Popular Culture News

July 16, 2025

Top Headlines

Deadly Disguise: How Candy-Like Nicotine Pouches Caused a 763% Spike in Child Poisonings

July 14, 2025 — A massive spike in young children accidentally ingesting nicotine pouches has alarmed poison control researchers, with a 763% rise reported between 2020 and 2023. Unlike other nicotine products, ...

Multisensory VR Forest Reboots Your Brain and Lifts Mood—study Confirms

July 6, 2025 — Immersing stressed volunteers in a 360° virtual Douglas-fir forest complete with sights, sounds and scents boosted their mood, sharpened short-term memory and deepened their feeling of nature-connectedness—especially when all three senses were ...

Cluck Once, and the River Shakes: Inside the Amazon’s Giant Snake Saga

June 16, 2025 — A lifelong fascination with nature and fieldwork led this researcher to the world of ethnobiology a field where ecology, culture, and community come together. Investigating how local people relate to species like the anaconda, their work blends ...

Clean Energy, Dirty Secrets: Inside the Corruption Plaguing California’s Solar Market

June 11, 2025 — California s solar energy boom is often hailed as a green success story but a new study reveals a murkier reality beneath the sunlit panels. Researchers uncover seven distinct forms of corruption ...

How to Use AI to Listen to the 'Heartbeat' of a City

May 21, 2025 — AI-driven “sentiment maps” built from geotagged Instagram posts reveal how city dwellers actually feel in specific locations. By pairing emotional signals with Google Street View imagery, researchers at Mizzou can pinpoint which physical ...

Landmark Report Reveals Key Challenges Facing Adolescents

May 20, 2025 — Poor mental health, rising obesity rates, exposure to violence and climate change are among the key challenges facing our adolescents today, according to a global ...

What Behavioral Strategies Motivate Environmental Action?

May 15, 2025 — A collaborative study tested 17 strategies in an 'intervention tournament.' Interventions targeting future thinking, such as writing a letter for a child to read in the future, are the most effective ways to motivate climate ...

Is AI Truly Creative? Turns out Creativity Is in the Eye of the Beholder

May 12, 2025 — What makes people think an AI system is creative? New research shows that it depends on how much they see of the creative act. The findings have implications for how we research and design creative AI systems, and they also raise fundamental ...

Cannabis Study: Legalization Reduces Problematic Consumption, Particularly Among Certain Individuals

May 9, 2025 — Researchers are investigating how the legal supply of cannabis affects consumption and mental health among participants. In a first academic publication, the study team has now reported on the direct ...

Social Media Platform Tailoring Could Support More Fulfilling Use, Study Finds

May 8, 2025 — Redesigning social media to suit different needs of users could make their time online more focused, according to new ...

Is Virtual-Only Couture the New Clothing Craze?

May 7, 2025 — As fast fashion continues to fill wardrobes and landfills at a staggering pace, new research suggests that the future of fashion might lie not in fabric, but in ...

Spanking and Other Physical Discipline Lead to Exclusively Negative Outcomes for Children in Low And Middle-Income Countries

May 5, 2025 — Physically punishing children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has exclusively negative outcomes -- including poor health, lower academic performance, and impaired social-emotional ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:56pm EDT

Why Monkeys—and Humans—can’t Look Away from Social Conflict

July 9, 2025 — Long-tailed macaques given short videos were glued to scenes of fighting—especially when the combatants were monkeys they knew—mirroring the human draw to drama and familiar faces. Low-ranking ...

Are Lefties Really More Creative? 100 Years of Data Say No

July 1, 2025 — A sweeping review of more than a century’s research upends the popular notion that left-handers are naturally more creative. Cornell psychologist Daniel Casasanto’s team sifted nearly a thousand ...

This Team Tried to Cross 140 Miles of Treacherous Ocean Like Stone-Age Humans—and It Worked

June 26, 2025 — Experiments and simulations show Paleolithic paddlers could outwit the powerful Kuroshio Current by launching dugout canoes from northern Taiwan and ...

Scientists Reprogram Ant Behavior Using Brain Molecules

June 25, 2025 — Leafcutter ants live in highly organized colonies where every ant has a job, and now researchers can flip those jobs like a switch. By manipulating just two neuropeptides, scientists can turn ...

Good Karma for Me, Bad Karma for You

May 1, 2025 — Many people around the world believe in karma -- that idea that divine justice will punish people who do bad deeds and reward those who good. But that belief plays out differently for oneself versus ...

Study Suggests Dance and Lullabies Aren't Universal Human Behaviors

Apr. 30, 2025 — Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from an ...

Awkward. Humans Are Still Better Than AI at Reading the Room

Apr. 24, 2025 — Humans are better than current AI models at interpreting social interactions and understanding social dynamics in moving scenes. Researchers believe this is because AI neural networks were inspired ...

Skeletal Evidence of Roman Gladiator Bitten by Lion in Combat

Apr. 23, 2025 — Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a ...

Family Dynamics Shape Body Image Differently Across Cultures

Apr. 23, 2025 — Body appreciation differs between Middle-Eastern and Western societies, a new international study can reveal, highlighting how cultural and family influences shape body image and eating behaviors in ...

