Using US household grocery data from 2017–2022, Hu et al. find that lockdowns temporarily shifted purchases towards less processed foods, while ultraprocessed food spending later rose above pre-pandemic levels.

Global media gives less cross-border attention to climate-linked hazards (such as floods, storms and droughts) than to geophysical disasters. Attention rises with deaths and is stronger between socially connected countries.

Robey and Light decompose declines in US imprisonment by race and offence category and find that in most cases, declines in imprisonment and racial disparities are better explained by falling crime rates than changes in arrests or case processing.

Fuchs-Schündeln and Holub show evidence of a homophily bias in scientific grant application review—evaluators are more favourable to applicants from their own country and, to a lesser extent, of their own gender.

Weber et al. show that the normally conserved spatial organization of the digit response maps in primary somatosensory cortex is altered in patients with surgically repaired hand nerves.

Direct recordings from the human brain reveal a hierarchy in planning to speak, with neural activity organizing whole syllables before the individual sounds that compose them are sequenced.

Climate change and misinformation are interconnected global crises shaped by tensions between individual, collective and vested interests. Drawing on climate psychology, we distil six insights for misinformation research to strengthen policy relevance, systems thinking and resilience to attacks.

From fake reviews that harm businesses, to humorous reviews that mock consumerism, to culture-war review bombing, some online reviews cannot be trusted to provide objective evaluations. Once a source of sincere advice, online review platforms have spawned new forms of disingenuous behaviour that may hurt consumers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming classrooms, and promising adaptive teaching and personalized education. However, AI tools may also weaken students’ ability to think and learn independently. Schools and universities should use AI as a coach to support self-regulated learning.

The logistics and structural barriers of many research conferences prevent full participation of people with disabilities. We review the websites of 161 conferences and show that there is substantial room for improved communication about barriers. We also suggest ideas for quick and low-budget stopgap accessibility improvements.