UNCG philosopher of biology Derek Skillings will investigate the emergence and evolution of goal-directed behavior in collective entities, such as biofilms and corals, in collaboration with researchers at Emmanuel College, Northeastern University, and Tufts University, with new funding from the John Templeton Foundation. 

A new study by researchers at Mass General Brigham investigated the mortality and mental health correlates of the iconic Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, using data published by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s (IHME 2023) Global Burden of Disease project.

Most people are familiar with loopholes. When your boss, landlord, partner, customer, or government asks you to do something you don’t want to do, and yet you can’t say “no,” you may resort to malicious compliance – doing what someone asked, but not actually what they meant. Most parents are probably familiar with such “little lawyer” behavior too: if a parent says, “Time to put the tablet down,” a child might physically put the tablet down on the table – and then keep playing on it. While such intentional misunderstandings are common and important, there has been little research on the development of loophole behavior across childhood. In a new Child Development study from the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University examined when and why children engage in loopholes. Tracing the origin of loophole behavior and how communication goes wrong can help us to better understand how communication often goes right, when people are motivated to cooperate. This may be the first research to explore the phenomenon of loopholes across development and can help contribute to a broader understanding of social reasoning. 

Integrating smoking cessation support into NHS Talking Therapies significantly boosts the chances of patients quitting smoking, particularly those suffering from depression and anxiety.

A world first* study of more than 215,000 students, UniSA researchers found that while standardised tests measure academic skills, different dimensions of wellbeing - emotional wellbeing, engagement, and learning readiness - can play a crucial role in performance.