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Researchers have shown for the first time that doomscrolling – the habit of checking up on disturbing stories on social media – can prompt existential issues, such as impacting your view of humanity and the meaning of life.In recent years, news reporting has becoming increasingly negative. The media’s wholehearted embrace of the adage “if it bleeds, it leads”, has led to the global dominance of negative news stories that focus on corruption, fraud, shootings, terrorism, and war. At the same time, there is now a blind spot for good news, which is often disregarded as unimportant.But this is not necessarily a top-down development led by the media itself. In fact, research has shown that consumers prefer and actively seek out cynical and negative news. Together, these circumstances have contributed to a biased focus on negative news and media content.Of course, this is not new. Humans have a propensity to seek out bad news as it keeps us alert. Previous research has shown that this negative bias – the tendency to find negative information more valuable than positive information – manifests at various stages in human development, even in infancy. This suggests it has deep evolutionary roots.With the rise of this focus on negative content, a new consumer behavior has emerged that is referred to as “doomscrolling”. In essence, this is the act of seeking out saddening or negative social media content or news stories to read and scroll through. The behavior is usually compulsive and discriminant, to the point of being addictive.Now, a new study has shown that doomscrolling makes people more likely to feel suspicious of other people while also contributing to the sense that life has no meaning.“Doomscrolling can have some dire consequences on our mental health and wellbeing leaving us feeling stress, anxiety, despair and questioning the meaning of life,” lead author Reza Shabahang, from Flinders University, Australia, said in a statement.“Viewing negative news on social media has become a source of vicarious trauma, where someone has a negative psychological impact even though they did not experience the trauma themselves.”When exposed to images and information about traumatic events, people have even developed symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which include anxiety and despair.In their study, Shabahang and colleagues surveyed 800 university students from two distinctly diverse cultures – students from the US, a Western individualistic culture, and students from Iran, an Eastern collective culture. The aim was to explore how the consumption of excessively negative news and social media content can impact a person’s thoughts and feelings regarding existence.Participants were asked questions related to how anxious they felt towards their existence, whether they believed the world was a fair place, how they felt about humanity, and, most importantly, how often they doomscrolled.“We wanted to see if there were any connections between doomscrolling and subsequent thoughts and feelings about humankind and the importance of life,” Shabahang added.The team found that doomscrolling was associated with higher existential anxiety in both American and Iranian samples. They also found that, for the Iranian sample, doomscrolling was a significant predictor of misanthropy – the dislike of people.“When we’re constantly exposed to negative news and information online, it can threaten our beliefs when it comes to our own mortality and the control we have over our own lives,” Shabahang explained. “Moreover, doomscrolling can negatively affect how we view the people and world around us.”The study shows that we must be careful when we use social media. Exposing ourselves to the constant stream of negative information can have an impact on our minds. It is important to take breaks and to be mindful of our user habits.“We suggest that people pay attention to how much time they are spending on social media and to be aware of the impact it is having on their emotions, thoughts and feelings, especially when it comes to negative news and events,” Shabahang says.“It’s a good idea to keep track of how much time you spend doomscrolling and start making changes to reduce that time if it’s problematic. By becoming more aware of our online habits, such as doomscrolling, and taking small steps to address them, it could help with improving our overall mental wellbeing.”The study is published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports.

