In one of the most ambitious mapping efforts in the history of radio astronomy, China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope — better known as FAST — has delivered a cosmic atlas of staggering proportions. The FASHI team, headquartered at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), has announced the second data release of the FAST All Sky HI Survey, published as a cover story in the journal Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy. Just two years after the survey’s first data release catalogued 41,741 galaxies, the new edition explodes that figure to 156,411 extragalactic sources detected in neutral hydrogen — nearly a fourfold leap that firmly establishes FASHI as the largest census of atomic hydrogen gas in galaxies ever compiled.

The scale of the achievement is difficult to overstate. FASHI DR2 now spans roughly 19,500 square degrees of sky, equivalent to 47.3 percent of the entire celestial sphere, and reaches out to redshifts below z = 0.09 — distances of well over a billion light years. For comparison, the previous benchmark in this field, the ALFALFA survey conducted with the now-collapsed Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, charted approximately 31,500 hydrogen-bearing galaxies across about 7,000 square degrees. FASHI DR2 has thus quintupled the galaxy count of its Arecibo predecessor while covering nearly three times the sky area, and it has done so with a sensitivity roughly 0.7 times deeper than ALFALFA’s, measured as a median noise level of 0.57 mJy per beam at a velocity resolution of 6.4 kilometers per second. In radio astronomy, lower numbers mean better sensitivity — and FASHI’s numbers are among the best ever achieved in a blind, wide-area survey.

The engine behind this performance is FAST itself. With its 500-meter dish nestled in the karst hills of Guizhou Province, the telescope remains the most sensitive single-dish radio instrument on Earth at the 21-centimeter wavelength of neutral hydrogen. The survey exploited a 19-beam receiver array, allowing the telescope to sweep the sky in an efficient drift-scan mode that turned routine transits of the sky above the dish into a torrent of data. Crucially, the instrument maintained exceptional stability across five full years of observing, from August 2020 through July 2025. In surveys of this kind, calibration drifts and instrumental fluctuations can quietly corrupt weak extragalactic signals; FAST’s long-term steadiness meant that faint hydrogen emission from distant galactic disks could be stacked, averaged and trusted.

Neutral hydrogen — the primordial fuel of star formation — is invisible to optical telescopes. The 21-centimeter spectral line, produced when the electron in a hydrogen atom flips its spin relative to the proton’s, provides the only direct tracer of the cold atomic gas from which galaxies build their stars. Detecting this feeble signal across cosmological distances requires both enormous collecting area and exquisite receiver stability. A blind HI survey, unlike targeted observations, simply listens to every direction on the sky and catalogs whatever whispers back, making it an unbiased inventory of gas-rich galaxies regardless of their optical brightness, dust content or morphology. That is precisely why such surveys are prized: they catch the dim, gas-dominated dwarfs and bloated hydrogen clouds that optical catalogs systematically miss.

To give the hydrogen detections physical meaning, the FASHI team cross-matched their radio catalog with the two great optical spectroscopic endeavors of the current era: the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This cross-identification yielded precise optical counterparts for approximately 64,000 sources, anchoring the hydrogen detections to galaxies with measured distances, stellar masses and star-formation rates. From these matches the team constructed a completeness-corrected statistical sample of more than 109,000 galaxies — a sample robust enough to push fundamental measurements into territory previously beyond reach.

The flagship result of the release is a new measurement of the HI mass function, the statistical distribution describing how many galaxies of a given hydrogen mass populate the local universe. Thanks to the sheer sample size and FAST’s depth, the team extended the reliable measurement range of this function down to hydrogen masses of about one million solar masses — roughly 10 to the power 6.2 in solar mass units — a regime where only the faintest dwarf galaxies live. These smallest gas reservoirs are the building blocks of galaxy evolution, the raw material that hierarchically assembles larger systems, and their census has long been fragmentary. Equally striking is the derived cosmic density of neutral hydrogen: Ω_HI equals (4.71 ± 0.03 statistical ± 0.40 systematic) × 10⁻⁴ in units of h₇₀³ Mpc⁻³ dex⁻¹. The statistical uncertainty is a mere 0.6 percent — the most precise determination of the universe’s atomic hydrogen budget ever made at low redshift.

