Why are mistaken beliefs about COVID-19 so prevalent? Political identity, education and other demographic variables explain only part of the differences between people in their susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. This paper focuses on another explanation: epistemic vice. Epistemic vices are character traits that interfere with acquiring, maintaining, and transmitting knowledge. If the basic assumption of vice epistemology is right, then people with epistemic vices such as indifference to the truth or rigidity in their belief structures will tend to be more susceptible to believing COVID-19 misinformation. We carried out an observational study (US adult sample, n = 998) in which we measured the level of epistemic vice of participants using a novel Epistemic Vice Scale that captures features of the current competing analyses of epistemic vice in the literature. We also asked participants questions eliciting the extent to which they subscribe to myths and misinformation about COVID-19. We find overwhelming evidence to the effect that epistemic vice is associated with susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. In fact, the association turns out to be stronger than with political identity, educational attainment, scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test, personality, dogmatism, and need for closure. We conclude that this offers evidence in favor of the empirical presuppositions of vice epistemology.

The science of extra-solar planets is one of the most rapidly changing areas of astrophysics and since 1995 the number of planets known has increased by almost two orders of magnitude. A combination of ground-based surveys and dedicated space missions has resulted in 560-plus planets being detected, and over 1200 that await confirmation. NASA's Kepler mission has opened up the possibility of discovering Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around some of the 100,000 stars it is surveying during its 3 to 4-year lifetime. The new ESA's Gaia mission is expected to discover thousands of new planets around stars within 200 parsecs of the Sun. The key challenge now is moving on from discovery, important though that remains, to characterisation: what are these planets actually like, and why are they as they are?

In the past ten years, we have learned how to obtain the first spectra of exoplanets using transit transmission and emission spectroscopy. With the high stability of Spitzer, Hubble, and large ground-based telescopes the spectra of bright close-in massive planets can be obtained and species like water vapour, methane, carbon monoxide and dioxide have been detected. With transit science came the first tangible remote sensing of these planetary bodies and so one can start to extrapolate from what has been learnt from Solar System probes to what one might plan to learn about their faraway siblings. As we learn more about the atmospheres, surfaces and near-surfaces of these remote bodies, we will begin to build up a clearer picture of their construction, history and suitability for life.

The Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory, EChO, will be the first dedicated mission to investigate the physics and chemistry of Exoplanetary Atmospheres. By characterising spectroscopically more bodies in different environments we will take detailed planetology out of the Solar System and into the Galaxy as a whole.

EChO has now been selected by the European Space Agency to be assessed as one of four M3 mission candidates.

Introduction. Fruit fly attack on citrus causes economic yield losses in Nigeria. The high demand for sweet oranges in recent times necessitates the need to develop control strategies that can reduce fruit fly damage and ameliorate yield. This can be achieved by identifying the diversity, abundance and spread of major sweet orange fruit flies. Materials and methods. Surveys were conducted during the citrus fruit maturity periods of 2003 and 2006 in citrus-producing areas of Nigeria. Owners of the sampled orchards were interviewed on their cultural practices that could contribute to fruit fly abundance and spread. The fruit flies were sampled by using two types of trap; namely, the McPhail® trap with yeast hydrolysate bait and the yellow sticky trap impregnated with ammonium acetate. The traps were hung on the citrus trees at a distance of 1.8 m from the ground. The distance between trees was 25 m and the traps were replicated three times per site. Results and discussion. Fruit flies identified on citrus belonged to the genera Bactrocera, Ceratitis, Dacus and Trirhithrum. While higher fruit fly diversity was observed in Edo, Ogun and Oyo states in the rainforest ecological zone, relatively higher populations of major genera (Bactrocera and Ceratitis) were recorded in Benue and Kaduna states in the Guinea savanna ecological zone. Bactrocera species occurrence increased during the second sampling period. Some farmers’ cultural practices were implicated as factors likely to have contributed to fruit fly abundance and spread. Conclusion. Fruit fly species of economic importance to citrus in Nigeria belonged to the genera Ceratitis and Bactrocera species. These genera were observed in the majority of surveyed areas.

Positive beliefs about the benefits of rumination have been shown to be a proximal factor determining rumination. This study investigated, in a sample of 29 currently depressed patients, whether positive beliefs about rumination parallel known gender differences in rumination and whether these beliefs differ between depressed individuals with and without a history of physical or sexual assault. Depressed women tended to report stronger positive beliefs in the benefits of rumination than men. However, this result was found to be due to differential effects of a history of assault: women with a history of assault showed significantly stronger positive beliefs than women without a history of assault while there were no significant differences in men. Experiences of assault may undermine women's beliefs in coping ability so that rumination is seen as a more compelling option.

This paper examines intra-day trading data from the inter-dealer broker market for U.S. Treasury securities and measures the degree of price pressure in the off-the-run Treasury market. As is well known, securities that would appear to be very close substitutes, i.e., on-the-run and off-the-run Treasury bonds, behave as if there is some degree of market segmentation. This is the first systematic study of the off-the-run Treasury note and bond market focused entirely on a price pressure effect using intra-day data. The paper analyzes price pressure through matched pairs of securities that differ only in liquidity.