A research team led by Professor Myung Ki from the Department of Preventive Medicine at Korea University College of Medicine (KUCM) recently published a study examining the link between education levels and suicide rates. The study found that among young men aged 30 to 44 whose highest level of education was elementary school or lower, the suicide rate was 6.1 to 13 times higher than that of men with a university or higher degree across all survey periods (1995–2020). These findings highlight the profound impact of socioeconomic disparities on suicide rates.

When groups make decisions­—whether it’s humans aligning on a shared idea, robots coordinating tasks, or fish deciding where to swim—not everyone contributes equally. Some individuals have more reliable information, whereas others are more connected and have higher social influence. A new study by researchers at the Cluster of Excellence Science of Intelligence shows that a combination of uncertainty and heterogeneity plays a crucial role in how groups reach consensus. The findings, published in Scientific Reports by Vito Mengers, Mohsen Raoufi, Oliver Brock, Heiko Hamann, and Pawel Romanczuk, show that groups make faster and more accurate decisions when individuals factor in not only the opinions of their neighbors but also their confidence about these opinions and how connected those others are within the group. However, more confidence does not always equal smarter decisions. The study also shows that overconfident group members with wrong information might mislead the group.

Research on the flexible hybrid epidermal electronic system (FHEES) has attracted considerable attention due to its potential applications in human-machine interaction and healthcare. However, the heterogeneous integration of soft and stiff components makes balancing comfort and performance in designing and implementing FHEESs challenging. A new study, published in Research, reviews multimodal FHEESs in two types: all-in-one and assembled, highlighting the design challenge with different heterogeneous integration strategies.

A study by the National Land Survey of Finland and the University of Helsinki has revealed significant individual differences in how trees awaken for the growing season. Using a novel research setup tested for the first time, researchers laser-scanned a forest area every hour throughout an entire growing season. The findings provide valuable new insights into the impact of local growth conditions on tree growth.

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) demonstrate that the way sardines eat, altered due to the reduction in size of plankton, undermines the efficiency of their feeding and increases the likelihood of consuming more plastic fibres. Although no direct negative effects of this ingestion were identified, environmental changes may have a greater impact than previously thought on how pelagic fish interact with plastic pollutants.