A decapitated banana plant is almost useless, an inconvenience to the farmer who must then uproot it and lay its dismembered parts as mulch. But can such stems somehow be returned to life? Yes, according to a Ugandan company that’s buying banana stems in a business that turns fiber into attractive handicrafts. The idea is...
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How to Protect Self-Esteem When a Career Goal Dies
Many people fail at achieving their early career dreams. But a new study suggests that those failures don’t have to harm your self-esteem if you think about them in the right way. Researchers found that people who viewed career goal failures as a steppingstone to new opportunities never lost self-esteem, no matter how many times...
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Don’t Feel Appreciated by Your Partner? Relationship Interventions Can Help
When we’re married or in a long-term romantic relationship, we may eventually come to take each other for granted and forget to show appreciation. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds that it doesn’t have to stay this way. The study examined why perceived gratitude from a spouse or romantic partner changes over time,...
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Study Looks at Attitudes Towards Political Violence
A small segment of the U.S. population considers violence, including lethal violence, to be usually or always justified to advance political objectives. This is according to newly published research from the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP). The study provides a complex portrait of the attitudes and concerns about the state of democracy in...
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Study Introduces New Internet Addiction Spectrum: Where Are You on the Scale?
Young people (24 years and younger) spend an average of six hours a day online, primarily using their smartphones, according to research from the University of Surrey. Older people (those 24 years and older) spend 4.6 hours online. Surrey’s study, which involved 796 participants, introduces a new internet addiction spectrum, categorising internet users into five...
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Discrimination Alters Brain-Gut ‘Crosstalk,’ Prompting Poor Food Choices and Increased Health Risks
People frequently exposed to racial or ethnic discrimination may be more susceptible to obesity and related health risks in part because of a stress response that changes biological processes and how we process food cues. These are findings from UCLA researchers conducting what is believed to be the first study directly examining effects of discrimination...
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Your Zoom Background Might Influence the First Impression You Make
In a new study, participants tended to judge faces appearing against backgrounds featuring houseplants or bookcases as more trustworthy and competent than faces with a living space or a novelty image behind them. Gender and facial expression also appeared to influence judgments. Research led by Paddy Ross, Abi Cook and Meg Thompson at Durham University,...
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Inspired by Llamas, the Desert and Mother Earth, These Craftswomen Weave Sacred Textiles
In northern Chile, Teófila Challapa learned to weave surrounded by the hills and sandy roads of the Atacama Desert. “Spin the threads, girl,” her grandmother told her a half a century ago. Aymara women like Challapa, now 59, become acquainted with wool threads under blue skies and air so thin that outsiders struggle to breathe....
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As Shipping Costs Rise, Galleries Get Creative
‘Shipping has become a nightmare,’ says Mihai Nicodim, owner of Nicodim Gallery (Los Angeles and New York City). ‘It almost doubled. When the pandemic hit, we were getting quotes that quadrupled overnight.’ Talk to any dealer right now about shipping costs and you are likely to get the same reaction. Dealers responding to a survey for the Art...
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Elevated Temperatures and Climate Change May Contribute to Rising Drug and Alcohol Disorders
Hospital visits from alcohol- and substance-related disorders are driven by elevated temperatures and could be further affected by rising temperatures due to climate change, according to new research by environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The study, which is published in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Medicine, is likely the first comprehensive investigation of...
