Keep the hands in mind: A meta-analysis of correlations between fine motor skills and reading, writing, mathematics, and cognitive development in children and adolescents" Evidence suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) relate to academic and cognitive development; however, findings are unclear, strewn across multiple disciplines, and lack adequate synthesis. We conducted the first comprehensive meta-analysis examining the links between different FMS facets (i.e., dexterity, speed, graphomotor, bimanual, general) and a broad range of academic- cognitive skills (i.e., sub-categories of reading, writing, mathematics, and cognition).

"Mapping interactions between adversity and neuroplasticity across development" Highlights: We propose a theoretical framework to formalize major ways in which experience (particularly adversity) interacts with neuroplasticity during human development. Adversity can uniquely influence neural circuitry depending on the state of neuroplasticity during the developmental timing of exposure (i.e., neuroplasticity as a moderator). Neuroplasticity is itself sensitive to experience. Adversity can accelerate or delay its developmental course, as well as amplify or dampen its magnitude (i.e., neuroplasticity as an outcome).

"Statistics is not measurement: The inbuilt semantics of psychometric scales and language-based models obscures crucial epistemic differences" This article provides a comprehensive critique of psychology's overreliance on statistical modelling at the expense of epistemologically grounded measurement processes. It highlights that statistics deals with structural relations in data regardless of what these data represent, whereas measurement establishes traceable empirical relations between the phenomena studied and the data representing information about them.

"Why collective behaviours self-organize to criticality: a primer on information-theoretic and thermodynamic utility measures" Collective behaviours are frequently observed to self‑organize to criticality. Existing proposals to explain these phenomena are fragmented across disciplines and only partially answer the question. This primer compares the underlying, intrinsic, utilities that may explain the self‑organization of collective behaviours near criticality. We focus on information‑driven approaches (predictive information, empowerment and active inference), as well as an approach incorporating both information theory and thermodynamics (thermodynamic efficiency).

"Collective predictive coding as model of science: formalizing scientific activities towards generative science" Overview of collective predictive coding as model of science (CPC-MS).

"The ‘made-up mind’. Deriving new hypotheses on delusions from general psychological models of belief maintenance" Highlights Delusions may be maintained by changed external input and prediction error processing. Perceived belief utility and high accordance with related beliefs favor maintenance. Systematized delusions may result from deriving auxiliary hypotheses or latent causes. How well conflicting evidence is integrated depends on the context in which it is encountered.

"Social networks affect redistribution decisions and polarization" "Whom you observe in your daily life alters your willingness to tax the rich" Recent research suggests that the visibility of extreme wealth within a person’s social circle drives their support for economic redistribution but simultaneously fosters political polarization and personal dissatisfaction. A study published in PNAS Nexus combines computational modeling with online experiments to demonstrate how network structure creates specific biases in how individuals perceive inequality.

"Putting nature on the balance sheet: how to account for the ecological costs of our actions" Economists should consider forests and wetlands as well as factories and farms. A book review of "On Natural Capital: The Value of the World Around Us", Partha Dasgupta (2025) On Natural Capital recaps the roaring economic advances of the past 75 years, including improved life expectancies and education and fewer people living in poverty.

"Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future ", an open access book from the Nature Positive Initiative Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Futureis a collaborative effort from a wide range of authors, covering many sectors of society. ‘Nature Positive’ is a recently agreed upon global goal to “halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 on a 2020 baseline and achieve full recovery by 2050…

"The immorality of too much money" Study across 20 countries shows extreme wealth seen as more immoral in richer, equal societies — tied to moral purity beliefs. “Filthy rich” takes new meaning. In Fast Company: ow.ly/zJBe50XsSWx In PNAS Nexus: ow.ly/JyJ950XsSWy In some societies, people find excessive wealth immoral, while others are structured so that having too much money is morally neutral or even praised.

"The adaptive value of stubborn goals" Humans show strong attachment to goals they have selected. While often framed as a maladaptive bias, we outline three adaptive functions leading to stable goals: efficient cognitive resource allocation, shielding from interference, and scaffolding motivation in the absence of immediate and tangible reward signals. These considerations shape the algorithmic architectures that support naturalistic goal pursuit, such as the mechanisms that select, implement, and revise goals.

"Decisions: Studying and Supporting People Facing Hard Choices" A lively, authoritative insider’s account of how we make decisions and how decision-making research has developed over the last half century. Decisions describes the evolution of decision science (also called behavioral decision research and related to behavioral economics) through its application to challenging personal and public policy decisions, since the inception of the field.

