducted.

3. I’m wondering how many studies have been conducted that replicate those results. 4. That research sounds important. Can you share the source with me? Perhaps it will be helpful for our grade level team to read it and discuss the findings together.

As educators, we are always looking for the most effective ways to support our students. Stay open to new findings and be sure to slow the process down so you probe deeper to learn if there truly is current research to back what people are claiming. Then be sure to evaluate the credibility of the source of information, the methods or processes used to critique or research, and don’t forget to rely upon trusted sources like What Works Clearinghouse . You might also appreciate a lecture presented by Maren Aukerman that discusses comprehensive, research-informed literacy instruction . The more you dig, the more you may find that many practices and programs touted as evidence-based are either based on personal anecdotes and stories or the research base is flimsy at best.

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Evidence-Based Research Series-Paper 1: What Evidence-Based Research is and why is it important?

Affiliations.

• 1 Johns Hopkins Evidence-based Practice Center, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
• 2 Digital Content Services, Operations, Elsevier Ltd., 125 London Wall, London, EC2Y 5AS, UK.
• 3 School of Nursing, McMaster University, Health Sciences Centre, Room 2J20, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4K1; Section for Evidence-Based Practice, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Inndalsveien 28, Bergen, P.O.Box 7030 N-5020 Bergen, Norway.
• 4 Department of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230, Odense M, Denmark; Department of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, University Hospital of Copenhagen, Herlev & Gentofte, Kildegaardsvej 28, 2900, Hellerup, Denmark.
• 5 Musculoskeletal Statistics Unit, the Parker Institute, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital, Copenhagen, Nordre Fasanvej 57, 2000, Copenhagen F, Denmark; Department of Clinical Research, Research Unit of Rheumatology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense University Hospital, Denmark.
• 6 Section for Evidence-Based Practice, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Inndalsveien 28, Bergen, P.O.Box 7030 N-5020 Bergen, Norway. Electronic address: [email protected].
• PMID: 32979491
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.07.020

Objectives: There is considerable actual and potential waste in research. Evidence-based research ensures worthwhile and valuable research. The aim of this series, which this article introduces, is to describe the evidence-based research approach.

Study design and setting: In this first article of a three-article series, we introduce the evidence-based research approach. Evidence-based research is the use of prior research in a systematic and transparent way to inform a new study so that it is answering questions that matter in a valid, efficient, and accessible manner.

Results: We describe evidence-based research and provide an overview of the approach of systematically and transparently using previous research before starting a new study to justify and design the new study (article #2 in series) and-on study completion-place its results in the context with what is already known (article #3 in series).

Conclusion: This series introduces evidence-based research as an approach to minimize unnecessary and irrelevant clinical health research that is unscientific, wasteful, and unethical.

Keywords: Clinical health research; Clinical trials; Evidence synthesis; Evidence-based research; Medical ethics; Research ethics; Systematic review.

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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“Evidence-Based” vs. “Research-Based”: Understanding the Differences

Often, when reviewing resources, programs, or assessments, we might come across terms like “evidence-based” or “research-based.” These terms each tell us something about the resources that they describe and the evidence supporting them. Understanding each term’s meaning can help us make informed decisions when selecting and implementing resources.

So what do these terms mean, exactly?

Typically, the terms  Evidence-Based   Practices  or  Evidence-Based   Programs  refer to individual practices (for example, single lessons or in-class activities) or programs (for example, year-long curricula) that are considered effective based on scientific evidence. To deem a program or practice “evidence-based,” researchers will typically study the impact of the resource(s) in a controlled setting – for example, they may study differences in skill growth between students whose educators used the resources and students whose educators did not. If sufficient research suggests that the program or practice is effective, it may be deemed “evidence-based.”

Evidence-Informed  (or  Research-Based )  Practices  are practices that were developed based on the best research available in the field. This means that users can feel confident that the strategies and activities included in the program or practice have a strong scientific basis for their use. Unlike Evidence-Based Practices or Programs, Research-Based Practices have not been researched in a controlled setting.

What about assessment?

Terms like “evidence-based” and “research-based” are often used to describe  intervention activities,  like strategies or curricula designed to build skills in specific areas. But the process of measuring skills with assessment tools can be evidence-based as well. An assessment process can be considered  Evidence-Based Assessment  if:

• The choice of skills to be measured by the assessment was informed by research;
• The assessment method and measurement tools used are informed by scientific research and theory and meet the relevant standards for their intended uses; and
• The way that the assessment is implemented and interpreted is backed by research.

