News & Views |
Featured
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Feature |
Flexible working: Science in the gig economy
Will the future of research rely on independent workers who perform short-term jobs? Labour researchers and freelance scientists share their views.
- Roberta Kwok
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Outlook |
Early starters
Girls are entering puberty at ever younger ages. What are the causes, and should we be worried?
- Jessa Gamble
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Outlook |
Women's invisible power
Understanding the nuances of women's various roles in African societies can make or break health research.
- Linda Nordling
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Books & Arts |
Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.
- Barbara Kiser
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Books & Arts |
In retrospect: Das Kapital
As the world is reshaped by another industrial revolution, Gareth Stedman Jones revisits Karl Marx's opus.
- Gareth Stedman Jones
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Correspondence |
Restrict bush fires used in animal hunts
- Mwazvita T. B. Dalu
- , Tatenda Dalu
- & Ryan J. Wasserman
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World View |
A year on, Brexit brings lessons in uncertainty
It is more important to understand the electorate than to make predictions about the outcome of elections, says Jane Green.
- Jane Green
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Books & Arts |
Inequality: Live poor, die young
Abigail A. Sewell examines a physician's study of how deprivation shortens lifespan.
- Abigail A. Sewell
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News & Views |
Occasional errors can benefit coordination
The chances of solving a problem that involves coordination between people are increased by introducing robotic players that sometimes make mistakes. This finding has implications for real-world coordination problems. See Letter p.370
- Simon Gächter
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Letter |
Locally noisy autonomous agents improve global human coordination in network experiments
A networked colour coordination game, with humans interacting with autonomous software bots, shows that bots acting with small levels of random noise and being placed centrally in the network improves not only human–bot interactions but also human–human interactions at distant nodes.
- Hirokazu Shirado
- & Nicholas A. Christakis
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News |
Immigration crackdowns damage health — even for unborn children
The lasting effects of stress and fear of deportation are beginning to emerge.
- Sara Reardon
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News |
Gender bias distorts peer review across fields
Editors are more likely to select reviewers of the same gender.
- Erin Ross
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Obituary |
Stephen E. Fienberg (1942–2016)
Statistician who campaigned for better science in court.
- Robin Mejia
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Correspondence |
Anthropocene: its stratigraphic basis
- Jan Zalasiewicz
- , Colin Waters
- & Martin J. Head
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Comment |
Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene
The causes of Earth's transition are human and social, write Erle Ellis and colleagues, so scholars from those disciplines must be included in its formalization.
- Erle Ellis
- , Mark Maslin
- & Andrew Bauer
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Editorial |
Researchers serve up suggestions to reduce food waste
A change in cultural and social factors — such as overcoming a distaste for doggy bags — will be required to shift people’s behaviour.
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Editorial |
Academia must resist political confirmation bias
It is crucial to fight discrimination in all its forms, but it is unhelpful to exclude conservative voices from debate.
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News |
Pollsters struggle to explain failures of US presidential forecasts
Most surveys did not predict Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
- Ramin Skibba
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News & Views |
Female genital cutting under the spotlight
Variations in opinion between members of a community can be exploited to facilitate desirable changes in attitude, as exemplified by films that explore different beliefs about female genital cutting. See Letter p.506
- Nicholas A. Christakis
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Letter |
Changing cultural attitudes towards female genital cutting
Entertaining movies addressing both individual values and marriageability can provide a way to change cultural attitudes towards female genital cutting within certain cultures.
- Sonja Vogt
- , Nadia Ahmed Mohmmed Zaid
- & Charles Efferson
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News & Views |
50 & 100 Years Ago
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News |
Scholarly Olympics: How the games have shaped research
A graphical guide to the impact of the Olympics on science.
- Daniel Cressey
- , Ramin Skibba
- & Richard Van Noorden
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News |
Europe’s premier funding agency measures its impact
European Research Council embarks on an unusual evaluation that could inspire others.
- Alison Abbott
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News |
Poor musical taste? Blame your upbringing
The world that we hear shapes the music that we like.
- Ramin Skibba
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News |
‘Glass floor’ persists in UK research
Scientists from low-income backgrounds face barrier to entry, but no pay discrimination.
- Elena Bozhkova
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Editorial |
Meet the challenge of interdisciplinary science
Problems of modern society demand collaborative research.
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News Q&A |
The physicist who studies ISIS communities online
Neil Johnson explains what he learned when his team analysed nearly 200 pro-ISIS online communities.
- Elena Bozhkova
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News |
Social-sciences preprint server snapped up by publishing giant Elsevier
The Social Science Research Network says that it will continue to offer free submissions and downloads under its new owner.
- Richard Van Noorden
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News |
Gene variants linked to success at school prove divisive
Huge study uncovers 74 genetic markers that influence the number of years spent in education.
- Erika Check Hayden
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News Feature |
How to hack the hackers: The human side of cybercrime
As cyberattacks grow ever more sophisticated, those who defend against them are embracing behavioural science and economics to understand both the perpetrators and their victims.
- M. Mitchell Waldrop
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News |
Major biodiversity panel desperately seeks social scientists
Intergovernmental body that tracks world ecosystems is criticized for its own lack of diversity.
- Olive Heffernan
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Correspondence |
IPBES reaches out to social scientists
- Anne Larigauderie
- , Marie Stenseke
- & Robert T. Watson
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News |
Door-to-door canvassing reduces transphobia
A simple, non-judgemental chat can lessen prejudice towards transgender people.
- Heidi Ledford
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World View |
Recognize the value of social science
A professional body for UK social scientists can help to improve research practice — and not just in public engagement, says Andrew Webster.
- Andrew Webster
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Outlook |
Stress: The privilege of health
Deprivation leads to stress, and stress to bad health. A park, and the science behind it, aims to break that chain.
- Amy Maxmen
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Outlook |
Social networks: Better together
Social ties go hand-in-hand with cognitive health. Now researchers are trying to determine why engaging with others helps to keep the brain healthy.
- Chelsea Wald
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Comment |
Development: Slow down population growth
Within a decade, women everywhere should have access to quality contraceptive services, argues John Bongaarts.
- John Bongaarts
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Books & Arts |
Urban studies: Blueprint for a cooperative city
Colin Ellard examines a study of the new urban paradigm that fosters 'deep sharing'.
- Colin Ellard
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Books & Arts |
Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.
- Barbara Kiser
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News Feature |
Science and sexism: In the eye of the Twitterstorm
Social media is shaking up how scientists talk about gender issues.
- Lauren Morello