This work investigates how ecological literacy and nature connectedness can be fostered in children aged 8–12 through engagement with a toolkit for place-based nature education. Children growing up in urban environments often lack access to nature, leading to lower ecological literacy and feeling less connected to the natural world. To help children reconnect with nature, we propose situating nature education in local environments, facilitated by a toolkit developed through a research-through-design approach that combines methods and perspectives from material-driven, participatory, and more-than-human design. Material explorations and a workshop with primary school children informed the conceptualisation of the toolkit, which invites children to shape mycelium-receptive artefacts, place them in local environments, and observe their transformation over time. Using clay as a substitute material, the shaping and placing activities were tested with 71 primary school children across four classes, alongside imaginative and reflective activities to encourage empathy and sensitivity toward fungi. Findings suggest that the shaping, placing, and reflecting activities can support ecological literacy and caring relationships with non-human organisms, indicating the potential of place-based, more-than-human learning tools to enrich nature education and reconnect children with nature.

To gain support, political actors must be visible on issues where they are seen as credible and advance these issues on the agenda. Direct online communication and negative messaging can amplify this by gaining traction on social media. While prior research assumes parties attack competitors on issues they ‘own’, we test that assumption in a highly fragmented multi-party system where ownership is fiercely contested. Here, attacks may aim to compete for ownership rather than defend it. Analysing 27,266 posts on X by Belgian party actors over two-and-a-half years, we find that sender issue ownership alone does not predict issue-based attacks. Instead, competition over ownership, especially at the target level, shapes attack patterns. During campaigns, issue-based attacks are significantly more likely to target issue owners than during routine periods. By linking issue competition and negative campaigning, we offer new insights into communication dynamics in fragmented party systems across the electoral cycle.

This paper concerns the problem of determining whom one should trust and how much in complex testimonial exchanges featuring conflicting reports, unclear communication, and higher-order evidence bearing on the reliability of a speaker. Drawing on a Bayesian model of source reliability, I argue for testimonial underdetermination: the claim that testimonial exchanges can underdetermine whom one ought to trust and how much. The argument proceeds by showing that assessments of a source’s reliability are made relative to reference classes – sets of testimonial exchanges sharing features relevant for predicting the source’s reliability. In complex cases, an agent’s evidence may fail to determine which among several plausible reference classes is most appropriate, where different reference classes underwrite different degrees of trust. I then contend that testimonial underdetermination supports a form of synchronic intrapersonal permissivism about trust: an agent’s evidence may permit her to adopt any of several incompatible degrees of trust in a speaker. I conclude that when purely epistemic considerations underdetermine trust, practical considerations may guide one’s choice between different epistemically permissible options, putting pressure on the idea that we can have a pure epistemology of trust that applies to real-life, complex cases involving non-ideal agents.

Let $f(x)=x^{2p}+ax^p+b^p$, where p is a prime and $a,b\in {\mathbb Z}$ with $ab\ne 0$. If $f(x)$ is irreducible over ${\mathbb Q}$, we say that $f(x)$ is monogenic if $\{1,\theta ,\theta ^2,\ldots ,\theta ^{2p-1}\}$ is a basis for the ring of integers of ${\mathbb Q}(\theta )$, where $f(\theta )=0$. We give a characterisation of the monogenic trinomials $f(x)$ according to their Galois groups. These results extend prior investigations of the authors.

This article reconsiders the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) “Media Trial” that followed in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While both the original trial (2000–03) and its appeal (2007) have been widely analyzed, most observers have approached it as a case against three media bosses. This article suggests that the Media Trial was not only invested in the line between press freedom and criminal hate speech and, in relation to Ferdinand Nahimana, not solely concerned with his role at “hate radio” station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). Drawing on trial transcripts, other court records, and press coverage of the trial, I show how the tribunal actively interrogated Nahimana’s status as a historian and his research and scholarship as part of its judicial process. As such, I argue that the Media Trial helped codify the notion that Rwandan history had become “deadly” before the genocide and that the Rwandan historical field would need to be fundamentally transformed.

