Education (Colleges & Universities)
Here's a look at documents from public, private and community colleges in the U.S.
Featured Stories
University of Michigan: Say What's on Your Mind, and AI Can Tell What Kind of Person You are
ANN ARBOR, Michigan, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- The University of Michigan issued the following news:
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Say what's on your mind, and AI can tell what kind of person you are
If you say a few words, generative AI will understand who you are--maybe even better than your close family and friends.
A new University of Michigan study found that widely available generative AI models (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, LLaMa) can predict personality, key behaviors and daily emotions as or even more accurately than those closest to you.
"What this study shows is AI can also help us understand ourselves better, providing
... Show Full Article
ANN ARBOR, Michigan, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- The University of Michigan issued the following news:
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Say what's on your mind, and AI can tell what kind of person you are
If you say a few words, generative AI will understand who you are--maybe even better than your close family and friends.
A new University of Michigan study found that widely available generative AI models (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, LLaMa) can predict personality, key behaviors and daily emotions as or even more accurately than those closest to you.
"What this study shows is AI can also help us understand ourselves better, providinginsights into what makes us most human, our personalities," said the study's first author Aidan Wright, U-M professor of psychology and psychiatry. "Lots of people may find this of interest and useful. People have long been interested in understanding themselves better. Online personality questionnaires, some valid and many of dubious quality, are enormously popular."
Researchers looked into whether AI programs like ChatGPT and Claude can act like general "judges" of personality. To test this, they had the AI read people's own words--either short daily video diaries or longer recordings of what happened to be on their mind--and asked it to answer personality questions the way each person would. The study included stories and thoughts from more than 160 people collected in real-life and lab settings.
The results showed that the AI's personality scores were very similar to how people rated themselves, and often matched them better than ratings from friends or family. Older text-analysis methods did not perform nearly as well as these newer AI systems.
"We were taken aback by just how strong these associations were, given how different these two data sources are," Wright said.
AI's personality ratings could also predict real parts of people's lives, like their emotions, stress levels, social behavior and even whether they had been diagnosed with mental health conditions or sought treatment, according to the findings.
This research indicates that personality naturally shows up in our everyday thoughts, words and stories--even when we're not trying to describe ourselves.
Chandra Sripada, U-M professor of philosophy and psychiatry, says the findings support the long-held idea that language carries deep clues about how people differ in psychological traits such as personality and mood. He adds that open-ended writing and speech can be a powerful tool for understanding personality. Thanks to generative AI, researchers can now analyze this kind of data quickly and accurately in ways that weren't possible before.
At the same time, important questions remain. The study relied on people rating their own personalities and did not test how well AI compares with judgments from friends or family, or how results might differ across age, gender or race.
Researchers also don't yet know whether AI and humans rely on the same signals--or whether AI could one day outperform self-reports when predicting major life outcomes like relationships, education, health, or career success.
"The study shows that AI can reliably uncover personality traits from everyday language, pointing to a new frontier in understanding human psychology," said Colin Vize, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Whitney Ringwald, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, says the results "really highlight how our personality is infused in everything we do, even down to our mundane, everyday experiences and passing thoughts."
The study's other authors were Johannes Eichstaedt of Stanford University and Mike Angstadt and Aman Taxali, both from U-M. The findings appear in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
Study: Generative AI predicts personality traits based on open-ended narratives (DOI: 10.1038/s41562-025-02389-x)
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Original text here: https://news.umich.edu/say-whats-on-your-mind-and-ai-can-tell-what-kind-of-person-you-are/
Rutgers: Researchers Track How the 2024 Presidential Election Changed Behaviors Around Firearms
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- Rutgers University issued the following news:
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Researchers Track How the 2024 Presidential Election Changed Behaviors Around Firearms
A Rutgers Health study highlights an increased desire among specific groups to obtain firearms, carry them and store them more accessibly
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Firearm purchasing patterns can shift in response to specific events, including presidential elections, according to Rutgers Health researchers.
A study by researchers with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center examined what extent specific groups changed their
... Show Full Article
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- Rutgers University issued the following news:
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Researchers Track How the 2024 Presidential Election Changed Behaviors Around Firearms
A Rutgers Health study highlights an increased desire among specific groups to obtain firearms, carry them and store them more accessibly
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Firearm purchasing patterns can shift in response to specific events, including presidential elections, according to Rutgers Health researchers.
