Weird World: Science & Society

April 20, 2025

Top Headlines

In Guatemala, Painted Altar Found at Tikal Adds New Context to Mysterious Maya History

Apr. 8, 2025 — Just steps from the center of Tikal, a 2,400-year-old Maya city in the heart of modern-day Guatemala, a global team of researchers has unearthed a buried altar that could unlock the secrets of a ...

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 ...

Revolutionizing Touch: Researchers Explore the Future of Wearable Multi-Sensory Haptic Technology

Mar. 25, 2025 — From virtual reality to rehabilitation and communication, haptic technology has revolutionized the way humans interact with the digital world. While early haptic devices focused on single-sensory ...

Geometric Design of Material Provides Safer Bicycle Helmet

Mar. 25, 2025 — By using geometric shapes in the shock-absorbing material, researchers have developed a bicycle helmet that provides better protection against head injuries. The material absorbs shock by contracting ...

Latest Headlines

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Artificial Intelligence Uses Less Energy by Mimicking the Human Brain

Mar. 26, 2025 — Electrical and computer engineers have developed a 'Super-Turing AI,' which operates more like the human brain. This new AI integrates certain processes instead of separating them and then migrating ...

Philosophy: Cultural Differences in Exploitation of Artificial Agents

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new study shows that people in Japan treat robots and AI agents more respectfully than people in Western ...

Feline Therapy: Study Suggests Cats Could Fill an Assistive Niche

Mar. 18, 2025 — For years, therapy dogs have ruled the world of animal-assisted services (AAS), offering stress relief to college students, hospital patients, and those in need of emotional support. But research ...

Security Veins: Advanced Biometric Authentication Through AI and Infrared

Mar. 7, 2025 — A researcher succeeded developing highly accurate biometric authentication based on images of the palms of hands taken with a hyperspectral ...

Researchers Outline New Approach for Better Understanding Animal Consciousness

Feb. 20, 2025 — A team of researchers has outlined a new approach for better understanding the depths of animal consciousness, a method that may yield new insights ...

Adults Can Learn Absolute Pitch: New Research Challenges Long-Held Musical Belief

Feb. 12, 2025 — It's been a long-held belief that absolute pitch -- the ability to identify musical notes without reference -- is a rare gift reserved for a select ...

Is the Metaverse a New Frontier for Human-Centric Manufacturing?

Feb. 11, 2025 — The future of manufacturing is not just about machines and AI; it's about re-empowering humans, according to a new ...

Study Takes a 'Bite' out of Shark Depredation Using Citizen Science

Feb. 11, 2025 — Shark depredation is a rising issue in recreational fishing, especially in Florida, where sharks steal fish straight off anglers' lines. Researchers harnessed citizen science -- social media, angler ...

Tigers in the Neighborhood: How India Makes Room for Both Tigers and People

Jan. 31, 2025 — In India, tigers haven't just survived they're making a comeback. Despite a growing population and increasing pressure on their habitats, the number of wild tigers is rising. The reason? According to ...

Freshwater Alga Could Be the Next Superfood That Feeds the World

Jan. 30, 2025 — A green alga that grows in lakes and rivers could be the next 'superfood' -- helping scientists to tackle global food security challenges while promoting environmental ...

Man's Best Friend May Be Nature's Worst Enemy, Study on Pet Dogs Suggests

Apr. 10, 2025 — New research into the overlooked environmental impact of pet dogs has found far-reaching negative effects on wildlife, ecosystems and ...

Scientists Uncover Principles Underlying the Toxicity of 'Selfish' Genes

Mar. 18, 2025 — Lurking within the genomes of nearly all species--including plants, fungi, and even humans--are genes that are passed from generation to generation with no clear benefit to the organism. Called ...

Sometimes, When Competitors Collaborate, Everybody Wins

Feb. 27, 2025 — A framework helps rail system operators or other planners identify the best joint infrastructure projects to collaborate on with other firms. Their tool can tell an operator how much to invest, the ...

Sound Is a Primary Issue in the Lives of Skateboarders, Study Shows

Jan. 31, 2025 — Sound plays a significant and often poignant part of skateboarders' relationship with their sport, a new study ...

Working Dogs Take a Day to Adjust to Daylight Savings Time, but Pets Are More Flexible

Jan. 29, 2025 — Working dogs take a day to adjust to the change in routine caused by Daylight Savings Time, whereas pet dogs and their owners seem to be unaffected, according to a new ...

Sharp Look Into Ockham's Razor

Jan. 28, 2025 — A new article argues that by relying too much on parsimony in modeling, scientists make mistakes and miss ...

A New Experimental System to Bring Quantum Technologies Closer to Students

Jan. 27, 2025 — The world of quantum physics is experiencing a second revolution, which will drive an exponential leap in the progress of computing, the internet, telecommunications, cybersecurity and biomedicine. ...

Imagining the Physics of George R.R. Martin's Fictional Universe

Jan. 23, 2025 — Researchers have derived a formula for viral behavior in the Wild Cards, a science fiction series written by a collection of authors about an alien virus called the Wild Card that mutates human DNA. ...

Why Are Most Companies Failing to Benefit from AI? It's About the People Not the Tech

Jan. 22, 2025 — Successful uptake of new technology is a matter of emotions -- and with 4 in 5 companies saying they're failing to capitalize on its potential, managers need to know how to deal with them, say ...

Building Sentence Structure May Be Language-Specific

Jan. 21, 2025 — Do speakers of different languages build sentence structure in the same way? In a neuroimaging study, scientists recorded the brain activity of participants listening to Dutch stories. In contrast to ...

Ancient Genomes Reveal an Iron Age Society Centred on Women

Jan. 15, 2025 — A groundbreaking study finds evidence that land was inherited through the female line in Iron Age Britain, with husbands moving to live with their wife's community. This is believed to be the ...

Atop the Oregon Cascades, Team Finds a Huge Buried Aquifer

Jan. 13, 2025 — Scientists have mapped the amount of water stored beneath volcanic rocks at the crest of the central Oregon Cascades and found an aquifer many times larger than previously estimated -- at least 81 ...

Rethinking Population Management in Zoos

Jan. 8, 2025 — Until now, contraception has been the method of choice for zoos to avoid surplus animals. Researchers are now calling for a paradigm shift: zoos could preserve their breeding populations, raise ...

Lost Score Revives Sound of Music and Voices from Centuries Past

Dec. 18, 2024 — A fragment of 'lost' music found in the pages of Scotland's first full-length printed book is providing clues to what music sounded like five centuries ago. Scholars have been ...

World Cup Soccer Is Getting Faster for Men and Women Alike

Dec. 17, 2024 — If the experience of watching a FIFA World Cup soccer final is intense, spare a thought for the players, who are competing at an ever increasing intensity, according to a new ...

Judging Knots Throws People for a Loop

Dec. 9, 2024 — We tie our shoes, we put on neckties, we wrestle with power cords. Yet despite deep familiarity with knots, most people cannot tell a weak knot from a strong one by looking at them, research ...

Giving a Gift? Better Late Than Never, Study Finds

Dec. 9, 2024 — If you feel terrible about giving a late gift to a friend for Christmas or their birthday, this study has good news for you. Researchers found that recipients aren't nearly as upset about ...

Political Opinions Influence Our Choice of Chocolate

Nov. 25, 2024 — We distance ourselves from completely neutral products if they are liked by people who have political views that we find disagreeable. Even chocolate can be political, according to new research from ...

Smarter City Planning: Researchers Use Brain Activity to Predict Visits to Urban Areas

Nov. 21, 2024 — Researchers have measured the brain activity of people who had never been to a specific city and then use this brain activity to predict other people's actual visits to places around that city. ...

Northerners, Scots and Irish Excel at Detecting Fake Accents to Guard Against Outsiders, Study Suggests

Nov. 20, 2024 — People from Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and the north-east of England are better at detecting someone imitating their accent than people from London and Essex, new research has ...