Why does such a number matter? The cosmic HI density tracks how much raw fuel exists for future star formation, and comparing its evolution across cosmic time constrains how galaxies acquire and exhaust their gas. Because atomic hydrogen sits at the interface between the intergalactic medium and the star-forming interstellar medium, its abundance is a sensitive probe of gas accretion onto dark matter halos and of the feedback processes that heat or expel gas from galaxies. Baryonic matter, after all, is hidden in far more places than stars: cold gas, warm gas, plasma in and around halos. A precision measurement of the hydrogen component anchors models of where ordinary matter resides within the cosmic web of dark matter.

The applications of the new catalog ripple far beyond that single number. For galaxy evolution studies, the 156,411 detections provide direct observational constraints on gas accretion, star formation feedback and galaxy transformation — the processes that turn blue, gas-rich spirals into passive red systems. For cosmology, the HI mass function tests galaxy formation models within the prevailing dark matter framework. For large-scale structure work, the survey complements optical galaxy catalogs to trace the so-called HI cosmic web, revealing how diffuse gas threads through filaments and pools in voids — architecture that optical surveys alone can only infer. The dataset will also aid gravitational-wave and transient science: rapid localization of the host galaxies of gravitational-wave events depends on accurate galaxy catalogs, and an inventory of hundreds of thousands of nearby galaxies sharpens those host identifications. Finally, FASHI serves as a pathfinder for the Square Kilometre Array, the giant interferometric observatory under construction in Australia and South Africa, providing benchmark samples against which next-generation interferometric surveys will calibrate their systems and select their targets.

The trajectory of the project tells its own story. When FASHI DR1 appeared, it broke ALFALFA’s long-standing record for the largest blind HI survey. With DR2, the team argues, FASHI has moved from record-breaking to benchmark-setting — a transition that observers of Chinese radio astronomy describe as the shift from follower to leader in 21-centimeter science. The cover of the journal issue reinforces the mood: a warm sunset scene evoking the faint 21-centimeter photons from distant galaxies arriving at FAST after journeys of billions of light years, messengers of the cold gas that permeates the universe.

The survey’s story is also one of institutional perseverance. The work is led by NAOC in collaboration with the Guizhou Radio Astronomical Observatory, the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, the CAS South America Center for Astronomy, Peking University and other partner institutions, with funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. Sustained national investment in a single flagship instrument has now produced a dataset whose statistical power no other facility can currently match at these wavelengths.

The full FASHI DR2 source catalog has been released to the public through the FAST data portal, a decision that will likely seed hundreds of follow-up studies in the coming years, from targeted observations of hydrogen-rich dwarfs to statistical analyses of gas in galaxy groups and environmental studies of gas stripping in clusters. As the SKA era approaches, FASHI DR2 stands as both a scientific foundation and a demonstration: that a single dish, used patiently and precisely over five years, can still redraw the map of the gaseous universe. With nearly half the sky covered and a quarter of a million more square degrees potentially within reach, the question is no longer whether FAST will extend the hydrogen frontier, but how far.

Astronomers have combined 2,884 Type Ia supernovae -- which are used to measure cosmic distances -- with cosmic microwave background and galaxy-mapping data, deepening cracks in the standard ‘cosmological constant’ model.

The post Dark Energy May Not Be Constant After All, New Supernova Survey Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Growing news coverage of UFOs is influencing people’s views about extraterrestrial life, particularly among younger Americans, according to a new survey. 

According to the survey’s findings, more than a third of respondents—and particularly younger adults—say recent reporting on unexplained aerial phenomena has strengthened their belief that aliens exist.

Connecting data from over 2,000 Americans, the survey found that 37% say recent news coverage about UFOs has increased their belief in extraterrestrial life (ET). Meanwhile, 54% say their views have not changed, and just 10% report that the coverage has made them less likely to believe in ET. The survey was conducted by Talker Research between July 1 and July 6, 2026. 

