The high-profile disappearances of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa in England and Gabby Petito in the US have brought renewed attention to media bias in coverage of missing person cases. In 2019-2020, over 150,000 people were reported missing to police in England and Wales. Of those whose ethnicity was known, about 80% were white, and 14% were black. The rate of black...
In 2003, the Coca-Cola Foundation announced a $1 million donation to the American Association of Pediatric Dentistry, supposedly to “improve child dental health.” Shortly after receiving the gift, the children’s dental group changed its stance on sugary beverages, no longer calling them a “significant factor” in causing cavities, but instead saying the scientific evidence was...
The Covid-19 pandemic and its solution has only partially displaced other social and political concerns – and not persistently, despite the pandemic’s high and constant media presence. This is shown by an international team of researchers led by the economist Esther Blanco from the University of Innsbruck. The results were recently published in the journal...
Coffee, that savior of the underslept, comes with enormous environmental and social costs, from the loss of forest habitats as woodlands are converted to crops, to the economic precarity of small-scale farmers whose livelihoods depend on the whims of international markets. Now, thanks to a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant of $979,720, Timothy Randhir, University of...
Squid Game is anything but your typical, saccharine, soft-glow Korean television drama. In this biting commentary on life in South Korea today, viewers are presented with a twisting, technicolour story of violence, betrayal and desperation. All of this is set around a series of macabre games in which players literally fight to the death. Despite...
Women continue to be underrepresented in leadership roles, a dilemma a new study suggests could be helped by eliminating self-nomination from competitive selection processes. Instead of trying to affect change by encouraging women to “lean in” to climb the corporate ladder, or attempting to control for employer bias, the study says that redesigning the selection...
New research warns that the United States could experience a severe influenza outbreak after public health measures like face masks and social distancing are lifted. These measures have protected people from COVID-19 and influenza—incidence of influenza declined 60 percent during the first ten weeks following the implementation of the measures—but is also leading to greater...
New analysis of ancient writings suggests that sailors from the Italian hometown of Christopher Columbus knew of America 150 years before its renowned ‘discovery’. Transcribing and detailing a, circa, 1345 document by a Milanese friar, Galvaneus Flamma, Medieval Latin literature expert Professor Paolo Chiesa has made an “astonishing” discovery of an “exceptional” passage referring to...
One U.S. child loses a parent or caregiver for every four COVID-19 deaths, a new modeling study published today in Pediatrics reveals. The findings illustrate orphanhood as a hidden and ongoing secondary tragedy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizes that identifying and caring for these children throughout their development is a necessary and urgent part of...
The trailer for “The Many Saints of Newark” features the song “Money” by The Flying Lizards. One lyric poignantly captures the thematic heart of the prequel to the sprawling television series about mob boss Tony Soprano: “Money don’t get everything / It’s true / What it don’t get / I can’t use.” It also reflects...
