Ethics News

June 7, 2024

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A Novel Approach to Tracking Conservation Reveals More Areas May Be Conserved Than Currently Accounted for

June 4, 2024 — Thirty by thirty. It's an ambitious answer to growing calls for protecting more of our planet's surface. The goal is to conserve 30% of the Earth's oceans, lands and freshwaters by 2030. While this ...

Study Reveals High Rate of Drowsy Driving by Teens

June 4, 2024 — A new study found that drowsy driving by teenagers is a common threat to public safety on U.S. ...

Population Shifts, Risk Factors May Triple U.S. Cardiovascular Disease Costs by 2050

June 4, 2024 — Driven by an older, more diverse population, along with a significant increase in risk factors including high blood pressure and obesity, total costs related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) ...

Transitioning Gender Identities Is Not Linked With Depression

May 22, 2024 — A landmark longitudinal study of LGBTQ+ youths has found that transitioning gender identities is not associated with depression and that about 1 in 3 gender-minority youths change their gender identity more than once. In fact, the study found higher ...

Latest Headlines

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Study Offers a Better Way to Make AI Fairer for Everyone

June 6, 2024 — Scientists show a new way of thinking about the fair impacts of AI decisions. They draw on a well-established tradition known as social welfare optimization, which aims to make decisions fairer by ...

Mothers Live Longer as Child Mortality Declines

May 20, 2024 — The dramatic decline in childhood mortality during the 20th century has added a full year to women's lives, according to a new ...

Differing Values of Nature Can Still Lead to Joined Up Goals for Sustainability

May 17, 2024 — Recognizing and respecting the different ways nature is valued can enable better environmental decision-making, according to new ...

Penalties for Dropping out of Ecosystem Services Incentive Programs Should Equal Lost Environmental Benefits

May 15, 2024 — PES programs are currently structured in ways that could limit their participation or create incentives to drop out before the full environmental ...

New Transit Station in Japan Significantly Reduced Cumulative Health Expenditures

May 14, 2024 — A research team assessed the impact of a train station's opening on health expenditures. The natural experiment study revealed that a new mass ...

AI Intervention Mitigates Tension Among Conflicting Ethnic Groups

May 10, 2024 — While intergroup interaction is a prerequisite for initiating peace and stability, there is the risk of further escalation from direct interactions. A shortage of an impartial electronic contact ...

90% of Floridians Believe Climate Change Is Happening

May 14, 2024 — The latest 'Florida Climate Resilience Survey' found that 90% of Floridians believe that climate change is happening. Belief in human-caused climate change has surged among Florida Independents while ...

Mixed Public Opinion on Polygenic Embryo Screening for IVF

May 14, 2024 — Survey reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults support using emerging technology to screen embryos during IVF for risk of developing certain health conditions or traits that arise from more than ...

'Digital Afterlife': Call for Safeguards to Prevent Unwanted 'Hauntings' by AI Chatbots of Dead Loved Ones

May 8, 2024 — Researchers lay out the need for design safety protocols that prevent the emerging 'digital afterlife industry' causing social and psychological ...

Liberals and Conservatives Differ on Climate Change Beliefs -- But Are Relatively United in Taking Action

May 9, 2024 — The division between liberals and conservatives on both climate-change beliefs and related policy support is long-standing. However, the results of a ...

Should Your Exercise Goals Be in Minutes or Steps? Study Suggests They Are Equally Beneficial

May 20, 2024 — A new study suggests that both step and time-based exercise targets are equally useful in protecting against early death and cardiovascular ...

Under Stress, an Observer Is More Likely to Help the Victim Than to Punish the Perpetrator

May 16, 2024 — Being stressed while witnessing injustice may push your brain towards altruism, according to a new ...

Childhood Maltreatment Responsible for Up to 40 Percent of Mental Health Conditions

May 8, 2024 — A study has found the widespread impact of child abuse and neglect, with analysis suggesting they cause nearly half of common mental conditions. Researchers say childhood maltreatment should be ...

