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November 11, 2025

LUX: the tradition of the troubadour is at the heart of Rosalía’s songwriting

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hussein Boon, Principal Lecturer – Music, University of Westminster

Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía’s highly anticipated album LUX has been met with widespread acclaim from critics and fans alike. It’s a fusion of ideas drawn from diverse storytelling traditions, cultures and languages, offering a rich tapestry that rewards repeated listening.

The album explores perennial themes – love, betrayal, abandonment – alongside spiritual and divine motifs. The result is a pop record with substance and bite. Critics have debated whether LUX should be classified as pop or classical music.

But this binary misses the point. The presence of operatic, orchestral and symphonic influences and flourishes doesn’t necessarily make the album classical any more than driving a high-performance car makes someone an F1 driver.

What LUX demonstrates is Rosalía’s attention to detail, technical mastery and stylistic fluency. Much of this was honed through nine years of rigorous training at the prestigious Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya school in Barcelona.

The video for the first single, Berghain, exemplifies Rosalía’s visual and narrative expressiveness. It melds high fashion and urban grit reminiscent of films like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) or The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

In the video, Rosalía can be seen carrying out everyday activities – like ironing or going to the doctor – within grand, orchestral settings. This creates a surreal yet relatable tableau, a recurring aspect of her videographic work with director Nicolás Méndez.

Speaking about the project, Méndez has highlighted the influence of Rosalía’s sister, Pili, who is integral in these shared projects. Rosalía recalled a tense discussion with her sister about Motomami, which forced her to reflect on why she made music and the depth of feeling she conveyed in her songs and recordings.

Lead single Berghain.

Multilingualism is another hallmark of LUX, which features songs in 14 languages, including Catalan, Mandarin, Ukrainian and English. Languages are used to support one of the album’s most compelling devices – its use of sainthood as a multifaceted storytelling vessel.

Rosalía draws inspiration from female saints worldwide, not only from Judeo-Christian traditions but also from Islam, Hinduism and Taoism. These figures allow her to explore the tension between earthly hardship and spiritual transcendence. The stories offer a framework through which personal and collective struggles are elevated to the divine.

Rosalía is no stranger to literary adaptation. Her 2018 song Malamente, from the album El Mal Querer, fused flamenco with contemporary R&B and hip-hop production. It drew on the 13th-century Occitan romance Flamenca, a tale of love, jealousy and courtly intrigue.

In Flamenca, the titular noblewoman is imprisoned by her jealous husband Archambaut, but she orchestrates a secret romance with the knight Guillaume, outwitting her captor. Rosalía’s adaptation of this story in both song and video underscores her commitment to storytelling as a central artistic practice.

Rosalía the troubadour

At the heart of Rosalía’s work lies an older tradition: the troubadour. These poet-musicians, including women known as trobairitz, composed some of the earliest vernacular songs of courtly love.

As expert in material culture in medieval texts E. Jane Burns has noted, these love songs often served as “an expression of female resistance to marital, moral, and legal constraint”. This historical lens reframes lyrics of love and devotion as a site of agency and defiance; ideas that resonate deeply in Rosalía’s work.

Malamente by Rosalía.

Some listeners may argue that LUX should be recognised as classical, especially with an eye towards awards season. However, it may be more accurate to say that it draws from classical traditions – musical, literary and visual – while remaining firmly rooted in popular culture.

It is essential to remember that flamenco, a disciplined folk form, serves as the foundation for her work, both technically and emotionally, while literary references and saintly iconography enhance the narrative.

Rosalía’s ability to weave sound, story, and spectacle into a cohesive whole exemplifies what popular music can achieve when at its best: a space where tradition and innovation meet, and where the personal becomes universal. No wonder Madonna has called her a “true visionary”.

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Hussein Boon 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. LUX: the tradition of the troubadour is at the heart of Rosalía’s songwriting – https://theconversation.com/lux-the-tradition-of-the-troubadour-is-at-the-heart-of-rosalias-songwriting-269429

November 11, 2025

Poor heart health in middle age linked to dementia in old age – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David C. Gaze, Senior Lecturer in Chemical Pathology, University of Westminster

For generations, medicine treated the heart and brain as separate domains. However, a new study suggests the two are more closely connected than we thought, especially as we age.

A 25-year study of nearly 6,000 adults found that subtle heart muscle damage in middle age predicts dementia risk decades later.

The research, known as the Whitehall study, tracked UK civil servants aged 45 to 69 and measured levels of a protein called “cardiac troponin I” in their blood. Troponin I appears in the blood when heart cells are damaged and is used to help diagnose heart attacks.

The protein is detected using a standard blood test. These tests have become more sensitive in recent years, so even very small amounts of troponin can now be detected – levels far below those seen in a heart attack – and these small changes can signal many other conditions.

In the Whitehall study, people with the highest levels of troponin I in midlife were 38% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia later in life than those with the lowest levels. These small increases don’t cause obvious symptoms, such as chest pain, but they suggest the heart is under strain even if a person feels fine.

Over 25 years, people with higher starting troponin levels were more likely to develop dementia than those with lower levels. For every doubling of troponin, dementia risk rose by 10%, even after considering age, sex, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and other cardiac risk factors.

Fifteen years into the study, MRI brain scans of 641 participants showed clear differences. Those who had the highest midlife troponin levels had smaller grey-matter volume and more shrinkage of the hippocampus, the area important for memory, compared with the low troponin group. This was similar to around three extra years of ageing in the brain.

Why does heart health in your 50s foretell brain decline decades later? The answer lies in circulation.

The brain relies on a constant, rich blood supply. If the heart pumps less efficiently, or if the arteries are stiff and narrow due to atherosclerosis, the brain’s delicate network of small vessels become starved of oxygen. This chronic low-grade damage can accelerate the processes that lead to dementia.