Using evidence-based assessment to guide or evaluate an intervention gives us confidence that the process is well-suited for our purpose, is grounded in scientific theory, and will be effective for our students.

What Standards Exist for Educational Assessments?

The process of Evidence-Based Assessment involves the use of a measurement tool that “meets the relevant standards for their intended uses.” What are the relevant standards, and how can we know if a tool meets them?

Some foundational standards for educational assessments, as compiled by experts in the educational, psychological, and assessment fields, include:

• Validity for an Intended Use:  the tool should have been researched to determine that it is valid, or appropriate, for the decisions we may make based on its results. Just like we wouldn’t use a math quiz to inform whether a student needs additional practice with reading comprehension, we shouldn’t use an assessment for purposes outside of those that research has deemed “valid.”
• Reliability:  the tool should have been researched to ensure that it meets expectations for reliability, or consistency. For example, researchers might explore whether the tool produces similar results if it is completed twice in a short period of time. Reliability can be explored via a variety of methods, depending on the measurement tool.
• Fairness:  the tool should have been researched to explore how fair, or unbiased, it is among different subgroups of students, such as subgroups based on race, ethnicity, or cultural background. Using a biased measurement tool can lead to biased decision-making and threaten our ability to provide equitable services.

Specific standards within each of these domains, and others, are compiled in the handbook, “Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing” (2014), written by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education. This handbook can be a useful companion when reviewing the specific evidence behind measurement tools.

In Conclusion

Terms like “evidence-based” or “research-based” are useful indicators of the type of evidence behind programs, practices, or assessments – however, they can only tell us so much about the specific research behind each tool. For situations where more information on a resource’s evidence base would be beneficial, it may be helpful to request research summaries or articles from the resource’s publisher for further review.

Further Reading

• Hunsley, J., & Mash, E. J. (2007). Evidence-based assessment. Rev. Clin. Psychol., 3, 29-51 .
• Joint Committee on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (2014). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. The American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education .
• S. Department of Education (2016). Using Evidence to Strengthen Education Investments .

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Evidence-Based Practice and Nursing Research

Evidence-based practice is now widely recognized as the key to improving healthcare quality and patient outcomes. Although the purposes of nursing research (conducting research to generate new knowledge) and evidence-based nursing practice (utilizing best evidence as basis of nursing practice) seem quite different, an increasing number of research studies have been conducted with the goal of translating evidence effectively into practice. Clearly, evidence from research (effective innovation) must be accompanied by effective implementation, and an enabling context to achieve significant outcomes.

As mentioned by Professor Rita Pickler, “nursing science needs to encompass all manner of research, from discovery to translation, from bench to bedside, from mechanistic to holistic” ( Pickler, 2018 ). I feel that The Journal of Nursing Research must provide an open forum for all kind of research in order to help bridge the gap between research-generated evidence and clinical nursing practice and education.

In this issue, an article by professor Ying-Ju Chang and colleagues at National Cheng Kung University presents an evidence-based practice curriculum for undergraduate nursing students developed using an action research-based model. This “evidence-based practice curriculum” spans all four academic years, integrates coursework and practicums, and sets different learning objectives for students at different grade levels. Also in this issue, Yang et al. apply a revised standard care procedure to increase the ability of critical care nurses to verify the placement of nasogastric tubes. After appraising the evidence, the authors conclude that the aspirate pH test is the most reliable and economical method for verifying nasogastric tube placement at the bedside. They subsequently develop a revised standard care procedure and a checklist for auditing the procedure, conduct education for nurses, and examine the effectiveness of the revised procedure.

I hope that these two studies help us all better appreciate that, in addition to innovation and new breakthrough discoveries, curriculum development and evidence-based quality improvement projects, though may not seem so novel, are also important areas of nursing research. Translating evidence into practice is sound science and merits more research.

Cite this article as: Chien, L. Y. (2019). Evidence-based practice and nursing research. The Journal of Nursing Research, 27 (4), e29. https://doi.org/10.1097/jnr.0000000000000346

• Pickler R. H. (2018). Honoring the past, pursuing the future . Nursing Research , 67 ( 1 ), 1–2. 10.1097/NNR.0000000000000255 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Microsoft Research Blog

Introducing aurora: the first large-scale foundation model of the atmosphere.

