“The apparent failure of self-regulation… is not a psychological impairment, but an adaptive response to having little actual control over one’s future.” Social psychologist Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington posits that the brains of those with little power work differently. For example, those in poverty who smoke find it hard to give it up because they have more pressing matters at hand, like workplace-related health issues and fruitless job hunts. The future benefits of quitting are so far out of reach that they focus on its present benefits instead. Read full article here
Science
‘Ghostly’ neutrinos provide new path to study protons
In groundbreaking research, an international collaboration of scientists from the University of Rochester have used a beam of neutrinos to measure the size and shape of the protons that make up the nuclei of atoms. This feat, once thought impossible, provides scientists with a new way of looking at the small components of an atom’s nucleus and opens up a wealth of new information about the structure of an atom’s nucleus and the dynamics of the forces that affect neutrino interactions. The researchers solved the challenge of harnessing neutrinos in large numbers by using a neutrino detector containing a target of both hydrogen and carbon atoms, and over nine years of data collection at Fermilab’s accelerator. Read full article here