The same study found that people with higher midlife troponin levels also experienced faster declines in memory and reasoning over time. By age 90, their cognitive performance was equivalent to that of people two years older than those with lower troponin levels.

Matters of the heart

These results fit neatly with what is already known. The 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia estimated that 17% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by improving cardiovascular health, through lowering blood pressure, managing cholesterol, staying active, and avoiding smoking and excess alcohol.

Likewise, an earlier analysis from the same Whitehall cohort showed that people with good cardiovascular health at age 50 were less likely to develop dementia 25 years later. Taken together, the message is simple: what’s good for the heart is good for the brain.

The two organs share a vascular network, and damage to one inevitably affects the other. Yet the long time lag uncovered by the Whitehall study suggests that troponin elevations seen up to 25 years before dementia onset, pathological processes linking the heart and brain start far earlier than first thought.

Troponin explained.

Raised troponin doesn’t guarantee dementia. Levels can fluctuate with age, kidney function or even after vigorous exercise. But as a population marker, troponin may identify people whose cardiovascular systems are already under stress while they still feel healthy.

The idea that a single blood test in middle age might one day help flag those at higher risk of cognitive decline is appealing, not as a diagnosis but as an early warning.

Medicine often divides the body into organ systems, each treated in isolation. This study reminds us that biology doesn’t respect those boundaries. A struggling heart doesn’t just affect circulation – it may, quietly and imperceptibly, change the brain’s future too.

David C. Gaze 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. Poor heart health in middle age linked to dementia in old age – new study – https://theconversation.com/poor-heart-health-in-middle-age-linked-to-dementia-in-old-age-new-study-269324

November 11, 2025

NHS trials AI tool for faster prostate cancer diagnosis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

The NHS is embarking on a trial that could cut prostate cancer diagnosis times from weeks to a single day. The initiative uses artificial intelligence to analyse MRI scans, potentially transforming care for men with the most commonly diagnosed cancer in England.

Up to 15 NHS hospitals, including Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, will pilot the system over the coming months, processing around 10,000 MRI scans. If successful, it could be rolled out nationally – though questions remain about accuracy, costs and whether faster diagnosis always means better outcomes.

The trial represents the NHS’s latest attempt to address both the emotional toll of prolonged uncertainty and the practical problem of late diagnoses that have long characterised prostate cancer care. For many men, the wait between initial suspicion and confirmed diagnosis is marked by weeks of anxiety, often while the disease progresses unchecked.

Currently, men suspected of having prostate cancer face a lengthy process. After a GP referral, it can take days or weeks to get an MRI scan, have it interpreted by a radiologist and undergo a follow-up biopsy if needed. A national shortage of radiologists has created significant bottlenecks, with some men waiting over a month for results.

The AI system changes this timeline. Once a man has had his MRI scan, the software analyses the images in minutes. Building on major research studies, it identifies abnormal areas and generates a probability score, mapping the exact location of suspicious lesions in the prostate.

When the software flags a scan as high-risk, it is immediately prioritised for review by a human radiologist, and the patient can be booked for a biopsy the same day. For lower-risk scans, men could receive reassuring news almost immediately rather than enduring weeks of anxious waiting.

The system aims to deliver what clinicians describe as accuracy and speed that rivals traditional methods. In some settings, AI analysis has matched or exceeded human radiologist performance, though real-world implementation will test whether laboratory results translate to busy NHS hospitals.

Older man talking to his GP. — After a GP referral, some men can end up waiting weeks for a result.
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com

The case for speed

Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men in England, with about one in eight men expected to be affected in their lifetime. The number of diagnoses has risen steadily, and too many men are still diagnosed when the disease is already advanced, making survival less likely and treatment more challenging.

Reducing diagnostic delay could save lives, though diagnosing some cancers earlier isn’t always better. Some slow-growing prostate cancers may never cause symptoms or shorten life, and early detection can lead to unnecessary treatment and its associated side effects. The challenge is distinguishing aggressive cancers that need urgent intervention from those that can be safely monitored.

There is also troubling variability in cancer diagnosis across the UK, with significant differences in waiting times and outcomes depending on where a patient lives. By making specialist analysis instantly available regardless of whether a hospital has a subspecialist radiologist on hand, every man, regardless of location, could theoretically benefit from the same standard of diagnostic assessment.

The system also promises to ease pressure on NHS teams. By handling initial MRI interpretation, the AI frees up radiologist time to focus on complex or urgent cases. This matters particularly given workforce pressures – the NHS has struggled to recruit and retain enough radiologists to meet growing demand.

As the NHS seeks to do more with strained resources, AI-driven tools have the potential to save time and money.

The AI won’t work alone

The technology is designed to work alongside clinicians rather than replace them. AI acts as a “second reader”, complementing radiologist expertise to ensure nothing is missed. The aim is faster and more reliable decisions – sparing men unnecessary biopsies for benign conditions while swiftly directing those with troubling signs to the right care.

This partnership approach is considered crucial. Although AI can process vast amounts of imaging data rapidly, human judgment remains essential for interpreting results in the context of each patient’s individual circumstances, medical history and symptoms. The technology is not intended to make final diagnostic decisions, but to augment clinical decision-making.

Recent research suggests that most men would welcome the invitation to take part in a national screening programme, countering assumptions about reluctance to engage with health checks. As confidence grows in AI-powered diagnostics, this could encourage more men to come forward for testing, potentially catching cancers earlier in those most at risk.

Whether the pilot delivers on its promise of reducing the time from referral to diagnosis – and whether speed translates to better outcomes – will become clearer over the coming months. The results will be closely watched by other health services considering similar approaches.

Justin Stebbing 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. NHS trials AI tool for faster prostate cancer diagnosis – https://theconversation.com/nhs-trials-ai-tool-for-faster-prostate-cancer-diagnosis-268932

November 11, 2025

To survive today’s economy, university students are using circus-like tactics

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Alison Taylor, Professor, Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia

The skills “every student needs” for the 21st century include competencies in technology, problem solving and communication — and character qualities like adaptability and grit.

