Annual winter Big Heart Blood Battle runs through Feb. 26

The annual winter Big Heart Blood Battle has begun. This year’s competition against Michigan State, Penn State and Wisconsin runs until Feb. 26. The country is facing a national blood shortage, especially as extreme winter weather causes the cancellation of blood drives in other parts of the country. Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. There is no substitute for human blood — only blood donations can address this need. One donation can impact up to three lives. Donors receive a free Big Heart shirt and a Washtenaw Dairy coupon at blood drives, while supplies last, as well as a $20 e-gift card to a merchant of their choosing. Schedule an appointment at redcrossblood.org/give.html/find-drive using the sponsor code “goblue.” Learn more at bloodbattle.org. 

Career Development Fund for Staff open through Feb. 28

Staff members planning their professional growth are urged to apply for the 2026 Career Development Fund for Staff grant. Applications are being accepted through Feb. 28, 2026. The CDF provides funding for a broad range of professional development activities, including tuition support, conferences, workshops, and other learning resources. The program’s goal is to accelerate career growth across the organization. Staff may apply for a grant of up to $1,500 for eligible learning activities scheduled between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027. 

U-M employees encouraged to exercise responsible use of heaters

As temperatures plummet, everyone is doing their best to stay warm and comfortable. However, extreme cold can lead individuals to seek creative — sometimes risky — alternative heating methods. U-M’s Environment, Health & Safety team is reminding employees how to prevent the risk of fire, carbon monoxide exposure and serious injury during these cold months. Among the recommendations are:

• Never use ovens, stovetops, grills, or open flames to heat indoor spaces.
• Do not operate charcoal grills, propane heaters, or any fuel-burning devices indoors, or in enclosed/poorly-ventilated areas.
• Do not use candles as a primary heat source.
• Avoid overloading outlets or power strips with space heaters or high-demand appliances.
• Use only electric space heaters that are UL-listed with automatic shutoff and tip-over protection.
• Keep heaters at least three feet away from bedding, furniture, curtains, or any combustible materials.
• Plug heaters directly into wall outlets – never use extension cords or power strips.
• Turn off and unplug heaters when leaving the room or before sleep, unless your heater is specifically rated for continuous use.
• Never leave space heaters unattended.

More information on fire safety can be found online.

YouTubers love wildlife, but commenters aren’t calling for conservation action

YouTube is a great place to find all sorts of wildlife content. It is not, however, a good place to find viewers encouraging each other to preserve that wildlife, according to new research led by U-M. Out of nearly 25,000 comments posted to more than 1,750 wildlife YouTube videos, just 2% featured a call to action that would help conservation efforts, according to a new study published in the journal Communications Sustainability. “Our results basically show that people like to watch videos of zoos and safaris and that they appreciate the aesthetics and majesty of certain animals,” said author Derek Van Berkel, associate professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability. “But there really wasn’t much of a nuanced conversation about conservation.” Although he didn’t expect to see most commenters urging other YouTube users to call their elected officials or to support conservation groups, “I was hoping there might be more,” Van Berkel said. “I thought it might be bigger than 2%.” Despite the low number, however, the team believes the report still has an optimistic take-home message. “The flip side of this is we can and should do better at messaging, and there’s a huge potential to do so,” said study co-author Neil Carter, associate professor at SEAS.

‘Discovery learning’ AI tool predicts battery cycle life with just a few days’ data

An agentic AI tool for battery researchers harnesses data from previous battery designs to predict the cycle life of new battery concepts. With information from just 50 cycles, the tool — developed at the College of Engineering — can predict how many charge-discharge cycles the battery can undergo before its capacity drops below 90% of its design capacity. This could save months to years of testing, depending on the conditions of cycling experiments, as well as substantial electrical power during battery prototyping and testing. The team estimates that the cycle lives of new battery designs could be predicted with just 5% of the energy and 2% of the time required by conventional testing. “When we learn from the historical battery designs, we leverage physics-based features to construct a generalizable mapping between early-stage tests and cycle life,” said Ziyou Song, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and corresponding author of the study in Nature. “We can minimize experimental efforts and achieve accurate prediction performance for new battery designs.”

— Compiled by Jeff Bleiler, The University Record