Published June 3, 2024

By Wessel Bruinsma , Senior Researcher Megan Stanley , Senior Researcher Ana Lucic , Researcher Richard Turner , Visiting Researcher Paris Perdikaris , Principal Research Manager

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When Storm Ciarán battered northwestern Europe in November 2023, it left a trail of destruction. The low-pressure system associated with Storm Ciarán set new records for England, marking it as an exceptionally rare meteorological event. The storm’s intensity caught many off guard, exposing the limitations of current weather-prediction models and highlighting the need for more accurate forecasting in the face of climate change. As communities grappled with the aftermath, the urgent question arose: How can we better anticipate and prepare for such extreme weather events? 

A recent study by Charlton-Perez et al. (2024) underscored the challenges faced by even the most advanced AI weather-prediction models in capturing the rapid intensification and peak wind speeds of Storm Ciarán. To help address those challenges, a team of Microsoft researchers developed Aurora, a cutting-edge AI foundation model that can extract valuable insights from vast amounts of atmospheric data . Aurora presents a new approach to weather forecasting that could transform our ability to predict and mitigate the impacts of extreme events—including being able to anticipate the dramatic escalation of an event like Storm Ciarán.  

A flexible 3D foundation model of the atmosphere

Aurora’s effectiveness lies in its training on more than a million hours of diverse weather and climate simulations, which enables it to develop a comprehensive understanding of atmospheric dynamics. This allows the model to excel at a wide range of prediction tasks, even in data-sparse regions or extreme weather scenarios. By operating at a high spatial resolution of 0.1° (roughly 11 km at the equator), Aurora captures intricate details of atmospheric processes, providing more accurate operational forecasts than ever before—and at a fraction of the computational cost of traditional numerical weather-prediction systems. We estimate that the computational speed-up that Aurora can bring over the state-of-the-art numerical forecasting system Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) is ~5,000x. 

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Dr. Bichlien Nguyen and Dr. David Kwabi explore their work in flow batteries and how machine learning can help more effectively search the vast organic chemistry space to identify compounds with properties just right for storing waterpower and other renewables.

Beyond its impressive accuracy and efficiency, Aurora stands out for its versatility. The model can forecast a broad range of atmospheric variables, from temperature and wind speed to air-pollution levels and concentrations of greenhouse gases. Aurora’s architecture is designed to handle heterogeneous gold standard inputs and generate predictions at different resolutions and levels of fidelity. The model consists of a flexible 3D Swin Transformer with Perceiver-based encoders and decoders, enabling it to process and predict a range of atmospheric variables across space and pressure levels. By pretraining on a vast corpus of diverse data and fine-tuning on specific tasks, Aurora learns to capture intricate patterns and structures in the atmosphere, allowing it to excel even with limited training data when it is being fine-tuned for a specific task. 

Fast prediction of atmospheric chemistry and air pollution

A prime example of Aurora’s versatility is its ability to forecast air-pollution levels using data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), a notoriously difficult task due to the complex interplay of atmospheric chemistry, weather patterns, and human activities, as well as the highly heterogeneous nature of CAMS data. By leveraging its flexible encoder-decoder architecture and attention mechanisms, Aurora effectively processes and learns from this challenging data, capturing the unique characteristics of air pollutants and their relationships with meteorological variables. This enables Aurora to produce accurate five-day global air-pollution forecasts at 0.4° spatial resolution, outperforming state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry simulations on 74% of all targets, demonstrating its remarkable adaptability and potential to tackle a wide range of environmental prediction problems, even in data-sparse or highly complex scenarios. 

Data diversity and model scaling improve atmospheric forecasting

One of the key findings of this study is that pretraining on diverse datasets significantly improves Aurora’s performance compared to training on a single dataset. By incorporating data from climate simulations, reanalysis products, and operational forecasts, Aurora learns a more robust and generalizable representation of atmospheric dynamics. It is thanks to its scale and diverse pretraining data corpus that Aurora is able outperform state-of-the-art numerical weather-prediction models and specialized deep-learning approaches across a wide range of tasks and resolutions. 

A direct consequence of Aurora’s scale, both in terms of architecture design and training data corpus, as well as its pretraining and fine-tuning protocols, is its superior performance over the best specialized deep learning models. As an additional validation of the benefits of fine-tuning a large model pretrained on many datasets, we compare Aurora against GraphCast — pretrained only on ERA5 and currently considered the most skillful AI model at 0.25-degree resolution and lead times up to five days. Additionally, we include IFS HRES in this comparison, the gold standard in numerical weather prediction. We show that Aurora outperforms both when measured against analysis, weather station observations, and extreme values. 