This is according to the World Economic Forum, but by now, we should be familiar with this kind of rhetoric. Think tanks, employers and policymakers amplify similar ideas around what graduates need to get good jobs and contribute to economic growth.

Such discourse and policy put pressure on universities to be more responsive to a labour market that is more precarious than the one faced by previous generations.

In turn, university students feel pressure to make the best decisions. It’s small wonder that more students are adjusting their study and career plans in efforts to secure their futures.

My recent book, Juggling Rhythms, frames university students’ diverse tactics (and survival skills) as “circus arts.” This way of examining student experiences is deeply informed by what I heard in interviews with students, and reveals aspects of their experiences that would not otherwise be apparent.

Working while studying full-time

I gained insight into these questions during a research study that I led between 2018 and 2023, which focused on undergraduate students who work while studying full-time at two research-intensive universities in Canada.

We approached this research aware of the plethora of advice for students to make themselves employable. We wondered: What do students themselves think? How are they feeling about their future careers — excited and eager, anxious and pessimistic or somewhere in between?

More than half of undergraduates engage in term-time work while studying and many pursue other forms of work-integrated learning as well.

Undergraduates are recognizing the importance of 21st century “circus arts” as they labour to learn in today’s economy, characterized by extreme wealth inequality, globalization and the dominance of multinational corporations.

Circus arts metaphors

The “circus arts” metaphors were sparked by qualitative research with 57 students at one university between 2020 and 2022. Our methods included focus group interviews, life maps, audio diaries and one-on-one follow-up interviews.

Of these 57 students, 39 identified as female, 40 were racialized, 16 were international and 17 were first-generation Canadian. They were enrolled in a range of programs across campus, many in the largest faculties of arts and science.

In my book, I consider how students are concerned with:

• How to manipulate different “objects” (juggling)

• How to adjust and recalibrate their activities and expectations (high-wire walking)

• How to learn their limits and bend in ways that don’t compromise care for self and others (contortion); and

• How to expend energy instrumentally and avoid burnout (sword swallowing).

Varying degrees of freedom and ease

Different students take up these “circus arts” in varied ways and degrees of freedom and ease. For instance, many students juggle more than paid work and studies.

Women are more likely to juggle volunteer work required for admission into feminized professional programs as well as care work in families. International students add the labour of acclimatizating to a new country with employment to offset disproportionately high tuition.

I observe that the art of high-wire walking tends to be less challenging for students who enter university with varied experiences and who have strong safety nets provided by families.

In contrast, financially insecure students, especially those who are racialized or live with disabilities, navigate more cautiously as they try to anticipate obstacles.

For example, one interviewee, Lucy, relayed how her disability required her to adjust studies and work when she was close to the point of burning out. First-generation student, Michael, had little room for error as he lived “paycheque to paycheque” on earnings from his retail job while pursuing full-time studies.

Costs of contortion and competition

Dominant discourses frame youth as autonomous, independent decision-makers who exhibit Gumby-like capacities to stretch and compress themselves into education and employment systems.

However, I observe that the “art of contortion” also involves discovering the costs of hyper-flexibility and limits on the ability to stretch in different directions.

For example, Kay came “pretty close to dropping out” because of mental health issues that were exacerbated by the competitive climate on campus. Fortunately, support from her parents and a sympathetic employer on campus helped her persevere.

Similarly, Janice, a racialized international student, compared her cohort to a “herd of lions trying to kill each other.” Her perception of steep competition for work placements coupled with her challenges to “fit in” to Canadian systems led to her realization that “there’s only so much we can take” and “you don’t have to take the path that every other person takes.”

Sword swallowing

Students learn their limits as they bump up against the rigidity of demanding education and employment systems and as they navigate family expectations.

Pressure to take on too much can be irresistible in a context where a bachelor’s credential is no longer seen as sufficient and the smorgasbord of extra-credential activities is dizzying.

The dangers of sword swallowing — which involves suppressing one’s natural defence mechanisms — are reflected in students’ comments about burnout, exhaustion and poor mental health.

For example, Helena’s disability meant that she was always playing “catch up” despite the long hours she put into her studies. When combined with a retail employer who wasn’t accommodating, she reflected, “my mental health isn’t that great” and “my personal battery is dead.”

Erosion of familiar pathways

Participants in the study perceived an imperative to be planful, employable and productive (what I call “PEP talk”) because of the erosion of familiar institutional pathways and institutional safety nets coupled with the uncertain value of university credentials.

What could universities do to reduce the time pressure on students who experience the most precarity? There are calls to tie universities even more closely to job markets: mandating work-integrated learning, adding micro-credentials and packing more into programs.

I’m not convinced these approaches will do the trick. Instead, I think we need to move away from universities trying to meet the demands of constantly shifting global labour markets by producing graduates who can “hit the ground running.”

Paradigm shift needed

A paradigm shift is needed for three main reasons. First, the timescale of universities is (and should be) longer than the economic quarter. Innovation and responsiveness to communities does not mean reacting to every report on business.

Second, everything is not up to universities. Employers must take more responsibility for creating rewarding and sustainable entry-level positions with training. This does not mean adding more unpaid internships.

Finally, more institutional supports are needed to create the space and time for students to decide who they aspire to be, explore possible directions for work and career and discover what they value (including things beyond economic returns on educational investments.

This could mean lower tuition, more financial support for financially insecure students and the equitable distribution of work opportunities on campus.

It also means instructors and researchers modelling the kind of patient and careful scholarship that will help us see our way forward in a complex and crisis-prone world.

