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August 28, 2025

Los neandertales también iban a la playa… y dejaban sus huellas en la arena

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Fernando Muñiz Guinea, Geólogo, Paleontólogo (Icnológía, tafonomía, paleoecología). Actualmente, Profesor Titular de la Universidad de Sevilla.., Universidad de Sevilla

Praia do Telheiro, en Portugal, donde se han encontrado huellas fosilizadas de neandertales de unos 80 000 años de antigüedad. David_Pastyka/Shutterstock

Cuando imaginamos a los neandertales, la mayoría de nosotros pensamos en cazadores cubiertos de pieles, acurrucados en cuevas y soportando el frío de la Europa glacial. Sin embargo, un descubrimiento sorprendente en la costa atlántica de Portugal está ayudando a reescribir esa imagen. Nuevas investigaciones muestran que los neandertales no solo habitaban cuevas o cazaban en el interior, sino que también iban a la playa.

En monte Clérigo y en praia do Telheiro, en la región del Algarve, se ha conservado un registro extraordinario: huellas fosilizadas de neandertales que caminaron por estas playas hace unos 80 000 años. Son huellas profundas, algunas de niños y adolescentes, congeladas en el tiempo en dunas antiguas. Juntas, ofrecen una ventana a un día en la vida de nuestros parientes más cercanos y sugieren una relación con la costa mucho más rica de lo que antes se creía.

Praia do Telheiro, en Portal, un sitio de interés geológico donde se han hallado muestras de vida neandertal.
GeoPortal. Energía y Geología de Portugal., CC BY

Huellas en la arena… durante 80 000 años

Las huellas, ahora endurecidas en roca, se conservaron gracias a una afortunada combinación de arena, humedad y tiempo. En monte Clérigo, los investigadores documentaron 26 huellas de neandertales, mientras que praia do Telheiro reveló otra huella más. Algunas impresiones son tan nítidas que se puede ver el talón, el arco y algunos dedos, especialmente el dedo gordo, como si la persona acabara de salir a caminar.

Al estudiar su forma y tamaño, los científicos pudieron incluso estimar la edad y tamaño de los individuos. Muchas pertenecían a adultos, junto a algunos niños. Esto sugiere salidas en grupo más que individuos solitarios. De hecho, un niño pequeño dejó un par de huellas: un recordatorio poderoso de que los días en la playa no eran solo para sobrevivir, sino también para jugar y explorar.

¿Por qué ir a la costa?

Entonces, ¿qué hacían estos neandertales junto al mar? Las huellas no lo dicen exactamente, pero las posibilidades son fascinantes. Las zonas costeras eran ricas en recursos: animales, mariscos, crustáceos, aves marinas e, incluso, peces o mamíferos varados. Para los cazadores-recolectores, la playa era un bufé natural.

Las huellas también sugieren movilidad y curiosidad. Los neandertales no estaban confinados a cuevas o bosques; como era de esperar, exploraban dunas, estuarios y orillas. Al aventurarse a la costa, demostraban la misma adaptabilidad que les permitió prosperar durante cientos de miles de años en paisajes muy distintos, desde la península ibérica hasta Bélgica, el norte de Francia, el sur de Inglaterra y el Cáucaso, llegando hasta los montes Altái en el sur de Siberia.

Una imagen diferente de la vida prehistórica

Durante décadas, los neandertales fueron caricaturizados como brutos, primitivos y centrados únicamente en la supervivencia. Pero descubrimientos como este desafían esa visión anticuada. Aquí los vemos no solo como cazadores de elefantes y ciervos, sino como comunidades dinámicas basadas en la familia que usaban diversos entornos.

La presencia de huellas de niños es especialmente reveladora. Pinta una escena de jóvenes neandertales corriendo por las dunas mientras los adultos caminaban cerca. Es fácil imaginar familias explorando juntas, como hacen los humanos modernos. Los valiosos fósiles encontrados congelan un momento cotidiano y fugaz, del tipo de momentos que la arqueología rara vez captura.

¿Cómo sabemos que eran neandertales?

La datación de los sitios los sitúa firmemente en la era neandertal, hace unos 80 000 años, antes de la llegada del Homo sapiens a Europa. Otros sitios con restos de neandertales e industrias líticas se encuentran en entornos costeros como Figueira Brava (Portugal), la costa andaluza en Matalascañas (Huelva), Gibraltar y algunos otros lugares de la costa mediterránea de España. En conjunto, la evidencia es sólida: estas son huellas de neandertales y muestran la presencia de grupos familiares a lo largo de la costa ibérica.

Ocupaciones neandertales en el litoral central catalán. Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España.

Por qué esto importa

El descubrimiento tiene grandes implicaciones. Por un lado, se suma a la creciente evidencia de que los neandertales aprovechaban entornos y recursos costeros. Los concheros en sitios como Figueira Brava (cerca de Lisboa), las cuevas de Vanguard y Gorham (Gibraltar) o la cueva Bajondillo (Málaga) ya sugerían mariscos en su dieta, pero las huellas proporcionan una evidencia mucho más directa: ellos realmente caminaron allí.

También desafía estereotipos sobre el comportamiento neandertal. Lejos de estar atrapados en el interior, interactuaban activamente con los paisajes marinos. Esta versatilidad pudo haberles ayudado a soportar los cambios climáticos durante los interglaciares y glaciares, hasta la la Edad de Hielo, el último periodo glacial que ha acontecido en la historia geológica de la Tierra.

Finalmente, hay un impacto emocional. Las huellas son poderosas porque nos conectan directamente con individuos. A diferencia de herramientas de piedra o huesos, muestran comportamiento en movimiento: alguien caminando, parado o corriendo, en un lugar y tiempo específicos. Salvan el abismo de milenios de una forma que pocos otros fósiles pueden.

Praia do Telheiro, en Portugal.
Puyol/Wikiloc., CC BY

Caminando en sus huellas

Nuestra especie, Homo sapiens, eventualmente se extendió por Europa y coexistió con los neandertales durante miles de años antes de que desaparecieran hace menos de 40 000 años. Hoy, muchos de nosotros todavía llevamos rastros de ADN neandertal. Descubrimientos como los de monte Clérigo y praia do Telheiro nos recuerdan cuánto compartimos con ellos: no solo genes, sino también comportamientos, paisajes y, quizá, la simple alegría de un día en la playa.

Leer más:
Los neandertales se extinguieron hace 40.000 años, pero nunca ha habido más ADN suyo que hoy

La próxima vez que pasee por una orilla arenosa durante las vacaciones, considere esto: mucho antes del turismo de playa, mucho antes de los pueblos pesqueros, hasta antes de que nuestra especie llegara a Europa, las familias neandertales ya estaban allí. Los adultos caminaban delante, quizás para cazar, sus pasos más pesados hundiéndose en la arena mientras subían la duna. Los niños seguían, dejando pequeñas huellas juguetonas. La marea subía y bajaba, el nivel del mar cambiaba, las dunas se desplazaban, pero de alguna manera, con casi ninguna probabilidad, esas huellas perduraron.

Ochenta milenios después, resurgen para contarnos una historia: los neandertales eran tan exploradores, sobrevivientes y amantes de la playa como nosotros.

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

– ref. Los neandertales también iban a la playa… y dejaban sus huellas en la arena – https://theconversation.com/los-neandertales-tambien-iban-a-la-playa-y-dejaban-sus-huellas-en-la-arena-263686

August 28, 2025

Por qué los grupos de infantil no deberían ser de más de 10 niños

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Marta Casla Soler, Profesora del dpto. Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación. Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Imaginemos un grupo de veinte niñas y niños de 2 y 3 años en un aula. Son muy activos, algunos acaban de incorporarse a la escuela. Tras reunirlos en corro, Verónica, una de las dos educadoras del grupo, les pregunta por la tormenta del día anterior: “¿Con quién estabais cuando cayó la granizada?”

Como es lógico, las respuestas se producen de forma desordenada y se forma cierta algarabía: varios hablan a la vez, otros se levantan, saltan. Verónica intenta que se sienten y les anima a escuchar. Al terminar, solo unos pocos logran compartir su experiencia y recibir una respuesta directa de Verónica o Miriam, sus dos “profes”. Otros intervinieron una o dos veces, sin que nadie les respondiera directamente.

En un grupo tan amplio de niños tan pequeños esta escena es habitual. Sin embargo, no poder establecer un verdadero diálogo con las educadoras o sus compañeros puede tener efectos a largo plazo para los pequeños, especialmente si se vuelve algo recurrente.

La importancia de la ratio en infantil

Las habilidades comunicativas y lingüísticas que desarrollamos en los primeros años no se adquieren mediante instrucción formal, sino que se construyen en las interacciones cotidianas que tienen lugar en casa, en la comunidad o en la escuela. Es en estos espacios donde aprendemos a tomar la palabra, ser escuchados, escuchar a otros, respetar turnos y atender incluso al habla que no va dirigida directamente a nosotros.

En la escuela infantil, el número de participantes por grupo es clave para garantizar la participación activa y la inclusión. Pero ¿cuál es la proporción adecuada para que eso ocurra?

Algunas organizaciones internacionales han establecido recomendaciones claras. Es el caso de organizaciones británicas y australianas, como la National Association for the Education of Young Children, el Early Years Foundation Stage o el National Quality Framework. Todas coinciden en recomendar un adulto por cada cuatro niños en grupos de bebés y niños de un año (con un máximo de ocho). A partir de los dos años, proponen un adulto cada cuatro niños, bien uno cada seis en grupos de hasta doce participantes.

La Comisión Europea, en cambio, no fija una ratio concreta, ya que depende de la regulación de cada país, pero insiste en garantizar ciertos estándares de calidad. En su guía de 2021 se destaca el ejemplo de Suecia, con un adulto por cada tres bebés y uno por cada siete niños menores de tres años (Comisión Europea, 2021).

¿Cuál es la ratio en España?

España, junto con Croacia, es uno de los países europeos que permite un mayor número de niños por adulto en educación infantil. Aunque las cifras varían según la Comunidad Autónoma, las diferencias son significativas. En la Comunidad de Madrid, por ejemplo, se permite una educadora para cada ocho bebés, 16 niños y niñas en el grupo de 1-2 años, y hasta 20 en el grupo de 2-3 años, con una figura de apoyo compartida entre varias aulas.

Otras comunidades optan por ratios más ajustadas. En Navarra, por ejemplo, se fijan en 8, 12 y 16 para los grupos de 0-1, 1-2 y 2-3 años, respectivamente. En Canarias, las cifras suben ligeramente: 8, 13 y 18.

Leer más:
¿A qué edad pronuncian los niños sus primeras palabras y cuándo debemos preocuparnos si no lo hacen?

¿Qué implica esta proporción en una etapa tan importante para el desarrollo del lenguaje? La evidencia no es unánime: algunos estudios no encuentran una relación directa entre la ratio y el desarrollo del lenguaje, mientras que otros muestran que los niños en grupos más numerosos tienden a obtener puntuaciones más bajas en pruebas de lenguaje.

Hablar más o menos en el grupo de infantil

En una investigación reciente, realizada en aulas de educación infantil de la Comunidad de Madrid y Toledo, analizamos cuántas oportunidades reales tienen los niños y niñas de participar verbalmente en actividades grupales y cómo influye el tamaño del grupo en esas interacciones. Los resultados son contundentes: cuantos más niños hay en el grupo, menos oportunidades tiene cada uno de hablar y ser escuchado, incluso cuando participa más de una educadora.

El efecto es aún mayor en los grupos de los más pequeños. No es tanto la ratio adulto-niño lo que determina la participación verbal, sino el tamaño total del grupo. En la práctica, un grupo de 8 niñas y niños con una educadora favorece más las interacciones lingüísticas que un grupo de 16 con dos educadoras.

Oportunidad de participar y habilidades del lenguaje

Las niñas y niños que menos hablan son también quienes tienen menos oportunidades de recibir habla dirigida específicamente a ellos, sobre todo en grupos numerosos. En nuestro estudio, realizado con grupos de entre 9 y 16 niños y niñas de 2-3 años, observamos diferencias claras en la participación.

En la ventana de dos segundos después de intervenir en una actividad grupal, la educadora puede responder al niño o niña directamente, contestar a otro niño o, simplemente, dirigir su respuesta al grupo en general. En los grupos grandes, quienes participan menos o tienen menor vocabulario son los que tienen menos probabilidades de recibir una respuesta individualizada.

Por ejemplo, si un niño dice “¡Lluvia!”, y la educadora responde “Sí, cayó mucha lluvia ayer, ¿te asustaste?”, está reconociendo y ampliando su intervención. Pero cuando hay muchos niños en el grupo, y especialmente si algunos tienen más iniciativa verbal que otros, estas respuestas se reparten de manera desigual.

Leer más:
La importancia de los gestos en el desarrollo del lenguaje

La importancia del énfasis y los gestos

En nuestro estudio observamos que las educadoras y educadores recurren a distintas estrategias de énfasis (como autorrepeticiones o gestos sincronizados) tanto al dirigirse a un niño o niña en concreto como al grupo entero.

Otros trabajos, en España y en otros países, muestran que la combinación de habla y gesto (cuando el adulto señala, mueve las manos o enfatiza visualmente lo dicho) resulta clave para que los niños pequeños entiendan y participen en las interacciones. A menudo, además, los gestos del adulto se sincronizan con los del niño, generando momentos especialmente ricos para el aprendizaje y la interacción.

Ahora bien, en nuestro estudio vimos que este tipo de énfasis multimodal se emplea mucho más al hablar al grupo entero que al responder a un solo niño de forma individual. Y esta diferencia se acentúa cuanto mayor es el número de niños en el aula.

El tamaño del grupo y la igualdad de oportunidades

Nuestros hallazgos muestran que, en grupos de más de diez niños y niñas de entre 1 y 3 años, la participación activa en las interacciones grupales no está garantizada, incluso con varios adultos presentes.

Esto limita sobre todo a quienes tienen un menor nivel lingüístico, que son precisamente quienes más se beneficiarían de recibir habla dirigida y respuestas individualizadas. La consecuencia es clara: menos participación implica menos oportunidades para desarrollar habilidades comunicativas. Y cuando esas oportunidades no se reparten de forma equitativa, se amplían las desigualdades desde los primeros años de vida.

Estos resultados invitan también a repensar cómo se organiza la acción educativa cuando hay más de una educadora en el aula. Contar con dos profesionales no debería reducirse a “más manos”, sino a la posibilidad real de dividir al grupo en momentos clave, favoreciendo interacciones más individualizadas, sobre todo con los niños y niñas que menos hablan. Reducir la ratio es importante, pero no basta: es necesario reorganizar tiempo y espacio para garantizar que todos puedan hablar, escuchar y ser escuchados.

