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Study: Countering hate on social media

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The rise of online hate speech is a disturbing, growing trend in countries around the world, with serious psychological consequences and the potential to impact, and even contribute to, real-world violence.

Citizen-generated counter speech may help discourage hateful online rhetoric, but it has been difficult to quantify and study. Until recently, studies have been limited to small-scale, hand-labeled endeavors.

A new paper published in the proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) offers a framework for studying the dynamics of online hate and counter speech. [Read more…] about Study: Countering hate on social media

Aurora-chasing citizen scientists help discover a new feature of aurora

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In 2018, a new aurora-like discovery struck the world. From 2015 to 2016, citizen scientists reported 30 instances of a purple ribbon in the sky, with a green picket fence structure underneath.

Now named STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, this phenomenon is still new to scientists, who are working to understand all its details.

What they do know is that STEVE is not a normal aurora – some think maybe it’s not an aurora at all – and a new finding about the formation of streaks within the structure brings scientists one step closer to solving the mystery. [Read more…] about Aurora-chasing citizen scientists help discover a new feature of aurora

Building your professional brand in a prestigious job

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Researchers from HEC Montreal and York University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how people who attain “prestigious” posts in high-profile organizations can manage their professional brands to promote career mobility.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Working It: Managing Professional Brands in Prestigious Posts” and is authored by Marie-Agnès Parmentier and Eileen Fischer.

Job insecurity is pervasive. There are no guarantees of continued employment, even for those who are extremely successful in their field. This research addresses two primary questions:

  1. for individuals managing their professional brands, what tensions are triggered while working in a prestigious post? and
  2. what practices are conducive to mitigating these tensions and enhancing professional brand equity in a way that promotes career mobility?

[Read more…] about Building your professional brand in a prestigious job

Has the hidden matter of the universe been discovered?

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Astrophysicists consider that around 40 percent of the ordinary matter that makes up stars, planets and galaxies remains undetected, concealed in the form of a hot gas in the complexe cosmic web.

Scientists at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) may have detected, for the first time, this hidden matter through an innovative statistical analysis of 20-year-old data. Their findings are published on November 6, 2020 in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Galaxies are distributed throughout the Universe in the form of a complex network of nodes connected by filaments, which are in turn separated by voids. This is known as the cosmic web. [Read more…] about Has the hidden matter of the universe been discovered?

The long and complex history of cereal cuisine in ancient China

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Changing cuisines in ancient China were driven by multiple environmental and cultural practices over thousands of years, according to a study published November 4, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Xinyi Liu of Washington University in St. Louis and Rachel E. B. Reid of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Virginia.

Cereal grains – including wheat, rice, barley, millet and more – are the most important food sources in the world today. But understanding how these foods originated and spread across the world requires a global effort.

In this study, Liu and Reid focus on the ancient history of staple cereals across China, a country well-known for its diverse food products and early adoption of many domesticated plants. [Read more…] about The long and complex history of cereal cuisine in ancient China

Early big-game hunters of the americas were female, researchers suggest

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For centuries, historians and scientists mostly agreed that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered.

However, a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America reveals a different story, according to new research conducted at the University of California, Davis.

“An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held ‘man-the-hunter’ hypothesis,” said Randy Haas, assistant professor of anthropology and the lead author of the study, “Female Hunters of the Early Americas.” It was published today (Nov. 4) in Science Advances. [Read more…] about Early big-game hunters of the americas were female, researchers suggest

Population dynamics and the rise of empires in Inner Asia

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From the late Bronze Age until the Middle Ages, the eastern Eurasian Steppe was home to a series of organized and highly influential nomadic empires.

The Xiongnu (209 BCE – 98 CE) and Mongol (916-1125 CE) empires that bookend this period had especially large impacts on the demographics and geopolitics of Eurasia, but due to a lack of large-scale genetic studies, the origins, interactions, and relationships of the people who formed these states remains largely unknown.

To understand the population dynamics that gave rise to the Steppe’s historic empires, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), the National University of Mongolia, and partner institutions in Mongolia, Russia, Korea and the United States generated and analyzed genome-wide data for 214 individuals from 85 Mongolian and 3 Russian sites. [Read more…] about Population dynamics and the rise of empires in Inner Asia

Fossil footprints tell story of prehistoric parent’s journey

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Hungry giant predators, treacherous mud and a tired, probably cranky toddler – more than 10,000 years ago, that was the stuff of every parent’s nightmare.

Evidence of that type of frightening trek was recently uncovered, and at nearly a mile it is the longest known trackway of early-human footprints ever found.

The discovery shows the archaeological findings of footprint tracks at White Sands National Park in New Mexico. The tracks run for 1.5 kilometers (.93 miles) and show a single set of footprints that are joined, at point, by the footprints of a toddler. [Read more…] about Fossil footprints tell story of prehistoric parent’s journey

Catholic gynecologists can face moral dilemmas in issues of family planning

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A study of Catholic obstetrician-gynecologists shows that many face moral dilemmas when dealing with issues of family planning and abortion due to their religious faith, according researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The study, published this week in JAMA Network Open, revealed that some Catholic Ob/Gyn practitioners lean toward natural methods of birth control and do not perform abortions due to their faith, while others believe providing a full range of services to those in need is intrinsic to their religious teachings.

“The primary outcome was understanding how participants describe integration of Catholic values with family planning service provision,” the study said. [Read more…] about Catholic gynecologists can face moral dilemmas in issues of family planning

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    Why some friends make you feel more supported than othersIt's good to have friends and family to back you up when you need it – but it's even better if your supporters are close with each other too, a new set of studies suggests. Researchers found that people perceived they had more support from a group of friends or…
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When good governments go bad

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All good things must come to an end. Whether societies are ruled by ruthless dictators or more well-meaning representatives, they fall apart in time, with different degrees of severity.

In a new paper, anthropologists examined a broad, global sample of 30 pre-modern societies. They found that when “good” governments – ones that provided goods and services for their people and did not starkly concentrate wealth and power – fell apart, they broke down more intensely than collapsing despotic regimes.

The researchers found a common thread in the collapse of good governments: leaders who undermined and broke from upholding core societal principles, morals, and ideals. [Read more…] about When good governments go bad