Category: Academic Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Forshaw, Professor of Health Psychology, Edge Hill University

There was a time, just a couple of decades ago, when researchers in psychology and health always had to engage with people face-to-face or using the telephone. The worst case scenario was sending questionnaire packs out to postal addresses and waiting for handwritten replies.

So we either literally met our participants, or we had multiple corroborating points of evidence that indicated we were dealing with a real person who was, therefore, likely to be telling us the truth about themselves.

Since then, technology has done what it always does – creating opportunities for us to cut costs, save time and access wider pools of participants on the internet. But what most people have failed to fully realise is that internet research has brought along risks of data corruption or impersonation which could be deliberately aiming to put research projects in jeopardy.

What enthused scientists most about internet research was the new capability to access people who we might not normally be able to involve in research. For example, as more people could afford to go online, people who were poorer became able to participate, as were those from rural communities who might be many hours and multiple forms of transport away from our laboratories.

Technology then leapt ahead, in a very short period of time. The democratisation of the internet opened it up to yet more and more people, and artificial intelligence grew in pervasiveness and technical capacity. So, where are we now?

As members of an international interest group looking at fraud in research (Fraud Analysis in Internet Research, or Fair), we’ve realised that it is now harder than ever to identify if someone is real. There are companies that scientists can pay to provide us with participants for internet research, and they in turn pay the participants.

While they do have checks and balances in place to reduce fraud, it’s probably impossible to eradicate it completely. Many people live in countries where the standard of living is low, but the internet is available. If they sign up to “work” for one of these companies, they can make a reasonable amount of money this way, possibly even more than they can in jobs involving hard labour and long hours in unsanitary or dangerous conditions.

In itself, this is not a problem. However, there will always be a temptation to maximise the number of studies they can participate in, and one way to do this is to pretend to be relevant to, and eligible for, a larger number of studies. Gaming the system is likely to be happening, and some of us have seen indirect evidence of this (people with extraordinarily high numbers of concurrent illnesses, for example).

It’s not feasible (or ethical) to insist on asking for medical records, so we rely on trust that a person with heart disease in one study is also eligible to take part in a cancer study because they also have cancer, in addition to anxiety, depression, blood disorders or migraines and so on. Or all of these. Short of requiring medical records, there is no easy answer for how to exclude such people.

More insidiously, there will also be people who use other individuals to game the system, often against their will. We are only now starting to consider the possibility of this new form of slavery, the extent of which is largely unknown.

Enter the bots

Similarly, we are seeing the rise of bots who are pretending to be participants, answering questions in increasingly sophisticated ways. Multiple identities can be fabricated by a single coder who can then not only make a lot of money from studies, but also seriously undermine the science we are trying to do (very concerning where studies are open to political influence).

It’s getting much more difficult to spot artificial intelligence. There was a time when written interview questions, for example, could not be completed by AI, but they now can.

It’s literally only a matter of time before we will find ourselves conducting and recording online interviews with a visual representation of a living, breathing individual, who simply does not exist, for example through deepfake technology.

We are only a few years away from such a profound deception, if not months. The British TV series The Capture might seem far-fetched to some, with its portrayal of real-time fake TV news, but anyone who has seen where the state of the art now is with respect to AI can easily imagine us being just a short stretch away from its depictions of the “evils” of impersonation using perfect avatars scraped from real data. It is time to worry.

The only answer, for now, will be to simply conduct interviews face-to-face, in our offices or laboratories, with real people who we can look in the eye and shake the hand of. We will have travelled right back in time to the point a few decades ago mentioned earlier.

With this comes a loss of one of the great things about the internet: it is a wonderful platform for democratising participation in research for people who might otherwise not have a voice, such as those who cannot travel because of a physical disability, and so on. It is dismaying to think that every fraudster is essentially stealing the voice of a real person who we genuinely want in our studies. And indeed, between 20–100% of survey responses have been found as fraudulent in previous research.

We must be suspicious going forward, when our natural propensity as amenable people who try to serve humanity with the work we do, is to be trusting and open. This is the real tragedy of the situation we find ourselves in, over and above that of the corruption of data that feed into our studies.