Marta Casla Soler recibe fondos del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Agencia Estatal de Investigación) con la cofinanciación de la Unión Europea, proyecto PID2021-123907NB-I00. Ella es miembro de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Ana Moreno Núñez recibe fondos de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación), cofinanciados por el Fondo Social Europeo (PID2024-155267NB-I00).

Alba Torres Mendoza no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Por qué los grupos de infantil no deberían ser de más de 10 niños – https://theconversation.com/por-que-los-grupos-de-infantil-no-deberian-ser-de-mas-de-10-ninos-258205

August 28, 2025

Like Reagan, Trump is slashing environment regulations, but his strategy may have a far deeper impact

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Barbara Kates-Garnick, Professor of Practice in Energy Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

When the Trump administration announced it was moving to eliminate dozens of U.S. climate policies, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said he was sending “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

That drive – to both repeal environmental regulations and cast doubt on science – reflects the Trump administration’s approach to environment policy.

Deregulation has long been a key theme in Republican environmental policy. The conflict between the obligation to protect public health and the desire to boost markets traces back to Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration. Reagan’s perspective that government is not a solution to problems, but is the problem instead, set the stage for Republican administrations that followed.

Reagan, standing in a reception line, shakes Trump's hand. Trump is wearing a tuxedo. Reagan a suit. — President Ronald Reagan shakes Donald Trump’s hand during a reception that Trump, then a real estate developer, attended at the White House in 1987.
White House Photographic Collection via Wikimedia Commons

Reagan argued that the growth of government spending and business regulation had stymied economic prosperity. Environmental regulations were a prime target.

Forty years later, America is seeing many of the same concepts in the Trump administration. However, its strategy could have a greater effect than Reagan ever envisioned.

Slashing budgets and staffing

There are many ways to kneecap government agencies: Instituting massive budget cuts, cutting staff with critical functions and appointing leadership whose goal is limiting the reach and effectiveness of the very agencies they direct are just a few.

In these efforts, Reagan and Trump had similar approaches to the EPA, although with different levels of intensity.

Trump’s EPA budget plan for 2026 includes a draconian 50% cut from the previous year and the lowest budget proposal, when adjusted for inflation, since Reagan. Staff cuts in just the first six months of the second Trump administration put the agency’s total employment at 12,448, down from 16,155 in January.

Reagan dissolved the EPA Office of Enforcement to limit “unnecessary regulation,” which resulted in a 80% decline in actions to enforce environmental regulations. Trump is also stopping enforcement actions, dismantling the EPA’s Science and Research Office and politicizing the agency’s science by putting political appointees in charge, moves that undermine EPA’s independence and expertise.

Both cut EPA’s budget, but that alone does not reduce an agency’s effectiveness.

Politicizing EPA leadership

When the EPA was founded in 1970 during the Nixon administration, it represented a bipartisan consensus: After decades of auto exhaust, polluted waterways and smog-filled air, environmental protection had become a national policy priority.

But industries that EPA regulated argued that the costs of implementing the agency’s mandates were too high. That created tension between economics and science and enforcement.

As part of his “government is not the solution” approach, Reagan issued an executive order shortly after taking office in 1981 requiring federal agencies to submit all proposed rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget before making them public. In Reagan’s eyes, this approach centralized power in the White House and was a way to eliminate burdensome regulations before the agencies announced them to the public.

He also appointed an EPA administrator who shared his anti-government perspective. Anne Gorsuch Burford was a lawyer and state legislator from Colorado, where she routinely voted against toxic waste cleanup and auto pollution controls.

A woman sits in a chair next to the president's desk. Reagan is smiling as he talks with her. — President Ronald Reagan meets with EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch in the Oval Office in May 1982.
HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Once in Washington, she appointed several people to the EPA’s leadership team with direct ties to industries the EPA regulated. An example was Rita Lavelle, head of the EPA’s toxic waste programs, who was later convicted of perjury for lying to Congress about when she knew her former employer, a defense contractor, was disposing of toxic waste at a now notorious dump site.

These appointments were an example of regulatory capture by the industries EPA was in charge of overseeing. Anne Gorsuch Burford was held in contempt of Congress for not turning over records related to the Superfund cleanup of the same hazardous waste site, which led to her resignation. The Superfund program to clean up toxic waste dumps was new and one of EPA’s largest programs at the time.

The scandals, broken staff morale, stripped budgets and fights over policy discredited the agency.

Going after government scientists

Anne Gorsuch Burford’s deregulation efforts weren’t fully successful, in part because EPA staff experts rallied to preserve science and regulatory functions. They leaked materials about delays in the Superfund site cleanup to sympathetic congressional staff, who in turn found support from Republican and Democratic senators.

That history may have influenced the Trump administration’s strategy toward the federal bureaucracy’s staff experts, who Trump calls “the Deep State.”

The Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial group Trump set up in early 2025 headed by Elon Musk, directed the firing of tens of thousands of government scientists and other staff with expertise that government agencies rely on. Thousands more have resigned amid intimidation tactics such as surveillance.

A group of people hold science reading 'EPA protects you, protect EPA' and 'Science saves' — EPA employees and supporters held a rally in Philadelphia on March 25, 2025, to call attention to the impact of the Trump administration’s job cuts.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has been clear about targeting bureaucrats. He said in 2023: “We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”

There is a clear focus today on EPA programs that don’t align with the administration’s views. Programs related to environmental justice for low-income communities are in the line of fire. The appointment of people from the chemical, fossil fuel and corporate industries to high-level regulatory and legal positions raises questions about regulatory capture – whether their focus will be more on the health of the industries they oversee than on the health of the public.

An example is decision-making related to who bears the costs of cleaning up pollution from PFAS “forever chemicals” − persistent, harmful chemicals that are now found in drinking water and in people’s bloodstreams. Steven Cook, a Trump appointee who once represented chemical companies that are fighting the rule, has proposed shifting what are expected to be billions of dollars in costs from the companies to taxpayers, The New York Times reports. That would be a significant shift away from the 45-year Superfund mantra that “the polluter pays.” Such actions blur the lines between ethics, policymaking and consumer and company interests.

The first Trump administration had a focus on reforming permitting and bureaucracy. While appearing radical at the time, the revamping of scientific boards to include more industry representatives, the undoing of power plant rules and the lessening of enforcement hobbled but did not completely undo the agency.

The second Trump administration, in actively supporting fossil fuel “energy dominance,” is taking steps to not just eliminate regulations but to ensure future administrations can’t bring the regulations back, by using a complex set of legal arguments related to the regulation of greenhouse gases.

At the same time, the administration is trying to discredit scientific research to downplay the risks of a warming planet.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announces plans in March 2025 to reconsider dozens of regulations that affect the fossil fuel industry and human health.

The Reagan administration, while it also pushed for deregulation and expanded permitting of oil, gas and coal leases, embraced some elements of environmental protection. Reagan designated more than 10 million acres as protected wilderness and signed the Coastal Barriers Resources Act, which helped protect 3.5 million acres of shoreline from development. When Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol in 1988 to help protect the ozone layer, he cited scientific data showing the growing risks of ozone-depleting substances.

When Congress doesn’t push back

There is another critical difference between the first and second Trump administrations: The current Republican-controlled Congress is consenting to almost every request the president makes.