There are plenty of local issues with the United States' power grid. Texas, for example, continues to have weather-related outages. But there is another threat that should be considered – and it comes from beyond Earth. The effects of space weather, of a geomagnetic storm, could be disastrous. Researchers have found two particularly vulnerable cities: Washington DC and Milwaukee. Researchers have found two particularly vulnerable cities: Washington DC and Milwaukee. The work was done by Dr Lauren Orr, from the University of Warwick, in collaboration with Professor Sandra Chapman, of the University of Warwick, and Dr Ryan McGranaghan, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.There is actually a plan in place in New Zealand that if there's a big storm, such as the one that we had in May, they turn off certain transformers that they thought were most vulnerable.Dr Lauren OrrGeomagnetic storms like the one we saw in May are not extremely common, but they are also not rare: solar events of that magnitude happen often enough to be a concern. Their damaging power is similar to that of flooding or extreme temperatures. In particular, the geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) that can form during such an event can damage both transformers and power lines. These currents can overload transformers. In the famous Carrington Event of 1859, telegraph stations in the United States were disrupted, an operator got an electric shock, and systems caught fire. That was the biggest solar storm in recent history, but we know that GIC can harm transformers and cause blackouts. During the May storm, there were power grid irregularities reported.                   The team used network science to work out the resilience of the power grid. A network can be between computers or people, with the elements being nodes, but it can also apply to transformers. Using data from monitoring stations, the researchers were able to find supernodes that are at risk, such as Washington DC and Milwaukee.Estimating resilience is important as there are still gaps in our knowledge. Even predicting solar storms has its limits, although recent research could give us an edge, by allowing prediction before a solar storm begins. Still, once the space weather hits, the damage can be extensive.There is a lot of concerning data, but the team admits that there is less data than they would like. The team provides multiple physical explanations for why certain areas are at risk, but without more granular data it is difficult to establish. Without such data, the network analysis they constructed might weigh more in certain spots compared to others. “It could be that the transformers are old. It could be that they're single-phase instead of triple-phase. Or it could be reasons like the Earth is really conductive in those areas or the aurora tends to sit over them,” Dr Orr told IFLScience. “What we would like to do is further study to see why this would be the case. It could have to do with our network construction.”                   The main advice to power grid operators is to provide more monitors. The United Kingdom has only four. The US has a couple of hundred, but there are thousands of transformers across the States. And data has to be requested after every single space weather event. Monitoring can help plan strategies to keep the grid safe and the power flowing.“One thing we're trying to do in the UK is persuade them to install more monitors so that we can actually see what's going on and which areas are appearing as the most vulnerable,” Dr Orr told IFLScience.“New Zealand has done quite a lot of work. They've worked with their power grid to make mitigation plans. There is actually a plan in place in New Zealand that if there's a big storm, such as the one that we had in May, they turn off certain transformers that they thought were most vulnerable. The energy would channel through different connections and different lines. So that those transformers were not taking all the load.”Dr Lauren Orr presented her findings at this week’s National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull.

The only green-boned dinosaur fossil ever discovered is set to take center stage this fall at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. "Gnatalie" (pronounced Natalie) will grace the Museum’s new wing and community hub, where her verdant remains will be on display for all to see.As well as being the only green-colored fossil specimen on the planet, Gnatalie – all 23 meters (75 feet) of her – is the most complete sauropod skeletal mount on the US West Coast.Her unusual coloring is thanks to infilling by the green mineral celadonite during the fossilization process. Celadonite forms in volcanic or hydrothermal conditions that normally destroy buried bones, which means it’s very rarely found in fossils. However, in Gnatalie’s case, it is thought the mineral entered the fossils around 50 million to 80 million years ago when volcanic activity created conditions hot enough for it to replace a previous mineral – and just like that, this viridescent oddity was born. Turns out it really isn’t easy being green, at least not for dinosaurs (or mammals).Discovered in the Badlands of Utah in 2007, she is actually a composite mount of around 350 fossils from six animals, all belonging to the same species. The specimens were long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaurs – similar to Diplodocus but a new species – that roamed the planet 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic Era.Named earlier this year after a public vote as an ode to the relentless bugs that plagued the dig site during the excavation, Gnatalie will be the biggest dinosaur at LA’s Natural History Museum."Dinosaurs are a great vehicle for teaching our visitors about the nature of science," said Dr Luis M. Chiappe of the museum's Dinosaur Institute in a statement, "and what better than a green, almost 80-foot-long [24-meter] dinosaur to engage them in the process of scientific discovery and make them reflect on the wonders of the world we live in!"The discovery will be documented in a scientific paper to be published next year – but until then, fans of Gnatalie can enjoy her emerald-hued weirdness in all its glory at the Natural History Museum this fall.And there’s always Eric the opalized plesiosaur, whose remains turned into literal gems, if you’re in need of a weird dino bone fix in the meantime.