Latest news with #Madelyn
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Are ghosts real? A social psychologist examines the evidence
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you'd like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@ Is it possible for there to be ghosts? – Madelyn, age 11, Fort Lupton, Colorado Certainly, lots of people believe in ghosts – a spirit left behind after someone who was alive has died. In a 2021 poll of 1,000 American adults, 41% said they believe in ghosts, and 20% said they had personally experienced them. If they're right, that's more than 50 million spirit encounters in the U.S. alone. That includes the owner of a retail shop near my home who believes his place is haunted. When I asked what most convinced him of this, he sent me dozens of eerie security camera video clips. He also brought in ghost hunters who reinforced his suspicions. Some of the videos show small orbs of light gliding around the room. In others, you can hear faint voices and loud bumping sounds when nobody's there. Others show a book flying off a desk and products jumping off a shelf. It's not uncommon for me to hear stories like this. As a sociologist, some of my work looks at beliefs in things like ghosts, aliens, pyramid power and superstitions. Along with others who practice scientific skepticism, I keep an open mind while maintaining that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Tell me you had a burger for lunch, and I'll take your word for it. Tell me you shared your fries with Abraham Lincoln's ghost, and I'll want more evidence. In the 'spirit' of critical thinking, consider the following three questions: People may think they're experiencing ghosts when they hear strange voices, see moving objects, witness balls or wisps of light or even translucent people. Yet no one describes ghosts as aging, eating, breathing or using bathrooms – despite plumbers receiving many calls about toilets 'ghost-flushing.' So could ghosts be made of a special kind of energy that hovers and flies without dissipating? If that's the case, that means when ghosts glow, move objects and make sounds, they are acting like matter – something that takes up space and has mass, like wood, water, plants and people. Conversely, when passing through walls or vanishing, they must not act like matter. But centuries of physics research have found nothing like this exists, which is why physicists say ghosts can't exist. And so far, there is no proof that any part of a person can continue on after death. Never before in history have people recorded so many ghost encounters, thanks in part to mobile phone cameras and microphones. It seems there would be great evidence by now. But scientists don't have it. Instead, there are lots of ambiguous recordings sabotaged by bad lighting and faulty equipment. But popular television shows on ghost hunting convince many viewers that blurry images and emotional reactions are proof enough. As for all the devices ghost hunters use to capture sounds, electrical fields and infrared radiation – they may look scientific, but they're not. Measurements are worthless without some knowledge of the thing you're measuring. When ghost hunters descend on an allegedly haunted location for a night of meandering and measurement, they usually find something they later deem paranormal. It may be a moving door (breeze?), a chill (gap in the floorboards?), a glow (light entering from outside?), electrical fluctuations (old wiring?), or bumps and faint voices (crew in other rooms?). Whatever happens, ghost hunters will draw a bull's-eye around it, interpret that as 'evidence' and investigate no further. Personal experiences with ghosts can be misleading due to the limitations of human senses. That's why anecdotes can't substitute for objective research. Alleged hauntings usually have plenty of non-ghostly explanations. One example is that retail establishment in my neighborhood. I reviewed the security camera clips and gathered information about the store's location and layout, and the exact equipment used in the recordings. First, the 'orbs': Videos captured many small globes of light seemingly moving around the room. In reality, the orbs are tiny particles of dust wafting close to the camera lens, made to 'bloom' by the camera's infrared lights. That they appear to float around the room is an optical illusion. Watch any orb video closely and you'll see they never go behind objects in the room. That's exactly what you'd expect with dust particles close to the camera lens. Next, voices and bumps: The shop is in a busy corner mini-mall. Three walls abut sidewalks, loading zones and parking areas; an adjacent store shares the fourth. The security camera mics probably recorded sounds from outdoors, other rooms and the adjacent unit. The owner never checked for these possibilities. Then, the flying objects: The video shows objects falling off the showroom wall. The shelf rests on adjustable brackets, one of which wasn't fully seated in its slot. The weight of the shelf caused the bracket to settle into place with a visible jerk. This movement sent some items tumbling off the shelf. Then, the flying book: I used a simple trick to recreate the event at home: a hidden string taped inside a book's cover, wrapped around the kitchen island, and tugged by my right hand out of camera range. Now I can't prove there wasn't a ghost in the original video. The point is to provide a more plausible explanation than 'it must have been a ghost.' One final consideration: Virtually all ghostly experiences involve impediments to making accurate perceptions and judgments – bad lighting, emotional arousal, sleep phenomena, social influences, culture, a misunderstanding of how recording devices work, and the prior beliefs and personality traits of those who claim to see ghosts. All of these hold the potential to induce unforgettable ghostly encounters. But all can be explained without ghosts being real. Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you'd like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@ Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live. And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you're wondering, too. We won't be able to answer every question, but we will do our best. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Barry Markovsky, University of South Carolina Read more: Is the Loch Ness monster real? Hearing ghost voices relies on pseudoscience and fallibility of human perception Why magical thinking is so widespread – a look at the psychological roots of common superstitions Barry Markovsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
CTV News
18-05-2025
- CTV News
Missing person in Barrie
Barrie Police are searching for a teenager who was reported missing after she was last seen Saturday evening. Madelyn, 13, is described by police as wearing a light grey sweater, dark grey trackpants, white shoes, an orange and green backpack, and a pink lanyard. Police say she was last seen at around 5:00 p.m. walking south on Codrington St. Anyone with information is asked to call Barrie Police or 911.
New York Post
22-04-2025
- Science
- New York Post
A consideration of the complicated future of artificial intelligence at Hunter College High School from available tools to ethical usage
This article is one of the winning submissions from the New York Post Scholars Contest, presented by Command Education. It's 3:30 p.m., and a high school student sits at his desk, staring down the rubric for an essay due tomorrow that he hasn't started. He contemplates staying up all night to research, outline, write and edit the essay, risking a mediocre grade because he was in a rush. It occurs to him that, with ChatGPT, he could be done (or well on his way) in an hour. In 2025, students at Hunter College High School (HCHS), like high schools all over the country, confront this temptation every day. Just a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable for a high school student to use a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool to complete their homework. But with the advent of large-language models like ChatGPT in 2022, AI tools have become commonplace at HCHS. As of January 2025, 26% of US high school students use ChatGPT for their schoolwork, up 100% since December 2023, according to Pew Research. According to a survey of 47 middle and high schoolers, conducted by What's What, the student newspaper, more than double the national average—or 72.3% of survey respondents—say they had used ChatGPT at least once in the past month, with 36.1% having used it at least three times. The average HCHS student used AI approximately four times per month. Advertisement HCHS is an academically rigorous school in New York City with a high standard for assignments. Students often feel extreme pressures to succeed: in addition to a gruelling course load, many passionately pursue extracurriculars and internships. Using AI is appealing to students because it saves them time and energy. Many students are willing to risk the chance of getting caught under the school's zero-tolerance cheating policies if it means they can sleep more or spend more time on another assignment. Since its 2022 release, HCHS students have found myriad ways to use ChatGPT—both those allowed and those not—to make their lives easier. Some of the most common, permitted uses include finding primary sources, summarizing long documents, checking work, and asking AI to quiz them before tests. 'I think that's what it's good for, really, doing the little things that take unreasonably long so you can get on with your life,' says sophomore Madelyn. But, 'the tricky part is knowing when to stop.' The most common use for ChatGPT is generating ideas that the students then narrow down or flesh out. Use of ChatGPT skyrocketed in 2024, in proportion to its increasing usefulness over the course of the year. OpenAI, ChatGPT's parent company, allowed the chatbot to access past chats, and web searches, so that the AI was not limited to its training data, but could also access information on the internet in real time. As a result, more students have found ways to use ChatGPT productively. Advertisement 'People have figured out how to use ChatGPT better,' explains Madelyn. 