Jenna Abrams' tweets were beloved, at times, by both the alt-right and the celebrity blogosphere. Now, Congressional investigators have confirmed that her Twitter account was actually run out of St. Petersburg, Russia's infamous troll farm.
According to The Daily Beast, the "Abrams" account that initially became famous after "fixing" a nude selfie posted by Kim Kardashian was run, along with thousands of others, by the Kremlin-funded Internet Research Agency. The account, which was supposed to be run by an American blogger, soon pivoted to right-wing rhetoric, including a professed belief in segregation.
Before she became a favorite among the reactionary right-wing set, however, "Abrams’ account built up an image of a straight-talking, no-nonsense, viral-tweet-writing young American woman." After building a following with funny takes on pop culture and feminism, "she would push divisive views on immigration, segregation and Donald Trump" in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Abrams' tweets were published everywhere from InfoWars to USA Today and Sputnik to The Washington Post, and high-profile users like Roseanne Barr, Michael McFaul and even, once, Starbucks' corporate account responded to her on Twitter. Rather than just being a standalone Twitter account, Abrams also had a personal website, a Gmail account, a Medium account and a GoFundMe page.
It was on her Medium account last fall that the Internet Research Agency, masquerading as the millennial American blogger, published an editorial titled "Why do we need to get back to segregation."
"Humanity has gone full circle," the Abrams account wrote. "Never mind how many activists of any color died to get rid of segregation, and fought for inclusion, black people want it back. 100 percent free people made their choice, and their choice is segregation."
Scientists using an imaging method based on cosmic rays have detected a large and enigmatic internal structure in the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing, the massive Great Pyramid of Giza on the outskirts of Cairo.
Researchers announced the discovery on Thursday but said they did not know the purpose, contents or precise dimensions of what they are calling a "void" or "cavity" inside the pyramid, built as a monumental tomb around 2560 BC.
To peer inside the pyramid, the scientists used an imaging technique called muon tomography that tracks particles that bombard Earth at close to the speed of light and penetrate deeply into solid objects.
They said the newly discovered internal structure was at least 100 feet (30 meters) long, and located above a hallway measuring about 155 feet long (47 meters) called the Grand Gallery, one of a series of passageways and chambers inside the immense pyramid. The researchers said it constitutes the first major inner structure found in the Great Pyramid since the 19th century.
"What we are sure about is that this big void is there, that it is impressive, that it was not expected by, as far as I know, any kind of theory," said Mehdi Tayoubi, president and co-founder of the HIP Institute in France, one of the leaders of the study published in the journal Nature.
"We open the question to Egyptologists and archaeologists: what could it be?" added Hany Helal of Cairo University.
The Great Pyramid, looming alongside other large pyramids, is a towering achievement, remarkable for its simple beauty and colossal grandeur. The emblem of one of the great civilizations of antiquity, it soars to a height of 479 feet (146 meters), the tallest structure built by humankind until the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889, and boasts a base measuring 754 feet (230 meters).
It was constructed during the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops.
The findings come from a project called Scan Pyramids that relies on non-invasive scanning methods to probe the internal structure of the pyramids of ancient Egypt's glorious Old Kingdom period and understand how they were built.
"We are not doing this mission in order to find hidden cavities," Helal said.
Muon particles originate from interactions between cosmic rays from space and atoms of Earth's upper atmosphere. The particles can penetrate hundreds of yards (meters) into stone before being absorbed. Placing detectors inside a pyramid can discern cavities within a solid structure.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)
As political experts remain baffled by Donald Trump’s popularity, scientific studies from the field of psychology continue to shed light on the phenomenon. A new study published in the journal Translational Issues in Psychological Science has shown that Donald Trump stands out amongst other politicians, including fellow presidential candidates and past presidents, as being exceptionally low in analytic thinking. By using intelligent text analysis software to interpret language data from speeches, debates, and written documents, the researchers were able to determine the point where Trump falls on an analytic-narrative continuum.
