This Forum focuses on the many and diverse smaller polities in a region spanning lands from Bengal and Assam in the west to Yunnan in the east, and from the eastern Himalayas in the north to Thailand in the south. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, these polities underwent dramatic transformations when they faced the impact of Chinese and European encroachments. The ambition of this Forum is to reconnect academic research across the region. Even though this may be a new field of study for contemporary scholars, it is one that the smaller polities actively shaped long before the imperial onslaught. It is diverse, yet tied together by a multitude of interconnections, mobility, and integration through kinship, exchange, shared experiences, and warfare. Scholars of this region, who still work mostly from separate area-studies perspectives, face a challenge. The task ahead is to reconnect their conversations.

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate the effects of hesperidin supplementation on inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers in human adults. A systematic literature search was conducted in the PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) from inception to 4 January 2025 to identify eligible RCT studies. Ten RCTs with a total of 532 participants were included. The results indicated that hesperidin supplementation significantly reduced the serum levels of CRP/hs-CRP (SMD: -0.43, 95% CI: -0.71, -0.15, P=0.002) and TNF-α (SMD: -0.51, 95% CI: -0.95, -0.07, P=0.02) in adults, while no significant beneficial effect of hesperidin on IL-6 was observed (SMD: -0.25, 95% CI: -0.52, 0.01, P=0.06). In addition, hesperidin intake showed beneficial impact on IL-6 level in patients with diseases (type 2 diabetes and myocardial infarction) (SMD: -0.38, 95% CI: -0.72, -0.04, P=0.03) yet not in healthy adults without diagnosed diseases. Our findings demonstrated that hesperidin supplementation could lower the serum levels of CRP/hs-CRP and TNF-α in adults.

Clonality plays an important role in the proliferation of invasive species and, when coupled with loss of seed viability, can facilitate invasive success by reducing reliance on sexual reproduction and promoting spread of genetically identical individuals. Clonal invasions are advantageous for biological control strategies, as biological control agents may have a uniformed, damaging response to invasive populations with low genetic diversity. Agents sourced in the native range that are locally adapted to the same plant genotype that is invasive, may cause this response. Understanding the population genetics and invasion history of a species in the novel range is paramount to ensure effective biological control agents are introduced. Here we investigated the population genetics of pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata L.), a tristylous invasive macrophyte native to North and South America causing detrimental impacts in South Africa (SA). SA populations all have only one of three tristylous forms and produce no seeds. Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) of P. cordata leaf samples from SA and from parts of the native range in the United States of America (USA) were used to determine population structure and potential source populations. Pontederia cordata has low genetic diversity within and amongst invasive populations in SA compared to native populations. This suggests no sexual reproduction and limited gene flow in SA, and only one introductory event. Invasive populations shared the closest genetic similarity with native samples from Virginia, USA, and although large parts of the indigenous distribution were not sampled, this close match suggests that the site may be a suitable area to source potential biological control agents. However, genetic sampling in other native areas should also be considered to confidently determine the origin of SA populations. This study corroborates other global findings of highly successful invasive species utilizing clonality, and consequently, resulting in invasive genotypes with low diversity.

This article examines the kidnapping and forced marriages of women under the Peshwas, investigating whether the state prioritized justice for victims or its Brahmanical credentials, given that the annulment of fully performed marriages was prohibited under the Shastras. Far from passively upholding the inherited order, the Peshwa regime actively leveraged intersectional dynamics of gender, caste, and religion to transform that order into a consolidated patriarchal Brahmanical system, reinforcing and totalizing caste-based customs, hierarchies, and governance through judicial and administrative interventions. The article also reveals a binary governance model, highlighting distinctive modes of justice between the capital city of Pune and the countryside. The article interrogates the ambiguity and fluidity of categories used to denote abduction, as well as the associated normative frameworks and penalties, showing how the discursive deployment of familial, communal, caste, ritual, pride, and political dynamics denied women’s agency and subsumed alternative narratives, such as elopement and/or consensual cohabitation. It demonstrates how coercion against women as well as women’s agency were viewed and conceptualized. Moreover, the government’s adherence to patriarchal Brahmanical ideology, derived from the Shastras, not only shaped legal responses but also actively contributed to the ongoing perpetuation of abductions and forced marriages.

