Financial markets are governed by a combination of rational and irrational forces, statistical probabilities and "animal spirits." It takes fluency in both to understand the market, let alone beat it. Yet market actors, including asset traders, now frequently use machine-learning techniques to help generate predictions of future asset prices.
Breaking up with a loved one is often a painful life experience, one that is difficult to recover from. Researchers from SWPS University, however, suggest that a simple step can help. Writing down the story of a past relationship increases the effectiveness of thinking about the past and future in close relationships. It is also associated with a better understanding of the causes of relationship breakdown, they write in the journal PLOS One.
The RINO project was born from the discovery of unusual marks on rhinoceros teeth recovered from the prehistoric Payre site in France's RhΓ΄ne Valley. The study of fossil rhinoceros teeth from this Middle Paleolithic site, dating to around 250,000β130,000 years ago, provides unprecedented evidence that Neanderthals used them as tools.
Can technology really replace human relationships? As philosophy scholars who focus on human happiness and on artificial intelligence (AI), we tackle this question in a recent paper.
We have built tools that save us hours at work. So why do so many people feel worse for using them? The answer has less to do with AI and more to do with what we have always believed work is supposed to cost us.
Ensuring the research that we all rely onβwhether for our health, environment or economyβis trustworthy is important for universities, governments and business. Unfortunately, academic misconduct is a growing concern, with researchers breaking the rules, such as making up results or copying others' work, making their research untrustworthy.
Public debates about transgender issues are often framed as disagreements over evidence or safety. In my new article published in the International Journal of Transgender Health, I argue current policy shifts are better understood as part of a recognizable escalation pattern.
The identity of a centuries-old shipwreck discovered off the south coast of England, holding 400 gold coins, has finally been identified as the Dutch trading ship "Dom van Keulen," which left Morocco for the Netherlands in the autumn of 1633.
Millions of Californians, in every part of the state, live with an uneasy day-to-day preoccupation: Housing is so expensive here, food and gas and utilities are so expensiveβwould it make sense to pull up stakes and leave for another state?
A new Special Report in the journal BioScience introduces the Scientist Network for Advancing Policy (SNAP), a student-led, nonpartisan, grassroots coalition founded in 2025 to empower early-career researchers to engage with science policy, advocacy and public communication. The report details the ways in which SNAP is reshaping the role of scientists in their communities.
Why do individuals and organizations sometimes rationalize decisions that conflict with their stated values? According to Leah P. Hollis, professor of education policy studies in the Penn State College of Education, the answer may lie in "moral disengagement"βa psychological process through which people justify actions that might otherwise conflict with ethical or institutional standards.
What makes a speaker engaging? Both what is said and how it is said matter, but in different, complementary ways, a new study conducted at the McGill School of Communication Sciences and Disorders has found.
Food has always had a unique way of bringing people together. It becomes especially evident during family mealtimes, when children and adults gather around the table to share more than just a meal. They share stories, catch up on their day and discuss issues they are dealing with. The scene at the dinner table has, however, changed. People still sit together, but attention often shifts away from the conversation to the devices in their hands.
Realizing the dream of homeownership comes with a cold reality for millions of people in California: more expensive insurance premiums that cover less. Increasingly, the only option for some homeowners is the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) Plan, a state-mandated backstop that, until recently, primarily provided coverage in places conventional insurers would not touch because of wildfire risk.
Tourism businesses across Aotearoa New Zealand are working to become more sustainable, but a new study shows the process is complex and rarely straightforward. The research, based on in-depth interviews, data analysis and site visits with established tourism operators across the country, examines how businesses move from good intentions to more sustainable ways of working.
In the minds of many people, math lives in the classroomβon blackboards, in textbooks, and in tests. New research from Amber Simpson, associate professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership at Binghamton University's College of Community and Public Affairs, shows how math is happening all around us, especially at home, and that families don't even realize the role they play in how children experience mathematics.
It has often been suggested that we now live in a "post-truth" world. People increasingly rely on their own feelings as a yardstick for what is true. Psychologists at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have now developed the "Youniversalism" scale to allow them to measure people's belief in subjective and experiential truths. The research is published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Instead of going to stores to compare products, Americans have increasingly turned to watching online video reviews. As far back as a decade ago, 55% of Americans reported they'd watched online reviews of products, according to Pew Research. As of late 2024, Pew found 62% were relying on the video platform TikTok to view product reviews or recommendations.
At an international heritage symposium in Japan, I heard a word that stayed with me: "contaminated." The discussion concerned whether Indigenous peoples needed to be named explicitly in a new World Heritage framework. One argument was that Indigenous cultures had changed through contact, survival and adaptation, and therefore no longer required distinct recognition. I found that deeply troubling.
Heidelberg University researchers have deciphered the inscription on an ancient curse tablet, which was once used to invoke deities and demons in order to harm an enemy. The "magical" artifact from the Roman province of Lower Germania was discovered during excavations carried out in the Dutch municipality of Heerlen. The lead tablet, which dates to the 2nd century A.D., is distinctive in that it contains not a Latin but an ancient Greek text in the Egyptian style, as Dr. Rodney Ast, academic director at the Institute for Papyrology, explains.