Recent Science News

Keeping good news to yourself can leave you feeling more energised
Five experiments with 2,800 people found that positive secrets, such as a planned proposal or surprise gift, boost feelings of energy compared with the same good news shared openly, because people choose to keep them freely.

A resume that brags with a joke drew more hiring interest than plain self-promotion
Across four studies, "humorbragging" made job candidates seem both warmer and more competent: a humorbragging resume drew more recruiter interest, and humorbragging entrepreneurs secured more funding than those using other humor.

Lonely people lean toward conspiracy theories, and that link extended to dodging a real tax
Across three UK studies with about 1,400 participants, loneliness was tied to conspiracy thinking, which in turn predicted support for norm-breaking political action and, in one experiment, actually refusing to pay 5 pence of VAT on a study payment.

Driverless trucks could boost Mississippi’s interstate exports by 40% of its GDP
Simulating a 35% cut in trucking costs from autonomous trucks, economists estimate interstate exports would rise by the equivalent of 40.3% of GDP in Mississippi and 5.9% in Florida, with the biggest dollar gains in California, Texas and Illinois.

Tips peak at mid-sized tables and mid-length meals, 800,000 pizza bills show
In more than 800,000 transactions from 60 Norwegian pizza restaurants, the chance of a tip rose and then fell with party size and with time at the table, and both patterns shifted with the bill, customer ratings and whether alcohol was ordered.

Low-income smokers who kept buying doubled their spending after California’s $2 tax
After California added $2 a pack in 2017, the share of households buying cigarettes fell from 10.6% to 4.2% by 2022, but low-income households that kept buying saw yearly spending climb from $651 to $1,343.

Most people think they are more authentic than others, and expect to get even more so
A Nature Reviews Psychology review finds people rate their own authenticity above others' and expect it to keep rising. The evidence fits authenticity as self-enhancement and self-ownership far better than accurate self-knowledge.