The analytic-narrative continuum provides a way to objectively measure someone’s thinking style, whether it be analytic, which is characterized by careful deliberation based on logic and reason, or narrative, a style based more on ‘gut’ reactions grounded in intuition and personal experience. While it may seem obvious to some that an analytic thinking style is generally superior to a narrative style— since it’s evidence-driven and statistical rather than anecdotal and emotion-based — there is no doubt that the latter resonates with many people. While the analytically-minded see Donald Trump’s opinions and answers as superficial and uninformed, his supporters view them as straightforward and relatable. As absurd as it sounds, now ignorance can apparently be considered a strength for a presidential candidate, as long as they can present it as being folksy.
The computerized text analyses measured thinking styles by examining grammar. While analytic thinkers tend to use more nouns, articles, and prepositions, narrative thinkers tend to use more pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and adverbs. The results showed that not only was Trump’s analytic score far less than his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton (23.8 vs. 42.8), it was also much lower than his Republican candidate opponents — Ben Carson (39.1), Marco Rubio (48.7), John Kasich (48.9), and Ted Cruz (62.1). Moreover, Trump’s average analytic score was more than 3 standard deviations below that of the average Democrat or Republican from the last five election cycles, making him a clear outlier. While most presidential candidates tend to be analytic thinkers, or show a balance between analytic and intuitive thinking, Trump falls squarely on the intuitive side of the continuum.
Although Trump is clearly a low analytical thinker relative to past presidents, he does fit an overall general trend of presidents becoming progressively less analytical, at least in terms of how they speak, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Interestingly, most presidents in the 18th and 19th century consistently scored high on analytic thinking. Whether this trend is a good or a bad thing remains to be seen. Perhaps presidents are just becoming better at simplifying complex information into direct, simple language. But the case of President Trump seems to tell a different story. It appears to indicate a thriving movement composed of individuals who are anti-intellectual and anti-science, and who want a president who is the same.
We should be concerned about this decline in analytic thinking among politicians as well as the people’s preference for it. Essentially, among Trump supporters, it’s just not cool to be smart. The consequences of this mentality becoming widespread could be disastrous. The dumbing down of America, both in politics and society, must be opposed by all those who value rational and logical thought. While this effort must occur at all levels, one clear way of resisting is to turn out to voting booths not only in 2020, but in all the local elections that occur until that time.
Bobby Azarian is a science writer with a PhD in neuroscience. His research has been published in journals such as Cognition & Emotion and Human Brain Mapping, and he has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, BBC Future, Scientific American, and others. Follow him on twitter @BobbyAzarian.
The perils of working on a fragile ice shelf. The location of the Halley VI and the former site of the Halley V research stations are marked on this satellite image, showing the location of two cracks that create an unacceptable risk for scientists staying at Halley VI station this winter.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday it will bar certain scientists from serving on its independent advisory boards, a move critics say could open the way to more industry-friendly advisors on the panels.
The EPA barred scientists who have won agency-awarded grants in the past, billing the step as a way to preserve the independence and diversity of the boards, which provide the scientific input for agency decisions around pollution and climate change regulation.
"Whatever science comes out of EPA, (it) shouldn’t be political science," EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, said in a release, adding that committee members will be "financially independent" from the agency.
Senator Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate environment committee, said Pruitt's decision was part of an EPA effort to "delegitimize the work of nonpartisan scientists." Carper added, "this crusade endangers the health of every American, and it cannot be tolerated."
Pruitt signaled the move during a speech last week at the conservative Heritage Foundation, when he questioned the independence of scientists who have won past EPA research grants, and promised to "fix" the situation.
During his election campaign last year, Republican President Donald Trump promised to roll back environmental regulations from Democratic President Barack Obama's administration, including those limiting carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming, to make government more friendly to the drilling, mining, and manufacturing businesses.
The advisory boards were created by Congress to serve as a check on EPA policies and research. They include the EPA Scientific Advisory Board, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and the Board of Scientific Counselors.
Last year, the SAB questioned an EPA report that concluded that hydraulic fracturing - an oil and gas drilling technology that frees petroleum from underground shale formations - had no "widespread impacts" on drinking water despite evidence of problems in several states. (https://reut.rs/2h2GTrD)
In June, Pruitt decided not to renew the terms of nine members of a separate body, the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors. One of those members, Michigan State University professor of community sustainability Robert Richardson, told Reuters the move came as a surprise because the work they were doing was "apolitical."
The EPA is also expected to announce three new members of the Clean Air advisory committee on Tuesday.