"Harmony in the brain: A narrative review on the shared neural substrates of emotion regulation and creativity" Common neural pathways and brain regions though have not been reported yet. The neural mapping of all creativity and emotion regulation forms is described. Regions and networks common to these functions are discussed. A shared brain mechanism is suggested and limitations are criticized.

"Blocking of associative learning by explicit descriptions" People given written descriptions often learn and decide differently from those learning from experience, even in formally identical tasks. This paper presents two experiments detailing how telling participants about the value of one stimulus impacts a keystone learning effect – blocking. The paper investigates if descriptions can be used to effectively block future trial-by-trial learning.

"The cultural macroevolution of arcade video games: innovation, collaboration, and collapse" Arcade video games evolved in a constrained design space, following patterns of diversification, stabilisation, and collapse that mirror macroevolutionary processes. Despite their historical significance and detailed digital records, arcade games remain underexplored in cultural evolution research. Drawing on a dataset of 7,205 machines spanning four decades, we reconstruct the evolutionary trajectories of arcade niches using a multi-scale framework that integrates trait-level innovation, genre-level selection, and systemic constraints.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves" William Shakespeare Dear Friends and Fellow Humans, I turn 70 today. For 7 decades I’ve had the privilege of living out my childhood dream, which was simply to UNDERSTAND. After spending more than half a century meeting people from all over the world willing to tell me their stories, I have found meaning, purpose and hope through advocating for their voices with music.

"End GDP mania: how the world should really measure prosperity" Last week’s United Nations General Assembly, held in New York City, generated no shortage of headlines. But one notable policy initiative from the world body was not discussed by world leaders when it should have been. UN secretary-general António Guterres has put together a high-level group of specialists to propose…

"Fast, slow, and metacognitive thinking in AI" Inspired by the ”thinking fast and slow” cognitive theory of human decision making, we propose a multi-agent cognitive architecture (SOFAI) that is based on ”fast”/”slow” solvers and a metacognitive module. We then present experimental results on the behavior of an instance of this architecture for AI systems that make decisions about navigating in a constrained environment.

"From Soundwaves to Brainwaves: The Transformative Power of Music" The human brain physically embodies rhythmic sound in a remarkablesymphony that has the power to heal. People resonate to music. They respond positively in ways that suggest that the rhythms of the brain and body, like neurons, breathing, or cardiac rhythms, are engaged when you listen to music. —Caroline Palmer, McGill University…

"A Relational View of Uncertainty" There is significant confusion and debate in entrepreneurship and strategy research about the nature and locus of uncertainty. Does uncertainty reside internally in the agent or externally in the environment? This article introduces a relational view of uncertainty (RVU) to help reframe this issue. In this framework, uncertainty is understood neither as purely subjective nor objective but as a relational phenomenon that depends on the agent's ability to navigate the challenges posed by their context.

"Power and profit drive what we eat: here’s why the food system needs a revolution" Decades of corporate control have shaped diets, harmed farmers and strained the planet — transforming the system will take collective action. Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet Stuart Gillespie Canongate Books (2025) Stuart Gillespie’s book Food Fight offers a sharp diagnosis: a global system once designed to stave off famine through cheap, calorie-dense foods now fuels obesity, disease, environmental harm and inequality.

"Critical Thinking for 21st-CenturyMedicine—Moving Beyond Illness Scripts" Clinical Reasoning for 21st-Century Medicine: Optimal clinical reasoning will involve an appropriate balance betweenillness scripts and pathophysiological reasoning. In our view, medical education has historically overemphasized the former—to which learners are predisposed even without explicit teaching— and underemphasized the latter. The risks of this historical approach will become even more salient as generative AI, especially in the form of large language models, assumes a greater role in clinical evaluation and diagnosis.

"Toward a computational framework for cognitive biology: Unifying approaches from cognitive neuroscience and comparative cognition" Computational models should explain both similarities and differences between species. Most aspects of neural function are broadly shared across species. Single neurons are complex computational devices, with a tree-like form. “Dendrophilia” – our proclivity for tree structures – is central to human cognition.

"Brain-body physiology: Local, reflex, and central communication" Behavior is tightly synchronized with bodily physiology. Internal needs from the body drive behavior selection, while optimal behavior performance requires a coordinated physiological response. Internal state is dynamically represented by the nervous system to influence mood and emotion, and body-brain signals also direct responses to external sensory cues, enabling the organism to adapt and pursue its goals within an ever-changing environment.

"Why kids need to take more risks: science reveals the benefits of wild, free play" Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents. Risky play can be defined as thrilling and exciting forms of play that involve uncertainty and perceived risks. Over the past two decades, research has emerged showing that opportunities for risky play are crucial for healthy physical, …