Summary: A deep psychological need to feel significant drives much of human behavior, and can also lead people toward conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. Drawing from decades of research and real-world examples, experts explain how feelings of insignificance, especially in uncertain times, make people more susceptible to narratives that promise...
Summary: A large-scale study has found that having metabolic syndrome in midlife—marked by excess belly fat, high blood pressure, and abnormal cholesterol or blood sugar—is associated with a significantly higher risk of developing young-onset dementia before age 65. The analysis, based on nearly two million people, showed that the more...
Summary: A comprehensive analysis of all known U.S. school shootings reveals that most shooters grew up in social environments where guns were a central part of family bonding and identity. These cultural meanings of affection, fun, and belonging made firearms easily accessible to the shooters—often without barriers at home.In many...
Summary: Researchers have developed a tau-targeting vaccine that could help prevent the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by generating a strong immune response against abnormal tau proteins. The vaccine showed effectiveness in mice and non-human primates, prompting researchers to pursue human clinical trials.It targets a specific region of the tau protein,...
Summary: A new study reveals that maternal childhood trauma—such as neglect or abuse—can trigger rapid weight gain in male infants as early as the first two months of life. Researchers found that boys born to mothers who experienced early-life adversity gained significantly more weight per day than average, despite being...
Summary: A new study reveals that immune resilience, a person’s ability to maintain a robust, youthful immune system, plays a critical role in promoting long-term health and extending life. By analyzing data from over 17,000 individuals, researchers found that immune resilience, particularly involving the TCF7 gene, protects against chronic inflammation,...
Summary: A new study shows that brain connectivity patterns, especially in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, can help predict how patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) will respond to antidepressants. By combining brain imaging with clinical data, researchers developed machine learning models that accurately predicted treatment outcomes across two large...
Summary: A new study finds that people are more concerned about the immediate risks of artificial intelligence, like job loss, bias, and disinformation, than they are about hypothetical future threats to humanity. Researchers exposed over 10,000 participants to different AI narratives and found that, while future catastrophes raise concern, real-world...
Summary: Infants as young as 15 months can use language context to infer the meaning of words referring to objects they’ve never seen. Researchers found that when 15-month-olds heard a new word in a familiar context—like “kumquat” during a conversation about fruit—they later identified the unseen object correctly.This ability to...
Summary: Scientists have created a technology called Oz that stimulates individual photoreceptor cells in the human eye to create an entirely new, ultra-saturated color never seen in nature—dubbed olo. Using microdoses of laser light, Oz activates specific combinations of cone cells to generate this vivid blue-green hue, which vanishes the...
