The massacre at an Orlando gay club is a savage reminder that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people still face harsh prejudice in America and lack full equal protections under the law.
Can new ideas break through preconceived notions?
Light bulb image via www.shutterstock.com.
The path to grand final victory in AFL can be paved with many wins and losses. But it’s measuring how a team plays against an expected result that can help them improve.
A line snakes down the sidewalk at Western High School in Las Vegas during the Nevada Republican presidential caucus.
David Becker/Reuters
No one is only their sex or only their race or only their sexual orientation. Social psychologists are starting to investigate how people of multiple minority groups are perceived.
Shadow boxing. Will levelling the playing field work?
Orin Zebest
Being underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math means women can be made to feel they don’t belong, with long-term mental health consequences.
What is ‘whitesplaining’ and why do celebrities get accused of it?
Math isn’t prejudiced, goes the argument. But these arithmetic programs can learn bias from the data fed into them by human beings, leading to unfair treatment and discrimination.
Facebook’s gender ratio is far less equal than this photo of its workers would suggest.
Robert Galbraith/Reuters
The tech industry is known for having a notably non-diverse workforce. But bias training – when not validated by research that shows it works – isn’t going to solve the problem.
You can do a lot while you sleep.
Woman via www.shutterstock.com.
We strengthen memories while we sleep, and researchers have found a way to cue that process to help people better retain information that counters implicit biases.
Ask a kid to draw a scientist, you’ll probably get a man in a lab coat.
Yewhoenter
Even citizens of gender-equal countries associate science with men. The stereotype persists, though weakened a bit in countries with more women doing science. How can we put it to bed once and for all?
How does feeling you inhabit a body different than your own affect your racial biases?
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Maister et al.
In 1959, John Howard Griffin, a white American writer, underwent medical treatments to change his skin appearance and present himself as a black man. He then traveled through the segregated US south to…
Plum. But would it matter who the umpire was?
Martin Rickett/PA Archive
They may be the arbiters of the world’s most gentlemanly sport, but cricket umpires provided by the home team are still more likely to be biased than neutral umpires, according to a new study that analysed…
Earthquake in Haiti killed more than 100,000. That’s hard to imagine.
UNDP
People find it difficult to understand the true value of loss of life when the numbers are large. For instance, a study found that people are more willing to donate money to an organisation when just one…
The ABC will be richly rewarded for its decision to monitor its coverage if the analysis is robust, empirical and multidimensional.
AAP/Stefan Postles
The decision of the ABC to conduct regular editorial audits of its coverage of controversial topics is a great idea. The ABC has a unique place in the Australian media landscape. Learning more about how…
Adam Kucharski, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
It’s autumn, and a new batch of students are starting university. Some are walking through the ancient gates of an Oxbridge college. Others are joining a redbrick university like Manchester or Bristol…
In our everyday lives we constantly compare things. We care about whether we are better or worse off than others around us, or than we were in the past. Why we do this has long puzzled scientists, because…