❌

Normal view

Received before yesterday

Study sheds light on why some people keep self-sabotaging

24 July 2025 at 18:01

Most people, after suffering consequences for a bad decision, will alter their future behavior to avoid a similar negative outcome. That's just common sense. But many social circles have that one friend who never seems to learn from those consequences, repeatedly self-sabotaging themselves with the same bad decisions. When it comes to especially destructive behaviors, like addictions, the consequences can be severe or downright tragic.

Why do they do this? Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, suggest that the core issue is that such people don't seem able to make a causal connection between their choices/behavior and the bad outcome, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications Psychology. Nor are they able to integrate new knowledge into their decision-making process effectively to get better results. The results could lead to the development of new intervention strategies for gambling, drug, and alcohol addictions.

In 2023, UNSW neuroscientist Philip Jean-Richard Dit Bressel and colleagues designed an experimental video game to explore the issue of why certain people keep making the same bad choices despite suffering some form of punishment as a result. Participants played the interactive online game by clicking on one of two planets to "trade" with them; choosing the correct planet resulted in earning points.

Read full article

Comments

Β© Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Infrared contact lenses let you see in the dark

22 May 2025 at 15:00

Tired of using bulky night vision goggles for your clandestine nocturnal activities? An interdisciplinary team of Chinese neuroscientists and materials scientists has developed near-infrared contact lenses that enabled both mice and humans to see in the dark, even with their eyes closed, according to a new paper published in the journal Cell.

Humans and other mammals can only perceive a limited range of the electromagnetic spectrum (light), usually in the 400–700 nm range. There are creatures that can see in infrared (snakes, mosquitoes, bullfrogs) or ultraviolet (bees, birds), and goldfish can perceive both. But humans must augment themselves with technology in order to expand our range of vision.

Night vision goggles and similar devices have been around since the 1930s, including infrared-visible converters, but these require external energy sources, and the converters have a multilayer structure that makes them opaque and hence challenging to integrate with a human eye. The authors previously were able to confer near-infrared vision to mice by injecting nanoparticles that bind to photoreceptors into their eyesβ€”basically creating a near-infrared nanoantennaβ€”but realized that most people would be averse to the prospect of sticking needles in their eyes. So they looked for a better alternative. Contact lenses seemed the obvious choice.

Read full article

Comments

Β© Yuqian Ma, Yunuo Chen, Hang Zhao

❌