Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Stern, Visiting Professor of Management Practice, Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London

For all of Keir Starmer’s undoubted abilities, steady nerve and top-level experience in the legal profession, his tenure as prime minister has been fraught with difficulty. This is no doubt partly due to his limited enthusiasm for the (at times banal) realities of political leadership.

It is also due to his reluctance to engage sufficiently with the details of important decisions. At key moments, he has chosen to look the other way and defer to others to execute.

The most recent and consequential example of this is the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington DC, which we now know was driven primarily by former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. A quick refresh on recent Labour party history should have been enough to deter this decision. Instead, Starmer outsourced political judgment to others. Now that it has backfired, he is attempting to deflect the blame for his own misjudgments, perhaps not realising – or not accepting – that the buck ultimately stops with him.

He has lost goodwill by removing a range of colleagues, including two cabinet secretaries, two chiefs of staff, and now a top civil servant. He has not focused enough on the detail of policy, but has rather made broad and vague calls for change and asked others to deliver it. Good leaders delegate with clear instructions to people who are capable of fulfilling specific tasks.

A strong sense of leadership from the centre is needed to make the UK government system work. This was understood by the last Labour government with the introduction of the Delivery Unit, a mechanism to provide performance management across key departments.

The Starmer government got off to a false start in the summer of 2024 and has never really recovered. There was misalignment, to put it mildly, between Starmer’s original (and short-lived) chief of staff, Sue Gray, and other colleagues. A clumsily introduced cut to winter fuel allowance had to be reversed, raising no extra revenue but costing a good deal of political goodwill.

There have been other missteps. Starmer sparked anger among some MPs with his speech warning about the UK becoming “an island of strangers”, only to concede subsequently that he was uneasy with that phrase. He was opposed to his own speech.

Welfare reform was necessary until backbenchers rebelled. A harsher line on immigration did nothing to halt Reform’s rise. A seeming reluctance to criticise Israel’s assault on Gaza cost the Labour party support and helped drive the Green party’s new popularity.

And while Starmer did not know and had no particular fondness for Mandelson, he was persuaded McSweeney that he would be the right person to send to Washington DC as a new ambassador. Hence the rushed process to appoint him, and the subsequent political mess that afflicts Starmer now.

All of these suggest a disengagement with the nitty gritty of politics, the consequences of which are now being made clear.

Understanding the job

Amanda Goodall, a professor of leadership at Bayes Business School, has long argued that “domain knowledge” (or professional expertise) is a vital requirement for those in a leadership position. It pays to have someone in charge who understands and has a profound feel for the world in which they are operating.

Credibility among colleagues is established by being good at the core elements of a job and having proven experience. This was always going to be difficult to achieve for a latecomer to politics like Starmer.

In Westminster, Starmer has always been a fish out of water. He has only been a member of parliament since 2015. He emerged as a viable leadership candidate in the aftermath of Labour’s 2019 election defeat. He succeeded as a figure with calm authority, in contrast to the uncertainty created by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Even under the steadier figure of Rishi Sunak, and undermined by the rise of Reform, the Conservative government was doomed to defeat. In July 2024, the quirks of the UK’s voting system gifted Labour a massive 170-seat majority on a vote share of 34% – a “loveless landslide”. The government was never really all that popular even at the outset. A more politically savvy prime minister might have recognised this and led the new government differently.

Starmer became prime minister without ever having established a distinct political identity or programme. He proudly said that there was no such thing as Starmerism, and never would be. That sort of modesty may have been authentic and appealingly British, in a way. But it left the new government without a song to sing.

Politics, it has been said, is “show business for ugly people”. Charisma is overrated, and after Boris Johnson I suspect the country has had enough of performative prime ministers. The PM does not have to be a stand-up comedian or a “celebrity”. But there should be a purpose to what he or she is doing. A more politically engaged prime minister would have weighed up the risks in appointing Mandelson more carefully, and been aware of warnings that the appointment was being “weirdly rushed”.

Effective political leaders have a coherent and compelling story to tell. They strengthen and give credibility to this story when they make important political decisions with conviction and a sense of ownership. This is what Starmer has lacked all along, and it will be his undoing.

Stefan Stern 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. Mandelson vetting: Starmer’s reluctance to engage with the details shows a lack of political leadership – https://theconversation.com/mandelson-vetting-starmers-reluctance-to-engage-with-the-details-shows-a-lack-of-political-leadership-281191

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gerald Mako, Research Affiliate, Cambridge Central Asia Forum, University of Cambridge

The limit of what artificial intelligence can achieve, known as frontier AI, has crossed another threshold. AI can now plan and execute sophisticated cyber operations with minimal guidance at speeds far beyond human capability.

That, at least, is the evidence from an independent test of Claude Mythos Preview, the latest and most advanced model in the Claude family of AI systems, developed by US tech firm Anthropic. Similar to ChatGPT, these can understand and generate human-like text, analyse information, and solve complex problems.

The finance sector is alarmed. It relies on highly interconnected digital systems that are especially attractive targets for sophisticated cyber-attacks. A successful breach could disrupt payments, freeze access to funds, and erode public trust in the banking system.

Major UK and US banks are preparing controlled trials under strict safeguards. They will be granted secure, supervised access to the Mythos Preview model in isolated environments, to evaluate its ability to detect vulnerabilities in their systems while minimising any risk of misuse. It’s a bit like dangerous viruses being examined in high-security laboratories.

The UK’s AI Security Institute, a research organisation within the government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, has already tested Mythos Preview on a demanding benchmark known as The Last Ones. As the name suggests, this series of challenges has been designed as the final hurdle AI systems need to complete before being deemed able to fully automate complex, real-world cyber-attacks from start to finish.

In the controlled test, Mythos Preview autonomously surfaced thousands of “zero day” vulnerabilities – flaws unknown even to the software’s own developers – across every major operating system and popular web browser. Some of these had remained undetected for up to 27 years, even though the software had been carefully checked millions of times.

