ABSTRACT This article offers a novel ecocritical reading of Slovo ljubve (Letter of love), the celebrated early fifteenth century epistolary poem by the Serbian Despot Stefan Lazarević, interpreting its rich natural imagery as an expression of eco-mysticism and sacred ecology. While prior scholarship has emphasized its theological, literary, and political dimensions, this study foregrounds nature as a theophanic medium through which divine love is revealed. Drawing on eco-theology, patristic mysticism, and contemporary ecological thought, the paper argues that Slovo ljubve presents creation more than just a mere backdrop and as an active participant in spiritual renewal. Through close reading of the poem's springtime symbolism, the text emerges as a proto-ecological meditation on divine presence in the natural world, positioning Despot Stefan within an unrecognized lineage of Christian ecological consciousness. 1

Nano- and micromotors are a class of active colloids that can self-propel outperforming Brownian motion. Polymer synthesis or degradation are alternative ways to enzyme-based or externally-driven strategies to induce self-propulsion in particles, but they are often limited due to the reaction conditions. Nature leverages biopolymerization reactions to sustain locomotion either of whole microorganisms or of organelles inside cells. With the aim of integrating natural locomotion strategies into engineered motors, we have begun to explore the propulsion mechanism of the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, which expresses the actin-recruiting protein ActA on its surface to harness host cell actin polymerization for rapid intracellular movement. Here, we compare the locomotion of silica particles depending on the ActA immobilization strategy on the motor surface, using either homogeneous coatings, Janus-type coatings, or ActA immobilization within polymer brushes. An up to 5-fold increase in the propulsion of the motors compared to their Brownian motion is observed when Janus motors are considered. The motors orbit around or dock onto larger tracer particles depending on the environmental pH and on whether they are individuals or in clusters. Altogether, these motors illustrate how integration of concepts of the natural and synthetic world can yield unique engineered units.

Aggressive behavior in insects plays a crucial role in various ecological and evolutionary processes, influencing resource acquisition, mate competition, and social organization. Stag beetles (Lucanidae) represent a compelling model system for studying aggression, particularly male-male combat. However, studying their interactions in a contest test with low light-a common condition for nocturnal species-and a complex background to mimic their natural environment remains challenging due to poor visibility and tracking limitations. Here, we adapted Detect Any Mouse Model (DAMM), a machine learning-driven tracking framework, to detect and track the position of each male stag beetle of two species (C. mniszechi and C. speciosus), followed by the calculation of several essential behavior endpoints to quantitatively analyze their behaviors with a conspecific during the test. The calculated object detection metrics indicated that the DAMM performed well in detecting and classifying objects. Meanwhile, based on the behavior endpoints, C. mniszechi displayed more robust behaviors during the test compared to C. speciosus, which was indicated by the tendency of this species to secure the food tube while fighting another contestant to defend their position. In addition, the calculated fighting-related-behavior endpoints also showed consistent results with the manual observation, highlighting the validity of the calculated endpoints. To sum up, the adaptation of DAMM to study insect behavior enables researchers to quantify their behaviors and automation that would undoubtedly lead to unprecedentedly detailed and objective insights into the complex behaviors of insects, especially stag beetles, contributing to a deeper understanding of their ecology, evolution, and the intricate workings of the natural world.

ABSTRACT In secondary biology education, students increasingly confront emotionally charged issues linked to ecological crisis. This mixed-methods study examines how Austrian adolescents (13–15 years) imagine their personal and collective future and how these visions relate to environment-related fear and worry, using a rare 35-year cohort comparison (1989, 2011, 2023). Questionnaire data captured future-related emotions, perceived personal impact, and environmental knowledge. Open-ended prompts and a drawing task elicited students’ spontaneous future fears and visualised future scenarios. Across cohorts, fear of environmental destruction and pollution became markedly more prominent in 2023 than in earlier cohorts, indicating a shift towards environmental degradation as the dominant spontaneously mentioned future fear. Nature featured centrally in students’ future visions; however, when nature was depicted, it was predominantly portrayed as destroyed across cohorts, with this pattern most pronounced in the 2023 cohort. Alongside these concerns, students also expressed biophobias, indicating ambivalent affective relations to the natural world. Girls and students reporting higher environmental concern tended to articulate more emotionally salient, negative visions, and perceived personal relevance emerged as a key correlate of heightened fear and worry. We argue that biology education should integrate affective dimensions explicitly – supporting meaning-making, emotional regulation, and agency alongside scientific understanding.