Alison Taylor received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. To survive today’s economy, university students are using circus-like tactics – https://theconversation.com/to-survive-todays-economy-university-students-are-using-circus-like-tactics-264839

November 11, 2025

How number systems shape our thinking, and what this means for learning, language and culture

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jean-Charles Pelland, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen

Most of us have little trouble working out how many millilitres are in 2.4 litres of water (it’s 2,400). But the same can’t be said when we’re asked how many minutes are in 2.4 hours (it’s 144).

That’s because the Indo-Arabic numerals we often use to represent numbers are base-10, while the system we often use to measure time is base-60.

Expressing time in decimal notation leads to an interaction between these two bases, which can have implications at both the cognitive and cultural level.

Such base interactions and their consequences are among the important topics covered in a new issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society journal, which I co-edited with colleagues Andrea Bender (University of Bergen), Mary Walworth (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and Simon J. Greenhill (University of Auckland).

The themed issue brings together work from anthropology, linguistics, philosophy and psychology to examine how humans conceptualize numbers and the numeral systems we build around them.

What are bases, and why do they matter?

Despite using numeral bases on a daily basis, few of us have reflected on the nature of these cognitive tools. As I explain in my contribution to the issue, bases are special numbers in the numeral systems we use.

Because our memories aren’t unlimited, we can’t represent each number with its own unique label. Instead, we use a small set of numerals to build larger ones, like “three hundred forty-two.”

That’s why most numeral systems are structured around a compositional anchor — a special number with a name that serves as a building block to form names for other numbers. Bases are anchors that exploit powers of a special number to form complex numerical expressions.

The English language, for example, uses a decimal system, meaning it uses the powers of 10 to compose numerals. So we compose “three hundred and forty-two” using three times the second power of 10 (100), four times the first power of 10 (10) and two times the zeroth power of 10 (one).

This base structure allows us to represent numbers of all sizes without overloading our cognitive resources.

Languages affect how we count

Despite the abstract nature of numbers, the degree to which numeral systems transparently reflect their bases has very concrete implications — and not just when we tell time. Languages with less transparent rules will take longer to learn, longer to process and can lead to more calculation and dictation errors.

Take French numerals, for example. While languages like French, English and Mandarin all share the same base of 10, most dialects of French have what could politely be called a quirky way of representing numbers in the 70-99 range.

Seventy is soixante-dix in French, meaning “six times 10 plus 10,” while 80 uses 20 as an anchor and becomes quatre-vingts, meaning “four twenties” (or “four twenty,” depending on the context). And 90 is quatre vingt dix, meaning “four twenty ten.”

French is far from being alone in being quirky with its numerals. In German, numbers from 10 to 99 are expressed with the ones before the tens, but numbers over 100 switch back to saying the largest unit first.

Even in English, the fact that “twelve” is said instead of “ten two” hides the decimal rules at play. Such irregularities spread far beyond languages.

How bases shape learning and thought

Base-related oddities are spread out across the globe and have very real implications for how easily children learn what numbers are and how they interact with objects such as blocks, and for how efficiently adults manipulate notations.

For example, one study found that lack of base transparency slows down the acquisition of some numerical abilities in children, while another found similar negative effects on how quickly they learn how to count.

Another study found that children from base-transparent languages were quicker to use large blocks worth 10 units to represent larger numbers (for example, expressing 32 using three large blocs and two small ones) than children with base-related irregularities.

While Mandarin’s perfectly transparent decimal structure can simplify learning, a new research method suggests that children may find it easier to learn what numbers are if they are exposed to systems with compositional anchors that are smaller than 10.

In general, how we represent bases has very concrete cognitive implications, including how easily we can learn number systems and which types of systems will tend to be used in which contexts.

A group of people in white protective suits and head protectors stand in front of a robotic spacecraft — Technicians lower the Mars Climate Orbiter onto its work stand in the Spacecraft Assembly and Encapsulation Facility-2 in 1998.
(NASA)

At a cultural level, base representation influences our ability to collaborate with scientists across disciplines and across cultures. This was starkly illustrated by the infamous Mars Climate Orbiter incident, when a mix-up between metric and imperial units caused a $327 million spacecraft to crash into Mars in 1999.

Why understanding bases matters

Numeracy — the ability to understand and use numbers — is a crucial part of our modern lives. It has implications for our quality of life and for our ability to make informed decisions in domains like health and finances.

For example, being more familiar with numbers will influence how easily we can choose between retirement plans, how we consider trade-offs between side-effects and benefits when choosing between medications or how well we understand how probabilities apply to our investments.

And yet many struggle to learn what numbers are, with millions suffering from math anxiety. Developing better methods for helping people learn how to manipulate numbers can therefore help millions of people improve their lives.

Research on the cognitive and cultural implications of bases collected in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society journal can help make progress towards our understanding of how we think about numbers, marking an important step towards making numbers more accessible to everyone.

Jean-Charles Pelland’s work has been made possible by financial support from the ‘QUANTA: Evolution of Cognitive Tools for Quantification’ project, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 951388).

– ref. How number systems shape our thinking, and what this means for learning, language and culture – https://theconversation.com/how-number-systems-shape-our-thinking-and-what-this-means-for-learning-language-and-culture-268168

November 11, 2025

Why has Sudan descended into mass slaughter? The answer goes far beyond simple ethnic conflict

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Justin Willis, Professor of History, Durham University

The recent capture of the western Sudanese city of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been followed by allegations of appalling war crimes: massacres, looting and rapes.

There is much reason to believe the allegations from Sudan are credible. UN leaders and experts, most western governments and the International Criminal Court have acknowledged reports of the atrocities and condemned the killing of civilians as a potential war crimes.

Formerly a government-sponsored militia, since April 2023 the RSF has been at war with its former allies in the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). Throughout its existence the RSF has been notorious for violence, and every RSF military success has been accompanied by gross violations of human rights.

Less credible are the claims of the RSF leader, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo – better known in Sudan as Hemedti – who has promised to punish any of his followers found to be responsible for any of these atrocities.