A paradigm shift in Earth system modeling 

The implications of Aurora extend far beyond atmospheric forecasting. By demonstrating the power of foundation models in the Earth sciences, this research paves the way for the development of comprehensive models that encompass the entire Earth system. The ability of foundation models to excel at downstream tasks with scarce data could democratize access to accurate weather and climate information in data-sparse regions, such as the developing world and polar regions. This could have far-reaching impacts on sectors like agriculture, transportation, energy harvesting, and disaster preparedness, enabling communities to better adapt to the challenges posed by climate change. 

As the field of AI-based environmental prediction evolves, we hope Aurora will serve as a blueprint for future research and development. The study highlights the importance of diverse pretraining data, model scaling, and flexible architectures in building powerful foundation models for the Earth sciences. With continued advancements in computational resources and data availability, we can envision a future where foundation models like Aurora become the backbone of operational weather and climate prediction systems, providing timely, accurate, and actionable insights to decision-makers and the public worldwide. 

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the contributions of Cristian Bodnar, a core contributor to this project.

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Aurora: a foundation model of the atmosphere, meet the authors.

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Korea and NYU Establish Global AI Frontier Lab

Brooklyn-based Joint Research Will Be Led by Prize-Winning AI Researchers Yann LeCun and Kyunghyun Cho

Republic of Korea Minister of Science and ICT Lee Jong-ho and New York University President Linda G. Mills today announced the establishment of the Global AI Frontier Lab. The Lab—which will be based in NYU facilities in Brooklyn and draw top AI researchers from the U.S., Korea, and around the world—is the latest advance of the  joint research effort launched in 2023 . The Institute of Information and Communication Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP) President Hong Jin-bae and NYU signed a Memorandum of Agreement to establish the Global AI Frontier Lab and to outline its structure and operating guidelines.

The Global AI Frontier Lab will be led by two AI scholars from NYU’s esteemed Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Center for Data Science : Yann LeCun , a Turing Prize-winning professor at NYU and Meta’s chief AI scientist, and Kyunghyun Cho , winner of the Samsung Ho-Am Award for Engineering, senior director of Frontier Research at Genentech, and a graduate of KAIST.

An open call for Korean researchers who wish to participate in the Global AI Frontier Lab and conduct world-class joint research with NYU was issued earlier this week by IITP in Korea (more details may be found on the IITP website ). The Memorandum of Agreement will provide support for Korean researchers to participate in the joint research, as well as detail the structure of the research project and delineate priority-setting for specific joint research undertakings. The new lab is expected to be established in almost 13,000 sq. ft. of space in 1 MetroTech Center, adjacent to NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering and NYU’s 370 Jay Street technology and multimedia center.

Minister Lee Jong-ho said, “The Global AI Frontier Lab is the first step in a new international joint research paradigm and will serve as a stepping stone for Korea’s AI G3 leap and global solidarity and expansion,” adding, “We will provide policy support so that researchers can come together and actively contribute to AI innovation and sustainable AI development.”

NYU President Mills said, “These are important steps forward in ensuring the success of this joint research effort—an agreement on the Global AI Frontier Lab’s structure, world-class AI scholars in place as leadership, and a location in Downtown Brooklyn. Altogether, an outstanding combination. This project builds on NYU’s assets as an unrivaled global institution and on a foremost area of scholarly strength in science and technology for NYU. We and our Korean partners are very pleased with the development of this project; I am confident that this global partnership, steeped in scholarly excellence, will make a transformative contribution to the field of artificial intelligence.”

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Ultrasound offers a new way to perform deep brain stimulation

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Deep brain stimulation, by implanted electrodes that deliver electrical pulses to the brain, is often used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders. However, the electrodes used for this treatment can eventually corrode and accumulate scar tissue, requiring them to be removed.

MIT researchers have now developed an alternative approach that uses ultrasound instead of electricity to perform deep brain stimulation, delivered by a fiber about the thickness of a human hair. In a study of mice, they showed that this stimulation can trigger neurons to release dopamine, in a part of the brain that is often targeted in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

“By using ultrasonography, we can create a new way of stimulating neurons to fire in the deep brain,” says Canan Dagdeviren, an associate professor in the MIT Media Lab and the senior author of the new study. “This device is thinner than a hair fiber, so there will be negligible tissue damage, and it is easy for us to navigate this device in the deep brain.”

In addition to offering a potentially safer way to deliver deep brain stimulation, this approach could also become a valuable tool for researchers seeking to learn more about how the brain works.

