Media and Entertainment

Experiments and simulations show Paleolithic paddlers could outwit the powerful Kuroshio Current by launching dugout canoes from northern Taiwan and steering southeast toward Okinawa. A modern crew proved it, carving a Stone-Age-style canoe, then paddling 225 km in 45 hours guided only by celestial cues—demonstrating our ancestors’ daring and mastery of the sea.

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.

Redesigning social media to suit different needs of users could make their time online more focused, according to new research.

As fast fashion continues to fill wardrobes and landfills at a staggering pace, new research suggests that the future of fashion might lie not in fabric, but in pixels.

Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from an anthropologist challenges the idea that dance and lullabies are universal among humans. The study draws on 43 years of research with an Indigenous population in Paraguay.

Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a lion.

Does our ability to enjoy music have a biological basis? A genetic twin study shows that music enjoyment is partly heritable. Scientists uncovered genetic factors that influence the degree of music enjoyment, which were partly distinct from genes influencing general enjoyment of rewarding experiences or musical ability.

A study finds NBA teams that hired more analytics staff, and invested more in data analysis, tended to win more games.

Americans have long believed that sports are one area in society that offers kids from all backgrounds the chance to succeed to the best of their abilities. But new research suggests that this belief is largely a myth, and that success in high school and college athletics often is influenced by race and gender, as well as socioeconomic status, including family wealth and education.

People who have a minority viewpoint on a controversial topic are more likely to 'self-silence' themselves in conversation -- and that may lead them to behave against their own beliefs, a new study found.

Nearly 40% of adult Americans say they've experienced some type of sport-related mistreatment in their lives, a new study shows. Mistreatment ranged from psychological and emotional to physical and sexual. But most people who reported mistreatment experienced more than one kind, the research found.

A new study of more than 1400 adults who gamble and play online video games has found loot box buying is associated with real-world gambling, video gaming addiction, and other mental health issues. The international research brings new insights into the loot box phenomenon -- the virtual items offered in video games to give players random rewards including weapons, cosmetics or 'skins.'

How do you tell if someone has a particular accent? It might seem obvious: You hear someone pronounce words in a way that is different from 'normal' and connect it to other people from a specific place. But a new study suggests that might not be the case.

A research group has analyzed the digital ecosystem of 11- to 12-year-old children across the Basque Autonomous Community, and concluded that two out of three own a smartphone. They use smartphones mainly to talk to family and friends. The researchers also point out that, at that age, access to social media mainly focuses on watching videos and not on generating content.

A fragment of 'lost' music found in the pages of Scotland's first full-length printed book is providing clues to what music sounded like five centuries ago. Scholars have been investigating the origins of the musical score -- which contains only 55 notes -- to cast new light on music from pre-Reformation Scotland in the early sixteenth-century. Researchers say the tantalizing discovery is a rare example of music from Scottish religious institutions 500 years ago, and is the only piece which survives from the northeast of Scotland from this period.

The city of Berkeley's first-in-the-nation soda tax a decade ago, along with more recent Bay Area tax increases on sugar-sweetened drinks, have not only led to reduced sales. They are also associated with significant changes in social norms and attitudes about the healthfulness of sweet drinks.

Eliminating current physical activity disparities between male and female youth in the United States could save around $780 million for each new cohort of six-to-17-year-olds, according to a new study. In fact, bringing more equity to sports participation could save even more: $1.55 billion.

In a polarized nation, there is one thing that nearly all Americans agree on, according to a recent study: sports are good for us. Researchers found that more than 9 out of 10 Americans agreed that sports build character and improved one's health, while 84% agreed playing sports makes one popular in school and 85% said it makes one more well-known in the community.

A recently published meta-analysis reveals an advantage in sports-related information processing compared to non-athletes. The data consisted of 21 studies involving a total of 1455 participants. Athletes had better working memory than non-athletes and this advantage was further enhanced when athletes were compared to sedentary people.

With most donated clothes exported or thrown away, experts are calling for a shakeup of how we deal with the growing fashion waste issue.

