Study: College women face greater risk of sexual violence than others

Washington State University

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Young women attending college face a dramatically higher risk of sexual violence than those who don’t, especially if they live on campus, according to a new analysis of national crime data by Washington State University researchers.

The findings were stark: Between 2015 and 2022, the six-month risk of sexual violence was 74% higher for college-enrolled women ages 18-24 than for those not enrolled. Among college students, the rate among women living on campus was triple that of commuter students.

Those figures represented a sharp change from 2007-2014, when the risk of sexual violence was similar between college women and those not attending college — and they upend the trend from the years before that.

“To an extent, I was surprised,” said Amelie Pedneault, an associate professor in WSU’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology in Pullman and co-author of the report. “These comparisons had always shown that women who were not attending college were at higher risk. This was cited in multiple studies beforehand. Now it’s the opposite.”

The findings, based on surveys of 61,869 women from 2007-2022 in the National Crime Victimization Survey, were published in the Journal of American College Health. Kathryn DuBois, an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at WSU Vancouver, was the lead and corresponding author.

The highest prevalence of sexual violence was found among women living on-campus from 2015-22; during each six-month period during that range, on average, an estimated 1 in 100 women reported an instance of sexual violence.

Any sexual violence is too much, DuBois said, and college officials should redouble their efforts to make campuses safer for young women—especially given the many other benefits for young people living in a campus community.

“The university experience is so valuable,” she said. “Especially the on-campus experience.”

The National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, aims to capture the full impact of crime on society, including unreported crimes, by interviewing a representative sample of U.S. households about their experiences with crime every six months over a period of 3.5 years. Each year, data are gathered from a nationally representative sample of some 240,000 people, ages 12 or older, in 150,000 households; the sample includes people living in group quarters such as dormitories and boarding houses, but excludes those living in military bases or institutional settings.

“The real strength of our study is we’re using this survey that’s nationally representative,” DuBois said. “It allows us to compare risks for college women with non-college women, and our results apply to all women attending college, not just those enrolled in high-end research universities.”

Although NCVS data does not allow the study to explain the shift, it does note that it coincided with three major social developments: the campus anti-rape movement, culminating in the creation of a federal task force on the issue in 2014; the #MeToo movement, raising awareness around the pervasive nature of sexual abuse; and the rise of a misogynistic “manosphere” online, fueling hateful and toxic attitudes toward women.

The influence of these social forces on sexual violence isn’t clear. It is possible that the prominence of the anti-rape and #MeToo movements spurred an increased awareness of sexual violence that resulted in greater recognition in the surveys.

However, if that were the case, they would have expected to see a larger increase in recognition of unwanted touching or threats, as opposed to rape and physical attacks, reflecting a growing awareness of the different forms of sexual violence. The NCVS surveys respondents about attempted or completed rape, attempted or completed sexual assault (defined as groping and other forms of unwanted contact) and threats of rape or sexual assault.

But the researchers found that even as the overall prevalence of sexual violence increases, the proportion of rape and violent assault remained the same, suggesting it was not a result of increased recognition. Also, if the greater awareness were leading to increased recognition, the researchers said they would have expected to see an effect on the non-college population as well.

The researchers note that certain components of college life—from the ways living spaces are organized to conventions around drinking—contribute to a “zone of vulnerability” for young women, and especially first-year students.

Pedneault also emphasized the need to focus on those committing offenses and their motivations—efforts that would need to begin before their college years. Beginning to teach boys about forming healthy relationships as early as middle school can be effective, she said.

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Journal

Journal of American College Health

DOI

10.1080/07448481.2025.2563024 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

College enrollment, on-campus residence, the campus anti-rape movement, and sexual violence risk among women aged 18 to 24 years

 

When irrigation backfires

Global farming practices are driving heat stress and water strain, VUB researchers warn

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

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Three new high-profile studies led by Dr. Yi Yao (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and ETH Zurich) show that while irrigation may be seen as a tool to dampen heat extremes, its benefits will come with adverse impacts.

In a first study published in Nature Communications examining historical irrigation data over 1901-2014, the team looked at how expanding irrigation has affected extreme heat conditions. Using six state-of-art Earth System models, to increase the robustness of the results, they found that irrigation has helped reduce the frequency of very high air-temperatures (“dry heat” extremes) in heavily irrigated regions. However, because irrigation also raises air humidity, its damping effect on “humid-heat” stress (exact term is wet-bulb temperature) was much weaker. “We know that for people, humid-heat can be more dangerous than dry heat. For the same absolute temperature, the humidity level greatly affects their capacity of coping with the heat stress” states Dr. Yi Yao, lead author of the study and a researcher at ETH Zurich, who performed this research during his PhD at the VUB. “We show in the study that in certain parts of the world, irrigation has made humid-heat stress worse. This may endanger millions of people who live in these areas” he adds.

