PUT THEM ON PSYCHEDELICS

Study shows more support needed for police mental health

A new study finds rising levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related mental health challenges across police organisations in three countries.

University of Technology Sydney

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Child abuse, murder, domestic violence. A glance at newspaper headlines is enough to highlight the challenging situations faced by police officers daily.

A new study finds rising levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related mental health challenges across three countries.

A lack of proper mental health support for police officers contributes to increased sick leave, early retirement and reduced job satisfaction. It can also impact judgement and performance in high-stakes moments, increasing risks to public safety.

The researchers examined demographic factors, trauma exposure and occupational stressors contributing to mental health outcomes in Australia, New Zealand, England and Wales. They identify key trends and insights into how policing organisations can enhance support systems.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Forensic Practice, was led by UTS Criminology Industry Fellow and former UK senior police officer Dr Alan Beckley, together with UTS Professor Philip Birch, Dr Joanna Wang and Arizona State University Professor Garth den Heyer.

“Every police officer has things in their memory that are traumatic, that they would prefer they didn't experience. Some learn to live with it and to cope with those memories, while others find it more difficult,” said Dr Beckley.

“Policing is an inherently risky and dangerous occupation. However, more must be done to reduce mental health injuries. The growing number of police officers medically retired due to mental health underscores the urgent need for effective interventions and support systems.”

The study, which compares and synthesises previous research, finds that variations in support structures, training and organisational culture can influence mental health outcomes.

It outlines implications for practice, including the adoption of evidence-based interventions, addressing stigma around mental health, training and support for managers to recognise signs of distress and PTSD, and continuous monitoring and evaluation of programs.

The findings are particularly relevant to policymakers, administrators and mental health professionals supporting law enforcement.

The paper emphasises that a one-size-fits-all approach is insufficient. Instead, it recommends that “tailored, evidence-based strategies should be developed to align with the specific needs of police forces in different jurisdictions”.

“Our research shows there are some things being done well, but there's still quite a way to go to address the problem satisfactorily.

"It's clear there are still too many police officers who are suffering and not getting support for mental health issues.

“The attrition rate – the number of police officers who are retiring early – is very high in all three countries. In some cases, it is difficult to recruit enough people to even replace those who are leaving,” said Dr Beckley.

“Our study underscores the importance of balancing job demands with adequate resources, including peer support, resilience and leadership training and evidence-based policies to reduce the negative impact of policing on mental wellbeing.”

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Journal

Journal of Forensic Practice

DOI

10.1108/jfp-02-2025-0013 

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Mental health and well-being amongst police officers: a three-country comparison through the application of the jobs demand-resources model

THE END OF STEALTH

Researchers detect aircraft-induced atmospheric ripples via optical scattering

Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Schematic illustration of detection principle based on atmospheric disturbance density field. 

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Credit: CUI Wenyu

Recently, the research team led by Professor CUI Wenyu from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with the research groups from Institute of Mechanics, CAS, specifically advances the simulation of optical scattering imaging from disturbed density fields and the analysis of signal characteristics.

"When a high-speed aircraft flies through the sky, it leaves behind invisible ripples in the air,” explained Prof. CUI, "and our method is to detect these atmospheric disturbances.”

The results have been published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics.

Atmospheric disturbance fields caused by high-speed aircraft are complex, unsteady phenomena that affect flight performance. Due to their wide influence and detectable nature, they offer great potential for indirect remote sensing.

In this study, the team proposed a novel approach: using active light sources to remotely detect the density field characteristics of atmospheric disturbances—thereby enabling long-range sensing of aircraft presence.

They designed a 3D optical tomography system to capture scattered light signals from disturbed regions. Based on fluid dynamics simulations, they built a model of the aircraft-induced density field and developed a framework to simulate scattering echo images.

To validate this concept, the team constructed a spatial distribution model of the aircraft-induced density field, along with a simulation framework for scattered light echo imaging. Based on this, they simulated ground-based observations of scattering echoes over distances exceeding 100 kilometers. 

