Latest Science and Society News

Gaze following provides insight into the evolution of leadership

In the background of evolution, gaze following is one of the oldest manifestations of leadership. Three-month-old babies, for example, already follow the eye movements of their parents. Psychologists at VU University Amsterdam have discovered that in times of danger people follow the eye movements of individuals with a masculine and dominant appearance. When people feel safe, however, they follow the eye movements of both men and women. The results were published yesterday in the scientific journal PLoS One.

 

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Urinary tract infections 29 times more likely in schizophrenia relapse

Schizophrenia patients experiencing relapse are 29 times more likely than healthy individuals to have a urinary tract infection, researchers report.

 

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Study finds men benefit more than women from authority on the job

Having more authority in the workplace comes with many rewards – including greater forms of job control and higher earnings – but University of Toronto research says those benefits are not evenly distributed for women and men.

 

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Unhealthy eating behaviors can make a bad mood worse

Taking part in unhealthy eating behaviors may cause women who are concerned about their diet and self-image to experience a worsening of their moods, according to Penn State researchers.

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Frustration May Increase Attraction to Violent Video Games

The temptation to steal or cheat is sometimes great — especially when the risk of being caught is low. A new study suggests that denying people the opportunity to engage in these taboo behaviors may lead them to seek out violent video games as a way of managing their frustration.

 

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How to predict the progress of technology

Researchers at MIT and the Santa Fe Institute have found that some widely used formulas for predicting how rapidly technology will advance — notably, Moore’s Law and Wright’s Law — offer superior approximations of the pace of technological progress. The new research is the first to directly compare the different approaches in a quantitative way, using an extensive database of past performance from many different industries.

 

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