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This article examines depression as both an inevitable feature of, and a construct produced within, contemporary Western society, shaped by the forces of late capitalism and neoliberal ideology. Building on Mark Fisher's call to politicise depression, it engages with Marxist, critical mental health, and anti- psychiatry scholarship to argue that the definition and treatment of depression by the psy-professions serve the interests of the neoliberal agenda. Rather than viewing depression as an apolitical, individualised 'disorder', the article situates it as a deeply political phenomenon rooted in systemic conditions. At the same time, it acknowledges the undeniable reality of lived experiences of depression, which necessitate forms of care. The discussion explores alternatives to psychiatric 'treatment', highlighting the possibilities found in radical therapy and, more radically still, in the abolition of psychiatric hegemony in favour of transformative, collective forms of care.

1. The ability to forage and return home is essential to the success of bees as both foragers and pollinators. Pesticide exposure may cause behavioural changes that interfere with these processes, with consequences for colony persistence and delivery of pollination services. 2. We investigated the impact of chronic exposure (5-43 days) to field-realistic levels of a neonicotinoid insecticide (2·4 ppb thiamethoxam) on foraging ability, homing success and colony size using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in free-flying bumblebee colonies. 3. Individual foragers from pesticide-exposed colonies carried out longer foraging bouts than untreated controls (68 vs. 55 min). Pesticide-exposed bees also brought back pollen less frequently than controls indicating reduced foraging performance. 4. A higher proportion of bees from pesticide-exposed colonies returned when released 1 km from their nests; this is potentially related to increased orientation experience during longer foraging bouts. We measured no impact of pesticide exposure on homing ability for bees released from 2 km, or when data were analysed overall. 5. Despite a trend for control colonies to produce more new workers earlier, we found no overall impacts of pesticide exposure on whole colony size. 6. Synthesis and applications. This study shows that field-realistic neonicotinoid exposure can have impacts on both foraging ability and homing success of bumblebees, with implications for the success of bumblebee colonies in agricultural landscapes and their ability to deliver crucial pollination services. Pesticide risk assessments should include bee species other than honeybees and assess a range of behaviours to elucidate the impact of sublethal effects. This has relevance for reviews of neonicotinoid risk assessment and usage policy world-wide.

Enteric methane emissions from ruminant livestock are a significant source of atmospheric methane. Efforts to address rising atmospheric methane concentrations have led to an expansion of research into mitigating enteric methane production. One of the most effective approaches utilizes bromoform-containing feed supplements, such as the algae Asparagopsis spp., to inhibit methanogenesis in the rumen. Understanding the fate and persistence of bromoform in the rumen is important for developing safe, effective products and feeding strategies. This study conducted a series of in vitro rumen fluid experiments monitoring bromoform, dibromomethane, and bromomethane concentrations, methane production and several biochemical parameters to understand the inhibitory thresholds and degradation processes of these compounds. Analysis of the rumen fluid confirmed bromoform is rapidly dehalogenated. The half-life of bromoform was 26 min, coinciding with the production of dibromomethane accumulating to 22.1% of the initial bromoform amendment, but no bromomethane was detected. Dibromomethane demonstrated a considerably longer half-life of 775 min. In separate dose-response experiments, bromoform, dibromomethane and bromomethane all exhibited anti-methanogenic activity. Bromoform and dibromomethane produced sigmoidal-relationships between concentration and inhibition at approximately 1–2 µM, and yielded similar effective concentration values (EC50s) for antimethanogenic activity. Experiments using Asparagopsis taxiformis algae revealed less accumulation of bromoform and formation of dibromomethane, likely driven by a slower release from the seaweed material. The A. taxiformis dose response was less effective at inhibiting methane per mole of bromoform added compared with direct bromoform additions. These results have significant implications for understanding the dynamics of bromoform-mediated methane inhibition and will aid the development of effective halocarbon additives, feeding strategies, and testing protocols for bromoform and its degradation byproducts.

The ecological success of social insects is frequently ascribed to improvements in task performance due to division of labour amongst workers. While much research has focused on improvements associated with lifetime task specialization, members of colonies can specialize on a given task over shorter time periods. Eusocial bees in particular must collect pollen and nectar rewards to survive, but most workers appear to mix collection of both rewards over their lifetimes. We asked whether bumblebees specialize over timescales shorter than their lifetime. We also explored factors that govern such patterns, and asked whether reward specialists made more foraging bouts than generalists. In particular, we described antennal morphology and size of all foragers in a single colony and related these factors to each forager’s complete foraging history, obtained using radio frequency identification (RFID). Only a small proportion of foragers were lifetime specialists; nevertheless, >50% of foragers specialized daily on a given reward. Contrary to expectations, daily and lifetime reward specialists were not better foragers (being neither larger nor making more bouts); larger bees with more antennal olfactory sensilla made more bouts, but were not more specialized. We discuss causes and functions of short and long-term patterns of specialization for bumblebee colonies.