A study by researchers with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center examined what extent specific groups changed theirintentions and behaviors related to firearms directly in response to the 2024 presidential election by assessing a nationally representative sample of 1,530 adults in the two weeks before the election and then again in the first two weeks of 2025.
In the study, published in Injury Epidemiology, the authors found survey participants identifying as Black reported increased intentions to purchase firearms in the coming year as well as an increased desire to carry firearms because of the results of the presidential election.
Additionally, liberal beliefs were associated with greater increases in impulses to carry firearms and to store firearms in a more quickly accessible manner because of the results of the presidential election.
"These findings highlight that communities that feel directly threatened by the policies and actions of the second Trump administration are reporting a greater drive to purchase firearms, carry them outside their home, and store them in a way that allows quick access and that these urges are a direct result of the presidential election," said Michael Anestis, executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers and lead author of the study. "It may be that individuals feel that the government will not protect them or - worse yet - represents a direct threat to their safety, so they are trying to prepare themselves for self-defense."
The authors also found survey participants who perceive less of a threat to democracy and who view crime as a more substantial problem in the United States reported a decreased urge to carry firearms because of the results of the presidential election. Such results indicate that individuals who view the Trump administration as invested in community safety felt less of a need to be armed outside the home.
"Ultimately, it seems that groups less typically associated with firearm ownership - Black adults and those with liberal political beliefs, for instance - are feeling unsafe in the current environment and trying to find ways to protect themselves and their loved ones," Anestis said.
"Although those beliefs are rooted in a drive for safety, firearm acquisition, carrying, and unsecure storage are all associated with the risk for suicide and unintentional injury, so I fear that the current environment is actually increasing the risk of harm," he said. "Indeed, recent events in Minneapolis make me nervous that the environment fostered by the federal government is putting the safety of Americans in peril."
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Original text here: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/researchers-track-how-2024-presidential-election-changed-behaviors-around-firearms
Ohio State: International Collaboration Spurs AI-powered Drug Discovery Tool
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- Ohio State University issued the following news:
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International collaboration spurs AI-powered drug discovery tool
System simulates step-by-step molecular changes based on real chemical reactions
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Researchers from The Ohio State University and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed an artificial intelligence framework to rapidly generate drug-like molecules that are easier to synthesize in real-world laboratory settings.
The new system, called PURE (Policy-guided Unbiased REpresentations for Structure-Constrained Molecular Generation),
... Show Full Article
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- Ohio State University issued the following news:
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International collaboration spurs AI-powered drug discovery tool
System simulates step-by-step molecular changes based on real chemical reactions
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Researchers from The Ohio State University and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed an artificial intelligence framework to rapidly generate drug-like molecules that are easier to synthesize in real-world laboratory settings.
The new system, called PURE (Policy-guided Unbiased REpresentations for Structure-Constrained Molecular Generation),promises to significantly cut down the early-stage timelines of drug development -- currently a billion-dollar, decade-long process -- and could play a crucial role in addressing drug resistance in cancer and infectious diseases. It stands apart from existing molecule-generation AI tools that rely on rigid scoring mechanisms or statistical optimization.
PURE draws inspiration from how drugs are actually synthesized in labs, simulating step-by-step molecular changes using templates derived from real chemical reactions. By blending self-supervised learning -- which lets the model learn patterns from data without labels -- with a policy-based reinforcement learning setup, it explores the chemical landscape more naturally.
One of the biggest problems in AI-driven drug discovery is that most AI-generated molecules look promising on a computer but are nearly impossible to synthesize in reality. PURE solves this.
"This new framework offers game-changing benefits for early-stage pharmaceutical research, with the capability to identify alternative, more effective drug candidates in the face of resistance and hepatotoxicity," explained Ohio State Computer Science and Engineering Professor Srinivasan Parthasarathy. "It blends cutting-edge self-supervised learning with policy-based reinforcement learning, using template-driven molecular simulations to navigate the discrete molecular search space while mitigating metric leakage.
"In addition to drug discovery, PURE provides a promising foundation for accelerating the discovery of new materials, an important future research direction."
PURE was evaluated on widely accepted molecule-generation benchmarks, including QED (drug-likeness), DRD2 (dopamine receptor activity) and solubility tests. It delivered more diverse and original molecules and generated possible synthetic routes without ever being trained on those scoring metrics. This makes PURE a general-purpose AI engine for molecular discovery, capable of working across multiple disease and property objectives using a single trained model.
