A groundbreaking study from New Zealand demonstrates that central bank "forward guidance" significantly strengthens the transmission of monetary policy. Analyzing New Zealand's banking data, the research finds that providing clear communication about the future path of interest rates enhances the pass-through from the official policy rate to bank deposit and lending rates. The results show improved long-term pass-through, especially for time deposits and fixed mortgages, alongside a slight acceleration in short-term adjustments. These findings offer critical evidence for central banks worldwide on the power of communication as a policy tool.

Researchers from Tongji University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed a socially aware prediction-to-control pipeline that lets autonomous vehicles safely navigate dense crowds by anticipating multiple ways pedestrians might move. Instead of betting on a single forecast, their system combines a Social GAN trajectory predictor with a real-time Model Predictive Control (MPC) planner, treating each predicted path as a moving obstacle. In dynamic crowd simulations, the integrated Social GAN+MPC controller achieved zero safety violations and maintained comfortable motion, all while meeting strict real-time computing limits—offering a practical route toward zero-collision autonomous driving in busy urban environments.

Participants in a study who self-reported a stronger desire to have children showed a weaker preference for younger faces compared to those with a weaker desire to have children, according to a study published December 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Jingheng Li and colleagues from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K. The preference was unrelated to the potential partners’ perceived wealth or parental prowess.

A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds