In 2022, an anti-vaccine mandate protest in Canada received millions of dollars in support through online crowdfunding. This event catalyzed political crowdfunding in Canada by demonstrating its ability to disseminate ideological discourse and mobilize collective action. Given its newfound visibility and impact, this study examines the landscape of political crowdfunding in Canada. We examined 60 campaigns from the legal, current events and political categories on the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo and classified campaigns into: COVID-19-related topics, alternative media and free speech, climate change skepticism, and other political campaigns. Thematic analysis of the interactive discourse between campaign hosts and donors revealed that many campaigns were motivated by defending individual rights and freedoms amidst perceived government overreach, which fuels a distrust towards authority, including the government and mainstream media. Our study suggests that political crowdfunding empowers individuals to symbolically reflect their political and ideological beliefs through financial donations.

True bugs (Hemiptera: Acanthosomatidae, Coreidae, and Pentatomidae) include harmful crop pests affecting global agriculture, with different species displaying distinct optimal conditions for development and using different habitats. Over a 2-year period, this research investigates how habitat variation and altitude can influence the species composition of true bugs and their egg parasitoids in South Tyrol (North Italy), unveiling different trends in their population and diversity across habitats: apple orchards, urban areas, and forests. A total of 25 true bug species were sampled. Urban environments hosted the highest bug abundance, predominantly driven by the invasive Halyomorpha halys, while forests showed a higher prevalence of native species such as Pentatoma rufipes and Palomena prasina. Altitude significantly influenced species composition, with H. halys and P. rufipes abundance negatively and positively correlated with altitude, respectively. A total of 12 parasitoid species (Hymenoptera: Eupelmidae, and Scelionidae) emerged from the field-collected bug eggs, including the exotic Trissolcus japonicus, predominantly associated with H. halys in urban areas. Native parasitoids exhibited higher parasitism rates on native bug species, indicating co-evolutionary relationships. The results give an insight into the ecological dynamics of local true bug species and their egg parasitoids, and highlight the value of natural and urban areas for conserving both hemipteran and parasitoid species richness and abundance.

Healthy diets are unaffordable for billions of people worldwide, with food prices rising in high-, middle- and low-income nations in recent times. Despite widespread attention to this issue, recent actions taken to inform policy prioritisation and government responses to high food inflation have not been comprehensively synthesised. Our review summarises (i) innovative efforts to monitor national food and healthy diet price, ii) new policy responses adopted by governments to address food inflation and (iii) future research directions to inform new evidence. Evidence synthesis. Global. None. We describe how timely food and beverage pricing data can provide transparency in the food industry and identify key areas for intervention. However, government policies that improve food affordability are often short-lived and lack sustained commitment. Achieving meaningful impact will require long-term, cross-sectoral actions that are led by governments to support food security, healthy diets and resilient sustainable food systems. This will necessitate a better understanding of how the political economy enables (or hinders) policy implementation, including through coherent problem framing, mitigating conflicts of interest in policymaking, working together as coalitions and developing and utilising evidence on the food security and related impacts of food pricing and affordability policies. Diverse actors must be better equipped with robust data platforms and actionable policy solutions that improve the affordability of healthy and sustainable diets, including by lowering food prices and addressing the broader socio-political determinants of food insecurity.

Two Xiphinema species, one new and one known, were found from Bushehr province, southern Iran, and are herein described based on morphological and molecular data. These include Xiphinema pedrami sp. nov. and X. basiri, both belonging to the ‘Xiphinema non-americanum group’. The new dagger nematode is characterised by a body length of 3.54–5.00 mm, a lip region separated from the rest of body by a depression, odontostyle 128–148 μm long, 60–89 μm long odontophore, guiding ring at 107–138 μm from anterior end, female tail rounded to dorsally more convex with small bulge and four juvenile stages. Males have one pair of cloacal and three to five ventromedian single supplements. The new species belongs to morphospecies Xiphinema non-americanum group 5, characterised by having two equally developed female genital branches with uterine differentiation in the form of pseudo-Z-organ along with the rhomboid-shaped crystalloid bodies, and a short, rounded tail ending in a peg. The polytomous identification codes of the new species are A4, B2, C5a5b, D6, E56, F4(5), G23, H2, I34, J5a5b, K3, L2. Morphologically, the new species comes close to several known species (namely, X. andalusiense, X. artemisiae, X. baetica, X. hyrcaniense, X. ingens, X. macroacanthum and X. pseudocoxi) belonging to morphospecies group 5. The morphological differences of the new species and the aforementioned species are discussed. The second recovered species, Xiphinema basiri, belongs to the same group and has a pseudo-Z-organ in the shape of globular bodies close to pars dilatata uterus and short, conical, distinctly digitate tail. Integrative diagnosis was completed using molecular data obtained from partial sequences of the D2-D3 region of 28S rDNA, ITS1 rDNA, 18S rDNA, and COI mtDNA genes.

