Opinion

UEFA Euro forecast: France will be European Champion

June 15, 2021 by Editor

On Friday, 11 June, Europe’s men’s football teams started the European Championship – a year later than planned. The favourite this time is France with a probability of winning of 14.8 per cent.

This is what an international team of researchers consisting of Andreas Groll and Franziska Popp (both TU Dortmund, Germany), Gunther Schauberger (TU Munich, Germany), Christophe Ley and Hans Van Eetvelde (both Ghent University, Belgium), Achim Zeileis (University of Innsbruck, Austria) and Lars Hvattum (Molde University College, Norway) has shown with the help of machine learning.

Their forecast combines several statistical models for the teams’ strengths with information about the team structure (such as market value, number of Champions League players, club match performance of individual players) as well as socio-economic factors of the country of origin (population and gross domestic product). [Read more…] about UEFA Euro forecast: France will be European Champion

The truth about doublespeak: Is it lying or just being persuasive?

April 9, 2021 by Editor

Doublespeak or the use of euphemisms to sway opinion – sometimes referred to as speaking with a forked tongue – lets leaders avoid the reputational costs of lying while still bringing people around to their way of thinking, a new study has found.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo found that the use of agreeable euphemistic terms biases people’s evaluations of actions to be more favourable. For example, replacing a disagreeable term, “torture,” with something more innocuous and semantically agreeable, like “enhanced interrogation.”

“Like the much-studied phenomenon of ‘fake news,’ manipulative language can serve as a tool for misleading the public, doing so not with falsehoods but rather with the strategic use of euphemistic language,” said Alexander Walker, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in cognitive psychology at Waterloo. “The avoidance of objectively false claims may provide the strategic user of language with plausible deniability of dishonesty, thus protecting them from the reputational cost associated with lying.” [Read more…] about The truth about doublespeak: Is it lying or just being persuasive?

The Earth is flat. Everything else is just fake news. Or is it?

March 14, 2021 by Editor

‘Is Western culture balancing on a tightrope between science and humanities?’ asks Carlos Elias, author of new book Science on the Ropes, which explains why science has been dethroned from its prestigious position in Western culture and replaced by pseudoscientific conjecture and fake news

Pseudoscience is on the rise and so is the constant clamour of “fake news”. Should we, therefore, be questioning the West’s grip on rational, empirical evidence-based reason?

While the West is fending off resurgent claims of a flat Earth – last dispelled by Magellan and Elcano’s circumnavigation in the early 16th century – as well as persistent climate change deniers, Asia is making rapid technological and scientific progress.

In his book, Carlos Elías discusses why Western countries are losing interest in the STEM subjects, which once reigned as the beacon of civil development and culture, in favour of post-truths, alternative facts and, occasionally, irrationality. [Read more…] about The Earth is flat. Everything else is just fake news. Or is it?

Estonian company Auve Tech launches ‘world’s first’ autonomous hydrogen vehicle
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What has been described as “the world’s first autonomous hydrogen vehicle” has now been officially launched. Created by the Estonian enterprise Auve Tech in cooperation with University of Tartu researchers, the vehicle was presented to the public for the first time in Tartu, a city in eastern Estonia. The first…
Tags: features, technology
AR can improve the lives of older adults, so why are apps designed mainly with youngsters in mind?
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Augmented reality (AR) is poised to revolutionise the way people complete essential everyday tasks, yet older adults – who have much to gain from the technology – will be excluded from using it unless more thought goes into designing software that makes sense to them. The danger of older adults…
Tags: technology, features
Research shows flocking birds, schooling fish, other collective movements can stabilize ecosystems
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In addition to being visually stunning, schools of herring, herds of wildebeest and countless other groups of organisms that act in concert can help complex ecosystems maintain their diversity and stability, new research by Oregon State University shows. Published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the study demonstrates that when…
Tags: science, features
Tau invents wire that doubles the power of electric motors and raises €10.25 million
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A startup company called Tau, which specializes in materials science and automotive electrification, says it has delivered a prototype wire that enables electric motors to double their power output without changing their size. The technology could mean that electric vehicles and machines of all kinds can keep going for longer…
Tags: power, technology, engineering, news
Experiences of loneliness may differ by age
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Loneliness in adult life is experienced differently depending on age, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The research concludes that there can be no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to reducing loneliness, as factors associated with it, such as contact with friends and family, perceived…
Tags: features

Yes, of course we are living in a computer simulation

February 9, 2021 by Editor

A new film – a documentary called A Glitch in the Matrix – is again opening up the debate about whether we all live in a simulated world.

Our conclusion at this website, arrived at through no serious research whatsoever, is that yes, we absolutely live in a computer simulation.

Our caveats are that:

the physical world is not a simulation – it is physically real. It is our everyday lives – where we go, what we do, and so on – that are part of a computer program or simulation, designed by a real-life version of “the Architect” in the original Matrix movies; and
that not all of us live in the simulation – some people are outside or peripheral to the simulation. Our “architect” appears to be interested in anyone and anything that threatens its existence and course of action – everyone else can just go about their business provided they don’t break off from the “strings” – or computer instructions – that tie them to the matrix. [Read more…] about Yes, of course we are living in a computer simulation

The Earth is flat. Everything else is just fake news. Or is it?
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‘Is Western culture balancing on a tightrope between science and humanities?’ asks Carlos Elias, author of new book Science on the Ropes, which explains why science has been dethroned from its prestigious position in Western culture and replaced by pseudoscientific conjecture and fake news Pseudoscience is on the rise and…
Tags: science, earth, will, features, opinion