To extract useful information from these signals, the researchers also developed a signal extraction method. They conducted a detailed analysis of the relationship between optical signal strength and spatial detection resolution, revealing the principles governing the transformation of density field features into detectable optical signatures.

The results demonstrate that this detection scheme can theoretically capture sharp spatial variations in atmospheric density within disturbed regions, thus verifying the feasibility of long-range optical detection of aircraft-induced atmospheric disturbance fields.

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Journal

Chinese Journal of Aeronautics

Article Title

Optical signal characteristics analysis of atmospheric disturbance density fields generated by high-speed aircraft

 

What environmental factors determine fish life history strategies in a river?

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.

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Mean principal component scores of fishes from 14 river basins, derived from their seven life history traits.

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Credit: Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

How do fish respond to changing hydrological and climatic conditions? This question lies at the core of ecological research. Previous studies have shown that life history traits in fish represent adaptive evolutionary responses shaped by long-term natural selection, and the life history theory offers a theoretical framework for understanding how environmental changes influence the composition and distribution of fish communities.

Recently, a multinational research team compiled life history trait data for 1,613 fish species across 14 major rivers worldwide. Their analysis revealed significant variation in the proportion of opportunistic, periodic, and equilibrium strategies among river systems. These differences were strongly associated with key environmental variables, including mean annual temperature, annual precipitation, annual variation in river discharge, and latitude.

“We found that opportunistic strategists are better adapted to warm, precipitation-rich rivers with high hydrological variability, whereas periodic strategists tend to thrive in systems with more predictable flow regimes,” explained Lan Zhu,  lead author of the study published in Water Biology and Security.

In addition, the researchers conducted a molecular phylogenetic analysis of 230 fish species from the Yangtze River to reconstruct the evolutionary history of their life history strategies.

“The results showed that before the Paleocene, it was dominated by periodic strategists,” shares Zhu. “However, since the prevalence of a monsoon climate and the overall alteration of precipitation patterns in the Miocene, the proportion of opportunistic strategists increased, suggesting a life history shift driven by climate-induced environmental instability.”

The team’s not only reveals the evolutionary pattern of life history strategies of Yangtze fishes, but also provides a theoretical foundation for ecological monitoring and management of riverine ecosystems in the future.

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Contact the author: Lan Zhu, State Key Laboratory of Breeding Biotechnology and Sustainable Aquaculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, zhulan@ihb.ac.cn.

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

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Journal

Water Biology and Security

DOI

10.1016/j.watbs.2025.100376 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Key environmental factors determining life history strategies of river fishes and their historical changes in the Yangtze River.

COI Statement

Huanzhang Liu and Martin Reichard are editorial board members of Water Biology and Security and were not involved in the editorial review or decision to publish this article. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

SPAGYRIC HERBALISM

Chemicals from turmeric and rhubarb could help fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria lurking in wastewater

Scientists monitoring wastewater find a range of antibiotic-resistant bacteria — but natural compounds show promise for fighting them off

Frontiers

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When we’re taking antibiotics, some of the dose is excreted with urine and feces and ends up in our wastewater. The presence of this low dose of antibiotic creates an opportunity for resistant bacteria to evolve. Scientists studying antibiotic resistant bacteria in wastewater at a treatment plant discovered multi-drug resistant strains of bacteria species which are usually not dangerous to healthy people, but which could transmit genes for antibiotic resistance to much more dangerous bacteria like E. coli.  

The scientists then challenged the bacteria with natural compounds which could potentially be included in wastewater treatment to kill off bacteria and fight antibiotic resistance. The most effective were curcumin, which comes from turmeric, and emodin, from rhubarb. 

“Without improved treatment, wastewater could serve as a breeding ground for ‘superbugs’ that may enter water resources such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, posing potential risks to public health,” said Dr Liyuan ‘Joanna’ Hou of Utah State University, senior author of the article in Frontiers in Microbiology. “Our goal was to isolate and characterize multidrug-resistant bacteria, explore the molecular mechanisms of resistance through whole-genome sequencing, and assess the potential of natural compounds as alternative mitigation strategies.” 