Small aqueous droplets are ubiquitous in the natural world and are often generated by human intervention for various purposes. Therefore, recent claims that micromolar levels of hydroxyl radicals spontaneously form in such droplets have drawn considerable attention and criticism. If true, the simple formation of aqueous droplets would spontaneously create highly reactive species that could be leveraged for interesting chemistry, but abundant hydroxyl radicals would also pose a significant danger to all living organisms, making the issue of clarity of broad importance. Previous criticisms, although compelling, have not been able to reproduce the original results used to support the spontaneous formation theory. Herein, we faithfully reproduce the original data. However, when the species previously identified as a hydroxyl radical is examined by collisional activation or isotopic labeling, the results are consistent with assignment as contaminant ammonia, which has the same nominal mass. Furthermore, we used theta capillaries, hydrogen peroxide, and ultraviolet activation to create de facto hydroxyl radicals within droplets as they are sprayed into a mass spectrometer. As expected, analytes subjected to true hydroxyl radicals undergo extensive oxidative damage. Additionally, previous results obtained with caffeine and melatonin are reproduced but are shown to be ammonia adducts or artifacts caused by narrow isolation windows. In summary, reappraisal of the evidence leads to the conclusion that no appreciable amount of hydroxyl radicals is spontaneously formed in aqueous droplets. We conclude by suggesting criteria that can be used to assess mass spectrometry data and should help prevent similar misinterpretations in the future.

ABSTRACT The article examines conceptions of ecological humanism that approach the world as an integrated whole, drawing on prevailing strands of Chinese intellectual traditions in which human life is understood as inseparable from the dynamic patterns of the natural world. The Zhuangzi offers valuable resources for contemporary efforts to develop a more relational and integrative ecological philosophy that also accommodates free subjectivity. These starting points illuminate how Zhuangzi’s philosophical thought is connected to a distinct form of Chinese humanism and to discourses that conceive the human—nature relationship as holistic, but not irreductively fused. The article points to the possibility of an alternative worldview that can help us, in our limited time and space, find the possibility of living some kind of sustainable yet here-and-now moment.

In this article, we theoretically explore the role of biophilia for morality, challenging and expanding recent moral psychological models that struggle to account for this relationship. We conceptualize the psychological trait of Nature Relatedness as a comprehensive biophilic orientation or mode of being that enables individuals to integrate nature into their identity and informs their interactions with both natural and social environments. By synthesizing theories of Erich Fromm and Arne Næss with recent research, we claim that biophilic orientation involves not only the transition from a narrow to an ecological self, but also encompasses worldviews, values, and experiences. We develop the idea that dispositional aspects of biophilia and affective-experiential levels of morality interact: Biophilic disposition is both driven by and drives self-transcendent experiences and affect-laden engagements that foster self-other overlap, possibly expanding one's moral concern. We connect these ideas to moral psychological research on moral intuitions and identity, particularly by discussing Nature Relatedness in relation to Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. One's subjective relationship and identification with the natural world appear central to moral expansion. Besides extending concern to non-human individuals, parochial, group-cohesion-related moral emotions might be re-channeled. These binding foundations appear generally resistant to moral expansion, yet the biophilic drive to integrate and unite may broaden one's identification beyond human ingroups. Thus, we propose that Nature Relatedness may expand moral intuitions across foundations, outlining what a non-anthropocentric application of moral foundations and biocentric intuitions might look like. Implications, including prospective interventions, and the need for further research, are discussed.