'There are still people who think they're gonna get away with turning in heavily AI-written papers, but a lot of people have found how to use it as a tool to cut down homework time or for a jumping off point.' She estimates approximately 70% of her friends use it regularly. Some students see ChatGPT usage as a bridge to building key skills. One HCHS junior comments that 'ChatGPT is not going away anytime soon, so we might as well learn how to use it to augment our learning, rather than detract from it.' As more professionals use AI for everything from writing emails to writing code, becoming familiar with the tools in high school is increasingly important. In addition to ChatGPT, students also use other AI tools, like QuillBot, Perplexity, and Mathaway to proofread essays or help with homework. One junior explains that they had a hard time using traditional tools, like JSTOR, or EBSCOHost, to find sources for their term paper due to its niche topic, so AI provides them with 'a great jumping off point to find primary and secondary sources that I think make [AI] a really useful social studies source.' Madelyn describes the way students discuss AI as a kind of ubiquitous vice in pursuit of higher grades, almost like not sleeping enough. 'You pull up to school like 'yeah, I got three hours of sleep last night I can't even' and it's kinda normal. We all know it's not great but we laugh it off, and there's a bit of camaraderie, because the other person has probably had those days, too.' In the same way, other students seem to understand and relate to their peers who admit to using AI for assignments. Advertisement Scheherazade Schonfeld Teachers and administrators have engineered their AI-related messaging to discourage usage in all cases: The HCHS student handbook now reads, 'Students [will] not use AI-generated content in any way on assignments or examinations, as detailed above, unless an instructor for a given course specifically authorizes their use.' And the punishments are severe, ranging from failing the assignment to expulsion. The English Department Academic Integrity Policy does not authorize 'any use of AI for the work of our classes.' Teacher Kimberly Airoldi explains that in English classes, automating any part of the process with AI was explicitly counter to her department's goals of teaching writing skills. Many students who use ChatGPT to generate content that they pass off as their own, in violation of the student handbook, believe that they usually get away with it. Although most major assignments are checked through Turnitin, a commonly used plagiarism and AI-detection tool, minor assignments are rarely checked. Even Turnitin admits they can't detect 100% of AI use, and tools like HIX Bypass exist to get around Turnitin. False positives, Airoldi explains, are common when using an AI detector, which is why teachers need to manually check each flagged essay. But teachers know a lot more about AI use than students think. Eighth grader Dalia observes that nearly all of her class knew which students were using AI. 'Our teachers aren't stupid,' Dalia says. 'If every single person in our class knows people are using AI, then I'm sure the teacher does, too.' Advertisement When asked how likely they were, on a scale of one to five, to use ChatGPT/AI in completing their assignments, 37% of HCHS students rated themselves as a three or above, with 45.7% of students considered themselves to be at a one. Among students who did not use ChatGPT, the most common reasons were unreliability and fear of being caught. 'I've never used it because I'm too scared,' says one senior. Students are 'surrounded' by adults using AI, says Airoldi. But, she explains, the distinction is that students are still learning and building skills, and 'if you use AI, you don't get that part. You get a paper, yeah, but you don't get the learning part.' Additionally, students are 'surrounded by this messaging that AI can make your writing better,' a fundamental misconception pushed by tech companies, says Airoldi. On the contrary, AI writing lacks the nuance and subtext she aims to teach. The emphasis on the supposed value of AI has not only changed the work that Airoldi's students use AI for, it has also changed the way they write themselves. Even when they are not using AI to generate ideas or write text for them, students are also 'replicating the language and the approach of AI' in their work. This has led to more robotic essays that sound like they are AI-generated, even when they are not. Sophomore Penelope warns against idealizing the power of AI. 'I don't think it can do a better job than me if I put just a little bit of effort in,' she explains, and in implementing her ideas, 'I don't think it would go in the right direction.' Though some treat AI tools as the equivalent of a peer or collaborator, Penelope doesn't think ChatGPT is 'who I would collaborate with.' Even though the rules seem clear, it's hard to tell when ethical usage veers into plagiarism or cheating. For instance, one might use an AI tool to understand what is happening in their English class, only to reference those same ideas to write an essay that is not entirely their own. Sophomore Tal thinks the best option may just be not to trust AI at all: 'I'd rather just struggle through the work and figure it out myself.' A 10th-grader at Hunter College High School in Manhattan, Schonfeld dreams of being a foreign correspondent one day.