Recent reporting of these terrible abuses has presented them as part of an ethnic conflict, with the RSF portrayed as an Arab militia murdering non-Arabs. There is much truth in this. But there are other drivers of the continuing violence in Sudan.

The RSF itself is the terrible creation of a history of state-driven violence, exclusion and opportunism in Sudan. Its origins are usually traced to the infamous Janjaweed, a militia drawn from Arab communities that was armed by the then president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, to suppress an insurgency in the region early in the 21st century.

In raising the Janjaweed, Bahir’s regime exploited tensions between Arabs and other communities in Darfur, a large region of western Sudan region of which El Fasher is the historical capital.

It was therefore tempting for audiences in North America and Europe to see the conflict – like the long-running war in what was then southern Sudan (now the independent country of South Sudan) in simple racial terms: Arabs against Africans. That narrative has given strength to the international campaign to end the violence in Darfur.

But that narrative was always a simplification, and certainly does not explain the current war. The RSF also has other origins.

It exploited a long-term sense of economic and political exclusion felt by people in Darfur – both Arabs and non-Arabs. It fed off and was partly funded by an international trade in livestock, gold and mercenaries that has thrived on the margins of a state whose leaders have ruthlessly used office to prey on their people.

And it arose in a political system that has rewarded those who seize office by violence, partly thanks to the meddling of external powers who seek political or economic gain by supporting rivals for power in Sudan.

Rise of Hemedti

Hemedti was a relatively minor figure in the Janjaweed. But Bashir created the RSF in 2013, under his leadership, as part of a complicated balancing of multiple militias and security agencies. These competing forces violently repressed challenges to the regime while keeping one another in check through their rivalry.

In 2019, that system broke down in the face of popular unrest in the regime’s political heartland, in central riverain Sudan – the area stretching along the Nile, roughly from Atbara, north of Khartoum to Wad Medani, about 85 miles to the southeast. This has been the economic centre of Sudan since colonial rule began.

Map of Sudan showing regions. — Sudan: power has traditionally been focused on the central region aroiund the Nile.
Peter Fitzgerald via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Bashir was toppled in a military coup and, after internal army power struggles, Lt Gen Abdel Fattah Burhan emerged as leader and named Hemedti as his deputy. The pair were key figures in the “transitional” government that was supposed to take Sudan back to civilian rule.

But they represented very different constituencies, in a way that demonstrates that Arab identity can take many forms. Affluent urban Arabs from Khartoum have often looked down on the nomadic lifestyle of the communities Hemedti and the RSF have mobilised and sometimes belittle them as “Chadian” on account of their ties to the wider Sahelian region.

Arabs from Darfur, such as Hemedti, can see themselves as long-term victims of what they call the “1956 state”. This is the political and economic system inherited from colonial rule, which favoured the riverain centre.

Both Hemedti and Burhan insist that they are fighting for all Sudan, and all Sudanese. Yet both have been entirely willing to appeal to ethnic and religious sentiment when it suits them. That has repeatedly added an extra, vicious dynamic to the conflict – from the recent massacres in El Fasher to the reported violence against people from South Sudan in Khartoum when SAF recaptured the city in March 2025.

The real reasons for the conflict

Ethnicity is not the basis of the conflict. This instead lies in an embedded culture of political violence, complicated by a shifting power balance between central and western Sudan and by international meddling.

Some Arab nations – particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia – back the army. While the UAE’s enabling of RSF violence has been widely publicised, prominent African governments have also maintained ties with Hemedti.

Hemedti has also made alliances of convenience with groups such as SPLM-North Hilu, which principally draws support from the non-Arab communities in the southern Sudanese region of South Kordofan and, like Hemedti, aims to dismantle the “1956 state”.

For Sudanese observers, the tension between central and western Sudan is more recognisable. Both before and after his role in the 2023 ransacking of Khartoum, Hemedti has been compared with the Khalifa – the western Sudanese successor to Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi. It was al-Mahdi who defeated the British and the Egyptians to found the Mahdist state in the late 19th century.

Since the 1950s, those seeking to seize control of the Sudanese state have repeatedly mobilised support among disaffected groups in western Sudan – sometimes combining Arab and non-Arab communities, sometimes turning them against one another. Hemedti’s claims to represent the marginalised communities of the west are opportunistic and mendacious, but far from unprecedented.

This war is not a simple Arab-African conflict. But its viciousness reflects the willingness of both RSF and SAF to turn multiple societal fault lines into tools for mobilisation. They have created a context in which ethnic polarisation has been driven by wars for control of the state – rather than vice versa.

Justin Willis has previously received funding from the UK government, via the Rift Valley Institute, for research on elections in Sudan.

Willow Berridge receives funding from Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), funded by UK International Development from the UK government.

– ref. Why has Sudan descended into mass slaughter? The answer goes far beyond simple ethnic conflict – https://theconversation.com/why-has-sudan-descended-into-mass-slaughter-the-answer-goes-far-beyond-simple-ethnic-conflict-269293

November 11, 2025

Star-shaped cells make a molecule that can ‘rewire’ the brains of mice with Down syndrome – understanding how could lead to new treatments

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ashley Brandebura, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, University of Virginia

Astrocytes (red) are vital to forming neural connections. Jeffrey C. Smith Lab, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/NIH

Delivering a connection-building protein to star-shaped cells in the brain could reverse changes to neural circuits seen in Down syndrome, according to new research my colleagues and I published in the journal Cell Reports.

Down syndrome is caused by an error in cell division during development. Individuals receive three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the typical two copies, resulting in duplicates of the genes encoded on chromosome 21. This trisomy leads to a multitude of changes to heart and immune function as well as neurodevelopmental impairments.

Changes to the structure of neurons in people with Down syndrome alter how they connect with each other. One major type of brain cell called astrocytes helps form connections between neurons. These star-shaped cells have many thin arms that extend into the spaces between neurons. They also secrete various proteins that are vital to forming the proper neural connections necessary for brain function.

