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Jurors are subject to all kinds of biases when it comes to deciding on a trial
Society, Politics & Law

Jurors are subject to all kinds of biases when it comes to deciding on a trial

...humans, are not always rational, and may struggle to process and utilise all the available information in a reasoned manner. This tendency often leads to biased decision making that can lead to errors. For example, research from 2001 found that jurors may favour particular verdicts as a trial progresses, despite being warned against doing this by a judge. These...
Do whales commit suicide?
Nature & Environment

Do whales commit suicide?

...humans the only animals who kill themselves, or do other species commit suicide as well? David Lusseau considers the case of whale beachings...Witnessing any dolphin or whale stranding live is a deeply moving experience; particularly when you end up accompanying an individual to the end of its life. My stomach still churns remembering the time that I encountered one in...
Trouble in paradise: The Dutch golden age
History & The Arts

Trouble in paradise: The Dutch golden age

...human being (“I think therefore I am”), scientists like Christiaan Huygens and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek invented telescopes and microscopes that made visible new worlds of experience. There was also an unusual degree of freedom of worship. Persecuted Jews from across Europe were given refuge in Amsterdam, while Non-Conformist Christian groups with radical views about...
Subjugation and slavery: fake news in the nineteenth-century press
History & The Arts

Subjugation and slavery: fake news in the nineteenth-century press

...human and from a different species to the white European to prove the inferiority of black people. Writers found many different ways to promote the idea that African people were sub-human... Slavery was abolished in the British Colonies in 1833 but scientists and anthropologists lent credibility to pseudo-sciences that purported to show differences between the races. One...
Personality: A user guide
Health, Sports & Psychology

Personality: A user guide

...humans were basically running the same software, which would mean that given the same learning history, the same dilemmas, they would all respond in much the same way. Yet we now know that this is not the case. Personality measures turn out to be good predictors of your health, your sexual promiscuity, your likelihood of divorce, how happy you typically are – even your...
Scoring the Shoreline
History & The Arts

Scoring the Shoreline

...human presence: fog horns in the channel; the compulsive chinking of rigging against mast; children playing; Punch and Judy, or the brash cacophony of amusement arcades. Whichever of these, and a host of other sounds, are brought to mind we clearly imagine the sounds of the seaside in a variety of ways. In turn this reflects our manifold uses and encounters with the coast...
How do children learn the concept of race?
Education & Development

How do children learn the concept of race?

...human race’ to address any perceived racial differences. While white parents may feel embarrassed or uncomfortable even addressing the concept of race, these misguided claims limit the complexities and lived experiences of many racial groups. White children have consistently been found to prefer their own racial group to any other and they do so from a young age. And...
What is a virus?
Science, Maths & Technology

What is a virus?

...human genome is around 10,000 times larger, consisting of over 3 billion base pairs (‘bases’ and ‘base pairs’ are biology terminology referring to chemical structures in RNA and DNA; sequences of bases in RNA and DNA encode for all the proteins and determine the physical characteristics of organisms). But, how did viruses come about? One idea is that viruses...