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The public and politicians do not see eye to eye in prioritising plastic pollution, according to new research. As the UK's political parties gear up to do battle for No. 10, a team of researchers from the Birmingham Plastics Network and the Institute for STEMM in Culture and Society (ISTEMMiCS), have published findings of a YouGov survey which show that there is a significant mismatch between the UK public and MPs, when it comes to prioritising the environmental impact of plastics.

What factors determine which countries people migrate to? Tim Müller from the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM) has analysed this in a study of 160 countries. According to the study, important pull factors for migration are not so much social benefits, but rather good job opportunities, democratic conditions and the national language.

US researchers launch PEPAdb (Prehistoric Europe's Personal Adornment database), an online and accessible tool with data on personal adornment items in recent prehistory. After decades of data collection, the US Quantitative Archaeology and Archaeological Science research group has carried out the configuration and deployment of a website with data on personal adornment in recent Prehistory on an intercontinental scale: PEPAdb.

There is very little difference between people living in eastern and western Germany or those in rural and urban areas when they assess their quality of life. This surprising result is one of the key findings of the Germany Monitor 2023 , a newly developed annual scientific study that provides a new perspective on the social and political attitudes and assessments of the German population.

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has prepared a study approaching crimes against nature from the perspective of international law. This article takes the war in Iraq between 2014 and 2017 as a reference and has been published in the international scientific journal Crime, Justice and Social Democracy.

Trust in Government Measure also aims to help inform better public health policies. People are less likely to adopt new health policies if they don't have faith in their government, and a new tool from University of Waterloo researchers aims to fix that. The tool - designed by a team based in Waterloo's School of Public Health Sciences - aids lawmakers in how trustworthy they may appear to the public and could help improve the uptake of public health policies by informing their design and communication.

Today, the Netherlands is holding its elections, a crucial opportunity for every Dutch citizen to express their satisfaction or discontent with society through vote. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for marginalized groups, including Muslims, to abstain from voting despite the significance of this democratic process.

Published on Wednesday 15 November 2023 Last updated on Wednesday 15 November 2023 Focus groups that feed views, experiences and opinions into politics, business and research might yield more open interaction and discussion within groups by moving moderators to a separate room, shows new research. The study developed and tested a novel 'remotely-moderated' focus group method where questions are posed on a screen, and moved along by a moderator watching the group from a different room.

Using generic terms in politics may be exacerbating political division, a new study suggests. Statements such as "Democrats want to have tougher gun laws” and "Republicans want to ban abortion,” can heighten perceived differences between the two political parties, the study says. Researchers at the University of Michigan, Columbia University and Stony Brook University studied political polarization due to individuals making broad generalizations about certain groups based on inconsistent evidence.

New heat map charts unequal civic opportunity in the U.S. Local faith institutions and social organizations are the top providers of civic engagement, and civic opportunity decreases as poverty levels increase, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University's SNF Agora Institute P eople in many parts of the United States possess few chances for the robust community engagement that underpins healthy democracies, according to a new report that for the first time maps civic opportunity across the country.

People are beginning to reconsider their reproductive decisions due to complex concerns about climate change, with many choosing to forego childbearing, or reduce the number of children they have as a result, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research, published in PLOS Climate , is the first systematic review to explore how and why climate change-related concerns may be impacting reproductive decision-making.

For many people, science has become a question of faith - the acceptance of research results increasingly depends on whether they fit in with their own world view. This poses new challenges for science communication. Simply preparing content in an appealing and accessible way for the public in order to close gaps in knowledge and present new innovations is no longer enough.

In a couple of weeks, Dutch citizens aged 18 and above will be participating in an upcoming election. What are the opinions of adolescents and young adults when it comes to politics'. Erasmus SYNC Lab investigated this in collaboration with the Hot Politics labs from the University of Amsterdam. The findings reveal that less than one in three young people (30%) are interested in Dutch politics.

People often feel strongly about politics and this drives their behaviour. For instance, anxiety often motivates people to learn more about a political issue and anger brings us to the voting booth. But we know relatively little about where these emotions come from or how to predict them. Political scientist Isabella Rebasso studied political emotions and found they do not follow the usual pattern of emotions, as we know them in everyday life.

In a collaborative effort involving researchers from the Hot Politics Lab and the SYNC Lab EUR have unveiled intriguing insights into the political attitudes of Dutch adolescents and young adults aged 10 to 25 residing in Rotterdam. The findings shed light on how the youth perceive and engage with politics, offering valuable implications for the future of democracy.

A new EPFL developed tool, Quotebank , has helped researchers provide the first large-scale data-driven evidence of a drastic shift towards a more negative political tone beginning at the start of Donald Trump's primary campaign in June 2015. A vast majority of Americans believe that the tone and nature of political debate in the United States has become more negative in recent years and more than half have the impression that Donald Trump is responsible.

Waterloo Engineering researchers are developing new technologies to combat disinformation - a robust solution to fake news By John Roe Faculty of Engineering Cutting-edge technologies gave the world fake news, but researchers from the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Engineering are developing even newer technology to stop it.

What is the dynamic between political debate in the Dutch House of Representatives and reactions, commentary and framing on social media? Academics of the Utrecht University Faculty of Humanities and Data School, investigated this question. The researchers analysed data from various public sources: publicly accessible groups and accounts on X (previously Twitter) and Telegram where the Dutch language is used.

Vital forest is cleared every day, with major climate effects. Satellites have revolutionized measurement of the problem, but what can we do about it? Imagine if France, Germany, and Spain were completely blanketed in forests - and then all those trees were quickly chopped down. That's nearly the amount of deforestation that occurred globally between 2001 and 2020, with profound consequences.

According to research by linguists Leo Lentz and Henk Pander Maat (Utrecht University), a simpler speech from the throne is better understood and more positively assessed. Lentz and Pander Maat rewrote the 2022 Dutch speech from the throne, leaving the content unchanged but the wording more accessible.