The recently released film The Snow Society , by Spanish director JA Bayona, about the legendary plane crash of a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes in 1972 has been a smash hit in cinemas and streaming platforms around the world. And a very striking aspect of this story is the issue of cannibalism practiced by the survivors in...
Perspectives
Study Suggests Secret for Getting Teens to Listen to Unsolicited Advice
A new study may hold a secret for getting your teenager to listen to appreciate your unsolicited advice. The University of California, Riverside, study, which included “emerging adults” — those in their late teens and early 20s — found teens will appreciate parents’ unsolicited advice, but only if the parent is supportive of their teens’...
Back in the USSR: New High School Textbooks in Russia Whitewash Stalin’s Terror as Putin Wages War on Historical Memory
Hey, kids, meet Josef Stalin. New Russian high school textbooks – introduced in August 2023 on the instruction of President Vladimir Putin – attempt to whitewash Stalinist crimes and rehabilitate the Soviet Union’s legacy. While schools and teachers previously could pick educational materials from a variety of choices, these newly created textbooks are mandatory reading...
The (Wrong) Reason We Keep Secrets
In and out of the workplace, people often keep adverse information about themselves secret because they worry that others will judge them harshly. But those fears are overblown, according to new research from the McCombs School of Business. In fact, when study participants pushed through fear to reveal a secret, those in whom they confided...
Aging Societies More Vulnerable to Collapse
Societies and political structures, like the humans they serve, appear to become more fragile as they age, according to an analysis of hundreds of pre-modern societies. A new study, which holds implications for the modern world, provides the first quantitative support for the theory that the resilience of political states decreases over time. Triggers of...
Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year – Authentic – Reflects Growing Concerns Over AI’s Ability to Deceive and Dehumanize
When Merriam-Webster announced that its word of the year for 2023 was “authentic,” it did so with over a month to go in the calendar year. Even then, the dictionary publisher was late to the game. In a lexicographic form of Christmas creep, Collins English Dictionary announced its 2023 word of the year, “AI,” on...
What a Biannual Gathering of 1967 Impalas Reveals About the Blurry Line Between Fandom and Religion
Among the many spooky events happening over Halloween weekend was the biannual “Haunting of Impalas” at Family Business Brewing, a 15-acre brewery in Dripping Springs, Texas, owned by actor and musician Jensen Ackles. Along with Jared Padalecki, Ackles is the star of “Supernatural,” a television series that ran from 2005 to 2020. A weekly science-fiction...
Forget ‘Man the Hunter’ – Physiological and Archaeological Evidence Rewrites Assumptions About a Gendered Division of Labor in Prehistoric Times
Prehistoric men hunted; prehistoric women gathered. At least this is the standard narrative written by and about men to the exclusion of women. The idea of “Man the Hunter” runs deep within anthropology, convincing people that hunting made us human, only men did the hunting, and therefore evolutionary forces must only have acted upon men....
Having a Bad Boss Makes You a Worse Employee
Research underscores the hidden cost of abusive leadership, revealing that employees who prioritize career advancement suffer more than employees who prioritize job security If your boss stomps and yells, criticizes you, and then proceeds to take the credit for your work – even it is an isolated incident – it can take a profound toll...
Want to Prevent Misinformation? Present Data with an Interactive Visual.
Getting readers of a news story interested in numbers can be a challenge. But the benefits of engaging readers in data can lead to a better understanding, preventing misinformation and misrepresentation in the news. New research by Haiyan Jia, assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication and the Data X Initiative at Lehigh University,...