ChatGPT may spread science misinformation

Turkey’s Erdoğan took a page from US presidents and boosted reelection campaign by claiming to have killed a terrorist

Graig Klein, Leiden University; Scott Boddery, Gettysburg College

Invading, attacking and killing adversaries abroad can boost the political prospects of leaders doing poorly at home.

Women’s secret war: the inside story of how the US military sent female soldiers on covert combat missions to Afghanistan

Jennifer Greenburg, University of Sheffield

Women who served in unofficial combat and intelligence roles during the Afghanistan war offer brutally honest accounts of their experiences.

Anesthesia can cause disturbing sexual hallucinations, leading to lasting psychological trauma

Melody White, University of Connecticut; C. Michael White, University of Connecticut

Sedative-hypnotic drugs can distort a patient’s perception of reality. Some patients wake up from a procedure believing they have been sexually assaulted.

Vatican centralizes investigations on claims of Virgin Mary apparitions – but local Catholics have always had a say

Deirdre de la Cruz, University of Michigan

The Vatican plans to set up an ‘observatory’ to investigate apparitions of the Virgin Mary. A scholar of global Christianity explains why this is a major shift in how apparitions are authenticated.

Happy birthday, Buddha! Why the founder of Buddhism has so many different birthdays around the world

Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee

Buddha’s birthday has not always been a major holiday for Buddhists, but is now celebrated in diverse ways throughout Asia.

Travelers will refuse an upgrade to sit near a loved one – new research into when people want to share experiences

Ximena Garcia-Rada, Texas A&M University; Michael Norton, Harvard University; Rebecca K. Ratner, University of Maryland

New research on our desire to create shared memories with the people we care about offers insights for companies that want to improve their customer service.

World’s oldest Homo sapiens footprint identified on South Africa’s Cape south coast

Charles Helm, Nelson Mandela University; Andrew Carr, University of Leicester

This was an area in which early anatomically modern humans survived, evolved and thrived, before spreading out of Africa to other continents.

Gravitational wave detector LIGO is back online after 3 years of upgrades – how the world’s most sensitive yardstick reveals secrets of the universe

GOP’s proposed expansion of SNAP work requirements targets many low-income people in their early 50s – but many of them already work

Debunking the Dunning-Kruger effect – the least skilled people know how much they don’t know, but everyone thinks they are better than average