ABSTRACT This mixed-methods study investigates how the words we use to talk and think about the “places where wild animals live” shape our relationships to these places and our sense of (dis)connection to them. We contend that the words we use to describe these places – such as ecosystem, environment, or home – both reflect and build our mental models of the natural world, which in turn shape our emotional connection and sense of responsibility to preserve these wild places. We use a mixed-methods approach to explore how people in various communities across North America use and respond to different terms in the context of describing wild places. Our findings provide insights into mental models of nature, public perceptions of wildlife, and the potential influence of language on conservation efforts.

ConspectusEumelanin, the ubiquitous brown-black pigment, is renowned for its remarkable photoprotective properties across the natural world. Its broadband absorption across the UV-visible region enables the efficient capture of solar radiation, while its photoprotective efficiency arises primarily from the ultrafast deactivation of excited states. Multiple nonradiative decay pathways rapidly funnel electronic energy into harmless vibrational motion before reactive intermediates can accumulate. These functions are intimately connected to eumelanin's complex molecular and supramolecular organization. Unlike conventional chromophores with well-defined structures, eumelanin exists as a chemically heterogeneous ensemble of indole-derived building blocks present in multiple oxidation states, linked through diverse coupling motifs and organized through dynamic aggregation. This intrinsic chemical and electronic disorder, reinforced by supramolecular interactions such as π-π stacking and hydrogen bonding, generates layered nanostructures and hierarchical particles. Rather than being detrimental, this disorder contributes to eumelanin's featureless absorption spectrum and ultrafast excited-state deactivation, which together underpin its photoprotective function.In this Account, we describe our efforts to disentangle this complexity by examining eumelanin across multiple length scales, ranging from well-defined monomers and synthetically modified derivatives to structurally ordered multimers and supramolecular aggregates. Using steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopy in combination with electronic structure calculations, we map the pathways through which eumelanin dissipates excited-state energy. A fundamental theme that emerges is the interplay between structural disorder and excited-state dynamics. By resolving the crystal structures of the key eumelanin monomers, 5,6-dihydroxyindole (DHI) and 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid (DHICA), we establish a structural framework for probing their excited-state behavior. These crystalline assemblies reveal exciton delocalization and demonstrate how molecular packing influences photophysical properties. Extending from monomers to covalently linked oligomers and supramolecular assemblies uncovers amplified excitonic interactions that broaden electronic absorption and accelerate nonradiative decay, reflecting eumelanin's natural photoprotective function. At the same time, synthetic analogues and engineered derivatives demonstrate that eumelanin-inspired systems need not be limited to natural photoprotection. Heavy-atom substitution, for example, can enhance intersystem crossing and stabilize long-lived triplet states, enabling controllable delayed emission. Similarly, supramolecular organization determines whether delayed emission occurs through delayed fluorescence or phosphorescence, highlighting aggregation as a powerful handle for tuning excited-state dynamics. These findings suggest that eumelanin-inspired materials can be rationally engineered for applications in light harvesting, bioelectronics, photomedicine, and related technologies. By integrating synthetic design, spectroscopic investigation, and theoretical analysis across multiple structural levels, our work outlines a systematic approach for understanding and controlling the relationship between structural disorder and excited-state dynamics in eumelanin and related functional biomaterials.

Scholars have long been fascinated by the footprints that appear throughout the corpus of Mesoamerican art. They are painted in manuscripts, murals, and caves; modeled from clay and carved into stone; and built into the visual and grammatical structures of Mesoamerica’s hieroglyphic scripts. Over the course of three millennia, Mesoamerican footprints captured the movements, paths, traces, and presences of people, animals, and gods. They also engaged with ideas of representation, place, temporalities, phenomenology, and semiotics. The footprints we address are not indexical, the result from the weight of a physicalized body. Instead, they are the result of a deliberate act in which the outline of a foot was carefully (re)produced, which transports them into a different interpretive realm from an observed imprint. Footprints and pawprints in Mesoamerican art shed insight into Indigenous understandings of the relationship between bodies, places, time, and the larger social, natural, and supernatural worlds, communicated in a visually succinct manner.

