Two years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, inflation, money issues and the war in Ukraine have pushed U.S. stress to alarming levels, according to polls conducted for the American Psychological Association. A late-breaking poll, fielded March 1–3 by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA, revealed striking findings, with more...
People without jobs or with less secure housing have poorer outcomes when treated for depression with talking therapy or antidepressants, compared to more socially advantaged peers, finds a study led by UCL researchers. The authors of the new study published in JAMA Psychiatry say that addressing employment and housing needs may be helpful alongside depression treatments to...
As COVID-19 upended societal norms when it swept through the United States in 2020, a second pandemic — or “infodemic”— was also on the rise. An analysis of Twitter users by researchers at the University of California, Davis, and University of Texas, Austin, suggests that Republican-identifying individuals who believe their local government has positive intentions...
Multitudes of amateur chefs will soon enjoy perfect al dente pasta and cleaner kitchen walls, as new research shows how measurements with a ruler — not the mythologized throwing against the nearest vertical surface — may be the best way to confirm when pasta is fully cooked. In their presentation at the American Physical Society...
A team of communication experts calls for researchers and organizations to take a global view when assessing how to use social media for crisis communication efforts, particularly in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The call stems from a detailed assessment of almost 200 studies spanning 15 years, which found large swathes of the social media...
Legal documents, such as contracts or deeds, are notoriously difficult for nonlawyers to understand. A new study from MIT cognitive scientists has determined just why these documents are often so impenetrable. After analyzing thousands of legal contracts and comparing them to other types of texts, the researchers found that lawyers have a habit of frequently...
In 1923, lead was first added to gasoline to help keep car engines healthy. However, automotive health came at the great expense of our own well-being. A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today,...
Location, location, location—it’s the first rule of real estate. For a long time, it’s been widely assumed that being close to resources drives settlement patterns, with cities generally founded near water and fertile land for growing crops. But a new paper by a husband-and-wife archaeological team questions that idea, using the example of an ancient...
For the investigators, the human foot — burned, but with some fabric still attached — was the tipoff: Until recently, this squat, ruined house was a place where bodies were ripped apart and incinerated, where the remains of some of Mexico’s missing multitudes were obliterated. How many disappeared in this cartel “extermination site” on the...
Tapping into groundwater can help communities in Africa diversify their water supply and strengthen their drought defenses, according to a study led by The University of Texas at Austin. The research, which was published in Environmental Research Letters, tracked long term water storage gains and losses across Africa’s 13 major aquifers and found opportunities for sustainably withdrawing...
