Society

This week undergraduate and graduate students in an advanced computer security course at Rice University in Houston are learning hands-on just how easy it is to wreak havoc on computer software used in today’s voting machines.
As part of his advanced computer science class, Rice University Associate Professor and Director of Rice’s Computer Security Lab Dan [...]

New research by the University of Warwick reveals that many credit card customers become fixated on the level of minimum payments given on credit card bills. The mere presence of a minimum payment is enough to reduce the actual amount many people choose to pay on their bills, leading to further interest payments.
The research, by [...]

Next Tuesday night, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama will meet on the debate stage for their second presidential debate, but this time they will not be alone. The candidates will be joined by dozens of “undecided” citizens eager to interrogate the two presidential hopefuls. While political strategists and media pundits are busy pondering which [...]

The American Psychological Association sent a letter today to President Bush, informing him of a significant change in the association’s policy that limits the roles of psychologists in certain unlawful detention settings where the human rights of detainees are violated, such as has occurred at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at [...]

A pair of recent studies suggest that email is the most deceptive form of communications in the workplace — even more so than more traditional kinds of written communications, like pen-and-paper.
More surprising is that people actually feel justified when lying using email, the studies show.
“There is a growing concern in the workplace over email communications, [...]

You can tell a lot about people from the way they move alone: their gender, age, and even their mood, earlier studies have shown. Now, researchers reporting in the September 9th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have found that observers perceive masculine motion as coming toward them, while a characteristically feminine walk [...]

Most parents and many teachers believe that if middle-school and high-school girls show no interest in science or math, there’s little anyone can do about it.
New research by a team that includes vocational psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) indicates that the self-confidence instilled by parents and teachers is more important for young girls [...]

What happens when linguistic tools used to analyze human language are applied to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo and a human? The findings, published this month in the Journal of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, indicate that bonobos may exhibit larger linguistic competency in ordinary conversation than in controlled experimental settings.
The peer-reviewed paper was [...]

Households located in poor neighborhoods pay more for the same items than people living in wealthy ones, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Author Debabrata Talukdar (Columbia University) examines the impact of what has been dubbed the "ghetto tax" on low-income individuals. His study found that the critical factor in how [...]

As the American Presidential election approaches, pollsters are scrambling to predict who will win. A study by a team of researchers at The University of Western Ontario, Canada, and the University of Padova, Italy, may give pollsters a new way to determine how the undecided will vote, even before the voters know themselves.
"Automatic Mental Associations [...]

Democratic politicians receive a 40% increase in contributions in the 30 days after appearing on the comedy cable show The Colbert Report. In contrast, their Republican counterparts essentially gain nothing. These findings appear to validate anecdotal evidence regarding the political impact of the program, such as the assertions by host Stephen Colbert that appearing on [...]

Researchers at Durham University have drawn up the first ever ‘Arctic Map’ to show the disputed territories that states might lay claim to in the future.
The new map design follows a series of historical and ongoing arguments about ownership, and the race for resources, in the frozen lands and seas of the Arctic.
The potential for [...]

While the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing has elicited a rallying cry for human rights among high-profile activists and organizations outside China, ordinary Chinese citizens are mobilizing to fight for their rights inside the rapidly changing country, according to sociologist Ching Kwan Lee, writing in the summer issue of the American Sociological Association’s Contexts magazine.
"Ordinary [...]

Research identifies the reason humor is common to all human societies, its fundamental role in the evolution of homo sapiens and its continuing importance in the cognitive development of infants
A new publication answers centuries’ old questions regarding the mechanism and function of humor, identifying the reason humor is common to all human societies, its fundamental [...]

Which inmates on death row will eventually be executed? Many never make the final journey from prison cell to execution chamber — but nobody really understands who will be spared.
Until now. A new computer system can predict which death row prisoners will live and which will be killed — with chilling accuracy. And its dispassionate [...]

Since September 11, U.S. politicians have repeatedly reminded us that the journalists in the Arab world are biased against America and the West. Ground-breaking research published in the July 2008 issue of International Journal of Press/Politics published by SAGE shatters the myths, finding that much of the conventional wisdom about Arab journalists that has shaped [...]

Inspiring campaign rallies. Whistle-stop stump speeches. Intense debates. This year’s presidential elections have already exhibited a number of time-honored traditions in American democracy. Unfortunately, recent presidential elections have included a new ritual — questions and controversies over the accuracy of voting technologies Americans use to cast and count their ballots.
Enter A Center for Correct, Usable, [...]

A propensity for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might be beneficial to a group of Kenyan nomads, according to new research published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. Scientists have shown that an ADHD-associated version of the gene DRD4 is associated with better health in nomadic tribesmen, and yet may cause malnourishment in [...]

Employers seeking to decrease interruptions may want to have their workers use instant messaging software, a new study suggests.
A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University and University of California, Irvine found that workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not.
The study challenges the widespread belief [...]

Video games that energize players and induce a positive mood could also enhance creativity, according to media researchers. However, the study also finds that players who were not highly energized and had a negative mood, registered the highest creativity.
“You need defocused attention for being creative,” said S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media [...]