The medical pros of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are being exaggerated while the risks are being downplayed, suggest the findings of a survey on the type of information patients and their relatives/friends recall having been given before the procedure, and published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

While biofuels may be part of the solution to replace fossil fuels and reduce climate-warming carbon emissions, bioenergy needs a new “climate-smart” policy to ensure that it produces both low-carbon products and promotes carbon sequestration, according to Madhu Khanna and colleagues. In this Policy Forum, Khanna et al. note that current policies to promote bioenergy in the United States, such as the Renewable Fuel Standard and Low Carbon Fuel Standard, do not distinguish between carbon intensities (CI) of the different farming practices (from tillage to fertilizer use) used to produce biofuels. They also do not account for the carbon sequestration produced by biofuel feedstocks. They suggest that new biofuel policies should include accounting of farming and production practices that reduce direct emissions and increase soil carbon sequestration. “Such a policy could lower the barriers for farmers to obtain credit for their carbon sequestration by bundling the market value of the crop with its CI and being sold into a single market for a carbon-differentiated biofuel feedstock rather than in two separate markets (a feedstock market and a carbon market),” Khanna et al. write.

The landscape of international higher education and science is changing fast amid uneven geopolitics of the transforming global order. Multipolar political economy and expansion of universities and research in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa provides a strong basis for national development and collaboration on common problems, paving the way to a shared global future, but this is jeopardized by intense United States pushback against openness and cooperation, affecting science, technology and cross-border mobility.

Public health officials had an unprecedented tool for near-instant, widespread communication during the COVID-19 pandemic and mpox epidemic: social media.

Now, one of the first studies of its kind, led by a health policy expert with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, has found that X (Twitter at the time of the events) brought advantages — as well as disadvantages — in getting the word out.

Carbon taxes are widely seen as one of the most effective policy options for reducing emissions. However, the main rationale behind initially low carbon taxes is often not to reduce emissions but to generate tax revenues or meet international expectations, according to a study published in the Cell Press journal One Earth on August 13. As noted by the authors, the observations cast doubt on whether carbon taxes should always be viewed as climate policies.