Whenever I drive amid the mazelike bustle of Tokyo's Shuto Expressway, where approximately 1 million vehicles transit daily, I see billboard advertisements for all manner of businesses: dentists, hotels, car and tire companies, and affordable funerals. Lots and lots of funerals.

Imagine you have a bag you really like. It felt like "the one" when you bought it. Over time, it starts to look worn. There are some scuffs on it. Nothing is actually wrong with the bag, and it still works exactly as it should. Yet, once you notice those imperfections, you start thinking about buying a new one to replace it.

What causes adversaries to escalate conflicts into costly, prolonged wars even when neither side wants to fight? And in the fog of war, what might help them break that cycle and find a path to peace?

Imagine planning a vacation across India's Golden Triangle: Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. You could compare dozens of websites, scroll through reviews and ask friends for recommendations.

Look closely at a face in a painting and you might think you know what emotion the person is experiencing. A smile suggests happiness. A furrowed brow might signal anger. Widened eyes could mean fear or surprise. But what happens when you ask lots of people the same question? Do they see the same emotion, or something more complicated?

The media habits of teens and young adults reflect transformative changes in modern storytelling and technology, and the entertainment industry and other content creators should pay attention, according to the latest "Teens and Screens" report from the Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS) at UCLA.

New research suggests the same personality traits associated with toxic corporate leaders today may have been present at the very birth of global capitalism 400 years ago.

Compulsive use of social media may be associated with a strong desire for reassurance among people who are afraid to rely on others and engage in face-to-face interactions, according to a study published Oct. 21, 2026, in the journal PLOS One by Chris Bjornsen and Allen Harbaugh of Longwood University in the U.S.

Researchers led by Carina Hahn at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S., have found that forensic specialists in facial identification need only one or two features, such as eyes or ears, to identify a face when looking for a match. Published in PLOS One, the study found that specialists find ears to be the most useful but are capable of adapting when recognizing that another feature might be more beneficial.

Adults are more objectively creative than preschoolers but are inhibited by anxiety and low self-confidence, according to a study published Oct. 21, 2026, in the journal PLOS One by Janika Saretzki from the University of Graz, Austria, and colleagues.

An international team led by Alexander Vorbrugg analyzed (online) media reporting on war-related land changes in Ukraine. The study asked: How is damage to land represented? What knowledge do these representations draw on? How does the war affect the symbolic meaning of land and visions of the future? How are material damage and destruction translated into the media discourse? What ideas of landscape does this create?

A study of 500 Thai retailers has found that businesses with stronger big data analytics capabilities tend to be better at identifying market needs, innovating and executing effective marketing strategies. Moreover, large retailers report higher capability levels than smaller firms, according to research published in the International Journal of Services and Operations Management.

The old saying that one bad apple spoils the barrel suggests that an individual behaving badly can have a negative influence on the entire group. The idea now has some fresh scientific backing.

More than 1 in 4 Detroiters cannot easily produce up-to-date documentation of their U.S. citizenship that matches their current name, according to a new survey from the University of Michigan's Detroit Metro Area Communities Study, in partnership with Outlier Media.

The trauma of war has long-lasting reverberations, influencing business decisions made decades later, argue Eun Hye Jo and Jenny Jung-Wha Lee, accounting professors at Costello College of Business based at George Mason University Korea.

An international study led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE, CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona, the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, Harvard University and the University of the Basque Country (EHU) has reconstructed the genetic history of the Iberian Peninsula between the first and eighth centuries A.D. using 243 ancient genomes from 31 archaeological sites.

In the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a research team from Kyushu University, Universitetet i Bergen and the University of Copenhagen reports that it found traces of ancient collagen protein from the common eland (Taurotragus oryx), a species of antelope, on a 60,000-year-old ochre-rich surface in the Kilpdrift Complex, a Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological site located within the coastal cliffs of the De Hoop Nature Reserve in South Africa.

The England-wide study involving 121 bereaved people from 13 ethnic backgrounds found that racism, language barriers and a lack of culturally appropriate support continue to prevent many people from accessing help after the death of someone close to them.

New research has found parents, guardians and nongamers may struggle to recognize video game loot boxes, their defining features and the digital receipts linked to purchases.

Apps that let businesses sell surplus food at a discount in "surplus bags" have become a popular way to keep edible food out of landfills while giving consumers access to lower-cost meals and groceries.