Recent Science News

People across history rarely blamed events on pure chance, cross-cultural review argues
Drawing on ethnographic and historical records, Ze Hong argues that most societies explained misfortune and coincidence through causes, spirits or luck, and that chance became an accepted explanation only late in history, alongside probability theory.

Daydreaming is about 42% heritable and already declines in young adulthood
In 1,194 young adults from the Human Connectome Project, identical twins correlated at 0.33 in daydreaming versus 0.12 for fraternal twins, giving a heritability of 0.42; older and less educated participants daydreamed slightly less.

Generation X is really two political generations, split at the 1973 birth year
Gen Xers born from 1965 to 1972 vote and think more like Baby Boomers, while those born 1973 to 1980 side with Millennials. In 2016, older Gen Xers rated Trump 40.3 out of 100, younger ones just 30.8.

Prisoners placed 100 miles farther from home get 60% fewer visits and reoffend more
In Washington State, a 100-mile increase in home-to-prison distance cut monthly visits by 60% and raised one-year readmission by 9%. One extra visit a month lowered three-year re-incarceration by about 7% and post-release housing voucher use by 12%.

Stock markets tend to rise in the week after a blockbuster movie opens
Blockbuster movie releases were followed by significantly higher US stock market returns the next week, along with lower expected volatility and risk aversion, and the pattern also appeared in international markets.

Five shared genetic factors explain about two thirds of the risk for 14 psychiatric disorders
Analysing genetic data from 1,056,201 cases across 14 psychiatric disorders, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium found five underlying genomic factors that explain around 66% of each disorder's genetic variance on average, tied to 238 shared genetic loci.

38 million obituaries show Americans are remembered for faith and family, not power
An analysis of 38 million US obituaries found tradition appears in 80% and benevolence in 76%, while power and stimulation are rare; men are remembered more for achievement and power, women for benevolence, and benevolence has not recovered since COVID-19.