Volume 5 Issue 9, September 2021

The rich diversity of India offers challenges and opportunities. Researchers can navigate by adapting practices and communication to the local context and including indigenous meaning systems in the vocabulary of the discipline, writes Purnima Singh.

Requiring undergraduate students to perform what is termed original research for their thesis, an investigation that cannot constitute a replication of an existing study, is a failed opportunity for science and education, argues Daniel Quintana.

The ethics of research into the genetics of sexuality is not straightforward. A new study by Zietsch et al. investigates a hypothesis for the evolutionary basis of same-sex sexual behaviour. This increases our understanding of the genetics of complex behaviour, raising questions about whether and how such knowledge should be used.

Biobanks facilitate large-scale tests of hypotheses that may advance health, but whether biobanking participants adequately comprehend the potential uses of their data should concern researchers and the public. Consent matters because it provides a singular safeguard and a participatory mechanism to influence science’s production of new forms of power.

Peters and Kriegeskorte review the behavioural and neural-network-modelling literature on object-based visual representations. They call for new tasks that will bridge research in cognitive sciences and engineering in this domain.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Petherick, Goldszmidt et al. show that, from March to December 2020, adherence to physical distancing fell worldwide, while mask-wearing adherence increased.

Xie et al. directly observe the percolation phase transition of information on large-scale online social media and find that the positive-feedback coevolution between users’ activity level and network structure greatly increases the spreading power.

Archaeological and biomolecular investigations of ancient sheep remains from the site of Obishir V in southern Kyrgyzstan reveal that domestic livestock and Neolithic lifeways reached the heart of Central Asia by ca. 6,000 BCE, thousands of years earlier than previously recognized.

Humans display biases in evaluations of social groups, such as the negativity bias. Shin and Niv present a model that suggests that this bias may arise from inferring the hidden causes of group members’ behaviours.

Suthaharan et al. show that levels of paranoia increased in the general population during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, in association with more erratic belief updating. Government policies also played a role.

Are vocal emotions perceived as categories (for example, anger) or as dimensions (for example, an intense negative emotion)? Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging and magneto-encephalography, Giordano et al. find that categories prevail in early (less than 200 ms) neural representations, whereas dimensions emerge later (240 ms and more than 500 ms).

During intergroup conflict, decision-makers must often consider whether their actions will harm noncombatant members of the outgroup. Here, Han et al. examine cognitive and neural processes during ‘collateral damage’ scenarios, revealing decreased avoidance of harm to outgroup civilians when conflict escalates.

Genes associated with brain asymmetry are involved with the internal skeletons of cells, and are especially active in the embryo. Some of these genes are associated with handedness and risk for psychiatric disorders.

Patterns of gene expression vary across the human cerebral cortex. Here, Misic et al. reveal a ventromedial–dorsolateral gradient of gene assemblies and show that this corresponds to a functional gradient between affective and perceptual domains.

This research finds that genetic effects associated with same-sex sexual behaviour are associated with more sexual partners in individuals who only engage in opposite-sex sexual behaviour. This could help explain the evolutionary maintenance of same-sex sexual behaviour.