Acceptance of Animals in Urban Environments

May 8, 2024 — How do city residents feel about animals in their immediate surroundings? A recent study shows how different the acceptance of various wild animals in urban areas is. Important factors are the places ...

Contract Treatment Reduces Recidivism and Substance-Related Adverse Health Events

May 6, 2024 — Substance use disorder treatment in the community is a superior alternative to incarceration for offenders with a substance misuse background, according to a recent study evaluating the effectiveness ...

Companies May Buy Consumer Genetic Information Despite Its Modest Predictive Power

May 2, 2024 — Genetics can be associated with one's behavior and health -- from the willingness to take risks, and how long one stays in school, to chances of developing Alzheimer's disease and breast ...

Social Programs Save Millions of Lives, Especially in Times of Crisis

Apr. 22, 2024 — Primary health care, conditional cash transfers and social pensions have prevented 1.4 million deaths of all ages in Brazil over the past two decades, according to a new study. If expanded, these ...

School Suspensions and Exclusions Put Vulnerable Children at Risk

Apr. 15, 2024 — Managing problematic student behavior is one of the most persistent, challenging, and controversial issues facing schools today. Yet despite best intentions to build a more inclusive and ...

Economist: Tens of Billions of Dollars in Forest Products Are Being Overlooked

Apr. 11, 2024 — Are we missing the forest for the trees? More than timber grows in forests -- including products worth many tens of billions of dollars. Because these goods go unrecorded in official trade ...

Hybrid Intelligence Can Reconcile Biodiversity and Agriculture

Apr. 11, 2024 — So far, biodiversity and agricultural productivity could not be reconciled because the socio-ecological system of agriculture is highly complex, and the interactions between humans and the ...

Are Lab-Grown Brain Tissues Ethical? There Is No No-Brainer Answer

Apr. 8, 2024 — Researchers offer insights into the ethical dilemmas and legal complexities surrounding brain organoids, especially those derived from human fetal tissue. Their findings advocate for thorough ...

Life Expectancy Increased as World Addressed Major Killers Including Diarrhea, Lower Respiratory Infections, and Stroke

Apr. 3, 2024 — Global life expectancy increased by 6.2 years since 1990, according to a new study. Over the past three decades, reductions in death from leading killers fueled this progress, including diarrhea and ...

Talking Politics With Strangers Isn't as Awful as You'd Expect, Research Suggests

Apr. 3, 2024 — Individuals underestimate the social connection they can make with a stranger who disagrees with them on contentious issues, a new research paper ...

Gloom and Doom Warnings About Climate Change Do Not Work

Apr. 2, 2024 — How do you spread a message about climate change? According to an international study involving 59,000 participants, some tactics may actually reduce ...

Troubling Trends in Midlife Mortality in the US and UK

Mar. 25, 2024 — A new study reveals that US working-age adults are dying at higher rates than their peers in high-income countries; the UK is also falling ...

AI Ethics Are Ignoring Children, Say Researchers

Mar. 21, 2024 — Researchers have called for a more considered approach when embedding ethical principles in the development and governance of AI for ...

Low Social Status Increases Risk of Health Problems from Alcohol Problems

Mar. 20, 2024 — Men and women with lower income or education levels are more likely to develop medical conditions related to alcohol abuse compared to similar individuals with a higher socioeconomic status, ...

New Study Reveals Unintended Ethical Faultline in Team-Based Reward Systems

Mar. 14, 2024 — Employers who have introduced team-based rewards systems to foster creativity, collaboration, productivity and sales may want to look again at a system that new research shows can create an ...

Good News: The US Maternal Death Rate Is Stable, Not Sky Rocketing, as Reported

Mar. 13, 2024 — A new study challenges the prevailing view on the maternal death rate in the United States. The findings show that the rates of maternal death were stable between 1999-2002 and 2018-2021, instead of ...

New Study Shows How AI Can Help Us Better Understand Global Threats to Wildlife

Mar. 13, 2024 — Researchers used AI to scour information from websites and social media to map bat hunting and trade. Research found evidence of bat exploitation in 22 countries that had not previously been ...