Scientists writing a policy forum article in the CABI One Health journal say the “plant world” needs to come out and claim its place at the One Health table as part of a desire to break down barriers that currently limit true cross-domain integration.

The researchers say that while plant health is increasingly recognized as a vital part of One Health, it lacks recognition and – historically focussed on health service provision, zoonotic diseases and antimicrobial resistance – One Health overlooks plant health in strategic plans.

According to the latest report from the IUNE Observatory of the A4U Alliance, 92% of scientific publications within the Spanish University System (SUE) originate from public universities, while only 8% are produced by private institutions. The report, developed by the INAECU Institute (a collaboration between the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, UAM,  and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, UC3M), provides a comprehensive analysis of the performance of Spanish universities using nearly fifty indicators related to teaching, research, and knowledge transfer.

Education projects supporting marginalised girls in lower-income countries are more likely to achieve lasting transformations when they mobilise whole communities as “agents of change”. In many low and middle-income countries, girls face persistent inequalities and social norms that limit their learning and life chances; those who live in extreme poverty, rural areas, or have disabilities, are especially vulnerable. Although programmes supporting marginalised girls’ education exist, their effects often fade after the initial funding stops, and they are especially vulnerable to wider ‘shocks’ such as economic turmoil, pandemics and natural disasters. The new study evaluated 27 projects from a UK Government-backed scheme for marginalised girls’ education, including in-depth case studies from Zimbabwe and Nepal. It finds that when these projects engage entire communities – community leaders, local organisations, and young women themselves – to participate in supporting girls’ education, the effects, despite these projects’ general vulnerability, are sustained.

In 1962, when environmentalist and author Rachel Carson penned "Silent Spring," alerting the world to the dangers of the pesticide DDT, it was the reproductive threat to birds – the bald eagle in particular – that spurred people to action.

Six decades later, Rutgers University–New Brunswick researchers are taking the measure of another global environmental pollutant by drawing parallels to the crisis Carson identified. This time, the pollutant is mercury, and the sentinels are penguins living in the farthest reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.

“With mercury, there’s an analogy to DDT,” said John Reinfelder, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and co-author of a study published in Science of the Total Environment examining mercury levels in the flightless, aquatic birds.