Private health insurance contributes to poorer health among people with the lowest levels of education.

Culture is not unique to humans: Over the last century, research has shown that many animal species are capable of cultural transmission.

The true scope of animal cultures has remained unclear: How broad cultural repertoires in animals are, and how important cultural learning is for their everyday lives, has remained poorly understood.

Shedding light on the true scope of chimpanzee culture: By directly studying social learning in action, a new study shows that chimpanzee culture extends far beyond what was previously recognized.

A new longitudinal study by the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) has uncovered a nuanced relationship between digital literacy¹ and cyberbullying among local adolescents.  The findings show that teens with lower levels of digital literacy are more vulnerable to cyberaggression, and those who make the least progress over time are at heightened risk of becoming victims of cyberbullying.  In contrast, adolescents who experience cyberbullying early on often develop stronger digital literacy skills, likely because they learn to navigate threats, avoid attacks and protect themselves in an increasingly aggressive online environment.  

Citizen science projects are playing an increasingly important role in ecological and conservation research worldwide. In these programs, members of the public support researchers by submitting photographs, audio recordings, observations, or even by contributing to data analysis. In Hungary, no fewer than 17 such initiatives combined their datasets in a joint study. The authors aimed to understand which socio-economic and environmental factors influence participation patterns in Hungary. By comparing the spatial distribution of citizen science data with an independent administrative dataset (municipality level data on income, education, demography, density and protected areas), the researchers identified several general trends as well as numerous project-specific relationships. For example, they found more per capita observations from municipalities with higher proportions of protected natural areas and lower population densities. Furthermore, excluding Budapest, the capital, both the proportion of people with diplomas and the proportion of elderly people showed a positive correlation with participation activity. In contrast, no consistent general pattern emerged regarding wealth or the proportion of children, although several project-specific relationships were observed. The study not only reveals how citizen science data are distributed across Hungary, but also provides robust support for the view that various biases must be taken into account when analyzing such data. The authors hope that their findings will help researchers in other countries design more effective projects and produce more accurate analyses by accounting for some of these or similar biases. 

Teenagers who view exercise as fun, social and beneficial to their health are significantly fitter by age 17 than those motivated by competition or pressure. Tracking more than 1,000 adolescents, the study found early attitudes strongly predict later fitness. Intrinsic motivations were key, especially for girls, while fear of judgement reduced fitness. Researchers suggest programs should prioritise enjoyment, inclusion and wellbeing over competition.