This week in research.

Here are the new works dated 2026-08-17 to 2026-08-24, with up to three concise points each and a final By the numbers summary. 1) Use of machine learning to detect Escherichia coli in drinking water in Bangladesh — PLoS ONE — 2026-08-20 — Cohort authors: Diego B. Nóbrega - Notable for comparing nine classical ML models plus a DL-MLP to predict E. coli contamination under imbalanced vs balanced data, with SHAP-based feature selection and SMOTE handling class imbalance. - It reports E. coli contamination in 39.2% of households (Bandarban district as a hotspot) and demonstrates more consistent model performance across algorithms after SMOTE and 10-fold cross-validation. - AdaBoost narrowly outperformed others in final evaluation, highlighting its robustness for this public health inference task. 2) Supplemental Materials: Qualitative Behavior Assessment reveals associations between affective states and rearing conditions of non-replacement dairy calves under commercial conditions — Figshare — 2026-08-20 — Cohort authors: Maria Camila Ceballos - Demonstrates Qualitative Behavioral Assessment as a welfare tool to measure emotional states of non-replacement dairy calves across commercial settings. - The material provides farm-level average scores for each behavioral descriptor from 19 calf-raising farms in the Midwest United States. - Emphasizes the feasibility of integrating affective-state metrics into routine welfare assessments. 3) Supplemental Materials: Qualitative Behavior Assessment reveals associations between affective states and rearing conditions of non-replacement dairy calves on commercial farms — Figshare — 2026-08-20 — Cohort authors: Maria Camila Ceballos - Reinforces the same welfare- and emotion-focused framework as the companion version, with emphasis on rearing-condition contrasts across commercial-farm contexts. - Adds dataset details or descriptors supporting cross-farm comparisons of affective-state indicators. - Highlights open-access supplemental data to accompany themain Qualitative Behavioral Assessment work. 4) Modulation of the nociceptive withdrawal reflex in walking is not changed by the presence of tonic pain — Experimental Brain Research — 2026-08-20 — Cohort authors: Jennifer Davies - Shows that tonic pain reduces contralateral tibialis anterior reflex amplitude during walking, but overall gait-phase–dependent modulation of the NWR remains largely unchanged. - Involves 16 healthy adults with EMG recordings from leg muscles during treadmill walking under pain vs control conditions. - Suggests that stabilizing factors for gait balance may override tonic pain effects on reflex modulation. 5) Method: How to investigate knowledge gaps and interrelationships between animal welfare and sustainability of animal production systems? — Zenodo (CERN) — 2026-08-20 — Cohort authors: Maria Camila Ceballos - Proposes a framework for mapping knowledge gaps and interrelationships between animal welfare and sustainability in production systems. - Provides a methodological approach for integrating welfare science with sustainability considerations, hosted openly on Zenodo. - Aims to guide researchers in designing studies that bridge welfare and sustainability disciplines. 6) Emergence of alveolar echinococcosis in Canada: a warning for the USA — Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases — 2026-08-20 — Cohort authors: Jamie L. Rothenburger - Documents a meaningful rise of locally acquired alveolar echinococcosis in Canada since 2013, signaling North American epidemiologic shifts. - Highlights factors such as the European-like Echinococcus multilocularis haplotype in wildlife and peri-urban dog exposure, plus heightened clinician awareness. - Advocates a One Health approach incorporating human, veterinary, and wildlife data to improve diagnosis, management, and outcomes. 7) Pre-existing Th1 immunity is abrogated by ongoing recruitment of monocytic host cells that are refractory to activation — bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) — 2026-08-17 — Cohort authors: Nathan C. Peters - In Leishmania major–model infection, pre-existing Th1 immunity is initially protective but is ultimately undermined by inflammatory monocyte–derived PD-L1+ PD-L2+ macrophages that create an intracellular niche. - Anti-PD-1 blockade enhances activation of uninfected monocyte-derived cells; depleting monocyte-derived precursors improves parasite control. - Concludes that evasion of pre-existing Th1 immunity stems from infected-cell–intrinsic activation defects rather than a failed Th1 response. 8) Incisor pathology in wild muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) from the Canadian Arctic — Veterinary Pathology — 2026-08-17 — Cohort authors: Jamie L. Rothenburger; Douglas P. Whiteside; Susan Kutz - Reveals a high prevalence of incisor lesions in wild muskoxen, with enamel infractions in 91.4% (222/243) and complicated crown fractures in 50.6% (123/243) of individuals. - Additional radiographic findings include root fractures, hypercementosis, ankylosis, and other dental anomalies correlating with gross lesions. - Establishes foundational baseline data for muskox health and guides future epidemiological and welfare assessments in wild Arctic mammals. By the numbers - PLoS ONE: 1 - Figshare: 3 - Experimental Brain Research: 1 - Zenodo: 2 - Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases: 1 - bioRxiv: 1 - Veterinary Pathology: 1 Total works (2026-08-17 to 2026-08-24): 10