ScholarPeer (@scholarpeer.bsky.social)

ScholarPeer

@scholarpeer.bsky.social

Research journalism that translates peer-reviewed studies and grey literature into plain English. New findings in society, culture, economics, science, the social sciences and more. Explained clearly and accurately.

13 followers 10 following197 posts

ScholarPeer

@scholarpeer.bsky.social

https://scholarpeer.com/shipwrecked-dutch-trader-first-corporate-psychopath/ Shipwrecked Dutch Trader May Be the First Corporate Psychopath

scholarpeer.comShipwrecked Dutch Trader May Be the First Corporate PsychopathA single-author case study scores Jeronimus Cornelisz, left in charge of about 200 castaways in 1629, on a modern workplace checklist, then weighs his rule against a rival leader whose island group fared far better.

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https://scholarpeer.com/some-monkeys-become-cautious-of-germs-in-wake-of-viral-outbreak/ some Monkeys become cautious of germs in wake of viral outbreak

scholarpeer.comsome Monkeys become cautious of germs in wake of viral outbreakJapanese macaques in three Texas sanctuary groups that lost members to a retrovirus ate off feces far less often than a fourth group. With no pre-outbreak baseline and one comparison group, the link stays unproven.

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https://scholarpeer.com/smartphone-voice-clips-track-type-2-diabetes-with-an-age-catch/ Smartphone Voice Clips Track Type 2 Diabetes, With an Age Catch

scholarpeer.comSmartphone Voice Clips Track Type 2 Diabetes, With an Age CatchKlick Labs' transformer model flagged diabetes status from smartphone speech in 461 adults in India, yet the paper's own age-matched rerun, left out of the company's release, cut performance sharply.

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https://scholarpeer.com/childrens-past-life-claims-show-shorter-gaps-after-sudden-deaths/ Children's Past-Life Claims Show Shorter Gaps After Sudden Deaths

scholarpeer.comChildren’s Past-Life Claims Show Shorter Gaps After Sudden DeathsA University of Virginia archive of 1,678 reported cases found the gap between a death and a child's birth ran shorter after sudden deaths, a small effect that survived five bias checks but cannot show what causes it.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/stress-wakes-a-quiet-arthritic-joint-through-brown-fat/ Stress Wakes a Quiet Arthritic Joint Through Brown Fat

scholarpeer.comStress Wakes a Quiet Arthritic Joint Through Brown FatArthritic mice in remission flared after three days of confinement, and blocking interleukin-6 signaling or neutrophil recruitment calmed the swelling, while a human check was weak and observational.

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https://scholarpeer.com/popular-song-lyrics-use-fewer-positive-and-social-words-over-time/ Popular Song Lyrics Use Fewer Positive and Social Words Over Time

scholarpeer.comPopular Song Lyrics Use Fewer Positive and Social Words Over TimeWord counts across 38,467 songs by 230 popular artists show positive emotion and social words mostly sliding within careers and across generations, though anxiety words crept up. The pattern is an association, not a cause.

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https://scholarpeer.com/what-is-srsf1-or-serine-arginine-rich-splicing-factor-1/ What is SRSF1 (or Serine/Arginine-Rich Splicing Factor 1)?

scholarpeer.comWhat is SRSF1 (or Serine/Arginine-Rich Splicing Factor 1)?SRSF1 is a protein that helps cells edit RNA before using it to make proteins. Its best-known job is RNA splicing, the process that removes unneeded sections from a new RNA copy and joins the useful pieces together. By helping decide which pieces stay and which go, SRSF1 can change the final instruc

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https://scholarpeer.com/a-characters-private-regret-nudges-readers-toward-forgiveness/ A Character's Private Regret Nudges Readers Toward Forgiveness

scholarpeer.comA Character’s Private Regret Nudges Readers Toward ForgivenessAcross three online experiments with 1,563 people, reading a careless repairman's private thoughts rather than his spoken apology raised forgiveness only when he was clearly at fault, and the gains were small.

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https://scholarpeer.com/no-single-safeguard-stops-ai-aided-bioweapons-analysts-argue/ No Single Safeguard Stops AI-Aided Bioweapons, Analysts Argue

scholarpeer.comNo Single Safeguard Stops AI-Aided Bioweapons, Analysts ArgueA lone attacker may be blocked by cutting off information and materials, but a state program mostly can't be and has to be deterred instead. A policy analysis lays out nine layered defenses to cover both.

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https://scholarpeer.com/human-fingerprints-on-climate-are-clearer-now/ Human Fingerprints on Climate Are Clearer Now

scholarpeer.comHuman Fingerprints on Climate Are Clearer NowFive climate scientists reviewed three decades of fingerprint research and say rainfall, ocean, snow and stratosphere records now point the same way, while conceding that attributing individual extreme events remains hard.

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https://scholarpeer.com/severe-long-covid-goes-with-different-mouth-and-airway-bacteria/ Severe Long Covid Goes With Different Mouth and Airway Bacteria

scholarpeer.comSevere Long Covid Goes With Different Mouth and Airway BacteriaOral rinses and sputum from 771 patients hospitalized with Covid-19 revealed lopsided microbial communities in the worst long Covid cases, with extra lactic acid producers. Whether those shifts predate infection remains unknown.