In a second study published also in Nature Communications, the researchers looked into the future and projected how future greenhouse-gas emissions and irrigation practices together will shape the risks of dry and humid heat stress over the course of this century. For this, they performed future simulations with an Earth System model with varying emission pathways and irrigation scenarios. They show that while irrigation can help moderate dry-heat extremes somewhat, it cannot counter the overall warming trend. “Projections show that people will face many more hours of extreme humid heat each year — in some tropical regions, over a thousand extra hours per year compared to the past. These conditions will be extremely challenging to adapt to.” warns Prof. Wim Thiery, climate scientist at the VUB and senior author of both studies. “The study worryingly shows that irrigation will tend to amplify those humid-heat risks in places such as South Asia, where today already, life-threatening heat waves occur year after year. In a previous study we have calculated that about three quarters of the children born in 2020 in India will live through unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves assuming we continue on our emission track.”

In the third study published in Nature Water, the team examined how the global spread of irrigation has affected freshwater resources over historical timescales. “Using seven advanced Earth System models as part of a model intercomparison exercise, we found that irrigation expansion since 1901 has greatly increased water losses from land through increased evapotranspiration, a depletion which has not been compensated by chances in local rainfall” explains Dr. Yao. This implies that due to rapidly expanding irrigation for agriculture, more water is leaving the land than returning to it through precipitation. This imbalance has caused significant regional water losses, especially in hot spot areas for agricultural irrigation. In some of these regions, land water storage has declined by up to 500 mm from 1901 to 2014 over South Asia and Central North America in particular. “Our study is raising alarm bells on the fact that both irrigation and climate change are depleting soils, rivers, and groundwater, raising concerns about long-term water security” warns Dr. Yao. “What is concerning is that major irrigation regions are already on unsustainable paths and call for urgent adoption of water-saving technologies: efficient irrigation methods, for example by installing drip or sprinkler systems, and shifting towards crops that require less water, to prevent further depletion of vital freshwater supplies” concludes Prof. Thiery.

These findings send a clear message: irrigation cooling the air isn’t the full picture — when heat is paired with humidity, irrigation actually enhances human health risks. Adaptation planning for rising impacts of climate change on agriculture must therefore go beyond just expanding irrigation. It must improve irrigation efficiency so that water resources depletion as well as human heat stress escalation are limited. And perhaps most importantly, we must cut greenhouse-gas emissions, today, to limit the worst effects of rising global temperatures.

 

References

Yao, Y., Ducharne, A., Cook, B.I. et al. Impacts of irrigation expansion on moist-heat stress based on IRRMIP results. Nat Commun 16, 1045 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56356-1

Yao, Y., Satoh, Y., van Maanen, N. et al. Compounding future escalation of emissions- and irrigation-induced increases in humid-heat stress. Nat Commun 16, 9326 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64375-1 

Yao, Y., Thiery, W., Ducharne, A. et al. Irrigation-induced land water depletion aggravated by climate change. Nat Water (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-025-00529-1

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Journal

Nature Water

DOI

10.1038/s44221-025-00529-1 

 

Two small changes, that may transform agriculture

Researchers from Aarhus University are one step closer to understanding how some plants survive without nitrogen. A breakthrough that could eventually reduce the need for artificial fertilizer in crops such as wheat, maize, or rice

Aarhus University

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image: 

Barley is one of the crops that seems to respond positively to a genetic fix that enables it to fixate nitrogen from the air through symbiosis with bacteria.

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Credit: Cliff from Arlington, Virginia, USA (Wikimedia Commons)

"We are one step closer to a greener and climate-friendlier food production."

That is the assessment from Kasper Røjkjær Andersen and Simona Radutoiu, both professors of molecular biology at Aarhus University.

The two researchers led a new study where they discovered an important key to understanding how we can reduce agriculture’s need for artificial fertilizer.

Plants need nitrogen to grow, a nutrient that most crops solely get from fertilizer. Only a few plants, such as peas, clover, and beans, can manage without it. They live in symbiosis with special bacteria that convert nitrogen from the air into a form that the plant can use.

Today, researchers around the world are striving to understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms behind this special ability, so that it one day may be transferred to crops such as wheat, barley, and maize.

This would make the plants self-sufficient in nitrogen and thus reduce the need for artificial fertilizer, which currently accounts for about two percent of the world's total energy consumption and emits large amounts of CO2.

The researchers from Aarhus University have identified the small changes in the plants’ receptors that cause them to switch-off the immune system and allow a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Friend or foe?
Plants use receptors on the surface of their cells to pick up signals from microorganisms in the soil.    