Under controlled conditions, a skilled human operator would typically need around 20 hours to complete the exercise. In ten independent runs, Mythos achieved full success three times, making this preview version the first AI model to solve the entire attack chain end-to-end.

The results show genuine autonomous chaining of complex sequential actions. Mythos Preview thus represents a major leap in the ability of an AI to act as a truly autonomous agent, planning and executing complex, multi-step tasks over extended periods with minimal human intervention.

But the significance of this technological breakthrough extends well beyond cyber-attacks. The same capability could soon allow AI to autonomously manage software development, scientific research, supply chains or financial operations. Mythos Preview signals a shift from powerful assistant to genuinely autonomous operator, with wide-reaching implications across many industries.

The dual-use dilemma

Rather than releasing it publicly, Anthropic has so far restricted access through its Project Glasswing, an initiative that gives selected technology companies and critical infrastructure providers including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Amazon controlled access to the model.

Anthropic’s stated idea is to “to secure the world’s most critical software” by identifying and fixing security weaknesses in the operating systems, browsers and critical libraries that underpin virtually all modern digital systems, before they can be exploited. Only after that will Mythos see wider deployment as a general-purpose AI system.

Traditional vulnerability management is the process of identifying, assessing and fixing weaknesses in software and systems before attackers can exploit them – a slow, labour-intensive task performed by experts. Mythos could change this process dramatically – in both positive and negative ways.

Its emergence creates a classic dual-use dilemma: the same breakthrough that strengthens cyber defence can also lower the barrier for offensive operations.

On the positive side, it could enable defenders to discover and patch thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities at unprecedented speed and scale, potentially making critical software far more secure and reducing the window for attacks.

Many current cybercrimes such as ransomware succeed by exploiting known or easily discoverable weaknesses in unpatched systems. These could be significantly reduced if Mythos-class models are widely used for defensive vulnerability discovery.

However, more sophisticated or targeted ransomware attacks – especially those using stolen credentials, social engineering, or already-compromised accounts – are far less likely to be affected, as they often bypass traditional software vulnerabilities altogether.

On the negative side, the same capabilities could dramatically lower the barrier for malicious actors, allowing them to find and chain weaknesses much faster than human teams. This would accelerate sophisticated cyber-attacks if the technology spreads beyond controlled environments.

There is no public evidence that Mythos Preview has reached criminal groups or nation-state adversaries – yet. But the history of cybersecurity technology suggests that well-resourced actors, either state-sponsored or criminal, may develop comparable systems or gain indirect access within the near future.

The future of cybersecurity

In the short term, governments are likely to revise their cybersecurity protocols and incident-response frameworks to incorporate mandatory AI-assisted vulnerability scanning. This would require organisations to continuously scan their systems using AI, rather than relying on occasional human checks.

While this could dramatically improve security by finding flaws faster, it is likely to raise costs significantly and carries the risk of system slowdowns, false alarms, or brief operational disruptions when fixes are applied.

Cyber insurers will almost certainly begin demanding evidence of such defences as a condition of coverage, driving up insurance premiums, while critical-infrastructure operators accelerate deployment of automated monitoring and response systems. This change will impact not only banks and financial institutions, but also critical infrastructure operators in energy, healthcare, telecoms, and transport.

Of course, Mythos is not the final chapter. Future models developed by Anthropic and other leading AI companies are being designed to function as highly autonomous AI agents, capable of independently planning, adapting and executing long, complex sequences of tasks. As well as discovering vulnerabilities, this could mean coordinating large-scale operations or managing sophisticated real-world workflows – all with minimal human guidance.

Moments like this demand both urgency and measured action. Careful governance, international cooperation, and sustained investment in defensive applications will be essential. The genie is out of the bottle – the challenge now is ensuring it serves security rather than chaos.

Gerald Mako 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. AI has crossed a threshold – what Claude Mythos means for the future of cybersecurity – https://theconversation.com/ai-has-crossed-a-threshold-what-claude-mythos-means-for-the-future-of-cybersecurity-281308

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Iuliana Hartescu, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Loughborough University

Insomnia may have been torturing humanity since ancient times, but over the last 20 years scientists have made progress in their understanding of chronic sleep deprivation.

Today, sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread reported psychological problems in Britain, with about a third of the adult population in England reporting frequent insomnia symptoms.

Insomnia rarely occurs on its own, which brings us to one of the biggest changes scientists have made in our understanding of chronic sleep deprivation. The vast majority of people with insomnia often have other mental and physical health conditions, like diabetes, hypertension, chronic pain, thyroid disease, gastrointestinal problems, anxiety or depression.

In its diagnostic history, insomnia coupled with another illness or disorder was called secondary insomnia. That meant that insomnia was considered a consequence of those other underlying conditions. As such, until fairly recently clinicians did not generally attempt to treat secondary insomnia.

But in the early 2000s, both research and clinical practice evidence started to indicate that this approach was wrong. Scientists argued that insomnia could precede or long survive a primary condition. Abandoning this distinction between primary and secondary insomnia was a major advance in acknowledging that insomnia frequently was an independent disorder, requiring its own treatment.

What’s more, researchers have been accumulating strong evidence that helping people with their sleeping problems could actually lead to improvements in their other health conditions. Chronic pain, chronic heart failure, depression, psychosis, alcohol dependency, bipolar disorder, PTSD, can all improve for patients if they address their sleeping problems.

Who gets insomnia?

Over the past two decades, we have acquired more rigorous and international data illustrating how ubiquitous insomnia is. Insomnia affects almost everyone, though women, older people, and people of lower socio-economic status are more vulnerable to it.

