Weird World: Science & Society

June 8, 2025

Top Headlines

Five Things to Do in Virtual Reality -- And Five to Avoid

May 28, 2025 — A review of experimental research reveals how VR is best used and why it's struggled to become a megahit with ...

Nearly Five Million Seized Seahorses Just 'Tip of the Iceberg' in Global Wildlife Smuggling

May 28, 2025 — Close to five million smuggled seahorses worth an estimated CAD$29 million were seized by authorities over a 10-year span, according to a new study that warns the scale of the trade is far larger ...

Emotional Responses Crucial to Attitudes About Self-Driving Cars

May 27, 2025 — When it comes to public attitudes toward using self-driving cars, understanding how the vehicles work is important -- but so are less obvious characteristics like feelings of excitement or pleasure and a belief in technology's social ...

Is AI Truly Creative? Turns out Creativity Is in the Eye of the Beholder

May 8, 2025 — What makes people think an AI system is creative? New research shows that it depends on how much they see of the creative act. The findings have implications for how we research and design creative AI systems, and they also raise fundamental ...

Is Virtual-Only Couture the New Clothing Craze?

May 7, 2025 — As fast fashion continues to fill wardrobes and landfills at a staggering pace, new research suggests that the future of fashion might lie not in fabric, but in ...

Space Junk Falling to Earth Needs to Be Tracked: Meteoroid Sounds Can Help

May 2, 2025 — Space junk and meteoroids are falling to Earth every year, posing a growing risk as they re-enter the atmosphere at high speeds. Researchers are using infrasound sensors to track these objects, including bolides, which are meteoroids breaking apart ...

Advancing AI for Diverse Applications in Manufacturing, Business and Education

Apr. 28, 2025 — Large language models (LLMs) are at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) and have been widely used for conversational interactions. However, assessing the personality of a given LLM remains ...

New Research Reveals How Physiology-Inspired Networks Could Improve Political Decision-Making

May 1, 2025 — A new study has unveiled a groundbreaking framework for rethinking political decision-making -- drawing inspiration from how the human body maintains stability and ...

Good Karma for Me, Bad Karma for You

May 1, 2025 — Many people around the world believe in karma -- that idea that divine justice will punish people who do bad deeds and reward those who good. But that belief plays out differently for oneself versus others, according to new ...

Making AI-Generated Code More Accurate in Any Language

Apr. 24, 2025 — Researchers developed a more efficient way to control the outputs of a large language model, guiding it to generate text that adheres to a certain structure, like a programming language, and remains error ...

Skeletal Evidence of Roman Gladiator Bitten by Lion in Combat

Apr. 23, 2025 — Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a ...

Current AI Risks More Alarming Than Apocalyptic Future Scenarios

Apr. 23, 2025 — Most people generally are more concerned about the immediate risks of artificial intelligence than they are about a theoretical future in which AI threatens humanity. A new study reveals that respondents draw clear distinctions between abstract ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:14am EDT

What If Mother Earth Could Sue for Mistreatment?

Apr. 21, 2025 — The study highlights the transformative potential of the Rights of Nature, which views nature as a rights-bearing entity, not merely an object of regulation and subjugation by extractive industries. ...

In Guatemala, Painted Altar Found at Tikal Adds New Context to Mysterious Maya History

Apr. 8, 2025 — Just steps from the center of Tikal, a 2,400-year-old Maya city in the heart of modern-day Guatemala, a global team of researchers has unearthed a ...

Chatbot Opens Computational Chemistry to Nonexperts

Apr. 7, 2025 — A web platform uses a chatbot to enable any chemist -- including undergraduate chemistry majors -- to configure and execute complex quantum mechanical simulations through ...

Revolutionizing Touch: Researchers Explore the Future of Wearable Multi-Sensory Haptic Technology

Mar. 25, 2025 — From virtual reality to rehabilitation and communication, haptic technology has revolutionized the way humans interact with the digital world. While ...

Geometric Design of Material Provides Safer Bicycle Helmet

Mar. 25, 2025 — By using geometric shapes in the shock-absorbing material, researchers have developed a bicycle helmet that provides better protection against head injuries. The material absorbs shock by contracting ...

Artificial Intelligence Uses Less Energy by Mimicking the Human Brain

Mar. 26, 2025 — Electrical and computer engineers have developed a 'Super-Turing AI,' which operates more like the human brain. This new AI integrates certain processes instead of separating them and then migrating ...

Philosophy: Cultural Differences in Exploitation of Artificial Agents

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new study shows that people in Japan treat robots and AI agents more respectfully than people in Western ...

Feline Therapy: Study Suggests Cats Could Fill an Assistive Niche

Mar. 18, 2025 — For years, therapy dogs have ruled the world of animal-assisted services (AAS), offering stress relief to college students, hospital patients, and those in need of emotional support. But research ...

Security Veins: Advanced Biometric Authentication Through AI and Infrared

Mar. 7, 2025 — A researcher succeeded developing highly accurate biometric authentication based on images of the palms of hands taken with a hyperspectral ...

