SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
The ability to determine what’s real and what’s fake online could soon become a little easier thanks to artificial intelligence systems and research developed at The University of Queensland. Data scientist Associate Professor Dr Gianluca Demartini said the aim of the project was to establish an online safety benchmark for the identification of fake news. … Read more Figuring out fake news
Electoral gerrymandering, in which political districts are drawn to favor one party, has attracted renewed attention of late. The centuries-old practice operates to bias the outcome of elections. Now researchers led by Penn biologist Joshua B. Plotkin and the University of Houston’s Alexander J. Stewart have identified another impediment to democratic decision making, one that … Read more ‘Information gerrymandering’ poses a threat to democratic decision making, both online and off
Social network interventions can have a significant effect on a range of health behaviors and outcomes both in the short and long term, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Ruth Hunter of Queen’s University Belfast, UK, and colleagues. There has been a growing interest in understanding the effects of social networks … Read more Social network interventions can lead to potential health benefits
Despite its portrayal as a network that “champions free speech,” users of the social media platform Gab display more extreme social hierarchy and elitism when compared to Twitter users, according to a new study published in the September edition of the online journal “First Monday.” Researchers found a small number of Gab users hold a … Read more Research finds extreme elitism, social hierarchy among Gab users
New research from The Australian National University (ANU) shows Twitter data can be used to give more accurate profit forecasts for companies in the consumer sector. The findings challenge the traditional view from experts that social media chatter is just ‘noise’ that is of no value to financial analysts. The study used positive and negative … Read more Twitter can improve accuracy of profit forecasts
Online hate thrives globally through self-organized, scalable clusters that interconnect to form resilient networks spread across multiple social media platforms, countries and languages, according to new research published today in the journal Nature. Researchers at the George Washington University developed a mapping model, the first of its kind, to track how these online hate clusters … Read more First of its kind mapping model tracks how hate spreads and adapts online
Researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), part of the University of Oxford, used an eight-year survey of UK households (Understanding Society, part of the UK Household Longitudinal Study) to study how long teenagers spent using social media on a normal school day and their corresponding life satisfaction ratings. This is the first large-scale and … Read more Social media has limited effects on teenage life satisfaction