These groups experience a combination of biological, psychological and social risk factors that expose them to long-term sleep-disruption. For example, women often experience acute hormone fluctuations, pregnancy and birth, breastfeeding, menopause, domestic violence, caregiving roles, higher prevalence of depression and anxiety – all of which can lead to more opportunities for prolonged sleep disruption.

Some current issues in insomnia research include the need to understand different types of insomnia symptoms, and their relationship to health and performance risks. For example, there is evidence that difficulty initiating sleep (as opposed to difficulty staying asleep, or waking up too early in the morning) is associated with an increased risk of depression. Similarly, scientists still have questions on changes in things like brain activity, heart rate, or stress hormones that accompany insomnia. In common with all other mental health disorders, we are still yet to find biomarkers of insomnia.

However, research has helped us understand some things people can do to prevent insonmia episodes progressing to chronic insomnia, which is harder to treat. When insomnia symptoms happen more nights than not, and last for more than three months, then a diagnosis of insomnia disorder, or chronic insomnia, can be made.

One of the most common and harmful habits that develop during periods of insomnia is lying in bed, trying to sleep. Scientists have learned that lying in bed awake leads to perpetual cognitive arousal and, in time, it teaches your brain to stop connecting bed and being asleep.

Thus, if you cannot sleep at night, get up and do something else absorbing, but calming – read, write a list for the following day, listen to calming music or do some breathing exercises. When you feel sleepy again, get back to bed. If you are tired the following day, a well-placed short nap is fine, in the afternoon, for a maximum of 20 minutes. However, one must be careful with daytime sleeping, as it may reduce sleepiness at nighttime, and going to sleep may become even more difficult.

For those who do struggle with insomnia, there are effective treatments recommended. The story of the profound changes from secondary insomnia to insomnia disorder speaks of the power of clinical diagnosis in providing a pathway to treatment.

Cognitive behavioural treatment for insomnia (CBTI) is a package of techniques designed to maximise sleepiness at bedtime. It involves structured steps which aim to modify behaviour and mental activity. There are some predictors of treatment success: shorter duration of insomnia symptoms (years, rather than decades), less depression or pain and more positive expectations towards CBTI. But CBTI is broadly effective across all groups of people with insomnia.

Even so, only a tiny proportion of people reporting insomnia symptoms seek medical help. People may consider insomnia symptoms trivial or manageable, or they may be unaware of the options. It may also be due to the unavailability of treatment options. CBTI remains largely unavailable in clinical practice, mainly due to clinicians’ unfamiliarity with the treatment programme, and limited funding.

This pushes patients towards sleeping tablets, which are not an acceptable long-term solution. Sleeping tablets are associated with significant cognitive and motor impairment, increased risk of falls, dependence, tolerance and withdrawal symptoms, daytime lethargy, dizziness and headaches.

The main truly “new” class of sleeping pills are the dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORAs), which have shown a safety profile in many ways better than the traditional sedatives, especially around dependence concerns. But DORAs are not risk free or “mild” pills. They are relatively new to the market, first approved in the UK in 2022. So we lack long-term data to assess their safety for long-term use in people with insomnia.

A decent alternative is online self-delivered CBTI, on platforms such as Sleepful, which are free to access.

We have made great strides in sleep medicine over the past 20 years for people with insomnia, we just need to realise the potential of such profound changes by providing the right help for those suffering with it.

Iuliana Hartescu receives funding from the Medical Research Council; the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

– ref. How scientists changed their view of insomnia – https://theconversation.com/how-scientists-changed-their-view-of-insomnia-279585

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steven W. Kerrigan, Professor of Precision Therapeutics, School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

Antibiotics are one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical history. They turned once-deadly infections into treatable illnesses and made modern healthcare possible. But bacteria are changing, and some of the drugs we have depended on for decades are becoming less effective.

Around the world, infections are becoming harder to treat. This problem is known as antimicrobial resistance. It happens when bacteria evolve ways to survive medicines designed to kill them. It is estimated that drug-resistant infections already cause about 1.27 million deaths every year worldwide.

The World Health Organization has warned that we may be moving towards a “post-antibiotic era” in which common infections once again become dangerous, and even routine injuries or procedures carry serious risk.

A century ago, that was normal. A cut from gardening, a sore throat or childbirth could turn into a life-threatening infection. Doctors had few effective treatments, and infectious diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhoea disease were among the leading causes of death. The arrival of antibiotics changed that dramatically.

Penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, marked the beginning of one of the most important revolutions in medicine. Before antibiotics, tuberculosis was one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. In 1882, it killed one in seven people living in the US and Europe. Once antibiotics became available, many bacterial infections that had once been deadly could be treated effectively.

Antibiotics not only cured infections, but also made modern medicine far safer. Many procedures rely on them to prevent or treat infection, including caesarean sections, organ transplants, joint replacements and cancer chemotherapy.

Without effective antibiotics, these treatments would become much more dangerous. Fleming himself recognised that risk. When he accepted the Nobel Prize in 1945, he warned that misuse of penicillin could lead to resistance.

Living in a microbial world

The human body contains about 30 trillion human cells, but it also carries tens of trillions of bacteria on the skin and inside the body. Together, these communities form the microbiome, the vast collection of microbes that live in and on us. Many of them are not harmful. In fact, they help digest food, produce vitamins and support the immune system, the body’s defence system against disease.

So life is a finely balanced relationship between humans and the microbial world. But bacteria are ancient and extraordinarily adaptable. They have existed on earth for more than 3.5 billion years and survive in some of the harshest places imaginable, from deep-sea vents to polar ice.

Bacteria multiply very quickly and can also swap genetic material, meaning they can share useful survival traits with one another. Some produce substances that break down antibiotics before the drugs can do any damage. Others alter the parts of their cells that antibiotics are designed to attack.

Some develop tiny molecular pumps that push antibiotics back out of the bacterial cell. Others find alternative ways to carry out the jobs that the drug was meant to block.

