Psychology

Source: U.S. News and World ReportDevastating droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and other extreme weather have escalated concerns about climate change. Can what we eat make a difference? You bet. Increasingly, food-related solutions to climate change are on the table. About one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is linked to food, and there are plenty of things we can do at the dinner table that could help us get to net zero growth in greenhouse gases.

Source: Science Daily - Top SocietyIn simulated life-or-death decisions, about two-thirds of people in a study published in Scientific Reports allowed a robot to change their minds when it disagreed with them—an alarming display of trust in artificial intelligence, researchers said. Human subjects allowed robots to sway their judgment despite being told the AI machines had limited capabilities and were giving advice that could be wrong. In reality, the advice was random.

Source: Science Daily - Top HealthA new study has found that mindfulness meditation employs different brain mechanisms to reduce pain than does a placebo response. According to the results, mindfulness meditation reduces pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings as well as brain activity associated with pain and negative emotions. In contrast, neither a placebo cream nor a fake mindfulness procedure (consisting only of deep breathing) reduced neural pain signals.

Source: Science Daily - Top SocietyThe COVID-19 pandemic has been especially hard on individuals with disabilities. New research published in the American Journal of Public Health shows that this population has also been hit with long COVID at more than twice the rate of the general population. Of people who tested positive for COVID, 60% with pre-existing chronic illnesses or diseases went on to develop long COVID, as did 45% of those with mental illness or psychiatric...

Source: Science Daily - Top HealthCognitive behavioral therapy, one of the most common treatments for depression, can teach skills for coping with everyday troubles, reinforce healthy behaviors, and counter negative thoughts. But can altering thoughts and behaviors lead to lasting changes in the brain? New research, led by Stanford Medicine and published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, has found that it can.

Source: United Press International - Health NewsYouTube on Thursday rolled out what it said are additional safeguards for content recommendations for teen users. The video platform said in a blog post that it is now limiting repeated recommendations of content that "compares physical features and idealizes some types over others, idealizes specific fitness levels or body weights, or displays social aggression in the form of non-contact fights and intimidation."

Source: Science Daily - Top SocietyAccording to former editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association Howard Bauchner, MD, artificial intelligence is poised to transform the writing of scientific manuscripts, assist in reviewing them, and help editors select the highest impact papers. It may even help editors increase the influence of their journals, he says, although he questions whether editors should use AI to predict journal article citations.

Source: U.S. News and World ReportPope Francis invited Muslims and Catholics Thursday to push global leaders to confront the dangers of climate change and extremism, and spoke of the common roots of different religious beliefs as he visited Southeast Asia's largest mosque in Jakarta. During his visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, the pope issued a joint declaration with the national grand imam that called for "decisive action" to address the...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportRepublican presidential candidate Donald Trump told a crowd of more than 1,000 Republican Jewish Coalition donors Thursday that U.S. universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as "antisemitic propaganda" if he is elected to the White House. Protests roiled college campuses in spring, with students opposing Israel's war in Gaza and demanding institutions stop doing business with companies supporting the war.

Source: U.S. News and World ReportHow do you know if an artificial intelligence system is so powerful that it poses a security danger and requires careful oversight? For regulators trying to put guardrails on AI, it's mostly about the arithmetic. Specifically, AI models must now be reported to the U.S. government if they're trained on 10 to the 26th floating-point operations per second—a level of computing power that could create or proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

Source: Canadian Broadcasting Company - World NewsTens of thousands of civilians dead. Warring factions driving millions from their homes. The threat of famine. Fears of genocide. Any one of these would be a crisis warranting a major international response, but in Sudan, they're all taking place at once, more than 500 days into a brutal civil war. Little global attention is being paid to what's happening in the northeast African nation, with few signs that the situation there will get any...

Source: United Press International - Health NewsThe popularity of the weight-loss drug semaglutide has prompted increasing concerns about potential side effects from taking Ozempic or Wegovy. But a new study, published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine, casts doubt on at least one possible problem: the drug does not appear to raise a person's risk of depression or suicide. The study—funded by Novo Nordisk, maker of Ozempic and Wegovy—reviewed data from more than 3,500 people across four...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportCalifornia lawmakers approved a host of proposals this week to regulate artificial intelligence, combat deepfakes, and protect workers from exploitation by the rapidly evolving technology. Governor Gavin Newsom has until September 30 to sign the bills, veto them, or let them become law without signature. In July, he signaled support for a proposal to crack down on election deepfakes, but he has also warned that overregulation could hurt the AI...

Source: CBS News - U.S. NewsSeveral new artificial intelligence tools have been released this summer that create hyperrealistic photos, making it easier than ever to alter, or entirely fabricate, an image. Experts say it's becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to discern what is real and what is fake. Among the most powerful new tools is FLUX.1, or Flux, a free AI image generator released in August, which allows for the creation of hyperrealistic images without a...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportAs the Earth sizzled through a summer with four of the hottest days ever measured, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different visions on how to address a changing climate while ensuring a reliable energy supply. While Harris has voted in favor of laws to curb climate change, Trump has pledged to dismantle Biden's "green new scam" and led chants of "drill, baby, drill" at the Republican National...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportTeaching school kids to practice mindfulness can boost their mental health—and, maybe, even their grades. That's the takeaway from a new review of more than 40 research studies on school-based mindfulness interventions, such as seated or slow-walking meditation. The review appears in the journal Psychiatry Online. In a nutshell, mindfulness programs teach kids to pay attention to the present moment and not to be judgmental about it.