MIT graduate student Jason Hou and MIT postdoc Md Osman Goni Nayeem are the lead authors of the paper, along with collaborators from MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Boston University, and Caltech. The study appears today in Nature Communications .

Deep in the brain

Dagdeviren’s lab has previously developed wearable ultrasound devices that can be used to deliver drugs through the skin or perform diagnostic imaging on various organs . However, ultrasound cannot penetrate deeply into the brain from a device attached to the head or skull.

“If we want to go into the deep brain, then it cannot be just wearable or attachable anymore. It has to be implantable,” Dagdeviren says. “We carefully customize the device so that it will be minimally invasive and avoid major blood vessels in the deep brain.”

Deep brain stimulation with electrical impulses is FDA-approved to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. This approach uses millimeter-thick electrodes to activate dopamine-producing cells in a brain region called the substantia nigra. However, once implanted in the brain, the devices eventually begin to corrode, and scar tissue that builds up surrounding the implant can interfere with the electrical impulses.

The MIT team set out to see if they could overcome some of those drawbacks by replacing electrical stimulation with ultrasound. Most neurons have ion channels that are responsive to mechanical stimulation, such as the vibrations from sound waves, so ultrasound can be used to elicit activity in those cells. However, existing technologies for delivering ultrasound to the brain through the skull can’t reach deep into the brain with high precision because the skull itself can interfere with the ultrasound waves and cause off-target stimulation.

“To precisely modulate neurons, we must go deeper, leading us to design a new kind of ultrasound-based implant that produces localized ultrasound fields,” Nayeem says. To safely reach those deep brain regions, the researchers designed a hair-thin fiber made from a flexible polymer. The tip of the fiber contains a drum-like ultrasound transducer with a vibrating membrane. When this membrane, which encapsulates a thin piezoelectric film, is driven by a small electrical voltage, it generates ultrasonic waves that can be detected by nearby cells.

“It’s tissue-safe, there’s no exposed electrode surface, and it’s very low-power, which bodes well for translation to patient use,” Hou says.

In tests in mice, the researchers showed that this ultrasound device, which they call ImPULS (Implantable Piezoelectric Ultrasound Stimulator), can provoke activity in neurons of the hippocampus. Then, they implanted the fibers into the dopamine-producing substantia nigra and showed that they could stimulate neurons in the dorsal striatum to produce dopamine.

“Brain stimulation has been one of the most effective, yet least understood, methods used to restore health to the brain. ImPULS gives us the ability to stimulate brain cells with exquisite spatial-temporal resolution and in a manner that doesn’t produce the kind of damage or inflammation as other methods. Seeing its effectiveness in areas like the hippocampus opened an entirely new way for us to deliver precise stimulation to targeted circuits in the brain,” says Steve Ramirez, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, and a faculty member at B.U.’s Center for Systems Neuroscience, who is also an author of the study.

A customizable device

All of the components of the device are biocompatible, including the piezoelectric layer, which is made of a novel ceramic called potassium sodium niobate, or KNN. The current version of the implant is powered by an external power source, but the researchers envision that future versions could be powered a small implantable battery and electronics unit.

The researchers developed a microfabrication process that enables them to easily alter the length and thickness of the fiber, as well as the frequency of the sound waves produced by the piezoelectric transducer. This could allow the devices to be customized for different brain regions.

“We cannot say that the device will give the same effect on every region in the brain, but we can easily and very confidently say that the technology is scalable, and not only for mice. We can also make it bigger for eventual use in humans,” Dagdeviren says.

The researchers now plan to investigate how ultrasound stimulation might affect different regions of the brain, and if the devices can remain functional when implanted for year-long timescales. They are also interested in the possibility of incorporating a microfluidic channel, which could allow the device to deliver drugs as well as ultrasound.

In addition to holding promise as a potential therapeutic for Parkinson’s or other diseases, this type of ultrasound device could also be a valuable tool to help researchers learn more about the brain, the researchers say.

“Our goal to provide this as a research tool for the neuroscience community, because we believe that we don’t have enough effective tools to understand the brain,” Dagdeviren says. “As device engineers, we are trying to provide new tools so that we can learn more about different regions of the brain.”

The research was funded by the MIT Media Lab Consortium and the Brain and Behavior Foundation Research (BBRF) NARSAD Young Investigator Award.

