Not everyone likes having their beliefs challenged. It makes us feel threatened on a deeply personal level and compels us to seek consistency, so we can continue to function with sanity in this ever-changing, chaotic world.

Take a meat lover, for example, who agrees that animal cruelty is wrong but goes on to include fish and pork ribs in his diet. Or a person who cannot stop smoking even after knowing that it is harmful to their health.

Coping with contradictory ideas — also known as cognitive dissonance — can be mentally stressful, and people tend to find consistency by rationalization (accepting new information), confirmation (sticking with old ideas), or blindly believing whatever they want to believe.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) CHI ‘23 Conference brings together researchers and practitioners from around the world with the goal of making the world a better place through interactive digital technologies. This year, CHI ‘23 received over three thousand paper submissions, of which only the top five percent were chosen to receive an award.

There’s been buzz around collegiate communities after Nathan Heller’s New Yorker article “The End of the English Major” wiggled its way across social media and into email inboxes. Heller discusses the fall of humanities enrollment that has been affecting the U.S. nationwide. 

One of the recurring culprits in regard to the English major’s demise is AI. This is under the assumption that tools like ChatGPT will “take over” with its quick essay quips. However, this isn’t really the case. 
 

Gun violence is incredibly prevalent in the United States. According to the Gun Violence Archive, as of early May, there have been over 200 mass shootings in the U.S. this year. The casualties that occur from gun violence are heartbreaking for friends, family, and even strangers. With AI technology, there is hope that one day we can decrease the amount of casualties that occur from gun violence. 

Taste is a mysterious sensation that humans experience. We perceive a wide range of tastes, ranging from the sweetness of strawberry shortcake to the bitterness of black coffee. 

It’s well-known that taste buds play a part in the flavor party, but there’s much more to it than what’s on the tip of our tongue. The taste buds send signals to our brain, activating the neurons in our gustatory cortex: the part of our brain associated with perception of taste. Neuroscientists at Stony Brook University are working to increase our understanding of taste and the gustatory cortex.

When we think of aircraft, we typically think of them as planes that are manually controlled by human pilots, but unmanned drones are already in the sky.  The day is coming where we may have autonomous aircraft flying us all over the world… but are you ready to fly on a plane with only a computer as the pilot on board? Would you trust it not to collide with other planes?