Consumption of polyphenols and dietary fiber as part of a normal diet is beneficial to human health. In this study, we examined whether different amounts of dietary soluble fiber (pectin) affect the absorption and metabolism of polyphenols from blackcurrant and green tea in rats. After 28 days, the rats fed blackcurrant and green tea with pectin (4 or 8%) had significantly lower body weight gain and food intake compared to the rats fed a control diet. Rats fed a blackcurrant and green tea diet with 8% pectin had significantly higher fecal nitrogen output and lower protein digestibility. No polyphenols were observed in the urine, feces and plasma of rats fed the control diet. Parent catechins and flavonols were absent in urine obtained from all diet groups. Gallocatechin glucuronide was only observed in the plasma of rats fed the blackcurrant and green tea diet without pectin. Meanwhile, epicatechin and catechin gallate were present in the feces of rats fed a blackcurrant and green tea diet with and without 4% pectin. Pectin (4 or 8%) added to the blackcurrant and green tea diet increased the plasma antioxidant capacity in rats. Inclusion of pectin in the diet altered the host absorption and metabolism of polyphenols from blackcurrant and green tea.

Biological and biomedical research is increasingly conducted in large, interdisciplinary collaborations to address problems with significant societal impact, such as reducing antibiotic resistance, identifying disease sub-types, and identifying genes that control for drought tolerance in plants. Many of these projects are data driven and involve the collection and analysis of biological data at a large-scale. As a result, life-science projects, which are frequently diverse, large and geographically dispersed, have created unique challenges for collaboration and training. We examine the communication and collaboration challenges in multidisciplinary research through an interview study with 20 life-science researchers. Our results show that both the inclusion of multiple disciplines and differences in work culture influence collaboration in life science. Using these results, we discuss opportunities and implications for designing solutions to better support collaborative tasks and workflows of life scientists. In particular, we show that life science research is increasingly conducted in large, multi-institutional collaborations, and these large groups rely on “mutual respect” and collaboration. However, we found that the interdisciplinary nature of these projects cause technical language barriers and differences in methodology affect trust. We use these findings to guide our recommendations for technology to support life science. We also present recommendations for life science research training programs and note the necessity for incorporating training in project management, multiple language, and discipline culture.

The global pandemic that emerged in Canada in March of 2020 has caused a pause to many aspects of our lives as well as a need for adaptation and change. Canada's choral music field has not been immune from dramatic shifts and changes due to the health restrictions around ensemble singing during the pandemic. Choral conductors across the country have been researching, collaborating, sharing, and working together to support each other through finding new practices and ways of engaging with our choirs in schools, religious settings, and communities. As we move into 2021, I wanted to reach out to choral conductors from across Canada to share their thoughts, reflections, learning, and challenges during the 2020 choral season, one that will certainly be remembered as both unprecedented and inimitable. This article highlights the reflections of 14 Canadian choral conductors during this time including challenges, positives, and words of encouragement as we move forward into 2021.

Virtual teams (i.e., geographically distributed collaborations that rely on technology to communicate and cooperate) are central to maintaining our increasingly globalized social and economic infrastructure. “Global Virtual Teams” that include members from around the world are the most extreme example and are growing in prevalence (Scott and Wildman in Culture, communication, and conflict: a review of the global virtual team literature, Springer, New York, 2015). There has been a multitude of studies examining the difficulties faced by collaborations and use of technology in various narrow contexts. However, there has been little work in examining the challenges faced by virtual teams and their use of technology to mitigate issues. To address this issue, a literature review was performed to highlight the collaboration challenges experienced by virtual teams and existing mitigation strategies. In this review, a well-planned search strategy was utilized to identify a total of 255 relevant studies, primarily focusing on technology use. The physical factors relating to distance are tightly coupled with the cognitive, social, and emotional challenges faced by virtual teams. However, based on research topics in the selected studies, we separate challenges as belonging to five categories: geographical distance, temporal distance, perceived distance, the configuration of dispersed teams, and diversity of workers. In addition, findings from this literature review expose opportunities for research, such as resolving discrepancies regarding the effect of tightly coupled work on collaboration and the effect of temporal dispersion on coordination costs. Finally, we use these results to discuss opportunities and implications for designing groupware that better support collaborative tasks in virtual teams.