A recent study published in Scientific Reports has provided new insights into how partisan content spreads on social media during election campaigns. Focusing on Twitter activity during four consecutive national elections in Spain, the study suggests that positive messages about…

A study involving tens of thousands of participants from 54 countries found that higher levels of compatibility between religious and scientific beliefs tend to be associated with better well-being. In some regions, pro-science beliefs were also stronger. The research was…

When satellites first started peering down on the craggy, glaciated Antarctic Peninsula about 40 years ago, they saw only a few tiny patches of vegetation covering a total of about 8,000 square feet—less than a football field. But since then,…

Researchers from the UC Davis MIND Institute and the Baby Siblings Research Consortium have found that siblings of autistic children have a significantly higher chance of being diagnosed with autism compared to the general population. The study, published in Pediatrics,…

A new study published in Psychological Reports sheds light on the complex relationship between addiction-prone personalities and creative thinking. The research found that individuals with a tendency toward addictive behaviors are more likely to generate a large number of ideas…

A recent study published in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity reveals that Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012 had a significant impact on the mental health of Black men, though the effects were different depending on their level of…

Many people have seen dogs fetch, but cats like to get into the game too. Despite their very different hunting and play styles, fetching appears to combine elements of predatory and social behavior for both species. Although their domestication histories…

A recent study has found that by the age of three, children are already able to understand the intentions behind other people’s actions, thanks to a sophisticated neural system involving mirror neurons. This system allows young children to mimic and…

An analysis of millions of English-language tweets discussing ChatGPT in the first three months after its launch revealed that while the general public expressed excitement over this powerful new tool, there was also concern about its potential for misuse. Negative…

Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that…

A recent study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology offers new insights into how testosterone influences men’s perceptions of women. While sexualized women are often dehumanized based on their appearance, the researchers discovered that elevated testosterone levels also lead men to dehumanize women…

The old-school Diablo games endure for a lot of reasons. Some players like the deep lore and world-building. Some like partnering with friends and working through dungeons as a team. Some like hunting for incredibly rare loot and maybe selling…

London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 attracted some 6 million people eager to experience more than 14,000 exhibitors showcasing 19th-century marvels of technology and engineering. The event took place in the Crystal Palace, a 990,000-square-foot building of cast iron and plate…

YouTube confirmed Friday that a bug mistakenly removing seemingly thousands of accounts wrongly marked as sharing spam and deceptive content was finally fixed. The problem started Thursday afternoon, 9to5Google reported, when non-content creators, including paid subscribers, complained that they had…

Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic damage and flooding to the Southeastern states may affect the country’s medical supply chain. Hospitals nationwide are bracing for a possible shortage of essential intravenous fluids after the cataclysmic storm inundated a vital manufacturing plant in North…

When a research team led by Amrit Kirpalani, a medical educator at Western University in Ontario, Canada, evaluated ChatGPT’s performance in diagnosing medical cases back in August 2024, one of the things that surprised them was the AI’s propensity to…

Two men involved in an elaborate scheme duping Apple into replacing about 6,000 counterfeit iPhones with genuine iPhones were sentenced to prison this week, the US Department of Justice announced Thursday. Together with their co-conspirators, the 34-year-old scammers, Haotian Sun…

On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled Canvas, a new interface for ChatGPT designed to enhance collaboration on writing and coding projects. The feature bears similarities to a feature called Artifacts in Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant, introduced in June. Canvas displays content in…

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, under contract for dozens of flights for the US military and Amazon’s Kuiper broadband network, lifted off from Florida on its second test flight Friday, suffered an anomaly with one of its strap-on boosters, and…

Late in the day on Thursday, Apple released the first software updates for its devices since last month’s rollout of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia. Those who’ve been following along know that several key features that didn’t make it into…

A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology reveals that overhearing political conversations in the workplace can lead to negative emotional experiences for employees, particularly when they perceive their coworkers to have different political views. These overheard discussions…

Thousands of machines running Linux have been infected by a malware strain that’s notable for its stealth, the number of misconfigurations it can exploit, and the breadth of malicious activities it can perform, researchers reported Thursday. The malware has been…

Welcome to Edition 7.14 of the Rocket Report! For readers who don’t know, my second book was published last week. It’s titled Reentry, and tells the story behind the story of SpaceX’s development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon…

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing…

In the outer reaches of the Solar System, beyond the ice giant Neptune, lies a ring of comets and dwarf planets known as the Kuiper Belt. The closest of these objects are billions of kilometers away. There is, however, an…

On Friday, Meta announced a preview of Movie Gen, a new suite of AI models designed to create and manipulate video, audio, and images, including creating a realistic video from a single photo of a person. The company claims the…

Whether you care about Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant or not, many new PCs introduced this year have included a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard; this is true whether the PC meets the requirements for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC program or…

Automattic Inc. and its founder have been sued by a WordPress hosting company that alleges an extortion scheme to extract payments for use of the trademark for the open source WordPress software. Hosting firm WP Engine sued Automattic and founder…

Two California dairy farm workers who had contact with H5N1-infected cows have contracted an H5 avian influenza virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday evening. In a news release from earlier today, California’s health department announced only…

Tina Peters, a former election official in Colorado’s Mesa County who promoted former President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories and was responsible for a breach of voting-system security, was sentenced today to nine years in prison. “Your lies are well-documented…

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) remains on the hook for an approximately $400,000 fine after failing to respond to an Australia eSafety Commission 2023 inquiry, which largely sought to probe measures X is currently taking to combat an alleged proliferation…

A new study published in The Journal of Sex Research highlights the role that social support plays in improving the relationship quality of individuals in consensual non-monogamous relationships. Researchers found that those with a supportive social network, including family and…