Gen Z Data 

According to the survey’s findings, more than half of Gen Z respondents—54%—said recent UAP news has increased their belief in ET. That figure drops to 45% among millennials, 36% among Gen X, and 23% among baby boomers.

These results arrive amid an increasingly mainstream conversation surrounding government hearings, military UAP reports, whistleblowers, broadcast and online news coverage, and podcasts. Such exposure may be helping shape how Gen Z views what is possible and whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the cosmos.

Looking at the results through a gender lens, 34% of men say UFO news coverage has made them more likely to accept that we are not alone in the universe, compared with 33% of women.

Media and Entertainment Culture Feedback Loops 

Historically, widely publicized UFO reports have helped shape the language and imagery Western society uses to describe unexplained aerial phenomena. One famous example occurred in 1947, when pilot and businessman Kenneth Arnold reported seeing unusual objects flying near Mount Rainier, an incident that received widespread media coverage.

The idea behind such a cultural feedback loop is relatively straightforward: someone sees something outside their normal understanding of reality and reports it. Media and entertainment then pick up the concept and expand upon it, creating their own interpretations of what extraterrestrial beings or UFOs might look like. Audiences absorb those representations, which may subsequently influence how some people perceive, remember, or describe their own unusual experiences. Those accounts can then return to popular culture, potentially reinforcing the cycle.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that what a person saw wasn’t anomalous. Instead, it suggests that media and entertainment may influence how people interpret or describe what they experience.

A 2025 paper in Evolutionary Human Sciences deconstructs a “two-way feedback loop between behavior and beliefs.” The framework suggests that existing beliefs influence behavior; people then observe that behavior, and the observed behavior influences what people believe others think/do. Finally, those beliefs influence subsequent behavior.

The new survey also considered the potential influence of popular culture. More than half of respondents (54%) believed alien movies and television make Americans more likely to believe in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life; 27% saw no connection between entertainment and belief, while 8% believed such programming actually makes people less likely to believe.

UFOs as a Belief System and Common Misconceptions 

An additional consideration when reading this survey is whether UFOs themselves should be characterized as a belief system. The subject is also an area of study examined by researchers from a range of disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, physics, anthropology, neuroscience, and others.

Many academics would argue that categorizing UFOs solely as a belief system risks pigeonholing the subject as a form of religion rather than recognizing it as an area of study. A belief system, by contrast, is a framework of ideas through which people interpret reality according to a particular set of assumptions or principles.

Jeffrey Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religion at Rice University’s Department of Religion, addressed related questions in his March 2026 keynote, “Mind-Manifesting Shock: Comparing Psychedelic and Abduction Experiences, Religion and Psychedelics: Critical Cross-Cultural, Cross-Disciplinary Approaches,” at the Center for the Study of Religion at Ohio State University.

“We are often ‘believing backwards,’ taking comfort in someone else’s altered states, or in the present ‘explanations’ of this or that neuroscience or physics,” Kripal said at the time.

In other words, when people experience something anomalous and ask why it happened or what the experience might mean, they may immediately reach backward for an existing framework through which to interpret it.

In an email to The Debrief, Kripal adds, “I think the existing frameworks of religion and science ‘explain’ to people what happens, though they do not.”

The Debrief also reached out to Matthew Halsted, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Executive Team/Registrar at Eternity College, and asked how he would classify UAP—as an area of belief or a subject of study—and why.

“When it comes to ‘UAP,’ we have to see it as a two-sided coin,” Halsted told The Debrief. “On one side, we have the phenomenon itself (the actual sighting of the thing in the sky); on the other side of the coin, we have the public narrative (how we as people, and our respective governments, talk about reported sightings).”

Halsted adds, “The UAP topic (the ‘coin’) creates a lot of questions for the public, which inevitably gives rise to some sort of belief system. Some walk away believing it’s all nonsense, while others believe there’s something real about this whole thing.”

