Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAstrophysics
John T. Whelan, Rodrigo Tenorio, Jared K. Wofford et al. · 2023 · The Astrophysical Journal
Improved observational constraints on the orbital parameters of the low-mass X-ray binary Scorpius X-1 were recently published in Killestein et al. In the process, errors were corrected in previous orbital ephemerides, which have been used in searches for continuous gravitational waves from Sco X-1 using data from the Advanced LIGO detectors. We present the results of a reanalysis of LIGO detector data from the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo using a model-based cross-correlation search. The corrected region of parameter space, which was not covered by previous searches
View details →DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acc8d7 Failed Experiment ReportOpen accessPsychology
Masataka Takebe, Kenta Tsumura, Ken'ichiro Nakashima · 2023 · Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology
Rodeheffer et al. (2012) showed that when people perceive resource scarcity, they are more likely to judge racially ambiguous people as out-group members. In their first experiment, 71 White participants viewed a slideshow depicting either resource scarcity or abundance; subsequently, they judged 20 biracial faces created by averaging a White and a Black face. We conducted this experiment's preregistered conceptual replication study in Japan. Specifically, after observing a slideshow depicting either resource scarcity or abundance, East Asian participants judged 20 biracial faces produced by a
View details →DOI: 10.1016/j.cresp.2023.100169 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessScience
Toshikazu Kawagoe, Wataru Teramoto · 2023 · Royal Society Open Science
During the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing a face mask became a global daily practice. Japanese people were already accustomed to wearing masks due to their collectivistic culture, which prioritizes conformity and group harmony. In such a culture, where individuals are concerned about how others perceive them and their actions, wearing masks can be a self-protective action to prevent, escape, or reduce the severity of perceived negative feelings. Previous studies indicate that people experiencing anxiety tend to have negative biases when evaluating emotional expressions on faces. Therefore, we hypo
View details →DOI: 10.1098/rsos.230653 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Riccardo Catena, Timon Emken, Nicola A. Spaldin et al. · 2020 · Physical Review Research
In the leading paradigm of modern cosmology, about 80% of our Universe's matter content is in the form of hypothetical, as yet undetected particles. These do not emit or absorb radiation at any observable wavelengths, and therefore constitute the so-called dark matter (DM) component of the Universe. Detecting the particles forming the Milky Way DM component is one of the main challenges for astroparticle physics and basic science in general. One promising way to achieve this goal is to search for rare DM-electron interactions in low-background deep underground detectors. Key to the interpretat
View details →DOI: 10.1103/physrevresearch.2.033195 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAstrophysics
Nima Chartab, Andrew B. Newman, Gwen C. Rudie et al. · 2025 · The Astrophysical Journal
We investigate the environmental dependence of galaxy properties at z ∼ 2.5 using the Ly α Tomography IMACS Survey (LATIS), which provides high-resolution three-dimensional maps of intergalactic medium (IGM) overdensity via Ly α forest tomography. Our analysis focuses on a UV-selected spectroscopic sample of 2185 galaxies from LATIS and a complementary set of 1157 galaxies from heterogeneous spectroscopic surveys in the COSMOS field. We compare these data sets to forward-modeled mock catalogs constructed from the IllustrisTNG300-1 simulation, incorporating realistic selection functions to matc
View details →DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae10b7 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessScience
Alex Dinovitser, Dimitar G. Valchev, Derek Abbott · 2017 · Royal Society Open Science
Chemical degradation of edible oils has been studied using conventional spectroscopic methods spanning the spectrum from ultraviolet to mid-IR. However, the possibility of morphological changes of oil molecules that can be detected at terahertz frequencies is beginning to receive some attention. Furthermore, the rapidly decreasing cost of this technology and its capability for convenient, in situ measurement of material properties, raises the possibility of monitoring oil during cooking and processing at production facilities, and more generally within the food industry. In this paper, we test
View details →DOI: 10.1098/rsos.170275 Abandoned HypothesisOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Tom A. de Graaf, Tom A. de Graaf, Job van den Hurk et al. · 2018 · Frontiers in Neuroscience
Pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over occipital cortex can induce transient visual percepts called phosphenes. Phosphenes are an interesting stimulus for the study of the human visual system, constituting conscious percepts without visual inputs, elicited by neural activation beyond retinal and subcortical processing stages in the visual hierarchy. The same TMS pulses, applied at threshold intensity phosphene threshold (PT), will prompt phosphene reports on half of all trials (“P-yes”) but not on the other half (“P-no”). Contrasting brain activity (P-yes > P-no) can provide un
View details →DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00883 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial sciences (General)
Anna V. Stol, Marina R. Serbina · 2026 · Векторы благополучия: экономика и социум