The present study investigates issues of uncertainty, connectedness, and the human relationship with the environment and memory by examining the intersection of Deborah Bird Rose's ecological existentialism and Jon Fosse's I Am the Wind and Aliss at the Fire. Rose's paradigm, which highlights the dualities of the Anthropocene—uncertainty and interconnectedness—resonates with Fosse's paintings, distinguished by their existential profundity and eerie depictions of human emotion. Two characters' metaphorical voyage across the broad sea in I Am the Wind raises existential questions about relationships, identity, and humanity's precarious bond with the natural world. In a similar vein, Aliss at the Fire explores memory and loss over generations, with nature serving as both a participant and a witness to human tragedy. Echoing Rose's idea of "shimmer," which recognises the transition between the past, present, and future, the fjord and fire represent cyclical loss and regeneration. This essay argues that Fosse's depiction of nature as a dynamic force that is both nourishing and destructive offers significant insights into psychological resilience and well-being by applying ecological existentialism to his stories. The pieces emphasise how natural settings and ancestry influence human life, calling for a reconsideration of isolationist viewpoints in favour of interconnection

ABSTRACT The extent of the current climate crisis can be such as to give rise to existential anxieties for students who confront it: their sense of personal identity, security, agency and place can be disturbed. Some themes that contribute to envisioning an education that would help to equip them in meeting this situation are elucidated. These include the cultivation of a consciousness that is environmental in the sense of being receptive to the intrinsic integrity, value and normativity of the natural world through shedding immoderate anthropocentrism, and the idea of developing a neo-stoic sense of steadfastness and purpose. It is argued that consciousness informed in this way both enables an authentic understanding of the underlying nature of the current climate emergency and indicates the character of a moral compass required in order to sustain a proper response to it.

ABSTRACT Media infrastructures sustain the evolving cultures of extraction. Their unfolding propels the quest for raw materials across the bounty of the natural and social world, from the excavations of coal and gold to wind and server farming, data and cryptocurrency mining and varied other exploitative approaches to resource-taking and value-making. To highlight how the strategic development of media infrastructures aligns the drive for extraction around emergent domains, we focus on their deployment into outer space. Over the decades of space exploration, elaborate media infrastructures have entangled celestial bodies and regions in processes of imaging, mapping, sampling and various data collections and surveillance, gradually revealing their features and assets and paving the way to a new gold rush as governmental and private space sectors invest in developing infrastructure for launching extractive industries and services off Earth. While the possibilities of traditional mining in space remain speculative, the logistical strategies of datafication and visualisation already envelop its remote environments within the extractive operations of high-tech capitalism and its pursuits of power, knowledge and wealth. We focus on this preparatory stage of off-Earth mining, approaching the capture of space into infrastructures and processes of media as pivotal for its transformation into an extraction frontier. Exploring the formation of the ‘more-than-planetary mine’, we suggest that media infrastructure condition the extent, expressions and effects of extraction, configuring its frontiers and empires at large.

