Credit: CC0 Public Domain Whether you are conscious of it or not, the decisions you make every day involve risk. Risks in the context of decision-making refer to uncertain outcomes of a decision. People can either be risk-seeking (i.e., prefer options with uncertain outcomes) or risk-averse (i.e., prefer options with certain outcomes). Previous research has … Read more
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Violence against teachers is likely to be higher in schools that focus on grades and test scores than in schools that emphasize student learning, a new study has found. Researchers surveyed over 9,000 U.S. teachers shortly before and during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic about their perception of the instructional … Read more
Tray of Anthonomus eugenii pupae. Credit: Jacob Basso, University of Guelph For the first time, researchers in Canada have investigated the use of the sterile insect technique for controlling populations of the pepper weevil, Anthonomus eugenii, an economically significant crop pest in North America. The paper, published in Pest Management Science, revealed compelling findings on … Read more
A small piece of obsidian, just over 5 centimeters long, likely found on a hard-scrabble piece of ranchland in the Texas panhandle. Credit: SMU It’s a small piece of obsidian, just over 5 centimeters long, likely found on a hard-scrabble piece of ranchland in the Texas panhandle. But when SMU anthropologist Matthew Boulanger looks at … Read more
In an Ising computer (illustrated here with 4 bits), the variables all evolve towards a solution in parallel. Credit: Journal of Optical Microsystems (2023). DOI: 10.1117/1.JOM.4.1.014501 In our data-driven era, solving complex problems efficiently is crucial. However, traditional computers often struggle with this task when dealing with a large number of interacting variables, leading to … Read more
Frequency of even reports. Credit: Economics Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111496 Psychology and Economics come together in a recent line of research, led by Ismael Rodríguez-Lara, Professor at the University of Malaga, who studies how lies affect economic decisions. It is a study, developed together with the Professor at the University of California (Santa Barbara) Gary … Read more
SLAC’s Alan Fry, Arianna Gleason, and Siegfried Glenzer help lead the lab’s fusion energy research. Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Fusion is a natural phenomenon that provides our planet with much of its energy—generated millions of miles away in the center of our sun. Here on Earth, scientists are trying to replicate the hot … Read more
Rivers and streams sampled in Spain (red points). Altitude is represented in shades of gray. Scale bar: 100 km. Credit: Journal of Fungi (2023). DOI: 10.3390/jof9121129 A study by the Mycology and Environmental Microbiology Unit of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili has identified new species of fungi that may cause infections or diseases in people … Read more
Odysseus passes over the near side of the moon. Credit: Intuitive Machines From enraptured voles and space robots on the moon to brain gears and dense objects, it was a heck of a week in science. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting developments over the past seven days. Love evaluated Prairie … Read more
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Political polarization can be reduced when people are told to think about the personal relevance of issues they might not care about at first glance. We, a social psychologist and an evolutionary psychologist, decided to investigate this issue with two of our undergraduate students, and recently published our results in the … Read more