Comprehenders must accommodate variable speech rates during real-world communication, including rapid speech that necessitates rapid processing. This research investigated whether non-native comprehenders predict (i.e., what will come next) even when hearing rapid speech. Native and non-native participants heard predictive and non-predictive sentences (e.g., “ride…” vs. “spot…”) at normal and fast speech rates (e.g., averaging ~3 vs. 9 syllables per second) while viewing visual arrays with predictable and unrelated objects (e.g., bike vs. kite). Across both groups and rates, participants made predictive mouse cursor movements to predictable objects (e.g., before hearing “bike”). In addition, these groups and rates differed quantitatively. These results suggest that prediction has a qualitatively similar function in native and non-native sentence processing, which supports speeded comprehension.

Numerous consumer protection regulations (e.g., No Surprises Act, Transparency in Coverage) have been implemented recently in the United States that could impact private health insurance prices and patient cost-sharing for many health care services. We use a large multi-payer database of health insurance claims for employer-sponsored health plans in the U.S. to describe the trajectory of prices and patient cost-sharing for the services of clinicians that are likely most affected by these regulatory changes: emergency physicians, radiologists, pathologists, and neonatologists. We find that in-network prices and patient cost-sharing generally increased for all four specialties between 2012 and 2022. However, all four specialties experienced periods of decline in out-of-network prices and cost-sharing, with different starting points, and substantial reductions in prices and cost-sharing from 2021 to 2022, particularly for self-funded health plans. Although we cannot isolate the causal impact of any law or regulation, our results suggest that out-of-network prices and cost-sharing decreased when the NSA and TIC were implemented in 2022, especially for the previously less regulated self-funded health plans. Our results imply that patients who previously struggled with the financial burdens of surprise out-of-network medical bills may have benefited significantly from the recent regulatory changes.

Long-term light-trap records provide a rare opportunity to examine spruce budworm (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) population behaviour at the southern edge of the species’ range. We analysed statewide moth counts from Maine, United States of America (1961–2024), to characterise temporal patterns and assess their relevance for outbreak risk. The time series showed a saw-toothed rise from 1961 to its peak in 1978, followed by a precipitous collapse across the state after 1982, and an extended quiescent period in 1990–2012, punctuated finally by abrupt but moderate increases in adult abundance, with no evidence of a smooth oscillation. Recruitment dynamics were nonlinear, with multiple equilibrium points, which is consistent with a metastable process. These dynamics limit the utility of classical forecasting approaches and complicate expectations about outbreak development following the recent pulse in moth numbers after nearly two decades of low activity.

This study develops a network-level model of banking alliances by integrating neo-institutional isomorphism and tie strength theory. Based on an integrative review of 98 empirical studies and deductive–inductive content analysis, the model explains how institutional pressures and relational mechanisms shape alliance portfolios among interconnected banking actors. The analysis identifies recurring patterns: strong-tie alliances, such as mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures, appear more often under high coercive and normative isomorphism, whereas moderately and loosely coupled alliances, including information sharing and outsourcing, are more common where institutional alignment is weaker and uncertainty is higher.

Trilobites, iconic ancient arthropods that endured throughout the Paleozoic Era, are represented by a great number of fossils and a high species richness. However, only a very small number of taxa have their soft tissues preserved, which means that the morphology and ecology of most trilobites have not been specifically determined, even though the morphology of their exoskeletons is well studied. Fortunately, modern technologies (e.g., Micro-CT and μ-XRF) provide non-destructive methods to unveil the soft tissues of fossils that might be buried in rocks. Here we use Micro-CT and μ-XRF to make a detailed study on exceptionally preserved specimens of Palaeolenus douvillei Mansuy, 1912 from the Guanshan Biota. The uniramous antennae, four pairs of post-antennal cephalic appendages, 13–15 thoracic appendages, and at least two pygidial appendages underneath the dorsal shield were revealed for the first time. In addition, we observed that the hypostome and labrum were differentiated in P. douvillei, and this species possesses both typical trilobite digestive systems—namely the crop and digestive glands—simultaneously within a single individual. From the combined evidence of morphological features and phylogenetic analysis, it is reasonable to place P. douvillei within the family Palaeolenidae, thereby contributing new perspectives to the understanding of broader trilobite evolution.