Filicide – the killing of a child by their parent – has long been dismissed as too rare or too incomprehensible to study in depth. However, as Professor Thea Brown’s research shows, filicide is neither as rare as once thought nor beyond our capacity to prevent. Her team’s work at Monash University demonstrates that filicide doesn’t occur in isolation, or from a single cause. Instead, it arises from a complex web of factors – including family violence, poverty, substance abuse, mental illness, and the perpetrator’s history of trauma. Importantly, Brown’s work reveals that both mothers and fathers commit filicide, but often in different circumstances and with different warning signs – many of which are missed by social services.

Positive emotions have gained significant research attention in recent decades, with particular focus on ‘self-transcendent emotions’ – those that shift our attention away from our self-interest toward something beyond ourselves. Despite growing interest in these states of selfless joy – which include awe, gratitude and love – most have been studied separately, leaving researchers unclear about how they are connected. A new study by Angela Gaia Abatista and Florian Cova at the University of Geneva offers the first comprehensive framework for categorising these uplifting emotions. Their research reveals that self-transcendent emotions aren’t just one uniform family but can be divided into distinct categories with different functions.

The common saying “you can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself” suggests a straightforward link between self-esteem and relationship satisfaction. A recent review by Professor Joanne Wood at the University of Waterloo and several collaborators across North America, challenges this simple notion, showing that self-esteem influences relationships through a complex chain of psychological and behavioral effects.
Self-esteem describes a person’s overall evaluation of themselves. While traditional research has found modest links between high self-esteem and relationship satisfaction, these studies typically overlook the deeper, indirect ways that self-esteem shapes romantic relationships.

Medical devices called endografts – consisting of a stent and a graft – can be used as internal scaffolds to stabilise the weakened artery walls. However, these devices can lead to problems, which many researchers and clinicians are striving to solve.

For decades, Canada and the United States have maintained one of the world’s closest security partnerships. While disagreements have surfaced occasionally, such as disputes over trade, climate policy, and military interventions, these tensions never truly threatened the deep-rooted trust between these allies. However, new research by Professor Will Greaves from the University of Victoria suggests that Donald Trump’s presidency fundamentally altered this relationship, putting its stability at risk.

A key challenge in studying democracy is understanding who runs for office and what factors influence their success, particularly when it comes to descriptive representation – the extent to which a legislature reflects the demographic makeup of the population. Until recently, however, researchers had limited data on Canadian political candidates. Professor Semra Sevi of the University of Toronto has created the largest dataset of its kind, documenting every candidate who ran in Canadian federal and Ontario provincial elections since 1867. This comprehensive dataset has already enabled several groundbreaking studies on Canadian democracy.