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Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lise Eliot, Professor of Neuroscience, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Girls and boys are equally social at birth.

This finding, based on my team’s synthesis of six decades of research, may come as a surprise. Gender differences in adults’ social sensitivity are famous. Women outperform men at recognizing faces and emotions, and they score modestly higher on measures of empathy. They are likelier to take jobs working with people, such as in teaching and health care, whereas men are likelier to choose jobs working with “things,” such as in engineering or plumbing.

But how early do these differences emerge, and are they a matter of evolution or social learning? For years, some theorists have argued the former: that the difference is innate, built into the brain hardware of girls and boys through Darwinian selection. But this perspective relies almost exclusively on just one high-profile, yet deeply flawed, study of 102 newborns.

Mining the neonatal research trove

Realizing that psychologists have been studying newborns’ social orientation for decades, my team of neurobehavioral researchers and I set out to collect all the data – every published study that has compared boys’ and girls’ attention to social stimuli in the first month of life. Our goal was to better test the hypothesis of an inborn gender difference in attention to, or interest in, other people.

Our study was a systematic review, meaning we searched through every published report indexed in both medical and psychological databases from the 1960s onward.

We cast a wide net, looking for any research that measured newborns’ attention to or preference for human faces or voices and that reported the data separately by gender. Importantly, we did not limit our search to the terms “gender difference” or “sex difference,” since these would bias the collection by potentially excluding studies that failed to find boy-girl differences.

As expected, we unearthed dozens of studies comparing newborn boys and girls on social perception: 40 experiments reported in 31 peer-reviewed studies and involving nearly 2,000 infants. The majority of studies measured the amount of time newborns spent looking at faces, either at a single face or comparing a baby’s preference between two faces of differing social value, such as their own mother versus a woman who was a stranger.

Our data collection was large enough that we were able to carry out meta-analysis, which is a statistical method for combining the results of many studies. Meta-analysis essentially turns many small studies into a single large one. For studies measuring neonates’ looking time at faces, this included 667 infants, half of them boys and half of them girls.

The result was clear: nearly identical social perception between baby boys and girls. There was no significant difference between genders overall, nor was there a difference when we focused only on studies measuring babies’ gaze duration on a single face, or only on studies measuring babies’ gaze preference between two different faces.

Our search also netted two other types of studies. One focused on a remarkable behavior: newborns’ tendency to start crying when they hear another baby cry. An early study found this “contagious crying” to be marginally more common in girls. But when we performed meta-analysis on data across nine contagious-crying experiments, including 387 infants, there was again no solid evidence for male-female difference.

The last dataset we analyzed compared babies’ orientation to both social and inanimate objects using a newborn behavior assessment scale developed by legendary pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton. Across four studies involving 619 infants, girls did pay somewhat greater attention to the social stimuli (a human face or voice), but they also paid more attention to the inanimate stimuli (a ball or the sound of a rattle).

In other words, girls in this test seemed a bit more attuned to every type of stimulus, perhaps due to a general maturity advantage that they hold from fetal development through puberty. But there was nothing special about their interest in people, according to the Brazelton assessment.

Boys, too, prefer faces

Our findings align with other well-designed studies, including one finding that 5-month-old boys and girls equally prefer looking at faces over toy cars or other objects, and another finding that 2-month-old boys actually perform better than girls at detecting faces. So taken together, current research dispels a common myth that girls are innately “hardwired” to be more social than boys in early life.

The truth is that all babies are wired for social engagement at birth. Boys and girls are both primed to pay attention to human faces and voices, which, after all, belong to those who will keep them fed, safe and comforted.

Despite their best intentions, most parents cannot help but stereotype their infants by gender and begin treating boys and girls differently early on. Presuming that sons are already less social is not a recipe for remedying this bias. Our research can help dispel this myth, giving every child, male or female, the best possible start for connecting with and caring about other people.

Lise Eliot receives research funding from the Fred B. Snite Foundation.

– ref. It’s a myth that baby boys are less social than girls – a new look at decades of research shows all babies are born to connect – https://theconversation.com/its-a-myth-that-baby-boys-are-less-social-than-girls-a-new-look-at-decades-of-research-shows-all-babies-are-born-to-connect-277453

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Greg Eghigian, Professor of History, Penn State

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

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Is the science that we do today truth, likely to be a lie, or is it undetermined? – Nathaniel K., age 15, Hamilton, Ohio

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For most students, science is something you study and something you have to learn. I remember when I was in school, adults were always asking me things like “Do you like math?” and “Do you like science?” It’s almost like asking someone if they like spinach or broccoli.

