Practical Magic

Practical Magic

504 papers · Page 2 of 6

If it rains on the Sunday before a big election, Republican turnout on Tuesday takes a massive hit.

Society & Education socarxiv | Mar 18

The gender pay gap basically vanishes the second you tell women exactly what the men in the office are making.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

We should probably let kids buy beer before hard liquor and practice driving with a pro before giving them a full license.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Generative AI is finally helping us build those crazy, original ideas that used to be impossible to actually make.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

People will happily take way less interest on their money if you can just prove it isn't fake.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

The AI revolution isn't killing the planet; it's actually forcing us to dump way more money into renewable energy.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Making companies report their "green" and social stats actually stops bosses from handing shady deals to their relatives.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

People without solar panels are missing out on way more cash than they think—like, 150% more.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Busing migrants to sanctuary cities worked better than any lawsuit because it basically blew up the political groups that supported those rules.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Investors can make way more money by ignoring what an AI says and trading based on how "confident" the AI's internal math looks.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

If a company sponsors a football team, their stock price jumps on game day regardless of whether the team wins or loses.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

If an AI shopping bot asks you a few smart questions, it's way better than showing you a million products you don't want.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

If you offer cash for the "best" content, people will just start aggressively sabotaging everyone else with downvotes.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

In most places, people aren't buying brand new electric cars—the "green revolution" is actually just a wave of used EVs from other cities.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Giving poor kids priority at elite public schools fixes segregation without causing the "rich flight" that school boards panic about.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Who your governor is actually accounts for about 5% of how well your state's entire economy is doing.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Companies decide exactly how they're going to cheat on their taxes based on how complicated their products are.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

YouTube has basically become a functional part of how we regulate banks now.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

If you cut "secondary" healthcare programs, even the life-saving treatments you kept will eventually stop working.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Nurses can miss 16 out of 17 routine ICU checks and it doesn't matter—the only one that actually predicts if you'll live is whether you're "oriented."

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Regular people are opening thousands of PO boxes across state lines specifically to dodge online sales taxes.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Nearly 70% of the specific stuff the government wants to do in a new law gets "lost" or deleted before the rules take effect.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Gas stations have "price wars" for years just to figure out how to work together and jack up prices for everyone else.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

When the economy tanks and big banks fail, micro-lenders actually grow, serving as a secret safety net.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Advanced AI can predict crypto trends way better by just "looking" at a price chart like a photo instead of crunching the actual financial numbers.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Governments can stop their currency from crashing just by asking banks for a "price check" without spending a single cent.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

AI face analysis reveals that the pressure of getting promoted in government is literally making officials age way faster.

Economics ssrn | Mar 18

Scientists just sent secret codes from Tokyo to Paris using matching DNA strands, and it's basically impossible to hack.

AI & ML arxiv | Mar 19

You can now use a banana or a teddy bear as a digital puppet to make professional 3D animations.

AI & ML arxiv | Mar 19

Computers are about to lose that annoying 'loading' lag by using laser light patterns the second they make a move.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

There’s a new lens-less camera that can see 'invisible' light to find hidden cracks or see right through glare.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

AI is now 'growing' custom, snowflake-shaped crystals that could make our electronics and chemistry way more advanced.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

A new microscope can see into light’s 'blind spots' to watch living cells in 3D for the first time.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

Your standard Wi-Fi can now track you through a building with insane accuracy without even knowing the floor plan.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

New AI can 'think' while you're still talking, just like a person preparing their next sentence.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

New math shows that in competitive games, faking like you're on someone's side is the best way to steal their secrets.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

Mathematicians found a new type of 3D surface that can collapse into a flat strip for easy carrying.

Physics arxiv | Mar 19

We’ve figured out how to turn a passing comet into an interstellar spaceship using just four small engines.

Space & Astronomy arxiv | Mar 19

The specific 'rhythm' of how a nurse types in records can predict if an ICU patient will make it.

Health & Medicine medrxiv | Mar 19

Working out between 7 and 8 AM is way better for your heart than exercising at any other time.

Health & Medicine medrxiv | Mar 19

Giving AI chatbots human faces actually makes people more likely to believe the sexist things the AI says.

Psychology psyarxiv | Mar 19

Looking at 15 years of search data, it turns out Ramadan significantly boosts the mental health of entire countries.

Psychology psyarxiv | Mar 19

High heels only make women look better until they start walking—then the benefit disappears unless they're pros.

Psychology psyarxiv | Mar 19

Italy is the world's biggest loser when it comes to soccer talent, losing billions to Latin American teams.

Economics arxiv | Mar 19

If you add more parking restrictions, people actually start using e-scooters way more.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Most 'green' trade deals are being signed in places where trade in eco-friendly goods isn't even growing.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Letting neighbors trade solar power can actually make the local grid more likely to crash in the summer.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Regulators can be a lot nicer to banks if they just promise to audit them more often.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

You can predict traffic with 90% accuracy just by looking at a map, so we don't really need all those sensors.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

The stock market loves when IT companies use AI, even though it’s killing off 70% of entry-level jobs.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Kazakhstan's welfare system makes it mathematically pointless for people with mental health issues to ever get a job.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Almost all the difference in poor infrastructure happens within city neighborhoods, not between them.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Making paid sick leave mandatory actually leads to fewer accidents and safety issues at work.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Solar farms in Sweden can grow 400 times more saffron than traditional open fields.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Giving every teacher the same raise is a really inefficient way to make schools better.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

A country's AI power is actually limited by the 'glue' holding the chips together, not the chips themselves.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

You can get drivers to change their habits way faster if you charge them for 'safety' instead of 'traffic.'