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be a check on the executive branch, and a bipartisan Congress has long taken an active role in oversight and investigation involving environmental issues.

In 2025, however, Congress has approved most of Trump’s demands, including voting to repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act, a package of pro-environment spending it had just passed two years earlier and that included many projects in Republican districts.

The administration’s effort to eliminate U.S. climate policies will take time and face lawsuits.

In an irony of history, Anne Gorsuch Burford’s son Neil Gorsuch now sits on the Supreme Court. His vote when those cases come before the court may be the ultimate Reagan legacy on the Trump EPA.

This article, originally published Aug. 26, 2025, has been updated with a recommendation within EPA to shift PFAS cleanup costs from companies to taxpayers.

Barbara Kates-Garnick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Like Reagan, Trump is slashing environment regulations, but his strategy may have a far deeper impact – https://theconversation.com/like-reagan-trump-is-slashing-environment-regulations-but-his-strategy-may-have-a-far-deeper-impact-262929

August 28, 2025

Medidas que debería incluir un pacto de Estado para hacer frente a los incendios forestales

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Víctor Resco de Dios, Catedrático de Ingeniería Forestal y Cambio Global, Universitat de Lleida

Actuación de la Unidad Militar de Emergencias en el incendio de Tres Cantos (Madrid) el 12 de agosto de 2025. UME

Hace un par de semanas, cuando el azote de los incendios forestales empezaba a golpear el oeste de la península ibérica, propusimos un pacto de Estado para hacer frente al problema de los incendios forestales en España, junto con Paco Castañares, del sector forestal.

El Gobierno ha prometido un Pacto de Estado para la mitigación y adaptación a la Emergencia Climática, y el principal partido de la oposición presentó un plan de Ayuda, Recuperación y Prevención para el Medio Rural y Forestal.

Pero ¿en qué consistiría exactamente un pacto de Estado para hacer frente al problema de los incendios forestales? A continuación, trataré de esbozar algunos de los siete principales aspectos que, bajo nuestro parecer, debería contener.

1. Cultura de riesgo y autoprotección

Debemos establecer una cultura de riesgo, de manera que la ciudadanía sea consciente de los riesgos a los que está expuesta, que sepa cómo autoprotegerse y cómo reaccionar frente a la emergencia a través de:

Desarrollo y publicación de una cartografía de riesgo, con mapas de zonas “inflamables” (equivalente a mapas de zonas inundables) y que concrete puntos de reunión, vías de escape y evacuación dado que muchas personas viven, o veranean, en ratoneras sin escapatoria en caso de incendio y sin ser conscientes de ello.
Facilitación a la ciudadanía de herramientas que permitan visualizar en tiempo casi real el incendio e información sobre cómo autoprotegerse.
Desarrollo y ejecución de los planes de prevención municipal por técnicos cualificados, que incluyan franjas cortafuegos de cientos de metros, coordinados a través de las diputaciones en el caso de ayuntamientos pequeños y con medios escasos.

Cuando la cultura de riesgo ya esté instaurada, junto con las debidas medidas de autoprotección, podemos revisar la legislación para permitir que cada persona elija si prefiere evacuar su casa o quedarse a defenderla, asumiendo el riesgo que eso conlleva, como se hace en Australia y otros países.

2. Prevención y actividad forestal

La literatura científica actual nos indica que para reducir sustantivamente el área quemada en incendios, necesitamos tratar preventivamente el equivalente a 3-5 veces el área quemada, lo que implica un mínimo de un millón de hectáreas al año, a través de un diseño estratégico. Estamos hablando de:

Planificar y ejecutar obras de prevención a escala de macizo montañoso, a parte de la necesaria protección municipal y a escalas más locales.
Promover mosaicos de vegetación, o “cortafuegos productivos”, que son zonas que combinan distintos tipos de vegetación y permiten casar la rentabilidad de la explotación (castañas, cultivos, olivos…) con la preservación de la biodiversidad y las zonas de escasa inflamabilidad, de baja carga de combustible, sobre todo en puntos críticos.
Implementar un ambicioso programa de quemas prescritas, la versión ingenieril de las quemas tradicionales de los pastores, nuevamente para disminuir la carga de combustible en nuestros montes y crear oportunidades para la extinción.

Leer más:
Prevención de incendios forestales: ¿algún país lo está haciendo bien?

3. Sistema de alertas

Necesitamos desarrollar un sistema de alerta temprana que avise idealmente 72 horas antes del advenimiento de condiciones adversas para poder preparar tanto a los dispositivos de extinción como a la población sobre posibles evacuaciones o confinamientos.

Este sistema de alerta debe ser desarrollado por expertos en incendios forestales, a partir de los datos que puedan aportar distintas agencias como las meteorológicas o estadísticas.

4. Gestión de la emergencia

El pacto de Estado que necesitamos debe velar por:

La incorporación a la cadena de mando de unidades de análisis y planificación de la extinción, ya que los incendios actuales requieren de unidades de inteligencia avanzada. Hasta que eso no se haya logrado, necesitamos hacer frente a las condiciones de emergencia nacional de estos días con, por lo menos, un sistema de soporte en el análisis. Resulta paradójico que a nivel internacional se haya implementado el mecanismo FAST, que permite ese apoyo en inteligencia a países terceros, pero que una estructura parecida aún no se haya aplicado a nivel nacional.
A largo plazo, el pacto de Estado debe velar por la homogeneización de los elementos comunes en los dispositivos de extinción, para dar una respuesta efectiva cuando se produzca la próxima emergencia nacional.
Mejorar la formación de los bomberos a todos los niveles. En algunas comunidades autónomas, las condiciones laborales es otra de las tareas pendientes.

Paisaje de tierra quemada — Paisaje tras el incendio de Yeres, en León.
UME

5. Restauración

Los megaincendios son la respuesta de los ecosistemas al cambio global que estamos viviendo. La nueva realidad climática impone cambios drásticos sobre algunos paradigmas para adaptar nuestros ecosistemas a un clima cambiante. Esto implica que:

Deberemos favorecer el establecimiento de vegetación adaptada al clima futuro que se espera para cada zona, aun cuando eso implique una pérdida de la superficie de bosques cerrados o la incorporación de vegetación no autóctona.
Necesitamos unidades de inteligencia que permitan tomar decisiones rápidas sobre cómo abordar la restauración tras múltiples incendios que queman centenares de miles de hectáreas, y agilizar los procedimientos para poder contratar con urgencia las obras de restauración necesarias para evitar las pérdidas de suelo.

Leer más:
¿Puede la vegetación recuperarse por sí sola después de un gran incendio?

6. Legislación y fiscalidad

Y por último, el pacto de Estado debe disminuir la carga burocrática con la que se encuentra el sector primario y, en particular, las actividades relacionadas con la prevención de incendios y fomentar, a través de incentivos fiscales, la actividad rural y su rentabilidad. Esto conlleva acciones como:

Incorporar la singularidad forestal en la Política Agraria Común (PAC), de manera que se puedan dejar sin labrar zonas en riesgo importante de incendios forestales.
Reducir (o eliminar) el IVA de las actuaciones de prevención.
Priorizar la protección frente a incendios forestales en la implementación española del Pacto Verde, considerando los cambios que sobre el régimen de incendios pueden ejercer, por ejemplo, la transición energética o la legislación sobre restauración .