Young people's mental health may depend on how they use social media, rather than how much time they spend using it. Psychology researchers tried an experiment with three groups. They asked one group to stay off social media. They taught another group how to use it more constructively. The third group stuck with their usual routine. The group that stayed away, AND the group that used it differently, both reported improvements in their mental health.

New research reveals that the music and soundscapes used in toy commercials are reinforcing rigid gender norms, shaping the way children perceive masculinity and femininity. The study uncovers how gender stereotypes are not only conveyed through visuals and language but are also deeply embedded in the sound and music used in advertisements targeted at children.

Physicists have investigated to which extent a piece of music can evoke expectations about its progression. They were able to determine differences in how far compositions of different composers can be anticipated. In total, the scientists quantitatively analyzed more than 550 pieces from classical and jazz music.

Men and adolescent boys are increasingly at risk of resorting to the dangerous use of anabolic steroids in a bid to achieve the desired muscular build modeled on social media, warn body image experts. A new review that focused specifically on men found that exposure to social media posts depicting ideal muscular male bodies is directly linked to a negative body image and greater odds of resorting to anabolic-androgenic steroid use.

Military musicians returning from the Napoleonic wars established Britain's first brass bands earlier than previously thought, new research reveals. The study undermines the idea that brass bands were a civilian and exclusively northern creation.

A collaborative team of researchers led by Dale Zhou, who did his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and Dani Bassett in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science looked at how nearly half a million people around the world use Wikipedia's knowledge networks. They found stark differences in browsing habits between countries offering insights into cultural differences and potential drivers of curiosity and learning.

AI-written stories are getting better, but people still distrust AI-generated art.

The more men are concerned about appearing masculine, the less likely they will forgive a co-worker for a transgression such as missing an important meeting, a study has found. What's more, such men are also more likely seek revenge or avoid the transgressor, which contributes to an unhealthy and less effective work environment.

Research shows that how we rate food is influenced by 'serial dependence' -- our judgement cascades on from the food we've just seen.

Listening to people with Parkinson's disease made an automatic speech recognizer 30-percent more accurate, according to a new study.

The income and education levels of a child's environment determine their relationship to nature, not whether they live in a city or the countryside. The results run counter to the assumption that growing up in the countryside automatically increases our connection to nature, and yet the study also shows that nature close to home increases children's well-being.

The statewide study found that the link between pollutants and ER visits is more pronounced in communities that were once denied mortgages due to race.

A sweeping study of U.S. youth sports participation over the past 60 years found that there has been a significant increase over time in kids playing organized sports -- but particularly among more privileged, educated families.

An assistant clinical professor developed a specialized dance and movement therapy (DMT) program to meet the unique needs of youth from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to foster a sense of community and connection.

A virtual reality training series being developed for medical students and physicians teaches them about implicit bias in their communications with their patients who are people of color and how that affects race-based health care disparities.

A new study suggests that giving users control over the interface feature of autoplay can help them realize that they are going down a rabbit hole. The work has implications for responsibly designing online content viewing platforms and algorithms, as well as helping users better recognize extreme content.

Adults who continuously played organized sports through their youth have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression than those who never played or those who dropped out, a new study finds. And those who dropped out of sports had poorer mental health than those who never played at all.

The U.S. public displays more positive than negative sentiment toward nuclear energy but concerns remain about waste, cost and safety, according to an analysis of 300,000 posts on social media.

Through a study of 1,002 participants, scientists have found that almost half (45.7 per cent) say they intend to use air taxis when they become available, with over one-third (36.2 per cent) planning to do so regularly. According to the findings, the intention to take autonomous air taxis is associated with factors such as trust in the AI technology deployed in air taxis, hedonic motivation (the fun or pleasure derived from using technology), performance expectancy (the degree to which users expect that using the system will benefit them), and news media attention (the amount of attention paid to news about air taxis).

A computer scientist has shown the power of language to predict harm -- this time to the nation's health.

One group commonly misunderstood by voice technology are individuals who speak African American English, or AAE. Researchers designed an experiment to test how AAE speakers adapt their speech when imagining talking to a voice assistant, compared to talking to a friend, family member, or stranger. The study tested familiar human, unfamiliar human, and voice assistant-directed speech conditions by comparing speech rate and pitch variation. Analysis of the recordings showed that the speakers exhibited two consistent adjustments when they were talking to voice technology compared to talking to another person: a slower rate of speech with less pitch variation.

