Kyoto, Japan -- Our childhood experiences create ripple effects across our lives and with those whom we encounter. Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, have been linked to depression and dementia, and even to perpetuating abuse. The intergenerational transmission of abuse is well- known to affect the children of victims, and recent evidence has also connected a high number of ACEs to an increased risk of abusing elders, indicating broad impacts on later-life relationships and violent behavior.

However, attention is also turning to positive childhood experiences -- PCEs -- which include supportive family relationships, school belonging, and community support. Previous research suggests more PCEs are associated with lower stress and depression along with better health in adulthood. However, their association with the perpetration of elder abuse and cumulative ACE exposure has not yet been explored. A team of researchers at Kyoto University resolved to investigate the association between these opposing factors.

"By distinguishing family and community-related PCEs, we aimed to capture childhood influences on elder abuse from multiple perspectives," says first author Chie Koga.

A peer-reviewed conceptual analysis in Frontiers in Psychology introduces Clinical Organizational Science (COS), a framework from Tokyo-based DroR Corporation that explains why organizations often return to old patterns. The paper argues that durable transformation may require changes to everyday interaction structures, feedback practices, and repeated organizational routines—not only changes in individual attitudes or skills.

Researchers have identified four more members of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition, one of whom was the subject of great debate lasting for more than a century.

Anthropologists from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo led the work that analyzed DNA samples extracted from skeletal remains and found matches with DNA donated by living descendants. These new discoveries bring the total number of identified sailors of the Franklin expedition to six.

A new study of online communities suggests that their interaction dynamics can amplify small, local imbalances in opinions, rapidly turning initially mixed-opinion communities into highly-polarized ones—even without the algorithms and homogeneity-seeking behaviors typically blamed for sculpting echo chambers. Petter Törnberg of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on May 6, 2026.

A new analysis of inter-family marriages, in the mafia-type organized crime group ’Ndrangheta, suggests that matrimonial ties between non-powerful families may play a previously under-appreciated role in maintaining the resilience of the entire ’Ndrangheta network. Maurizio Catino and colleagues at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on May 6, 2026.

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