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These changes happen through random genetic variation, which means natural differences arise as bacteria reproduce. But heavy antibiotic use creates strong evolutionary pressure. When antibiotics kill bacteria that are vulnerable to them, the resistant bacteria are left behind to survive and multiply.

Conditions for resistance

Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed medicines in the world, and they are often used when they are not needed. In some countries, they are still prescribed for illnesses such as colds and flu, even though antibiotics do not work against viruses. In the UK, prescribing is more tightly controlled, but inappropriate use and public misunderstanding remain a concern.

Large amounts are also used in agriculture and livestock production. This can further encourage resistant bacteria to emerge and spread.

Across Europe, antimicrobial resistance is now recognised as a major public health threat. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control estimates that antibiotic-resistant infections cause more than 35,000 deaths each year across the EU and European Economic Area.

Doctors are now seeing infections that are difficult, and sometimes impossible, to treat. Some of the most worrying include methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and carbapenem-resistant enterobacterales (CRE). MRSA can resist several commonly used antibiotics. VRE no longer responds to vancomycin, while CRE can withstand carbapenems, some of the most powerful antibiotics available.

What a post-antibiotic world could look like

If antibiotic resistance continues to rise, the consequences for healthcare could be severe. Many routine medical procedures depend on antibiotics to prevent infection. Without them, surgeries such as hip replacements, organ transplants and some cancer treatments may become too risky to perform.

Even common infections could once again become life-threatening. A simple urinary tract infection could spread into the bloodstream. A skin wound could develop into a severe invasive infection, meaning an infection that spreads deep into the body.

One of the greatest concerns is sepsis, a life-threatening condition in which the body overreacts to an infection and begins damaging its own tissues and organs. Early treatment with antibiotics saves many lives. But when bacteria are resistant, those treatments may fail. That makes sepsis much harder to treat, and in severe cases doctors may have very few options left.

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Why sepsis is becoming harder to treat in Europe

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Healthcare could begin to resemble the pre-antibiotic era, when infection was one of the biggest dangers of everyday life.

Reasons for hope

The situation is serious, but it is not hopeless. Scientists are developing new ways to fight infection. Some researchers are exploring bacteriophages, often shortened to phages, which are viruses that infect and kill bacteria.

Others are working on anti-virulence drugs. Rather than killing bacteria outright, these drugs aim to disarm them by blocking the tools they use to cause disease. The hope is that this may place less evolutionary pressure on bacteria to develop resistance.

Another promising approach is host-targeted therapy. This means boosting the body’s own ability to fight infection, rather than attacking the bacteria directly.

Better diagnostic tests, stronger infection prevention and more careful use of antibiotics could also help preserve the drugs we still have. Antibiotics transformed medicine in the 20th century and saved countless lives. But they were never a permanent victory over microbes.

The challenge now is not just to develop new treatments, but to protect the antibiotics that still work. If we can do that, the post-antibiotic future many scientists warn about may never arrive.

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Read more:
Antibiotic resistance could undo a century of medical progress – but four advances are changing the story

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Steven W. Kerrigan 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. What a ‘post-antibiotic era’ could mean for modern medicine – https://theconversation.com/what-a-post-antibiotic-era-could-mean-for-modern-medicine-278231

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

A little after 2pm on April 8, the Israeli military hit more than 100 targets in Lebanon in just ten minutes. Israel called the attack Operation Eternal Darkness and said it struck Hezbollah command and control centres across Lebanon. The Lebanese government said at least 300 people were killed and 1,000 injured.

The scale of the attack on Lebanon was reminiscent of the early days of the Gaza war in 2023 when Israel retaliated for the October 7 attacks, which killed more more than 1,200 people, with waves of aerial bombardment of Gaza.

Israel has a powerful and lethal army, and it’s been defending itself against attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

But why has it chosen such brutal military aggression?

One historian, Yaron Peleg, believes the answer to this question lies in the early days of Zionism in the 19th century when many Jews who arrived in Palestine were fleeing antisemitism in Europe. In defiance, they began a cultural revolution, emphasising military strength and honouring Biblical Jewish heroes.

Peleg, who is a professor of modern Hebrew studies at the University of Cambridge in the UK and author of the book New Hebrews: Making National Culture in Zion, thinks Israel’s view of itself began to change in the wake of the Holocaust. “There started a really problematic combination of defiance, aggression, and a sense of victimhood  and it’s a very explosive and lethal combination,” he says.

In this week’s episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Peleg tracks how he sees Israel’s self‑image changed from self‑reliance to aggressive militarism, and how that history helps to explain the way it wages war today.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from Sky News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Yaron Peleg 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. How Israel’s history has shaped the way it wages war – https://theconversation.com/how-israels-history-has-shaped-the-way-it-wages-war-281194

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christian Emery, Associate Professor in International Politics, UCL

One of the US and Israel’s justifications for launching the war on Iran was to ensure the regime in Tehran could never possess nuclear weapons, the ultimate deterrent against external attack. But the main lesson that has been taken from the war, according to some commentators, is that Iran’s own geography already provides it with all the deterrent it needs.

The US-Israeli strikes have inflicted massive damage on Iran’s leadership and have destroyed billions of US dollars worth of military and civilian infrastructure. However, this display of force has proved unable to stop Iran from controlling who enters the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime chokepoint through which around 20% of the world’s oil supply flows.

This has led to the suggestion that Iran could emerge from the conflict with a new blueprint for shielding itself against future threats, regardless of whether it agrees to US demands to dismantle or severely limit its nuclear programme.

Geography is arguably Iran’s greatest strategic asset. The Strait of Hormuz is shallow and narrow, with just two-mile-wide navigable shipping channels. There are also a huge number of coves and inlets along Iran’s southern coastline, providing cover for launching small boats to attack shipping or lay mines, as well as anti-ship missiles and drones.