Researchers have found that mouse models of several neurodevelopmental disorders, including Down syndrome, have altered levels of astrocyte proteins during development. My colleagues and I hypothesized that these changes might contribute to the changes in neural connections seen in Down syndrome. Could restoring the proper levels of some of these astrocyte proteins “rewire” the brain?

Identifying an astrocyte protein

First, we needed to pick a candidate astrocyte protein to test our hypothesis. A previous study had identified a list of astrocyte proteins that were altered in a mouse model of Down syndrome. We focused on proteins present in lower levels in Down syndrome astrocytes compared to astrocytes without the condition. We thought there might not be enough of these proteins available to help form neural connections.

Among the top 10 proteins we identified was a molecule called pleiotrophin, or Ptn. This protein is known to help guide axons – long extensions that neurons use to send information to each other – to their targets during development. So it made sense that it might also help neurons form the branching arms they use to receive information.

We found that mice unable to produce Ptn had neurons with fewer branching arms, similar to what we saw in mice with Down syndrome. This correlation implies that proper Ptn levels are necessary to affect neuron branching during brain development.

Restoring neurons in Down syndrome

Next, we wanted to know if delivering Ptn to astrocytes changes neural connections in mice with Down syndrome.

To answer that question, we packaged the gene for Ptn into a small virus with its replication genes removed. Called adeno-associated viruses, these tools allow researchers to deliver genetic material to specific targets in the body and are used for applications like gene therapy. We delivered the Ptn gene into astrocytes throughout the entire brain of adult mice with Down syndrome so we could evaluate its effects.

We focused on the visual cortex and the hippocampus, areas of the brain involved in vision and memory that are both critically affected in Down syndrome. After enhancing the ability of astrocytes to produce Ptn, we found that both regions recovered levels of neural branching density similar to those of mice without Down syndrome.

Two children sitting at a table coloring, one holding glasses aloft — Down syndrome can cause visual impairment.
yacobchuk/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Finally, we wanted to see if we could actually restore electrical activity levels in the hippocampus by increasing astrocyte Ptn levels. Measuring electrical activity can indicate whether neurons are functioning properly. After delivering the Ptn gene to the astrocytes of mice with Down syndrome, we found the electrical activity of their hippocampus restored to levels no different from mice without Down syndrome.

Together, our findings show that delivering Ptn to the astrocytes of mice can reverse changes to neuron structure and function seen in Down syndrome. While our findings are far from ready to be used in the clinic, more research could help us understand whether and how Ptn could help improve the health of human patients.

Rewiring the brain

More broadly, our findings suggest that astrocyte proteins have the potential to rewire the brain in other neurodevelopmental conditions.

Typically, adult brains have low plasticity, meaning they have a decreased capacity to form new connections between neurons. This means it can be difficult to change neural circuits in adults. Our hope is that further exploration on how astrocyte proteins can alter the adult brain could lead to new treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders like Fragile X syndrome or Rett syndrome, or to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease.

Ashley Brandebura receives funding from NIH NINDS and NIA.

– ref. Star-shaped cells make a molecule that can ‘rewire’ the brains of mice with Down syndrome – understanding how could lead to new treatments – https://theconversation.com/star-shaped-cells-make-a-molecule-that-can-rewire-the-brains-of-mice-with-down-syndrome-understanding-how-could-lead-to-new-treatments-268739

November 11, 2025

Students of color are at greater risk for reading difficulties – even in kindergarten

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Paul L. Morgan, Director, Institute for Social and Health Equity, University at Albany, State University of New York

The achievement gap for young readers is stark, even in kindergarten. andresr/E+ via Getty Images

Black, Hispanic and Native American students are more likely than white or Asian students to struggle with reading – and that gap emerges early, according to our new research. During kindergarten, they are more likely to score in the lowest 10% on assessments measuring skills such as letter recognition, vocabulary and recognizing common sight words. Large racial and ethnic differences in the risks for reading difficulties continue as students move through elementary school – a pattern largely explained by family income and early academic skills.

Our study, published online in November 2025 in the Journal of School Psychology, finds that about 15% of Black, Hispanic and Native American kindergartners score in the lowest 10% of reading scores, compared to 6% and 8% of white and Asian students, respectively. By fifth grade, 18%, 16% and 10% of Black, Hispanic and Native American students are struggling. The contrasting rate for white and Asian students is about 5%.

We analyzed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics from 2010-2016. This data includes direct academic assessments as well as surveys of the students and their parents, teachers and school administrators.

We used standard statistical methods to explore how a wide range of factors across homes and schools – measured during kindergarten – helped explain whether students later experienced reading difficulties. A key factor, according to our analysis, is the family’s socioeconomic status: a measure including household income and parental education levels and occupations.

Kindergartners who struggled with initial reading, math and science skills, as well as more general learning abilities such as working memory, were also at higher risk for reading difficulties throughout elementary school.

Why it matters

U.S. elementary students’ reading achievement has been declining in recent years. The gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring readers is increasing too.

Supporting these children is important. Students who wrestle with reading are more likely to later experience anxiety and depression. Adults with reading difficulties are also more likely to be incarcerated and unemployed. In one study, for example, about half of Texas prisoners were poor readers.

Because our findings suggest Black, Hispanic and Native American students are at higher risk for reading difficulties by kindergarten, students from these groups may have greater needs for early reading interventions that provide extra help with phonics, vocabulary and reading fluency. Some of these students may also have unrecognized learning disabilities.

Yet students of color are less likely to be identified with disabilities, including dyslexia – even when the students are experiencing early and significant reading difficulties.

What still isn’t known

How economic and educational policies and practices can best help lower the risks of reading difficulties is poorly understood. There is some evidence that cash transfers to financially struggling families may increase children’s later reading achievement. Poverty is also associated with lower exposure to age-appropriate books and other early literacy materials and fewer opportunities to acquire a larger vocabulary.