The findings were published in the Journal of Cheminformatics.
Parthasarathy's collaborators include B. Ravindran, Karthik Raman, Abhor Gupta, Barathi Lenin and Rohit Batra from IIT Madras and recent Ohio State PhD graduate Sean Current.
"What's unique about PURE is the way it uses reinforcement learning, not just to optimize specific metrics, but to learn how molecules transform," said Ravindran. "By treating chemical design as a sequence of actions guided by real reaction rules, PURE moves us closer to AI systems that can reason through synthesis steps much like a chemist would."
In addition to drug discovery, Parthasarathy said the PURE framework also provides a promising foundation for accelerating the discovery of new materials.
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Original text here: https://news.osu.edu/international-collaboration-spurs-ai-powered-drug-discovery-tool/
National Survey Shows High Student Satisfaction at SWOSU
WEATHERFORD, Oklahoma, Jan. 31 -- Southwestern Oklahoma State University issued the following news release:
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National Survey Shows High Student Satisfaction at SWOSU
Students at Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) reported strong satisfaction with their overall college experience, according to results from the 2025 Student Satisfaction Inventory. The survey gathers student feedback on what matters most to them and how satisfied they are with those areas of campus life.
The Student Satisfaction Inventory is a national survey administered by Ruffalo Noel Levitz that allows colleges
... Show Full Article
WEATHERFORD, Oklahoma, Jan. 31 -- Southwestern Oklahoma State University issued the following news release:
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National Survey Shows High Student Satisfaction at SWOSU
Students at Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) reported strong satisfaction with their overall college experience, according to results from the 2025 Student Satisfaction Inventory. The survey gathers student feedback on what matters most to them and how satisfied they are with those areas of campus life.
The Student Satisfaction Inventory is a national survey administered by Ruffalo Noel Levitz that allows collegesand universities to compare student responses with those from other four-year public institutions. Because the survey is standardized, results provide broader context beyond a single campus.
In the 2025 results, SWOSU students reported higher satisfaction than national averages across all measured areas. Academic experiences stood out as a clear strength. Students rated faculty knowledge, quality of instruction in their major fields, and academic advising among the highest in both importance and satisfaction.
The findings show strong consistency between what students value and what they experience at the university. Satisfaction levels in academic instruction and advising closely matched students' priorities, indicating that these priorities are being met consistently. Students also expressed confidence in their decision to attend SWOSU. Many reported feeling safe on campus, satisfied with their overall experience, and likely to continue through graduation.
The 2025 survey was administered online to sophomore, junior, and graduate or professional students across the university. Responses represented students from a wide range of academic programs, with strong participation from professional and applied fields. Overall satisfaction levels exceeded national benchmarks, and students described their college experience as better than expected.
These results reinforce the university's emphasis on academic quality, faculty engagement, and student support. They reflect a learning environment where students feel confident in their education and positive about their choice to attend the university.
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About Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) was founded in 1901 and offers over 100 undergraduate and graduate programs across three locations in Weatherford, Sayre, and Yukon. The university serves over 5,000 scholars and prides itself on affordability, small class sizes, and over 200 faculty and staff committed to helping students achieve their academic and personal goals.
To learn more about SWOSU, visit www.swosu.edu.
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Original text here: https://www.swosu.edu/news/?p=national-survey-shows-high-student-satisfaction-at-swosu
Hunter-Bellevue Faculty Member Trains Nursing Students in Nigeria
NEW YORK, Jan. 31 -- Hunter College, a constituent college of the City University of New York, issued the following news:
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Hunter-Bellevue Faculty Member Trains Nursing Students in Nigeria
A Nigerian-born faculty member at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing has just returned from a life-saving educational mission to her home country.
Dr. Elsie Jolade, specialty director of Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist and Doctor of Nursing Practice Programs, traveled in January to Ondo City, in Ondo state, Nigeria, to conduct a Basic Life Support training session for student nurses at
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NEW YORK, Jan. 31 -- Hunter College, a constituent college of the City University of New York, issued the following news:
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Hunter-Bellevue Faculty Member Trains Nursing Students in Nigeria
A Nigerian-born faculty member at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing has just returned from a life-saving educational mission to her home country.
Dr. Elsie Jolade, specialty director of Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist and Doctor of Nursing Practice Programs, traveled in January to Ondo City, in Ondo state, Nigeria, to conduct a Basic Life Support training session for student nurses atthe University of Medical Sciences. She also donated 100 copies of the American Heart Association Basic Life Support and Heartsaver Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation Automated External Defibrillator manuals, mannequins, and a defibrillator training device, to the Faculty of Nursing.
