{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Phys.org news tagged with:decision-making","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/","language":"en-us","description":"Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine.","item":[{"title":"People act more helpfully in poor environments than rich ones, research reveals","description":"People are more likely to act helpfully in situations where there are poorer choices to give to others, according to a new study that tested willingness to help others in different contexts.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-02-people-poor-environments-rich-reveals.html","category":"Social Sciences","pubDate":"Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:00:03 EST","guid":"news689862645"},{"title":"Global plastics treaty negotiations: Success is still possible, researchers argue","description":"Plastic pollution is causing severe problems worldwide. However, negotiations at the United Nations in Geneva last August did not result in the expected global plastics treaty. On 7 February 2026, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution will reconvene in Geneva to elect a new chairperson. In order to secure an agreement, the new chairperson must urgently reform INC procedures, argue researchers.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-02-global-plastics-treaty-success.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Tue, 03 Feb 2026 16:29:43 EST","guid":"news689358548"},{"title":"Q&A: How AI changes NASA's search for life in outer space","description":"Alicja Ostrowska's doctoral thesis \"Life and AI at NASA\" examines how artificial intelligence is transforming the way science is conducted within some of the world's most ambitious space projects. The study investigates how AI is used in NASA's missions exploring the conditions for present or past life on other planets and moons and what this means for how knowledge is produced. The research is based on fieldwork with scientists and engineers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-01-qa-ai-nasa-life-outer.html","category":"Astrobiology","pubDate":"Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:04:45 EST","guid":"news688230247"},{"title":"Feeling involved in decision-making associated with higher mental well-being, lower loneliness for women in farming","description":"Women in farming who feel valued and supported and are involved in decision-making on the farm report higher mental well-being and lower levels of loneliness, according to groundbreaking new research.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-01-involved-decision-higher-mental-loneliness.html","category":"Agriculture","pubDate":"Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:06:18 EST","guid":"news688039502"},{"title":"Researchers film foraging strategy of wood mice choosing between healthy and moth-damaged chestnuts","description":"A mouse scurries up to six chestnuts. Three look healthy. Three have exit holes where moth larvae ate the insides before they left. What does the mouse do?","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-01-foraging-strategy-wood-mice-healthy.html","category":"Plants & Animals","pubDate":"Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:20:24 EST","guid":"news687622801"},{"title":"Economics has lost the narrative thread, says leading expert","description":"Economics could do with less mathematics and more story, says Canada's most-cited economist.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-01-economics-lost-narrative-thread-expert.html","category":"Economics & Business","pubDate":"Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:52:23 EST","guid":"news687001922"},{"title":"'AI advisor' helps self-driving labs share control in creation of next-generation materials","description":"\"Self-driving\" or \"autonomous\" labs are an emerging technology in which artificial intelligence guides the discovery process, helping design experiments or perfecting decision strategies.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-12-ai-advisor-labs-creation-generation.html","category":"Analytical Chemistry","pubDate":"Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:20:01 EST","guid":"news685296797"},{"title":"What makes a first offer successful in negotiations","description":"For decades, researchers and practitioners have debated whether it is better to make the first offer in a negotiation or to wait. A new meta-study now provides a comprehensive and clear answer. The researchers analyzed 90 studies with a total of 374 experiments and more than 16,000 participants.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-12-successful.html","category":"Economics & Business","pubDate":"Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:15:17 EST","guid":"news685278836"},{"title":"Study finds that purchasing things for two is stressful","description":"For many of us, any kind of shopping is stressful enough. The anxiety, however, really kicks in when you must purchase something you're going to share with another person.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-12-stressful.html","category":"Social Sciences","pubDate":"Wed, 03 Dec 2025 04:47:19 EST","guid":"news683959621"},{"title":"Three key pathways identified for scaling up actionable climate knowledge","description":"There's no one-size-fits-all solution to adapting and building resilience to climate change, but a new study led by the University of Michigan offers three generalized pathways to help climate knowledge achieve its maximum impact.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-11-key-pathways-scaling-actionable-climate.