Dog poop, dead rats, and maggots: this study's got it all!
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Select Category Select Tag Select Archive ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
You Look Like a/an (Insert Your Name Here)
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Who are you more likely to find striking a sexy pose on the cover of a magazine: Gus or Tanner? Sophia or Bertha? It’s a silly question given all we’re working with is names, but names are powerful social tags that influence how people interact with and perceive each other—for good or for bad. A name reflects race, age, religion and nationality. A name affects the number of callbacks jobseekers receive from employers. A name can influence expectations set by a child&rsquo ...read more
Brain Activity Can Predict If an Article Will Go Viral
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
(Credit: pathdoc/Shutterstock) Chased fanatically but realized rarely, a truly viral story seems to happen purely by chance — a fortuitous alignment of trending topic, clever headline, compelling copy and maybe a witty GIF. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has built a model for “virality” by identifying neural mechanisms at work when people decide to share an article or not. In two studies, of 41 and 39 people each, they used fMRI to monitor ...read more
Lighter, Faster, Cheaper: Broadening Access to the Deep Sea
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Many island nations have deep water within an hour’s boat ride from shore; here, a view of Gatokae Island in the Solomon Islands is taken over water that is at least 1000 meters deep and known to be volcanically active. (Image: Alex DeCiccio) Most countries on Earth have no way to access vast portions of their sovereign territory. In a time when you can read street signs half a world a way on Google Earth, this fact may seem surprising, but these unreachable territories all have one thin ...read more
Why Scientists Shouldn't Replicate Their Own Work
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Last week, I wrote about a social psychology paper which was retracted after the data turned out to be fraudulent. The sole author on that paper, William Hart, blamed an unnamed graduate student for the misconduct. Now, more details have emerged about the case. On Tuesday, psychologist Rolf Zwaan blogged about how he was the one who first discovered a problem with Hart’s data, in relation to a different paper. Back in 2015, Zwaan had co-authored a paper reporting a failure to replicate a 2 ...read more