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https://scholarpeer.com/frequent-resets-pushed-a-quantum-computer-from-chaos-to-order/ Frequent Resets Pushed a Quantum Computer From Chaos to Order

scholarpeer.comFrequent Resets Pushed a Quantum Computer From Chaos to OrderOnce resets outnumbered scrambling steps, a 100-qubit quantum circuit tipped into control, though a cheaper classical model reproduced the average result. Nothing in the experiment corrected an error.

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https://scholarpeer.com/dogs-in-the-bed-did-not-mean-less-sleep-for-their-owners-dogs-in-the-bed/ Dogs in the Bed Did Not Mean Less Sleep for Their Owners

scholarpeer.comDogs in the Bed Did Not Mean Less Sleep for Their OwnersBedsharing did not measurably reduce sleep duration or efficiency in this small Ontario sample, while multiple-dog owners rated their sleep worse and paired motion traces often moved together.

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https://scholarpeer.com/chatbots-lean-toward-the-status-quo/ Chatbots Lean Toward the Status Quo

scholarpeer.comChatbots Lean Toward the Status QuoSix chatbots backed an existing policy about 70% of the time but the same trade-off framed as new only about 34%, while recipe and home heating advice showed no clear bias.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/how-lupus-skin-reacts-differently-to-sunlight-lupus-skin/ How Lupus Skin Reacts Differently to Sunlight

scholarpeer.comHow Lupus Skin Reacts Differently to SunlightSingle-cell sequencing of biopsies from eight people with lupus and seven healthy volunteers pointed to skin cells and a recruited immune cell type that may help explain why ultraviolet light sets off rashes and flares.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/in-old-mice-zombie-cells-dull-the-immune-cells-that-clear-them/ In Old Mice, Zombie Cells Dull the Immune Cells That Clear Them

scholarpeer.comIn Old Mice, Zombie Cells Dull the Immune Cells That Clear ThemSenescent fibroblasts from aged mice failed to ramp up protein recycling, and their secretions dulled the macrophages that clear them. In mice, a drug restarting the pathway curbed senescence and, started early, lung scarring.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/a-cannabis-like-drug-turned-up-threat-avoidance-in-mice/ A Cannabis-Like Drug Turned Up Threat Avoidance in Mice

scholarpeer.comA Cannabis-Like Drug Turned Up Threat Avoidance in MiceMice given a synthetic cannabinoid froze more and avoided a predator odor analog, and blocking output from fear-region somatostatin neurons prevented the avoidance boost. Whether any of this explains human cannabis anxiety is untested.

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https://scholarpeer.com/a-sun-powered-bin-lid-breaks-down-the-vinegar-smell-of-garbage-sun-powered-bin-lid/ A Sun-Powered Bin Lid Breaks Down the Vinegar Smell of Garbage

scholarpeer.comA Sun-Powered Bin Lid Breaks Down the Vinegar Smell of GarbageA lithium-doped manganese dioxide insert kept acetic acid readings lower in a bin of rotting food for more than 40 days. Fully converting that acid to carbon dioxide took lab light nearly three times as strong as full sun.

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https://scholarpeer.com/ukraine-scientists-began-leaving-2014-2022-invasion/ Ukraine Scientists Began Leaving Long Before the 2022 Invasion

scholarpeer.comUkraine Scientists Began Leaving Long Before the 2022 InvasionPublication records from roughly 35,000 researchers trace Ukraine's scholarly map year by year, and the trail shows Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea shedding scholars from 2014 onward, with wealthier regions the easiest to leave.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/chatbots-knowledge-answer-diversity/ Chatbots Give You a Smaller Slice of Knowledge Than Google

scholarpeer.comChatbots Give You a Smaller Slice of Knowledge Than GoogleChatbot answers now draw on a wider range of claims than three years ago, a new analysis of 27 systems finds, yet even the most diverse one still trails a simple web search by nearly 19 percent.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/compressing-a-leg-bone-helps-the-brain-heal-after-injury/ Compressing a Leg Bone Helps the Brain Heal After Injury

scholarpeer.comCompressing a Leg Bone Helps the Brain Heal After InjuryMechanically squeezing an animal's shinbone released proteins into the bloodstream that calmed neuroinflammation, cut neuron loss and nearly quadrupled survival after severe head trauma in mice.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/vets-find-the-first-cat-case-of-human-like-marfan-syndrome/ Vets Find the First Cat Case of Human-Like Marfan Syndrome

scholarpeer.comVets Find the First Cat Case of Human-Like Marfan SyndromeMarfan syndrome, the disease linked to lens dislocation and aortic rupture in humans, has now turned up in two house cat littermates carrying the first molecularly confirmed feline case.

ScholarPeer

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A Misleading AI Summary Can Warp What You Remember https://scholarpeer.com/a-misleading-ai-summary-warp-what-you-remember/

scholarpeer.comA Misleading AI Summary Can Warp What You RememberGeorgetown and University of Washington researchers found that AI video summaries omitted the crash itself in 95% of test cases, and one misleading detail was enough to warp what people remembered from an accident they had watched firsthand.

