Recent Science News

How much a baby prefers faces over objects is about 46% down to genes, twin study finds
In 536 five-month-old twins, eye tracking showed that sustained preference for faces over objects had a heritability of 0.46, with no detectable effect of shared family environment. Babies who looked longer at faces understood slightly more words at 14 months.

Staying neutral on hot-button issues earns as little moral credit as taking the other side
Across 11 studies with North American samples, observers judged people who stayed neutral on contested sociopolitical issues as no more moral than people who openly opposed them, because they read neutrality as apathy or strategy rather than genuine indecision.

Lawyer ads about blood-thinner risks cut prescriptions and raised hospital visits
Television ads recruiting plaintiffs against makers of blood thinners reduced prescription fills for the targeted drugs and increased hospitalizations for conditions the drugs treat, such as stroke, according to a study of US Medicare data from 2015 to 2019.

Bake Off judges favor the first dish they taste in blind tests
Analyzing the technical challenge of The Great British Bake Off, economists found that expert judges rank the first bake they taste more favorably, in the British show and other English-speaking versions, with no recency effect.

Complaints written with ChatGPT were 6.9 points more likely to win relief from banks
Analysing 1,134,512 complaints to the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, researchers estimate that using an LLM raised the chance of relief by 6.9 percentage points. Experiments showed AI edits helped through clearer presentation, with the facts unchanged.

Big solar farms raise nearby farmland prices 19% but cut home values by about 5%
Using 8.8 million US property sales around 3,699 large solar sites, researchers found farmland within 2 miles gained about 19.4% in value while homes within 3 miles lost about 4.8%, with bigger losses in conservative counties.

Laughing at your own blunder makes you look warmer and more competent than blushing
Across six preregistered studies with 3,204 people, those who laughed off a harmless faux pas were judged warmer, more competent and more authentic than those who showed embarrassment. When the blunder harmed others, the advantage shrank or reversed.