News by Subject Social & Behavior

Scientists confirm that the age and content of an old sack is in accordance with a medieval myth about Saint Francis of Assisi.

An exhaustive study of legislative elections in all 91 democracies that were born around the world from 1939 to 2015 finds that in half of them, there was a substantial decline in voter turnout. But what actually caused people to stay home depended on what country they lived in and how democratization had happened there.

Scientists from the RUDN University have analyzed historical sources and revealed the foreign policy views of Russian liberals from the 1850s to the early 1890s. The researchers came to the conclusion that the views of modern liberals have nothing to do with the views of their predecessors. The study is published in The International History Review.

The nearly nine hundred giant stone statues discovered by the first Europeans to land on Easter Island seemed at odds with the small population found living there. It is believed a once thriving community witnessed sweeping ecological change and suffered internal conflict, resulting in a population crash. A new detailed study of the farming potential of the Island suggests it could have sustained 17,500 people at its peak.

Emil J. Gumbel's formulas are fundamental for extreme value theory. This statistical discipline describes extreme incidents, such as floods or storms. Little is known, however, that he was also a pioneer of modern data journalism, unveiling the patterns of political murder in the Weimar Republic. Professor Matthias Scherer and his team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) now intend to fill in the gaps in what the world knows about Gumbel.

In a new paper published in PLOS ONE, researchers describe a recent, rapid, and ongoing invasion of monk parakeets in Mexico, and the regulatory changes that affected the species' spread.

A new study explored this issue by examining how often teens in recent years (compared to teens in previous decades) engaged in adult activities such as drinking alcohol, working, driving, or having sex. The study found that today's adolescents are less likely than their predecessors to take part in activities typically undertaken by adults.