ScholarPeer

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https://scholarpeer.com/doge-contract-cuts-tracked-which-counties-opposed-trump/ DOGE Contract Cuts Tracked Which Counties Opposed Trump

scholarpeer.comDOGE Contract Cuts Tracked Which Counties Opposed TrumpA peer-reviewed analysis of nearly 700,000 federal contracts finds cancellations under Trump's cost-cutting initiative fell hardest on counties that gave him the weakest support in 2024, even after accounting for population, income and prior federal spending.

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https://scholarpeer.com/dogs-and-orangutans-hint-human-skills-rest-on-older-learning/ Dogs and Orangutans Hint Human Skills Rest on Older Learning

scholarpeer.comDogs and Orangutans Hint Human Skills Rest on Older LearningDog brains favor consonants when tracking words in speech, as people's do, and wild orangutan infants that watched and tried more ended up with broader diets. Two Science papers, one shared idea about learning.

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https://scholarpeer.com/postal-cutback-midterm-ballots-impacted-by-late-rejections/ A Postal Cutback Could Sink Tens of Thousands of Midterm Ballots

scholarpeer.comA Postal Cutback Could Sink Tens of Thousands of Midterm BallotsLate ballot rejections nearly doubled in counties whose post offices lost their afternoon truck, a Brookings analysis of three states' 2026 primaries finds, and voters there can offset the delay by mailing a few days early.

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https://scholarpeer.com/model-suggests-steady-vision-depends-on-holding-chaos-in-check/ Model Suggests Steady Vision Depends on Holding Chaos in Check

scholarpeer.comModel Suggests Steady Vision Depends on Holding Chaos in CheckA three-variable simulation of the primary visual cortex settled from chaotic activity into a steady rhythm once two feedback loops were added. The chaos never left the math, which hints that stable seeing is something the brain keeps working at.

ScholarPeer

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22 Sept

https://scholarpeer.com/giant-stars-starved-of-metals-seem-to-run-out-of-puff/ Giant Stars Starved of Metals Seem to Run Out of Puff

scholarpeer.comGiant Stars Starved of Metals Seem to Run Out of PuffUltraviolet spectra of 29 massive O-type stars in six nearby dwarf galaxies show winds weakening as metals thin out, and hint at a sharper drop in the most metal-poor, with consequences for how astronomers read Webb's earliest galaxies.

ScholarPeer

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21 Sept

https://scholarpeer.com/one-overactive-gene-could-explain-autism-found-in-six-children/ One Overactive Gene Could Explain Autism Found in Six Children

scholarpeer.comOne Overactive Gene Could Explain Autism Found in Six ChildrenSix children with developmental delay or autism carry the same rare change in a signaling gene. Expressed in fruit flies, the human variant switched on cell signaling without its usual trigger and disrupted neural development.

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21 Sept

https://scholarpeer.com/scientists-crack-part-of-the-flatworm-brain-repair-code/ Scientists Crack Part of the Flatworm Brain-Repair Code

scholarpeer.comScientists Crack Part of the Flatworm Brain-Repair CodeA screen of 74 genes in planarian flatworms found 10 needed to rebuild dopamine-producing neurons, work the authors say could improve stem cell therapies for brain injury or disease, though nothing has been tested beyond worms.

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21 Sept

https://scholarpeer.com/higher-teen-bmi-could-speed-up-biological-aging-decades-later/ Higher Teen BMI Could Speed Up Biological Aging Decades Later

scholarpeer.comHigher Teen BMI Could Speed Up Biological Aging Decades LaterA 40-year Finnish study links a higher BMI in adolescence with a faster DNA-based pace of aging decades later. Genetics sharpen the signal, but the study also reveals why that does not make teenage weight a simple, standalone cause.

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18 Sept

https://scholarpeer.com/simulated-moon-crashes-reshape-icy-oceans-but-never-create-them/ Simulated Moon Crashes Reshape Icy Oceans but Never Create Them

scholarpeer.comSimulated Moon Crashes Reshape Icy Oceans but Never Create ThemComputer models of head-on collisions between icy moons thickened one large moon's buried ocean for about two billion years but cost smaller moons an early one. Saturn's Rhea, a cratered test case, was not simulated.

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18 Sept

https://scholarpeer.com/scientists-say-the-brain-is-two-organs/ Scientists Say the Brain Is Two Organs, Not One

scholarpeer.comScientists Say the Brain Is Two Organs, Not OneStanford researchers traced two separate progenitor cells in mouse embryos, one wiring up the thinking brain and the other the life support system of breathing and heartbeat, explaining why hindbrain neurons have been nearly impossible to grow in a lab.

ScholarPeer

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18 Sept

Grow a dish of human stem cells and coax them, patiently, into brain cells, and you'll get cortex without much trouble. Neurons that think, remember, plan: those cells oblige. Ask the same dish for a neuron from the hindbrain, and for over a decade the answer has been a shrug.