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How do systems quietly exhaust the people meant to sustain them? In this JOSHA Spotlight, five pieces map the hidden workload behind healthcare, higher education, and research. It traces antifungal drug resistance from environment to clinic, where agricultural azole use can select resistant fungi and further narrow an already limited treatment toolkit, strengthening the case for coordinated One Health surveillance and regulation across borders. It then turns to primary care, where “nonclinical” demands, prior authorizations, mandated forms, and electronic health record inbox labor, consume time meant for patients and accelerate burnout. Beyond medicine, it highlights student precarity in Germany: merit scholarships can total up to €1,155 per month, yet may interact with BAföG rules and eligibility.

Across politics, technology, and personal relationships, today’s “identity debates” are, at their core, contests over who shapes discourse. This Spotlight brings together six German-language essays and interviews from newspapers exploring how the mechanisms of truth and belief are evolving: from Enlightenment-era ideas of intelligence to algorithmic text production; from changing patterns of male friendship to competing scripts of masculinity; from far-right “crisis of manhood” narratives to the quieter work of rethinking the categories we live by. Together, these pieces show how gender is never only “private” or “cultural,” but tightly linked to institutions, media ecosystems, and power. JOSHA’s editorial curation places these texts in dialogue to map a single question from multiple angles: what new forms of responsibility, literacy, and solidarity are needed when our old concepts of truth, masculinity, and even reality no longer hold?

This Spotlight series traces how physics-driven methods and engineering choices are reshaping what we can detect, build, and understand in living systems and how innovation is steered by society. Ultraweak photon emission imaging suggests a label-free window into vitality and stress responses across animals and plants. Ultrasound-enabled in vivo 3D printing extends fabrication beyond the limits of light, pointing toward on-demand implants formed beneath centimeter-thick tissues. In parallel, ribosome profiling and new screening strategies are revealing thousands of overlooked microproteins, expanding the functional map of genomes and opening fresh therapeutic and vaccine targets. An editorial on engineering impact underscores that lasting advances depend on clear problem framing, measurable improvement, and reproducible methods shared transparently.

Technological systems increasingly shape how people live, love, and relate—often revealing hidden social pressures and vulnerabilities. This Spotlight traces how digital and cultural infrastructures reorganize everyday life: a hyper-competitive housing market that pushes students toward self-marketing and extreme compromises; growing “app fatigue” that drives singles back toward face-to-face dating; and the continued appeal of biography as a distinctly human form that resists algorithmic speed and simplification. The collection also confronts technology’s darker edges, including evidence that addictive patterns of digital use (more than screen time alone) correlate with youth mental health risks, and the severe harms enabled by online coercion networks targeting children. Curated in JOSHA’s interdisciplinary spirit, these pieces invite readers to see technology not as a neutral backdrop, but as a force reshaping intimacy, opportunity, attention, and safety.

This collection highlights textile crafts that have faded from contemporary design. Once central to clothing production, labour-intensive techniques like embroidery, pleating and smocking are now rarely used in modern wearables. I value these methods for their craftsmanship, durability and tactile richness. Through research into traditional Eastern European garments, I explored the cultural and historical context in which these techniques once thrived. My aim was to reintroduce them beyond the realm of fashion. The result is a series of light objects that use textile construction as a design tool demonstrating how these overlooked crafts can shape functional, atmospheric pieces and find new relevance in everyday spaces.

This case describes a 24-year-old primigravida woman from a rural area in Santander, Colombia, who began prenatal care late at 28.3 weeks. At 29.3 weeks, obstetric ultrasound showed hypoplasia of the cerebellar vermis and an enlarged cisterna magna, later confirmed by neurosonography and fetal magnetic resonance as a Dandy-Walker spectrum variant. Congenital infections were ruled out, and the mother declined invasive genetic testing. At 39 weeks, a cesarean section was performed, and the male newborn had adequate neonatal adaptation. Postnatal cranial ultrasound revealed a cystic dilation suggestive of a Dandy-Walker variant or Blake’s pouch cyst. Outpatient follow-up was not possible. This case highlights how limited access to healthcare in rural areas can delay prenatal diagnosis and restrict a comprehensive approach, although some variants may have a benign neonatal course. Strengthening prenatal care access is essential for timely and adequate management.

Writing, a highly specialised motor activity integrally linked to language, is an intrinsic activity of our species and has played a huge part in the progression of civilisation. Being unable to read and write in today’s world is a huge liability. In this review, we look at issues related to writing including handedness, agraphia, hypergraphia, mirror writing, the role of pathology, psychiatric illness and artistic talent. Case studies include the prophet Ezekiel, Arthur Inman, Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. The study of writing is important and deserves further attention.

The rapid ascent of artificial intelligence reveals a fragmented map of ambition, risk, and hidden labour. While Switzerland cultivates a thriving ecosystem through strategic state–industry partnership, the costs surface elsewhere: chatbots that over-validate vulnerable users can deepen delusional spirals, with real consequences for mental health. At the same time, the race for AI supremacy carries a material footprint. From Mexico to Ireland, communities push back against data centers powering AI that strain electricity and water supplies. Yet within this tension lies promise: personalized AI “experts,” shaped through careful system instructions, can assist with editing, translation, finance, and creative work. Curated by JOSHA through a cross-disciplinary editorial lens, this Spotlight places these accounts in dialogue, so readers can see both what AI enables and what it exacts.

A hardest truth that has characterized human existence is the reality that conflict is inevitable in every social relation. Put differently, conflict occurs whenever disagreements exist in a social situation over material conditions thereby creating antagonisms or frictions between individuals or groups. Disagreement over the use of essential resources such as farmland, grazing areas and water between herders and local farmers remains the major source of the conflicts in those communities. In Nigeria, clashes between nomadic Fulani herdsmen and farmers used to be confined to the Northern-most region of the country but have spread to the North Central zone such that these disputes pose a grave threat to life and livelihood. Succinctly, the crux of this study was interrogating the Great Green Wall Initiative as Environmental Peacebuilding Approach to farmer/herder Conflict in North-central Nigeria.

Dear josha-journal readers, We welcome all readers to the new year 2026 and wish you a good start!