Relevance. Paradigm shift in social policy: from narrow indicators of academic performance to a multidimensional concept of child well-being as a key goal of education. Aim. To test the hypothesis about the effect of subjective perception of child well-being on the educational outcomes of schoolchildren in the Republic of Bashkortostan. Methods. Results of an online survey of schoolchildren in grades 5–11 in the Republic of Bashkortostan (N=25,437, 2025) serve as empirical base. The study used methods of descriptive statistics and Spearman's correlation analysis. Results. Contrary to the data
View details →DOI: 10.18799/26584956/2026/1/2068 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology
Karin eWanrooij, Paul eBoersma, Titia eBenders et al. · 2015 · Frontiers in Psychology
Distributional learning of speech sounds is learning from simply being exposed to frequency distributions of speech sounds in one’s surroundings. In laboratory settings, the mechanism has been reported to be discernible already after a few minutes of exposure, in both infants and adults. These effects of distributional training have traditionally been attributed to the difference in the number of peaks between the experimental distribution (two peaks) and the control distribution (one or zero peaks). However, none of the earlier studies fully excluded a possibly confounding effect of the dispe
View details →DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01341 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Yu Fan Eng, Daniel R Little, Andy Yang et al. · 2025 · PLoS ONE
Non-dominant hand contractions (NDHCs) have been shown to help expert motor skills in high-pressure scenarios that induce performance anxiety. Most studies of NHDCs under pressure have examined benefits in overlearned specialist movements (e.g., sporting skills), while few have considered if NDHCs can aid common movements with population-wide expertise (e.g., typing). Accordingly, across three experiments, we explored if NDHCs could protect or facilitate performance under time and/or evaluation pressure in a cursor positioning task (Experiments 1 & 2) and a typing task (Experiment 3). Despite
View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316355 Failed Experiment ReportOpen accessEcology
Ally M. Whiteis, Shadi Fathollahifard, Isabela Suaza‐Sierra et al. · 2026 · Ecology and Evolution
ABSTRACT Warmer epilimnetic water temperatures and reduced dissolved oxygen levels in deeper water are common stressors for fishes in freshwater reservoirs throughout the summer. We investigated the effects of a temperature–oxygen squeeze—a phenomenon that squeezes fish into a narrow, livable zone—on striped bass from 1995 to 2020 in Lake Texoma. This reservoir is located on the border of Texas and Oklahoma, possesses one of the largest self‐sustaining populations of inland freshwater striped bass in the US, and is of high economic importance to the region. We used a trait‐based approach to qu
View details →DOI: 10.1002/ece3.73736 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPublic aspects of medicine
Simiao Chen, Pascal Geldsetzer, Till Bärnighausen · 2020 · SSM: Population Health
Population aging in middle-income countries, including China, has resulted in strong economic incentives to increase the retirement age. These economic incentives should be weighed up against the effects of later retirement on physical and mental health and wellbeing. We aimed to determine the causal effect of retirement on perceived stress, an important measure of mental well-being. We used data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey in 2015 and adopted a non-parametric regression discontinuity design (RDD) to measure the causal effect of retirement on stress. Stress was assessed using th
View details →DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100462 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Daniel Selechnik, Andrea J. West, Gregory P. Brown et al. · 2017 · PeerJ
The cane toad (Rhinella marina) has undergone rapid evolution during its invasion of tropical Australia. Toads from invasion front populations (in Western Australia) have been reported to exhibit a stronger baseline phagocytic immune response than do conspecifics from range core populations (in Queensland). To explore this difference, we injected wild-caught toads from both areas with the experimental antigen lipopolysaccharide (LPS, to mimic bacterial infection) and measured whole-blood phagocytosis. Because the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is stimulated by infection (and may influence
View details →DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3856 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Rachel Cassar, Victor Shiramizu, Lisa M DeBruine et al. · 2020 · PLoS ONE
Women's preferences for masculine characteristics in men's faces have been extensively studied. By contrast, little is known about how gay men respond to masculine facial characteristics. One area of disagreement in the emerging literature on this topic is the association between gay men's partnership status and masculinity preference. One study found that partnered gay men showed stronger preferences for masculine faces than did single gay men, while another study found that partnered gay men showed weaker preferences for masculine faces than did single gay men. We re-examined this issue in a
View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229133 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessScience
Leonor Neves, Marta Martins, Ana Isabel Correia et al. · 2021 · Royal Society Open Science
The human voice is a primary channel for emotional communication. It is often presumed that being able to recognize vocal emotions is important for everyday socio-emotional functioning, but evidence for this assumption remains scarce. Here, we examined relationships between vocal emotion recognition and socio-emotional adjustment in children. The sample included 141 6- to 8-year-old children, and the emotion tasks required them to categorize five emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, plus neutrality), as conveyed by two types of vocal emotional cues: speech prosody and non-verbal
View details →DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211412 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessScience
John P. McElderry, Tongwu Zhang, Wei Zhao et al. · 2025 · Nature Communications
Abstract In spite of the growing interest in the microbiome in human cancer, there are currently only small-scale lung cancer microbiome studies conducted directly on tissue. As part of the Sherlock-Lung study, we studied the microbiomes of 940 lung cancers (4090 samples) in never smokers (LCINS) directly from lung tissue using three data types: 16S rRNA gene sequencing (16S), whole-genome sequencing (WGS) with paired blood, and RNA-seq. We observe very low biomass and few microbiome associations in LCINS using 16S and WGS tissue. Using RNA-seq, we observe more total microbial reads, and decre
View details →DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-66780-y Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Fernando Caravaggio, Pontus Plavén-Sigray, Granville James Matheson et al. · 2018 · PLoS ONE
High levels of trait impulsivity are considered a risk factor for substance abuse and drug addiction. We recently found that non-planning trait impulsivity was negatively correlated with post-commissural putamen volumes in men, but not women, using the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP). Here, we attempted to replicate this finding in an independent sample using an updated version of the KSP: the Swedish Universities Scales of Personality (SSP). Data from 88 healthy male participants (Mean Age: 28.16±3.34), who provided structural T1-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRIs) and self-repor
View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209584 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMaterials of engineering and construction. Mechanics of materials
Thomas L. Goût, Anamul H. Mir, Simon M. Fairclough et al. · 2024 · npj Materials Degradation
Abstract Zirconolite ceramics present a chemically durable host matrix for waste actinides, but zirconolite dissolution rates reported in the literature often vary significantly. Here, the release of Ca and Al from a hot isostatically pressed zirconolite (Ca0.8Zr0.9Ce0.3Ti1.6Al0.4O7.0) was shown to be predominantly driven by preferential dissolution of minor perovskite and alumina phases. Both phases were undetectable by XRD, and the perovskite was difficult to detect by SEM-EDS. Whilst the zirconolite phase exhibited no signs of alteration, dissolution of the perovskite proceeded congruently
View details →DOI: 10.1038/s41529-024-00475-5 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
N. Mahfouz, J. Mülmenstädt, S. Burrows · 2024 · Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Cloud albedo susceptibility to droplet number perturbation remains a source of uncertainty in understanding aerosol–cloud interactions and thus both past and present climate states. Through the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) v2 experiments, we probe the effects of competing processes on cloud albedo susceptibility of low-lying marine stratocumulus in the northeast Pacific. In present-day conditions, we find that increasing precipitation suppression by aerosols increases cloud albedo susceptibility, whereas increasing cloud sedimentation decreases it. By constructing a hypothetical m
View details →DOI: 10.5194/acp-24-7253-2024 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBusiness
Farhad Rahmanov, Anar Azizov , Elnara Samedova et al. · 2026 · Knowledge & Performance Management
Type of the article: Research Article Whether national artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem development shapes tourism’s contribution to GDP is an open empirical question, particularly given the multidimensional nature of modern AI ecosystems and the heterogeneous reliance of countries on tourism. This study identifies which dimensions of national AI ecosystem development drive within-country changes in tourism’s direct GDP share, using panel data from 33 countries over 2017–2023. Fixed-effects estimation with clustered standard errors is applied to both the composite Stanford HAI AI Vibranc
View details →DOI: 10.21511/kpm.10(2).2026.06 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Olivier Senn, Florian Hoesl, Toni Amadeus Bechtold et al. · 2024 · PLoS ONE
There is a broad consensus in groove research that the experience of groove, understood as a pleasurable urge to move in response to music, is to some extent related to the complexity of the rhythm. Specifically, music with medium rhythmic complexity has been found to motivate greater urge to move compared to low or high complexity music (inverted-U hypothesis). Studies that confirmed the inverted-U hypothesis usually based their measure of complexity on the rhythmic phenomenon of syncopation, where rhythms with more and/or stronger syncopation are considered to be more complex than less synco
View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311877 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Seref Can Gurel, Seref Can Gurel, Seref Can Gurel et al. · 2018 · Frontiers in Neuroscience
The frontal eye fields (FEFs) are core nodes of the oculomotor system contributing to saccade planning, control, and execution. Here, we aimed to reveal hemispheric asymmetries between left and right FEF in both voluntary and reflexive saccades toward horizontal and vertical targets. To this end, we applied fMRI-guided continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) over either left or right FEF and assessed the consequences of this disruption on saccade latencies. Using a fully counterbalanced within-subject design, we measured saccade latencies before and after the application of cTBS in eighteen
View details →DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00944 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Lou qian Zhang, Jian nong Zhou, Jun Wang et al. · 2012 · PLoS ONE
