Emma Barratt
@ebarratt.bsky.social
Editor of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest. Previously Editor/astronaut botherer at the European Space Agency, Writer at SciShow, and more.
Found this rather interesting: www.psypost.org/severe-covid...
Severe COVID-19 linked to anxiety in offspring via altered sperm RNA
A small study found that male mice infected with a severe form of SARS-CoV-2 passed anxiety-like behaviors to their offspring. The researchers traced these intergenerational changes to altered molecul...
psypost.org
Would like some Actual Good News about the environment ?
Joy as Irish bird feared gone forever returns to Cork
Return of the corncrake gives hope for other native species
corkbeo.ie
Thoughtful piece: “as a field, we seem to have given up on our representation issue. We know about it, we say we care about it, but the decisions we make (from what demographic data to collect to what papers to publish) suggests to me that we've become apathetic about it all”
The Psychologist@psychmag.bsky.social · last wk.Representation in Psychology – just another impossible problem? Megan E. Birney (University of Birmingham) considers a WEIRD, but worryingly pervasive, research issue. Plus a response from the British Psychological Society's Academic Publications Team. www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
"Metascience needs psychology and we need to be better at communicating this need. Understanding how researchers actually develop and change may be one of the most missing pieces in understanding how science itself changes." www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
The Psychologist@psychmag.bsky.social · 2d agoMeta(science)-morphosis… Dr @maddipow.bsky.social on personal moments of change for researchers. www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
Just spotted this on my travels, and I cannot express how excited this research makes me: www.nasa.gov/reference/b-... Great to see it linked to PMOS (PCOS), too.
B-Complex - NASA
Formal project title: B-Complex: A Nutraceutical SANS Countermeasure
nasa.gov
🧡 Keep an eye out between 5 and 6pm this evening! Some of our members and our Chair of Trustees will be featured on Channel 5 News. We're advised this is when the report is expected to air. If you can, please help us spread the word by liking, commenting on posts. 🙏 for your support.
We're excited to launch Postgraduate Quarterly, a publication created by & for the postgraduate psych community. It brings together research, reflections, & insights from across the postgraduate journey, while championing the voices shaping the future. 👉 https://explore.bps.org.uk/content/bpspgq
I'm on the hunt for papers to cover on Research Digest again. Psychologists, if you've got a recent paper you'd like us to consider, drop a link!
Oh, and still almost no *national* media and political coverage… The Tyneside coastal communities, who have been doing back-breaking work round the clock to clear as many nurdles as possible, won’t get answers and a proper clean-up till this spill gets more attention. Read through thread for more.
Alison Stenning@alisonstenning.bsky.social · 7d agoLitany of failure here from Port of Tyne and companies involved in perhaps worst ever plastic pollution event in UK/Europe: No immediate containment of spillage No mention of spillage in press releases until day 4 *Still* no large-scale clear-up operation Nurdles found 20 miles N and S of Tyne
New website is live, including a new blog post :). I respond to the call by @psychscience.bsky.social asking how we can improve APS conferences. eiko-fried.com/blog/in-pers...
In-person conferences in 2026: yay or nay? | Eiko Fried
Some ideas on improving conferences so they are worth the financial, time, and ecological investments.
eiko-fried.com
A recent preprint organises known sensory experiences in a fresh way – and leads researchers into the unexplored: www.bps.org.uk/research-dig...
New framework broadens the search for unstudied sensory experiences | BPS
A recent preprint organises known sensory experiences in a fresh way – and leads researchers into the unexplored.
bps.org.uk
New work on the effects of psychedelics on hierarchical cortical propagations out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Counter to our expectations, psychedelics attenuated bottom-up propagations into the Default Mode Network across substances and species. Thread below:
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
pnas.org
Make science more reliable: study people as they go about their lives https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01957-z Researchers have long discussed the replication crisis. Now it’s time to tackle another problem in the behavioural sciences: generalizability.
Make science more reliable: study people as they go about their lives
Researchers have long discussed the replication crisis. Now it’s time to tackle another problem in the behavioural sciences: generalizability.
nature.com
🎉 PsychoPy 2026.2.0 is now available for testing! We'd love your help testing it out. Please report any bugs or issues on the forum so we can squash them early and deliver smooth bug-fix releases ahead of teaching term and lab computer deployments. discourse.psychopy.org/t/psychopy-2...
