When you pull out your phone to take a photo, are you planning to share it on social media? Why is it so important that people – most of whom you’ve never […]
Is Social Media Changing Your Life?
Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most
Many of us have been there: mired in rush-hour traffic, listening to music or news to take our minds off the grind, wishing we didn’t feel so stressed before we’ve even reached […]
Editing the DNA of human embryos could protect us from future pandemics
Hollywood blockbusters such as X-men, Gattaca and Jurassic World have explored the intriguing concept of “germline genome editing” – a biomolecular technique that can alter the DNA of sperm, eggs or embryos. If you remove a gene […]
Why partnering with your closest rival can work so well
Google and Facebook have become huge rivals in the digital ad space with the tech giants hoovering up 70 per cent of online advertising in the US between them, according to Marketwatch. While […]
When Algorithmic Fairness Fixes Fail: The Case for Keeping Humans in the Loop
As healthcare systems increasingly rely on predictive algorithms to make decisions about patient care, they are bumping up against issues of fairness. For example, a hospital might use its electronic healthcare records to […]
When are you going to have children?
As a moral philosopher, Simon Beard has thought deeply about the ethics of having children. He’s troubled by the simplistic way that many people talk about such an important decision – or don’t talk […]
Infectious diseases and social distancing in nature
Forager ants do it, vampire bats do it, guppies do it, and mandrills do it. Long before humans learned about and started “social distancing due to COVID-19,” animals in nature intuitively practiced […]
Did prehistoric women hunt? New research suggests so
For a long time, it was assumed that hunting in prehistoric societies was primarily carried out by men. Now a new study adds to a body of evidence challenging this idea. The research reports the […]
‘Citizen scientists’ help researchers gather new insights into polar bear behaviour
Oxford University is working with Canadian researchers on a first-of-its-kind project that will engage citizen volunteers to help advance knowledge about polar bear behaviour in a changing environment by analysing a decade’s […]
How long will a healthy older person live? A substance in blood may provide a clue
Levels of a substance in nonagenerians’ and centenarians’ blood accurately predict how much longer they’re going to live. The substance comes from the brain. The findings, in a study published in Nature Aging, could prove […]
New psychology research indicates that ambivalent people make less biased judgments
People who tend to experience mixed feelings are less likely to fall prey to two common cognitive biases, according to new research published in the British Journal of Social Psychology. The findings indicate […]
Vampire finches: how little birds in the Galápagos evolved to drink blood
For most people, the word “vampire” brings to mind Dracula or perhaps slayers such as Blade or Buffy; or maybe even the vampire bats of South America. Few will think of a […]
Neuroimaging study sheds light on how to clear thoughts from your brain’s working memory system
New research published in Nature Communications provides unique insights into the process of consciously purging information from the brain’s working memory system. The study suggests that there are distinct mechanisms by which people can […]
Can Artificial Intelligence Map Our Moods?
Researchers showed long ago that artificial intelligence models could identify a person’s basic psychological traits from their digital footprints in social media. That may be just a start. A new study, co-authored by Stanford’s Johannes Eichstaedt and […]
