https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems affect many parts of daily life, including health care, education, and public policy, but the public has had few meaningful opportunities to participate in the development, governance, or modifications of AI systems, according to Tanusree Sharma, assistant professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. As a result, AI systems may not align with the needs of diverse communities. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-inclusiveai-voting-ai-decisions-broader.html Social Sciences Wed, 13 May 2026 15:40:05 EDT news697904579 People are known to implicitly create connections between different things or ideas in their mind, some of which can influence how they perceive others, themselves and the world at large. These implicit biases have been widely studied by behavioral scientists, who tried to detect and measure them using various tests. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-decades-bias-minds-biggest-focus.html Social Sciences Tue, 28 Apr 2026 07:50:01 EDT news696519109 Trying to find a whale song in the ocean is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But now, UNSW Sydney researchers say they've trained a model, with just a single case study, to find blue whale songs in recordings that span across decades and entire ocean basins. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-blue-whale-song-oceans.html Ecology Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:00:03 EDT news696240541 Medieval Christians in Denmark showed off their wealth in death by buying prestigious graves: the closer to the church, the higher the price. Researchers used these gravesites to investigate social exclusion based on illness, by studying whether people with leprosy—a highly stigmatized disease culturally associated with sin—or tuberculosis were kept out of the higher-status areas. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-rich-medieval-christians-bought-graves.html Archaeology Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:03 EST news690023221 The perception of a chemist varies. Some might imagine the "mad scientist" from old cartoons—a white-haired older man working with beakers in his lab—but as that cliche fades, the reality of what constitutes a chemist's job might likewise need an update. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-mold-real-chemist.html Other Thu, 11 Dec 2025 17:00:02 EST news684680194 When parents separate in Australia, their futures—and their children's—often rely on the words chosen by judges in the Family Court. But those words aren't always neutral along gender lines, say a team of UNSW researchers. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-ai-reveals-gender-bias-family.html Social Sciences Wed, 17 Sep 2025 08:59:05 EDT news677318341 A study has revealed new insights into Stone Age life and death, showing that stone tools were just as likely to be buried with women and children as with men. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-burial-site-stereotypes-stone-age.html Archaeology Wed, 10 Sep 2025 15:00:05 EDT news676734701 What constitutes a life well-lived? A new Michigan State University-led study is turning to a common cultural artifact to find out: the obituary. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-life-obituaries.html Social Sciences Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:23:04 EDT news675444181 In an international study, participants' attitudes toward certain social groups—namely, politicians and Black people—were more strongly related to their attitudes towards the men than the women of each group, suggesting that men are the "default" for attitudes towards these groups. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-men-default-attitudes-politicians-black.html Social Sciences Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:31:03 EDT news670087861 In a new linguistic analysis, reviews of movies with female-dominated casts were found to have significantly higher levels of sexism than reviews of movies with male-dominated casts. Researchers Jad Doughman and Wael Khreich of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, present these findings in PLOS One. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-linguistic-movies-female-dominated-sexist.html Social Sciences Wed, 29 Jan 2025 14:00:01 EST news657300241 A study from Queen Mary University of London reveals that the music and soundscapes used in toy commercials are reinforcing rigid gender norms, shaping the way children perceive masculinity and femininity. The research uncovers how gender stereotypes are not only conveyed through visuals and language but are also deeply embedded in the sound and music used in advertisements targeted at children. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-soundtracks-toy-ads-gender-stereotypes.html Social Sciences Wed, 06 Nov 2024 14:00:01 EST news650108867 Millions of women who work in the fisheries industry are being left behind as technologies develop to counter the effects of climate change and economic pressures. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-women-global-fisheries-industry-falling.html Social Sciences Tue, 27 Aug 2024 05:00:02 EDT news643895641 Ever since the first Neanderthal bones were discovered in 1856, people have wondered about these ancient hominins. How are they different from us? How much are they like us? Did our ancestors get along with them? Fight them? Love them? The recent discovery of a group called Denisovans, a Neanderthal-like group who populated Asia and South Asia, added its own set of questions. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-history-contact-geneticists-rewriting-narrative.html Evolution Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:37:53 EDT news639927470 The discovery of the oldest pottery ever found in Australia on Jiigurru/Lizard Island off the Queensland coast is challenging the idea that Aboriginal Australian communities were unaware of pottery manufacture before European settlement. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-discovery-pottery-rewrites-aboriginal-history.html Archaeology Wed, 10 Apr 2024 09:43:03 EDT news631960981 How do you pronounce your "r"s towards the ends of words like Shearer, purr, nerd and pore? And what about those in car, bird and her? https://phys.org/news/2023-12-british-spoken-ready-bastion-rhoticity.html Social Sciences Tue, 19 Dec 2023 04:14:53 EST news622181689 Academic fields valuing brilliance are less welcoming to women: Fewer women enter and more women leave these fields, partly due to prevalent gender stereotypes, shows a new analysis of 30 disciplines by an international team of researchers. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-academic-fields-valuing-brilliance-women.html Social Sciences Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:21:03 EDT news606666061 Popular culture plays an important role in shaping society's perceptions and attitudes around gender roles. We are fed images and stories through television, film, music and social media that can both enhance or challenge traditional gender roles. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-gender-bias-blockbuster-movies-lens.html Social Sciences Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:37:29 EDT news601724246 Working mothers and other job seekers with gaps in their employment history can overcome discrimination by rewriting their CV to focus on years worked instead of listing employment dates. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-cvs-mothers-mind-employment-gap.html Social Sciences Wed, 07 Dec 2022 13:59:04 EST news589643942 Law enforcement agencies on Facebook disproportionately post about crimes involving Black suspects, according to new research from co-authored by a University of Chicago scholar. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-police-agencies-significantly-overrepresent-black.html Social Sciences Thu, 03 Nov 2022 09:37:03 EDT news586687021 Women working in the gaming industry feel required to imitate stereotypically masculine personality traits if they want to gain recognition in gaming communities, reveals new research from Aalto University School of Business and the University of Jyväskylä. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-women-imitate-masculine-traits-gamers.html Social Sciences Tue, 18 Oct 2022 11:36:55 EDT news585311807 New research has analyzed a rare collection of non-returning boomerangs from Kinipapa (Cooper Creek), near Innamincka in South Australia's far northeast. https://phys.org/news/2021-11-rare-boomerang-south-australia-reveals.html Archaeology Wed, 03 Nov 2021 16:14:15 EDT news555174834 If you saw a person with their brow furrowed, mouth turned down, and eyes squinted, would you guess they're angry? What if you found out they'd forgotten their reading glasses and were deciphering a restaurant menu? https://phys.org/news/2021-08-emotion-facial-movements-ai.html Social Sciences Fri, 20 Aug 2021 08:33:02 EDT news548667178 Inaccessible workplaces, normative departmental cultures and ableist academic systems have all contributed to the continued underrepresentation and exclusion of disabled researchers in the Geosciences, according to an article published Thursday 8 June in Nature Geoscience. https://phys.org/news/2021-06-environments-disabled-geoscientists-workplace.html Education Thu, 10 Jun 2021 12:33:50 EDT news542547224 In snowy plovers, females have overcome traditional family stereotypes. They often abandon the family to begin a clutch with a new partner whereas the males continue to care for their young until they are independent. An international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, has now investigated the decision-making process that determines the duration of parental care by females. They found that offspring desertion often occurs either under poor environmental conditions, when chicks die despite being cared for by both parents, or when chicks have a good chance of survival even without the female. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-female-snowy-plovers-bad-mothers.html Plants & Animals Thu, 11 Mar 2021 13:07:27 EST news534690442 Teaching children in a way that encourages them to empathise with others measurably improves their creativity, and could potentially lead to several other beneficial learning outcomes, new research suggests. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-pupils-empathy-creative-abilities.html Education Wed, 03 Feb 2021 03:23:08 EST news531544983 Scientists at ETH Zurich have leveraged big data from recruitment platforms and machine learning to study hiring discrimination. They show that discrimination against immigrants depends, among other things, on the time of day; and that both men and women face discrimination. https://phys.org/news/2021-01-clicks-job-platform-reveal-bias.html Social Sciences Thu, 21 Jan 2021 07:37:27 EST news530437043 American politicians have long been expected to uphold a certain veneer: powerful, influential and never vulnerable. New Penn State research has found that these idealized forms of masculinity may also help explain support for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election and in the days leading up to the 2020 election. https://phys.org/news/2021-01-traditional-stereotypes-masculinity-trump.html Social Sciences Mon, 04 Jan 2021 15:00:02 EST news528988211 What do you think of when you hear the word "refugee"? For many people, what comes to mind is vulnerability—you might imagine the grim conditions of a refugee camp or the dangers of the desperate journey to safety. So perhaps it's unsurprising that refugees are widely perceived to be especially needy or dependent on public assistance. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-refugees-opportunity.html Social Sciences Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:00:03 EDT news516006828 In an increasingly polarized world, many see people who are different from them as "outsiders," or even a threat. Yet, around the world, this tends to be more common in traditionally homogenous societies, according to a series of studies led by Princeton University. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-people-diverse-areas-identity-supersedes.html Social Sciences Mon, 18 May 2020 15:00:12 EDT news509009306 When it comes to making sound judgements, most people understand and distinguish that being rational is self-serving and being reasonable is fair and balanced, finds new research from the University of Waterloo. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-people-view-rationality-distinct-principles.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Jan 2020 14:00:02 EST news497711049