In July, the website Snopes published a piece fact-checking a story posted on The Babylon Bee, a popular satirical news site with a conservative bent. Conservative columnist David French criticized Snopes for debunking what was, in his view, “obvious satire. Obvious.” A few days later, Fox News ran a segment featuring The Bee’s incredulous CEO....
One of the most powerful, searing renditions of the national anthem ever recorded, Jimi Hendrix’s iconic Woodstock anthem, almost never happened. In his memoir, Hendrix’s drummer, Mitch Mitchell, admitted that the band “hadn’t rehearsed … or planned to do ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock.” The festival was supposed to wrap up on Sunday night, but...
Feeling unhappy and cranky? The treatment: take a walk under some trees in the park. That may not be the exact prescription of your doctor, but a first-of-its-kind study shows that visitors to urban parks use happier words and express less negativity on Twitter than they did before their visit–and that their elevated mood lasts,...
An international team of researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has grown ‘miniature kidneys’ in the laboratory that could be used to better understand how kidney diseases develop in individual patients. The mini kidneys, known as kidney organoids, were grown outside the body from skin cells derived from a single patient who...
Researchers at Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University created decision models capable of predicting which patients might need more treatment for their depression than what their primary care provider can offer. The algorithms were specifically designed to provide information the clinician can act on and fit into existing clinical workflows. Depression is the most commonly occurring...
Public safety officers know that their profession could draw them into the line of fire at any moment, as it did recently for six officers wounded in a shooting standoff in Philadelphia. Yet, in an age when cellphone videos of police misconduct can go viral, the new social phenomenon of “cop shaming” is causing performance...
By analysing 138 experiments, researchers have mapped the potential of today’s plants and trees to store extra carbon by the end of the century. The results show trees and plants could remove six years of current emissions by 2100, but only if no further deforestation occurs. The study, led by Stanford University and the Autonomous...
Connected areas of high-quality forest running through oil palm plantations could help support increased levels of biodiversity, new research suggests. There is growing pressure to reduce the consumption of palm oil due to concerns over deforestation. However, the research team, led by the University of York, says promoting more sustainable palm oil is a better...
If you lose sleep over the number of likes on your Instagram account, you might want to think twice before posting that selfie. That’s the main takeaway from a new study in the Journal of Research in Personality by Washington State University psychologists. The scientists conducted a novel experiment with hundreds of actual Instagram users to determine...
First study to demonstrate relationship between green space and mental wellbeing at an individual level published Using data from 25,518 people, the researchers show that Londoners who live within 300m of green space have significantly better mental wellbeing Proximity to green space was more important than lifestyle factors such as employment, income, and general health....
