Everyone is entitled to one good scare – and it may be good for us. People who watch a lot of horror films and those who are morbidly curious about unpleasant subjects seem to be more psychologically resilient to the covid-19 pandemic, a study reveals. “Horror users tended to have less psychological distress,” says Coltan […] More
New Scientist’s weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss Humans 1 July 2020 Play Duet-2 is a game from arts collective Invisible Flock on iOS and Android in which pairs of strangers establish a real, though mysterious, connection. Answer a question a day and share glimpses […] More
Picture a Scientist shines a light on gender discrimination in science – and also finds reasons to be hopeful, says Simon Ings Humans 1 July 2020 Film Picture a Scientist Sharon Shattuck and Ian Cheney Virtual screenings from 26 June WHAT is it about the institutions of science that encourages bullying and sexism? That pushes […] More
A dense, scorched planet around a faraway star may be the naked core of a gas giant. Satellite and Earth-based telescope observations show that the newly discovered exoplanet has a radius nearly 3.5 times Earth’s and a mass about 39 times as big. Those dimensions combined point to a density roughly the same as Earth’s, […] More
The leadership styles of Donald Trump and Jacinda Ardern are dramatically different, but our evolutionary history explains both – and why our preferences have changed Humans 1 July 2020 DONALD TRUMP in the US and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. Vladimir Putin in Russia and Sanna Marin in Finland. It is hard to imagine more […] More
Women continue to experience gender bias and discrimination – including lower pay and performance evaluations – even in workplaces where they are in a majority, according to a study of vets. Bias in the workplace appears to be perpetuated by people who don’t think it exists. The finding suggests that simply hiring more women won’t […] More
In spite of their dark reputations, two black holes may have set off a cosmic light show. Subtle gravitational rumbles from a collision of two black holes may have been accompanied by a flare of light about a month later, physicists report June 25 in Physical Review Letters. It’s a surprising conclusion given black holes’ […] More
In some parts of the US, police kill black people at a rate six times higher than they kill white people. The differences are most stark in the northern Midwest, especially Chicago, and in north-eastern states like New York. Protest movements like Black Lives Matter have highlighted the disproportionate killing of black people by US […] More