In reality, science is not really a specific thing to like or hate, or something to believe in or not. Science is an activity. As one famous scientist put it, “Science is what scientists do.” It’s a way of working, a way to get things done.

So, then, what is it that scientists do? As a historian of science and medicine, I’ve studied how scientists try to understand the rules that govern things in the universe. For example, what makes the Moon orbit the Earth? How do clouds produce rain? How do people catch a cold? To answer questions like these, they do three things: They observe, they experiment and they analyze.

The process of science

All scientists carefully observe the subjects they are studying. Take the case of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin traveled the world collecting specimens of plants, animals and fossils to figure out how they came by their different features.

He soon came up with an idea: Maybe certain species in an area look the way they do because they have characteristics that are best adapted to the environment they live in, and they are passing these on to their offspring. Darwin kept testing out this idea everywhere he went, and in the end his theory seemed to work. Ever since, scientists have conducted countless studies that affirm his theory.

Many scientists take observation a step further by performing experiments. In an experiment, the scientist might use a laboratory and special instruments to modify something they’re studying and look at the effects of the change. Their aim is either to test a theory or to see whether certain changes occur regularly.

A good example of this process can be seen in the experiments conducted by Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s with dogs. By introducing a sound right before a dog would be fed, Pavlov found the dog would start reacting to the sound the very same way it reacted to a bowl of food. For Pavlov, this demonstrated that animals learned through a process of association, or “conditioning.”

Finally, scientists are constantly analyzing the results of their observations and experiments. Scientists use measurements, logic and math to consider what their findings mean. But it’s often not clear what the findings mean, and so the investigators end up having to make more observations, conduct more experiments and rethink their methods and guesses.

Reporting the findings

The analysis process doesn’t stop there. Scientists show the results of their work to others, who, in turn, are invited to weigh in on whether they did a good job answering their research question. The criticism can be pretty intense at times. In most cases, this practice includes telling other scientists who work in the same field about what they did and what they found by giving presentations at conferences.

Scientists also have to submit their work for more evaluation if they hope to get money to support their research. After that, they go through even more evaluation when they try to publish the findings of their research in professional magazines called journals.

In both cases, scientists undergo a process called peer review, during which other scientists who study similar topics are asked to basically grade the quality of the researcher’s work and provide both negative and positive feedback.

If reviewers decide the study is not good enough, the researcher won’t get funding or their study published.

Is science truth?

The work of a scientist isn’t just observing something out in the world. Scientists must invite other experts to weigh in on what is right and wrong about their methods and ideas. As a result, every scientist has to be ready to rethink what they have been doing and believing.

Through this process, scientists work at getting closer and closer to the truth. New observations and new experiments may support or disprove earlier ones, or they might open up a whole new set of questions to answer.

The scientific results of today aren’t the whole truth, but they are the closest we can come to it right now. And as scientists today and in the future keep working, they seek to bring the whole truth more and more into focus.

When you see science as something people do to reach the truth, you realize it’s a way of working, whose strength comes from scientists being open to changing their approaches and conclusions.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Greg Eghigian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is the science that we do today truth, likely to be a lie, or is it undetermined? – https://theconversation.com/is-the-science-that-we-do-today-truth-likely-to-be-a-lie-or-is-it-undetermined-278947

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andras Molnar, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

Two new experiments show that most people do not even consider that a personal message could be AI-generated, even when they themselves use artificial intelligence to write.

To see how people judge someone based on their writing in the age of ChatGPT, my colleague Jiaqi Zhu and I recruited more than 1,300 U.S.-based participants, ages 18 to 84, and showed them AI-generated messages like an apology sent in an email. We split our volunteers into four groups: Some people saw the messages with no information about who or what wrote them, as in everyday life. Others were told the messages were definitely written by a human, definitely AI-generated, or that the source could be either.

We found a clear “AI disclosure penalty.” When people knew a message was AI-generated, they rated the sender much more negatively – “lazy,” “insincere,” “lack of effort” – than when they believed that the same text was written by a person – “genuine,” “grateful,” “thoughtful.”

But here is the twist: The participants who were not told anything about authorship formed impressions that were just as positive as those from people who were told the messages were genuinely human.

