diff --git a/sphinx/about/whats-new.rst b/sphinx/about/whats-new.rst
index 5b750326..a859fb1c 100644
--- a/sphinx/about/whats-new.rst
+++ b/sphinx/about/whats-new.rst
@@ -21,6 +21,12 @@ File format fixes and improvements:
 Bio-Formats improvements:
 
 * fixed warnings across all components for Java 9+ 
+    - Among other things, this includes changes to how double values are parsed from strings in many format readers.
+      These changes are expected to be more lenient in allowing datasets with certain missing or invalid metadata
+      values (e.g. objective magnifications, detector voltages) to be read without throwing an exception. This means
+      that some datasets which failed to read in 7.3.0 may now suddenly work (or fail at a later point) with 7.3.1,
+      without an intentional targetted fix for that format. For specific changes to format readers, please see
+      https://github.com/ome/bioformats/pull/4182 and https://github.com/ome/bioformats/pull/4177.
 * fixed a number of String comparisons
 
 Documentation improvements: