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More than puppy love: How therapy dogs bring students together

Students may come for the dog, but new research from UBC Okanagan published in the Journal of College Student Mental Health suggests that's not always what they leave with. In a study of 676 students—most in their first year—researchers asked an open-ended question about what made a therapy dog visit meaningful and found the answers extended well past the animals themselves.

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Are bots changing how people talk? Language in the age of AI

A Facebook post about your trip to Peru. An Amazon review of a new toaster oven. An email to the super about the inflatable reindeer blocking the hallway. You phrase and rephrase things all day without thinking that anyone—or anything—is putting words in your mouth. But what happens when AI joins the conversation? Are chatbots changing the way you write, talk and interact with others?

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Canadian courts take police misconduct seriously, but researchers say sentencing alone can't fix a broken system

A study published in Police Quarterly explores how Canadian courts respond when police officers break the law. The research, co-led by Brock University Assistant Professor of Political Science Danielle McNabb and University of Guelph Associate Professor of Political Science Kate Puddister, presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of how Canadian courts sentence police officers convicted of breaching the public's trust.

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Experts offer advice in an era shaped by artificial intelligence, social media, misinformation

Brian Druker, M.D., has pretty much done it all as a pioneer in precision medicine. He developed a drug that turned chronic myeloid leukemia from a death sentence into a manageable condition; his discovery spurred the development of numerous similar life-saving precision therapies; and he is the animating force behind the Knight Cancer Institute's initiative at Oregon Health & Science University to end cancer as we know it.

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More short holidays close to home boost well-being, study finds

Travel plays a far more critical role in mental health and well-being than previously thought, according to new University of the Sunshine Coast-led research. The study found frequent leisure travel boosts happiness, psychological resilience and overall quality of life, with the greatest benefits experienced by people who feel vulnerable or struggle to manage stress.

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Tracking visits to public points of interest can inform community health measures

It's not so much where people live, but where they frequently spend their time, that can provide useful information for predicting community health measures. A team led by geographers in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences found that adding place visitation data—geographic data points collected from millions of anonymous cellphone users with GPS-enabled devices—to a population health model increased the model's predictive performance by an average of 7.5%.

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Simple messaging can help restore trust in US elections

Election officials can build public trust in procedures and results—even among suspicious voters who fear partisan manipulation—by creating videos that factually explain their security safeguards in simple terms. These are the findings of studies co-authored by a UC Riverside scholar, offering strategies for election officials to respond to false claims and conspiracy theories about election fraud and security, as well as suspicions that arise when mail-in ballot counting delays results.

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