Different digital communication tools are associated with mental health in different ways among older adults in Canada, according to a new study published June 24, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Hossam Ali-Hassan of York University, Canada, and colleagues.

 A study of more than 60 countries shows those with faster declines in the social acceptability of intimate partner violence against women also tend to have had faster reductions in rates of such violence, as well as faster human development improvements. Irina Vartanova of the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Global Health. 

A new study examining Fair Workweek laws across five major U.S. jurisdictions finds that labor regulations have made work schedules more predictable for service sector workers, without triggering wage cuts or benefit reductions. These laws require large retail and food service employers to provide at least two weeks’ advance notice of schedules, compensate workers for last-minute changes, and ban back-to-back closing and opening shifts. 

Neanderthals died out around 40,000 years ago, possibly due to climate change and competition and interbreeding with modern humans, but no one knows for sure. New research on one Neanderthal population in Belgium right before extinction shows that it had healthy levels of genetic diversity and no signs of stress from interbreeding with modern humans. The findings suggest that extinction played out differently across the vast range that Neanderthals occupied across Europe and Central Asia.