Halsted’s view, therefore, appears more nuanced than simply classifying UAP as a belief system: the topic can generate belief systems and competing interpretations around reported phenomena, but the subject itself extends beyond a simple question of belief versus nonbelief.

National Security Considerations

When asked how they would react if extraterrestrial life were definitively confirmed, 38% of Americans said their first response would be curiosity, more than twice the 17% who said they would be fearful. Men were also more likely than women to say they would be excited by such a discovery, at 20% compared with 11%.

Perhaps more strikingly, 60% of participants believed that governments know more about UFOs than they have disclosed to date.

The bigger question is whether participants believe society is prepared to accept confirmation that extraterrestrial life exists. Forty-five percent believe society would be prepared if governments confirmed the existence of alien life, while 55% say society would not be adequately prepared to comprehend the implications.

“It’s clear that the public—across age groups—is clamoring for greater UAP transparency,” said Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and current Chairman of the Board with the Disclosure Foundation, which also conducted a recent survey on the subject in June. According to Mellon, the survey found that “more than 84% of Americans want greater transparency, regardless of whether they consider themselves believers, skeptics, or unsure. And a recent Talker Research poll found that 54% of Gen Z say recent news stories have increased their belief in UAP.”

An era of misinformation and disinformation? 

The survey’s findings are compelling, but they leave another important factor largely unaddressed: not simply how information is perceived, but how easily misinformation and disinformation can proliferate in an era of online news, podcasts with inconsistent fact-checking standards, questionable or compromised sources, and clickbait headlines engineered to capture attention.

The issue, then, is not merely what a generation believes, but how people decide what is real and what is not. Within today’s fragmented information environment, audiences increasingly face the difficult task of distinguishing credible evidence from speculation, honest mistakes from misinformation, and legitimate reporting from deliberate deception.

None of this means that the broader UFO enigma can simply be dismissed. Rather, it underscores an additional challenge surrounding the subject: misleading or demonstrably false claims can now reach large audiences very quickly.

Addressing that problem will require better media literacy, stronger sourcing and fact-checking standards, and greater attention to the often-blurred distinction between evidence and interpretation. Ultimately, younger generations coming of age amid an unprecedented volume of digital information will have to navigate those distinctions for themselves. How successfully they learn to do so may have consequences extending far beyond what they believe about UFOs—shaping how they understand science, institutions, current events, and reality itself.

This is why it’s critically important that we understand UAP as accurately as possible. Whether information is being communicated between family members, friends, researchers, journalists, or policymakers, distinguishing established facts from interpretations and unverified claims gives people a better foundation for understanding the world around them and making informed decisions.

This survey suggests that UFOs are no longer confined to a subculture or counterculture; the topic has entered the mainstream. The question now is what that shift will mean for the future.

Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.

PHILADELPHIA — Public resistance to new data centers has risen sharply across the United States, even as Americans’ overall views of artificial intelligence remain largely unchanged, according to a nationally representative survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings reveal a growing divide between public attitudes toward AI as a technology and attitudes toward the physical infrastructure required to operate it. While many people continue to see potential benefits from AI, particularly in medical research, opposition increases substantially when the technology is associated with a large industrial facility being built near their homes.

The survey found that 61% of U.S. adults somewhat or strongly oppose the construction of new data centers in their communities. That figure is 12 percentage points higher than the 49% recorded in an earlier APPC survey conducted in February and March. Support fell during the same period, from 21% to 14%. The change comes as communities across the country debate the environmental, economic, and social consequences of rapidly expanding computing infrastructure used to train and operate advanced AI systems.

Data centers are specialized facilities filled with servers, networking equipment, cooling systems, backup power supplies, and security infrastructure. AI applications can require enormous amounts of computational power because they process vast datasets and perform calculations across billions of model parameters. Training a large AI model may require thousands of processors operating simultaneously, while everyday use also depends on data centers to generate responses, analyze images, translate languages, and carry out other tasks. These facilities can consume substantial amounts of electricity and water, making their construction a highly visible local issue even when the software they support is used remotely.

