The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in writing and editing emails has become a common practice among professionals, with over 75% of them utilizing tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or Claude in their daily work. While these generative AI tools can make writing easier, research reveals that relying on them too heavily can undermine trust between managers and employees.

A study conducted by researchers Anthony Coman and Peter Cardon surveyed 1,100 professionals about their perceptions of emails written with low, medium, and high levels of AI assistance. The results showed a “perception gap” in messages written by managers versus those written by employees. When evaluating their own use of AI, participants tended to rate it similarly across different levels of assistance. However, when rating others’ use, the magnitude of AI assistance became important.

The study found that low levels of AI help, such as grammar or editing, were generally acceptable. However, higher levels of assistance triggered negative perceptions, especially among employees who perceived their managers’ reliance on AI-generated content as laziness or a lack of caring. This perception gap had a substantial impact on trust: only 40% to 52% of employees viewed supervisors as sincere when they used high levels of AI, compared to 83% for low-assistance messages.

The findings suggest that managers should carefully consider message type, level of AI assistance, and relational context before using AI in their writing. While AI may be suitable for informational or routine communications, relationship-oriented messages requiring empathy, praise, congratulations, motivation, or personal feedback are better handled with minimal technological intervention.

In essence, the quiet threat to trust posed by overreliance on AI emails is a reminder that while technology can enhance productivity and efficiency, it cannot replace human touch and emotional intelligence in workplace relationships.

The use of virtual reality (VR) nature scenes has been found to relieve symptoms commonly experienced by individuals living with long-term pain, with those who felt more present during the experience showing the strongest effects. A recent study led by the University of Exeter discovered that immersive 360-degree nature films delivered via VR were almost twice as effective in reducing pain compared to 2D video images.

Long-term pain is notoriously difficult to treat and typically lasts for over three months. Researchers simulated this type of pain in healthy participants, finding that nature VR had an effect similar to that of painkillers, which endured for at least five minutes after the VR experience had ended.

Dr. Sam Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Pain Neuroscience at the University of Exeter, stated, “We’ve seen a growing body of evidence show that exposure to nature can help reduce short-term, everyday pain, but there has been less research into how this might work for people living with chronic or longer-term pain.” The study aimed to investigate the effect of prolonged exposure to a virtual reality nature scene on symptoms experienced during long-term pain sensitivity.

The study involved 29 healthy participants who were shown two types of nature scenes after experiencing electric shocks on their forearm, which simulated pain. On the first visit, they measured changes in pain over a 50-minute period following the electric shocks and showed how the healthy participants developed sensitivity to sharp pricking stimuli in the absence of any nature scenes.

On the second visit, they immersed the same participants in a 45-minute virtual reality 360-degree experience of Oregon’s waterfalls, specifically chosen to maximize therapeutic effects. The scene was compared to a 2D screen experience. Participants completed questionnaires on their experience of pain after watching the scenes and how present they felt in each experience.

On a separate visit, participants underwent MRI brain scans at the University of Exeter’s Mireille Gillings Neuroimaging Centre. Researchers administered a cold gel to illicit ongoing pain and then scanned participants to study how their brains responded.

The researchers found that the immersive VR experience significantly reduced the development and spread of feelings of pain sensitivity to pricking stimuli, and these pain-reducing effects were still present even at the end of the 45-minute experience. The more present the person felt during the VR experience, the stronger this pain-relieving effect was.

The fMRI brain scans also revealed that people with stronger connectivity in brain regions involved in modulating pain responses experienced less pain. The results suggest that nature scenes delivered using VR can help change how pain signals are transmitted in the brain and spinal cord during long-term pain conditions.

Dr. Sonia Medina, of the University of Exeter Medical School, stated, “We think VR has a particularly strong effect on reducing experience of pain because it’s so immersive. It really created that feeling of being present in nature – and we found the pain-reducing effect was greatest in people for whom that perception was strongest.” The study aims to lead to more research to investigate further how exposure to nature effects our pain responses, so we could one day see nature scenes incorporated into ways of reducing pain for people in settings like care homes or hospitals.

Scientists have long considered transistors to be one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. These tiny components are the backbone of modern electronics, allowing us to amplify or switch electrical signals. However, as electronics continue to shrink, it’s become increasingly difficult to scale down silicon-based transistors. It seemed like we had hit a wall.

A team of researchers from The University of Tokyo has come up with an innovative solution. They’ve developed a new transistor made from gallium-doped indium oxide (InGaOx), a material that can be structured as a crystalline oxide. This orderly structure is well-suited for electron mobility, making it an ideal candidate for replacing traditional silicon-based transistors.

The researchers wanted to enhance efficiency and scalability, so they designed their transistor with a “gate-all-around” structure. In this design, the gate (which turns the current on or off) surrounds the channel where the current flows. This wraps the gate entirely around the channel, improving efficiency and allowing for further miniaturization.

To create this new transistor, the team used atomic-layer deposition to coat the channel region with a thin film of InGaOx, one atomic layer at a time. They then heated the film to transform it into the crystalline structure needed for electron mobility.

The results are promising: their gate-all-around MOSFET achieves high mobility of 44.5 cm2/Vs and operates stably under applied stress for nearly three hours. In fact, this new transistor outperforms similar devices that have previously been reported.

This breakthrough has the potential to revolutionize electronics by providing more reliable and efficient components suited for applications with high computational demand, such as big data and artificial intelligence. These tiny transistors promise to help next-gen technology run smoothly, making a significant difference in our everyday lives.