Biodiversity reduces human, wildlife diseases and crop pests

"Their findings not only contribute substantially to a debate in ecology research, said the authors, but also have implications for public health and make a case for better management of natural systems, such as forests and croplands. The researchers suggest that biodiversity conservation programs might provide a strategy to minimize pests and mitigate disease outbreaks that are the consequence of human-induced decreases to biodiversity."

Churches Are Using Facial Recognition to Track Members

"'I can tell you in general that churches also don't like to be described as privacy invaders,' Greenshpan told me. 'Most of them would like to keep this confidential. We try to encourage churches to make Churchix more visible, so it will become like a checkpoint for registration. Of course, so far we haven’t had great success in doing that.'"

Green Spaces Make Kids Smarter

"The children who had more vegetation around their schools showed more progress in working memory and attention over the course of a year, a finding that held true even after the authors controlled for socioeconomic status."

Consciousness has less control than believed, according to new theory

"Consciousness, per Morsella's theory, is more reflexive and less purposeful than conventional wisdom would dictate. Because the human mind experiences its own consciousness as sifting through urges, thoughts, feelings and physical actions, people understand their consciousness to be in control of these myriad impulses. But in reality, Morsella argues, consciousness does the same simple task over and over, giving the impression that it is doing more than it actually is."

Nurture, not physical environment, explains human behavior

"Cultural inertia is not necessarily disadvantageous, the research noted. Learning from one's parent's generation could be beneficial because it allows for the accumulation of information through time. This capacity for cultural learning may be why modern humans were able to thrive in virtually every terrestrial habitat on Earth and why human societies vary to an extent unmatched in the animal world."

ET Go Home: Let’s Retire The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis

"Presumptions have kept us locked in a vicious circle because most of us don’t even realize that we’re in it. It would be nice to crack this circle so that we can move into the larger world of logic, interesting ideas and fun speculation. We might even begin to meet the phenomenon of UFOs more on its own terms (or at least without us getting in our own way.)"

'Transabled' people are cutting off their own limbs to become disabled in disturbing trend

"'I feel like my body is correct at last, and that's a way cool feeling,' he said. When asked if he would do anything differently if presented with a do-over, he answered, 'No, it came off better than I ever imagined.'"

What the Rachel Dolezal Scandal Teaches Us

"She was born in Montana, but not in a teepee, as she claimed.  She did not have to use bows and arrows to hunt her own food.  She had never been in South Africa, though she claimed she was raised there.  Her parents did not discipline her with 'baboon whips' similar to those used during slavery days.  They did not, as she claimed, punish her for being dark-skinned."

The fake battle that fooled IS supporters - and their opponents

"He remained adamant that it wasn't irresponsible to make up a battle on his mostly reality-based news account. The name of the place Shichwa is actually a joke - it's Iraqi Arabic for 'cheese bladder,' a traditional method of making dairy products. Mahmoud says that alone would have tipped people off."

Why have we stopped seeing UFOs in the skies?

"The way this stuff has permeated culture as a whole has bred a widespread incurious scepticism. We now extend the same degree of undifferentiating refusal even to those phenomena that, while hard to credit, deserve to be heeded. Climate change might be the most obvious current instance but, at its most noxious, scepticism results in an unwillingness to believe in others’ suffering. The attitude of wholesale rejection, by which one might stand a chance of becoming impervious to fraud, is thus bought at the ever greater risk of nihilism."

Fermi's phony paradox: Humans too arrogant and stupid to solve 'missing aliens' question

"Anthropocentrism not only implies a dehumanization of others here on our planet, it also points to the dismissal of the possibility of beings from other 'places'. From this very narrow point of view, that we're it - and that's it, and that is all that matters, we reduce our 'state of awareness' to the cosmic equivalent of a spoiled child. Even worse, when we don't acknowledge our true and objective position in the 'grand scheme of things', we become vulnerable and subject to the type of 'thinking' that permits some of the nations of our planet to dominate, if not outright destroy, others."