Leer más:
Hemos identificado las verdaderas causas de la última ola de megaincendios en Europa

Revisar a fondo de la legislación actual en materia forestal y rural de manera que se eliminen las trabas a la recuperación de antiguos cultivos y otras medidas que favorezcan la prevención de incendios.

7. Ciencia e innovación

Incentivar la mejora e innovación facilitando el acceso en abierto a datos y previsiones meteorológicas y otros datos financiados con dinero público.
Dotar a los medios de extinción de capacidad para mapear el avance de los incendios a tiempo real, y poder reconstruir su comportamiento para su posterior estudio.

En una primera aproximación se estima que el coste de poner en marcha estas medidas debería estar cerca de los 3 000 millones de euros, lo que podría suponer menos de la mitad de lo que llevamos este año gastado en extinción (extinguir cuesta unos 19 000 euros por hectárea). El pacto nos hubiera evitado en gran parte la pérdida de vidas humanas e infraestructuras y de las subvenciones asociadas a la declaración de zona catastrófica.

Además, un porcentaje elevado se podría cubrir por capital privado si logramos mejorar la rentabilidad de las explotaciones. Aparte de las medidas aquí propuestas, otras actividades que fomenten los usos energéticos de la biomasa y constructivo de la madera, por poner dos ejemplos, podrían favorecer esta actividad privada.

Los incendios forestales de este año nos recuerdan cómo se están convirtiendo en un problema de protección civil y de salud pública, con importantes consecuencias para la red ferroviaria y el turismo, y que está afectando también a la calidad de las aguas, aparte de su impacto creciente sobre las sociedades y economías rurales. El margen de error es cada vez más estrecho.

Víctor Resco de Dios recibe fondos del MICINN.

– ref. Medidas que debería incluir un pacto de Estado para hacer frente a los incendios forestales – https://theconversation.com/medidas-que-deberia-incluir-un-pacto-de-estado-para-hacer-frente-a-los-incendios-forestales-263979

August 28, 2025

What’s in a name? How the sound of names can bias hiring decisions

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David Sidhu, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Carleton University

Imagine you’re hiring someone for a job that requires a very kind, agreeable and co-operative person. You have two candidates and all you know about them are their names: Renee and Greta. Who do you think would be a better fit?

If you are like the people in our recent study on hiring judgments, you probably chose Renee. We found that smoother-sounding names like Renee were preferred to harsher-sounding names like Greta for certain kinds of jobs.

The idea that the sound of a word can make it a better fit for particular meanings or qualities is known as sound symbolism. And it suggests that even something as small as the phonemes in a name can carry surprising weight in how people are judged.

The power of sound symbolism

The best known example of sound symbolism is the bouba/kiki effect. Across languages and cultures, people tend to match the made-up word “bouba” with round shapes and “kiki” with spiky ones.

Why this happens is still debated. Various explanations exist, including the physical sensation of pronouncing the words or the way the sounds of the words imitate the features of round versus spiky objects.

Two shapes seen side-by-side: A spiky shape and a flower shape with rounded edges — In experiments, people tend to associate the word kiki with the shape on the left, and bouba with the one on the right.
(Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA

Several years ago, we tested whether the bouba/kiki effect extended beyond invented words to real first names. In one part of that study, we showed participants silhouettes that were either round or spiky and asked them to match them with names.

Not only do people associate names like Bob with round silhouettes and Kirk with spiky silhouettes, but people also associate these names with different personality traits.

Smoother-sounding names like Liam or Noelle were judged as more agreeable and emotional, while spikier-sounding names like Tate or Krista were judged as more extroverted.

Importantly, this didn’t mean that Liams actually were more agreeable than Tates. In fact, when our study looked at the personalities of more than 1,000 people, we didn’t find any sign these patterns existed in the real world. Nevertheless, people still make associations based on the sounds of names.

Names and hiring decisions

In our latest study, we were curious to see how these associations might affect judgments in a real-world context: hiring. Of course, employers usually have much more to go on than a name, but there are many instances in which candidates are screened based on only limited information.

There is also a great deal of evidence that socio-demographic cues in a name — such as race and age — can affect who gets a callback. The sound of a name itself could be another potential source of bias.

We designed job ads that looked for a candidate high in one of six personality factors: honesty-humility, emotionality, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness (how organized or hard-working someone is) and openness to experience. For example, one ad looking for an agreeable candidate read:

An organization is looking to hire a new employee. The ideal applicant for this job should be:

Co-operative

Peaceful

Not aggressive

A sample of adults recruited online were then given a pair of names and asked to decide who sounded like a better fit for the job. One name in the pair contained what are called “sonorant” consonants (l, m, n) that sound especially smooth and continuous.

The other contained what are called “voiceless stops” (p, t, k) that sound especially abrupt. For example, they might have to choose between Liam and Tate.

The people in our study made decisions for many different pairs of names, and the overall finding across three experiments was that smoother sounding names, like Liam and Noelle, were judged as better fits for jobs looking for someone high in honesty-humility, emotionality, agreeableness and openness.

When more information is available

We also tested what happens when additional information was introduced. For example, what if participants saw Liam in a picture or watched a video of him answering questions about himself?

We found that when people saw pictures of candidates (randomly paired with names), the influence of name sound decreased. When people saw a videotaped interview of the job candidates, the sound of a name no longer had an effect on their judgments of personality.

We also asked participants how well a given name fit the job candidate in the video. When people felt a name suited a candidate — regardless of sound — that candidate was judged more positively on almost every measure, including warmth and competence.

In other words, there seems to be a benefit of having a name that fits, even though it’s not yet known why some people’s names seem to suit them better than others.

Taken together, these results show the sound of a name might be one additional source of bias in hiring decisions. When people don’t have a lot of details about a candidate, it seems that there is much in a name.

David Sidhu receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Penny Pexman receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

– ref. What’s in a name? How the sound of names can bias hiring decisions – https://theconversation.com/whats-in-a-name-how-the-sound-of-names-can-bias-hiring-decisions-263607

August 28, 2025

Netflix’s ‘Mo’ delivers humour, heartache as it explores Israel-Gaza war and Palestinian and Mexican migrant life in the U.S.

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Faiza Hirji, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts, McMaster University

I recently watched both seasons of the Netflix drama-comedy Mo (2022-25), expecting a good laugh, since the show is headlined and written by funny and smart comedian Mohammed Amer.

Mo does provoke a lot of laughter, but it also stirs deep emotions, including despair, loneliness and helplessness, as the episodes explore life in America for people on the margins.

Mo is a semi-autobiographical depiction of Amer’s life. He’s a Palestinian who grew up in Houston, Texas, immigrating to that city when he was nine years old by way of Kuwait.

In the series, Amer plays Mo Najjar as he navigates a complex balancing act between the different cultures that have shaped his life. Mo undergoes struggles to obtain asylum status in the United States as a “stateless person” with no passport.

Amer uses elements of a situation comedy to introduce increasingly troubling sociopolitical themes, leavening an existential darkness with the love and laughter of the main character’s friends and family.

The comedy-drama format allows Mo to address difficult and divisive issues, such as immigration in America and the Israel-Gaza war, in non-threatening ways.

Amer’s comedic writing also serves to humanize his characters. This is particularly important accomplishment in the case of Palestinians, both at home and in the diaspora — and more broadly for Muslims globally — given the long history of misrepresentation of Islam in western discourse.