Pruitt is an outspoken doubter of mainstream climate science, a consensus of scientists that carbon dioxide from human use of fossil fuels is a primary driver of global warming, triggering more frequent volatile storms, sea level rise, and droughts.
Pruitt has said he wants to set up a televised debate about the science of climate change between scientists who believe it is driven by humans and those that do not.
(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Frances Kerry and Marguerita Choy)
White Americans live on average3.6 years longer than black Americans. If you look only at men, the difference becomes 4.4 years.
As I found in a study, the main reason behind this disparity is that black Americans are at higher risk of most chronic medical conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer than other racial and ethnic groups.
However, research suggests minority groups in the U.S. tend to be better off in terms of mental health than white Americans. Depression, anxiety and suicide, for instance, are more common among white Americans than black Americans.
Research, including work I have done with my colleagues at the University of Michigan, demonstrates that although white Americans are, on average, the “healthiest group,” they are also, on average, far less “resilient” than black Americans. It seems that vulnerability is a cost of privilege, and resilience comes as a result of adversity.
What do we mean by resilience?
We call a group “resilient” when it is healthy, given the level of exposures to a wide range of psychosocial risk factors. For instance, psychosocial adversities such as lower educational attainment are associated with increased mortality in general. But the effect is lower in some groups than others, so we would describe the groups where the effect is lower as more resilient.
White Americans seem to be more vulnerable to certain psychosocial risk factors for a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes compared to minority groups. In other words, they are less resilient – less able to successfully adapt to life tasks in the face of highly adverse conditions.
Across several studies using nationally representative samples of Americans, my colleagues and I have consistently found that white Americans are more vulnerable to the effects of risk factors such as low education, anger, depression, feeling of control over own’s life and other psychosocial factors on mortality.
Educational attainment influences mortality in different ways
Educational attainment is one of the main protective factors for our health. First, educational attainment leads to better jobs with better pay, and second, it develops our brain and behavior so we can make better decisions and live a healthier life.
For instance, research from Harvard and Yale has found that while those with more than a high school diploma can expect to live to 82, the life expectancy for those with 12 or fewer years of education is only 75.
In a study published in 2016, we used data from the Americans Changing Lives survey to follow 3,500 individuals for 25 years to compare the effect of low education on mortality risk based on race. Overall we found that when all other factors are controlled, having only a high school diploma is associated with 20 percent lower risk of mortality over 25 years compared to those without a high school diploma.
While low educational attainment was bad for everyone, the health effect was worse for white people than for black people. In the same study we found that the additional risk of mortality associated with low education is 30 percent larger for whites than blacks.
This echoes research Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics, and Anne Case published last year. They documented a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013.
This mortality increase was unique to non-Hispanic whites. In the same time period, mortality rates for other race and ethnic groups continued to fall. They also found that most of this increasing mortality rate for non-Hispanic whites was due to behavioral issues such as alcohol use, drug use and suicide. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States. Interestingly, the mortality increase was greatest among poorly educated white Americans.
Differences in how anger and depression affect health
Hostility and anger can predict cardiovascular mortality; a person who is angrier is more prone to heart problems, high blood pressure and stroke.
Again drawing on data from the Americans Changing Lives Survey, we followed more than 1,500 black and white adults for 10 years. The study used self-reported scales to measure anger and hostility. We found that each additional unit of anger and hostility was associated with more cardiovascular mortality in whites compared to blacks.
In another study using data from the same survey, my colleagues and I wanted to see if the level of depressive symptoms that the individuals experienced in 1986 could predict their risk of mortality over 25 years. Once we controlled for social class and physical health factors, we found that reporting more depressive symptoms in 1986 did in fact predict higher risk of subsequent mortality in 2011, but only for white participants. This harmful effect was not found among black participants in the survey.
This finding was replicated for mortality from kidney disease in a separate paper.
In another study we compared the number of chronic medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, lung disease, heart disease, cancer, stroke and arthritis that participants reported in 1986 to what they reported in 2011.
We found that having more depressive symptoms at the beginning of the survey predicted a greater increase in number of chronic medical conditions over the next 25 years only if the participant was white but not black.
In another study, we successfully replicated the same findings in a different sample, suggesting that these findings are stable and robust.
