ScienceDaily: Living Well News


Scent of a friend: Similarities in body odor may contribute to social bonding

Posted: 27 Jun 2022 09:50 AM PDT

Researchers have found that people may have a tendency to form friendships with individuals who have a similar body odor. The researchers were even able to predict the quality of social interactions between complete strangers by first 'smelling' them with a device known as an electronic nose, or eNose. These findings suggest that the sense of smell may play a larger role in human social interactions than previously thought.

Volunteer 'community scientists' do a pretty darn good job generating usable data

Posted: 27 Jun 2022 07:02 AM PDT

Volunteer community scientists, aka citizen scientists, help researchers with data collection that would otherwise be a time-consuming slog. But while community science can be a valuable learning experience, the question remains how useful the volunteer-generated data actually are in research. In this new study, researchers analyzed measurements of microscopic plant leaves done by community scientists and found that the volunteers generated high quality data -- a vote of confidence for community science.

People less outraged by gender discrimination caused by algorithms

Posted: 27 Jun 2022 07:01 AM PDT

People are less morally outraged when gender discrimination occurs because of an algorithm rather than direct human involvement, according to new research.

Light during sleep in older adults linked to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure

Posted: 22 Jun 2022 10:07 AM PDT

In a sample of older men and women ages 63 to 84, those who were exposed to any amount of light while sleeping at night were significantly more likely to be obese, and have high blood pressure and diabetes compared to adults who were not exposed to any light during the night, a new study finds.