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New research from The Australian National University (ANU) has looked at the use of humour on Twitter during the 2016 US Presidential election. The study found that 35 per cent of election related posts used humour, and that Hillary Clinton supporters were almost three times more likely to use jokes than Donald Trump supporters.

ANN ARBOR-No one likes smug knowit-all friends, relatives or co-workers who believe their knowledge and beliefs are superior to others. But now these discussions at the dinner table, bar or office might be less annoying. A new University of Michigan study indicates what many people suspect: these know-it-all people are especially prone to overestimating what they actually know.

With the mixed-race population rapidly increasing in the United States, Stanford political scientist Lauren Davenport says it's important to figure out what factors shape this group's political attitudes and self-identification. Biracial youth who identify with the races of both of their parents tend to be more socially progressive and liberal than their peers who are of a single racial background, according to new research from a Stanford political scientist.

African-American voters who dislike and feel threatened by Donald Trump and his presidency are much more likely to vote and to engage with politics, according to new research from California State University, Sacramento, and the University of Washington. The findings, the researchers say, indicate sentiment against Trump and his policies creates an opportunity for African-American mobilization as the country heads toward the 2018 midterm elections.

Prevailing theories about evolution state that belief in the concept is tied only to a person's politics, religion or both. But according to new research out of the University of Pennsylvania published in BioScience , the journal of the American Institute of Biology, whether Americans accept or reject the subject also depends on how well they understand it.

By many accounts, Joseph Estrada had a lackluster record of helping the poor in the Philippines. The former president was ousted in 2001 and later convicted of plunder for stealing $80 million from the government. Nevertheless, the urban poor in Manila have continued to support the former film actor, who ran for president in 2010 after being pardoned.

Long-held beliefs can become entrenched over time, making them hard to change. But psychedelics might provide a way to alter them, a study suggests. Researchers have been exploring psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, as a potential therapeutic avenue for a small group of patients with depression who do not respond to mainstream treatments - with initial results suggesting a lasting reduction in symptoms.

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.