Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christopher Opie, Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Bristol

Globalisation, migration, climate change and war – nation states are currently under huge pressure on many fronts. Understanding the forces that initially drove the emergence of states across the world may help explain why.

For a long time after humans evolved, we lived in oral-based, mostly small-scale and egalitarian societies. Things began to change with the dawn of the Holocene, when a suite of climatic, social and technological shifts led to the emergence of the first states about 5,000 years ago.

The earliest known state was in Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq), followed by Egypt, the Indus Valley, China and Meso-America. The long-standing view was that the invention of agriculture was the spur for these large-scale human societies to emerge. But there was a 4,000-year gap between the expansion of agriculture (circa 9,000 years ago) and the founding of the earliest states, which throws this link into question.

One theory suggests it was the intensification of agriculture that spurred the creation of states. Once fertilisation and irrigation were used, it produced a surplus that elites could extract to build and maintain states.

However, an alternative view, first put forward by anthropologist James Scott, is gaining ground. This proposes that states didn’t emerge from agriculture in general – rather, they almost invariably formed in societies that grew cereal grains.

Grasses such as wheat, barley, rice and maize grow above ground, ripen at a predictable time, and the grains they produce are readily stored. This makes them perfect for the systems of taxation that Scott argues fuelled state formation.

By Scott’s account, Mafia-style protection rackets forced people to produce grain, from which tax could be extracted and used to fund further exploitation. Scott proposed that these protection rackets were effectively the original states.

In the meantime, writing was invented and adopted as the information system to record those taxes. Once states had formed, writing had a huge influence on the structure and institutions of those societies. States, controlled by very small elites, used writing to build institutions and laws to maintain extreme hierarchies.

We tested these ideas, combining data from hundreds of societies worldwide with a global language family tree representing the ancestral relationships between those societies. We then used a mathematical model to evaluate claims about how statehood and its possible drivers evolved along the branches of this tree.

Our results suggest that intensive agriculture, with fertilisation and irrigation, was just as likely to be the result of state formation as it was to be its cause. On the other hand, grain agriculture consistently predicted subsequent state formation and the adoption of taxes.

We also found a strong correlation between non-grain agriculture and the formation of states. However, crops such as vegetables, fruit, roots and tubers – which were hard to tax – were more likely to be lost, not gained, as states were formed. This is consistent with the idea that grains were favoured over other forms of agriculture by emerging states for their taxation potential.

Trying to test causal claims about complex social changes in the deep past is inherently uncertain, but our results provide new evidence in support of Scott’s theory – that grain agriculture fuelled the formation of states, and that writing, invented and adopted to record taxation, was then used by states to maintain themselves through a very hierarchical system of laws and societal structures.

Lessons for the modern state

Our findings also highlight a broader connection between social systems and modes of information.

Long after the first emergence of writing, the invention of the printing press in medieval Europe is thought to have been integral to a raft of social changes that followed. As a much larger number of people were literate, information became both easier and cheaper to disseminate.

In turn, mass education, which became compulsory in the late 19th century in England and many other countries, is sometimes credited with the rise of universal suffrage and the beginning of democracy.

This change in the information system of societies clearly had a profound effect on the functioning of the state, yet writing has always been a system controlled by a small elite. Even after the emergence of mass literacy in many countries, publishers, working within state rules, have exerted control and influence over how and what we read.

This helps us understand current concerns about the destabilisation of modern nation states. Digital technologies and AI are disrupting how we generate, store and broadcast information; globalisation and cryptocurrencies are disrupting our taxation systems; and our agricultural production is under pressure because of climate change.

It may feel worlds apart, but the challenges and choices facing states today have been playing out since the dawn of the earliest states, thousands of years ago.

This article contains references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and this may include links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Christopher Opie received funding from the Leverhulme Trust – Early Career Fellowship – ECF 619

Quentin Douglas Atkinson receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand.

– ref. The real reason nation states first emerged thousands of years ago – new research – https://theconversation.com/the-real-reason-nation-states-first-emerged-thousands-of-years-ago-new-research-268539

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gulnaz Anjum, Assistant Professor of Climate Psychology, Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology, University of Limerick

When Cop30 convened in Belém, deep inside the Amazon, the world’s attention turned once again to negotiations, emissions pledges and political manoeuvring. The global stage was set against one of Earth’s most biodiverse landscapes and some of its most vulnerable communities, yet the conversation still leaned heavily toward geopolitics rather than people.

