Test of ‘Poisoned Dataset’ shows Vulnerability of LLMs to Medical Misinformation

Credit: Nature Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-03445-1

By conducting tests under an experimental scenario, a team of medical researchers and AI specialists at NYU Langone Health has demonstrated how easy it is to taint the data pool used to train LLMs.

For their study published in the journal Nature Medicine, the group generated thousands of articles containing misinformation and inserted them into an AI training dataset and conducted general LLM queries to see how often the misinformation appeared.

Prior research and anecdotal evidence have shown that the answers given by LLMs such as ChatGPT are not always correct and, in fact, are sometimes wildly off-base...

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‘What is that?’ Scientists explain White Patch that appears Near Northern Lights

Images of the aurora borealis showing the structured continuum emission.Courtesy Faculty of Science research team

A whitish, gray patch that sometimes appears in the night sky alongside the northern lights has been explained for the first time by researchers at the University of Calgary.

The article, which was published on Dec. 30 in the journal Nature Communications, explores a “structured continuum emission” that’s associated with aurora borealis.

“You’d see this dynamic green aurora, you’d see some of the red aurora in the background and, all of a sudden, you’d see this structured—almost like a patch—gray-toned or white toned-emission connected to the aurora,” says Dr. Emma Spanswick, Ph.D...

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Diet, Microbes and Fat: A new pathway controlling levels of body fat and cholesterol

Diet, microbes and fat: A new pathway controlling levels of body fat and cholesterol
Lipid accumulation in a murine model of fatty liver disease, visualized by color-enhanced lipid droplets (pink) in liver tissue (green). Superimposed chemical structure of a newly discovered bile acid conjugate. Credit: Dr. Mohammad Arifuzzaman, Dr. Christopher Parkhurst, Dr. Frank Schroeder, and Dr. David Artis.

Beneficial gut microbes and the body work together to fine-tune fat metabolism and cholesterol levels, according to a new preclinical study by investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University’s Ithaca campus.

The research is published in the journal Nature.

The human body has co-evolved with the beneficial microbes that live in the gut (termed the microbiota), resulting in mutually favorable relationships that aid in the d...

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How Secure is your Wi-Fi Network? Research uncovers major vulnerability in wireless networking technology

How secure is your Wi-Fi network? Research uncovers major vulnerability in wireless networking technology
Picture and layout of the experimental testbed. Credit: How to BREAK MU-MIMO Precoding in IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi Networks (2025)

We often take for granted just how ubiquitous Wi-Fi has become over the past two decades, explains Northeastern University electrical and computer engineering professor Francesco Restuccia, who is also a member of the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things.

Wi-Fi provides wireless connectivity to more than 20 billion devices around the globe, including smartphones, laptops, game consoles, and smart TVs. And for most people, Wi-Fi works so smoothly it almost feels magical.

“It’s one of the most pervasive technologies ever invented by mankind,” Restuccia says. “We seamlessly utilize Wi-Fi every day without even knowing we are...

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