Recent U.S. elections have raised the question of whether “microtargeting,” the use of extensive online data to tailor persuasive messages to voters, has altered the playing field of politics. Now, a newly-published study led by MIT scholars finds that while targeting is effective in some political contexts, the “micro” part of things may not be the game-changing...
The distant ancestors of modern horses had hooved toes instead of a single hoof, which vanished over time, according to researchers. The animals, such as the Eocene Hyracotherium, had feet like those of a modern tapir: four toes in front and three behind, each individually hooved with an underlying foot pad. In contrast, modern equids such as...
The recent merger between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi-funded LIV Golf – now being reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice over antitrust concerns – stunned the golf community. A year ago, the idea that Saudi Arabia – an absolute monarchy with few golf courses, scant public interest in the sport and...
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday met with a group of leaders of African countries who traveled to Russia on a self-styled “peace mission” the day after they went to Ukraine, but the meeting ended with no visible progress. The seven African leaders — the presidents of Comoros, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, as well...
Meat processing plants in the U.S. have garnered considerable public attention in recent years, often focusing on production and labor issues. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the vulnerability of large, concentrated plants, as major shutdowns led to reduced output and higher meat prices for consumers. Policy makers have launched initiatives at the state and federal levels...
Quitting alcohol or drugs was not a top priority for people experiencing homelessness in a harm reduction treatment study, yet participants still reduced their use of both. A different approach than traditional abstinence-based programs, harm reduction treatment for alcohol use disorder, also called HaRT-A, has patients set their own goals. In a study of 308...
Artificial intelligence has been used to extract John Lennon’s voice from an old demo to create “the last Beatles record,” Paul McCartney said Tuesday. McCartney, 80, told the BBC that the technology was used to separate the Beatles’ voices from background sounds during the making of director Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary series, “The Beatles: Get...
Under the plaintive painted eyes of the holy, a volunteer team of two United Nations-backed engineers watched as a whirling laser took a million measurements a second inside Kyiv’s All Saints Church. The laser swept quickly across the church, part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, while taking a series of incredibly high-resolution photographs. Those images will be...
New research has revealed there is a gap between how people imagine they’d act if sexually harassed and how those who experience it respond. The study by the University of Exeter, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and published in Psychology of Women Quarterly, discovered that seeking justice by coming forward is just one...
Although the prehistoric site of Eynan-Mallaha in northern Israel has been thoroughly examined since 1955, it still holds some surprises for scientists. Seven prehistoric wind instruments known as flutes, recently identified by a Franco-Israeli team, are the subject of an article published on 9 June in Nature Scientific Reports. The discovery of these 12,000 -year-old aerophones...