This complete lack of skepticism surprised us – and it raises new questions. Maybe participants were not familiar enough with AI to realize that today’s models can produce detailed and personal messages. (They can.) Or perhaps participants have never used AI themselves. (They likely have.) So we also tested whether participants’ own AI use changed how they judged senders.

To our even bigger surprise, we found little to no effect. People who use generative AI quite frequently in their daily lives – at least every other day – did penalize AI use slightly less when AI authorship was disclosed, compared with people who never or rarely use AI. But participants were no more skeptical by default: When authorship was not disclosed, heavy AI users, light AI users and nonusers all tended to assume the text was written by a person and formed essentially the same impressions.

Why it matters

Lack of skepticism and a lack of negative impressions matter because people make social judgments from text all the time. Recipients consider taking the time and effort to send written messages as an insight into the writer’s sincerity, authenticity or competence, and those impressions shape people’s decisions in friendships, dating and work.

Yet our main findings reveal a striking disconnect: People usually do not suspect AI use unless it is obvious. This unawareness creates a moral dilemma: People who use AI in secret can enjoy the benefits while facing almost no risk of detection. Meanwhile, paradoxically, people who are upfront and admit to using AI suffer a reputational hit.

Over time, lack of skepticism and awareness could reshape what writing means in everyday life. Readers might learn to treat writing as a less reliable signal of someone’s character or effort, and instead rely on other forms of communication. For example, widespread AI use has already prompted employers to discount the value of cover letters from job applicants. Instead, they are relying more on personal recommendations from an applicant’s current supervisor or connections made through in-person networking.

What other research is being done

Other researchers have documented a wide range of negative impressions about people who disclose their AI use. Studies show it makes job applicants seem less desirable and employees seem less competent. Readers of creative writing perceive AI users as less creative and inauthentic. People see personal apologies and corporate apologies that stem from AI as less effective. In general, disclosing AI use decreases trust and undermines legitimacy.

Yet without disclosure, there is clear evidence that most people cannot reliably detect AI-generated text, even with the help of detection tools, especially when the text is a mix of human-written and AI-generated content. Even when people feel confident about their ability to spot AI text, their confidence may be nothing more than a self-affirming illusion.

What’s next

Even though our experiments did not reveal suspicion of AI use, that doesn’t mean people never suspect it in the real world. In some settings, people may already be hypervigilant about AI. Use in academia is an obvious example. In our next studies, we want to understand when and why people naturally start to suspect AI use, and what flips the switch between trust and doubt.

Until then, if you want your personal message to be judged as heartfelt, the safest strategy may be to make a phone call, leave a voicemail or, better yet, say it in person.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Andras Molnar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Most people do not realize when a personal message they receive was written by AI, study finds – https://theconversation.com/most-people-do-not-realize-when-a-personal-message-they-receive-was-written-by-ai-study-finds-278874

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew E. Oliver, Associate Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology

The market for oil is global, which is why events like the war in Iran affect oil prices – and prices of the wide range of products made from oil – literally everywhere. Federal data shows that the price at the primary crude oil hub in the U.S. was US$66 a barrel in late February 2026 – before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran – and $101 a barrel on April 13. Similar price increases have reverberated around the globe.

As an energy economist and an international trade economist, we field a lot of questions during such episodes, because when oil prices go up, manufacturers, businesses and ultimately consumers pay more.

Some basic economics

Crude oil may be the most important commodity in the global economic system.

It’s a literal fuel for the industrial economy. It powers the engines that drive transportation and paves the roads vehicles drive on. It’s a source for plastics from which the world’s products get made and packaged, and a key ingredient at some point in almost every supply chain. Even fertilizers that boost the food supply are made from it. In short, it is difficult to imagine modern life without oil and its derivatives.

And when its supply changes, its price changes. Economists explain this using a fundamental model of our field: the supply-demand diagram. When there’s less of something to go around, competition among consumers who want it and companies that need it can drive the price up.

Sometimes this process can play out over time, allowing people to adjust their purchasing or activities to dampen price shocks. But when a significant source of the world’s oil is effectively blocked without much advance notice, such as when the the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, prices can rise sharply in a short period of time.

A natural question many people ask when oil prices spike is: Where does all that additional money go, and who benefits from it?

Some people have written entire books dissecting all the places that money goes when it leaves consumers’ pockets. But ultimately, the bulk of the money heads in the direction of the source of the oil itself – the oil companies.

What they do with the money varies widely, depending on where in the world an oil company is operating and who owns it. What also matters is the business environment – the set of laws and regulations – in which the company operates.