Comedy tackles erasure of Palestine

In his writing on the first Gulf War, Canadian researcher Karim H. Karim explains how western war propaganda attempted to dehumanize their enemy. He cites comments from the U.S. army members during the Gulf War as examples. They described Iraqis as non-human and animals: “fish in a barrel,” “cockroaches” and part of a “turkey shoot,” alongside the use of longstanding stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims

Dehumanizing techniques can also be seen in today’s conflicts in the Middle East.

For example, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich delivered a speech in October 2024 in which he said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also said: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

Mo counters these types of messages repeatedly as features representations of strong women, respectful men and loving families, instead of the angry terrorists or oppressed women depicted in western imaginings.

Several researchers have previously documented such stereotypes, including Edward Said, Leila Ahmed, Yasmin Jiwani, Karim Karim and Ross Perigoe and Mahmoud Eid.

Comedy is non-threatening

Viewers get to know Mo’s family, the Najjars, and their quirks and idiosyncracies, as well as the complicated path they tread.

During the family’s asylum hearing, an opposing lawyer raises an objection to their claim, saying the U.S. does not recognize Palestine as a state. The statement is brief and the moment passes quickly, but the viewer is now aware of this kind of daily erasure of Palestinian people.

Over the course of the show, viewers see the many ways Mo protests the general erasure of Palestinian culture, including a recurring argument over the origin of hummus (made with chickpeas, garlic, tahini and olive oil).

Building that statement into a comedy is less likely to attract negative attention than a high-profile drama or documentary. For example, Hamdan Ballal, one of the directors of the Oscar-winning Israel-Palestine documentary, No Other Land, was injured in an attack by masked settlers and then arrested by the Israel Defence Forces in the West Bank. Israel’s culture minister said changes had been made to public funding rules to help prevent similar films from being made in future..

Comedy as simultaneous defusion and resistance is also practised by the Palestinian-Canadian comedian Eman el Husseini, whose stand-up routine touches on the idea that Arabs are perceived to be dangerous while painting a picture of her own family as affectionate, overbearing and harmless.

The strategic use of comedy to make characters relatable is a technique that has proven successful with racialized comedians tackling difficult issues, both for stand-ups like Russell Peters and situation comedy formats like Black-ish.

Crushing challenges

Humour may seem like an odd response to the characters’ crushing challenges. At one point, while in negotiation with a criminal who is threatening to amputate the foot of his friend, Mo suggests cutting off just a pinkie instead, hissing to his outraged friend, “Hey, you don’t wear pinkie rings, anyway!”

But in this series, humour becomes the coping mechanism for Mo‘s characters, however fraught or fragile the issue, from a lighthearted chuckle to the darkness of gallows humour.

At times, Mo’s mother, Yusra (Farah Bsaiso), seems utterly consumed by stories of dispossession taking place back in Palestine, while Mo becomes increasingly angry about examples of appropriation and erasure.

His sister, Nadia (Cherien Dabis), trying to forge a way forward, urges her mother to pull herself away from stories of tragedy back home and resist oppression finding moments of happiness. She insists:

“We’re more than our pain and suffering.”

Ultimately, it is Yusra who summarizes what it means to smile through one’s pain, telling Mo:

“The world will always try to tear us down. And when they do…we smile. Because we know who we are.”

Resilience

In Season 2, Mo, still undocumented in Texas, gets accidentally trapped in Mexico after unwittingly crossing the border. His Mexican fiancée leaves him in frustration and loneliness.

Throughout this season, Mo’s anger at the American immigration system grows as he repeatedly tries — and fails — to get home. He seems to be engaging in constant self-sabotage, in which he simply cannot accept the process that his lawyer and the bureaucracy have outlined for him.

Yet, as the depth of the dehumanization experienced by Mo and his family becomes more and more apparent, Mo’s simmering, ever-present anger starts to seem less dysfunctional. Instead, the world’s indifference becomes spotlighted.

During these episodes, Mo begins to learn how to live with — but never accept — injustice.

However, this is still a sitcom, and some things do work out for Mo. At the end of Season 2, Mo and his family get their U.S. passports and so can finally visit their family in Palestine.

As Mo is getting ready to return to Texas, after a joyful and also heartbreaking visit with his relatives, he is harassed by an Israeli border guard. At this moment, Mo realizes he must develop the same inner strength and resolve embodied by his mother, earned after years of having to bear such harassment.

Although Mo is consumed by anger and sadness at the unjust actions towards him by the guard, against all his instincts, he thanks the border guard, smiles and walks on.

Faiza Hirji receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Netflix’s ‘Mo’ delivers humour, heartache as it explores Israel-Gaza war and Palestinian and Mexican migrant life in the U.S. – https://theconversation.com/netflixs-mo-delivers-humour-heartache-as-it-explores-israel-gaza-war-and-palestinian-and-mexican-migrant-life-in-the-u-s-249684

August 28, 2025

Universities could bolster democracy by fostering students’ AI literacy

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Larry Till, PhD student, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

The fears are familiar: Artificial intelligence is going to eat our jobs, make our students weak and lazy and possibly destroy democracy for good measure.

As AI has become more accessible to the public, it’s become closely (and probably not unreasonably) associated with academic misconduct, especially plagiarism and other forms of cheating.

For some time now, research has been suggesting that the future of AI and post-secondary education would be deeply intertwined.

What if, though, teaching students to use AI properly — ethically, responsibly and critically — could help make them better, more engaged citizens?

Fuelling debate

Since its public release in late 2022, ChatGPT, one of the most commonly used generative AI (GenAI) models in the world, has sparked furious academic debate. But the either/or argument that it will kill us or make us stronger is a false dichotomy.

As a long-time post-secondary educator, public servant and current doctoral student examining education and civic literacy, I am interested in the potential for AI to help us build a healthier, more inclusive and more robust democracy by creating new ways to engage our critical thinking skills across disciplines.

I researched this article, in part, by using Scite.ai, a research tool to which I was introduced by Sarah Eaton, a member of my doctoral supervisory committee whose research focuses on academic ethics in higher education. Eaton has examined issues around student misconduct, and has also argued that the connection between civic and digital literacy, including the use of AI in post-secondary education, is strong and growing.

Universities and civic literacy

Civic literacy is about fostering students’ potential to become active, engaged students in the pursuit of peaceful social change.

Somewhere along the way, it seems, universities shied away from that part of their institutional role.

Through western modernity, universities came to occupy roles as endowers of knowledge while building on more ancient expectations that education carried social obligations, often construed as a form of “noblesse oblige.”

Decolonial, democratic and educational criticism rightly underscores the importance of recognizing varied forms of knowledge existing throughout society and in learners’ own lives, and how students and diverse disciplines collaborate to construct knowledge.

Through this lens, as some scholars have argued, universities have become spaces to foster forms of civic literacy.

Educating for democracy

The role of colleges and universities in fostering civic literacy, sometimes known as educating for democracy, feeds their contribution to fostering democratic societies. Universities frequently point to this role proudly, speaking of it in broad, glowing terms without offering a lot of specifics.

While universities and colleges often talk broadly about creating learning spaces conducive to democratic engagement and good citizenship, principles associated with democracy have tended to be concentrated in a relatively small number of academic disciplines, such as humanities, social and political sciences. The STEM disciplines don’t always give them the same attention.

The need for digital and AI literacy, across disciplines, raises rich possibilities around fostering the teaching and learning of democratic or civic dispositions. This refers to creating students who become voting citizens, who have the capacity to make informed political decisions about the leaders who represent them or to assess the validity of what those leaders present.