Opposition to local data centers crosses political boundaries. Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents said they opposed new facilities in their areas, although the proportions differed: 69% of Democrats, 54% of Republicans, and 53% of independents expressed opposition. Resistance was strongest among adults younger than 30, reaching 70%, and declined to 57% among people 65 and older. The pattern is notable because younger adults are often assumed to be more comfortable with emerging technologies and are more likely to use AI-powered services in education, work, entertainment, and communication.

Despite the shift in views about local infrastructure, broader opinions about AI have remained stable. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they expected AI’s impact on the United States over the next decade to be somewhat or very negative, compared with 18% who expected a positive impact. The result was statistically unchanged from the spring survey. In addition, 68% said the federal government has done “too little” to regulate AI, a view shared by majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. The results suggest that concerns about AI regulation have become persistent rather than being driven solely by short-term news events.

Respondents distinguished sharply between areas where AI might produce public benefits and areas where it could create risks. Among 13 sectors examined, medical research and scientific discovery was the only category receiving a net-positive assessment, with anticipated benefits exceeding expected harms by 41 percentage points. AI systems are increasingly being used to identify patterns in biological data, predict molecular structures, assist with medical imaging, and help researchers screen potential treatments. These applications may accelerate work that would otherwise require years of laboratory experiments, although they still depend on human validation and carefully controlled clinical studies.

The most negative assessments involved personal privacy and data security, which registered a net score of minus 63 points. Children’s online safety followed at minus 50 points, while employment and jobs reached minus 46 points. These concerns reflect the technical and social consequences of deploying AI at scale. Models may be trained on or exposed to sensitive information, automated systems can make decisions that are difficult to explain, and workplace applications may alter or eliminate certain tasks. The survey does not measure whether these risks will materialize in specific industries, but it indicates that many Americans view them as more immediate than AI’s possible benefits outside medicine.

Personal experience with AI was associated with more favorable opinions about its national impact. Among respondents who said they had never used AI during the previous month, 54% expected its effect on the country to be negative. That proportion fell to 40% among light users and to 29% among those who used AI many times or almost every day. However, frequent use did not make people more supportive of data centers. Opposition to building new facilities near respondents’ homes remained essentially flat across different levels of AI use. This distinction suggests that familiarity may influence perceptions of digital tools, while concerns about electricity demand, water consumption, noise, traffic, land use, and local utility costs may remain regardless of personal experience with AI software.

“The people who use AI the most are the most optimistic about what it will do for the country, and that has been consistent across our surveys,” said Matt Levendusky, a University of Pennsylvania political science professor and the Stephen and Mary Baran Chair in the Institutions of Democracy at APPC. He said that optimism had clear limits, particularly when questions involved privacy, employment, or the construction of a data center nearby. The survey was conducted by SSRS for APPC’s Institutions of Democracy division among 1,320 U.S. adult citizens from June 16 through July 19, 2026. Respondents were surveyed primarily online, with a small telephone sample, and weighted to match population benchmarks. The margin of error for the full sample was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, with larger margins for subgroups. Together, the findings indicate that the next phase of the AI debate may be shaped less by abstract promises about intelligent software than by negotiations over the highly physical systems that make it possible.

Subject of Research: People

Article Title: Opposition to Local Data Centers Rises Sharply as Views on AI Hold Steady

Web References: Annenberg Public Policy Center news release; Reuters; The New York Times; Associated Press

References: Annenberg Public Policy Center Institutions of Democracy national survey, June 16–July 19, 2026; APPC AI topline survey data; APPC survey methodology

Image Credits: Annenberg Public Policy Center

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, data centers, public opinion, AI regulation, medical research, privacy, data security, employment, social surveys, political science

The nature of the surveys to which Phil Halper appeals is that they measure what physicists believe. They cannot measure what the evidence actually supports.

Source

In recent years, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have emerged primarily as breakthrough medications targeting metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes and obesity. Medications like Ozempic and Wegovy have revolutionized treatment protocols by improving glycemic control and promoting weight loss through mechanisms involving appetite regulation and insulin modulation. However, intriguing new research spearheaded by scientists at Rutgers University suggests that the influence of GLP-1 receptor agonists may extend well beyond metabolic pathways, potentially modulating complex behaviors associated with violence and aggression.

