Social Sciences

Groundbreaking modeling has revealed that as many as 220,000 Indigenous Australians died in a devastating 1789 smallpox outbreak that originated in Sydney, tracing its origins to the First Fleet. Soon after British ships arrived, smallpox […]

School cellphone bans might seem like a good way to improve learning for elementary school children, but new research published in Behavioral Sciences shows that simply owning a cellphone correlates with worse reading comprehension. Whether […]

Every ancient language that has ever been deciphered needed an anchor. Usually that’s a bilingual text, like the Rosetta Stone, or a known relative to compare it to. Linear A, the writing system of the […]

Researchers at the University of Bath and The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) suggest that the celebrated Dunning-Kruger effect, often taken to mean the least competent people are the most overconfident, may […]

In his 2023 bestseller, Determined, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky argued that the interaction of biology and environment leaves no room for free choice. Philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris puts the case more bluntly: “free will is […]

Young people are navigating their romantic and sexual lives in an increasingly complex world. Social media content, including content from misogynistic influencers, has contributed to rapidly changing norms around gender, sex and relationships.This post was […]

There are countless cultures and societies around the world, spanning thousands of years. One thing they all have in common is that death is a part of everybody’s life. Examining how different societies commemorate their […]

When an adult refuses to let an injustice pass—stands up to a bully or asserts their rights—we call it principle. When a 15-year-old retaliates to an insult thrown in a school corridor, risking detention, we […]

A Taiwan–led study of Mandarin-speaking learners shows that the sounds we hear and produce are deeply shaped by our prior language experience, offering new insights into how humans learn and use language.This post was originally […]

Dating has entered a new era in which finding a potential soulmate is increasingly shaped by the digital world and, often, by algorithms. On dating apps, the way people present themselves through their profiles can […]