#2 — At the Intersections — June 20, 2026

A word meant to describe a loss of choice in public health is itself applied without a consistent definition. This is At the Intersections, where we connect research from different fields. We begin with a review of what the term means in practice. Let's start with the language we use in public health. When a measure is described as coercive, it immediately frames it negatively and can create opposition. But what does that word even mean in a public health context? A scoping review with member Maxwell Smith tried to answer that because the definition has real consequences. And what they found was chaos. The review looked at 56 publications and saw the term used inconsistently, often without any real precision. Though they did manage to distill five common elements from the literature, things like limiting a person's options, using state power for enforcement, or making sure someone is worse off if they don't comply. So there are some shared ideas, but the core problem remains. If the term is poorly and inconsistently defined, it makes it very difficult to evaluate whether a public health intervention is appropriate. And it risks undermining public cooperation, which is the whole point. Let's shift to a different kind of evaluation, this time in education. A systematic review with member Daniel Ansari examined how educational technology or EdTech is assessed for elementary school students. So are the tools we're using for math and literacy actually being tested effectively? What did the review of 44 articles find? It found that educational games were the most common platform for math and web-based apps for literacy, mostly on tablets. The most common feature built into this tech was fee back. And how were they measuring learning? Was it just based on what the platform itself spit out? Almost half of the studies did rely on that platform-generated data. For the most part, the outcomes being measured were basic math skills or reading comprehension. So not much focus on integrated skills where math and literacy might intersect. It sounds like the findings map out the current state of assessment, but also show where the gaps are. Moving to health outcomes, a study with member Mia Biondi provides a gender-based analysis of people in care for hepatitis C virus or HCV. This is a priority area because we know that women and gender-diverse people can face specific structural barriers that both increase risk and reduce access to care. Right. The study looked at a Canadian cohort, describing individuals who self-identified as cisgender women, trans women, or trans men. While fibrosis scores were generally low across the group, some were more likely to have cirrhosis. Which means they need to be identified and treated earlier. What else did the study note? That the uptake of opioid agonist therapy was poor. This points to a potential strategy, co-localizing HCV treatment with the start of that therapy. Which could be a way to address both HCV and prevent drug use relapse and reinfection at the same time. Next, there's growing evidence that alterations in the brain's circulatory system may be part of the pathophysiology of psychosis. A study with Lena Palaniappan investigated this in individuals having a first episode They looked at something called cerebrovascular reactivity or CVR. It's the ability of blood vessels in the brain to dilate or constrict. It's a way to measure neurovascular function. And by analyzing resting state fMRI data, they compared a group with first episode psychosis to a control group. They found a cluster of decreased relative CVR in the right superior parietal lobule in the psychosis group. So a measurable difference in blood flow regulation. Did it correlate with symptoms? It did. They found significant correlations between that relative CVR and positive symptoms in two areas of the occipital cortex. Which suggests this isn't just an incidental finding. It could be an early biomarker for the condition. Here's another question about the brain. How does it represent something abstract like a ratio? There's a theory, the ratio processing system theory, that posits a common neural code for ratios, no matter their format. Meaning the brain would represent the ratio 1 to 2 the same way, whether it's seeing two dots versus four dots or one line that's half the length of another. A study with Jessica Grad and Daniel Ansari tested this. They had participants perform ratio comparisons with both discrete sets of dots and continuous line lengths while tracking brain activity with fMRI. So they were looking for a shared pattern of activity, a format-independent representation. Did they find it? No. The results did not support the theory. Ratios based on numeracy, the dots, appeared to be encoded in a distinct way from ratios based on line length. Which challenges the whole idea of a common ratio processor in the brain. Finally, we go from the inner workings of the brain to deep space. A study with member John Kami used the James Webb Space Telescope to look at the planetary nebula TC1. An object already known for its prominent spectrum of cosmic fullerenes, those C60 and C70 molecules shaped like soccer balls. And the new data revealed previously unseen emission features in the near infrared. These broad bands shared the same spatial distribution as the known fullerene emissions. So the researchers compared these observations with new quantum chemical calculations to figure out what they were. And they are C60 combination bands. This is the first time these specific bands have ever been detected in an astrophysical environment. And it's a significant amount of energy, about 17% of the total radiated by all the C60 modes. This changes the models for how fullerenes cool and gives scientists a new method for finding C60 in space. That concludes this week's issue. We'll return with more research summaries next week on At the Intersections.