It also has ethical implications that we urgently need to consider. We do not, however, seem to have any choice but to “hope for the best but assume the worst”. We must build systems around our research, which are fundamentally only in place in order to detect and remove false participation of one type or another.

The sad fact is that we are potentially going backwards by decades to rule out a relatively small proportion of false responses. Every “firewall” we erect around our studies is going to reduce fraud (although probably not entirely eliminate it), but at the cost of reducing the breadth of participation that we desperately want to see.

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 the internet and its bots are sabotaging scientific research – https://theconversation.com/how-the-internet-and-its-bots-are-sabotaging-scientific-research-261796

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Una Cunningham, Professor emerita, Department of Teaching and Learning, Stockholm University

Every year, millions of students from all parts of the globe study for a degree through a language other than their first, usually English. In 2023, 25% of all higher education students in the UK were international students.

The understanding is that the incoming students will have, or develop, enough proficiency in English as a second language to study engineering, history, physics and other courses taught in English.

English-medium courses are also offered in countries where English is not the first language. In Sweden, where English has no official status, 66% of master’s programmes were taught through English in 2020. Universities in France primarily attract overseas students from Francophone Africa, to study in French, but they also offer courses taught in English.

Where domestic and international students study together, even those students who stay at home get to have an international experience when they meet students from other countries.

In some parts of the world, English is preferred over local languages for domestic students, in the belief that this will equip them for their professional lives.

Learning plans

If you’re planning on taking a degree taught in English and it’s not your first language, you already know that it will probably be more challenging than learning in your mother tongue would be.

Following what is being explained in lectures may be more difficult, and you may come up against unfamiliar vocabulary in the course literature. Group work can also be hard if students have varying levels of proficiency in English.

Lecturers may also be uncomfortable helping students with English, and do not see themselves as language teachers, even though all students need to become familiar with the specific language used in the field they are studying.

Fortunately, there is a lot you can do as a student to meet the challenges of studying in a second language.

• Continue to work on your academic literacy. Vocabulary development is key to understanding academic texts and lectures.

• Keep a list of key concepts and expressions related to the field you are studying as you come across them in your reading and lectures. Add translations into your strongest languages. Use a dictionary to get the exact meanings of words.

• Do the assigned reading in good time. During your reading and lectures you can take well-structured notes in any or all of your languages. Use technology to support your reading, but be careful of mistakes made by automatic translation.

• Research effective reading and note taking strategies. Use any study support your university offers. Practise writing in English regularly – free writing or copying out paragraphs from your set texts will develop your writing fluency.

• Before lectures you may be able to access the lecturer’s slides. Make sure you understand them. Annotate them in your first language. Becoming familiar with course materials before a lecture or other activity can support learning by reducing the amount of new information you need to deal with in class.

• If possible, arrange a study group with other students who share your first or another language. You each read the course literature and then discuss it together in the languages you choose, to make sure everyone is on board. If the lecturer has made summaries of the literature, or shares lecture slides, discuss them before or after lectures to make sure you have understood the main points.

• Consider multilingual collaborative note taking with other students, so that you all can access and contribute to a shared document, possibly based on the lecture slides (but be aware that these notes cannot replace your independent classwork).

• You may be reluctant to ask questions in class, but it is important that you are clear on what you are expected to do. Your question helps the lecturer see what is difficult, and others are probably wondering the same thing.

• Plan and write a first draft of written work using any or all of your languages. This is called translanguaging – using all the language skills that you have at your disposal to think freely about your work. If you stick to what you can easily express in English you may limit your thinking.

You don’t need to do all your studying only in English. Use your linguistic resources to make the most of your opportunities.

Una Cunningham 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. Planning to take a degree taught in English when it’s not your first language? Here are some tips for success – https://theconversation.com/planning-to-take-a-degree-taught-in-english-when-its-not-your-first-language-here-are-some-tips-for-success-254833

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Seirian Sumner, Professor of Behavioural Ecology, UCL

It’s summer in the northern hemisphere and that means sun, sea – and wasps.

