Editor’s Picks – Highlights of 2023

Data from more than 11,000 ocean-monitoring stations show that between 82 and 358 trillion plastic particles, weighing between 1.1 and 4.9 million tonnes, exist in the ocean surface layer. This research underscores the urgent need to reduce global plastic production and consumption, and increase recycling.

Based on over 700,000 news articles in English and five major independent indeces for peacefulness, this study shows that natural language processing and machine learning can be used to infer the relative peacefulness of a country from the frequency of words used in its news publications. This opens future avenues of investigation into whether and to what extent this observation holds true for news articles in other languages, as well as what social processes influence the words used in different countries’ media.

The very earliest research stations in Antarctica were established in the late 19th century. Since then, many new stations have been established, and they have collectively provided invaluable research that aids our understanding of Antarctica and life, climate and geophysical processes in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. This study reports pollution and contamination patterns around Australia’s Casey Station, documented between 1997 to 2015. This study finds elevated levels of metals, hydrocarbons, and PCBs beyond guidance upper limits, and conclude that research stations in Antarctica may pose a moderate ecological risk to the surrounding marine environment.

We are currently very close to the maximum in the 11-year solar cycle. This recent project studied whether or not there is a relationship between the solar cycle and ice-on and ice-off dates for rivers and lakes in the northern hemisphere. These dates appear to be trending towards shorter ice seasons, and previous studies have indicated that there are links between ice phenology and several natural climate cycles, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. This study found little or no connection between the sunspot cycle and the ice-covered season, indicating that the solar cycle likely does not affect ice-on and ice-off dates.

Ethnographic reports of 63 different foraging societies around the globe reveal that women had a key role in hunting. These conclusions upend the paradigm that women in foraging societies gathered whereas men hunted, and support a re-analysis of the division of labor in these cultures.

This systematic review of 13 papers shows that most interventions aimed at reducing conspiracy beliefs are inneffective. However, this analysis suggested that interventions that occurred before participants were exposed to conspiracy beliefs, or attempts to develop critical thinking skills in participants, could potentially help counter conspiracy beliefs.

Through the examination of dentitions from 171 individuals from Varnhem in Sweden, Bertilsson and colleagues reveal that it was common for Vikings to suffer from dental caries and other oral health conditions and that they used toothpicks and other tools as an early form of dentistry. These findings provide new insight into the health and behaviours of the Swedish Viking Age population.

Reports of ingestion of household cleaners found in surveys on health behaviors during COVID-19 are made by problematic respondents: participants who are inattentive, provide intentionally false responses, or systematically respond “yes” to any question. These results underline the need to use techniques in survey research to increase the accuracy of measurement and prevent such respondents from invalidating the results of public health and medical survey research.

An analysis of the 14,669 European terrestrial, freshwater and marine species on the IUCN Red List reveals major challenges to their survival. In particular, agriculture and aquaculture, biological resource use, pollution, residential and commercial development, and fire and fire suppression emerged as key threats to these species.

Hoover and colleagues characterized the undiscovered role of the protein FlgV on promoting flagellum assembly and rotation in the human pathogen Helicobacter pylori. The study utilized a series of biotechniques, including genome sequencing, protein structure modeling and Cryo-electron tomography, to characterize the structure and function of FlgV. The results suggest that it forms a flagellar motor ring-like structure that is highly conserved and plays an important role through interactions with key components of the motor.

Monarch butterflies fly more than 2,000 miles from Canada to central Mexico each year, but only 30% survive the trip. Researchers have found that those with larger white spots on their wings are more successful and suggest that large white spots might have evolved to make wings more aerodynamic.

The human louse is an obligate blood-sucking parasite that has co-evolved with humans for millions of years. Analyses of lice genetics can thus provide a glimpse into key events in human evolution. Here, Marina Ascunce and colleagues analyzed genetic variation in 274 human lice from different geographical locations, using nuclear microsatellite loci and female-inherited mitochondrial DNA sequences. Their analysis revealed the existence of two distinct nuclear louse genetic clusters with limited, recent admixture reflecting patterns of human migration to the Americas.

An analysis of the Japan Environment and Children’s Study has shown a link between pets and early childhood food allergies. Data from 66,215 children revealed that exposure to dogs and cats early in life correlated with lower reports of certain food allergies. This interesting study supports further research into a potential causal link between pet ownership and allergies.

Using data from the Czech Household Panel study (2018 – 2020), this study showed that sleep quality is the most influential effector on five aspects of quality of life: wellbeing, life satisfaction, subjective health, work stress and happiness. While sleep duration and social jetlag are undoubtedly important, they are less impactful on our quality of life than obtaining a good night’s sleep.

Utilizing a large dataset from a cohort of generally healthy individuals, this investigation demonstrated a dose-effect relationship between running volume and expression of blood biomarkers of exercise and metabolic health. Although the running volume is self-reported, which is a key limitation of the study, clear associations in expression of muscle damage biomarkers supports the association identified. This could inform advice for public health guidance about increasing activity levels for health and wellbeing, as well as for training and performance guidance in athletes.

Interventions in agriculture can have several downstream effects on people’s nutrition status and overall health. The Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming program has been implemented to eliminate synthetic chemical inputs in agriculture, improve soil health and increase crop diversity. In this Study Protocol, Jaacks and colleagues describe plans to evaluate the impacts of this government intervention in four districts of Andhra Pradesh state in south India. Primary outcome measures will include urinary pesticide metabolites and dietary diversity, and results are expected to provide evidence of nutritional, developmental and health co-benefits of agroecology. We look forward to seeing the results!