NPR aired this story by Sarah Boden  about the relationship between risky financial behavior and dementia. It consists of Boden interviewing people caring for individuals with dementia and dementia researchers. Before the NPR story, Boden published a related piece to a Pittsburgh NPR station . The Pittsburgh piece is a more formal report with many links to helpful information. Among the research Boden describes is this study by Nicholas et al. (2020),  which finds that people exhibit poor financial decision-making up to six years before a dementia diagnosis. Here is a press release about the study, in case you want to give more advanced students a primer or earlier UG students a sheet for understanding the research.  The audio version of this story is very compelling. It includes interviews with several people who have been left heavily in debt because of poor decisions made by family members before their diagnosis. It also offers some solutions that could be implemented ...

Malaika Handa , Amber Thomas , and Jan Diehn created a beautiful, interactive website, Colorism in High Fashion . It used machine learning to investigate "colorism" at Vogue magazine. Specifically, it delves into the differences, over time, in cover model color but also how lighting and photoshopping can change the color of the same woman's skin, depending on the photo. There are soooo many ways to use this in class, ranging from machine learning, how machine learning can refine old psychology methodology, to variability and within/between-group differences. Read on: 1. I'm a social psychologist. Most of us who teach social psychology have encountered research that uses magazine cover models as a proxy for what our culture emphasizes and values ( 1 , 2 , 3 ). Here, Malaika Handa, Amber Thomas, and Jan Diehn apply this methodology to Vogue magazine covers. And they take this methodology into the age of machine learning by using k-means cluster and pixels to deter...

Jodi Cohen's story about research ethics violations, and the subsequent pulling of $3.1 million in grant funding , is a terrific case study that shows your students what can happen when research ethics are violated. It is also an excellent example of good, thorough science writing and investigative reporting. Short version of the story: UIC psychiatrist Mani Pavuluri was studying lithium in children. She was doing this on NIHM's dime. And she violated research protocols. The bullet points, copy and pasted out of Cohen's article, are a summary of the biggest ethical shortcomings of the study: So NIHM asked for their money back ($3.1 million) and the university and research are now being investigated by the government. This example also highlights that IRBs are NOT just some rubber stamp for researchers. They are in charge of enforcing federal rules for research. Another interesting fact: UIC tried to block ProPublica from publishing the story. This w...