Reports
Recommended reports in Society, ranked by article score and freshness.
From Appalachian childhood to country icon Dolly Parton grew up in Sevier County, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children in a one room cabin, in a place where music was an integral part of life for people struggling to make a living 3 48 49 . She made her public...
The messy world before standard time Standard time zones didn't exist for most of human history. Before they came along, time was a local affair: people set clocks by the sun's position, so "noon" meant something different in every town 1 33 47 . In North America alone, there were...
The short answer Psychological research gives a genuinely mixed answer. Most studies find that people can guess sexual orientation from faces, voices, or body movement a bit better than chance, but “better than chance” is a low bar 64 70 71 . Average accuracy in gaydar style studies tends to...
How Japan governed occupied Asia By mid 1942, Japan’s wartime empire covered a huge area of East and Southeast Asia and the western Pacific 5 24 89 . To run it, Japan created puppet states and promoted local leaders, largely because it did not have enough Japanese administrators 2 3...
More than 1,000 employees at the world's biggest frontier AI companies signed an open letter urging the US government to slow AI development so that safety and security measures can catch up 1 2 . Media reports described it as nearly 1,200 senior employees calling for an urgent slowdown 9...
Anonymity removes the brakes people normally feel The online disinhibition effect describes weaker self control while communicating online, and the toxic version can look like hostile language, swearing, and threats 1 4 . Researchers repeatedly point to anonymity as a main cause of this effect 21 22 23 24 ....
Social factors: what counts as "normal" shapes the line Kinks and fetishes are usually defined by how far they stray from mainstream, "vanilla" sexual activities 48 49 . In sociological terms, sexual deviance is any behavior that departs from the dominant sexual script or from cultural and statistical norms 103...
Figuring out your league: what the evidence says People talk about "leagues" as if there is an official scoreboard. In dating discussions, one article says adults think of leagues based entirely on two factors: social class and social skills 3 . Another common way people point to leagues is by...
Religious perspectives Most religions describe the afterlife as the continuation of a person's identity or consciousness after the body dies, either in another realm or through rebirth 8 9 . A very common idea is that how you lived determines what happens next 11 . Christianity and related traditions Mainstream...
What the evidence shows overall The documented record shows drug cartels and other criminal groups have influenced or penetrated Mexican government institutions in several ways: paying off officials, infiltrating police and intelligence agencies, forming political arrangements, and using violence to pressure or remove officials 1 3 11 12 56 ....
It’s mostly “too much, too samey” The most common complaint in the evidence is “superhero fatigue.” That phrase describes audiences getting exhausted by the huge amount of mediocre superhero content coming out of Hollywood 1 14 . Some people put it even more simply: it is not really hatred, just...
Typical Documents You May Need What the DMV asks for varies from state to state, but most want to confirm who you are, where you live, and sometimes your Social Security number. Here is the usual paperwork: Main proof of identity – Your current or recently expired driver’s license is...
Quick answer A tsunami warning is the strongest alert. It is issued when a tsunami that may cause widespread flooding is expected or is already happening, and people are told to move to high ground or inland 3 16 84 . A watch is lower: a tsunami is possible, but...
Two ideas hiding inside the question Your question actually mixes two different family lines of thought. One line says God and reality are the same thing, so humans are inside God or even identical with God 1 9 . The other line says a personal God rules the universe and...
There is no single official record that proves every spooky story is true, but the evidence does include a lot of first person accounts, some official UFO records, and at least one formal government program that studied psychic abilities. Taken together, the reports fall into a few big buckets. Ghost...
Why the shame feels so personal Adult virgins—people who haven't had sex into their late twenties, thirties, forties, or later—can feel very isolated, especially men. A big part of the shame is an inner critic that whispers, "You should have had sex by now" 1 . The feeling usually stays...
Albert Most was a pen name Albert Most was actually Ken Nelson 1954–2019 . The 1984 pamphlet Bufo Alvarius: The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert was written under that pseudonym, illustrated by Gail Patterson, and published by Venom Press in Denton, Texas. 1 14 24 33 34 Nelson reportedly...
The Big Picture Aesthetic procedures are common worldwide and still climbing. In 2024, close to 38 million were performed globally 41 103 142 212 230 . That includes more than 17.4 million surgical procedures and about 20.5 million nonsurgical ones 43 106 144 213 . In 2023, the total was...
The setup: a house that outlives its people The story first appeared in Collier's on May 6, 1950 34 , and was inspired by Cold War fears and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 41 . It follows one fully automated house in Allendale, California, after a nuclear catastrophe...
The big split: something continues, or nothing continues Beliefs about death fall into two broad families. One says the essential part of a person—identity or consciousness—continues after the body dies, either in a supernatural realm or through rebirth into this world 41 42 . The other says death simply ends...
