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).