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2023

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Rocco L. Mancinelli · 21 December 2023

IJA goes Open Access

As 2023 ends and a new year begins, the International Journal of Astrobiology is preparing to begin a new journey. Beginning in 2024, all articles in IJA will be available under Gold Open Access.

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Weston C. McCool and more · 21 December 2023

Homicide rates in the United States increase when resources are scarce and unequally distributed

Identifying the factors that drive homicide rates is not only of paramount interest to scholars across the social and behavioral sciences but is necessary to inform policy decisions aimed at reducing lethal aggression. Studies nominate diverse causes of homicide, including ambient temperature, city greenness, firearm ownership, firearm laws, structural racism, income inequality, poverty, and more. However, without general theory scholars struggle to disentangle causal factors from correlated effects. This distinction is vitally important for designing interventions that target underlying causes rather than spurious correlations.

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Holly Pascoe · 20 December 2023

Charles Meneveau wins the Batchelor Prize 2024

The 2024 Batchelor Prize has been awarded to Cambridge Author, Professor Charles Meneveau, Johns Hopkins University.  Professor Meneveau will receive the plaudit in recognition of his high-impact fundamental contributions to the study of turbulence and wall-bounded flows, and for bringing insightful and rigorous fluid mechanics to the science of wind turbines and wind farms for the benefit of society. …

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Nick Glover · 29 November 2023

JFM Rapids: The Editors’ Insights

A spotlight on JFM Rapids, a well-established section in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics [JFM] that continues to provide a highly visible venue for short, high-quality, articles addressing timely research challenges of broad interest. In this collection, the Editors of JFM Rapids each explain why they selected one article that presents exciting results with exceptional impact on currently active fluid mechanics research.

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Lindell Bromham and more · 18 October 2023

Cross-cultural correlations must be interpreted with caution

Is human cultural diversity partly shaped by the diversity of environments in which human societies live? Finding that a particular cultural feature is significantly associated with specific environmental variables adds weight to an argument that human diversity is shaped by environment. For example, many aspects of human cultural diversity have been found to correlate with parasite load, and these correlations have been interpreted as support for the hypothesis that cultures with high pathogen load develop features that limit the chance of infection, such as ritualized behaviours, xenophobia, belief in supernatural agents, and inclusion of antimicrobial ingredients in food.

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Félix Hartmann · 8 September 2023

Blog upload: Q&A with Quantitative Plant Biology Associate Editor Felix Hartmann

I have a background in physics. As a young student, I was fascinated by quantum mechanics, especially experiments with entangled photons. But when it became clear to me that my physical disability was not compatible with experimental works, I developed a new interest in modeling and simulations. Instead of the fundamental laws of physics, I turned to complex systems, mostly at the interface with biology.

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Tim Gillett · 5 September 2023

Getting smart with water security

Dragan Savic, Editor-in-Chief of Cambridge Prisms: Water, explains how technology, combined with the right management philosophy, can help solve global water challenges “Water security is a multi-dimensional and enduring human goal,” states Professor Dragan Savic.…

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Tim Gillett · 4 September 2023

“Too interesting to ignore”

Following the launch of Research Directions: Bioelectronics by Cambridge University Press, Editor-in-Chief Samit Chakrabarty explains more about this fascinating branch of science A translated version of a Russian university textbook on human physiology might seem an unlikely source of inspiration for a leader in the world of neuroscience – but that is exactly what set Dr.…

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Daniel Major-Smith · 25 July 2023

Being Less Casual About Causality in the Evolutionary Human Sciences

As evolutionary human scientists, we care about causality. We usually want to know whether something causes something else, rather than whether things are just correlated. We want to know whether aspects of our culture, social structure or ecology cause a given behaviour, as opposed to being merely associated with it, for instance. Experiments are the gold standard for assessing causality, but for obvious reasons cannot answer everything, especially many of the evolutionary questions we’re interested in – Randomising infants to be raised as religious or not, for instance, would be both impossible and ethically questionable (to put it mildly!).

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Adam Fortais · 17 July 2023

When the Levee Forms

Blues fans out there may be familiar with the Led Zeppelin classic ‘When the Levee Breaks’, but what about when the levee forms? In particular, how do natural levees form in such an organised and well-engineered process?

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Andrea Langeland and more · 16 June 2023

Comparative transcriptomics from intestinal cells of permissive and non-permissive hosts during Ancylostoma ceylanicum infection reveals unique signatures of protection and host specificity

The latest Paper of the Month for Parasitology is Comparative transcriptomics from intestinal cells of permissive and non-permissive hosts during Ancylostoma ceylanicum infection reveals unique signatures of protection and host specificity and is freely available. …

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Tim Gillett · 13 June 2023

Water – the new oil

Richard Fenner, Editor-in-Chief of Cambridge Prisms: Water, explains why a multi-disciplinary approach is crucial to meet human needs and maintain healthy ecosystems Ensuring water security, which is threatened by the twin threats of climate change and a growing population, is one of the biggest challenges of our time.…

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Jie Feng and more · 9 June 2023

