More than 1.5 billion people worldwide are expected to watch the 2026 World Cup finals. With that many fans scrutinizing every pass, touch and goal, FIFA is leaning on advanced computer vision technology to help referees make faster, more accurate calls on the way to crowning this year's victors.

Clarkson University researchers have developed a new mathematical tool that could make artificial intelligence systems more accurate, controllable and useful across applications ranging from image editing to drug discovery.

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.

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.

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.

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"—a 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.

Combining ideas inspired by ant colonies and flocks of birds may hold the key to unlocking more effective artificial intelligence, according to a researcher at Missouri S&T. "With the way AI algorithms are currently structured, they sometimes settle on an answer that seems good enough and stop searching before finding one that may be much better," says Dr. Donald Wunsch, director of Missouri S&T's Kummer Institute Center for AI and Autonomous Systems. "It's important that we find ways to help these algorithms keep searching instead of stopping too soon. When AI is used in areas that affect people's health, safety or cost of living, the difference between good enough and great can have significant implications."

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.

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.