A lot of us have been taught to fear wasps as aggressive insects that exist only to make our lives a misery. But with unsustainable wildlife loss across the planet, we need to learn to live alongside all organisms – even wasps. They are important pollinators and predators of insects.

A little knowledge about their natural history can help you dine safely alongside wasps.

The wasps that usually visit your picnic are typically the common yellowjacket (Vespula vulgaris) and the German wasp (Vespula germanica). They seem to appear from nowhere. What should you do?

1. Stay still, or she’ll think you’re a predator

Her (all workers are female) smell receptors have got her to your picnic table, but she’s now using visual landmarks (you and your surroundings) to orientate her way to the food on your plate. Keep your mouth closed and avoid breathing heavily to minimise the release of carbon dioxide, which wasps use as a cue that a predator is attacking. Similarly, if you start flapping and shouting, you are behaving like a predator (mainly badgers in the UK), which might trigger the wasp’s attack mode.

2. Watch what she is eating

This is a worker wasp. She is looking for food to feed to her sibling larvae in her mother’s papery looking nest. Is she carving off a lump of ham, gathering a dollop of jam or slurping at your sugary drink? Watch what she is eating because this gives you a clue to what your wasp offering will be. She is so focused on her task that she won’t notice you watching.

3. Make a wasp-offering to keep her from bothering you

Before you know it, she’s off with jaws full of jam or a hunk of ham. She might zigzag away from your table – a sign that she is reorientating for a reliable return. Once landmarks are mapped, she will fly straight and fast. If you followed her, she would lead you to her nest. But you are better off using your time to prepare your wasp offering, because she’s going to come back soon. Your offering should be a portion of whatever she harvested from your plate. You can move it slightly away from the rest of your food. If you let her have her share, you too can dine in peace.

You can gradually move your wasp offering further away from you. Wasp offerings are well-tested techniques around the world, whether you’re looking to track down a wasp nest to eat, or keep customers unbothered by wasps at an outdoor restaurant.

Happily, your picnic friend is unlikely to bring a swarm of wasps to your table, because social wasps are poor recruiters. This makes sense because wasp food (insects, carrion) is usually a scattered, short-lived resource. One caterpillar doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a huge patch of them, for example.

This contrasts with honeybees, for which there has been strong natural selection for the evolution of a communication system (waggle dance) to recruit many foragers to a patch of flowers.

However, you might get a few wasps at your picnic, especially if the nest is close, just by chance. Wasps tend to be attracted to a forage source by the presence of other wasps. If she sees a few wasps gathered, then she will investigate. But if there are too many wasps, this puts her off.

Wasps’ changing feeding habits

You may already know that wasps go crazy for sugar at the end of the summer. But why do they prefer a protein earlier in the season? It depends on what is going on inside the colony – and this changes with the season.

Wasp larvae are carnivorous. Together, the workers rear thousands of larvae. If your wasp wants ham (or some other protein source) at your picnic, you know her colony is full of hungry larvae. You might notice this in early-to-mid summer – and no later than mid-to-late August.

Enjoy the knowledge that you are helping feed armies of tiny pest controllers, who will soon set to work regulating populations of flies, caterpillars, aphids and spiders.

A defining feature of an adult wasp is the tiny petiole (wasp-waist). This constriction between her thorax and abdomen evolved so her ancestors could bend their abdomens, yoga-style, to parasitise or paralyse their prey.

The wasp-waist of an adult worker limits her to a largely liquid diet. She is like a waiter who must deliver feasts to customers without tasting it. The larvae tip her service with a nutritious liquid secretion, which she supplements with nectar from flowers. For much of the season, this is enough.

Blend science and a picnic

Towards the end of the summer, most wasp larvae have pupated – and a pupated larva doesn’t need feeding. So, demand for protein foraging diminishes, as do the sweet secretions that have kept the workers nourished.

This means worker wasps must now visit flowers for nectar – although your jam scone or sweet lemonade may also be exceedingly tempting. If your wasp is fixated on sugar at your table, then you know her colony is likely to be in its twilight phase of life.

