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Can a robot tutor give too much help? Why timing matters

A learner stands in a room with a bottle, a cup and a book. The task is to figure out, step by step, where each object belongs in the room. Under the table? Or perhaps on the chair? A humanoid robot gives the instructions—but in Swahili, a language the learner does not know. To solve the puzzle, the learner must gradually decipher what the robot is saying.

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Can a robot tutor give too much help? Why timing matters

A learner stands in a room with a bottle, a cup and a book. The task is to figure out, step by step, where each object belongs in the room. Under the table? Or perhaps on the chair? A humanoid robot gives the instructions—but in Swahili, a language the learner does not know. To solve the puzzle, the learner must gradually decipher what the robot is saying.

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Unraveling the climate behind the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations

The most severe droughts in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean arose when multiple natural climate cycles coincided, according to a new study from Stockholm University published in Science Advances. The findings shed new light on the climate conditions surrounding the Late Bronze Age collapse and may help improve understanding of future drought risks in a warming world.

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Community context shapes corporate response to violence in street protests

When violence takes place during street protests, how do corporate leaders respond? According to new research by Forrest Briscoe, professor of organizational behavior at the ILR School, the answer depends on other community characteristics that people can use to help interpret the reasons for that violence. In particular, Briscoe focused on whether the community has a long history of protests turning violent regardless of the issue being protested—and, separately, whether the community has a history of events that validate the protestors' main grievance.

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Fossilized wood reveals 300 million years of Earth's history

Many people are familiar with fossilized wood as a decorative item from a museum shop. However, the fact that it can preserve the geological history of entire regions spanning millions of years is a new discovery. A research team led by geologist Dr. Steffen Trümper from the University of Münster has now demonstrated for the first time that fossilized wood is a natural archive from which the geological history of an entire region over hundreds of millions of years can be deduced.

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How does parent‑child interaction therapy work? And who can use it?

Children thrive when parents are warm and responsive to their needs while also providing clear guidance and setting limits. This is known as authoritative parenting. But most parents will tell you authoritative parenting is easier said than done, especially when children have frequent intense emotions, big behaviors, meltdowns and outright defiance.

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Less cannabis use among adolescents, but social disparities persist

Past studies have shown that cannabis use during adolescence is associated with a variety of negative impacts—including emotional distress, adverse academic outcomes, and brain development and functioning—that can persist into adulthood. Though there has been an overall decrease in cannabis use among Minnesota adolescents over the past decade, prior studies have been limited in their ability to examine the nuances in this trend—particularly differences in use among social groups.

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Virtual café experiment finds Japanese participants keep greater distance than Italians

How close do we stand to other people during a social interaction? The distance we maintain between our body and that of another person—known as interpersonal distance—is a fundamental aspect of everyday life. It influences our sense of comfort, safety, intimacy and tendency to approach or avoid others. This distance can vary depending on the context, the characteristics of the other person, our emotional state, and our personal and social background.

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Quantum randomness helps neural network recognize troublesome handwritten digits

Quantum computing and AI are among the most rapidly developing modern technologies. AI, in the form of machine learning, has been deployed for decades to recommend movies and TV shows and make it easier to search for images. Over the past several years, large language models have permeated even more facets of daily life, from writing emails to producing images, videos and songs in response to requests expressed in a few written lines.

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A computer in a liquid: Hundreds of oscillating particles compute complex patterns

Researchers at the Universities of Konstanz and Stuttgart have demonstrated a new approach to computation: a computer made from a few hundred microscopic particles oscillating in a liquid. Instead of processing information through carefully fabricated electronic circuits, their system performs computations by harnessing the complex collective dynamics of interacting particles.

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