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1. I copy you as I believe you know about our culture: Combining imitation and selective trust literatures

   https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2453  

   Fong, Frankie_T K; Nielsen, Mark; Corriveau, Kathleen H (September 2023, Infant and Child Development)

   Abstract Empirical findings and theorizations of both imitation and selective trust offer different views on and interpretations of children's social learning mechanisms. The imitation literature provides ample documentation of children's behavioural patterns in the acquisition of socially appropriate norms and practices. The selective trust literature provides insights into children's cognitive processes of choosing credible informants and what information to learn in future interactions. In this paper, we place together findings from both fields and note that they share analogically similar theoretical underpinnings and offer explanations that are complementary to each other. We contend that children's imitative tendency may be due to their selection of in‐group members ascultural experts, who serve as reliable sources of conventional information. Moving forward, we note the importance of evaluating individual differences and cultural factors to provide a more holistic understanding of universality and variation in children's social learning mechanisms. 

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2. Young children co‐constructing science: The importance of their families and cultural communities

   https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21823  

   McWayne, Christine M; Melzi, Gigliana (November 2023, Science Education)

   Abstract There is considerable agreement among scientists, educators, and policymakers about the need to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Yet, equity requires much more than increasing STEM access for marginalized groups of children. In this invited commentary, we raise two critical points for the field to continue to grapple with as we investigate ways to engage young minds in STEM learning. It is critical that research with young children focuses on the process of doing science, while appreciating that the process of scientific thinking and learning are culturally constructed and situated. Specifically, as researchers and educators, we must do better at contextualizing children's scientific thinking process as it unfolds in their daily lives—with their peers, families, and in their cultural communities. Specific studies highlighted throughout this essay seek to document and promote family, community, and teaching practices that are effective for supporting young children's learning and explorations in STEM across our increasingly diverse society. We propose opportunities for future researchers to focus their efforts, including the following: more multidisciplinary work that includes synthesis across disciplines and methodological traditions; more diverse samples and investigative teams, such that cultural insiders are full participants; more descriptive studies focusing on the everyday experiences in children's lives that promote the development of scientific thinking and practices; and practice‐informed research. 

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3. Evolutionary Immunology

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102723-043048  

   Bolnick, Daniel I; Fuess, Lauren E; Graham, Andrea L; Khan, Imroze; Steinel, Natalie C; Vaziri, Grace J (May 2025, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics)

   Immune systems pose fascinating puzzles for evolutionary biologists. They feature some of the most polymorphic genes and reflect the strongest natural selection known. Evolution of immune systems plays a key role in host–parasite interactions, speciation, and eco-evolutionary dynamics that have community- and ecosystem-wide consequences. Conversely, evolutionary perspectives enrich our understanding of immunology, revealing macroevolutionary origins of key immune traits, their function in wild populations as opposed to sterile lab settings, and trade-offs that constrain immune adaptation. Here, we review key themes in the fast-growing interdisciplinary field of evolutionary immunology, focusing on multicellular animals. We describe macroevolution of immune functions, evidence of contemporary selection on immune genes, and the underlying theory seeking to explain this selection at multiple biological scales. We identify major open questions and opportunities in the field today. Foremost among these is the challenge of accurately and appropriately measuring relevant immune traits in wild and nonmodel organisms, which is necessary to understand their evolution in natural settings. A second challenge is to describe how diverse communities of symbionts impose selection on the highly multivariate and pleiotropic immune system. 

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4. Matryoshka Dolls of Virus Evolution: The Internal Forces That Shape Viral Fate

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf063  

   Yin, John (May 2025, Integrative And Comparative Biology)

   Synopsis Viral evolution unfolds across nested layers of adaptation, much like a set of Matryoshka dolls. The outermost, well-studied layer involves interactions between viruses and their hosts—where immune evasion, cross-species transmission, and long-term coevolution drive viral diversification. Yet, hidden within this framework is an often-overlooked inner layer: the coevolution of viruses with their own molecular parasites, defective interfering (DI) particles, and defective viral genomes (DVGs). These molecular parasites exploit viral replication machinery, reshaping infection dynamics and imposing selective pressures that influence viral fitness, transmission, and persistence. This perspective synthesizes evidence from experimental evolution, mathematical modeling, and molecular virology to propose a more integrated view of viral evolution. By framing host–virus interactions and virus-DI particle dynamics within a unified evolutionary framework, we highlight the underappreciated role of DI particles as evolutionary players, not just aberrant byproducts. Recognizing these internal layers of viral evolution may inform the development of antiviral strategies and broader questions in host–pathogen coevolution. 

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5. Cultural specialization as a double-edged sword: division into specialized guilds might promote cultural complexity at the cost of higher susceptibility to cultural loss

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0418  

   Ben-Oren, Yotam; Kolodny, Oren; Creanza, Nicole (March 2023, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   The transition to specialization of knowledge within populations could have facilitated the accumulation of cultural complexity in humans. Specialization allows populations to increase their cultural repertoire without requiring that members of that population increase their individual capacity to accumulate knowledge. However, specialization also means that domain-specific knowledge can be concentrated in small subsets of the population, making it more susceptible to loss. Here, we use a model of cultural evolution to demonstrate that specialized populations can be more sensitive to stochastic loss of knowledge than populations without subdivision of knowledge, and that demographic and environmental changes have an amplified effect on populations with knowledge specialization. Finally, we suggest that specialization can be a double-edged sword; specialized populations may have an advantage in accumulating cultural traits but may also be less likely to expand and establish themselves successfully in new demes owing to the increased cultural loss that they experience during the population bottlenecks that often characterize such expansions. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions’. 

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