Top Society & Education News

April 22, 2020

Top Headlines

Illustration of nuclear bomb explosion (stock image). | Credit: (c) Romolo Tavani / stock.adobe.com

Even a Limited India-Pakistan Nuclear War Would Bring Global Famine, Says Study

Mar. 16, 2020 A new multinational study incorporating the latest models of global climate, crop production and trade examines the possible ... read more

Sea Level Rise Could Reshape the United States, Trigger Migration Inland

Jan. 22, 2020 A new study uses machine learning to project migration patterns resulting from sea-level rise. Researchers found the impact of rising oceans will ripple across the country, beyond coastal areas at ... read more

Emissions of Potent Greenhouse Gas Have Grown, Contradicting Reports of Huge Reductions

Jan. 21, 2020 Despite reports that global emissions of the potent greenhouse gas were almost eliminated in 2017, an international team of scientists has found ... read more

Cancer Mortality Continues Steady Decline, Driven by Progress Against Lung Cancer

Jan. 8, 2020 The cancer death rate declined by 29 percent from 1991 to 2017, including a 2.2 percent drop from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop in ... read more

Latest Headlines

updated 8:58am EDT

Holistic Way to Measure the Economic Fallout from Earthquakes

Apr. 21, 2020 Officials know how to account for deaths, injuries and property damages after the shaking stops, but a study based on a hypothetical 7.2 magnitude quake near San Francisco, describes the first way to ... read more

Continued CO2 Emissions Will Impair Cognition

Apr. 21, 2020 New research finds that an anticipated rise in carbon dioxide concentrations in our indoor living and working spaces by the year 2100 could lead to impaired human ... read more

Why Relying on New Technology Won't Save the Planet

Apr. 20, 2020 Over-reliance on promises of new technology to solve climate change is enabling delay, say researchers. They argue instead for cultural, social and political transformation to enable widespread ... read more

What Did Scientists Learn from Deepwater Horizon?

Apr. 20, 2020 Scientists review what they -- and their science colleagues from around the world -- have learned from studying the spill over the past ... read more

New Decision Model Shapes Strategies for Dealing With Public Health Emergencies

Apr. 20, 2020 The efficient allocation of medical resources can be modelled mathematically. The study, which started a few years before coronavirus appeared, ... read more

Decision, right, wrong signpost (stock image). | Credit: (c) 3D generator / stock.adobe.com

People May Know the Best Decision -- And Not Make It

Apr. 20, 2020 When faced with a decision, people may know which choice gives them the best chance of success, but still take the other option, a new study suggests. People may choose based ... read more

From Watching Reruns to Relationships, There Are Many Ways of Feeling Connected

Apr. 17, 2020 New research suggests that non-traditional social strategies, which can include so-called ''guilty pleasures,'' are just as effective at fulfilling ... read more

Valorizing Wastewater Can Improve Commercial Viability of Biomass Oil Production

Apr. 17, 2020 Oil produced from biomass can provide a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. But technological challenges make it difficult to scale up ... read more

Fruit and vegetables in market (stock image). | Credit: (c) John / stock.adobe.com

Relying on 'Local Food' Is a Distant Dream for Most of the World

Apr. 17, 2020 A recent study shows that less than one-third of the world's population could currently meet their demand for food produced in their ... read more

Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms Release More Methane Than Previously Estimated

Apr. 13, 2020 Offshore energy-producing platforms in US waters of the Gulf of Mexico are emitting twice as much methane, a greenhouse gas, than previously thought, ... read more

Earlier Headlines

Beyond Encryption: Protecting Consumer Privacy While Keeping Survey Results Accurate

Apr. 17, 2020 Data privacy laws require encryption and, in some cases, transforming the original data to 'protected data' before it's released to external ... read more

Peer-Review: Modernizing a Time-Intensive Process

Apr. 16, 2020 Astronomer have found that a new process of evaluating proposed scientific research projects is as effective -- if not more so -- than the traditional peer-review ... read more

Could Shrinking a Key Component Help Make Autonomous Cars Affordable?