Middle East faces danger

Oil producers in the Middle East face significant new risk because of the war in Iran, including threats to production, processing locations and shipping routes. These risks raise their costs for insurance, security and transportation.

But production costs in the region are relatively low, so higher global oil prices typically still translate into strong profits.

For a major exporter such as Saudi Arabia, the government owns and controls nearly all oil production, so high prices generally benefit the government’s finances and investments, even during a war. In Saudi Arabia, oil revenue has historically been used to fund public spending.

West Texas gets a windfall

The Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the U.S., is a long way from the Persian Gulf. When global oil prices rise because of the war in Iran, oil companies operating in West Texas effectively get a windfall gain: Prices rise more quickly than costs, at least in the short run.

The immediate effect is more income from higher prices. The money largely goes to company owners – meaning shareholders – through dividends, debt reduction, company-backed purchases of its own stock, and reinvestment in drilling and production. Over time, companies may decide to spend some of that windfall on building more production capacity or pipelines to get more oil and gas to market.

North Sea boosts government revenue

In the North Sea, between the island of Great Britain and Scandinavia, a mix of multinational and government-owned companies produce most of the oil.

In the U.K., private shareholders are the primary beneficiaries of higher profits from increased oil prices, though an additional tax on oil and gas companies’ profits means the government also collects a significant share of the money, which it uses to help pay public expenses.

In Norway, oil revenues flow into the Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at over $2 trillion. Laws govern how much, and for what purposes, money can be withdrawn from the fund, supporting public spending and preserving wealth for future generations. This is a similar model to Alaska’s state-owned program, funded by oil revenue, that pays for government services and sends an annual dividend to every permanent resident.

Russian oligarchs get rich

Russian oil is subject to stringent economic sanctions imposed by major industrial countries as a response to the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine. While the U.S. cannot control how much Russia charges for its oil, it can control services needed to move Russian oil around the world. Under current price sanctions, Western shipping, insurance and financing can be used to ship and sell Russian crude oil only if the price is below $60 per barrel.

Russia’s oil industry is dominated by government-controlled companies whose leaders maintain close ties to President Vladimir Putin. The dealings of those shadowy figures are often shrouded in secrecy, but it is likely that they and Putin’s military-industrial complex – not the Russian people – are the main beneficiaries of high oil prices.

What this means for you

Everyday U.S. consumers may not like the idea of their hard-earned cash going into the already deep pockets of any of these groups. But in the short run, there’s not much to do but pay the price. For the long run, however, people around the world are already thinking and talking about, and opting for, sources of energy that don’t depend on fossil fuels.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When oil prices spike, where does the money go? – https://theconversation.com/when-oil-prices-spike-where-does-the-money-go-280763

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Charles Bell, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Sciences, Illinois State University

“Jessica,” the adoptive mother of a third grade student, was shocked when she discovered that her daughter had spent over 100 hours locked in a room alone at her North Carolina public school.

School staff locked the child in a room by herself after she flipped markers in the air, lay on the floor and tilted her chair back, Jessica told me in 2024. Jessica’s daughter has a nonverbal learning disability, mild attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder.

Jessica’s situation is one of dozens that I document in my 2026 book, “No Restraint: Disabled Children and Institutionalized Violence in America’s Schools.” This book is part of my research on how families of children with disabilities navigate public schools that use restraint and seclusion to discipline students.

Restraint in this context means reducing a student’s ability to move their body freely, whether it is someone physically holding a student back or using bungee cords to constrain them, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Seclusion means a student is physically prevented from leaving a room until they are calm.

Not all public schools have seclusion rooms. And seclusion rooms can look different in various schools. Some schools refer to them as quiet rooms or a timeout box. In some schools, a seclusion room has a door with an outside lock. In other schools, a staff member holds the door shut.

Restraint and seclusion are intended to be used in situations where a child is a danger to themselves or others. Some teachers argue that seclusion rooms are necessary to protect them when students become violent.

But parents like Jessica told me school staff routinely used these tactics to punish students for nonviolent, minor offenses.

Understanding restraint and seclusion

Approximately 100,000 students are restrained and secluded in public schools each year, according to the Department of Education’s most recent data, from 2020.

Students with disabilities make up 13% of the school-age population in the U.S. but constitute nearly 80% of those who were restrained and secluded in public schools. Widespread underreporting of this method of discipline is common.

There is no federal law that regulates seclusion and restraint in public schools.