The trip was only the latest medical mission to the school for Dr. Jolade, who began her nursing education at the Ondo State School of Nursing in Akure, Nigeria, now a part of the university. She has worked with the university for a decade to prepare healthcare professionals to address the urgent needs of the state.
"It is my pleasure to train these bright and resourceful nursing students on the latest lifesaving techniques, to give back to the institution and country that gave me so much," Dr. Jolade said.
Founded in 2015 in response to alarming rates of maternal and child mortality and other health indicators in the state of Ondo, as well as a shortage of medical professionals in greater Nigeria, the university began enrolling students in 2016-17 and has developed programs in the health sciences, dentistry, medicine, nursing science, and midwifery.
Dr. Jolade and her husband have collected medical books to bring to the school; she has collaborated with the Ondo Unity Forum in the Americas to provide free American Heart Association-based training in Basic Life Support and CPR for emergency cardiovascular care to dozens of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare workers there.
Her noted career as a humanitarian has led Dr. Jolade to receive many awards, including having been named a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, one of the profession's highest honors.
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About the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing
The Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing's mission is to cultivate collaborative nurse leaders promoting wellness and championing health equity in diverse local and global communities through excellence in education, research, scholarship, and advocacy. Its vision is to shape nurse leaders advancing health equity for a thriving, healthier world.
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Original text here: https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/news/hunter-bellevue-faculty-member-trains-nursing-students-in-nigeria/?news-feed=all-news&source=/news/
FAU Launches Center for Omics Technologies and Data Engineering
BOCA RATON, Florida, Jan. 31 -- Florida Atlantic University, a component of the state university system in Florida, issued the following news:
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FAU Launches New Center for Omics Technologies and Data Engineering
CODE Snapshot: FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science has launched the Center for Omics Technologies and Data Engineering (CODE), an interdisciplinary research hub that advances engineering-driven innovation at the intersection of computation, data science, and the life sciences. By uniting expertise in engineering, computer science and medicine, CODE focuses on developing
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BOCA RATON, Florida, Jan. 31 -- Florida Atlantic University, a component of the state university system in Florida, issued the following news:
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FAU Launches New Center for Omics Technologies and Data Engineering
CODE Snapshot: FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science has launched the Center for Omics Technologies and Data Engineering (CODE), an interdisciplinary research hub that advances engineering-driven innovation at the intersection of computation, data science, and the life sciences. By uniting expertise in engineering, computer science and medicine, CODE focuses on developingscalable and interpretable computational methods to extract insight from complex biological and environmental data, positioning FAU at the forefront of data-intensive biological and biomedical discovery.
Led by Michael DeGiorgio, Ph.D., CODE integrates diverse omics approaches - including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and epigenomics - to build predictive models of living systems and address challenges in health, biotechnology and the environment. The center supports research spanning population and cancer genomics, synthetic biology, biomanufacturing and AI-driven analytics, while fostering collaboration with industry, health care systems and government partners. Located in the Engineering East building on FAU's Boca Raton campus, CODE will provide students and postdoctoral researchers with hands-on interdisciplinary training and real-world research opportunities.
By Gisele Galoustian
The College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University has launched the Center for Omics Technologies and Data Engineering (CODE), a new interdisciplinary research hub designed to advance engineering-driven innovation at the intersection of computation, data science, and the life sciences. CODE positions FAU at the forefront of data-intensive biological and biomedical discovery by uniting expertise in engineering, computer science and medicine to address complex challenges in health, biotechnology and the environment.
CODE focuses on the development of scalable, robust and interpretable computational and engineering methods that transform massive, complex biological and environmental datasets into actionable insight.
"CODE represents a major step forward for Florida Atlantic and for South Florida's growing technology and biotechnology ecosystem," said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science. "The center unites engineering excellence with the life sciences to address some of the most pressing challenges in health and biotechnology. CODE will not only power groundbreaking research but will also cultivate a highly skilled workforce prepared to lead in emerging fields where computation, artificial intelligence, and omics technologies converge."
Central to the center's mission is the integration and analysis of omics data - including genomics (DNA variation and gene structure), transcriptomics (gene expression), proteomics (protein structure and function), metabolomics (cellular metabolic processes), and epigenomics (regulatory modifications affecting gene activity). By combining these layers of biological information, CODE researchers aim to build a more complete and predictive understanding of living systems across scales.
