Media and Entertainment News

June 24, 2025

Top Headlines

Social Media Platform Tailoring Could Support More Fulfilling Use, Study Finds

May 8, 2025 — Redesigning social media to suit different needs of users could make their time online more focused, according to new ...

Is Virtual-Only Couture the New Clothing Craze?

May 7, 2025 — As fast fashion continues to fill wardrobes and landfills at a staggering pace, new research suggests that the future of fashion might lie not in fabric, but in ...

Study Suggests Dance and Lullabies Aren't Universal Human Behaviors

Apr. 30, 2025 — Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from an anthropologist challenges the idea that dance and lullabies ...

Skeletal Evidence of Roman Gladiator Bitten by Lion in Combat

Apr. 23, 2025 — Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a ...

Genes May Influence Our Enjoyment of Music

Apr. 2, 2025 — Does our ability to enjoy music have a biological basis? A genetic twin study shows that music enjoyment is partly heritable. Scientists uncovered genetic factors that influence the degree of music enjoyment, which were partly distinct from genes ...

How Family Background Can Help Lead to Athletic Success

Mar. 20, 2025 — Americans have long believed that sports are one area in society that offers kids from all backgrounds the chance to succeed to the best of their abilities. But new research suggests that this belief is largely a myth, and that success in high ...

How 'Self-Silencing' Your Opinion May Change Behavior

Mar. 10, 2025 — People who have a minority viewpoint on a controversial topic are more likely to 'self-silence' themselves in conversation -- and that may lead them to behave against their own beliefs, a new study ...

Nearly 4 of 10 Americans Report Sports-Related Mistreatment

Mar. 4, 2025 — Nearly 40% of adult Americans say they've experienced some type of sport-related mistreatment in their lives, a new study shows. Mistreatment ranged from psychological and emotional to physical and sexual. But most people who reported mistreatment ...

'Loot Box' Virtual Rewards Associated With Gambling and Video Game Addiction

Feb. 24, 2025 — A new study of more than 1400 adults who gamble and play online video games has found loot box buying is associated with real-world gambling, video gaming addiction, and other mental health issues. ...

The Complicated Question of How We Determine Who Has an Accent

Feb. 16, 2025 — How do you tell if someone has a particular accent? It might seem obvious: You hear someone pronounce words in a way that is different from 'normal' and connect it to other people from a specific place. But a new study suggests that might not be the ...

Lost Score Revives Sound of Music and Voices from Centuries Past

Dec. 18, 2024 — A fragment of 'lost' music found in the pages of Scotland's first full-length printed book is providing clues to what music sounded like five centuries ago. Scholars have been investigating the origins of the musical score -- which contains only 55 ...

Soda Taxes Don't Just Affect Sales: They Help Change People's Minds

Dec. 11, 2024 — The city of Berkeley's first-in-the-nation soda tax a decade ago, along with more recent Bay Area tax increases on sugar-sweetened drinks, have not only led to reduced sales. They are also associated with significant changes in social norms and ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:27pm EDT

Study Calls for City Fashion-Waste Shakeup

Nov. 22, 2024 — With most donated clothes exported or thrown away, experts are calling for a shakeup of how we deal with the growing fashion waste ...

Here's Something Americans Agree On: Sports Build Character

Nov. 22, 2024 — In a polarized nation, there is one thing that nearly all Americans agree on, according to a recent study: sports are good for us. Researchers found that more than 9 out of 10 Americans agreed that ...

Athletes Have Significantly Better Working Memory Than Sedentary People

Nov. 22, 2024 — A recently published meta-analysis reveals an advantage in sports-related information processing compared to non-athletes. The data consisted of 21 studies involving a total of 1455 participants. ...

Bach, Mozart or Jazz

Nov. 5, 2024 — Physicists have investigated to which extent a piece of music can evoke expectations about its progression. They were able to determine differences in how far compositions of different composers can ...

The Dangerous Pursuit of Muscularity in Men and Adolescent Boys

Oct. 31, 2024 — Men and adolescent boys are increasingly at risk of resorting to the dangerous use of anabolic steroids in a bid to achieve the desired muscular build modeled on social media, warn body image ...

Britain's Brass Bands Older Than We Thought and Invented by Soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars

Oct. 30, 2024 — Military musicians returning from the Napoleonic wars established Britain's first brass bands earlier than previously thought, new research reveals. ...

Studying Wikipedia Browsing Habits to Learn How People Learn

Oct. 25, 2024 — A collaborative team of researchers led by Dale Zhou, who did his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and Dani Bassett in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied ...

People Hate Stories They Think Were Written by AI: Even If They Were Written by People

Oct. 23, 2024 — AI-written stories are getting better, but people still distrust AI-generated ...

Manliness Concerns Impede Forgiveness of Coworkers

Oct. 18, 2024 — The more men are concerned about appearing masculine, the less likely they will forgive a co-worker for a transgression such as missing an important meeting, a study has found. What's more, such men ...