That said, 44 states have laws that limit the use of restraint and seclusion to emergency situations or ban it altogether. Minnesota, for example, bans the use of seclusion for children who are in third grade or younger.

And 41 of these same states have laws that schools must notify parents each time their child is restrained or secluded.

Various news organizations, such as ChalkBeat, have found that schools in North Carolina, Michigan and Illinois have violated restraint and seclusion laws.

In some cases, schools use terms such as “quiet room” and “timeout” to circumvent laws that mandate reporting restraint and seclusion to parents and government agencies.

Talking directly with parents

I interviewed 50 parents of children with disabilities from urban, suburban and rural public schools across 15 states, including North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, Utah and Massachusetts, between 2021 and 2024.

I recruited parents by posting a flyer on social media and contacting disability advocates in multiple states. I was interested in speaking with families whose children had been restrained and secluded at school. Some of the families were struggling financially, while others were affluent. I used fake names in my book to protect their identities.

All of the parents I spoke with had children who were restrained and secluded at school at least once, with some experiencing the punishment more than 30 times.

Children could be restrained and secluded for violent behavior. But this punishment was also meted out for relatively minor infractions: singing loudly in class, repeatedly leaving their seat, and eating snow. In some cases, after being restrained and secluded, children began hitting school staff, which led to additional time in the seclusion room.

Punishing with restraint and seclusion

The Department of Education has said that restraint and seclusion “should never be used as punishment or discipline … as a means of coercion or retaliation, or as a convenience.”

However, most of the parents I interviewed told me that school staff were using restraint and seclusion as punishment.

A few parents I spoke with called the police or child protective services after their children were locked in seclusion rooms. Thirty-eight of the 50 parents I spoke with spent between US$2,000 and $300,000 on lawsuits against the schools.

In return, some school staff allegedly used intimidation tactics to stop parents from speaking out about their child’s seclusion, parents told me.

For example, two Michigan parents named “Amy” and “John” told me in 2024 that school staff restrained their 11-year-old son, “Michael,” in 2023 after he pushed a boy who was bullying him. Michael had been diagnosed with ADHD and pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections, or PANDAS, a disorder that can cause intense anxiety and mood swings.

School staff physically held Michael back. A teacher then allegedly dragged Michael to a seclusion room and locked him inside with another boy. Moments later, a second altercation occurred between the two boys in the room.

After learning about this incident in 2023, Amy and John withdrew Michael and sued the school.

After they spent $90,000 on a lawsuit, John said, the school requested a gag order to prevent them from speaking about their child’s experience. School administrators also offered John and Amy a $15,000 settlement.

John and Amy decided to stand their ground in court. As the lawsuit continued, school staff retaliated and called CPS on the family.

“There is a saying in the special needs community: ‘It isn’t if CPS gets called on you, it’s when.’ And it’s all because the school is using them as a tool to either push people out of the school or to intimidate them into behaving correctly,” John said.

When I contacted the school in 2024, administrators did not respond to comment on the lawsuit.

In Jessica’s case, she also hired an attorney and filed a federal lawsuit.

Jessica told me school staff concealed evidence of the more than 20 instances between 2018 and 2020 that they locked her daughter in a seclusion room.

When I spoke with Jessica in 2024, she told me that school administrators tried to fire her husband, who was employed by the district at the time of their lawsuit. In this case, Jessica shared how a judge intervened to prevent her husband from being fired.

Searching for meaningful solutions

Within the past few years, there have been calls for Congress to pass the Keeping All Students Safe Act.

After a failed attempt to pass this legislation in 2021, U.S. Rep. Donald Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, reintroduced the Keeping All Students Safe Act to Congress in December 2025. The bill remains in the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

This legislation would protect children from harmful restraint and seclusion practices by ensuring that school staff are properly trained on this practice. The bill would limit the use of restraint and seclusion to emergency situations. And it would mandate that parents are notified every time their child is restrained or secluded at school.

Regardless of federal legislation, I think that parents play an important role in understanding how school restraint and seclusion affect families. Also, researchers and policymakers cannot fully understand how retaliation influences parents’ schooling decisions if parents are not included in this discussion.

Charles Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Schools are supposed to limit using restraint and seclusion to discipline kids – but parents I spoke with say the practice is wildly misused – https://theconversation.com/schools-are-supposed-to-limit-using-restraint-and-seclusion-to-discipline-kids-but-parents-i-spoke-with-say-the-practice-is-wildly-misused-279920