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20+ years of research reveals health benefits of plant-based diets | Mark Mahoney

As summer approaches those of us who consume plant-based diets can feel even more comfortable in the positive benefits of these diets. Whether you have your own individual garden, participate in a community garden or purchase vegetables and fruits for yourself and your family, the long-term benefits are significant for your health.

A plant-based diet is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, cancer and death, according to a large-scale review published recently. A new study which appears in the journal PLOS ONE analyzed the results of nearly 50 studies published from 2000 to 2023.

I have been a long-time advocate for a largely plant-based diet as a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist (RDN) for 37 years having been involved in the establishment and ongoing participation in the Southwood Community Garden.

Why are plant-based diets so healthy?

According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, vegetarian and vegan diets are adequate and healthy at all stages of life, including pregnancy, childhood and older adulthood.

Researchers are still investigating the mechanisms through which plant-based diets lower the risk of disease.

Some of it may have to do with preventing obesity, which is linked to heart disease and certain cancers. But the benefits likely extend beyond that according to Matthew Landry, one of the review’s authors and an assistant professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine.

“Some of it is independent of weight. Even when weight is maintained or doesn’t change, we still see reductions in some of these other clinical health outcomes, especially when it relates to cardiovascular disease,” he said.

One possible reason is that many fruits and vegetables are high in anti-inflammatory nutrients and antioxidants, which can reduce plaque buildup in the arteries.

Some study details and dietary-related comments

The studies examined the health effects of either vegetarian diets or vegan regimens, which restrict any food derived from animals, including dairy.

A clear consensus emerged: Both eating patterns were associated with a lower risk of cancer and ischemic heart disease (heart problems caused by narrowed arteries). In particular, the diets seemed to reduce the risk of prostate cancer and gastrointestinal cancers like colon cancer. Vegetarian diets were also linked to a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

In addition, plant-based diets were associated with a reduction in risk factors for heart disease and cancer, including high body weight, inflammation and LDL or “bad” cholesterol.

“This research shows, in general, that a plant-based diet can be beneficial, and taking small steps in that direction can make a difference,” said Matthew Landry, one of the review’s authors and an assistant professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine.

“You don’t have to go completely vegan to see some of these benefits,” he added. “Even reducing a day or two per week of animal-based consumption can have benefits over time.”

While the study looked at vegetarian and vegan diets, Faith Krisht, a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist who was not involved in the study, advises that the best way to eat plant-based is to follow a flexitarian diet.

A flexitarian diet — which focuses on eating mainly plant-based proteins while occasionally adding animal-based proteins — helps ensure that you are getting all the vital nutrients that you need.

A cautionary note

However, Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, pointed out that not everyone who follows a plant-based diet eats the same foods, so levels of healthiness still vary.

“A vegetarian diet could be based primarily on refined starches and sugar, which we see to be the worst dietary pattern,” Willett, who was not involved in the new research, said in an email.

The review's authors cautioned that plant-based diets might lead to vitamin B12 deficiencies in the general population. Landry said that can be addressed by taking a B12 supplement.

Additionally, Faith Krisht, RDN supports Dr. Willett’s prior dietary-related comment. She recommends eating a diet that is high in whole foods rather than one that is high in refined and ultra-processed foods.

“This means a diet that is rich in whole grains, beans, lentils, vegetables, fruit, seeds, nuts, minimally processed animal proteins,” she said.

According to Krisht, this ensures that you get plenty of healthy fiber and antioxidants while also avoiding added sugars, which can increase your risk of chronic disease.

A new review of 48 studies published over 23 years finds that eating a plant-based diet can help prevent cancer and lower your risk of heart disease. Some summary bullets follow:

• A new study has found that plant-based diets are linked with better health.• People eating vegetarian and vegan diets had a lower risk for heart disease and cancer.• They were also less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.• Plant-based diets are low in cholesterol and saturated fat, but high in nutrients.• A flexitarian diet composed of whole foods may be the best plant-based diet.

References and additional information

The research, which appears in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed the results of nearly 50 studies published from 2000 to 2023. Check it out at doi.org .

Information on the umbrella review can also be accessed at HealthLine at healthline.com .

A link to more information on a flexitarian diet (semi-vegetarian) can be accessed at the Cleveland Clinic’s website at health.clevelandclinic.org.

Check out the resource from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics entitled, Building a Healthy Vegetarian Diet: Myths and Facts at eatright.org.

Mark Mahoney has been a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist (RDN) for over 37 years and completed graduate studies in Public Health at Columbia University. He can be reached at [email protected].