The path to using AI to foster civic literacy requires the reinforcement of critical thinking, which encourages learners to challenge assumptions and cultivate independent thought.

Becoming critical, informed citizens

Many of us are familiar with concerns that AI doesn’t probe deeply; it can’t assess credibility as a human might; it’s typically working from dated information, having been trained on older, static data sets; it demonstrates bias and discrimination; and sometimes, it can outright hallucinate, making up facts that have no basis in reality.

There’s a bit of a void at the moment in terms of institutional AI policies on the use or misuse of AI and how everyone understands them, which is understandable, given how new the technology is.

This is where the connection between AI and civic literacy is especially strong: the same critical thinking skills we teach our students in literature, science or any other discipline can be applied to when explaining AI policy or transparently examining AI outputs in classes related to curricula and assignments.

By teaching students to question outputs and assess their validity, accuracy and trustworthiness, we can help them enhance the very skills they’ll ultimately need to become active, informed citizens.

They might then stand a better chance of becoming more critical citizens, employing their skills to resolve disputes and assess everything from the news they consume to promises made by political leaders. It can also help develop the skills to combat political polarization and misinformation.

True digital literacy includes not only determining in what contexts it could be appropriate to use AI but also how to effectively use AI-powered tools.

Need for prudence

University educators have to be prudent in our approach, though. So-called “cognitive offloading” — trusting machines to do our reasoning, thinking and memory work for us — is a genuine risk.

This risk makes the argument for using AI to teach critical thinking even more compelling. Human analysis of the output and its credibility is essential.

In a presentation at the University of Calgary in March 2025, Eaton noted:

“If anything, problems facing students, educators and citizens of the world may be even more complex in the future than they are today … These next-generation citizens will be navigating and leading changes we have not yet even imagined.”

What I am seeing in my research is that a broadening of the discussion to look at AI’s potential to foster civic literacy — as Eaton suggests — may be crucial to the future of democracy.

Larry Till does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Universities could bolster democracy by fostering students’ AI literacy – https://theconversation.com/universities-could-bolster-democracy-by-fostering-students-ai-literacy-261905

August 28, 2025

What your neck size reveals about your health

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ahmed Elbediwy, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry / Cancer Biology, Kingston University

Doctors have long relied on measurements like body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratios to assess health risks. However, researchers are increasingly focusing their attention on an unexpected indicator: neck circumference.

A thick neck might project strength, like that of heavyweight boxers or rugby players, but studies suggest it could signal a concerning health issue.

BMI, which divides weight by height to estimate body fat, doesn’t always tell the complete story. A competitive bodybuilder might have a high BMI, but clearly isn’t obese. This is where neck circumference offers additional insight.

Research shows that people with larger necks relative to their body size face increased risks of several serious health conditions. The connection lies in what neck size reveals about fat distribution, particularly in the upper body.

This fat around your upper body releases fatty acids into your blood, which can interfere with how your body manages cholesterol, blood sugar and heart rhythm. Essentially, neck circumference serves as a proxy for visceral fat – the harmful fat that wraps around your organs.

The evidence linking neck size to health problems is striking. People with thicker necks show increased rates of several cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, atrial fibrillation and heart failure.

Atrial fibrillation is particularly concerning. This condition causes irregular heartbeat and blood flow, potentially leading to blood clots and stroke. The electrical imbalance in the heart can eventually progress to heart failure.

Neck circumference also correlates with coronary heart disease, where the main arteries to the heart narrow and restrict oxygen-rich blood flow.

But cardiovascular problems aren’t the only concern. Larger neck circumference increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes. Diabetes can lead to serious long-term complications, including vision loss and limb amputations.

There’s also a connection to sleep disorders. Thick necks have been linked to obstructive sleep apnoea, where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. This condition causes extreme daytime fatigue and strains the cardiovascular system. People with sleep apnoea face higher risks of car accidents due to their exhaustion.

So what constitutes a risky neck size? For men, 17 inches (43cm) or greater increases health risks. For women, the threshold is 14 inches (35.5cm) or greater.

Perhaps most surprisingly, these risks persist even in people with normal BMI. You could have a healthy weight according to traditional measures, but still face elevated health risks due to neck circumference.

And for each additional centimetre of neck circumference beyond these thresholds, death rates and hospitalisation rates increase.

What this means for you

If your neck measures above these thresholds, it’s not cause for panic – but it is worth taking seriously. Neck size represents just one piece of your overall health picture, but it’s an important one that’s often overlooked.

The good news is that neck circumference can change with lifestyle modifications. Cardiovascular exercise and weight training can help reduce upper-body fat. Quality sleep supports metabolic regulation and recovery. A balanced diet rich in pulses, fruits, and vegetables provides essential nutrients without excess calories.

Measuring your neck takes seconds with a tape measure. Simply wrap it around the narrowest part of your neck, ensuring the tape is snug but not tight.

This simple measurement could provide valuable insight into health risks that traditional metrics might miss. While neck circumference shouldn’t replace other health assessments, it offers another tool for understanding your cardiovascular and metabolic health.

In an era where we’re constantly seeking better ways to predict and prevent disease, sometimes the answers are literally right in front of us. Your neck might be revealing more about your health than you realise – and it’s worth paying attention.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What your neck size reveals about your health – https://theconversation.com/what-your-neck-size-reveals-about-your-health-263483

August 28, 2025

Housebuyers hate stamp duty. Why hasn’t it been reformed before now?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Cheshire, Professor Emeritus of Economic Geography, London School of Economics and Political Science

For years, academic economists have argued that council tax and stamp duty are deeply flawed. Politicians from all corners, as well as various thinktanks, also seem to agree. Back in 1976, the UK even had a royal commission recommending radical reform, but it was never implemented.

But now the UK government is said to be considering a change to stamp duty so that it is only paid on houses selling for more than £500,000. This could be big news, especially since it would be paid by sellers rather than buyers as at present. Due to higher house prices, it would hit people in London and the south-east the hardest.

Stamp duty is one of the UK’s oldest taxes, introduced in 1694, but its rules and rates have changed over time. Particularly since 2010, rates have increased and a range of complex exemptions (for first-time buyers, for example), “holidays” and higher rates for second homes have come and gone. Scotland and Wales now have their own systems.

Phasing these changes in and out has increased cyclical fluctuations in housing markets. For example, when a reduced stamp duty rate (introduced in 2022) was phased out three years later, house prices slumped.

But the main problem with stamp duty is that it is a tax on buying and selling houses – so on moving. It is a barrier to both downsizing for the old, and upsizing for the growing family. As such, it penalises moves to use the UK’s scarce housing stock more efficiently.

It may also act as a barrier to labour market adjustment (and so damage productivity growth) by impeding people’s ability to move for better jobs. A 2017 study concluded that a two percentage point stamp duty increase reduced mobility by 37%. This mobility reduction, however, seems mainly confined to short-distance moves.

Having to pay stamp duty makes it more difficult for people to find houses better suited to their tastes. The lower impact on long-distance moves (typically associated with labour market adjustment), however, does not provide much comfort.

The same 2017 study found that for every £100 in revenue the Treasury gained from a stamp duty increase, given the extra costs and problems encountered in finding a suitable house, households would need £84 to keep them at the same level of wellbeing.