The Rutgers study, published in the esteemed journal Criminology, delves into the behavioral ramifications of GLP-1 receptor agonist usage among adults in the United States. This groundbreaking investigation focused on whether these medications could attenuate the well-documented links between impulsivity, alcohol consumption, and violent behavior—an intersection of psychological and physiological domains rarely explored in pharmacological research. Given the increasing prevalence of GLP-1 usage, understanding these potential secondary effects holds substantial public health significance.

Researchers employed data gathered from a 2025 nationwide survey encompassing over 7,500 U.S. adults, narrowing their primary analysis to a subgroup of 821 individuals who had a history of GLP-1 medication use. This cohort was meticulously categorized into current versus former users to discern if ongoing GLP-1 receptor activity correlates with measurable differences in violent behavior frequency. Violent behavior metrics were derived from validated self-reported scales encompassing acts ranging from physical fights and assaults to more severe offenses like robbery, allowing for a comprehensive behavioral profile aligned with criminological standards.

A pivotal discovery from the analysis was the pronounced moderation of the relationship between impulsivity and violent conduct among current GLP-1 users. The data revealed that the association strength between impulsivity—a critical psychological trait linked to poor decision-making and aggression—and violent actions was reduced by approximately 62% in active GLP-1 users compared to those who had discontinued use. Such a substantial attenuation suggests that GLP-1 receptor agonists may exert neurobehavioral effects that temper impulsive drives which frequently precipitate violent acts.

Complementing these results, the study also examined the interplay between alcohol consumption, impulsivity, and violence. Alcohol’s role as a disinhibitor and amplifier of aggressive tendencies is well established. Among current GLP-1 medication users, the correlation between alcohol intake and violent behavior was notably diminished, showing around a 52% reduction in association strength relative to former users. While these findings were somewhat less consistent across different analytic models, they broadly indicate that GLP-1 receptor agonists might mitigate alcohol’s exacerbation of violent impulses, potentially via neurochemical or systemic pathways that modulate inhibitory control.

The underlying neural mechanisms posited by researchers revolve around the interplay of GLP-1 receptor activation within the central nervous system. GLP-1 receptors are expressed not only peripherally but also in brain regions implicated in impulse control, reward processing, and executive functions, such as the prefrontal cortex and limbic structures. Activation of these receptors could conceivably influence neurotransmitter systems including dopamine and serotonin pathways, which are integral to regulating mood, impulse control, and aggression. This neuropharmacological modulation may resemble cognitive behavioral therapy in effect — attenuating the translation of impulsive urges into violent actions without necessarily eradicating impulsivity itself.

Daniel Semenza, lead author and director of research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, underscored the public safety implications of these findings. With GLP-1 drugs increasingly prescribed globally, it is paramount to deepen scientific understanding of their broader psychobehavioral consequences. Exploring how these medications might serve dual roles in metabolic regulation and behavioral modulation opens new vistas in the multidisciplinary fields of medicine, psychology, and criminology. Such knowledge could inform clinical decisions and policies aimed at reducing violence, a persistent societal challenge with profound public health ramifications.

Nevertheless, the authors caution that the study’s observational, cross-sectional nature precludes definitive causal inferences. While associations are compelling, longitudinal and experimental research designs are essential to elucidate temporal dynamics and confirm whether GLP-1 receptor agonists actively reduce violence risk or if the observed correlations reflect confounding factors. Future studies integrating neuroimaging, pharmacokinetics, and behavioral assessments could unravel the precise biological and psychological pathways mediating these effects.

Christopher Thomas, coauthor and assistant professor at Rutgers University-Camden, highlighted the similarity between the behavioral influences observed and therapeutic interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy. Such parallels suggest that GLP-1 receptor agonists may have untapped potential as adjunctive treatments for impulse control disorders or behavioral problems characterized by aggression. Their dual metabolic and psychobehavioral actions could redefine therapeutic strategies for complex patients with overlapping physiological and psychiatric needs.