Agencies, boards, and commissions (ABCs) in Canada have a distinct character and set of governance dynamics compared with the conventional public service. ABCs are often conceived to deliver a particular service or regulate or adjudicate matters with some distance from the government of the day, yet (perhaps counter-intuitively) are among the few remaining sites of patronage-like appointments in Canada. This article compiles ABC appointment data (N = 2,248) from the Province of Alberta over two distinct periods—the Notley government (2015–2019) and the Kenney/Smith governments (2019–2024)—to explore the character and patterns of appointments. We find mixed evidence that appointments to ABCs with more formal autonomy are more likely to be politicized. Some metrics also suggest that the conservative party appointees are slightly more often politically connected, particularly in ABCs that reside in high priority policy areas for the appointing government, and in particular in crown corporations and regulatory agencies.

Darwin describes the Origin of Species as 'one long argument'. The exact structure of this argument has been the subject of controversy among philosophers of biology. I will propose a novel analysis that sheds new light on Darwin’s argument. The central claim will be that the evidence that supports the theory of common descent can only satisfactorily support it only after the theory of natural selection has been regarded as an in principle possibility. This account helps us understand some enigmatic features of the structure of the Origin and has consequences for evidentialism and Bayesianism as applied to Darwin’s argument.

I present a heretofore untheorised form of lay science, called extitutional science, whereby lay scientists, by virtue of their collective experience, are able to detect errors committed by institutional scientists and attempt to have them corrected. I argue that the epistemic success of institutional science is enhanced to the extent that it takes up this extitutional criticism. Since this uptake does not occur spontaneously, extitutional interference in the conduct of institutional science is required. I make a proposal for how to secure this epistemically beneficial form of lay interference.

Diabetes mellitus affects about 830 million people worldwide, with 2.5 million diabetes-related deaths per year. The estimated prevalence of diabetes among psychiatric in-patients in the UK is 10%, and the increased risk of poor diabetes-related physical health outcomes among people with a severe mental illness (SMI) is detrimental to their mental health and social functioning. This article uses two fictitious case vignettes inspired by experience in an in-patient psychiatric facility to explore the challenges of managing diabetes in this setting in the UK. The relationship between psychiatric disorders, their symptoms and management of physical health conditions, including health promotion, monitoring and pharmacological therapy, creates a challenge in the optimal management of diabetes. Recommendations for improving diabetes management in people with SMI are divided into those requiring insulin and those not requiring insulin.

It is often claimed that biology is autonomous from the physical sciences, but this is seldom made precise. This paper makes explicit, for the first time, five distinct ‘autonomy of biology’ theses. Three moderate theses concerning scientific status, methodological distinctness, and non-reducibility of biology to physics, are correct, and are nearly universally accepted. Two stronger theses concerning the exclusivity of biological explanation and irrelevance of physical laws, are shown to be false on the basis of two case studies of physical explanations of biological phenomena. Which scales and laws are explanatorily relevant for a particular phenomenon must be decided empirically.

The bonus-malus system (BMS) is a widely recognized and commonly employed risk management tool. A well-designed BMS can match expected insurance payments with estimated claims even in a diverse group of risks. Although there has been abundant research on improving bonus-malus (BM) systems, one important aspect has been overlooked: the stationary probability of a BMS satisfies the monotone likelihood ratio property. The monotone likelihood ratio for stationary probabilities allows us to better understand how riskier policyholders are more likely to remain in higher premium categories, while less risky policyholders are more likely to move toward lower premiums. This study establishes this property for BMSs that are described by an ergodic Markov chain with one possible claim and a transition rule +1/-d. We derive this result from the linear recurrences that characterize the stationary distribution; this represents a novel analytical approach in this domain. We also illustrate the practical implications of our findings: in the BM design problem, the premium scale is automatically monotonic.

This article analyses the fanghuiju 访惠聚 campaign as a core component of grassroots governance in Xinjiang. It traces its evolution from Mao-era mobilization practices to a systematized mechanism of authoritarian control in the Xi Jinping era. Moving beyond institutional and security-centric frameworks, the study situates fanghuiju as a regionally initiated, localized adaptation by the Xinjiang government and grassroots cadres that blends revolutionary traditions in China with contemporary innovations in surveillance, personalized datafication and ideological governance. Drawing on state media, policy documents and extensive analysis of work team literature, this paper argues that fanghuiju work teams represent a localized fusion of Maoist mobilization and Xi-era high-tech governance. They function as tools for grassroots surveillance, political indoctrination and socio-economic restructuring, marking a shift from episodic campaigns to permanent, embedded governance that blends top-down control with bottom-up engagement.