This article examines the roles of nonhumans in the development, testing, and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. I show how specific groups of nonhumans, particularly primates, were strategically made visible and invisible to American publics, and how some groups were rendered more valuable than others. By studying the narratives of science that circulated during the pandemic, I argue that COVID-19, and the US response to it, illustrate a central facet of modern crisis, namely, that the current moment is marked by a growing awareness of human exposure to and vulnerability with nonhuman beings, coupled with an active and persistent denial of togetherness. To be a human subject in the twenty-first century involves acknowledging the interconnectedness that constitutes everyday life, while living in ways that openly reject this reality.

This article examines what motivates elected representatives to engage with citizens in organised settings, specifically investigating the role of anticipatory representation – aligning policies with future voter preferences. Using representation theory, the study involves in-depth interviews with representatives in three Norwegian municipalities, focusing on their perception of public meetings as avenues for listening, convincing, and deliberating. The findings suggest that anticipatory representation minimally influences politicians’ attendance at these meetings. Instead, they view public meetings primarily as opportunities to listen to citizens rather than as platforms for persuasion or policy deliberation. Despite often disliking the confrontational aspects of these meetings, politicians attend to demonstrate presence and show interest in their constituents. Thus, the main motivation for their participation is the chance to exhibit responsiveness, rather than engaging in argumentative or deliberative exchanges. This research sheds light on the dynamics of politician–citizen interactions in democratic settings.

Peter Maxwell Davies’s Third Symphony, commissioned by the BBC in 1983, serves as a compelling example with which to explore the emergence of a new beast in the musical jungle: the composer’s agent. This moment represents a turning point in the commercialization of the classical music world. The fee negotiation for the symphony, handled by Maxwell Davies’s agent rather than his publisher, exemplifies the shifting power dynamics introduced by the agent’s arrival. Drawing on archival records, personal memoirs, and interviews, this article reconstructs the complex network of relationships involved, offering a nuanced understanding of the commissioning process during this pivotal moment.

In this paper, we give a complete list of strongly tempered anomaly-free hyperspherical Hamiltonian spaces-those that are dual to symplectic vector spaces under the relative Langlands duality. We show that the period integrals attached to the list contain many previously studied Rankin-Selberg integrals and period integrals, thus giving a new conceptual understanding of these integrals. The list also proposes many new interesting period integrals to study.

The influence of the maternal antenatal environment on infant growth and development beyond the neonatal period is not well understood. This study investigated associations between maternal cardiometabolic health and lifestyle on infant growth during the first year of life. This sub-study of the longitudinal Microbiome Understanding in Maternity Study included 87 mother-infant dyads. Maternal anthropometrics were collected at each trimester. Lifestyle was assessed through the Australian Eating Survey (Trimester T1 and T3) and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (T1, T2 and T3). Infant anthropometrics were measured at birth, 6 weeks, 6 months and 12 months. Changes in weight, weight-for-age z-score, length-for-age z-score, rapid weight gain and conditional weight gain (CWG) were determined. Multiple linear regression was used to assess associations between maternal parameters and infant growth, adjusting for common confounders. Maternal T1 weight (CWG: p = 0.03), T3 weight (CWG: p = 0.03) and GWG (weight z-score change: p = 0.031) were positively associated with increased infant growth from 0 to 6 months. Greater maternal fat mass was associated with increased CWG (p = 0.042) from 6 weeks to 6 months. Higher quality maternal T1 diet was associated with increased infant growth (weight z-score change: p = 0.022, CWG: p = 0.013) from 0 to 12 months. Increased maternal physical activity was associated with increased CWG (p = 0.022) and length z-score change (p = 0.024) from 0 to 12 months in T1, and increased CWG from 6 to 12 months in T2 (p = 0.014) and T3 (p = 0.047). Markers of maternal cardiometabolic health risk and healthier lifestyle were associated with increased infant growth. Further investigation is required to confirm findings and investigate links with future health sequelae.

Using Wine Spectator’s Top 100 lists for 1988–2025, this note applies Bai–Perron structural break tests to regional and country shares and identifies three distinct periods: 1988–1997, 1998–2015, and 2016–2025. Real prices decline across phases, with the sharpest drop in the most recent period, while scores remain stable and concentration falls sharply between the first two periods and then levels off. Turnover also declines in the most recent period, indicating reduced year-to-year movement in regional representation. Robust regressions confirm that prices are lower in periods with lower concentration. The findings extend earlier JWE studies by providing a longer horizon and a structural break perspective on long-run changes in representation and pricing.

Single-particle electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) has enabled rapid advances in our understanding of membrane protein structure and function. The primary goal during the development of cryo-EM was to perform experiments equivalent to X-ray crystallography, but without needing to crystallize the protein of interest first. However, exciting recent progress in single-particle cryo-EM has come from relaxing assumptions and constraints related to the homogeneity of samples. These assumptions and constraints, which were necessary for crystallization, include that all molecules imaged have the same composition and are in the same conformation, that the specimen consists of only one species, and that the specimen is derived from a solution of isolated protein particles. Here, I discuss the study of membrane protein complexes within lipid bilayers by single-particle cryo-EM. I point out the value and recently achieved capability of studying membrane proteins in lipid vesicles, and in particular endogenous membrane proteins in vesicles prepared from their native lipid bilayer.

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) help voters make informed choices by aligning their policy preferences with party positions. This study examines whether VAA exposure enhances young citizens’ ideological knowledge – understanding political dimensions and party positions. A randomized experiment (n = 2308) in Belgium (Flanders) tested whether VAA exposure improved young voters’ ability to place a fictional party on the left-right axis. We replicate these effects in an additional observational study (n = 1221) tracking effects of natural VAA exposure during the campaign. We find that VAAs increase ideological knowledge, helping participants more accurately classify a fictional party as left- or right-wing. Exposure to a youth-targeted VAA has particularly strong effects. The impact is greater for politically less sophisticated individuals, suggesting an equalizing effect. These findings indicate that VAAs’ political learning benefits extend further than previously documented, contributing not only to policy-specific knowledge but also to a broader understanding of ideological structures.

This study examines the role of cultural connectivity in the evolving dynamics of Korea–Japan relations. Since the dramatic downturn in 2019—the worst since the 1965 normalization— there has been a significant shift. In the post-COVID era, the expansion of cultural exchanges, driven by Gen-Z influence and rising consumption of cultural content, has redefined this relationship. This is evident in the growing prominence of Korean culture in Japan, increased Japanese tourism among Koreans, and the shift from a hierarchical to a more symmetrical relationship. Through this lens, we explore how shared values bolster cooperation and how strengthening cultural ties foster a more sustainable future.

Life history theory seeks to understand how organisms distribute energy between physiological functions across the life course. A central assumption is that energy allocation involves “trade-offs” between competing functions relating to defence, maintenance, reproduction and growth. Constraints on human energy expenditure may produce trade-offs during energetic stress, affecting functions critical for homeostasis, survival and reproduction. While there is some evidence for binary trade-offs between two functions in humans, no studies have tested physiological resource prioritisation across multiple functions under energetic constraint. This study empirically assessed multiple human life history trade-offs and the proximate biological mechanisms underpinning them. We recruited 147 ultra-endurance athletes (107 male, 40 female) participating in four environmentally diverse multiday ultramarathons and one multiweek ocean rowing event. The severe energetic demands of these competitions provide a valuable opportunity to provoke and observe detectable trade-offs. We found evidence of trade-offs across multiple functions. Specifically, investment in (as indexed by immune biomarkers) was broadly prioritised relative to investment in storage, reproduction and maintenance. Our results enhance current understanding of the role of phenotypic plasticity in human adaptability and have implications for athlete health and performance as well as the emerging discipline of evolutionary public health.

Over the last few decades, linguistic gender-fair forms have become increasingly used by individuals and official institutions. In the French-speaking sphere, this has led to heated discussions among politicians and other stakeholders, some of whom claim that these forms render texts illegible and inaccessible to the general public. However, the processing of gender-fair forms in reading has been the topic of a few empirical studies. In the present paper, we add to this small body of research by reporting results from a pre-registered eye-tracking study where 58 native French-speakers read short texts which included a masculine form (voisins), complete double form (voisines et voisins), or contracted double form (voisin·es). Consistent with previous findings, the complete double forms were not more costly to process. In contrast, contracted double forms led to increased processing costs in intermediate and late stages of processing, but had no effect on the early stages of processing. Our data also indicate that the processing of contracted double forms becomes easier over time, and that it is facilitated by positive attitudes towards gender-fair language. These findings provide important insights that enlighten the current debate and should therefore be considered in the elaboration of official guidelines regarding gender-fair language.

It is possible that the traditional linear format of the novel is no longer sufficient to tell more-than-human stories about global energy use and Anthropogenic thinking. How can academic and research findings be brought into public consciousness to challenge damaging fossil fuel ideologies? These notions reference deep-time: the fossil part of fuel. Telling stories, suggests Anthony Nanson, possesses an important “consciousness-enhancing function…and has a part to play in public debates on the environment and energy.” Erin James asks whether the Anthropocene calls for new narratives that “can help bridge imaginative gaps” and consequently “have important real-world consequences.” What if the written text were fragmentary or digital or accessed randomly; if words ran a different way on the page; if fiction were mixed with fact, or illustration with poetry? I examine the approach of a graphic novel (Here, McGuire 2014), film-poem (The Green Hollow, Sheers 2018) and eco-biographical memoir (The Outrun, Liptrot 2016) in referencing more-than-human timescales. I consider whether a geological imaginary provokes reading and writing of fossils, landforms, literary forms, structures, traces, and futures in a manner that, Marco Caracciolo suggests, ruptures the linearity of protagonists’ experience of reality and their sense of demarcation between human and nonhuman.

In recent debates about the proper approach towards the interpretation of contract terms insufficient attention has been paid to the history of the subject. A close examination of that history shows that there are strong traces of both textual and contextual approaches. The balance between them is not however constant. Opposing factors have pulled in different directions at various times. It is not true to say that before modern times judges were necessarily wedded to the text of contracts. In fact, there is a very prominent seam of contextualism.

ʔAbbā Garimā I and III (AG I and III) are the oldest manuscripts written in Geez (Old Ethiopic). According to a recent radiocarbon analysis they are dated to the Aksumite period. The present paper confronts the orthography of these manuscripts with that of the epigraphic corpus of the Aksumite period (the comparison is restricted to the roots containing gutturals and/or sibilants, since the preservation of these consonants is the hallmark of pre-seventh-century Geez). The investigation demonstrates remarkable agreement in spelling roots with gutturals/sibilants – an additional argument in favour of dating of AG I, III to the Aksumite period. The paper also discusses the general problem of periodization of the Geez language, focusing on the early post-Aksumite period (eighth–thirteenth century) and providing a preliminary survey of direct and indirect Geez sources pertaining to this period.