Survival of the resistant 

Antibiotic resistance develops when bacteria evolve to be less vulnerable to antibiotics. This is more likely to happen if bacteria are exposed to a dose of vaccine which is too low to kill them all; the survivors develop resistance. Someone infected with these resistant bacteria may then find that their treatment doesn’t work, potentially making routine surgery or illness much more dangerous.  

Some bacteria are resistant to several antibiotics; these infections are often treated with ‘last resort’ drugs like colistin. However, when Hou and her colleagues tested samples of effluent from a wastewater treatment plant in Logan, Utah, they found some colonies of bacteria that were resistant even to colistin. This underlines the urgency of finding ways of preventing and treating bacterial infection which minimize the use of antibiotics.  

The scientists screened their samples using one antibiotic, sulfamethoxazole, to identify nine different antibiotic-resistant strains. These strains of bacteria were then tested against multiple classes of antibiotic to see how many they resisted. Their genomes were also sequenced, which allowed the scientists to identify not just the bacteria themselves but genes which contribute to their antibiotic resistance. One strain, U2, which had the highest number and variety of antibiotic resistance genes, was resistant to all the antibiotics tested.  

The strains represented species of Microbacterium, Chryseobacterium, Lactococcus lactis, and Psychrobacter, which are rarely dangerous to most people — but that doesn’t mean their presence is nothing to be worried about.  

“While not traditionally classified as top-priority clinical pathogens, some are opportunistic pathogens associated with infections such as pneumonia in immunocompromised individuals,” explained Hou. “These bacteria could also act as environmental reservoirs, transferring resistance genes to other bacteria, including clinically relevant pathogens.” 

Fighting back 

The scientists challenged colonies of these bacteria with different concentrations of 11 natural compounds: berberine, chlorflavonin, chrysin, curcumin, emodin, hesperidin, naringin, quercetin, resveratrol, rutin, and 2’-hydroxyflavone. They then looked at different measurements of the colonies’ health — cell growth, biofilm formation, and how active the bacteria were. 

“We selected a panel of compounds primarily derived from plants, such as curcumin from turmeric, quercetin from onions and apples, and emodin from rhubarb,” said Hou. “These compounds were chosen based on their reported antimicrobial or anti-biofilm properties in previous studies and their natural abundance, making them promising candidates for exploring new, environmentally friendly approaches to mitigate resistance.” 

They found that emodin and curcumin were best at inhibiting cell growth and biofilm formation, while curcumin and a higher dose of emodin reduced cell activity — although a low dose of emodin increased activity for several strains. However, Gram-negative bacteria like Chryseobacterium were resistant to all the compounds. 

“While natural compounds like curcumin and emodin show promise in inhibiting Gram-positive multidrug-resistant bacteria, further research is needed,” said Hou. “Future work should include testing these compounds in complex wastewater matrices, exploring synergistic effects with existing treatment processes, and assessing long-term impacts on microbial communities and resistance dynamics. Additionally, scaling up from laboratory studies to pilot-scale trials will be critical for evaluating feasibility and environmental safety.” 

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Journal

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2025.1612534 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

From Wastewater to Resistance: Characterization of Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria and Assessment of Natural Antimicrobial Compounds

Article Publication Date

10-Jul-2025

 

New tool maps hidden roles and risks in ecosystems

Data-driven approach reveals overlooked species at risk of extinction—and can help conservationists target their efforts more effectively

Complexity Science Hub

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image: 

Each dot on the graph represents a species. The color and shape of each dot show what type of species it is (like producers, invertebrates, or predators), and the size of the dot shows how much living material (biomass) that species has in the ecosystem.
The dots are not spread out randomly—they tend to form groups based on the classification:

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Credit: Complexity Science Hub

[Vienna, July 10, 2025] – Do you think you know which species are most vulnerable in an ecosystem? A novel analytical method developed by Italian physicists at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) suggests there's more to discover. In their recent study, they found out how species like lizards and rabbits in South Florida's cypress wetlands are among their ecosystem's most at-risk species, pointing to vulnerabilities that aren't always obvious.