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: N-Acetyltransferase (NAT) 2 is an important enzyme involved in the metabolism of different xenobiotics, including potential carcinogens, whose phenotypes were reported to be related to individual susceptibility to colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the results remain conflicting. To assess the relationship between NAT2 phenotypes and CRC risk, we performed this meta-analysis. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify all case-control or cohort studies of NAT2 acetylator status on the susceptibility of CRC by searching of PubMed and EMBASE, u
View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032425 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessChiropractic
M. John Petrozzi, Grace Spencer, Martin G. Mackey · 2021 · Chiropractic & Manual Therapies
Abstract Background In chronic conditions, such as back pain, the use of interventions that address physical, social and psychological aspects within a biopsychosocial framework are encouraged, however, applying this holistic multimodal approach in physical therapy practice (i.e., chiropractic and physiotherapy) is challenging. To explore the problem of delivering a biopsychosocially informed package of care in physical therapy practice a recent randomised control trial (RCT) called ‘Mind Your Back’ was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a combined physical and internet-delivered psych
View details →DOI: 10.1186/s12998-021-00389-y Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPolitical science (General)
Baowen Liang · 2026 · Politics and Governance
Generalized trust refers to individuals’ trust in members of society at large. Previous research highlights negativity bias as a central obstacle to trust development: trust is easily destroyed but difficult to build. Yet, most evidence for this bias comes from Western, individualistic contexts. This study examines whether such findings generalize to collectivist settings. Using a preregistered online experiment in China, I show that negative information about others’ untrustworthiness lowers generalized trust more than positive information raises it, which indicates a clear negativity bias in
View details →DOI: 10.17645/pag.11609 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Gabriel Gaudencio Rêgo, Óscar F. Gonçalves, Paulo Sérgio Boggio · 2022 · Scientific Reports
Abstract Neurofeedback and transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) are promising techniques for neuroenhancement of attentional performance. As far as we know no study compared both techniques on attentional performance in healthy participants. We compared tDCS and neurofeedback in a randomized, single-blind, controlled experiment assessing both behavioral (accuracy and time reaction) and electrophysiological (N1, P1, and P3 components) data of participants responding to the Attention Network Task (ANT). Eighty volunteers volunteered for this study. We adopted standard protocols for bot
View details →DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22245-6 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSpecial aspects of education
Alistair McInerny, Andrew Boudreaux, Mila Kryjevskaia · 2025 · Physical Review Physics Education Research
This article reports on a controlled study to investigate the efficacy of incorporating explicit discussions about the duality of human reasoning and its implications for learning in physics instruction. The central goal is to probe to what extent, if at all, such discussions improve student performance on tasks that tend to elicit intuitively appealing but incorrect responses. We hypothesized that explicitly discussing the reasoning pathways and hazards associated with the interactions between automatic process 1 and deliberate process 2 could boost students’ performance on a variety of topic
View details →DOI: 10.1103/physrevphyseducres.21.010135 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPolitical science (General)
Jason M. Pudlo · Politics and Religion
Houses of worship are often shelters after the storm. Yet, as climate change fuels natural disasters and communities increasingly rely on congregations during disaster recovery, are houses of worship ready to be houses of refuge? Examining clergy influence, does a higher concern about climate change by clergy result in improved congregational disaster readiness? Data for the study come from a 2019 nationwide survey of clergy. The survey includes measures of congregational disaster preparedness along with one of the first applications of the SASSY climate concern measure to clergy. Results show
View details →DOI: 10.1017/s1755048325000082 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine
Rogier A. Kievit, Delia Fuhrmann, Gesa Sophia Borgeest et al. · 2018 · Wellcome Open Research
Background: Fluid intelligence declines with advancing age, starting in early adulthood. Within-subject declines in fluid intelligence are highly correlated with contemporaneous declines in the ability to live and function independently. To support healthy aging, the mechanisms underlying these declines need to be better understood. Methods: In this pre-registered analysis, we applied latent growth curve modelling to investigate the neural determinants of longitudinal changes in fluid intelligence across three time points in 185,317 individuals (N=9,719 two waves, N=870 three waves) from the U
View details →DOI: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.14241.2 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Sebastian Baecke, Ralf Lützkendorf, Johannes Bernarding · 2026 · Brain Sciences
Background: The efficacy of real-time fMRI neurofeedback (NFB) depends critically on how feedback is presented and perceived by the participant. Although various visual feedback designs are used in practice, there is limited evidence on the impact of modality on learning and performance. We conducted a feasibility study to compare the effectiveness of different feedback modalities, and to evaluate the technical performance of NFB across two scanner field strengths. Methods: In a single-session study, nine healthy adults (6 men, 3 women) voluntarily adapted the activation level of the primary s
View details →DOI: 10.3390/brainsci16020166 