PsychoPy 2026.2.0 release!
Hi Everyone! We’re excited to share that PsychoPy version 2026.2.0 is now available for testing! 🎉 Please do download it, give it a test, and report an issues you encounter on the forum here.…
discourse.psychopy.org
Happy birthday to the heatwave of 1976 which began today 50 years ago, peaking at 35.9°C. If a comparable heatwave happened in the current climate it would be 3-4°C hotter, peaking at 38-39°C. And the actual forecast is for temperatures of 38-39°C in the next few days with a red heatwave warning.
If you do research on body image, body perception, appearance psychology or related topics in social or health sciences, please do get involved with Perspectives in Body Image. It was an amazing conference with ppl from so many countries last year. Can't wait to see everyone's work in 2027.
Perspectives in Body Image@persbodyimage.bsky.social · 2mo agoSave the date! The second PiBI will bring together body image researchers from around the globe for an accessible, online conference once more on the 21st-23rd September 2027! Sign up below for the mailing list and check back for more news soon! lgboothroyd.webspace.durham.ac.uk/perspectives...
Running an experiment to study racial discrimination? Going to use names to signal race? Here's a new tool! This helps you to choose the names you want to use based on: 1.) the strength of the racial signal you want to send 2.) whether you want to hold other factors (e.g., class) constant
Some good news amid the ongoing awful everything else. 'medics in London have successfully used the technique to effectively cure five NHS patients with severe lupus aged between 19 and 50' www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
Lupus patients in England in remission after pioneering NHS trial of GM therapy
Doctors say therapy that genetically modifies person’s T-cells could offer cure for chronic autoimmune disease
theguardian.com
Does it matter which day of your #menstrualcycle you get #vaccinated? 💉 My first PhD paper, just published in #npj Women's Health, suggests it might. 🧵
As a course assignment, I had students rewrite the discussion section from an actual paper (using track changes) and incorporate information from a DAG and bias analyses they ran. Some of these are among the best discussion sections I've ever seen!
Today I'm posting a new blog about an astonishing scientific own goal. Hundreds of papers have reported using a totally wrong antibody to investigate the tumor suppressor p16. This mistake has happened because scientists have muddled the names of two proteins. forbetterscience.com/2026/06/02/m...
University administrators two years ago: we can’t allow social justice movements to change the university as we know it University administrators today: in order to accommodate the new probabilistic bullshit generator no one likes we must change everything about the university
New research finds coming back to Earth after floating in space leads astronauts’ brains to predict that items will rise, rather than float, if they drop them: www.bps.org.uk/research-dig...
Returning astronauts expect dropped objects to rise | BPS
New research finds that coming back to Earth after floating in space leads astronauts’ brains to predict that items will rise, rather than float, if they drop them.
bps.org.uk
This is the May cover of NN but it has already been debunked on biorxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Such a clear statement about the ridiculous pace of publishing (not just NN).
biorxiv.org
Nature Neuroscience@natneuro.nature.com · 3mo agoCheck out our May issue! www.nature.com/neuro/volume...
🧠 This could be yet another reason exercise is vital for brain health: New research in mice finds that exercise may help keep the brain healthy by mechanically assisting cerebrospinal fluid circulation. www.bps.org.uk/research-dig...
A body in motion puts the brain in motion, too | BPS
New research in mice finds that exercise may help keep the brain healthy by mechanically assisting cerebrospinal fluid circulation.
bps.org.uk
Scientists reveal the brain’s surprisingly active role in building exercise endurance
Scientists reveal the brain’s surprisingly active role in building exercise endurance
New research published in Neuron reveals that physical endurance depends heavily on the brain. Scientists discovered that specific neurons activate immediately after exercise to coordinate muscle adaptation.
psypost.org
The Artemis II Orion capsule separating from the European Service module (now from two angles) 4K resolution: youtu.be/_QelA8UonoQ
I fear Labour people risk falling into an ecological fallacy visible from space when reacting to these results. Here is what is very clear in results so far: Labour are losing *seats* to Reform, but... Labour are losing *votes* to the Greens Greens split the vote, Ref comes thru middle
