COLUMBUS, Ohio – Once upon a time – way back in the twentieth century – people got their laughs from reading comics in the newspaper.  Today, many of us get our chuckles by seeing (and sharing) humorous memes online.  Today, many of us get our chuckles by seeing (and sharing) humorous memes online. But are these two cultural phenomena really that different? In a new article, comics scholar Michelle Ann Abate argues that memes are an important new type of digital comic.

Widowed parents who enjoy close relationships with their adult children still struggle with loneliness, according to the first study of its kind.

Do infectious disease outbreaks breed political mistrust? Ore Koren, Indiana University Bloomington (USA), and Nils Weidmann, University of Konstanz (Germany), have found out that they do. Their study will soon be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

New research reveals that infants just five days old can tell the difference between two distinct forms of prosocial and antisocial behaviour—and they prefer the prosocial. This suggests that some parts of how humans understand and evaluate the social world may be built into the brain from birth. Researchers showed a total of 90 newborns sets of simple animated videos. In one, a ball struggled to climb a hill. Another ball helped push it up. In a second video, playing right next to the first, the second ball pushed the climber down the hill, preventing it from reaching the top. Infants’ eyes lingered longer on the helping scenario. In another set of videos, one ball moved toward another as if trying to get close or say hello. In the other video, the ball moved away, like it was avoiding the other. Again, the newborns spent more time watching the friendly, approaching action.