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Mon, 24 Nov 2025 15:50:05 EST","guid":"news683221675"},{"title":"As US government cuts weather forecasting, vulnerable places like Puerto Rico risk losing vital early warnings","description":"Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica in late October, killed dozens in Haiti and forced nearly three-quarters of a million Cubans to evacuate. The death toll across the region is still unknown\u2014but Melissa will go down as one of the strongest storms ever recorded.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-11-weather-vulnerable-puerto-rico-vital.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Thu, 20 Nov 2025 12:53:05 EST","guid":"news682865582"},{"title":"Paperwork won't prepare us for climate change: Planning might","description":"As global climate talks at COP30 shift from setting lofty targets to transforming the systems that will get us there, Australia has been quietly strengthening its climate resilience rulebook.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-11-paperwork-wont-climate.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Thu, 13 Nov 2025 06:57:05 EST","guid":"news682239422"},{"title":"Valencia floods, one year on: What have we learned, and how can we prevent similar tragedies in the future?","description":"On October 29 2024, destructive storms hit several areas of the Iberian peninsula, causing the most extreme rainfall recorded in Spain during the 21st century.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-valencia-year-similar-tragedies-future.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:40:01 EDT","guid":"news680972481"},{"title":"Byte by byte: How AI is reshaping agriculture","description":"The Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine once stood 30 meters high and stretched 3.2 kilometers across the Dnieper River, creating one of the country's largest reservoirs. Holding some 18 cubic kilometers of water, it supplied irrigation across Kherson Oblast and beyond, and cooled Europe's biggest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-byte-ai-reshaping-agriculture.html","category":"Biotechnology","pubDate":"Tue, 28 Oct 2025 10:12:06 EDT","guid":"news680865122"},{"title":"Can AI have morality? Philosophy weighs in","description":"As the influence of artificial intelligence grows, so do the ethical questions that surround it.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-ai-morality-philosophy.html","category":"Social Sciences","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Oct 2025 13:23:04 EDT","guid":"news680790182"},{"title":"AI is changing who gets hired. What skills will keep you employed?","description":"The consulting firm Accenture recently laid off 11,000 employees while expanding its efforts to train workers to use artificial intelligence. It's a sharp reminder that the same technology driving efficiency is also redefining what it takes to keep a job.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-ai-hired-skills-employed.html","category":"Economics & Business","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Oct 2025 13:04:05 EDT","guid":"news680789042"},{"title":"Why climate summits fail, and three ways to save them","description":"Nearly three decades after the first UN climate conference, emissions are still rising. The global system for tackling climate change is broken\u2014it's slow, cumbersome and undemocratic.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-climate-summits-ways.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:32:04 EDT","guid":"news679840321"},{"title":"How protein condensates determine a cell's fate","description":"A cell can act in astonishingly complex ways. It must decide for itself whether to grow and multiply, rest, specialize, age or die. This applies just as much to mammalian cells as it does to seemingly simple microbes.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-protein-condensates-cell-fate.html","category":"Cell & Microbiology","pubDate":"Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:20:01 EDT","guid":"news679312569"},{"title":"Shedding light on impact of Bank of Japan's exchange-traded fund purchase program","description":"It is widely recognized that the Bank of Japan's Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) purchases had a substantial impact on stock prices. Market participants and media reports have often highlighted that the policy distorted market valuations. At the same time, they pointed out that ETF management appeared to accelerate stock lending activity as the number of ETFs held by the Bank of Japan increased over time. This pattern suggests that the stock market, particularly the lending market, has mechanisms that enhance market efficiency and counteract the effects of the Bank of Japan's policy.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-10-impact-bank-japan-exchange-fund.html","category":"Economics & Business","pubDate":"Thu, 09 Oct 2025 09:27:04 EDT","guid":"news679220821"},{"title":"NASA scientists help a Maryland county plan to beat summer heat risks","description":"Thousands of Americans are impacted each summer by excessive heat and humidity, some suffering from heat-related illnesses when the body can't cool itself down. Data from NASA satellites could help local governments reduce the sweltering risks, thanks to a collaboration between NASA scientists and officials in Prince George's County, Maryland. The effort demonstrates how local officials in other communities could turn to NASA data to inform decisions that provide residents with relief from summer heat.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-nasa-scientists-maryland-county-summer.