Inside the crowded halls of the UN climate summit, Cop30, human stories were everywhere. Posters showed survivors of recent hurricanes, farmers battling crop loss and Indigenous leaders fighting for the survival of their territories. But these voices rarely made it into the mainstream narrative.

Climate change is often framed as a scientific or diplomatic issue, but before it becomes environmental or political, it is profoundly human. The way we communicate about climate change during global summits and in everyday life needs to reflect this reality through stories.

Across developing world and increasingly in developed countries, climate change shapes daily routines in disruptive and often painful ways. In Karachi, Pakistan, a mother lies awake through stifling heat, worried her toddler will struggle to breathe during the next power cut.

In Kingston, Jamaica, survivors of Hurricane Melissa describe “homes that no longer feel like themselves”. In informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, neighbours share water during heatwaves because municipal supplies have run dry.

These are the intimate forms of environmental grief that rarely surface in international negotiations, even though many communities face climate pressures far more intensely than others.

These experiences carry deep emotional weight. They are not abstract threats for a distant future but lived realities that shape sleep, caregiving, conflict and identity. Yet coverage of Cop30 focused heavily on diplomatic language and emissions curves. Psychology research consistently shows that people engage more deeply when they can recognise themselves, their families, their fears and their hopes in climate stories. Without that human connection, climate messages often become background noise.

A common reaction to climate communication today is exhaustion. People are not disengaged; they are overwhelmed. Years of catastrophic headlines, stalled policies and political gridlock create a sense of powerlessness. This “climate fatigue” is often mistaken for apathy, yet it is more accurately a form of emotional self-protection. At Cop30, fatigue showed up in activists, negotiators and residents who have endured repeated broken promises.

Climate communication has too often relied on doom-narratives that paralyse rather than motivate. When fear dominates, many people withdraw to protect their mental wellbeing.

The alternative is not sugar-coating reality. Effective communication offers grounded hope. This means honest stories of collective action and practical solutions that feel achievable.

In Kenya, communities work together on sustainable cooling. In Pakistan, youth volunteers maintain flood early warning systems. Across European cities, residents develop urban greening projects that cool streets and strengthen community ties.

These are not heroic tales but examples of ordinary people protecting each other amid extraordinary circumstances. They build a sense of agency instead of despair.

Whose voice matters?

Climate messages resonate most when they come from trusted messengers. At Cop30, some of the most compelling communicators were not national delegations but community organisers, Indigenous leaders, youth representatives and climate activists who speak from lived experience.

In many places, trust is grounded in proximity and shared identity. People listen to those who understand their world: a nurse explaining how heat worsens chronic illness, a neighbourhood elder describing changing flood patterns or a farmer talking about soil loss.

Youth leaders and activists from communities already experiencing the strongest climate impacts have become particularly influential communicators because they explain climate change through the realities of daily life. Climate communication falters when experts speak at audiences rather than with them. Lived experience is not an optional extra; it is a form of expertise.

Another key lesson for communicators is that climate messages created in Europe or North America cannot simply be transplanted elsewhere. Media environments vary, trust in institutions differs and histories of colonisation, inequality and recurrent disasters shape how people interpret climate information.

For many communities in the Amazon, climate change is inseparable from land rights, cultural identity and survival. In Pakistan, extreme heat strains fragile health systems and intensifies the emotional labour of caregiving, especially for women. In Caribbean nations, the trauma of repeated storms influences how people view political promises made at global summits.

Cop30 brought together voices from around the world, making it an essential moment for global reporting to recognise how differently climate change is felt and understood across regions. Climate communication must be culturally grounded, attentive to local realities and responsive to the needs of communities most affected.

Events like Cop30 often produce ambitious declarations, but declarations alone do not shift public engagement. People connect to climate action through stories that reflect their own struggles and resilience: a family rebuilding after a hurricane; neighbours sharing water during heatwaves; young people restoring mangroves to protect coastlines; mothers comforting frightened children as storms approach.

These stories reveal immense labour and courage, as survivors in Jamaica and Pakistan emphasise. They show people enduring hardship without adequate support, resisting inequality and surviving systemic neglect.

By placing lived experience at the centre of climate communication, we move beyond abstract numbers toward the meaning of climate change in real lives. And meaning motivates action. Evidence from Africa also shows that stories grounded in local action can increase feelings of efficacy and strengthen community connection.

Cop30 demonstrated that urgency alone is not enough. People engage when they feel seen. Climate communication must acknowledge fear without feeding hopelessness, and it must connect science to daily realities. The clearest messages come from lived experience: women sharing water during heatwaves, families rebuilding homes after storms, neighbours checking on one another during power cuts. These moments reveal what climate change truly means and why action matters.

As global negotiations continue, these human stories, alongside policymakers’ endorsements and policy announcements, must guide us. They do not compete with science; they give it meaning. If climate communication is to meet this moment, it needs to begin and end with people.

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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. How stories of personal experience cut through climate fatigue in ways that global negotiations can’t – https://theconversation.com/how-stories-of-personal-experience-cut-through-climate-fatigue-in-ways-that-global-negotiations-cant-268852

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Hutchinson, Professor, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, University of Glasgow

H5N1 bird flu has infected growing numbers of people worldwide in recent years, but this week saw something new: the first recorded human case of an H5N5 avian influenza virus. What is this virus and how concerned about it should we be?

What happened?

In early November, a resident of Grays Harbor, a county on the south-west Pacific coast of Washington state about 100 miles from Seattle, became severely unwell with flu-like symptoms including high fever, respiratory distress and confusion.

They were admitted to hospital, and on November 14 officials confirmed that tests showed infection with an H5N5 avian influenza virus. The patient, an older adult with underlying conditions, was treated in hospital, but sadly they died on November 21.

This was the first reported human infection with an H5N5 influenza virus.

What is H5N5 influenza virus?

H5N5 influenza viruses are a type of avian influenza (bird flu) – an influenza A virus that infects birds.

Bird flu viruses are classified as either “high pathogenicity” or “low pathogenicity” based on the severity of symptoms they cause in poultry. (Their severity also varies in other bird species.) This H5N5 strain, like the widespread and much-reported-on H5N1 strain, is one of the high pathogenicity forms.

Where did it come from?

This hasn’t yet been formally confirmed. However, the patient kept a flock of backyard poultry that were exposed to wild birds, which suggests how they might have caught the virus.

H5N5 is found in wild birds around the world, and it is relatively common for it to pass from them into flocks of poultry. This is, however, the first time an H5N5 influenza virus has been found to go one step further and infect a human.

What does the name mean? Is it similar to H5N1?

Influenza A viruses are one of the major branches of the influenza virus family, and are divided into subtypes based on differences in the two proteins that form spikes on the surface of virus particles: haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA).

Both proteins are good targets for the immune system’s antibodies. The proteins rapidly mutate as the virus evolves to evade these antibodies, and the different forms that result are used to categorise influenza A viruses.

The bird flu viruses H5N1 and H5N5 both have HA proteins of the same H5 subtype (though recognisably distinct from each other), but have NA proteins of different subtypes. Just as humans can be infected by different influenza A virus subtypes during the same winter season (H1N1 and H3N2), genetic studies show us this H5N5 virus is distinct from the dominant H5N1 strain that is also circulating in birds worldwide.

Should we be worried about what happens next?

H5N5 is an ecological and agricultural threat. Although bird flu vaccines exist, at the moment, political and economic factors make it hard to use them in US poultry. Instead, the virus must be controlled by surveillance, housing poultry indoors, increasing farm biosecurity and, as a last resort, by mass culling of infected poultry.

This is challenging enough, but bird flu also demands our attention because the virus is a potential cause of new pandemics.

In the long run, this risk is very significant. However, it is worth remembering that, although influenza is better at changing its host species and creating pandemics than any other virus, that is still an incredibly hard thing for the virus to do.

The vast majority of “spillover” infections of bird flu into humans are one-off events. They can vary unpredictably in their effects. Most are quite mild (for example, causing conjunctivitis), but some can be very severe, as was the case in this first recorded case of H5N5. But after infecting one human, most avian influenza viruses go no further.

Scientists will watch for several warning signs that a virus may be adapting to humans, especially any hint of person-to-person spread. There is no sign that this has happened here.

At the moment, the wider risk to humans from H5N5 is still low, and there is no reason to think this was anything other than a tragic one-off case. However, there will be plenty of opportunities for influenza viruses to try again. As H5N5 and other subtypes of avian influenza virus continue to circulate, it is important we continue to monitor this virus carefully.

Ed Hutchinson receives funding from UKRI and the Wellcome Trust. He has unpaid positions as a board member of the European Scientifiic Working group on Influenza (ESWI), as Chair-Elect of the Microbiology Society’s Virus Division and as a scientific advisor to Pinpoint Medical.

– ref. First human bird-flu death from H5N5 – what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/first-human-bird-flu-death-from-h5n5-what-you-need-to-know-270535

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mike Cassidy, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham

The next global volcanic disaster is more likely to come from volcanoes that appear dormant and are barely monitored than from the likes of famous volcanoes such as Etna in Sicily or Yellowstone in the US.

Often overlooked, these “hidden” volcanoes erupt more often than most people realise. In regions like the Pacific, South America and Indonesia, an eruption from a volcano with no recorded history occurs every seven to ten years. And their effects can be unexpected and far-reaching.

One volcano has just done exactly that. In November 2025, the Hayli Gubbi volcano in Ethiopia has erupted for the first time in recorded history (at least 12,000 years that we know of). It sent ash plumes 8.5 miles into the sky, with volcanic material failing in Yemen and drifting into air space over northern India.

You don’t have to look far back in history to find another example. In 1982, the little-known and unmonitored Mexican volcano El Chichón erupted explosively after lying dormant for centuries. This series of eruptions caught authorities off-guard: hot avalanches of rock, ash and gas flattened vast areas of jungle. Rivers were dammed, buildings destroyed, and ash fell as far as Guatemala.

More than 2,000 people died and 20,000 were displaced in Mexico’s worst volcanic disaster in modern times. But the catastrophe did not end in Mexico. The sulphur from the eruption formed reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, cooling the northern hemisphere and shifting the African monsoon southwards, causing extreme drought.

This alone would test the resilience and coping strategies of any region. But when it coincided with a vulnerable population that was already experiencing poverty and civil war, disaster was inevitable. The Ethiopian (and East African) famine of 1983-85 claimed the lives of an estimated 1 million people. This brought global attention to poverty with campaigns like Live Aid.

Few scientists, even within my field of Earth science, realise that a remote, little-known volcano played a part in this tragedy.

Despite these lessons, global investment in volcanology has not kept pace with the risks: fewer than half of active volcanoes are monitored, and scientific research still disproportionately focuses on the well-known few.

There are more published studies on one volcano (Mount Etna) than on all the 160 volcanoes of Indonesia, Philippines and Vanuatu combined. These are some of the most densely populated volcanic regions on Earth – and the least understood.

The largest eruptions don’t just affect the communities around them. They can temporarily cool the planet, disrupt monsoons and reduce harvests across entire regions. In the past, such shifts have contributed to famines, disease outbreaks and major social upheaval, yet scientists still lack a global system to anticipate or manage these future risks.

To help address this, my colleagues and I recently launched the Global Volcano Risk Alliance, a charity that focuses on anticipatory preparedness for high-impact eruptions. We work with scientists, policymakers and humanitarian organisations to highlight overlooked risks, strengthen monitoring capacity where it is most needed, and support communities before eruptions occur.

Acting early, rather than responding only after disaster strikes, stands the best chance of preventing the next hidden volcano from becoming a global crisis.

Why ‘quiet’ volcanoes aren’t safe

So why do volcanoes fail to receive attention proportionate to their risk? In part, it comes down to predictable human biases. Many people tend to assume that what has been quiet will remain quiet (normalcy bias). If a volcano has not erupted for generations, it is often instinctively considered safe.

The likelihood of an event tends to be judged by how easily examples come to mind (this mental shortcut is known as availability heuristic). Well-known volcanoes or eruptions, such as the Icelandic ash cloud from 2010, are familiar and can feel threatening, while remote volcanoes with no recent eruptions rarely register at all.

Read more:
Wildfires, volcanoes and climate change: how satellites tell the story of our changing world

These biases create a dangerous pattern: we only invest most heavily after a disaster has already happened (response bias). El Chichón, for instance, was only monitored after the 1982 catastrophe. However, three-quarters of large eruptions (like El Chichón and bigger) come from volcanoes that have been quiet for at least 100 years and, as a result, receive the least attention.

Volcano preparedness needs to be proactive rather than reactive. When volcanoes are monitored, when communities know how to respond, and when communication and coordination between scientists and authorities is effective, thousands of lives can be saved.

Disasters have been averted in these ways in 1991 (at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines), in 2019 (at Mount Merapi in Indonesia) and in 2021 (at La Soufrière on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent).

To close these gaps, the world needs to shift attention towards undermonitored volcanoes in regions such as Latin America, south-east Asia, Africa and the Pacific – places where millions of people live close to volcanoes that have little or no historical record. This is where the greatest risks lie, and where even modest investments in monitoring, early warning and community preparedness could save the most lives.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

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Mike Cassidy receives funding from the UK’s Natural Research Research Council. He is the Co-founder and Chair of the Global Volcano Risk Alliance charity.

– ref. The world’s little-known volcanoes pose the greatest threat – https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-little-known-volcanoes-pose-the-greatest-threat-266292

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vanessa Gash, Deputy Director of the Violence and Society Centre, City St George’s, University of London

Despite decades of progress, the gender pay gap remains a persistent feature of the UK labour market. According to women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, November 22 marked Equal Pay Day 2025 – the day when women effectively stop getting paid due to the wage gap with men.

This gender pay gap means women continue to earn less than men – currently by around 11% in the UK. This is not just because of differences in education or job type, but due to deeper inequalities in how work and care responsibilities are distributed.

A study on barriers to equal pay that I undertook with colleagues used 40 years of work history data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to uncover how these inequalities play out across income groups.

We found that differences in work history – particularly full-time employment – account for nearly 29% of the gender pay gap on average. Women have shorter full-time work histories and spend more time doing part-time roles and unpaid care work. This reflects the challenges of reconciling paid employment with caregiving responsibilities.

For example, men in our sample had an average of 20 years of full-time work, compared to 14 years for women. Women also spent significantly more time in unpaid family care – more than two years on average – while men had less than three weeks.

This disparity is not just about time, it’s about how the labour market rewards different types of work. Full-time work earns a premium, while part-time work and unpaid care are penalised. Our research found that a year of full-time work increases hourly pay by 4%, while a year of part-time work decreases it by 3%.

The cost of being female

Even after education, occupation, sector and work history are taken into account, women still face a significant pay penalty. We found that this “female residual” – a proxy for discriminatory pay practices and cultural biases in how women and men behave – accounts for 43% of the average gender pay gap. This is an astonishing finding from a complex model that controlled for a wide variety of predictors of pay differentials.

In low-income households, the penalty is even more severe. Women in these households would earn more than men if not for this “female residual”. For example, for low-paid public sector workers, other factors like education and work history might create an expectation of women outearning men. But the female residual here meant that any advantage was cancelled out.

This finding challenges the assumption that discrimination is more prevalent among high earners and underscores the need to focus on inequality at the bottom of the income distribution.

Interestingly, the impact of part-time work varies by income group. Among wealthier households, part-time work increases the gender pay gap. But in poorer households, it does not appear to carry the same penalty – and may even offer a slight premium for women. This suggests that exposure to part-time work for men in lower income groups is associated with very low pay.

With this in mind, policies encouraging full-time work for women may not be appropriate for all groups. In low-income households, part-time work may be a necessary and viable option, especially when the quality of the available jobs is poor and caregiving responsibilities are high.

However, we also found that men face a stronger penalty for part-time work than women, which may discourage them from sharing caregiving duties. This reinforces traditional gender roles and perpetuates inequality.

Sex-segregated occupations – those dominated by either men or women – also play a role in the gender pay gap. Female-dominated jobs (for example, care work, hospitality and retail) tend to be lower paid, less regulated and offer fewer opportunities for progressing up the career ladder.

We found that this segregation accounts for 17% of the average gender pay gap. Yet, we also found penalties associated with male-dominated occupations such as construction, particularly in low-income households. This challenges the assumption that male-dominated jobs are always better paid.

On the other hand, we found that public-sector employment, union membership and paid parental leave reduce the gender pay gap, especially for women in low-income households. These offer some protection against discrimination at the same time as supporting work-life balance.

But these benefits are not evenly distributed. Women in wealthier households are less likely to rely on these protections, while those in poorer households benefit disproportionately. This highlights the importance of jobs that offer these protections for low-income workers.

Our findings suggest that equal pay policies must be tailored to the needs of different income groups. For wealthier households, policies that support full-time work and chip away at sex segregation may be effective so that women can more readily access better-paid jobs.

But for poorer households, the focus should be on improving access to stable and better-paid jobs, while reducing discrimination and supporting flexible work arrangements.

Crucially, efforts to close the gender pay gap must avoid pitting the gains of high-earning women against the losses of low-earning men. In an era of rising political populism, this could undermine support for equality.

Instead, we need an approach that promotes good-quality employment for all and that supports equalised caregiving responsibilities. If we fail to address the barriers that prevent men and women from participating fully in both paid work and unpaid care work, we are unlikely to see reductions in the gender pay gap any time soon.

Vanessa Gash 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. The gender pay gap looks different depending where you are on the income ladder – https://theconversation.com/the-gender-pay-gap-looks-different-depending-where-you-are-on-the-income-ladder-270199