And there is a vast belt of rugged mountains running from Iran’s north-western border with Turkey all the way down to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran can store, conceal, produce and launch more drones and missiles here than it would ever need to threaten Gulf shipping.

However, Iran’s capacity to close the strait is not new. For decades, Iran has repeatedly threatened to respond to any external attack by closing the strait. It has also, albeit in a more measured way, demonstrated the capability to make the strait commercially unusable.

In response to Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy across both his first and second terms as US president, Iran has harassed shipping with fast boats, rehearsed loading mines on to vessels, test-fired anti-ship ballistic missiles and even seized a British tanker. These are all classic forms of deterrence signalling.

Multiple analysts had warned of the catastrophic economic consequences of full-scale war with Iran precisely because of Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. The only person who seems not to have understood this is Trump.

When pressed in March on whether Trump had been briefed before the war that Iran would seek to block Hormuz, his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, would not be drawn. But she acknowledged that it “has long been an assessment of the intelligence community that Iran would likely hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage”.

Another challenge to the claim that geography may replace nuclear weapons as Iran’s primary source of deterrence is that its nuclear programme was never a core part of its deterrence. A 2019 report by Chatham House determined that Iran saw its asymmetric capabilities – particularly ballistic missiles and its ability to mobilise its proxy groups in the region – as essential to its national security. Iran’s ability to exercise control of the Strait of Hormuz is another pillar of this strategy.

There is ample reason to believe Iran was engaged in nuclear “hedging” – preserving the option to build a weapon at some point without crossing the line in a verifiable way. But if nuclear deterrence was the core aim, it is unlikely that Iran would have committed to a 2015 nuclear deal that most of the international community argued blocked its path to a bomb.

Regional implications

If a country is attacked, by definition its deterrence has failed. But the perception of restored deterrence can help create conditions for deescalation by justifying an end to the fighting and convincing an adversary that costs can still be imposed. In this sense, Iran’s control of Hormuz may help bring the current war to an end.

Iran’s confidence in having proven its ability to blockade Hormuz may also provide cover for dialling down its nuclear ambiguity posture. And it could compensate for the degradation of its network of proxies that has enabled Iran to project influence across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza.

The weakening of this so-called “Axis of Resistance” in recent years has reduced (though far from eliminated) Tehran’s ability to raise the regional cost of any direct attack on Iran. And Hezbollah, which is widely considered the strongest group in this proxy network, has paid a high price for defending Iran since the start of the war.

Iran is highly unlikely to abandon its proxies completely. However, it may now conclude that using them as a form of forward deterrence to avoid being directly attacked has manifestly failed and roll back on the strategy. This would be an extremely positive move for regional stability.

Iran’s demonstrated capacity to close the strait is likely to shape the regional order for some time. But Iran is unlikely to be willing to rely on this single pillar of deterrence.

Its sustained missile strikes on neighbouring Gulf states, and damage to critical infrastructure, had already created an appetite for a negotiated end to the conflict among the US’s Arab allies. Trump himself admitted he did not anticipate this reaction.

This makes forcing Iran to suspend its ballistic missile capability extremely difficult in upcoming negotiations, which will leave its neighbours nervous and anxious about their own lack of any deterrence capacities.

Christian Emery 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. Has the Strait of Hormuz emerged as Iran’s most powerful form of deterrence? – https://theconversation.com/has-the-strait-of-hormuz-emerged-as-irans-most-powerful-form-of-deterrence-281284

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Salma Al Arefi, Senior Lecturer in Renewable Energy, University of Leeds

In parts of Germany and Australia, a surprising thing is happening more and more often: households are being offered free electricity.

This is happening at times of day when there are high levels of energy being generated from solar or wind. It is caused because sometimes more electricity is being produced than people need. Only a limited amount of storage is available and most of it must be used immediately to keep the system stable.

As countries expand use of wind and solar power, these periods when people are not charged for the energy to run their washing machine or kettle will happen more often. When supply exceeds demand, electricity prices can fall sharply, and sometimes drop below zero. Negative electricity prices mean generators pay consumers to use excess electricity, and this has already started to happen in some European countries such as Germany and Spain. In 2024 alone, European power markets recorded over 1,000 hours of negative prices.

Renewable energy has grown rapidly in recent years. Solar power is driving most of this growth.

The Internationale Energy Agency expects solar capacity to more than double by 2030, making up almost 80% of new electricity worldwide. Renewables are also expected to meet over 90% of global electricity demand by 2030.

Recent data by energy think-tank Ember shows how quickly this shift is happening. In 2025, global low-carbon electricity generation rose by about 887 terawatt-hours, slightly more than the increase in demand. Solar met around 75% of this growth, while solar and wind together met almost all of it.

Paying consumers to use energy

In Australia, this is largely driven by rooftop solar, which produces large amounts of electricity in the middle of the day when household demand is low. In Germany, strong wind and solar output, especially at weekends, can create similar surpluses. These conditions are now occurring frequently enough to affect electricity prices.

The trend is spreading. In South Australia, negative electricity prices accounted for around a quarter of wholesale electricity in both 2023 and 2024. In California, the share of hours with negative pricing rose from about 4% in 2023 to 15% in 2024. Across Europe, countries such as Finland, Sweden, the UK and Germany are all starting to see similar patterns, although the UK is seeing the lowest level of hours with negative pricing compared to these other European nations.

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Data from 2025 shows that this trend is continuing. Negative electricity prices are becoming more common, reaching around 6% of hours in countries such as France, Germany and Spain. In Spain, this doubled in 2025, compared with 2024. In France, they rose by almost half, while Germany and the Netherlands saw increase by around a quarter.

These patterns point to a deeper issue: electricity systems are not yet flexible enough to respond to rapid changes in supply, so have to give away energy to be able to cope.

