Enablers, co-creation, causality: a vision for open science - Research Information

Penn researchers found that overstating cause-and-effect relationships is a growing problem in the social sciences. In an August study that analyzed nearly 200,000 papers, researchers at Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab found that nearly half of the surveyed articles made causal overstatements. Their research showed that these overstatements have tripled since the 1980s, and that artificial intelligence models tend to amplify them.

The American technologist, inventor, author, and founder of Galacto Corporation develops interdisciplinary work spanning artificial intelligence, software, experimental physics, robotics, biotechnology, and scientific research. OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, October 12, 2026 -- Daniel Joseph Mueller is an independent technologist and researcher whose work examines the relationship between information, computation, physical systems, and human society. Through Galacto Corporation, Mueller develops software and investigates scientific and engineering questions that cross conventional disciplinary boundaries. His work combines practical development with broader questions about efficient information representation, intelligent-system governance, and the physical processes underlying time and causality. A central part of his intellectual work is The Laws of Robotics of the 21st Century, a manuscript examining the responsibilities and constraints of modern autonomous systems.

The oceans are in trouble. Rising temperatures due to climate change not only raise sea levels but also put enormous stress on coral reefs. When waters get too warm, healthy coral will expel the helpful algae living inside them. The coral then becomes drained of color, severely weakened, and vulnerable to disease. In other words, "bleached coral" is dying coral. The loss of coral and coral reefs devastates vast amounts of ocean wildlife, and humans too. So finding ways to stop, slow, or reverse coral bleaching is of major interest to scientists. And the latest breakthrough was completely unintentional. Lab studying coral encounters a "happy accident"Steve Palumbi is a professor of marine sciences at Stanford and an ocean researcher. One of his major research areas is coral, and his work recently led him to notice something pretty strange in his lab. According to Science Alert, Palumbi had collected various samples from the same coral colony when two of the samples "fell" into each other inside their tank. One was bleached, or dying, and the other was completely healthy.

Dinosaurs might have been beachcombers that dined on washed-up seafood, researchers report. Researchers looked at carbon isotope traces in fossilized teeth and bones from coastal-dwelling dinosaurs and found a signature that could be linked to the consumption of seafood. The work highlights the connections terrestrial and marine ecosystems have had for millions of years.

Siddhartha Das explains how machine learning helps his group sift through roughly a trillion simulation data points. It reveals water and electroosmotic flow behavior and could speed the design of sensor-like channels. In this interview conducted at SciX 2026, which took place in Sparks, Nevada from October 4–9, Siddhartha Das, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, describes how machine learning has become a major tool in his group’s work with all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. He also explains how pairing the two approaches can accelerate the design of engineered channels. The starting point, Das explains, is the sheer volume of data these simulations produce. A system of one million particles tracked over one million time steps yields roughly one trillion data points. Das describes this as fertile ground for analysis, but notes that working through it manually is impractical. Machine learning, he says, can reveal insights that even the most sophisticated atomistic simulations might miss, and can surface findings far faster than conventional analysis. Das offers two examples.