Apr. 16, 2020 Electrical engineers working on shrinking the mechanical and electronic components in a rooftop lidar down to a single silicon chip think the component could be mass produced for as little as a few ... read more

Economists Find Carbon Footprint Grows With Parenthood

Apr. 15, 2020 Two-adult households with children emit over 25% more carbon dioxide than two-adult households without children, according to ... read more

Human Handling Stresses Young Monarch Butterflies

Apr. 15, 2020 People handle monarch butterflies. A lot. Every year thousands of monarch butterflies are caught, tagged and released during their fall migration by citizen scientists helping to track their ... read more

Prescribing an Overdose: A Chapter in the Opioid Epidemic

Apr. 15, 2020 Research indicates that widespread opioid overprescribing contributed to the opioid epidemic. New research shows that this dangerous trend has apparently been coupled with another: inappropriate use ... read more

The Retention Effect of Training

Apr. 15, 2020 Company training increases the loyalty of its employees. Loyalty also increases if the training improves the employees' chances on the labor ... read more

Tools to Help Volunteers Do the Most Good After a Disaster

Apr. 15, 2020 In the wake of a disaster, many people want to help. Researchers have now developed tools to help emergency response and relief managers coordinate volunteer efforts in order to do the most ... read more

Logging Threatening Endangered Caribou

Apr. 15, 2020 Researchers found habitat and food web changes from forestry are encouraging more wolf packs to prey on caribou. Researchers attached video and GPS-tracking radio collars to caribou and wolves to ... read more

How Expectations Influence Learning

Apr. 15, 2020 During learning, the brain is a prediction engine that continually makes theories about our environment and accurately registers whether an assumption is true or not. A team of neuroscientists has ... read more

Little Scientists: Children Prefer Storybooks That Explain Why and How Things Happen

Apr. 15, 2020 Children have a never-ending curiosity about the world around them and frequently question how and why it works the way it does. Researchers have previously demonstrated that children are interested ... read more

ECMO Physicians Offer Guidance in the Context of Resource-Scarce COVID-19 Treatment

Apr. 15, 2020 Rapidly escalating numbers of COVID-19 patients suffering from respiratory failure threaten to overwhelm hospital capacity and force healthcare providers into making challenging decisions about the ... read more

Students Often Do Not Question Online Information

Apr. 14, 2020 According to a new study, students struggle to critically assess information from the Internet and are often influenced by unreliable sources. In this study, students from various disciplines such as ... read more

'I Saw You Were Online': How Online Status Indicators Shape Our Behavior

Apr. 13, 2020 After surveying smartphone users, researchers found that many people misunderstand online status indicators but still carefully shape their behavior to control how they are displayed to ... read more

Cybersecurity, Tech Infrastructure Requires International Trust

Apr. 13, 2020 Researchers use the field of incident response to shed light on how experts -- and nations -- can more effectively combat cyber-warfare when they foster trust and transcend ... read more

Exploring the Link Between Education and Climate Change

Apr. 13, 2020 What are the most effective ways to achieve desired sustainable development outcomes across all aspects of wellbeing, and how might the pursuit of some of these goals affect progress toward others? ... read more

Children and tablet computers (stock image). | Credit: (c) Syda Productions / stock.adobe.com

Time on Screens Has Little Impact on Kids' Social Skills, Study Suggests

Apr. 13, 2020 Despite the time spent with smartphones and social media, young people today are just as socially skilled as those from the previous generation, a new study ... read more

COVID-19 and the Built Environment

Apr. 10, 2020 Social distancing has Americans mostly out of the places they usually gather and in their homes as we try to reduce the spread of COVID-19. But some buildings, such as hospitals and grocery stores, ... read more

Vaccine Skeptics Actually Think Differently Than Other People

Apr. 10, 2020 As vaccine skepticism has become increasingly widespread, researchers have suggested a possible explanation. In a new article reserarchers suggest some people find vaccines risky because they ... read more