Evidence from Australia shows how this is beginning to change. Negative electricity prices are now common in the middle of the day, when solar output is highest, with prices falling to zero or below for around two to three hours each day on average. At the same time, extreme price spikes are becoming less frequent.

Negative prices occur in wholesale markets, where prices change frequently and can sometimes fall below zero when generation exceeds demand. Household bills, however, are based on retail prices that include network charges and taxes, meaning many consumers do not see these fluctuations directly.

But for those on flexible tariffs, electricity can become cheaper or “free” during these periods, and in some cases these lower prices may be reflected in reduced unit costs or small bill credits.

However, not everyone will benefit equally. Households with batteries or smart systems are better placed to take advantage of this trend, as they can store energy to use later in the day, particularly in the evenings when typically use is highest.

This reflects a system that is beginning to adapt. According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, large-scale batteries are playing a growing role by storing electricity when it is abundant and releasing it when demand rises. This helps to smooth price fluctuations and stabilise the system.

Together, these changes mark a shift in how electricity systems operate. Now, as renewable energy generation grows, supply is increasingly shaped by the weather. This means demand must become more flexible in response.

UK policy

This shift is already influencing policy in other countries such as the UK. According to the UK’s National Energy System Operator, from summer 2026 households and businesses will be encouraged to use more electricity during periods of excess supply more often, particularly when solar generation is high and demand is low. The aim is to actively shift when electricity is used, helping to absorb surplus energy and improve system stability.

The timing is not accidental. As part of a shift towards renewables, particularly solar, continues to grow in the UK, for instance, periods of excess supply are becoming more common.

Similar patterns were seen in countries such as Germany, where a rapid surge in solar generation urged a sudden need for greater system flexibility. In the UK, for instance, managing the grid during periods of low demand is becoming more complex, as electricity supply becomes increasingly driven by weather conditions rather than consumption patterns.

This is why flexibility is needed. In extreme cases, large imbalances between supply and demand can place significant strain on electricity systems. 2025’s blackout across Spain and Portugal, shows how quickly instability can happen if systems cannot respond effectively. In the UK, system operators stress that these conditions are actively managed.

Free electricity reflects a deeper shift in how the energy system works. As renewable power grows, excess supply is going to become even more common.

Salma Al Arefi 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. Why some countries give away free electricity and even pay consumers to use it – https://theconversation.com/why-some-countries-give-away-free-electricity-and-even-pay-consumers-to-use-it-280852

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dipa Kamdar, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, Kingston University

Social media is saturated with menopause solutions: powders for brain fog, gummies for sleep or capsules promising hormonal balance. Supplements such as magnesium, lion’s mane, creatine and collagen are being marketed as must-haves for perimenopause and menopause. But how much of this is actually grounded in science?

During perimenopause and menopause, fluctuating and declining oestrogen levels can trigger symptoms such as hot flushes, night sweats, sleep disruption, anxiety, brain fog, joint pain and changes in muscle mass and body composition.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) remains the most effective treatment for many symptoms, but not everyone can or wants to use it. This is why alternative remedies attract so much attention.

Magnesium

Magnesium plays a role in more than 300 metabolic processes, including muscle relaxation, nerve signalling and blood pressure regulation. Several menopause-related symptoms overlap with areas where magnesium has effects.

For instance, many menopausal women experience sleep problems. Clinical trials in adults, including older women, show magnesium can improve how fast you fall asleep and reduce insomnia severity.

Anxiety can also be an issue for menopausal women. Meta analyses show magnesium supplements can modestly reduce anxiety symptoms – particularly in people with low magnesium levels. However, this research wasn’t specifically done in menopausal women.

Menopause also places women at higher risk of osteoporosis (weakened bones). As oestrogen levels fall during menopause, certain bone cells become more active, causing bone to be lost faster than it’s rebuilt.

But magnesium contributes to bone density by encouraging the formation of new bone. Given some older women may have low magnesium levels and low bone density, this supplement may help address this menopause-related issue.

However, magnesium has not shown benefit for hot flushes, weight changes or cognitive symptoms.

The type of magnesium you take matters. Magnesium citrate and glycinate tend to be better absorbed by the body, while magnesium oxide is absorbed less efficiently.

It’s also important to note high doses can cause diarrhoea and may affect the heart and nervous system. People with kidney disease should avoid supplementation unless medically supervised.

Lion’s mane mushrooms

Lion’s mane mushroom is promoted to help with brain fog, a common complaint for women going through the menopause.

Animal studies suggest lion’s mane extract may stimulate new brain cell growth and support the hippocampus – the brain structure involved in memory and emotional regulation.

A different animal study also showed the supplement reduced depressive-like behaviour in menopausal rats.

But the small human trials that have been done show mixed results – with only some reporting mood improvements. Importantly, none of these studies involved menopausal women.

If you’re still keen to try the supplement, it’s usually well tolerated – though those with mushroom allergies should avoid it.

Creatine

Although researchers have studied creatine for decades, most of that work has focused on men. But emerging research suggests it has many benefits for women in perimenopause and menopause.

A 14-week study found creatine supplementation significantly increased lower body strength and improved sleep quality in perimenopausal women. These improvements in muscle strength are notable, given the increased risk of sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and function) during menopause.

However, evidence in post-menopausal women is mixed. One review found creatine may offer minor short-term benefits in post-menopausal women, but sustained supplementation didn’t produce significant muscle or bone health improvements.

Creatine may also support the brain. Growing evidence suggests it may support memory, focus and mood – particularly during periods of hormonal fluctuation or mental fatigue. However, more research is needed specifically in menopausal women.

Perimenopausal women have about a 40% higher risk of developing depressive symptoms or receiving a depression diagnosis than premenopausal women (premenopause is the period before any menopausal changes; perimenopause is the transition phase leading to menopause, when symptoms begin to appear). Some limited data suggests that taking creatine alongside an antidepressant can accelerate symptom improvement in women.