Although time of the year is a good indicator of the balance of ham-to-jam in a wasp’s foraging preferences, weather, prey availability, local competition and rate of colony growth can influence them too. This means the switch from ham to jam this year may be different to next year.

We’d like you to help us gather data on this, to improve predictions on whether to offer your wasps ham or jam. To take part, report here whether the wasp at your picnic wanted protein (such as chicken, hummus, beef or sausage), jam (or anything sugary, including sugary drinks), or both.

Seirian Sumner receives funding from the UK government’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). She is a Trustee and Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, and author of the book ‘Endless Forms: Why We Should Love Wasps’

– ref. What to do when wasps crash your picnic – a scientist’s guide to dining safely with these insects – https://theconversation.com/what-to-do-when-wasps-crash-your-picnic-a-scientists-guide-to-dining-safely-with-these-insects-261589

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Franklin Nobrega, Associate Professor, Microbiology, University of Southampton

If bacteria had a list of things to fear, phages would be at the top. These viruses are built to find, infect and kill them – and they have been doing it for billions of years. Now that ancient battle is offering clues for how we might fight back against antibiotic-resistant infections.

As more bacteria evolve to withstand our antibiotics, previously treatable infections are becoming harder – and in some cases, impossible – to cure. This crisis, known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), already causes over a million deaths a year globally, and the number is rising fast. The World Health Organization has named AMR one of the top ten global public health threats.

Phage therapy – the use of phages to treat bacterial infections – is gaining attention as a potential solution. Phages are highly specific, capable of targeting even drug-resistant strains. In some compassionate-use cases in the UK, they have cleared infections where every antibiotic had failed. But phages still face a challenge that is often overlooked: the bacteria themselves.

Bacteria have evolved sophisticated systems to detect and destroy phages. These defences are diverse: some cut up viral DNA, others block entry, and a few launch a kind of intracellular shutdown to prevent viral takeover. In a new study published in Cell, my colleagues and I describe a system that works differently, called Kiwa. It acts like a sensor embedded in the bacterial membrane, detecting early signs of attack.

Exactly what Kiwa is sensing remains an open question, but our findings suggest it responds to the mechanical stress that occurs when a phage latches on to the cell and injects its DNA. Once triggered, Kiwa acts fast. It shuts down the phage’s ability to make the components it needs to build new phages, stopping the infection before it can take over the cell.

But just as bacteria evolve ways to defend themselves, phages evolve ways to fight back. In our latest experiments, we saw two strategies in play.

Some phages developed small mutations in the proteins they use to attach to the bacterial surface – subtle changes that helped them avoid triggering Kiwa’s detection system. Others took a different approach: they allowed themselves to be detected, but escaped the consequences.

These phages carried mutations in a viral protein that seems to be involved in how Kiwa shuts down the infection. We don’t yet know exactly how this works, but the result is clear: with just a few changes, the virus keeps replicating, even after Kiwa has been activated.

This evolutionary flexibility is part of what makes phages so powerful, and why they hold such promise in treating infections. But it also highlights a key challenge: to make phage therapy effective, we need to understand how these microbial battles play out.

Rules of engagement

If a bacterial strain carries a defence like Kiwa, not all phages will succeed against it. Some might be blocked entirely. But others, with just the right mutations, might slip through. That means choosing or engineering the right phage for the job is not just a matter of trial and error – it is a matter of knowing the rules of engagement.

Studying bacterial defence systems like Kiwa gives us a deeper understanding of those rules. It helps explain why some phages fail, why others succeed, and how we might design better phage therapies in the future. In time, we may be able to predict which bacterial defences a given strain carries, and select phages that are naturally equipped – or artificially tuned – to overcome them.

That is the idea behind our growing phage collection project. We are gathering phages from across the UK and beyond, including from public submissions – dirty water is often a goldmine – and testing them to see which ones can overcome the defences carried by dangerous bacteria. With over 600 types already catalogued, we are building a resource that could help guide future phage therapy, pairing the right phage with the right infection.

Kiwa is just one piece of the puzzle. Bacteria encode many such defence systems, each adding a layer of complexity – and opportunity – to this microbial arms race. Some detect viral DNA directly, others sense damage or stress, and some even coordinate responses with neighbouring cells. The more we learn, the more precisely we can intervene.