The center is led by Michael DeGiorgio, Ph.D., director of CODE, and associate chair and professor in FAU's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Department of Biomedical Engineering. Under his leadership, CODE brings together senior faculty from engineering, computer science and medicine, alongside research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and a large cohort of graduate students. This interdisciplinary team offers end-to-end expertise, from experimental design and generation of multi-omics data to advanced computational analysis, algorithm development, and the translation of discoveries into deployable tools and engineered biological and biomedical solutions.
"CODE creates a unique opportunity to rethink how we study biology and engineer solutions for human health and the environment," said DeGiorgio. "By bringing together advanced computation, data engineering, and multi-omics technologies under one roof, we can move beyond isolated analyses toward integrated, predictive models of complex biological systems. This center empowers our faculty and students to ask bigger questions, tackle problems at unprecedented scale, and translate data into knowledge that can drive real-world innovation."
Research conducted through CODE spans a broad range of application areas, including population and cancer genomics, where large-scale genomic datasets are used to identify genetic risk factors and disease mechanisms; multi-omics data integration, enabling researchers to connect molecular variation to biological function and clinical outcomes; and molecular and metabolic engineering, which supports the design and optimization of engineered biological systems.
Additional focus areas include synthetic biology and biomanufacturing, where data-driven modeling guides the development of engineered organisms for sustainable materials, therapeutics and industrial processes.
CODE also advances pioneering computational technologies, including AI- and machine learning-driven approaches to human health, quantum- and hardware-accelerated analytics for high-throughput biological data, and novel data engineering frameworks that ensure reproducibility, interpretability and scalability. These capabilities enable researchers to analyze datasets that range from individual genomes to population-scale studies and from cellular systems to environmental and ecological data.
In addition to its research mission, CODE serves as a platform for collaboration with industry partners, health care systems, government agencies and national laboratories. Through these partnerships, the center supports translational research and real-world impact, while providing students and postdoctoral researchers with hands-on experience in interdisciplinary research, specialized workshops, mentorship programs, and collaborative problem-solving across academic, clinical and industrial domains.
"This center positions Florida Atlantic at the forefront of data-driven biological and biomedical innovation," Batalama said. "CODE will accelerate discoveries, strengthen industry partnerships, and further elevate our research impact."
The center's dedicated space is currently under renovation and will be located in the Engineering East building on FAU's Boca Raton campus, providing a physical hub for collaboration, training and innovation as CODE advances the future of omics-enabled engineering and data science.
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Original text here: https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/engineering-code-launch.php
Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory: Greenland Ice Cap Vanished Just 7,000 Years Ago
NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory issued the following news:
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Greenland Ice Cap Vanished Just 7,000 Years Ago
The first study from GreenDrill finds that Greenland's Prudhoe Dome ice cap had fully melted much more recently than previously thought.
* Sediment drilled from beneath 1,700 feet of ice was last exposed to daylight 6,000 to 8,200 years ago.
* Findings suggest this part of Greenland is highly sensitive to modest warming, with implications for future retreat.
* Sub-ice samples like these help identify where melting may start and
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (TNSjou) -- Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory issued the following news:
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Greenland Ice Cap Vanished Just 7,000 Years Ago
The first study from GreenDrill finds that Greenland's Prudhoe Dome ice cap had fully melted much more recently than previously thought.
* Sediment drilled from beneath 1,700 feet of ice was last exposed to daylight 6,000 to 8,200 years ago.
* Findings suggest this part of Greenland is highly sensitive to modest warming, with implications for future retreat.
* Sub-ice samples like these help identify where melting may start andimprove local sea-level risk estimates.
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The first study from GreenDrill--an ambitious project to recover rock samples buried thousands of feet beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet--finds that Greenland's Prudhoe Dome ice cap had fully melted around 7,000 years ago, much more recently than previously thought. This research, co-led by Columbia University and the University at Buffalo, is intended to assess how sensitive Greenland's ice is to climate change.
Published in Nature Geoscience, the findings suggest that the Prudhoe Dome, an ice dome in northwestern Greenland about 1,700 feet thick covering 965 square miles, is highly sensitive to the relatively mild temperatures of the Holocene, the interglacial period that began 11,000 years ago and continues today.