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Thu, 28 Aug 2025 15:58:04 EDT","guid":"news675615481"},{"title":"Research probes AI's role in helping social workers make crucial decisions","description":"In the discussion around artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, Sanmay Das has found one constant: While many people believe that some jobs can be replaced by AI, they believe that their own job is far too nuanced and complex to be handed over to the machines.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-probes-ai-role-social-workers.html","category":"Social Sciences","pubDate":"Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:16:05 EDT","guid":"news675594962"},{"title":"Team evaluates reliability of author identity concealment for peer-review process","description":"Does keeping authors' identities secret during peer review make the process more fair? A new large-scale field study, led by Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences Professor Tim Pleskac in collaboration with Ellie Kyung (Babson College), Gretchen Chapman (Carnegie Mellon University), and Oleg Urminsky (University of Chicago), finds that the answer is more complicated than many expect.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-team-reliability-author-identity-concealment.html","category":"Economics & Business","pubDate":"Fri, 15 Aug 2025 13:09:05 EDT","guid":"news674482141"},{"title":"CREAM: Avoiding collisions in space through automation","description":"Earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded. With more than 11,000 active satellites and many thousands more expected in the coming years, as well as more than 1.2 million pieces of space debris greater than 1 cm, the risk of in-orbit collisions has turned into a daily operational concern. ESA is investing in automation technologies that can help satellite operators respond more effectively to collision risks.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-cream-collisions-space-automation.html","category":"Space Exploration","pubDate":"Tue, 12 Aug 2025 11:52:03 EDT","guid":"news674218321"},{"title":"As the status quo shifts, we're becoming more forgiving when algorithms mess up","description":"New inventions\u2014like the printing press, magnetic compasses, steam engines, calculators and the internet\u2014can create radical shifts in our everyday lives. Many of these new technologies were met with some degree of skepticism by those who lived through the transition.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-status-quo-shifts-algorithms-mess.html","category":"Social Sciences","pubDate":"Mon, 11 Aug 2025 10:14:51 EDT","guid":"news674126088"},{"title":"Anti-corruption measures drive tax compliance, research shows","description":"A fundamental problem for governments is getting citizens to comply with their laws and policies. They can't monitor everyone and catch all the rule-breakers. \"It's a logistical impossibility,\" says Lily L. Tsai, MIT's Ford Professor of Political Science and the director and founder of the MIT Governance Lab.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-anti-corruption-tax-compliance.html","category":"Economics & Business","pubDate":"Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:37:11 EDT","guid":"news673529828"},{"title":"Land reform in South Africa: How one community set up a successful game reserve","description":"In South Africa, most of the arable land was taken from Africans by colonial settlers. Ever since apartheid ended in 1994, people who were dispossessed of their land have been trying to get it back.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-07-reform-south-africa-community-successful.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Tue, 29 Jul 2025 15:15:09 EDT","guid":"news673020893"},{"title":"Gene-edited pigs may soon enter the Canadian market, but questions about their impact remain","description":"The Canadian government is currently considering approving the entry of gene-edited pigs into the food system.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-07-gene-pigs-canadian-impact.html","category":"Plants & Animals","pubDate":"Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:26:04 EDT","guid":"news671379961"},{"title":"Do ants think? Do bees feel?","description":"Animals were once considered mindless\u2014incapable of thoughts or feelings.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-06-ants-bees.html","category":"Plants & Animals","pubDate":"Mon, 23 Jun 2025 15:01:03 EDT","guid":"news669909661"},{"title":"LLMs delve into online debates to create a detailed map of human beliefs","description":"Large language models (LLMs), such as the model underpinning the functioning of the well-known conversational platform ChatGPT, have proved to be very promising for summarizing and generating written texts. However, they could also be interesting tools for conducting research rooted in psychology, behavioral science and other scientific disciplines.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-06-llms-delve-online-debates-human.html","category":"Social Sciences","pubDate":"Sun, 22 Jun 2025 09:00:01 EDT","guid":"news669641788"},{"title":"AI models show promise in evaluating complex forensic evidence in legal contexts","description":"An international research collaboration used AI as research participants and discovered that knowledge-enhanced large language models are able to critically assess forensic expert testimonies.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-06-ai-complex-forensic-evidence-legal.html","category":"Political science","pubDate":"Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:44:17 EDT","guid":"news668954650"}]}}