(Spoiler alert if you haven’t watched the “Game of Thrones” season finale) If you think you know the farm animal most closely related to T-Rex, or the American president who inspired the creation of blue jelly beans — but aren’t entirely sure — you’re more likely to bone up on the chicken-dinosaur connection or Ronald...
President Donald Trump recently introduced immigration reforms that would prioritize education and employment qualifications over family connections in selecting immigrants and nominated immigration hard-liner Kris Kobach as “immigration czar.” The moves, like many by Trump, speak to those who feel threatened by what they perceive as a changing America. Those insecurities are unwarranted, however. With...
A new social robot that can be customized with handcrafted material, such as wood and wool, brings simplicity and fun to home robotics — and will soon be used to help teach math to fourth graders. Guy Hoffman, assistant professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, envisioned robots built...
The potential of women for leadership roles is being overlooked, while men benefit from the perception that they will grow into the role, new research from the University of Kent shows. Researchers at the University’s School of Psychology carried out two experimental studies that suggest that women have to demonstrate high performance in order to...
Almost everyone agrees that store-bought tomatoes don’t have much flavor. Now, scientists from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) may have spotlighted the solution in a paper just published in Nature Genetics. Molecular biologist James Giovannoni with the ARS Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research Laboratory and BTI bioinformatics scientist Zhangjun Fei,...
Street food vendors are ubiquitous in low- and middle-income countries. They offer up quick, cheap, and diverse food and drink, while also serving as sources of employment and socialization. Yet because the stalls block sidewalks and supposedly drag down real estate values, urbanization projects commonly try to ban or relocate them. Street vendors, however, are...
Visual blends, which join two objects in an unusual, eye-catching way, are an advanced graphic design technique used in advertising, marketing, and the media to draw attention to a specific message. These visual marriages are designed to precipitate an “aha!” moment in the viewer who grasps one idea from the union of two images. For...
Superheroes like Thor and Black Widow may have what it takes to save the world in movies like Avengers: Endgame, but neither of their comic book depictions has a healthy body mass index (BMI). New research from Binghamton University and SUNY Oswego found that, within the pages of comic books, male superheroes are on average obese, while...
Hate crimes committed by groups are especially likely to result in injuries such as broken bones and missing teeth, according to a new study from Florida State University. Brendan Lantz, an assistant professor in the FSU College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, found that co-offending, or committing a crime with others, was significantly related to...
Everywhere you look, people are looking at screens. In the decade since smartphones have become ubiquitous, we now have a feeling almost as common as the smartphones themselves: being sucked into that black hole of staring at those specific apps — you know which ones they are — and then a half an hour has...