Our longitudinal research adds to the very limited understanding of the early economic, environmental, cognitive, academic and behavioral factors that help shape elementary students’ reading abilities. Most other studies have focused on a single grade and examined a limited set of specific skills – such as how children process sounds – instead of multiple grades and a more general set of risk factors.

More research is needed to identify the full range of reasons why elementary students begin to struggle in reading and what can be done to best help them.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Paul L. Morgan receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Institute of Education Sciences.

Eric Hengyu Hu 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. Students of color are at greater risk for reading difficulties – even in kindergarten – https://theconversation.com/students-of-color-are-at-greater-risk-for-reading-difficulties-even-in-kindergarten-249429

November 11, 2025

Feel like you can’t get a job? You’re not alone — but here’s how to work around it

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jason Walker, Program Director & Associate Professor Master of Psychology Health and Wellness & Master of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Adler University

You did everything they told you to do. You earned the credentials, spent hours on your resume and revised multiple cover letters. You worked side gigs, volunteered, learned new software and perfected your LinkedIn profile. Yet, you can’t get a callback for an interview.

It’s as if your application vanished into the abyss of a company database, and the “thank you for applying” emails are piling up. So-called entry-level jobs now need years of experience, and junior roles expect postgraduate degrees.

You are likely wondering what you’re missing, but it’s not you — it’s the system. Across the United States, Canada and United Kingdom, automation now does the screening before a human ever has a look. Companies say they can’t find talent, yet many have stopped training people.

On paper, the labour market looks healthy, but in practice, it feels impossible to navigate. However, there are ways through it, backed by data and success stories. Here’s how to outsmart a system that seems to have forgotten the people part of hiring.

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

Read more from Quarter Life:

A generation struggling to find work

Whether you’re in London, New York or Toronto, the pattern is the same: a generation of qualified people blocked from the job market, and companies insisting they can’t find talent.

In Canada, job vacancies have dropped by half from approximately 984,000 in 2022 to roughly 505,000 by mid-2025. Unemployment has skyrocketed to 7.1 per cent, the highest in the last four years.

In the U.S., a similar story rings true. Unemployment hovers around 4.1 per cent — what economists call “full employment,” but the reality behind the statistics is less than stable. Job openings have fallen dramatically since the post-pandemic peak from 12 million in 2022 to about 8.8 million this year. That means fewer employment opportunities and more qualified candidates competing for the same positions.

Among younger workers, unemployment stands at approximately 8.5 per cent, nearly double the national average. Over one-third of graduates are employed in jobs that don’t require their degree.

Across the Atlantic, approximately 12.5 per cent of young people in the U.K. are currently not in education, employment or training — the highest rate in more than a decade. The unemployment rate holds at 4.8 per cent.

The International Labour Organization estimates 262 million young people — nearly one in four — are outside both work and education. The jobs exist, but the access and opportunity don’t.

Entry-level jobs no longer exist

If it feels like getting hired is impossible, there’s a reason for that. The “entry-level job” is effectively dead — the bridge between education and work has literally vanished.

In the U.S., more than 65 per cent of employers are expecting “prior experience” for entry-level roles. Meanwhile, the OECD reports that corporate spending on education and training has stagnated across almost all advanced economies.

Employers want it all — the education, the certifications and the experience — but rarely invest in developing it. As I wrote recently in Forbes: “We’ve built a work culture that glorifies resilience while quietly producing exhaustion.”

That pressure now starts long before people even get an interview. Candidates are somehow expected to be flexible, adaptable and endlessly qualified even before they’ve earned their first paycheque.

The math doesn’t add up.

Automation has also made things worse. A recent Harvard Business School study found that 80 per cent of resumes are filtered out automatically before being read.

The National Bureau of Economic Research notes that time-to-hire has doubled since 2010, with most delays happening before human review. In other words, most candidates have lost before they ever enter the race.

5 ways to beat the modern job market

The new hiring landscape rewards strategy, not volume. Here are five evidence-based approaches that will increase your odds of breaking through the job search barriers:

1. Stop applying to everything, and start applying smarter.

Sending 100 resumes isn’t a strategy, nor is it productive. Refocus on 10 to 15 roles that align with your skills and expertise. Customization still matters: one study found tailored applications triple response rates.

2. Build proof, not promises.

Applications that provide real-world work examples are twice as likely to receive a callback for an interview, even if they don’t quite have all the competencies being asked for. You can achieve this by building a visible portfolio: think of a dashboard, a writing sample or anything that demonstrates what you can do.

3. Make the algorithm work for you.

Pay attention to the job descriptions, use the exact keywords, avoid columns and keep it simple — remember, AI isn’t looking for how fancy your resume looks. The same Harvard Business School report showed that formatting alone disqualifies thousands of strong applicants every day.

4. Bypass AI and talk to humans.

Your network will typically save you. Sixty to 70 per cent of hires happen through networking and direct referrals. Get on people’s radars by reaching out to peers and building your network.

5. Reframe career gaps.

Career breaks are not a risk nor an indicator of someone’s performance, but that’s often how employers see it. Flip the narrative by talking about the skills you gained during gaps, like a new certification or volunteering. Interestingly, non-linear career paths are the norm, not the exception, in every major economy today.

If you’re an employer, the way forward is also data-driven: start reinvesting in training, invest in mentorship and rethink what you need from a new employee.

OECD data shows that organizations offering early-career development gain measurable returns in productivity and retention within two years. The solution isn’t finding ready-made talent — it’s creating it.

We need to get back to being human. Many organizations are demanding to “do more with less” and complaining about lack of talent, but we have to remember that talent, like a fine wine, takes time.

The bottom line

The old rules — get the degree, work hard and wait your turn — no longer apply. Today, what actually matters isn’t how many jobs you apply to, but how clearly you can show your value and connect with people.

If you’re job hunting in 2025, don’t wait for a system to discover you. Instead, make it impossible to be ignored. Show your worth publicly, tangibly and confidently. Remember, although the screening process may be automated, hiring decisions are still made by humans.

The problem isn’t a lack of talent. It’s a lack of vision — from the systems that stopped looking for potential and started chasing perfection.

Jason Walker 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. Feel like you can’t get a job? You’re not alone — but here’s how to work around it – https://theconversation.com/feel-like-you-cant-get-a-job-youre-not-alone-but-heres-how-to-work-around-it-268355

November 11, 2025

Remembrance Day: How the Canadian Armed Forces could help solve the youth employment crisis

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ilona Dougherty, Managing Director, Youth & Innovation Project, University of Waterloo

Every year on Remembrance Day, I think about my grandfathers — my American grandfather who flew his Stinson L-5 along the coast of Burma and my Hungarian grandfather who fought in the Second World War.

I also reflect upon my grandmothers, one of whom used her language skills to translate for army officers and the other who suffered the loss of her first child while her husband was overseas.

These stories are often shared in our family as remembrances of young people who served and sacrificed during difficult times.

Buried deep in the Liberal government’s recently released 2025 budget is a line that is worth paying attention to: “Modernizing the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) enhances opportunities for youth to serve and lead.” With that one sentence, the federal government connected the dots between Canadian sovereignty, youth employment and youth service.

But if Canada hopes to see its current generation of young people thrive, it must ensure that youth employment and youth service programs are expanded.

The only way this will happen, given the investments outlined in the federal government’s budget, is if organizations dedicated to youth employment issues and youth service work closely together to ensure the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) figures out how to recruit and meaningfully retain young Canadians.

Paltry investments

As outlined in the budget, there is a clear commitment from Mark Carney’s Liberals to rebuild and reinvest in the CAF to protect Canadians and lead internationally. This commitment includes an investment of more than $9 billion in 2025-2026.

An important part of this rebuilding will require recruiting and retaining new members, which is being facilitated by a significant pay increase for the lowest paid recruits.

But as young people in Canada face the worst job market in more than a decade, which is only projected to worsen with the widespread adoption of AI, it was troubling that funding related to tackling youth unemployment was limited in this year’s budget.

The investment in Canada Summer Job placements, while up from the investment made in the 2024, was only brought back to pre-pandemic funding levels, not actually increased.

The Youth Employment and Skills Strategy investment in the budget was up slightly from 2025-2026, but down significantly from 2024-2025 and far below investments made in 2019-2020.

The only significant increase came with the investment in the Student Work Placement Program, which increased by more than $100 million per year.

The most generous read of investments in youth employment-related programs in the 2025 budget would suggest the government is investing approximately $220 million more per year. But this pales in comparison to the $20.4 billion over five years that the government has committed to investing in recruiting and retaining “a strong fighting force” for the CAF.

When it comes to youth service, supporting young people who are struggling to enter the job market — and providing them with opportunities to serve their communities — can be achieved in part through the Youth Climate Corps and the Canada Service Corps. Combined, their budgets represent a moderate increase in spending of about $20 million per year.

But it’s unclear whether the Canada Service Corps will receive additional funding in the future, parallel to the Youth Climate Corps funding, or whether it will be phased out and replaced.

Despite it being touted as a budget containing generational investments, the government has made minimal investments to seriously tackle the youth employment crisis in the 2025 budget.

Recruitment challenges

It’s no secret that recruiting and retaining new members is a significant challenge for the CAF. A 2025 Auditor General of Canada’s report outlines how the CAF is not recruiting and training enough candidates to meet its operational needs.

To make matters worse, even when a recruit does join, a recently leaked internal report suggests that many leave in frustration shortly after joining due to their inability to get trained and to secure roles within the CAF that they’re interested in.

Adding to this is the CAF’s well-documented issues with radicalization and hate speech, racial discrimination and sexual harassment. As an external monitor outlined in a recent report, “a culture that is largely misogynistic has created an environment that allows and sometime encourages unprofessional conduct to persist.”

Despite recent apologies and signs that things are changing for the better within the CAF, these issues make the institution unattractive for young Canadians even if they don’t feel as though they have any other employment options.

There is also the perception that joining the army means going into active combat. Around 65.2 per cent of CAF members ever deploy — and deploying doesn’t necessarily mean active combat. In fact, it can very often mean humanitarian missions either domestically or internationally.

Making the CAF attractive to youth

All of this presents a unique opportunity for Canadian policymakers.

There are many organizations in Canada working to tackle youth employment — and the CAF has just been given what can actually be called a generational investment. That investment could significantly enhance existing government initiatives aimed at addressing the youth employment crisis and preparing young people for the future of work.

For this to happen, youth employment and service organizations must leverage the government’s investment in the CAF to expand their impact. At the same time, the CAF will need to engage with civilian organizations that specialize in recruiting and supporting young people. CAF recruiters should adopt best practices in youth-focused recruitment, training and retention to ensure meaningful participation and long-term success.

Young people will only be attracted to and stay in the CAF if they feel valued, if they’re offered meaningful opportunities to contribute and if intergenerational collaboration is prioritized.

In a time of multiples crises, none of them can be viewed in isolation. Disparate groups need to work together to address their unique challenges.
Canadian young people have a lot to offer — they’re the most educated generation in Canadian history, they have the desire to make a difference, their brains are wired to be bold problem solvers and they have diverse and relevant lived experiences.

This is a generation Canada can’t afford to leave on the sidelines of its economy or in the fight for Canadian sovereignty.

Ilona Dougherty 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. Remembrance Day: How the Canadian Armed Forces could help solve the youth employment crisis – https://theconversation.com/remembrance-day-how-the-canadian-armed-forces-could-help-solve-the-youth-employment-crisis-268433