news 2017

Stanford political scientist Alison McQueen's research shows that apocalyptic rhetoric can make wars, natural disasters, economic collapse and even the possibility of nuclear war easier to understand. But although it can rouse people to action, apocalyptic rhetoric also carries great peril. Stanford political scientist Alison McQueen has studied the use of political rhetoric that evokes the end of the times, finding that it can comfort people during crises, making wars or economically troubled times, for instance, easier to understand.

Big data study of global biodiversity shows ineffective national governance is a better indicator of species decline than any other measure of "anthropogenic impact". Even protected conservation areas make little difference in countries that struggle with socio-political stability.

Day after day in early 2011, massive crowds gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, calling for the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Away from the square, the protests had another effect, as a study co-authored by an MIT professor shows. The demonstrations lowered the stock market valuations of politically connected firms - and showed how much people thought a full democratic revolution was possible.

Almost two thirds (57%) of cancer drugs authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) between 2009 and 2013 came onto the market without any clear evidence they improved the quality or quantity of patients' lives, according to research from King's College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), published in the BMJ today (Thursday 5 October).

Healthcare professionals have little structure or set policy in place to help with decision making and implementation when decommissioning and replacing healthcare services, a study has found. Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that a lack of policy and procedure led to higher levels of conflict, with outcomes harder to predict than for other areas of decision making, leading to confusion over roles and responsibilities.

Stanford scholar Shanto Iyengar finds that the strength of people's attachment to their political parties surpasses affiliations with their own race, religion and other social categories. The self-defining characteristics that Americans hold dear include their racial and cultural heritage, the language they speak and their choice of worship.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found that people's beliefs about scientific topics that are associated with their political or religious identities become increasingly polarized with education as measured by years in school, science classes and science literacy. "A lot of science is generally accepted and trusted, but certain topics have become deeply polarizing.

Young Researchers at Freie Universität Win ERC Starting Grants No 224/2017 from Aug 21, 2017 Four researchers at Freie Universität Berlin have won ERC Starting Grants. The grants were awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) in amounts up to 1.5 million euros over a five-year period. The winning projects at Freie Universität are in the fields of Arabic studies, computer science, neuroscience, and political science.

Do our childhood experiences shape our political attitudes' A team of Inserm researchers from Unit 960 'Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory' (Inserm/ENS) have discovered the answer to this question, the results of which have recently been published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. Childhood poverty is associated with stronger adherence to authoritarian political attitudes in adulthood, not only in the French population, but also in a sample of 46 European countries.

Suggesting that science is not immune to political partisanship, new research shows liberals and conservatives share an interest in science but have stark differences in the types of scientific books they read. An analysis of online book sales found people who bought liberal political books also tended to buy books on basic sciences, such as physics and astronomy.

People exposed to light entertainment television like soap operas may be more likely to vote for populist politicians according to a new study co-authored by an economist at Queen Mary University of London. The researchers investigated the political impact of light entertainment television in Italy over the last 30 years during the phased introduction of Silvio Berlusconi's commercial TV network Mediaset.

Just five per cent of Conservative Party members voted for Ukip in 2015, according to research published by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the University of Sussex. The results, based on surveys conducted by YouGov, contrast with a 2013 study by the same authors in which 30 per cent of Tory members said they would seriously consider voting for Ukip.

Hydraulic fracturing often brings up large volumes of water that need to be managed. A study led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that in the Permian Basin, a large oil field in Texas and New Mexico, reusing water at other well sites is a viable way to deal with the water that could also reduce potential instances of induced seismicity.

A new study led by an international team of scientists has investigated how people evaluate whether information is true or false, and how this evaluation is affected by source credibility. For the purposes of the study, published today in Royal Society Open Science, participants rated their belief in statements from the campaign trail of Donald Trump— described by many as perhaps the most polarising political figure of recent times.

Ralina Joseph , University of Washington associate professor of communication, has guest co-edited a special triple issue of the interdisciplinary journal Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society with her former mentor and dissertation adviser, Jane Rhodes of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

How liberal or conservative a person is predicts how likely they are to believe information about potential hazards, a new UCLA-led study has found. The study, which will be published in the journal Psychological Science, found that people who hold more socially conservative views were significantly more likely than people with liberal beliefs to find false information about threats credible.

Disputes over science-related policy issues such as climate change or fracking often seem as intractable as other politically charged debates. But in science, at least, simple curiosity might help bridge that partisan divide, according to new research. In a study slated for publication in the journal Advances in Political Psychology , a Yale-led research team found that people who are curious about science are less polarized in their views on contentious issues than less-curious peers.

Volatile gasoline prices have caused regulators and carmakers alike to question the cost and effectiveness of fuel economy standards in the United States, with some arguing they are too stringent and others saying they should be even stricter. A new study by Ryan Kellogg, professor at the Harris School of Public Policy , responds to both sides of the debate by proposing a novel, market-based alternative that indexes the standard to rise and fall with the price of gasoline.

The key to bridging the broad ideological division in the United States is for both sides to work on understanding the core values that the other holds dear. The unprecedented level of political division in the United States has been worrisome to many Americans, but bridging that gap is not an impossible task, according to a Stanford sociologist.