While the quantum emergence of spacetime is becoming a major research topic in physics, the quantum emergence of intelligence has not been widely researched in quantum information science (QIS). Following causal-logical quantum gravity theory, bipolar entropy vs. entropy and negative entropy (or negentropy) are reviewed and distinguished for quantum emergence/submergence of quantum agent (QA) and quantum intelligence (QI) in algebraic terms. This work refers to QA as an entangled bipolar string/superstring in bipolar dynamic equilibrium (BDE) and QI being centered on logically definable causality in regularity, mind-light-matter unity, and brain-universe similarity. ER = EPR is extended to ER ≥≥ EPR for the mathematical scalability of bipolar strings and their collective entanglement. The extension leads to a number of conjectures, testable predictions, and theorems. The term “equilibraton” is proposed as a type of EPR or bipolar generic string to serve as an entropic stitch to collectively hold the universe together as a quantum entanglement in BDE with ubiquitous, regulated local emergence and submergence of QA&QI. Equilibraton leads to the concept of bipolar entropy square—a complete entropic solution to the background issue in quantum gravity. With complete background independence, energy/information conservational bipolar entropy, energy/information invariance, bipolar entropy non-additivity, and equilibrium-based plateau concavity are introduced. The nature of the one-dimensional arrow of time is conjectured. As a unification of order and disorder for equilibrium-based regulation, bipolar entropy bridges QA&QI to agentic AI, where quantum-bio-economics can be viewed as a topological intervention of a natural dynamic equilibrium in a social or natural world. Use cases are reviewed to illustrate the practical and theoretical aspects of bipolar entropy in business management, quantum-bio-economics, quantum cryptography, physics, and biology. Eddington–Einstein’s comments on entropy are revisited. It is expected that bipolar entropy will bring quantum emergence/submergence to agentic AI&QI for entangled machine thinking and imagination as a naturally scalable and testable foundation of real-world quantum gravity, quantum information science (QIS), quantum cognition, and quantum biology (QCQB) to enhance Large Language AI Models (LLMs) and machine intelligence.

Karst World Heritage sites, as natural wonders of the Earth, possess Outstanding Universal Value, and the conservation of their integrity is of great significance for maintaining global biodiversity and geological and geomorphological features. However, while protecting heritage sites, how to promote economic development in buffer zones, especially the development of agroforestry, has become an urgent issue to be addressed. As a sustainable agricultural practice, agroforestry can promote economic development while simultaneously protecting the environment. The implementation of agroforestry has effectively contributed to World Heritage conservation. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding the research trends, focal topics, and latest developments in the fields of integrity conservation of protected area and agroforestry development in buffer zones. Therefore, this study employs the CNKI and Web of Science databases, together with CiteSpace software, to conduct a bibliometric analysis, and uses literature visualization to explore the major research themes and frontier issues related to the integrity conservation of natural World Heritage sites and the development of buffer-zone agroforestry. Based on the preliminary results obtained, we discuss current publication trends and outputs, keyword and abstract word frequencies, national publication productivity, collaboration networks, and major contributing institutions. The results show that the development of agroforestry has contributed to biodiversity conservation in heritage sites. However, studies on the role of buffer-zone agroforestry development in supporting the integrity conservation of World Heritage sites remain limited. Accordingly, future research should place greater emphasis on the relationship between buffer-zone development and heritage integrity conservation, especially in ecologically fragile karst World Heritage sites, and should further strengthen the role of agroforestry development in buffer zones in promoting ecological balance and the sustainable development of heritage sites, so as to provide scientific references for the conservation and development of other geological heritage sites worldwide.

ABSTRACT This paper argues that Dōgen’s philosophy should be understood through the inseparable unity of Buddha-nature, expression (dōtoku), and practice-realisation (shushō), not as distinct doctrines but as co-constitutive dimensions of reality’s continuous self-manifestation. Through close reading of key Shōbōgenzō fascicles, particularly ‘Busshō’, ‘Uji’, and ‘Genjōkōan’, I demonstrate how post-Meiji analytical approaches (kenkyū) have fragmented Dōgen’s essentially holistic thought by imposing Western metaphysical categories. Recovering the traditional sankyū (participatory investigation) method reveals how Dōgen’s texts function performatively, requiring embodied engagement rather than propositional analysis. This triadic reading shows Buddha-nature as dynamic field rather than metaphysical substrate, expression as reality’s direct self-articulation rather than representation, and practice-realisation as world-confirmed actualisation rather than goal-seeking. The implications extend beyond Buddhist studies: Dōgen offers an ecological ontology where value is intrinsic to relational networks, a non-representational semantics, and an ethics of care grounded in recognising our co-constitution with the natural world.

