Why trolls, extremists, and others spread conspiracy theories they don’t believe
Some just want to promote conflict, cause chaos, or even just get attention. There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their rea.....»»
Keeping mold out of future space stations
Mold can survive the harshest of environments, so to stop harmful spores from growing on future space stations, a new study suggests a novel way to prevent its spread......»»
How viruses move through insects for transmission of diseases
Viruses are master parasites that have adapted to infect many host species. Some viruses even use multiple hosts to spread their infections—such as arboviruses that use insects to move their infections to mammalian hosts like humans. Understanding.....»»
Study identifies areas of Europe at risk from dengue fever due to spread of Asian tiger mosquito
As Europe grapples with the growing threat of tropical diseases brought by the Asian tiger mosquito, a research breakthrough led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is enabling scientists to accurately predict towns across the continent.....»»
Jellyfish under attack: Study uncovers parasitic spillover of a burrowing sea anemone
Many marine organisms, like sea anemones, struggle to spread across the ocean, especially if they lack long, mobile larval stages. Unlike their jellyfish relatives, sea anemones do not have a medusa stage, making their dispersal challenging. Their on.....»»
Fluctuating hydrodynamics theory could describe chaotic many-body systems, study suggests
Although systems consisting of many interacting small particles can be highly complex and chaotic, some can nonetheless be described using simple theories. Does this also pertain to the world of quantum physics?.....»»
US charges Russian military officers for unleashing wiper malware on Ukraine
WhisperGate campaign targeted Ukrainian critical infrastructure and allies worldwide. Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment charging six Russian nationals with conspiracy t.....»»
A space oddity—small exoplanet challenges existing theories on planet formation
A research team led by Lund University in Sweden has discovered a small planet that displays peculiar orbital motion. The shimmying planet, located 455 light-years from Earth, shows that planetary systems can be considerably more complex than researc.....»»
Schools urged to teach children how to spot conspiracies and fake news
Young people are as engaged and interested in current affairs as ever, but social media is siloing their opinions and making fake news hard to spot, and schools are the places to tackle this, according to a conspiracy theory expert......»»
Few anti-immigration users dominate most UK-based Twitter anti-immigration content with rapid spread, high polarization
A study of more than 200,000 tweets from 2019 and 2020 finds that anti-immigration content spreads faster than pro-immigration tweets, and that a few users disproportionally generated most of the UK-based anti-immigration content. Andrea Nasuto and F.....»»
Bird flu reaches cows in California, the country’s largest milk producer
The highly pathogenic strain has now spread to 197 herds in 14 states. Enlarge / A cow grazes in a field at a dairy farm on April 26, 2024, in Petaluma, California. (credit: Getty | Justin Sullivan) The outbreak of H5N1.....»»
Instagram adds comments for Stories with anti-trolling feature
Instagram Stories, one of the most popular parts of the Instagram app today, is getting a big new feature: comments. Here are all the details you should know, including how they’re designed to help eliminate trolls. more….....»»
Perception and deception in times of crisis: Characteristics of messages and sources that allow information to spread
The COVID-19 pandemic not only gave us a global health crisis but also an infodemic, a term coined by the World Health Organization (WHO) to describe the overwhelming flood of information—both accurate and misleading—that inundated media channels.....»»
Harnessing AI to fight global deforestation
The new European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is intended to prevent goods marketed in the EU from contributing to the spread of deforestation. When a wood product is brought into the EU market, for example, there must be documentation of which ty.....»»
Deepfakes: Seeing is no longer believing
The threat of deepfakes lies not in the technology itself, but in people’s natural tendency to trust what they see. As a result, deepfakes don’t need to be highly advanced or convincing to effectively spread misinformation and disinformat.....»»
Unpatchable 0-day in surveillance cam is being exploited to install Mirai
Vulnerability is easy to exploit and allows attackers to remotely execute commands. Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Malicious hackers are exploiting a critical vulnerability in a widely used security camera to spread Mira.....»»
STEM program for middle- and high-school girls inspires brilliance
In a classroom on Georgia State's Atlanta Campus, more than a dozen middle and high school girls are wearing lab coats and peering into test tubes. They're conducting an epidemiology experiment—the study of how diseases are spread. It's just one of.....»»
AI modeling can deliver more benefits, less risk for water partnerships
A Cornell-led research collaboration found that cooperative partnerships seeking to spread the cost burden of water infrastructure projects among regional stakeholders often end up forcing local partners to bear the brunt of underlying supply and fin.....»»
On wildfires, experts say the West needs to rethink its response
Wildfires and the pain they cause to people, property and the planet are here to stay. And if Western management practices don't change to anticipate more and more record fire years, that pain may spread and worsen......»»
Aoudad and bighorn sheep share respiratory pathogens, research team discovers
A team of researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) has discovered that aoudad—an animal in the sheep and goat family—can catch and spread many of the same respiratory pathogens that can impact des.....»»
Town urges curfew over mosquito-spread disease that kills up to 50% of people
Eastern Equine Encephalitis is very rare in the US, but when it strikes, it's bad. Enlarge / A mosquito collected to test for mosquito-borne diseases. (credit: Getty | Jon Cherry) A small town in Massachusetts is urging.....»»