There is a consensus in psycholinguistic research that listening to unfamiliar speech constitutes a challenging listening situation. In this commentary, we explore the problems with the construct of non-native and ask whether using this construct in research is useful, specifically to shift the communicative burden from the language learner to the perceiver, who often occupies a position of power. We examine what factors affect perception of non-native talkers. We frame this question by addressing the observation that not all “difficult” listening conditions provide equal challenges. Given this, we ask how cognitive and social factors impact perception of unfamiliar accents and ask what our psycholinguistic measurements are capturing. We close by making recommendations for future work. We propose that the issue is less with the terminology of native versus non-native, but rather how our unexamined biases affect the methodological assumptions that we make. We propose that we can use the existing dichotomy to create research programs that focus on teaching perceivers to better understand talkers more generally. Finally, we call on perceivers and researchers alike to question the idea of speech being “native,” “non-native,” “unfamiliar,” and “accented” to better align with reality as opposed to our inherently biased views.

Student evaluations of instruction (SEIs) have an important role in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions. However, evidence suggests that SEIs might be influenced by factors other than teaching skills. The author examined several nonteaching factors that may impact SEIs in two independent studies. Study 1 examined whether an instructor’s name preference (i.e., first name versus “Dr.” last name) influenced SEIs in actual courses. Study 2 implemented a two (i.e., instructor name preference: first name or “Dr.” last name) by two (i.e., instructor gender: male or female) by two (i.e., instructor race: white or Black) between-subjects design for SEIs in a hypothetical course. Study 1 found that SEIs were higher when the female instructor expressed a preference for being called by her first name. Study 2 found the highest SEIs for Black male instructors when instructors asked students to call them by their first name, but there was a decrease in SEI scores if they went by their professional title. Administrators should be aware of the various factors that can influence how students evaluate instructors.

The cestode Schistocephalus solidus is a common parasite in freshwater threespine stickleback populations, imposing strong fitness costs on their hosts. Given this, it is surprising how little is known about the timing and development of infections in natural stickleback populations. Previous work showed that young-of-year stickleback can get infected shortly after hatching. We extended this observation by comparing infection prevalence of young-of-year stickleback from 3 Alaskan populations (Walby, Cornelius and Wolf lakes) over 2 successive cohorts (2018/19 and 2019/20). We observed strong variation between sampling years (2018 vs 2019 vs 2020), stickleback age groups (young-of-year vs 1-year-old) and sampling populations.

Protected areas have numerous roles (such as biodiversity preservation, the development of scientific research and the sustainable use of natural resources), but they are under threat from political and economic forces. The 837 000-ha Serra do Divisor National Park (SDNP) in the south-western Brazilian Amazon combines the conservation of natural resources and the maintenance of the productive activities of c. 400 resident families. The Brazilian and Peruvian governments have proposed a road linking Acre (Brazil) to Ucayali (Peru) that would bisect the SDNP. Another threat to the SDNP is a bill proposing its downgrading to an ‘environmental protection area’. This study aims to map the land cover of the SDNP and its surroundings from 1988 to 2018 and to analyse the dynamics of land-use change. Analysis of Landsat satellite images with supervised classification using the MaxVer algorithm show that, during the 30-year period, pasture showed the highest absolute land-cover gain, with 1986 ha in the interior and 7661 ha along the periphery of the SDNP. Only 1% of the park’s primary forest was lost by 2018, but the proposed road and potential downgrading may result in accelerated deforestation and forest degradation in the near future.

Records of abnormal fossil arthropods present important insight into how extinct forms responded to traumatic damage and developmental complications. Trilobites, bearing biomineralized dorsal exoskeletons, have arguably the most well-documented record of abnormalities spanning the Cambrian through the end-Permian. As such, new records of malformed, often injured, trilobites are occasionally identified. To further expand the documentation of abnormal specimens, we describe malformed specimens of Lyriaspis sigillum Whitehouse, 1939, Zacanthoides sp. indet., Asaphiscus wheeleri Meek, 1873, Elrathia kingii (Meek, 1870), and Ogygiocarella debuchii (Brongniart, 1822) from lower Paleozoic deposits. In considering these forms, we propose that they illustrate examples of injuries, and that the majority of these injuries reflect failed predation. We also considered the origin of injuries impacting singular segments, suggesting that these could reflect predation, self-induced damage, or intraspecific interactions during soft-shelled stages. Continued examination of lower Paleozoic trilobite injuries will further the understanding of how trilobites functioned as prey and elucidate how disparate trilobite groups recovered from failed attacks.

The purpose of this study was to assess impact of different volumes of exercise as well as cumulative moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) on energy intake (EI) and diet quality, as assessed by the Healthy Eating Index-2010(HEI-2010), across a 12-month weight maintenance intervention. Participants were asked to attend group behavioural sessions, eat a diet designed for weight maintenance and exercise either 150, 225 or 300 min/week. Dietary intake was assessed by 3-d food records, and MVPA was assessed by accelerometry. Two hundred and twenty-four participants (42·5 years of age, 82 % female) provided valid dietary data for at least one time point. There was no evidence of group differences in EI, total HEI-2010 score or any of the HEI-2010 component scores (all P > 0·05). After adjusting for age, sex, time, group and group-by-time interactions, there was an effect of cumulative MVPA on EI (1·08, P = 0·04), total HEI-2010 scores (–0·02, P = 0·003), Na (–0·006, P = 0·002) and empty energy scores (–0·007, P = 0·004. There was evidence of a small relationship between cumulative daily EI and weight (β: 0·00187, 95 % CI 0·001, P = 0·003). However, there was no evidence for a relationship between HEI total score (β: −0·006, 95 % CI 0·07, 0·06) or component scores (all P > 0·05) and change in weight across time. The results of this study suggest that increased cumulative MVPA is associated with clinically insignificant increases in EI and decreases in HEI.

We present the most sensitive and detailed view of the neutral hydrogen ( ${\rm H\small I}$ ) emission associated with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), through the combination of data from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Parkes (Murriyang), as part of the Galactic Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (GASKAP) pilot survey. These GASKAP-HI pilot observations, for the first time, reveal ${\rm H\small I}$ in the SMC on similar physical scales as other important tracers of the interstellar medium, such as molecular gas and dust. The resultant image cube possesses an rms noise level of 1.1 K ( $1.6\,\mathrm{mJy\ beam}^{-1}$ ) $\mathrm{per}\ 0.98\,\mathrm{km\ s}^{-1}$ spectral channel with an angular resolution of $30^{\prime\prime}$ ( ${\sim}10\,\mathrm{pc}$ ). We discuss the calibration scheme and the custom imaging pipeline that utilises a joint deconvolution approach, efficiently distributed across a computing cluster, to accurately recover the emission extending across the entire ${\sim}25\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ field-of-view. We provide an overview of the data products and characterise several aspects including the noise properties as a function of angular resolution and the represented spatial scales by deriving the global transfer function over the full spectral range. A preliminary spatial power spectrum analysis on individual spectral channels reveals that the power law nature of the density distribution extends down to scales of 10 pc. We highlight the scientific potential of these data by comparing the properties of an outflowing high-velocity cloud with previous ASKAP+Parkes ${\rm H\small I}$ test observations.