Self-rated health predicts mortality differently in whites than blacks
Past research has shown that asking patients to rate their own health is a very strong predictor of mortality. My colleagues and I wanted to see if poor self-rated health similarly predicts mortality risk for both black and white Americans. Again, using data from the Americans Changing Lives Survey, we observed that when someone feels that they are not very healthy, they are at higher risk for mortality.
However, this depends on race; feeling less healthy better predicted mortality among whites than whites.
In another study among elderly people, we found that with a decline in health status, people panic more about their death. This was also only true for whites, not blacks.
And in another study I found that while white men had the lowest number of stressful life events compared to white women, as well as black men and women, each stress had a larger effect on their depression.
And finally, we found that whether or not people feel that they are in control of their lives is associated with premature death, but the association was 50 percent stronger in white Americans than it was in black Americans.
What explains these differences?
Why are white Americans less resilient? One explanation is that, in general, they are not as prepared to cope with adversities because they have less experience dealing with them.
This lack of preparedness and experience with previous stressors may place whites at the highest risk of poor outcomes when life gets out of control. Minority groups, on the other hand, have consistently lived under economic and social adversities which has given them firsthand experience and ability to believe that they can handle the new stressors. For blacks a stressor is anything but new. They have mastered their coping skills.
Population groups differ in how resilient they are when they face stress and other adversities. This is relevant to a proverb that all of us have heard frequently: What does not kill you makes you stronger.
NEW YORK (AP) - While declaring the opioid crisis a national public health emergency Thursday, President Donald Trump said: "Nobody has seen anything like what's going on now." He was right, and he was wrong.
They do carry rabies, but don't panic—the bloodsuckers might not cause much of a ruckus. In the next few decades, small parts of the United States could become hospitable to vampire bats Daniel Streicker Thousands of years ago, the United States was home to vampires.
Plus, an exclusive clip from the documentary 'Bill Nye: Science Guy'. Bill Nye has been educating the public about science for over 20 years. In fact, a new documentary about him, Bill Nye: Science Guy, is out now (see an exclusive clip below).
Most of what we hear about the state of biodiversity is bleak-usually more species are severely threatened and going extinct. Perhaps you think that what we do contribute to help the world's plants and animals does little to help.
The earth is a fragile thing that could even destroy itself, Pope Francis told astronauts on the International Space Station on Thursday, saying they had an opportunity to see the planet "from the eyes of God".
Francis spent about 20 minutes in a video call to the six crew members on the space station, asking them several questions, sometimes with the gee-whiz wonder of a school boy.
"Hello ESA (European Space Agency) in the Vatican. This is Space Station. We hear you loud and clear."
"Good morning or Good evening. Because when one is in space you never know," the pope said from behind a desk with a television monitor in front of him.
The pope seemed moved by comments by mission commander Randy Bresnik, one of three Americans on board, who said what gave him the greatest joy in space was "to be able to look outside and see God's creation maybe a little bit from his perspective."
"People cannot come up here and see the indescribable beauty of our earth and not be touched in their souls," Bresnik told the pope, adding, "there's no borders, there's no conflict; it's just peaceful."
In his response, the pope said Bresnik had "managed to understand that the earth is too fragile and it passes in a moment."
"It is a very fragile thing, the atmosphere is thin, so capable of doing harm, of destroying itself, and you have gone to look at it from the eyes of God."
Francis, the second pope to phone the space station - Pope Benedict did so in 2011 - has made many appeals for the protection of the Earth's environment.
An encyclical, or major letter, he published in 2015 called for action to reduce the harm from global warming caused by human activity.
Sergey Ryazanskiy, one of two Russians on the space station, said he had decided to be a cosmonaut because his grandfather was one of the chief engineers who built Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, which the Soviet Union sent into a low Earth orbit in 1957 during the Cold War.
"Roots are our hope and our strength. Don't forget roots," Francis replied approvingly of the reference to being inspired by a grandfather.
Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who acted as translator for his Russian and American crew mates, thanked the pope for coming "on board" and "for taking us higher."
Then a voice from mission control announced: "Station: We are now resuming normal operational communications."
