While much of the public debate about self-driving cars focuses on safety, a new national study from the University of California San Diego reveals Americans’ doubts about driverless cars aren’t just about the fear of a crash. Many Americans also fear the technology’s economic ripple effects — especially job losses in driving and delivery work and the possibility that automated vehicles (AVs) could widen income inequality.

In an era of climate anxiety, geopolitical tensions and rapidly advancing artificial intelligence, apocalyptic thinking is no longer confined to the fringes of society. In the U.S. national sample of 1,409 respondents, nearly one‑third said they believe the world will end within their lifetime. People think about the end of the world in multiple ways—including when it might happen, who or what would cause it, and whether it is something to fear or welcome. In the U.S., these beliefs were strongly linked to how people perceive and respond to global risks like climate change, pandemics, nuclear conflict and emerging technologies.

About one in 20 infants worldwide is subjected to physical abuse by a caregiver in their first two years of life, according to the first review to bring together anonymous reports from caregivers about behaviours like spanking, slapping, shaking and hitting. Researchers from the University of British Columbia and Memorial University of Newfoundland reviewed 20 studies that together encompassed reports on more than 220,000 infants and caregivers across several countries. When caregivers were asked privately and anonymously, 4.8 per cent reported at least one act of physical aggression toward an infant under 24 months. Anonymous surveys let caregivers disclose behaviour that never reaches a clinic, police service or social worker. Such behaviours can have lasting effects on a child’s learning, behaviour and mental health. Evidence has linked these actions with harm and with a higher chance of more severe violence in the future. Understanding how common these kinds of behaviours are could help health systems, policymakers and families focus on prevention, getting support to parents before a bad moment turns into injury.

Why are adolescents so sensitive to their peers’ behaviour? And is this sensitivity necessarily negative, as the term peer pressure often implies? In his PhD dissertation, UvA behavioural scientist Andrea Gradassi demonstrates that adolescents are particularly influenced by classmates to whom they are socially close, such as friends, as well as by peers who occupy high-status positions within the classroom social network.