Coastal Management Model Plays the Long Game Against the Rising Tides

Apr. 21, 2025 — To protect against rising sea levels in a warming world, coastal cities typically follow a standard playbook with various protective infrastructure options. For example, a seawall could be designed ...

Stars or Numbers? How Rating Formats Change Consumer Behavior

May 19, 2025 — Researchers found that consumers tend to overestimate fractional star ratings and underestimate fractional numerals. In either case, the ratings can be misleading, potentially causing a company to ...

Viewing Art Can Boost Wellbeing by Giving Meaning to Life

Apr. 16, 2025 — The simple act of looking at a piece of visual art can boost your wellbeing, a new research study has found, and this benefit can be gained in a hospital setting as well as an art ...

Chatbot Opens Computational Chemistry to Nonexperts

Apr. 7, 2025 — A web platform uses a chatbot to enable any chemist -- including undergraduate chemistry majors -- to configure and execute complex quantum mechanical simulations through ...

Fear of Rejection Influences How Children Conform to Peers

Apr. 4, 2025 — The fear of rejection -- familiar to many children and adults -- can significantly impact how kids behave in their peer groups, according to new ...

Genes May Influence Our Enjoyment of Music

Apr. 1, 2025 — Does our ability to enjoy music have a biological basis? A genetic twin study shows that music enjoyment is partly heritable. Scientists uncovered genetic factors that influence the degree of music ...

Renting Clothes for Sustainable Fashion -- Niche Markets Work Best

Mar. 27, 2025 — Renting clothes can reduce the fashion industry's enormous environmental impact, but so far, the business models have not worked very well. The best chance of success is for a rental company to ...

Basketball Analytics Investment Is Key to NBA Wins and Other Successes

Mar. 25, 2025 — A study finds NBA teams that hired more analytics staff, and invested more in data analysis, tended to win more ...

E-Scooter Crashes Mainly Caused by Reckless Driving

Mar. 25, 2025 — Crashes on electric scooters are mostly due to the behavior of the riders, with one-handed steering and riding in a group being some of the largest risk factors. The researchers are also concerned ...

Household Electricity Three Times More Expensive Than Upcoming 'Eco-Friendly' Aviation E-Fuels, Study Reveals

Mar. 23, 2025 — Existing tax policies during the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources will lead to major energy injustices and skewed priorities, new research ...

How Family Background Can Help Lead to Athletic Success

Mar. 20, 2025 — Americans have long believed that sports are one area in society that offers kids from all backgrounds the chance to succeed to the best of their abilities. But new research suggests that this belief ...

Kansas, Missouri Farmers Avoid Discussing Climate Change Regardless of Opinions, Study Finds

Mar. 18, 2025 — Researchers conducted interviews with farmers in Missouri and Kansas about their thoughts on climate change. Even though they are on the front lines of the topic, the farmers reported they avoid ...

Social Media Can Help Track Species as Climate Changes

Mar. 13, 2025 — Social media can help scientists track animal species as they relocate in response to climate change, new research ...

Delhi Air Pollution Worse Than Expected as Water Vapor Skews Figures

Mar. 12, 2025 — New Delhi's air pollution is more severe than previously estimated with particles absorbing atmospheric water vapor leading to particulate matter levels across the city being underestimated by ...

New Research Reveals Psychological 'Booster Shots' Can Strengthen Resistance to Misinformation Over Time

Mar. 11, 2025 — A new study has found that targeted psychological interventions can significantly enhance long-term resistance to misinformation. Dubbed 'psychological booster shots,' these interventions ...

What's in a Label? It's Different for Boys Vs. Girls, New Study of Parents Finds

Mar. 10, 2025 — Research has shown that adults instinctively think of men when asked to think of a person -- they describe the most 'typical' person they can imagine as male and assume storybook characters ...

Lightening the Load of Augmented Reality Glasses

Mar. 6, 2025 — Despite the popularity of augmented reality, AR wearable technologies haven't gained traction due to the weight and bulk associated with batteries and electronic components, and the suboptimal ...

How 'Self-Silencing' Your Opinion May Change Behavior

Mar. 5, 2025 — People who have a minority viewpoint on a controversial topic are more likely to 'self-silence' themselves in conversation -- and that may lead them to behave against their own beliefs, a ...

Nearly 4 of 10 Americans Report Sports-Related Mistreatment

Mar. 4, 2025 — Nearly 40% of adult Americans say they've experienced some type of sport-related mistreatment in their lives, a new study shows. Mistreatment ranged from psychological and emotional to physical ...

How Many Languages Can You Learn at the Same Time? -- Ghanaian Babies Grow Up Speaking Two to Six Languages

Feb. 28, 2025 — Africa is a multilingual continent and many adults speak several languages fluently. An empirical study by a psycholinguist now shows that the roots of this multilingualism can be found in infancy: ...

Violence Alters Human Genes for Generations, Researchers Discover

Feb. 27, 2025 — First study of its kind reveals epigenetic signatures of violence passesd to ...