ScienceDaily: Society - May 20, 2025
Top society research news
Stars or numbers? How rating formats change consumer behavior
Researchers found that consumers tend to overestimate fractional star ratings and underestimate fractional numerals. In either case, the ratings can be misleading, potentially causing a company to unknowingly overpromise and underdeliver -- or sell its own product short.
With evolutionary AI, scientists find hidden keys for better land use
A new AI decision making tool effectively balances various complex trade-offs to recommend ways of maximizing carbon storage, minimizing economic disruptions and helping improve the environment and people's everyday lives. It uses evolutionary AI, a kind of digital version of biological natural selection, to optimize policies in the face of competing priorities.
Study reveals healing the ozone hole helps the Southern Ocean take up carbon
New research suggests that the negative effects of the ozone hole on the carbon uptake of the Southern Ocean are reversible, but only if greenhouse gas emissions rapidly decrease. The study finds that as the ozone hole heals, its influence on the ocean carbon sink of the Southern Ocean will diminish, while the influence of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will rise.
Language a barrier in biodiversity work
A study has shown scientific knowledge on the conservation of endangered species is often overlooked when not presented in English.
School dinners may encourage picky teenagers to eat better, says new study
Having school dinners rather than packed lunches could encourage picky eating 13-year-olds to eat a wider variety of foods, according to a new study.
An international genomics study has revealed that early Asians undertook humanity's longest known prehistoric migration. These early humans, who roamed the earth over 100,000 years ago, are believed to have traveled more than 20,000 kilometers on foot from North Asia to the southernmost tip of South America. Scientists have mapped the unexpectedly vast genetic diversity of Asians, who make up more than half of the world's population. These findings overturn long-held assumptions of European genetic dominance and show that native South Americans are of Asian descent. The study also sheds light on how such a vast migration and differing environments have shaped human evolution, including how populations have adapted to diseases and how their immune systems have evolved.
Learning as an adventure: The lecture theater in the spaceship
In Project Chimera, a game lab combines a VR computer game with educational problems in order to convey scientific content in a motivating way.
Human activity reduces plant diversity hundreds of kilometers away
Natural ecosystems comprise groups of species capable of living in the specific conditions of a biological system. However, if we visit a specific natural area, we will not find all the species capable of living in it. The proportion of species that could live in a specific location but do not do so is known as dark diversity, a concept coined in 2011. Research has now discovered that this dark diversity increases in regions with greater human activity.
Should we protect non-native species? A new study says maybe
A new study found that over a quarter of the world's naturalized plant species are threatened in parts of their native range -- raising questions about the role non-native populations may play in global conservation efforts.
What behavioral strategies motivate environmental action?
A collaborative study tested 17 strategies in an 'intervention tournament.' Interventions targeting future thinking, such as writing a letter for a child to read in the future, are the most effective ways to motivate climate action.
Traditional methods of assessing damage after a disaster can take weeks or even months, delaying emergency response, insurance claims and long-term rebuilding efforts. New research might change that. Researchers have developed a new method that combines remote sensing, deep learning and restoration models to speed up building damage assessments and predict recovery times after a tornado. Once post-event images are available, the model can produce damage assessments and recovery forecasts in less than an hour.
How we think about protecting data
A new game-based experiment sheds light on the tradeoffs people are willing to make about data privacy.
The key to spotting dyslexia early could be AI-powered handwriting analysis
A new study outlines how artificial intelligence-powered handwriting analysis may serve as an early detection tool for dyslexia and dysgraphia among young children.
New study shows AI can predict child malnutrition, support prevention efforts
A multidisciplinary team of researchers has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can predict acute child malnutrition in Kenya up to six months in advance. The tool offers governments and humanitarian organizations critical lead time to deliver life-saving food, health care, and supplies to at-risk areas. The machine learning model outperforms traditional approaches by integrating clinical data from more than 17,000 Kenyan health facilities with satellite data on crop health and productivity. It achieves 89% accuracy when forecasting one month out and maintains 86% accuracy over six months -- a significant improvement over simpler baseline models that rely only on recent historical child malnutrition prevalence trends.
New global model shows how to bring environmental pressures back to 2015 levels by 2050
A new study finds that with bold and coordinated policy choices -- across emissions, diets, food waste, and water and nitrogen efficiency -- humanity could, by 2050, bring global environmental pressures back to levels seen in 2015. This shift would move us much closer to a future in which people around the world can live well within the Earth's limits.
Recognition from colleagues helps employees cope with bad work experiences
Being appreciated by colleagues can help employees cope with negative experiences at work, according to a new study. Researchers found that employees experience 'embitterment' -- an emotional response to perceived workplace injustice -- on days when they are assigned more unreasonable tasks than usual. This negative emotion not only affects their work but also spills over into their personal lives, leading to an increase in rumination, the repetitive dwelling on negative feelings and their causes. This can result in difficulty detaching from work, ultimately preventing recovery from job-related stress.