Moreover, understanding these effects could broaden the scope of violence prevention frameworks. If GLP-1 receptor agonists contribute to weaker links between impulsivity, substance use, and violent behavior, integrating pharmacotherapy with social and psychological interventions might amplify public safety outcomes. This intersection of neurobiology and criminology exemplifies the innovative, interdisciplinary research needed to address entrenched societal issues.

In summary, the Rutgers study furnishes compelling preliminary evidence that GLP-1 receptor agonist medications, beyond their established metabolic benefits, may significantly dampen the behavioral pathways leading from impulsivity and alcohol consumption to violence. These findings urge a paradigm shift toward holistic evaluation of drug effects encompassing neural, behavioral, and social domains. As the prescribing landscape for GLP-1 medications continues to expand, vigilant research and nuanced understanding will be critical to harnessing their full therapeutic potential while safeguarding public health.

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Subject of Research: People
Article Title: GLP-1 receptor agonist use and violent crime among US adults
News Publication Date: 17-Jun-2026
Keywords: Violence, Drug therapy, Weight loss, Mental health

A recent comprehensive study published in PsyCh Journal casts significant doubt on the widespread application of an adult-derived framework for assessing social-emotional skills among children and adolescents across diverse cultures. The research critically evaluates the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Survey on Social and Emotional Skills, a framework traditionally anchored in adult personality models, highlighting its inability to reliably capture the developmental nuances and cultural variations inherent in younger populations.

This study deployed an extensive dataset comprising over 60,000 children and adolescents aged 10 and 15 from 10 international urban centers spanning nine countries, including the United States, Canada, China, South Korea, Finland, Colombia, Russia, Portugal, and Turkey. The participants’ social-emotional competencies were assessed against the established framework that organizes 15 skills into five categories mapped onto the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability.

Findings indicate that the hypothesized functional zoning of these skills failed to emerge consistently across the diverse sample. Contrary to expectations, the adult-derived hierarchical structure did not hold true for younger individuals. The empirical data revealed that the configuration of social-emotional skills evolved significantly with age. Ten-year-olds exhibited a more blended and less differentiated pattern of skills, whereas fifteen-year-olds showed more refined distinctions, yet still diverged substantially from the adult framework that underpins the OECD survey.

Moreover, the study unveiled pronounced cultural heterogeneity in the organization of these skills. The way social-emotional skills clustered varied markedly across cities such as Houston, Helsinki, and Suzhou. This variance underscores the influence of local sociocultural factors, educational practices, and societal norms in shaping the development and interrelation of these competencies at both individual and community levels. The research suggests that universal, one-size-fits-all assessments are insufficient for capturing the complexity of social-emotional development across global contexts.

The methodological approach employed, Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA), was pivotal in uncovering the latent structure of the assessed skills. EGA, a network psychometrics technique, models relationships among variables, offering a data-driven perspective on how different skills interconnect functionally. However, in this case, EGA failed to reproduce the pre-established functional zoning assumed by the survey framework, thereby challenging its applicability and prompting a call for re-evaluation and adaptation.

Bo Ning, PhD, corresponding author and professor at Shanghai Normal University, emphasized the implications of these results. She underscored that social-emotional skill assessments must be sensitive to developmental stages and cultural contexts to ensure fairness and accuracy. This stance invites a paradigm shift towards frameworks that are not only empirically validated for diverse populations but are also dynamic enough to adapt to the evolving socioemotional landscape of children and adolescents worldwide.

The study’s cross-national sample and robust analytic techniques bolster the credibility of its conclusions, signaling a crucial need for psychometric frameworks that accommodate developmental trajectories and cultural specificity. Such frameworks would enhance the validity of social-emotional skill measurement and guide the design of interventions tailored to the unique needs and contexts of younger populations globally.