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

The most effective way to fix elderly care is to stop micromanaging caregivers and just pay them if the patient stays alive.

Economics ssrn | Mar 19

Imagine a cell tower on wheels that literally follows you around with a camera just to make sure your bars never drop.

AI & ML arxiv | Mar 20

You can now spot a real nuclear nuke using an X-ray camera with just one single pixel. Seriously.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

Your neighborhood cell towers are secretly the best weather radars on Earth—they can track every single raindrop in real-time.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

Scientists built a wildfire model that acts like a villain, figuring out exactly how a fire would spread if its main goal was to take down the power grid.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

If you want a crystal to grow fast, focus on the edges—but if you want it to grow smart, you've gotta start at the corners.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

An AI just cranked out a full math proof for a super complex geometry problem that humans find way too deep to handle.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

You can tell when the laws of physics are starting to break down by just looking for glitches in an AI's brain.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

We’ve got liquid metal 'bots' that can swim through tiny tubes for hours without needing a single battery.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

Doctors might soon spot bone disease just by shining a laser through your finger—no scary X-ray radiation required.

Physics arxiv | Mar 20

Scientists built tiny 'trenches' that give cells a safe place to hide from fast-moving blood that would usually rip them to shreds.

Life Science biorxiv | Mar 20

We’re one step closer to hypoallergenic cats—researchers just used CRISPR to delete the stuff that makes people sneeze.

Life Science biorxiv | Mar 20

AI is now so good at faking being human in psych tests that even the pros can't tell them apart from real people.

Psychology psyarxiv | Mar 20

If you put just five more items on a ballot, 1% of people will just stay home instead of voting.

Society & Education socarxiv | Mar 20

Just swapping the order of questions on a survey can change the results by 30%—which could waste millions in charity money.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Live-tracking your pizza doesn't actually make it arrive faster; the real problem is how the drivers are being paid.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Private health insurance actually helps healthy people balance their spending more than it helps people who are actually sick.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Making it more expensive for rich foreigners to buy their way into a country just ends up making rent spike in all the neighboring towns instead.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

There’s a literal 'fairness tax'—it’s way more expensive to rotate power outages than to just black out the same unlucky neighborhood every time.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Auditors will charge a company more just because they're getting bad press, even if their books are perfectly clean.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

If a brand stops ads for just three months, they lose 10% of their customers. Period.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Mergers work great when an open company buys a secretive one—but if the secretive guys are in charge, the whole thing usually blows up.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Facebook made over $500 million just by using a 30-year-old psych trick to change how their video algorithm works.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Buying refurbished electronics might actually be worse for the planet because most people just buy them *in addition* to new ones anyway.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Talking to an AI about your to-do list is way better at stopping procrastination than just using a regular old planning app.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Countries tried to use trade taxes to dodge the new 15% global corporate tax, but some tiny, boring customs laws just blocked them.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Giving electric cars a fancy green license plate works just as well at selling them as giving people thousands of dollars in cash.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

You can actually guess how well a company's stock will do just by looking at how bright the streetlights are around their headquarters.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

There’s no such thing as a 'best time to post' on social media—every group has its own weird, unique rhythm for when they're actually paying attention.

Economics ssrn | Mar 20

Turns out, the tech that’s going to beam 6G to your phone is basically the same stuff we use to run quantum computers.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

We can now spot Alzheimer's early by looking at the brain like a building that’s literally buckling under the weight of toxic sludge.

AI & ML arxiv | Mar 23

Scientists are trying to turn tiny bubbles inside your body into little Wi-Fi hotspots to send data.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

We finally have proof that we can predict exactly how a tiny nudge will mess with something as chaotic as the Earth's climate.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

We found a material that remembers things by physically growing its own body to 100 times its original size.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

We just built a quantum memory that lasts for ten hours, which is huge compared to the old record of just one.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

If you hit glass with a beam of electrons, you can make it flow like water without even heating it up.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

We can now sniff out forests on other planets even if they’re hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds.

Space & Astronomy arxiv | Mar 23

We built a computer circuit made of salt water that actually 'hears' sounds the same way a human brain does.

Physics arxiv | Mar 23

Scientists figured out how to turn the brain's immune cells into brand-new, working neurons.

Life Science biorxiv | Mar 23

To stop neighbors from ripping each other off on electricity prices, you only need four people in the area to own a battery.

Economics arxiv | Mar 23

The way a city stirs its sewage can accidentally spray drug-resistant superbugs right into the air of the neighborhood.

Economics ssrn | Mar 23

Future phones might have 'liquid' antennas that literally swim around inside the device to hunt down a better signal.

AI & ML arxiv | Mar 24

Scientists found a way to make a basic home computer screw up math exactly like a super-expensive AI chip does.

AI & ML arxiv | Mar 24