Recent Science News

Law professors who joined Twitter got 22% more citations a year
Comparing U.S. law professors on Twitter with synthetic control groups of similar colleagues, researchers found joining raised citations by 22% per year and lifted journal placements by up to 10 ranks.

After a data breach, Florida hospitals sped up care and cut heart attack deaths
Comparing six breached Florida hospitals with six matched ones across 1.3 million emergency admissions, researchers found breaches were followed by 0.56 fewer hours to admission, 0.18 fewer days to treatment and a one-point drop in heart attack mortality.

R. Kelly’s streams fell because Spotify pulled his songs, not because fans boycotted him
After Spotify removed R. Kelly from its playlists in 2018, streams of the delisted songs fell about 25% while his other songs dropped only 3.8%. The 2019 documentary and #MuteRKelly calls actually raised streams, by 117.74% in the following week.

Longer words make an apology sound more sincere
Apology posts on X used words about one letter longer than the same people's other posts, and in a ranking test 49 readers judged apologies with longer words as more apologetic. Rare words had no such effect.

Quitting social media for a week does not make people happier, meta-analysis finds
Pooling 10 studies with 4,674 adults, researchers found that social media breaks had no significant effect on positive affect (g = 0.03), negative affect (g = -0.01) or life satisfaction (g = 0.03).

Pointing out who stayed silent made students 17% more willing to voice unpopular views
In an experiment with 383 UC Berkeley students, those holding socially unpopular views self-censored more. Showing students how many peers had stayed silent corrected their beliefs about public opinion and made holders of unpopular views about 17% more likely to speak.

Replying just 5 to 10 minutes later sharply cuts a freelancer’s chance of getting hired
In 11.66 million Fiverr transactions, longer reply delays meant a lower chance of winning the contract, and even 5 to 10 minute delays dramatically reduced hiring; experiments with 3,603 people showed fast replies signal future responsiveness.