Researchers Outline New Approach for Better Understanding Animal Consciousness

Feb. 20, 2025 — A team of researchers has outlined a new approach for better understanding the depths of animal consciousness, a method that may yield new insights ...

Man's Best Friend May Be Nature's Worst Enemy, Study on Pet Dogs Suggests

Apr. 10, 2025 — New research into the overlooked environmental impact of pet dogs has found far-reaching negative effects on wildlife, ecosystems and ...

Scientists Uncover Principles Underlying the Toxicity of 'Selfish' Genes

Mar. 18, 2025 — Lurking within the genomes of nearly all species--including plants, fungi, and even humans--are genes that are passed from generation to generation with no clear benefit to the organism. Called ...

Sometimes, When Competitors Collaborate, Everybody Wins

Feb. 27, 2025 — A framework helps rail system operators or other planners identify the best joint infrastructure projects to collaborate on with other firms. Their tool can tell an operator how much to invest, the ...

Adults Can Learn Absolute Pitch: New Research Challenges Long-Held Musical Belief

Feb. 12, 2025 — It's been a long-held belief that absolute pitch -- the ability to identify musical notes without reference -- is a rare gift reserved for a select few with special genetic gifts or those who ...

Is the Metaverse a New Frontier for Human-Centric Manufacturing?

Feb. 11, 2025 — The future of manufacturing is not just about machines and AI; it's about re-empowering humans, according to a new ...

Study Takes a 'Bite' out of Shark Depredation Using Citizen Science

Feb. 11, 2025 — Shark depredation is a rising issue in recreational fishing, especially in Florida, where sharks steal fish straight off anglers' lines. Researchers harnessed citizen science -- social media, ...

Tigers in the Neighborhood: How India Makes Room for Both Tigers and People

Jan. 31, 2025 — In India, tigers haven't just survived they're making a comeback. Despite a growing population and increasing pressure on their habitats, the number of wild tigers is rising. The reason? ...

Sound Is a Primary Issue in the Lives of Skateboarders, Study Shows

Jan. 31, 2025 — Sound plays a significant and often poignant part of skateboarders' relationship with their sport, a new study ...

Freshwater Alga Could Be the Next Superfood That Feeds the World

Jan. 30, 2025 — A green alga that grows in lakes and rivers could be the next 'superfood' -- helping scientists to tackle global food security challenges while promoting environmental ...

Working Dogs Take a Day to Adjust to Daylight Savings Time, but Pets Are More Flexible

Jan. 29, 2025 — Working dogs take a day to adjust to the change in routine caused by Daylight Savings Time, whereas pet dogs and their owners seem to be unaffected, according to a new ...

Sharp Look Into Ockham's Razor

Jan. 28, 2025 — A new article argues that by relying too much on parsimony in modeling, scientists make mistakes and miss ...

A New Experimental System to Bring Quantum Technologies Closer to Students

Jan. 27, 2025 — The world of quantum physics is experiencing a second revolution, which will drive an exponential leap in the progress of computing, the internet, telecommunications, cybersecurity and biomedicine. ...

Imagining the Physics of George R.R. Martin's Fictional Universe

Jan. 23, 2025 — Researchers have derived a formula for viral behavior in the Wild Cards, a science fiction series written by a collection of authors about an alien virus called the Wild Card that mutates human DNA. ...

Why Are Most Companies Failing to Benefit from AI? It's About the People Not the Tech

Jan. 22, 2025 — Successful uptake of new technology is a matter of emotions -- and with 4 in 5 companies saying they're failing to capitalize on its potential, managers need to know how to deal with them, say ...

Building Sentence Structure May Be Language-Specific

Jan. 21, 2025 — Do speakers of different languages build sentence structure in the same way? In a neuroimaging study, scientists recorded the brain activity of participants listening to Dutch stories. In contrast to ...

Ancient Genomes Reveal an Iron Age Society Centred on Women

Jan. 15, 2025 — A groundbreaking study finds evidence that land was inherited through the female line in Iron Age Britain, with husbands moving to live with their wife's community. This is believed to be the ...

Atop the Oregon Cascades, Team Finds a Huge Buried Aquifer

Jan. 13, 2025 — Scientists have mapped the amount of water stored beneath volcanic rocks at the crest of the central Oregon Cascades and found an aquifer many times larger than previously estimated -- at least 81 ...

Rethinking Population Management in Zoos

Jan. 8, 2025 — Until now, contraception has been the method of choice for zoos to avoid surplus animals. Researchers are now calling for a paradigm shift: zoos could preserve their breeding populations, raise ...

Lost Score Revives Sound of Music and Voices from Centuries Past

Dec. 18, 2024 — A fragment of 'lost' music found in the pages of Scotland's first full-length printed book is providing clues to what music sounded like five centuries ago. Scholars have been ...

World Cup Soccer Is Getting Faster for Men and Women Alike

Dec. 17, 2024 — If the experience of watching a FIFA World Cup soccer final is intense, spare a thought for the players, who are competing at an ever increasing intensity, according to a new ...