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; editing by Peter Graff)
Historians who study and catalogue ghostly encounters across time will tell you that ghosts come in a range of shapes and forms. Some haunt individuals, appearing in dreams or popping up at unexpected times. Others haunt a specific location and are prepared to spook any passersby. Some are the spitting images of what were once real humans. And then there are the noisy and troublesome poltergeists, which appear as uncontrollable supernatural forces instead of people.
What might explain such discrepancies? And are some people more likely to see ghosts than others? It turns out that our religious background could play a role.
Religion might ease one fear
Some argue that religion evolved as a terror management device, a handy way to remove the uncertainty surrounding one of the scariest things we can imagine: death.
Almost every religion offers an explanation for what happens to us after we die, with the assurance that death isn’t the end. And there is, in fact, evidence that very religious people don’t fear death as much as others.
Protestants, Catholics and Muslims all believe in a day of resurrection and judgment, in which our souls are directed to heaven (“Jannah” in the case of Muslims) or hell based upon our good deeds (or misdeeds) during our time spent on Earth. Catholics also believe in a halfway house called purgatory, in which people who aren’t quite worthy of heaven but are too good for hell can pay their dues before getting a ticket to paradise.
Buddhists and Hindus believe in a cycle of death and reincarnation that can eventually result in a permanent spiritual state, provided you play your cards right over each successive lifetime. Even the Jewish faith, which doesn’t really focus on the afterlife, assumes that an afterlife does exist.
By following a clear set of rules, worshipers can assert control: They know what they have to do to make good things, rather than bad things, happen to them after they take the big dirt nap.
Tormented souls and sinister demons
But there’s a catch.
Religion’s talent for easing our anxiety about death may have had the perverse effect of increasing the likelihood that we’ll be on edge about ghosts, spirits and other supernatural beings. This, however, may depend upon how religious you actually are.
All of the available evidence suggests that those who describe themselves as believers – but who don’t attend church regularly – are twice as likely to believe in ghosts than those at the two extremes of religious belief: nonbelievers and the deeply devout.
With most religions populated by an impressive cadre of prophets, gods, spirits, angels and miracles, the tenets of religious faith might shape what you see. They could determine whether a visitor from the spirit world is a welcome or unwelcome guest, while also influencing whom you think you’re meeting.
For example, in Medieval Catholic Europe, ghosts were assumed to be the tormented souls of people suffering for their sins in purgatory. But during the Protestant Reformation, since most Protestants believed that souls went immediately to heaven or hell, paranormal activity was thought to be the work of angels, demons or other decidedly nonhuman supernatural beings.
While most Protestant sects today are largely silent about the existence of ghosts, Catholic theology remains amenable to the existence of ghosts. Catholics typically believe that God may permit dead individuals to visit their counterparts on Earth, but the church has traditionally condemned occult activities such as seances and Ouija boards.
In some religions, such as Voodoo, spirits and ghosts play a central role. Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism support a belief in ghosts, but ghosts play only a minor role in the religion itself. For Hindus, ghosts are the souls of individuals who suffered a violent death or of people who were not accorded the appropriate and required death rituals. Buddhist ghosts are reincarnated individuals who may be sorting out bad karma.
Muslims don’t believe that dead people can return as ghosts, so if a Muslim thinks he’s encountered a ghost, it’s thought to be the work of Jinn – beings that contain a mix of spiritual and physical properties, whose intentions can be malevolent or benevolent depending upon the situation. There are several other religions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, that also believe ghostly apparitions are demons in disguise rather than the souls of deceased people.
Jews typically discourage occult activities designed to contact the dead, and there seems to be less consensus within Judaism as to the status of ghosts. However, Jewish oral traditions include stories of evil ghosts (Dybbuks) and kindly, helpful ghosts (Ibburs) who try to insert themselves in human affairs.
It appears people across eras, religions and cultures have always been curious about a spiritual world that exists behind the curtain of death.
Together, it speaks to how thoughts, fears and visions of death are integral to human life.
By Frank T. McAndrew, Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology, Knox College. Gallowglass, CC BY-SA If you’ve ever seen a ghost, you have something in common with 18 percent of Americans. But while there’s evidence that our brains are hardwired to see ghosts, the apparitions we see tend to vary.
Population groups differ in how resilient they are when they face 
Together, it speaks to how thoughts, fears and visions of death are integral to human life.