"The Holocene is a time known for climate stability, when humans first began developing farming practices and taking steps toward civilization," says University at Buffalo's Jason Briner, who co-leads the GreenDrill project. "If natural, mild climate change of that era melted Prudhoe Dome and kept it retreated for potentially thousands of years, it may only be a matter of time before it begins peeling back again from today's human-induced climate change,"
Joerg Schaefer, Lamont research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Columbia Climate School, is GreenDrill's lead principal investigator. He says the new study shows just how sensitive parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet are to a level of warming that is well within the range of what climate models project for the coming decades.
"These early GreenDrill results are first direct observations of the Greenland Ice Sheet's response to warming," Schaefer says.
Co-authors on the paper include Nicolas Young, Lamont associate research professor and GreenDrill's co-principal investigator, and Allie Balter-Kennedy, a former Lamont-Doherty postdoctoral scientist now at Tufts University.
GreenDrill is a first-of-its-kind endeavor funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation to drill down into the Greenland Ice Sheet and retrieve the frozen, ancient bedrock and sediment underneath. The scientific community has less rock and sediment material from beneath Greenland's ice than it does from the moon, yet these new samples prove to be invaluable. Chemical signatures can tell us when the material was last exposed to open sky, pinpointing when the ice sheet has melted in the past.
This first GreenDrill study analyzes core samples pulled from 1,669 feet below the surface during the team's weeks-long encampment at the summit of Prudhoe Dome in 2023.
They used a technique called luminescence dating on the sediment. When sediment is buried, electrons become trapped inside tiny mineral grains and remain there until the sediment is exposed to light again, producing a measurable glow. The intensity of that glow revealed that the Prudhoe Dome sediment was last exposed to daylight sometime between 6,000 and 8,200 years ago.
"This means Prudhoe Dome melted sometime before this period, likely during the early Holocene, when temperatures were around 3 to 5 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today," says the study's lead author, Caleb Walcott-George, assistant professor at the University of Kentucky. "Some projections indicate we could reach those levels of warming at Prudhoe Dome by the year 2100."
The results also have large implications for sea level rise. Analyzing vulnerable areas along the edge of the ice sheet, such as Prudhoe Dome, helps scientists identify where melting will occur first and which coastal communities face the most immediate risk.
"Rock and sediment from below the ice sheet tell us directly which of the ice sheet's margins are the most vulnerable, which is critical for accurate local sea level predictions," Schaefer says. "This emerging field delivers that information through direct observations and is a game-changer in terms of predicting ice melt."
On the ice
GreenDrill set up two drill sites on Prudhoe Dome--one on the summit and another near the edge where the ice is much thinner. (This study analyzed the sample collected from the summit.)
These sites, where Schaefer, Briner, Walcott-George, Balter-Kennedy and their colleagues spent time in the spring of 2023, were a collection of yellow tents and pathways marked by red, black and green flags. Days consisted of collecting ice chips pushed up by drilling fluid and shoveling out the camp from windblown snow, while ice drillers from the NSF Ice Drilling Program worked on pushing through hundreds of feet of ice.
There was plenty of drama, too--a fracture in the ice at the summit site nearly doomed the project at its final stage. A last-minute solution, using a drill bit normally reserved for rocks, allowed them to finish drilling the last 390 feet of ice and sample the bed just before planes arrived to remove their equipment. Briner credits the teamwork and camaraderie of the scientists and drillers on the ice, as well as the support crew behind the scenes handling logistics.
"This project involved more complicated logistics than any I've been involved with in my career. So many moving parts, and so much talent among the scientists, drillers and support staff," Briner says.
Walcott-George, who set up the camps with Lamont-Doherty's Young, and ultimately based his dissertation on the project, called his time on the ice "humbling."
"When all you see is ice in all directions, to think of that ice being gone in the recent geological past and again in the future is just really humbling," he says.
A promising future
The GreenDrill team says this is the first of many studies they expect to produce. The other core drilled from near the edge of Prudhoe Dome promises to give insight into the ice cap's most vulnerable point. Traces of plants in the samples could also shed light on Greenland's ancient environment. Briner calls it a "treasure chest" of samples that the team can now pick apart and explore.
"We have the samples, the tools and the scientists to push the limits and improve our physical understanding of the ice sheet and how it might respond to warming in the decades to come," Schaefer says.
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Original text here: https://lamont.columbia.edu/news/greenland-ice-cap-vanished-just-7000-years-ago