Masculinity Is Killing Men: The Roots of Men and Trauma

"When a group of 204 adults was shown video of the same baby crying and given differing information about the baby's sex, they judged the 'female' baby to be scared, while the 'male' baby was described as 'angry.'"

Is Richard Dawkins destroying his reputation?

"Dawkins might claim he only attacks the faith, not its individual believers, but in Sardar’s view his depiction of that faith denies its social and political complexity. 'What he is doing,' Sardar said, 'is creating a world that is more belligerent than the one we find ourselves in.'"

James Randi: debunking the king of the debunkers

"According to Sheldrake, his direct requests for data were twice ignored. After appealing to others at the JREF, Randi eventually wrote back, explaining that he couldn’t supply the data because it got washed away in a flood and that the dogs he tested are now in Mexico and their owner was 'tragically killed last year in a dreadful accident.'"

India Fighting Against Foreign NGOs

"A certain number of NGOs claim the role of umpire in matters of ideology in all of society and public policies, affecting the development of the political situation in a number of countries, interfering in the internal affairs of states, participating, as ordered by the West and especially US intelligence, in changing political powers in governments that are opponents of Washington."

Why is big business so interested in left-wing politics?

"Virtue signalling is cheap, and 'tolerance' is easy when it costs you precisely nothing; as long as you give lip service to diversity and equality, much of the Left will overlook how you actually behave and will concentrate their rage on small bakeries, whereas in the past they might have focused on wages or the treatment of producers."

Canadian Risk Assessment Finds GMO Salmon Susceptible to Disease

"'The modus operandi at FDA is to rubber stamp AquaBounty’s flawed and biased studies and then call its review process 'science-based,''' said Jaydee Hanson, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety. 'FDA's inadequate risk assessment is at odds with reality, with science and with the public, which has long called on the agency to put consumers' health and environmental safety ahead of the corporate interests of the biotechnology industry.'"

Creativity And The Unremarkable Cerebellum: Motor Region Found To Play Surprising Role

"The effort required to produce a creative outcome definitely involves more activity in the prefrontal cortex, but, as the highest scores for creativity showed, too much activity in those regions did not achieve the most imaginative results."

Hallucinations and delusions more common than thought

"'We used to think that only people with psychosis heard voices or had delusions, but now we know that otherwise healthy, high-functioning people also report these experiences,' Professor McGrath said."

IQ, Psy Ops and the “Civilization” of the Scam

"There is therefore a kind of Dunning-Kruger effect for different IQ distribution groups, not just the presumed superiority of the lower IQ groups’ delusion, but also in higher groups where we encounter the pillars and engines of social order (scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc.).  This class of persons curiously suffers its own forms of deluded superiority owing to the same ego-fragility and relativistic delusions that recall Socrates’ questioning to the artisans and politicians of his day.   Whether it be the local craftsman or the slightly more clever (or cunning) politician, Socrates discovered the same delusion persisted, that each class of persons presumed to know, when in fact, they did not.  And for both the lower class wage worker, up to the 'wise' politician, the delusory effect was the same."

Wrongfully treating academic debate as anti-Semitism

"In fact, the defenders of Israel on campus are in deep trouble, not because student well-being is at risk but because the rickety assemblage of distortions and myths used to justify support for Israeli policies can't withstand scholarly scrutiny. Having lost the actual arguments, Israel's defenders have now declared war on argument itself."

Native American Tribes Declare Sovereignty, Break Away from State of Maine

"The unique break in diplomatic ties signals the reassertion of full sovereignty for the Tribal Nations. The precedent and political implications could spread to other tribes throughout North America, and serve as a model for natives and non-natives alike as state and federal governments continue to enact laws violating the rights of the People, and others to protect the environmentally and economically destructive interests of corporations."

Seeing awe-inspiring natural sights makes you a better person

"This impressive set of carefully designed and conducted studies shows how important it is for us as individuals to stand back and look at the bigger picture and be inspired by others and the world around us."