Source: U.S. News and World ReportPreteen girls around the U.S. have been flocking to beauty stores to buy anti-aging skin care products, a trend captured in viral videos with the hashtag #SephoraKids. And as a result, girls as young as 8 are turning up at doctors' offices with rashes, chemical burns, and other allergic reactions to products not intended for children's sensitive skin. Equally troubling to parents and child psychologists, this trend may have lasting effects on...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportRacial differences in how U.S. schools discipline students received media attention 10 years ago, during a national reckoning with racial injustice. A decade later, change has been slow to materialize. In many schools around the country, Black students remain more likely to receive punishments that remove them from the classroom, including suspensions, expulsions, and being transferred to alternative schools. Here's what an Associated Press...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportAdvocates for domestic violence survivors in Illinois celebrated earlier this month when Governor JB Pritzker signed a bill into law making it easier for those who are incarcerated to get reduced sentences. The idea is that women who received harsh sentences without a court hearing about their histories of abuse should get a chance to tell their stories in court and potentially be resentenced. New York, California, and Oklahoma have similar laws.

Source: U.S. News and World ReportPope Francis on Friday urged people around the world to better protect the environment, ahead of a 12-day trip to Southeast Asia next week in which the pontiff is expected to urge global action on climate change. "If we took the planet's temperature, it will tell us that the Earth has a fever. And it is sick," the pope said in a video message. "We must commit ourselves to... the protection of nature, changing our personal and community habits."

Source: U.S. News and World ReportSweet Briar College in Virginia has instituted an admissions policy that bars transgender women, making the school an outlier among U.S. women's colleges. The private women's liberal arts school said that the policy stems from the legally binding will of its founder, who died in 1900, and that the document requires it to "be a place of "girls and young women" as its founder "understood at the time." Some students and most faculty members...

Source: United Press International - Health NewsPeople with schizophrenia have been challenging the stigma of their mental disorder by posting on social media, trying to dispel the myth that they're prone to injuring themselves or others. "People will treat me like I am dangerous just because of my illness," said Kody Green, who creates social media content about schizophrenia. Yet, "studies show that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be victims of violent crime than the...

Source: U.S. News and World ReportSouth Korea's top court said on Thursday the climate change law did not protect basic human rights and lacks targets to shield future generations, in a landmark ruling after activists blamed the government for failing to effectively tackle climate change. About 200 plaintiffs, including young climate activists, filed petitions to the court, arguing that their government was violating its citizens' human rights by not doing enough on climate...

Source: United Press International - Health NewsGoogle has retooled its controversial Gemini artificial intelligence tool for generating images of people, and made it customizable. Google originally launched the Gemini AI image-generation program earlier this year but pulled it after it produced controversial images that led to many accusing the program of having biases. Among the images that led to claims of bias were those that depicted a Black viking, an Asian Nazi soldier, and a female...

Source: Canadian Broadcasting Company - Top Stories NewsThis year, Pearson Education and McGraw-Hill have launched generative AI tools embedded into digital textbooks. More broadly, new artificial intelligence tools will be part of the curriculum at over 100 Canadian universities and colleges this fall. Although there's enthusiasm about the educational possibilities that AI offers, there are also concerns about issues such as bias, misleading information, and the lack of student-teacher interaction....

Source: CBS News - HealthParents are stressed out, which can lower their mental health and in turn negatively affect children, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in an advisory Wednesday. Dr. Murthy—who in the past has issued advisories related to gun violence, social media use, and a youth mental health crisis tied to an "epidemic of loneliness"—called for changes to national attitudes toward parenting and caregiving in the report, titled "Parents Under Pressure."

Source: U.S. News and World ReportThe beauty industry, worth billions of dollars and dominated by a few major brands, has an ugly underbelly. The making and disposing of cosmetics contributes to planet-warming carbon emissions, deforestation, pollution, and waste. And there's little regulation governing beauty products in many countries. But despite the uphill battle, some business owners are trying to tackle these problems, and consumers have begun demanding sustainability and...

Source: APA PsycPORT™: Psychology NewswireYoung people are faring better in their mental health in the past few years after a period of increased sadness and hopelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. But mental health experts aren't celebrating a victory just yet. This is because reported rates of kids feeling blue is still high, especially among teenage girls, 53% of whom report feeling sad or hopeless.

Source: Google NewsPennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro responded to former President Donald Trump's characterization of him as a "highly overrated Jewish Governor" by saying the Republican nominee is "continuing to spew hate." Last month, Mr. Trump said in a radio interview that "If you're Jewish" and vote for a Democrat, "you're a fool, an absolute fool." Trump also contended that Kamala Harris, whose husband is Jewish, "doesn't like Israel" and "doesn't like...

Source: United Press International - Health NewsTroubled transgender students are more likely to turn to school staff than their own parents for support, researchers reported Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Among students who felt depressed or anxious, trans teens in the study were roughly 75% less likely than cisgender teens to seek help from parents than from adults at school, 50% less likely to seek help from siblings, and 25% less likely to seek support from friends.