News

Singapore: Families Living in and Through the Pandemic

March 28, 2025

Amidst the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual health, deeply ingrained structural inequalities also surfaced, causing different segments of society to experience the social effects of the virus unevenly. In their study ‘Singapore: Families Living in and Through the Pandemic’ (Family Life in the Time of COVID: International Perspectives, 2023), Professor Vineeta Sinha, …

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Curating Shadows: Malayan Shadow Puppets in Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum

March 21, 2025

World Puppetry Day is celebrated worldwide on 21 March. Across Asia, shadow puppetry is an art form traditionally associated with the high culture of Hindu India and has proliferated as a form of entertainment in various contexts. Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) exhibits over 700 shadow puppets (wayang purwo), with most scholarship focusing on the …

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Can classic moral stories with anthropomorphized animal characters promote children’s honesty?

March 15, 2025

From ‘The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ to ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, moral stories have long served to entertain children and convey moral lessons through their succinct narratives. Many of these classic moral tales feature anthropomorphised animals as key characters, with anthropomorphism — the attribution of human traits to non-human animals — being prevalent in …

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Investigating the network structure of domain‐specific knowledge using the semantic fluency task

March 8, 2025

Cognitive scientists have a long-standing interest in mapping out how information in our brains is organised and retrieved. Semantic memory is the part of long-term memory that stores facts and information about the world, and is conceptualised as a network of concepts that are connected based on associations and relationships. In order to study the …

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Half of land use carbon emissions in Southeast Asia can be mitigated through peat swamp forest and mangrove conservation and restoration

March 3, 2025

Southeast Asia (SEA) is home to approximately 34% of the world’s mangrove forests, representing a crucial component of coastal ecosystems. From Singapore’s Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve to Thailand’s Tarutao National Park, these peatlands and mangrove act as natural carbon sinks by absorbing more carbon than they release, with the excess accumulating as partially decomposed organic …

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Do college admissions criteria matter? Evidence from discretionary vs. grade-based admission policies

March 1, 2025

The NUS Open House, generally held every March, welcomes prospective students and provides answers to their questions about university life. This coincides with when students receive their GCE A-Level grades and begin to decide on whether to pursue a college education. This can be a stressful time due to the importance of this decision, with …

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Flexible Working Arrangements and Fertility Intentions: A Survey Experiment in Singapore

February 25, 2025

Singapore’s total fertility rate has been declining for decades, reaching a record low of 0.97 in 2023. This trend is largely attributed to the postponement of childbearing, as individuals prioritise career advancement, leading to rising ages of marriage and parenthood. However, the widespread adoption of flexible working arrangements (FWAs), including reduced hours, flexible schedules, and …

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Detecting lies through others’ eyes: Children use perceptual access cues to evaluate listeners’ beliefs about informants’ deception

February 24, 2025

Children often observe interactions between informants and receivers, providing them with insights into complex social dynamics. For example, a child might witness their father hide a diamond necklace and later overhear him tell his wife a white lie about forgetting her birthday gift, or they might see a sibling eat the last cookie and then …

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Orang Cina Bukan Cina: being Peranakan, (not) being Chinese and the social construction of race in Singapore

February 17, 2025

Singapore’s Peranakan Museum reopened its doors on 17 February 2023, after a four-year closure for renovation. The Peranakan Museum features permanent galleries showcasing artifacts from Peranakan culture, detailing the unique history of Peranakans through their culture and craftsmanship. The museum also aims to capture an authentic glimpse into Peranakan life, as well as the struggles …

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Post-political Elections-Opposition Party Rallies as Popular Mobilisations in Singapore

February 10, 2025

With the General Elections around the corner, there is a palpable mix of excitement and nervousness among Singaporeans, reminiscent of the fervour surrounding the 2020 General Elections. Five years ago, the Workers’ Party (WP) secured a landmark victory in Sengkang GRC, coupled with the rise of political star Associate Professor Jamus Lim, whose speeches became …

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