This investigation also raises broader questions about the translatability of adult personality theories to child and adolescent populations. Since children are in critical developmental phases marked by rapid psychological, social, and cognitive changes, frameworks built on adult models may oversimplify or misrepresent their social-emotional realities. Consequently, researchers and policymakers must reconsider how social-emotional competencies are conceptualized and operationalized in international assessments.

Beyond academic inquiry, this research holds pragmatic significance. Social-emotional skills are increasingly recognized as crucial predictors of lifelong success, influencing educational outcomes, mental health, and social integration. Misalignment in assessment tools could lead to misguided policies, inadequate resource allocation, and ineffective educational programming, especially when applied in culturally or developmentally incongruent ways.

The study’s findings advocate for the creation of culturally nuanced measurement tools that incorporate indigenous concepts of social and emotional functioning. Such culturally congruent tools would respect local values and educational priorities, fostering more authentic and meaningful assessments. Additionally, they would facilitate international comparisons that are not merely nominal but grounded in culturally sensitive understanding.

Further research is needed to elucidate the mechanisms driving developmental and cultural variability in social-emotional skill organization. Longitudinal studies can capture dynamic developmental processes, while qualitative research may offer rich contextual insights. Combining these approaches with advanced quantitative methods like EGA can yield comprehensive frameworks capable of supporting equitable policies and practices in global education and child development.

The growing recognition of the complexity of social-emotional skills across developmental stages and cultures marks a pivotal advancement in psychological science. This study contributes a critical evidence base, urging the scientific community to transcend traditional adult-centric, culturally monolithic frameworks in favor of more sophisticated, inclusive paradigms that truly reflect the lived experiences of children and adolescents worldwide.

As the landscape of global education and psychological assessment continues to evolve, embracing culturally adaptive, developmentally informed frameworks will be essential. Doing so promises to improve the fairness and effectiveness of social-emotional skill measurement, ultimately promoting better outcomes for diverse populations of young people who will shape the future of societies around the world.

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Subject of Research: Social-emotional skill assessment across developmental stages and cultures

Article Title: Exploratory Graph Analysis Failed to Reproduce the Hypothesized Functional Zoning Framework in the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills

News Publication Date: 17-Jun-2026

Web References: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pchj.70108

Keywords: personality development, social development, developmental psychology, psychological science, young people, adolescents, emotional development

Greetings, Arsians, and welcome to the great Ars Technica 2026 reader survey! It has been almost four years since we last ran a big site-wide survey like this, where we ask our readers—you!—what you like about the work we do and what we could perhaps improve on. This kind of check-in is absolutely vital to ensuring we're steering the ship properly, and we take the results very seriously. (The last time we did this, we got several thousand responses, and that's incredibly valuable data for us!)

You don't have to have been a reader since 1998 to weigh in, either. Whether you're a first-time reader, an old grizzled forum veteran, a front page comment maven, a newbie sysadmin, or a CEO, we want to hear what you have to say, no matter who you are. The only requirement is that you're a human! (Aliens are welcome as well, though we didn't really define any demographic categories for extraterrestrial beings. We'll tackle this issue if it comes up, I suppose.) There are a few text fields. Yes, we will read what you write there!

To assay, perchance to sing

Fortunately, this isn't a long survey—just a handful of targeted questions. We're not collecting any personally identifying information, and responses will only be viewed in aggregate. None of the data will be analyzed by anyone except us, and none of it will be sold or otherwise distributed outside of Ars. (We're using SurveyMonkey for our survey platform, the same as we have many times in the past.)

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Millions of homes are at risk from climate change, the British Geological Survey has claimed in a new report – but it relies on the IPCC's discredited RCP8.5 modelling, says Paul Homewood.

The post Millions of Homes at Risk from Climate Change, Claims British Geological Survey in New Report Relying on Discredited Modelling appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Et si l'univers avait une date d'expiration bien plus proche que prévu ? Une étude récente bouleverse les certitudes cosmologiques les mieux établies. Le compte à rebours serait lancé : 33 milliards d'années, pas une de plus.

The dream of clean hydrogen has tantalized energy experts for years, but producing it has been tough. Many start-ups think the answer could lie beneath our feet.