Eyes on the Fries: How Our Vision Creates a Food Trend

Oct. 7, 2024 — Research shows that how we rate food is influenced by 'serial dependence' -- our judgement cascades on from the food we've just ...

Stars or Numbers? How Rating Formats Change Consumer Behavior

May 19, 2025 — Researchers found that consumers tend to overestimate fractional star ratings and underestimate fractional numerals. In either case, the ratings can be misleading, potentially causing a company to ...

Basketball Analytics Investment Is Key to NBA Wins and Other Successes

Mar. 25, 2025 — A study finds NBA teams that hired more analytics staff, and invested more in data analysis, tended to win more ...

11 To 12-Year-Olds Use Smartphones Mainly to Talk to Family and Friends

Dec. 26, 2024 — A research group has analyzed the digital ecosystem of 11- to 12-year-old children across the Basque Autonomous Community, and concluded that two out of three own a smartphone. They use smartphones ...

Eliminating Physical Activity Disparities Between Male and Female Youth Could Save Hundreds of Millions of Dollars, New Study Says

Nov. 26, 2024 — Eliminating current physical activity disparities between male and female youth in the United States could save around $780 million for each new cohort of six-to-17-year-olds, according to a new ...

How to Reduce Social Media Stress by Leaning in Instead of Logging Off

Nov. 13, 2024 — Young people's mental health may depend on how they use social media, rather than how much time they spend using it. Psychology researchers tried an experiment with three groups. They asked one ...

New Study Sheds Light on the Role of Sound and Music in Gendered Toy Marketing

Nov. 6, 2024 — New research reveals that the music and soundscapes used in toy commercials are reinforcing rigid gender norms, shaping the way children perceive masculinity and femininity. The study uncovers how ...

Automatic Speech Recognition Learned to Understand People With Parkinson's Disease -- By Listening to Them

Sep. 27, 2024 — Listening to people with Parkinson's disease made an automatic speech recognizer 30-percent more accurate, according to a new ...

Socioeconomics Shape Children's Connection to Nature More Than Where They Live

Aug. 23, 2024 — The income and education levels of a child's environment determine their relationship to nature, not whether they live in a city or the countryside. The results run counter to the assumption ...

Air Pollution Harms Mental Health Worse in New York's Historically Redlined Neighborhoods

Aug. 22, 2024 — The statewide study found that the link between pollutants and ER visits is more pronounced in communities that were once denied mortgages due to ...

Organized Youth Sports Are Increasingly for the Privileged

Aug. 20, 2024 — A sweeping study of U.S. youth sports participation over the past 60 years found that there has been a significant increase over time in kids playing organized sports -- but particularly among more ...

Dance, Dance Revolution: Research Shows Dance and Movement Therapy Can Increase Emotional and Social Intelligence in Middle School Students

Aug. 5, 2024 — An assistant clinical professor developed a specialized dance and movement therapy (DMT) program to meet the unique needs of youth from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to foster a sense of ...

Virtual Reality Training for Physicians Aims to Heal Disparities in Black Maternal Health Care

July 22, 2024 — A virtual reality training series being developed for medical students and physicians teaches them about implicit bias in their communications with their patients who are people of color and how that ...

User Control of Autoplay Can Alter Awareness of Online Video 'Rabbit Holes'

July 11, 2024 — A new study suggests that giving users control over the interface feature of autoplay can help them realize that they are going down a rabbit hole. The work has implications for responsibly designing ...

Playing Youth Sports Linked to Better Mental Health in Adults

June 26, 2024 — Adults who continuously played organized sports through their youth have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression than those who never played or those who dropped out, a new study finds. And those ...

US Public Opinion on Social Media Is Warming to Nuclear Energy, but Concerns Remain

June 5, 2024 — The U.S. public displays more positive than negative sentiment toward nuclear energy but concerns remain about waste, cost and safety, according to an analysis of 300,000 posts on social ...

Close to 1 in 2 Surveyed Say They Would Use Air Taxis in the Future

May 28, 2024 — Through a study of 1,002 participants, scientists have found that almost half (45.7 per cent) say they intend to use air taxis when they become available, with over one-third (36.2 per cent) planning ...

Study Traces an Infectious Language Epidemic

May 13, 2024 — A computer scientist has shown the power of language to predict harm -- this time to the nation's ...

Machine Listening: Making Speech Recognition Systems More Inclusive

Apr. 30, 2024 — One group commonly misunderstood by voice technology are individuals who speak African American English, or AAE. Researchers designed an experiment to test how AAE speakers adapt their speech when ...

Data-Driven Music: Converting Climate Measurements Into Music

Apr. 18, 2024 — A geo-environmental scientist from Japan has composed a string quartet using sonified climate data. The 6-minute-long composition -- entitled 'String Quartet No. 1 'Polar Energy ...

The Joy of Sports: How Watching Sports Can Boost Well-Being

Apr. 15, 2024 — Sports, beyond entertainment, foster community and belonging, benefiting both individuals and society. Despite its recognized positive effects, limited evidence exists on the link between watching ...