On the Cover of HPL: Optical control of transverse motion of ionization injected electrons in a laser plasma accelerator

In recent years, the plasma wakefield acceleration driven by ultra-short and ultra-intense laser pulses has become increasingly mature, which can produce electron beams with ultra-high beam density and femtosecond beam duration; By using this electron beam, a new table-top radiation light source with collimation, ultrafast and high brightness can be produced.…

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Tim Gillett · 31 May 2023

Building a new frontier

Martyn Dade-Robertson, Editor-in-Chief of Research Directions: Biotechnology Design, explains more about this emerging branch of science Can we grow a building?…

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Seth Munson · 29 May 2023

What a decade of experience tells us about buffelgrass control

Buffelgrass is a highly invasive perennial that reduces the biodiversity of native ecosystems and provides ready fuel for wildfires in the arid regions where it thrives. After examining a decade of data from Arizona’s Saguaro National Park, researchers writing in the journal Invasive Plant Science and Management describe best practices for buffelgrass control.

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Lorenz Kuger · 13 April 2023

The latest research in training modern machine learning models: ‘A deterministic modification of gradient descent that avoids saddle points

Machine learning models, particularly those based on deep neural networks, have revolutionized the fields of data analysis, image recognition, and natural language processing. A key factor in the training of these models is the use of variants of gradient descent algorithms, which optimize model parameters by minimizing a loss function. However, the training optimization problem for neural networks is highly non-convex, presenting unique challenges.

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Peter Doyle · 12 April 2023

Maximising beef cattle growth on our cheapest feed resource

The paper “Effect of pre-grazing herbage mass and post-grazing sward height on herbage production and intake and performance of suckler-bred steers within a weanling-to-beef production system“, published in The Journal of Agricultural Science, has been chosen as the latest Editorial Highlight and is freely available to download for one month.…

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Tim Gillett · 2 April 2023

“We need action absolutely right now”

Cambridge Prisms: Extinction Co-Editors-in-Chief John Alroy and Barry Brook explain why swift and decisive action is required from governments, policy-makers and the public Public understanding of the main drivers of extinction – habitat loss, climate change, over-exploitation, invasive species, and pollution – is crucial if we are to stop biodiversity loss and maintain the ecosystems that sustain human populations.…

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Tim Gillett · 30 March 2023

Quantum quest

Daniel Oi, Editor-in-Chief of Research Directions: Quantum Technologies sheds light on a challenging subject ‘Science is driven as much by what we don’t know as it is by what we already know,’ states Daniel Oi.…

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Sebastian L. Rock · 21 March 2023

Comments on Parasitology paper – Effects of parasitic freshwater mussels on their host fishes: a review

Starting my PhD in 2020 on the conservation of Swedish parasitic freshwater mussels (Order: Unionida), I initially noted a lack of effort put into the study of what these mussels actually do to their hosts. If our goal is to increase the number of these mussels in our lakes and rivers, this will inevitably have some downstream impact on their host fishes.

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Joel Leonard Nicholas Barratt · 14 March 2023

Cyclospora cayetanensis comprises at least 3 species that cause human cyclosporiasis

Despite its impact on United States (US) food safety since the 1990’s, efforts to understand Cyclospora cayetanensis genetics only really began within the last 7 years. However, we have learned a great deal over that time; genotyping technologies now exist for Cyclospora, and these are being used routinely to complement cyclosporiasis outbreak investigations performed by US public health agencies

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Tim Gillett · 1 March 2023

Embracing a sea change

Emeritus Professor Tom Spencer, Editor-in-Chief of Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures, reflects on the influence of ‘wonderful’ teachers and the need to understand a plethora of viewpoints in relation to our coastlines The window for meaningful action relating to the world’s coastlines is closing fast, but Tom Spencer remains ‘guardedly optimistic’ that there is still time for societies and communities to come up with sustainable strategies for those that live and work at the coast. …

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Ben J. Mans · 27 February 2023

Hard Ticks from Down Under in Burmese Amber

Amber is a rich source of invertebrate fossils that constantly turn up new families, genera, and species. To become an amber fossil, an organism needs to be trapped in tree resin oozing from injured trees, which hardens and gets buried beneath sediment before fossilization at high pressure and temperature.

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Xiaogang Guo · 13 February 2023

Meet Professor Xiaogang Guo, Associate Editor of Programmable Materials

What first attracted you to the field of programmable materials? Programmable materials are increasingly important in various fields and are attracting more and more researchers from material science, computer science, mechanical engineering, and electronics. Searching with the keyword ‘Programmable Materials’ in Google Scholar, more than 780,000 records will be found, and 24,500 records are from 2020. Compared with traditional materials or structures, programable materials offer the capability to change their shape for the desired functions upon the external stimulus and are attracting more and more attention.

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Animal Welfare · 9 February 2023

Playtime is purr-fect for your cat’s welfare

Play is often considered an indicator and promotor of animal welfare. Playing with your cat may also nurture closer cat-human bonds. In a new study, scientists have investigated these links by applying in-depth empirical methods to analyse data gathered from around the world.

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