your science briefing for 10.15.2025
The link between rage and conspiracy theories, searching for the universe's hidden dimensions, looking beyond dark energy, and more...
Anyone who still remembers Alex Jones routinely blowing his top between pitching his version of Goop with camo labels may have wondered if there are any links between a short temper and conspiratorial thinking. Turns out, yes, there are. People with anger issues do seem to be more easily convinced that someone is out to get them, and the greater the intensity of the conspiracy, the more alert they become… (PsyPost)
Microplastics and environmental pollution from common industrial chemicals are now causing multiple childhood illnesses and becoming one of the leading causes of death and chronic complications before puberty, say pediatricians and scientists demanding serious study, action, and regulation of all these compounds… (NEJM)
Imagine a place that holds the keys to the mysteries of the universe. It’s called DUNE. Yes, like the sci-fi franchise and series of novels, but also as an acronym that stands for Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. By tracking how neutrinos — particles that rain down from space and pass through us like ghosts — fluctuate between the three possible mass, energy, and spin configurations they can assume, we may get an insight into whether there may be hidden dimensions in our reality… (LiveScience)
Have you been sleeping well? No? Then your brain may have to work harder when an intrusive thought rears its ugly head. Turns out that your mind has a budget for just about everything, from empathy, to charity, to anger, to yes, suppressing annoying or unwanted stray thoughts, and the less you rest or the worse you sleep, the lower that budget will be during your waking hours… (SciAm)
Dark energy is an annoying concept. It’s supposed to be some property of space and time itself that’s pushing the universe apart at an accelerating rate, but we don’t know what it is, how it’s supposed to work, and struggle to verify its existence directly while still making sense of our model of the cosmos. So, say some cosmologists, what if it doesn’t really exist and we’re just refusing to accept that the universe may simply be expanding unevenly at the galactic cluster scale? (The Conversation)