Creatine is generally safe, though those with kidney disease should seek medical advice before taking it.

Collagen

Collagen supplements are widely marketed for skin elasticity, joint health and healthy ageing.

Collagen is the body’s most abundant protein, giving structure to bones, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscles and skin. As we age, collagen-producing cells become less active. This contributes to visible skin ageing and weaker bones that are more prone to fracture.

A year-long trial in postmenopausal women found daily collagen supplementation led to small but significant increases in bone mineral density compared with a placebo. This suggests collagen supplements may help counter age-related bone loss in postmenopausal women.

Research also indicates collagen supplements may ease joint discomfort and stiffness, particularly in people with osteoarthritis. This could be relevant for menopausal women as many experience the onset or worsening of joint issues during this time. However, more robust research in needed in menopausal women.

It’s important to note that collagen supplements differ widely due to how they’re produced and the source they come from. This makes the evidence hard to interpret.

This means different products can behave very differently in the body. Grouping them together can therefore obscure important differences in how they work. For instance, hydrolysed collagen is absorbed far more easily than the collagen molecules found in food. This means collagen is more likely to reach tissues where they may support skin, joint and muscle health.

Side effects tend to be minimal, although people with liver or kidney conditions should consult a doctor or pharmacist first.

Final verdict

So, are supplements worth it? Based on the current evidence out there, magnesium and creatine seem to be the most beneficial. However, it’s clear more research is needed. Supplements can also be expensive – and their quality can vary widely.

While supplements can feel empowering, until stronger evidence emerges proving their benefits, a healthy lifestyle remains the best, evidence-based way to navigate perimenopause and menopause.

Regular exercise (especially strength training), good sleep habits, balanced nutrition, limiting alcohol and managing stress all support menopausal wellbeing. These approaches also improve long-term health outcomes, including heart and bone health.

Dipa Kamdar 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. Supplements for menopause: here’s what the evidence actually says – https://theconversation.com/supplements-for-menopause-heres-what-the-evidence-actually-says-279892

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophie King-Hill, Associate Professor at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham

There has been much talk about the sex work storylines in the recent series of the show Euphoria. One of the main characters, Cassie Howard (played by Sydney Sweeney), starts an OnlyFans account to fund her upcoming wedding. In the last two episodes, viewers have watched her create videos for different “audiences”.

In one video, for instance, she dresses up as a dog in a bid to attract those interested in the kink sub genre known as “pup play”. This is a form of fetishistic animal play in which canine traits are adopted through apparel and dog-like behaviours.

In another video, she acts sexually provocative while dressed as a baby with a dummy and pigtails. When explaining why to another character, she says it’s related to a subculture of people who want to dress as babies. She explains people want to see her with “teething rings, bassinets, some people even want to see me wear a diaper”.

This has drawn concern from viewers over the portrayal and potential normalisation and glamorisation of adult sexual content styled to evoke infancy. As researchers of harmful sexual behaviours and online sexual cultures, we shared their concerns over the scene.

The writer of the show, Sam Levison, has stated that this storyline was intended as a dark satire of the nature of online sexual content. For Euphoria, this is simply part of a shock tactic, nothing more. However, the implications and cultural impact are far more harmful and far-reaching than that.

Warped logic

Cassie’s storyline does highlight a growing normalisation of sexual content that blurs the boundaries of damaging sexual interests and behaviours. However, how it handles this seems to imply that content like Cassie’s is acceptable and even legitimate.

It is important to note that OnlyFans’ acceptable use policy prohibits “illegal activity including actual, claimed, or role-played: exploitation, abuse, or harm of individuals under the age of 18.”

What Cassie is creating is content that sexualises children and young people; she is dressing up as a baby and acting provocatively. In our research, we see some people use warped logic to present their consumption of such content as legitimate. If the content features an adult role-playing as a child, they argue, then it is an acceptable way to indulge their sexual interest. It is not, according to their logic, reflective of harmful sexual interests in children, but a totally separate thing.

However, what researchers have found is that this sort of thinking, and the content that caters to it, confuses the boundary between adulthood and childhood. It also perpetuates, instead of stops, the sexualisation of childhood.

Shows such like Euphoria, especially ones aimed at young people, should have cultural accountability. We know that repeated exposure to these issues reshapes norms around sexuality, power and protection, particularly for young audiences navigating already complex digital environments. So such storylines in mainstream shows like Euphoria do really run the risk of aiding the normalisation and escalation of exploitative viewing practices.

One in 20 children in the UK experiences sexual abuse each year, and there is extensive work being done by charities on prevention, recovery and early intervention. Cultural portrayals that bear no relation to the profound pain, trauma and lifelong impact experienced by survivors run the risk of aestheticising, glamourising or trivialising sexual harm and risks undermining the work.

This storyline must also be understood within a wider socio-cultural context shaped by the exposure to prolonged and systemic sexual exploitation of children by powerful men, most notably through the Jeffrey Epstein case. Epstein’s abuse was enabled not only by individual actions, but by a cultural environment in which sexual access to young people was normalised, aestheticised and shielded by wealth, influence and networks of protection.

In the aftermath of these revelations, public sensitivity to the sexualisation of children and young people has markedly increased, alongside a growing recognition of how harmful sexual interests can be obscured through narratives of consent, glamour or alternative lifestyles. Against this backdrop, Euphoria’s depiction of sexualised infantilisation is especially troubling.

Rather than engaging critically with the conditions that allow exploitation to be disguised or legitimised, the series risks reproducing the very mechanisms of normalisation, desensitisation and commercialisation through which sexual abuse has historically flourished. In doing so, it reflects a failure to learn from recent, widely documented harm, reinforcing the need for greater ethical accountability in cultural production.

Sophie King-Hill receives funding from ESRC.