This is not a new war. Bacteria and phages have been locked in it for billions of years. But for the first time, we are starting to listen in. And if we learn how to navigate the strategies they have evolved, we might find new ways to treat the infections our antibiotics can no longer handle.

Franklin Nobrega receives funding from Royal Society and Wessex Medical Research.

– ref. How ancient viruses could help fight antibiotic resistance – https://theconversation.com/how-ancient-viruses-could-help-fight-antibiotic-resistance-261970

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Urban Wiesing, Professor of Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tübingen

The US Food and Drug Administration recently convened a panel of experts to examine a sensitive and increasingly urgent question: should antidepressants be prescribed to women suffering from depression during pregnancy?

To the surprise of many in the American medical community, the panel included not only US-based experts but also three international voices known for their critical views on psychiatric medication. Their inclusion sparked immediate controversy and foreshadowed the disagreements to come.

At the heart of the debate is a long-standing assumption in American medical practice: while antidepressants may carry some risk to the unborn child, the dangers of leaving maternal depression untreated are usually greater. Yet this mainstream position was strongly challenged. A majority of the panel appeared unconvinced that the benefits of antidepressant use in pregnancy clearly outweigh the potential risks.

As the discussion unfolded, fundamental questions remained unresolved. What exactly are the risks to the unborn child? The panel offered different answers.

How substantial are the benefits to a pregnant woman? Some experts questioned whether antidepressants deliver meaningful help in these circumstances at all. And without clarity on these points, how can the the risk-benefit ratio be reliably assessed?

It’s a familiar scenario in science: experts looking at the same data but drawing different conclusions – not only about the facts, but how to interpret them. In this case, the division seemed to reflect deeper cultural and philosophical differences in how various countries approach mental health care during pregnancy.

The outcome of the panel’s deliberations reflected that divide, with no consensus reached.

To some extent, the conflict was embedded in the very design of the panel. When those with sharply opposing views are brought together without agreement on the evidence base, gridlock is a likely result. Still, the impasse underlines the need for more independent, high-quality research on the effects of antidepressants during pregnancy – research that can inform not only regulators but also doctors and patients.

Complicating matters further is the political climate. The current US health secretary – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – has, critics argue, an uneasy relationship with scientific consensus, which makes trust in the process all the more fragile.

A warning label is not a substitute for a conversation

Still, the panel produced one tangible suggestion: a proposal from around half of its members to place a so-called “black box” warning on antidepressant packaging, alerting pregnant women to potential risks to the unborn child. Such warnings are typically reserved for the most serious medical concerns. But is this really the right approach?

A comparison often made is to cigarette packaging. But this analogy quickly breaks down. Cigarettes are freely bought; antidepressants are prescribed following a medical consultation. To issue a blunt warning on a medicine that has already been deemed appropriate by a doctor risks undermining the doctor–patient relationship.

If stronger warnings are needed, the real problem may lie in the consultation process itself, not in the packaging.

Pregnancy presents a unique ethical dilemma. The unborn child cannot give consent, and damage sustained in the womb can result in lifelong consequences. At the same time, untreated depression in a pregnant woman carries serious risks of its own – for both mother and child. This is a classic medical conflict, with no easy solution.

And while US law gives pregnant women the right to make such decisions – albeit with variation across states – it doesn’t solve the underlying uncertainty. That must be navigated through informed, respectful dialogue between doctor and patient, not by resorting to fear-inducing labels.

Ultimately, every case is personal. Every decision must take into account the individual’s mental health, support system, risk tolerance and values. What’s needed is thoughtful communication, prudent prescribing and careful balancing of benefit and harm. In short: good medicine.

What’s not needed is to heap more guilt on women already grappling with depression. If scientists and policymakers cannot agree, pregnant women should not bear the burden of that confusion. They deserve support, not stigma.

Urban Wiesing 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. No clear answers on antidepressants in pregnancy – https://theconversation.com/no-clear-answers-on-antidepressants-in-pregnancy-261724