From the 1970s onwards, Johnny & Associates became a dominant force in Japan’s entertainment industry despite longstanding sexual abuse allegations against its founder Johnny Kitagawa, which went largely unaddressed. In a new study, Professor Yukiko Nishikawa examines why this silence persisted, arguing it reflects a ‘conspiracy of silence’ sustained by media, institutional, and cultural dynamics. Her analysis highlights structural complicity and calls for systemic reforms to prevent similar failures in the future.

New research pushes the earliest known origins of dice, gambling, and the exploration of randomness back six millennia and into North America.

A new study tracking global progress on child mortality finds that the world will miss a key United Nations (UN) health target by at least five years at current rates, with the burden falling heavily on Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings were published this week in the open-access journal PLOS One by Min Liu of Peking University, Beijing, China, and colleagues.

In a study of U.S. adults, walking was, by far, the most popular leisure-time physical activity, while rural residents also enjoyed gardening, hunting and fishing, and urban residents more commonly reported running, weightlifting and dance. Urban residents were more likely than rural residents to meet physical activity guidelines. Christiaan Abildso of West Virginia University, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on April 1, 2026.