All news consumers, even those who are highly educated, are susceptible to fake news. This is partly due to the “illusory truth effect,” a psychological phenomenon in which the more often people hear a statement repeated, the more believable they find it. Researchers have recently identified two other ways that disinformation short circuits humans’ ability to make accurate judgements about truth or “hacks our brains.” For one thing, people tend to over-estimate their knowledge about topics that matter to them, leading to extreme points-of-view that open the door for fake news. For another, our brains are simply over-whelmed by the amount of information we now encounter each day, making it difficult to sift the real from the fake. Read more about the research — and what can be done to counter these tendencies — at Scientific American.