ABSTRACT While studies have examined the experiences and barriers to outdoor leisure participation for Black and transgender Americans respectively, few studies have looked at the experiences of those who live at the intersection of Black and trans. This lack of research underscores a critical gap in understanding unique challenges faced by those living in what Anzaldúa [2022. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza (5th ed.). Aunt Lute Books] describes as the “borderlands” – where two worlds merge. This study used narrative inquiry to explore the lived experiences of Black trans individuals within outdoor spaces. All participants engaged in a one-hour narrative interview and shared stories of their experiences in outdoor spaces. Findings highlighted four dimensions of how Black trans people exist in and with nature: (1) Being Black and trans – navigating intersections of Blackness and transness in spaces often coded as white; (2) Being “my authentic self” – embracing self-acceptance despite living in spaces not created for them; (3) Being embodied in/with nature’s cycles – witnessing representation in nature and experiencing paralleled embodiment; (4) Being Spiritually Grounded in Nature – exploring spiritual relationships with the natural world. Amplifying the voices of Black trans individuals in leisure literature is essential for fostering more equitable outdoor experiences within outdoor recreation communities.

Pareidolia-the perception of illusory patterns such as faces or objects in ambiguous stimuli-has been extensively studied, but less is known about how different visual environments shape this phenomenon. This study investigated pareidolia experienced in unmodified natural images (NI) and white noise (WN) images in 81 healthy participants under open-ended instructions. Across both conditions, animals were the most commonly perceived pareidolia, consistent with evolutionary pressures favouring rapid detection of biologically relevant stimuli. Importantly, the semantic categories of pareidolia differed by image type: NI evoked significantly more "Natural World" pareidolia, while WN images primarily elicited "Human-Created" pareidolia. This dissociation suggests that NI stimuli engage bottom-up perceptual organization processes whereas WN images depend more heavily on top-down semantic knowledge and mental imagery. Together, these findings indicate that stimulus type modulates the relative contribution of perceptual and conceptual processes in the resolution of visual ambiguity. Beyond their methodological implications for pareidolia research, these results carry broader relevance for understanding creative perception, hallucinations, and cognitive biases that may have been shaped by evolutionary pressures. They also underscore the need for careful and deliberate selection of visual stimuli when employing open-ended tasks in future studies.

Easterine Kire’s Spirit Nights offers a template for planetary survival by deconstructing the anthropocentrism of the time as an archive of Naga Indigenous knowledge systems. By examining the narrative markers of the ‘great darkness’, a sudden nocturnal descent caused by a cosmic tiger on Naga natives, this study illustrates how marginal communities resist environmental and epistemic erasure. Integrating Theodore Roszak’s “stone-Age psychiatry” and Andy Fisher’s "kinship continuum", the analysis correlates with Tola’s role as a traditional seer and Namu’s relationship with the spiritual realm. This study aims to evaluate the entanglement of humans, spirits, and non-human animals. The deconstruction of the tiger hints at both a biological threat and a psychic presence in the Chang Naga collective unconscious. The study connects the idea of solastalgia to the villagers’ distress figuring the rift between the human and natural worlds. The findings suggest that Kire’s narrative strategy facilitates a recovery of Indigenous agency by affirming that human sanity is rooted in the more-than-human world.

Although Renaissance art often favoured classical architecture as the setting for sacred events and characters, several works from the period, from different European regions, placed religious narratives within rural landscapes that included vernacular architecture. Far from serving as neutral scenery, these rustic settings conveyed symbolic meaning shaped by theological discourse. Christian humanism and Platonic thought converged, prompting many Renaissance paintings to articulate the harmony between the humble life of the countryside and the divine order inscribed in the natural world. Drawing from contemporary humanist thought, pastoral literature, and the iconographic analysis of five case studies, this article argues that vernacular imagery provided a culturally resonant language for divine presence to be more easily experienced. The artistic choice of vernacular architecture, rather than revealing a rejection of Renaissance classicism, suggests a parallel mode of revival, grounded in classical heritage, just as much as Greco-Roman architecture would. This article explores how such architectural choices impacted the audience’s performative construction of sacred meaning, allowing spiritual experience to be mediated through recognisable and symbolically resonant landscapes.