A geo-environmental scientist from Japan has composed a string quartet using sonified climate data. The 6-minute-long composition -- entitled 'String Quartet No. 1 'Polar Energy Budget'-- is based on over 30 years of satellite-collected climate data from the Arctic and Antarctic and aims to garner attention on how climate is driven by the input and output of energy at the poles.

Sports, beyond entertainment, foster community and belonging, benefiting both individuals and society. Despite its recognized positive effects, limited evidence exists on the link between watching sports and well-being. To address this gap, a team of researchers conducted a multi-method research and found that sports viewing activates brain reward circuits, leading to improved well-being. Popular sports like baseball notably impact well-being. Their research offers insights for public health policies and individual well-being enhancement.

Understanding how social media is used during a disaster can help with disaster preparedness and recovery for future events.

School quality ratings significantly reflect the preparation of a school's students, not just the school's contribution to learning gains, according to new research.

The likelihood that a girl will participate in high school sports in the United States is driven not so much by individual choice, new research suggests. Instead, decisions made by parents, the wealth of one's family and community, and racial dynamics matter.

The idea that people make decisions based on social context is not a new one in neural economic games. But now, for the first time, researchers show the impact of the social context may spring from the dynamic interactions of dopamine and serotonin. Researchers built carbon-fiber electrodes that were implanted in patients receiving Deep Brain Stimulation surgery. The method allows researchers to measure more than one neurotransmitter at a time, revealing a dance that has never been seen before.

The way companies announce new products or build up hype can often influence their success once those new products hit the market, according to new research. Whether it's an upcoming blockbuster movie or a new rollout from major companies like Coca-Cola or Apple, the new research shows how companies might use this type of pre-announcement marketing to their advantage.

Researchers conducted a study in which they showed four classrooms to students and asked about their perceptions of masculine traits versus feminine traits of the rooms. They also showed the same images to employees at design firms that work on such spaces. Results showed that the two groups' perceptions of such gendered traits differed widely, which can have broader effects on students' sense of belonging in higher education and within disciplines, the authors argue.

A new study has shown that music evokes similar emotions and bodily sensations around the world.

New research concludes novel ideas tend to generate conflicting evaluations because people lack common points of reference from which to judge them. Such mixed reviews lead to negative perceptions about the idea's usefulness, resulting in missed opportunities to drive innovation.

And after nearly two years of fighting, war is destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage on a scale not seen since World War II, according to new research.

Why did professional skateboarding arise in southern California in the 1970s? Was it a coincidence, or was it a perfect storm of multiple factors? It's fairly well-known that a drought in southern California in the mid-1970s led to a ban on filling backyard swimming pools, and these empty pools became playgrounds for freestyle skateboarders in the greater Los Angeles area. But a new cross-disciplinary study shows that beyond the drought, it was the entanglement of environmental, economic and technological factors that led to the explosive rise of professional skateboarding culture in the 1970s.

A new study provides compelling evidence that music preferences can serve as a window into an individual's moral values. It has uncovered an important link between music and morality, paving the way for a deeper understanding of the psychological dimensions of our musical experiences.

A new study zooming in on how smartphones influence our photography habits found Australians aged 20 to 40 years old take more selfies than teenagers and older Australians. 

Computer scientists have developed AntiFake, a tool to protect voice recordings from unauthorized speech synthesis.

From social media to the workplace, non-stereotypical apologies can help repair trust, according to new study.

For the first time, teachers in a nationwide study have told researchers what strategies they think work best to deal with student violence against educators. Teachers rated suspending or expelling students as the least effective way of addressing violence, despite the popularity of 'zero tolerance' policies in many school districts.

Monitoring whether states are complying with disarmament treaties is not an easy task. An international team has been exploring remote monitoring with the help of two antennas and a couple of mirrors.

The privacy policies and practices of online games contain dark design patterns which could be deceptive, misleading, or coercive to users, according to a new study.