Kieran McCartan 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. Euphoria: thoughtless depictions of adults pretending to be sexualised infants are extremely harmful – https://theconversation.com/euphoria-thoughtless-depictions-of-adults-pretending-to-be-sexualised-infants-are-extremely-harmful-281172

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Blane Savage, Lecturer in MA Creative Media Practice, University of the West of Scotland

Joan Eardley was one of the most unique and celebrated artists of her generation, but the international acclaim and recognition that her work deserves eluded her. Her paintings are not only foundational in Scotland’s cultural history, but continue to influence its creative landscape, particularly with those concerning dialogue around community and the poetics of place.

Currently on view in the National Galleries Scotland: Modern Two until June 28, Joan Eardley: The Nature of Painting, explores this popular post-war artist’s relationship to her predecessors and contemporaries.

Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley was born to a Scottish mother and English father in Sussex in 1921, and studied at Blackheath School of Art in London for a year before moving with her mother and sister to Glasgow during the outbreak of the second world war in 1939. She continued her studies at Glasgow School of Art and Hospitalfield in Arbroath, known as Scotland’s first school of fine art.

It was during this time that she began to shape her preference for painting everyday subjects. She used an RSA Carnegie Travelling Scholarship to travel through Italy and France in 1948 and 1949. On her return to Glasgow she spent time drawing and painting the industrial landscape of Port Glasgow, and Gourock. Eardley rented a studio in the city centre of Glasgow, and a few years later moved to Townhead in the east end, where local children became her favourite artistic subjects.

More than 30 of Eardley’s artworks are juxtaposed at Modern Two alongside figures of international renown including Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, John Constable, Jean Dubuffet and Antoni Tàpies, together with her contemporaries Henry Moore, Bet Low and William McTaggart.

It places Eardley within an international art world which blends post-impressionism, social realism and abstraction. Jackson Pollok and the French Tachistes were known to have influenced her practice.

The exhibition is further enriched by a selection of archival and photographic materials containing a range of sketches, photographs and personal artefacts giving a glimpse into the life behind the artworks which are on display in the adjoining Keiller Library.

There are also several of her large works situated in Paolozzi’s Kitchen restaurant adjacent to the two exhibition spaces, alongside the likes of Scottish artist and contemporary Anne Redpath.

Connections with painters

The first exhibition space includes several of Eardley’s social-realist figure depictions of 1950s inner-city Glaswegian children. The works have a joyful, raw, playful spirit to them, in spite of the squalid slum environment the children were living in. No artist has painted Glasgow’s “weans” (a local word for children) in the way that Eardley has.

In Children and Chalked Wall No.3 (1962-63), sisters Mary and Pat Samson are painted in Eardley’s signature bold unsparing style, with their affectionate, endearing smiles, both huddled together. Their cheery faces, animated by Eardley’s blocks of colour, emerge from a background layered with graffiti and collage, anchoring her work in social reality.

Her work is surrounded by portraits by Rembrandt van Rijn, Jean-Francois Millet, Jean Dubuffet, Edward Hornel and Bet Low. Children and Chalked Wall No.3’s highly prized neighbour in the exhibition is Marc Chagall’s The Horse Rider (1949-53), a surreal gouache painted work with a block of azure-blue textured background with three figures and a horse, set within a Paris circus. Like Eardley’s work, it is also social-realist and figurative, with abstract elements incorporated within it. The female horse rider is a recurring theme for Chagall.

Eardley’s Street Kids (1949–51) captures a fleeting moment of camaraderie among three local boys. It is quiet and reflective, telling the stories of real Glasgow children who lived close to Eardley’s studio in Townhead, and captures the friendliness and community spirit that Eardley admired.

She does not shy away from the material conditions of post-war urban life, alluding to poverty, dirt and the presence of neglect. Again, colour is blocked in with minimum detail and repeating patterns of brickwork ground the piece. There is a respect of their resilience in her portraiture.

Exhibition space two is focused on Eardley’s relationship with Catterline, a small coastal village in the north east of Scotland near Stonehaven. In 1954, she bought a cottage to work there. Catterline’s rugged coastal landscapes and dynamic seascapes were central to many of Eardley’s paintings, providing the perfect stage setting for her expressive creativity to flourish.

Eardley worked between Glasgow and Catterline for several years and there are stories during that time of Eardley leaving Glasgow when she heard a storm was coming. Like tornado chasers, she travelled across the country to capture the coming storm’s power on the shore front where she would set up hardboard canvases to paint in its centre amid the lashing wind and rain like a woman possessed.

Her beautiful atmospheric painting Catterline in Winter (1963) set with a grey sky and full moon lighting up the snow-covered landscape is positioned next to Claude Monet’s Grainstacks: Snow Effect (1891). Both have an otherworldly sense about them, evoking a still and silent feeling of deep winter muffled by the frozen earth.

Eardley’s Summer Fields near Catterline (about 1961) with its expressive brushstrokes, shows stalks of corn in a bright golden cornfield set by a grey and black background is the highlight of the show.

She was elected an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art in 1963, just prior to her untimely passing from cancer later that year aged 42. Eardley’s ashes were scattered on the beach at Catterline, creating a lasting connection between the artist and the place which inspired her later works.

By situating her practice within a collaboration of artistic significance, the exhibition highlights the extent to which her work contributes to the central concerns of 20th-century painting. Not least the tension between representation and abstraction in her work and the enduring challenge of responding to the world, whether urban or elemental.

Joan Eardley: The Nature of Painting is on at the National Galleries Modern Two in Edinburgh until June 28

Blane Savage 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. Joan Eardley: ‘she would set up her canvas on the shore and paint in the lashing wind and rain like a woman possessed’ – https://theconversation.com/joan-eardley-she-would-set-up-her-canvas-on-the-shore-and-paint-in-the-lashing-wind-and-rain-like-a-woman-possessed-281174