Stamp duty is a progressive tax – the richer you are, the more you are likely to pay because it is related to the price of the house. But the relationship is complicated, with total exemption if the house price is under £125,000. This rises to 12% for all of the price above £1.5 million.

To this is added a further discount for first-time buyers and a premium for second home buyers. In fact, since the regional variation in house prices is much greater than the regional variation in incomes, stamp duty is super-progressive and penalises those living in London and the south-east.

cityscape of newcastle in england — Properties in Newcastle and the north-east of England sell for a fraction of the price of those in London and the surrounding areas.
jan kranendonk/Shutterstock

In September 2024, the median house price in London was, at £525,000, 3.3 times that in the cheapest region, the north-east. But Londoners’ median earnings were only 1.4 times those in the north-east.

Why does stamp duty still exist?

For governments, the attractive aspect of stamp duty is that it is cheap and easy to collect. And, like any property tax, it is difficult to avoid. It may also be the case that it is a politically easier tax to impose than, say, council tax. This is because it is seen to be avoidable or voluntary.

If you do not want to pay it, you can just not buy a house. After all, it is the buyer who is responsible for paying it. But of course, it may not really be as simple as that. The tax burden will in fact be split between buyers and sellers – and everyone has to to live somewhere, so rents will still reflect an element of stamp duty paid by landlords.

Reforming stamp duty surely should be high on the agenda of a good government with a long-term view. But the apparent focus on stamp duty seems to be more the result of the government’s revenue shortfall crisis and the Labour party’s commitment not to increase taxes on “working people”.

Crucially, there is an overwhelming case for a fully thought-through reform of stamp duty and council tax in combination. A strategic vision would add our system of local government finance to that agenda. Many think council tax is a far worse tax than stamp duty. It is the product of another crisis: the need to put something – anything – in place in a hurry after the collapse of the Thatcher government’s poll tax in the early 1990s.

It would be a tragedy if the UK were to get a rushed, short-term change to stamp duty in a bid to raise revenue in an emergency, rather than address the serious, long-term problems of how we tax property and fund local government. If stamp duty is changed, it must not endanger such a real, long-term and valuable reform.

Paul Cheshire is affiliated with the London School of Economics; Centre for Economic Performance; Labour Party member.

– ref. Housebuyers hate stamp duty. Why hasn’t it been reformed before now? – https://theconversation.com/housebuyers-hate-stamp-duty-why-hasnt-it-been-reformed-before-now-263747

August 28, 2025

The harms of low-blow political satire in a polarised climate

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Samuel Clark, PhD Candidate in Politics and International Relations, University of Reading

Who are you laughing at? Khosro/Shutterestock

In a world where politics can often feel demoralising, it’s no surprise that many people are finding comfort and hope in political satire.

Shows like Have I Got News For You and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver use wit and irony to make controversial, distant and uncomfortable issues more approachable while providing moral judgment on them. The idea is that when disheartening topics are dressed humorously – climate change, political corruption, structural injustice – we’re more inclined to pay attention. And, if all goes well, we might be able to poke fun at ourselves and our ignorance along the way.

Done well, satire can benefit democracy. It offers representation: the satirist articulates the grievances of people who might otherwise struggle to advance their views. It can be educational, bringing attention to important issues that are obscured in public discussions. It can hold power to account, pressuring elites to address harms they might be ignoring. And satire can promote social equality: it mocks the powerful, and in so doing asserts that they are not above others.

But in many democracies, and the US in particular, this model isn’t always being subscribed to. Much of the popular satire we see today prioritises affirming the prejudices of its partisan audience over pursuing the democratic benefits it has the potential to deliver.

My ongoing PhD research examines when satire is and isn’t democratically valuable in societies marked by deep divisions. And I’m concerned that some popular modern satire is taking a wrong turn.

Perhaps as a symptom of Donald Trump making satire of elites more and more difficult, some satirists are choosing to make fun of uninformed regular people rather than those in power, particularly when those people have different political views.

One example can be seen in The Daily Show’s recurring segment Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse. In the segment, leftwing satirist Klepper interviews attendees at Donald Trump rallies, steering them – through strategically phrased questions – into absurd or contradictory positions. The comedy is bolstered by manipulative editing and laugh tracks that paint Trump supporters as inherently foolish and unreasonable. The clips consistently attract millions of views online.

While the segment is humorous, the primary goal is not to foster public understanding or deliver a substantive critique. Rather, it pursues tribal reinforcement. The viewer is invited to laugh not at elite wrongdoing, but at the perceived ignorance of ordinary people.

This kind of satire fails to deliver, and in some cases undermines, the democratic benefits I’ve outlined above. In relation to the good of social equality, for instance, it vilifies, and so undermines the status of ordinary people. It also doesn’t hold power to account, nor does it educate people on issues of broader public concern.

Satirists wield considerable power. Studies show that many people, particularly those with low political interest, are turning to satirical television programmes as an alternative to traditional news broadcasters for information.

When satirists single out only the most extreme or ill-informed people and hold them up as representative of an entire political movement, they don’t educate or enlighten; they entrench caricature and propagandise. The audience walks away with their prejudices affirmed and their opponents dehumanised.

Punching sideways

Other satirical offerings – such as Inside Edition and Jimmy Kimmel Live, alongside a number of social media creators – are further examples of cheap shots aimed at political opponents. (Examples from the political right are harder to come by. Conservatives tend to dress their consumption of politics in outrage and anger rather than satire and irony.)

Across all these examples, an “interviewer” uses mock sincerity to lull people in and subsequently shame, demean and ridicule them – often without them knowing that they are indeed the subject of ridicule. These performances rarely illuminate complex issues or unsettle power structures. Instead, they deliver punchlines aimed squarely at their citizen adversaries. In so doing, they become partisan theatre, not satire.

While these performances may entertain, research suggests they also have lasting psychological consequences. Humorous stimuli have been shown to increase information recall. Some evidence also points to a “sleeper effect” whereby political messages delivered through comedy can become more persuasive over time, bypassing our critical defences. Humour can, however, make audiences treat messages as less important.

In my view, the danger lies in the broader narrative this kind of satire delivers about political opposition. Critiquing the hypocrisies in hardline Trump supporters’ views is one thing, but when we are encouraged to perceive an entire political group as blindly dogmatic, irrational and unreasonable, we cross a dangerous line. Instead of gaining a deeper understanding of political disagreement, viewers are left with the conviction that their political opponents are not just wrong, but unworthy of being debated. This isn’t civic engagement, it’s ideological arrogance. Democracy can’t function properly under these conditions.

This is not to argue that satire should be politically neutral. Far from it. Some of the greatest satirical work in history – from Jonathan Swift to Ian Hislop – has been fiercely ideological. But good satire challenges its audience as much as its targets. It holds a mirror up to society, forcing us to confront not just the flaws of our adversaries, but also our own ignorance.

With Saturday Night Live set to expand into the UK, British satirists would do well to take heed. There is a risk that the kind of polarising comedy taking root in the US will follow across the Atlantic. Satire is at its best when it exposes deception, discomforts the comfortable, and asks hard questions of those in power – even when they’re on our own side. It should show that no one side holds all the answers. That’s harder, riskier work. But it’s the kind of satire we need now more than ever.

Samuel Clark receives funding from the South East Network for Social Sciences.

– ref. The harms of low-blow political satire in a polarised climate – https://theconversation.com/the-harms-of-low-blow-political-satire-in-a-polarised-climate-255750