Animal models are essential in preclinical research and widely used in drug development, yet their legitimacy has long been debated. These debates intertwine epistemic, pragmatic, social, and ethical considerations. A key criterion for the legitimacy of an animal model is its validity, which assesses how well it serves as a proxy for human disorders and contributes to treatment development. The forced swim test (FST) is a particularly contested case, as criticism regarding its validity has fuelled controversy over its legitimacy. This article examines how validity arguments and non-epistemic factors have been intertwined to shape the legitimacy of the FST as an animal model in depression research. Although public actors have emphasized non-epistemic concerns, including pragmatic, social, and ethical considerations, such as animal welfare, the article shows how they have also utilized the academic controversy about FST’s validity to argue against its legitimacy for measuring the efficacy of drugs for human depression.

Marine plastic pollution increasingly infiltrates coastal soils, yet little is known about their role as potential sources of microplastics (MPs) leaking back into the ocean. This study documents and quantifies MP leakage from plastic-infiltrated coastal soil on Smøla island, Central Norway, and evaluates a low-cost, citizen-science-friendly methodology for future global monitoring. Nine soil cores were extracted and subjected to simulated rainfall. Leachate samples were filtered, oxidized (H₂O₂), Nile Red-stained and examined under ultraviolet-stereomicroscopy. MPs in the size range of 1 mm–100 μm were detected in all samples, from 6.2 to 33.9 MPs/L (mean±SD = 20.0±10.8 MPs/L), corresponding to an estimated annual leakage of ~27,000 MPs/m2/year. A significant positive correlation (ρSpearman = 0.72, p = 0.030) was found between macroplastic concentration and MP leakage. Coastal soils may only act as a temporary sink, facilitating breakdown into secondary MPs and redistribution to the ocean. To enable further studies, we present a pedagogical step-by-step guide for application in citizen science and educational contexts. We also emphasize its potential to empower research in developing countries. Together, these outcomes lay the foundation for accessible, globally comparable monitoring of MP leakage from coastal soil – an underexplored yet potentially significant pathway in the plastic pollution cycle.

The fossil record is subject to multiple biases that can distort macroevolutionary and paleoecological inferences. Although temporal and spatial sampling biases have received substantial attention, other sources of fossil sampling heterogeneity remain less well quantified. Using the Triton database of planktonic foraminifera, we assess the influence of geographic, ecological, morphological, and methodological factors on fossil recovery rates. We first apply a temporal subsampling method to standardize fossil occurrences over geologic time, validating this approach against an expert-curated lineage-through-time trajectory. After subsampling, the occurrences remain unevenly distributed throughout species’ lifetimes and inhomogeneously distributed across species, reflecting biological signal and/or persistent sampling biases.

We then investigate this residual sampling heterogeneity with a generalized additive model incorporating relevant predictors from Triton. Our results reveal that, after correcting for temporal biases, geographic predictors (paleolatitude, paleolongitude, longitudinal spread) explain nearly a third of sampling variation. Species-specific ecological and morphological attributes contribute an additional fraction, among which mean relative abundance emerges as the main factor. Additional predictors of fossil sampling rates include age-calculation methods and biostratigraphic sampling biases. Despite accounting for multiple sources of variation, 37% of the deviance remains unexplained, suggesting unmodeled biological, stratigraphic, diagenetic, or taxonomic drivers of sampling heterogeneity.

Overall, observed recovery rates question the validity of the homogeneous-sampling assumption used in most diversification models, and this heterogeneity cannot be reduced to a single dominant factor. This conclusion reinforces the need for integrated subsampling approaches and process-based models that explicitly account for heterogeneous fossilization rates to improve the reliability of macroevolutionary analyses.