The study, published in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, introduces an innovative tool to map and measure species' ecological roles and vulnerabilities. Compared to traditional models, it performs similarly or better, especially in identifying species at the most significant risk of extinction.

“We were able to reconstruct ecological roles entirely through network data, without requiring any biological knowledge on our part,” notes first author Emanuele Calò. “This makes the method particularly promising for large-scale biodiversity assessments and ecosystem management, especially in regions where ecological expertise or detailed field studies are limited,” adds Calò, from IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.

As a visiting student at CSH, Calò developed the new method with CSH researcher Vito D. P. Servedio and CSH junior fellow Giordano De Marzo.

A Data-Driven Approach

As ecosystems worldwide face mounting pressures from climate change, habitat loss, and overexploitation, conservationists urgently need better tools to prioritize species protection, point out the researchers. “Our data-driven approach provides a valuable, complementary, and cost-effective layer of insight.”

For instance, by pinpointing keystone species—those whose loss risks triggering wider coextinctions—the new approach might enable conservationists to direct limited resources and protective measures where they can make the most difference.

Dual Role: Predator and Prey

“With our method, we wanted to disentangle the dual role that every species plays, both as predator and prey,” explains De Marzo, also a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz. “The existing measures tend to compress these interactions into a single number, but ecosystems are more complex than that. Our approach captures both directions in the food web, allowing us to understand which species are keystone and most vulnerable.”

Using real-world data from six ecosystems, including the Florida Bay cypress and Coachella desert ecosystems, their method assigns every species two scores: importance, which captures how many others depend on a species as a food source; and robustness, which reflects how likely a species is to survive based on how flexible and successful it is at finding food.

Phytoplankton, Lizards, Rabbits, and Alligators

This bidimensional mapping revealed hidden vulnerabilities and keystone species with remarkable clarity. In the example of the Florida Bay cypress food web, it pinpointed high-importance species, such as phytoplankton, which often trigger widespread co-extinctions if removed, and high-robust species, including alligators, which tend to survive longer through ecosystem collapse due to diverse diets and low vulnerability to predation. 

In addition, the new framework identifies low-robustness species, such as lizards and rabbits. Even if marginal to the food web, these are still at significant risk of extinction, pointing to hidden vulnerabilities often overlooked in conservation planning.

Interdisciplinarity

"What we found particularly striking in our research was how economic complexity methods could be directly applied to ecological systems. When you mention using economic tools to study ecology, people often raise their eyebrows: these seem entirely unrelated. But that's precisely what makes complex systems science so powerful,” says Servedio.

“The mathematical frameworks we use to understand how countries develop competitive advantages in global trade networks can reveal how species interact and coexist within ecosystems,” explains the CSH researcher. This demonstrates that complex systems often share these underlying structural patterns, whether about economies or ecosystems. So while the context is different—in the new study, the researchers are looking at species instead of industries, habitats instead of markets —, the fundamental network dynamics are remarkably similar.

“This kind of methodological transfer is becoming increasingly important in our field. Some of our most significant insights come from borrowing tools from seemingly unrelated disciplines and discovering these unexpected connections," concludes Servedio.
 

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About the Study

The paper “Species vulnerability and ecosystem fragility: A dual perspective in food webs,” by Emanuele Calò, Giordano De Marzo, and Vito D. P. Servedio was published in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals and is available online (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2025.116741).

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About CSH

The Complexity Science Hub (CSH) is Europe’s research center for the study of complex systems. We derive meaning from data from a range of disciplines – economics, medicine, ecology, and the social sciences – as a basis for actionable solutions for a better world. CSH members are Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), BOKU University, Central European University (CEU), Graz University of Technology, Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria (IT:U), Medical University of Vienna, TU Wien, University of Continuing Education Krems, Vetmeduni Vienna, Vienna University of Economics and Business, and Austrian Economic Chambers (WKO).

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Journal

Chaos Solitons & Fractals

DOI

10.1016/j.chaos.2025.116741 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Species vulnerability and ecosystem fragility: A dual perspective in food webs