Some bacteria emit a chemicals which signal that they are "enemies" and that the plants need to defend themselve. Others are "friends" that help provide nutrition.

Legumes, such as peas, beans, and clover, invite special bacteria into their roots. Here, the bacteria convert nitrogen from the air and pass it on to the plant. This cooperation is called symbiosis, and it is the reason why legumes can grow without artificial fertilizer.

The researchers from the Aarhus University discovered that this ability is largely controlled by two amino acids – two small "building blocks" of a protein in the plants’ roots.

“This is a remarkable and important finding," Simona Radutoiu points out.
The protein in the roots functions as a "receptor" that receives signals from the bacteria. It decides whether the plant should sound the alarm (immune system) or welcome the bacteria (symbiosis).

The researchers found a small area in the protein, which they have called Symbiosis Determinant 1. The area acts as a kind of switch that determines which message is sent inside the plant cell.

By changing just two amino acids in this switch, the researchers could get a receptor that normally triggers an immune response to instead start symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

"We have shown that two small changes can cause plants to alter their behavior on a crucial point – from rejecting bacteria to cooperating with them," Simona Radutoiu explains.

Possible in wheat, barley, and maize?
In the laboratory the researchers successfully modified the plant Lotus japonicus. But the same principle proved to apply in barley.

"It is quite remarkable that we are now able to take a receptor from barley, make small changes in it, and then nitrogen fixation works again," says Kasper Røjkjær Andersen.

And the perspectives are big. If the modification can be transferred to other crops, eventually it may be possible to breed cereal plants such as wheat, maize, or rice with the ability to fix nitrogen themselves – just as legumes do today.

"But we have to find the other, essential keys first," says Simona Radutoiu, adding:

"Only very few crops can perform symbiosis today. If we can extend that to widely used crops, it can really make a big difference on how much nitrogen needs to be used."

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09696-3 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Two residues reprogram immunity receptors for nitrogen-fixing symbiosis

Article Publication Date

5-Nov-2025

 

Concealed deals drive up 401(k) fees

When mutual funds share revenue with plan administrators, employees get higher costs and lower performance

University of Texas at Austin

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In 401(k) plans, one of the attractions has always been that employees choose where to invest their retirement funds. The average plan offers 28 options, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Employees might assume those options are picked to serve their best interests. But new research from Clemens Sialm, professor of finance at Texas McCombs, suggests they’re also serving someone else’s interests. Many funds are paying plan administrators to include them in a plan’s menu, a practice called revenue-sharing.

The result: Without knowing it, employees may be offered funds with higher fees and lower performance.

“It is a significant problem if employees do not understand the costs of their investment options in 401(k) plans,” Sialm says.

In the study, Sialm investigated the prevalence of revenue sharing and how it might influence recordkeepers: companies that administer retirement plans.

With Veronika Pool of Vanderbilt University and Irina Stefanescu of the Federal Reserve, he looked at the 1,000 largest 401(k) plans reporting to the U.S. Department of Labor between 2009 and 2013.

The researchers found that recordkeepers are more likely to include funds that pay them.

• More than half of plans — 54% — included at least one fund that shared revenue with recordkeepers.
• Revenue-sharing funds were 60% more likely to be added to plans than non-revenue-sharing funds were. They were less likely to be deleted.

Higher Fees, Lower Returns

But revenue-sharing funds don’t necessarily pay off for workers who invest in them. They charge higher administrative fees than non-revenue-sharing funds — partly because they’re rebating an average 18% of those fees to recordkeepers.

“Plan sponsors and providers are willing to include these investment options on the plan because they are willing to cover a larger fraction of administrative costs,” Sialm says.

Besides higher fees, he found revenue-sharing funds delivered worse financial performance over time than funds that didn’t share revenue.

So, what should employees do? Sialm’s primary answer is that they should demand transparency from their employers about hidden fees in their plan’s menu. A 1% higher fee over 30 years could cost them tens of thousands in lost returns.

He suggests that employers lay out fees in a clear and concise format. “Disclosing this information in hidden footnotes in lengthy documents is not very helpful,” he says.

The most effective way to limit revenue sharing, Sialm adds, might be for employers to pay recordkeepers directly for administering their plans. That way, recordkeepers wouldn’t need to rely on hidden fees for part of their compensation.

“Administering 401(k) plans is expensive, and recordkeepers need to be compensated for their services,” he says. “It would be more fair if the sponsor companies would cover their administrative costs.”

“Mutual Fund Revenue Sharing in 401(k) Plans” is published in Management Science.

 

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Journal

Management Science

DOI

10.1287/mnsc.2023.01560 

Article Title

Mutual Fund Revenue Sharing in 401(k) Plans