Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Manal Mohammed, Senior Lecturer, Medical Microbiology, University of Westminster

Scientists are calling for urgent action on free-living amoebas – a little-known group of microbes that could pose a growing global health threat. Here’s what you need to know.

Free-living amoebas are single-celled organisms that don’t need a host to live. They are found in soil and water, from puddles to lakes.

What makes them remarkable is their ability to change shape and move using temporary arm-like extensions called pseudopodia – literally “false feet”. This allows them to thrive in an astonishing range of environments.

What is the ‘brain-eating amoeba’ and how dangerous is it?

The most notorious free-living amoeba is Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as the “brain-eating amoeba”. It lives naturally in warm freshwater, typically between 30°C and 40°C – lakes, rivers and hot springs. But it is rarely found in temperate countries such as the UK, due to the cold weather.

The infection happens when contaminated water enters through the nose, usually while swimming. From there, the amoeba travels along the nasal passages to the brain, where it destroys brain tissue. The outcome is usually devastating, with a mortality rate of 95%-99%.

Occasionally, Naegleria fowleri has been found in tap water, particularly when it’s warm and hasn’t been properly chlorinated. Some people have become infected while using contaminated tap water to rinse their sinuses for religious or health reasons.

Fortunately, you cannot get infected by drinking contaminated water, and the infection doesn’t spread from person to person.

Why are these amoebas so difficult to kill?

Brain-eating amoebas can be killed by proper water treatment and chlorination. But eliminating them from water systems isn’t always straightforward.

When they attach to biofilms – communities of microorganisms that form inside pipes – disinfectants like chlorine struggle to reach them, and organic matter can reduce the disinfectants’ effectiveness.

The amoeba can also survive warm temperatures by forming “cysts” – hard protective shells – making it harder to control in water networks, especially during summer or in poorly maintained systems.

What is the ‘Trojan-horse effect’ and why does it matter?

Free-living amoebas aren’t just dangerous on their own. They can also act as living shields for other harmful microbes, protecting them from environmental stress and disinfection.

While amoebas normally feed on bacteria, fungi and viruses, some bacteria – like Mycobacterium tuberculosis (which causes TB) and Legionella pneumophila (which causes legionnaires’ disease) – have evolved to survive and multiply inside them. This helps these pathogens survive longer and potentially become more dangerous.

Amoebas also shelter fungi such as Cryptococcus neoformans, which can cause fungal meningitis. It can also shelter viruses, such as human norovirus and adenovirus, which cause respiratory, eye and gastrointestinal infections.

By protecting these pathogens, amoebas help them survive longer in water and soil, and may even help spread antibiotic resistance.

How is climate change making the problem worse?

Climate change is probably making the threat from free-living amoebas worse by creating more favourable conditions for their growth.

Naegleria fowleri thrives in warm freshwater. As global temperatures rise, the habitable zone for these heat-loving amoebas has expanded into regions that were previously too cool. This potentially exposes more people to them through recreational water use.

Several recent outbreaks linked to recreational water exposure have already raised public concern in multiple countries. These climate-driven changes – warmer waters, longer warm seasons, and increased human contact with water – make controlling the risks more difficult than ever before.

Are our water systems adequately checked for these organisms?

Most water systems are not routinely checked for free-living amoebas. The organisms are rare, can hide in biofilms or sediments, and require specialised tests to detect, making routine monitoring expensive and technically challenging.

Instead, water safety relies on proper chlorination, maintaining disinfectant levels, and flushing systems regularly, rather than testing directly for the amoeba. While some guidance exists for high-risk areas, widespread monitoring is not standard practice.

Beyond brain infections, what other health risks do these amoebas pose?

Free-living amoebas aren’t just a threat to the brain. They can cause painful eye infections, particularly in contact lens users, skin lesions in people with weakened immune systems, and rare but serious systemic infections affecting organs such as the lungs, liver and kidneys.

What’s being done to address this threat?

Free-living amoebas such as Naegleria fowleri are rare but can be deadly, so prevention is crucial. These organisms don’t fit neatly into either medical or environmental categories – they span both, requiring a holistic approach that links environmental surveillance, water management, and clinical awareness to reduce risk.

Environmental change, gaps in water treatment and expanding habitats make monitoring – and clear communication of risk – more important than ever.

Keeping water systems properly chlorinated, flushing hot water systems, and following safe recreational water and contact lens hygiene guidelines all help reduce the chance of infection. Meanwhile, researchers continue to improve detection methods and doctors work to recognise cases early.

Should people be worried about their tap water or going swimming?

People cannot get infected with free-living amoebas like Naegleria fowleri by drinking water, even if it contains the organism. Infection occurs only when contaminated water enters the nose, allowing the amoeba to reach the brain. Swallowing the water poses no risk because the amoeba cannot survive or invade through the digestive tract.

The risk from swimming in well-maintained pools or treated water is extremely low. The danger comes from warm, untreated freshwater, particularly during hot weather.

What can people do to protect themselves?

People can protect themselves from free-living amoebas by reducing exposure to warm, stagnant water. Simple steps include avoiding putting your head underwater in lakes or rivers during hot weather, using nose clips when swimming, choosing well-maintained pools, and keeping home water systems properly flushed and heated.

Contact lens users should follow strict hygiene and never rinse lenses with tap water. For nasal rinsing, only use sterile, distilled, or previously boiled water.

Awareness is key. If you develop a severe headache, fever, nausea, or stiff neck after freshwater exposure, seek medical attention immediately – early treatment is critical.

Manal Mohammed 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 are scientists calling for urgent action on amoebas? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-scientists-calling-for-urgent-action-on-amoebas-274455

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Biggin, Professor of Geomagnetism, University of Liverpool

While we have sent probes billions of kilometres into interstellar space, humans have barely scratched the surface of our own planet, not even making it through the thin crust.

Information about Earth’s deep interior comes mainly from geophysics and is at a premium. We know it consists of a solid crust, a rocky mantle, a liquid outer core and solid inner core. But what precisely goes on in each layer – and between them – is a mystery. Now our research uses our planet’s magnetism to cast light on the most significant interface in the Earth’s interior: its core-mantle boundary.

Roughly 3,000km beneath our feet, Earth’s outer core, an unfathomably deep ocean of molten iron alloy, endlessly churns to produce a global magnetic field stretching out far into space. Sustaining this “geodynamo”, and the planetary force-field it has produced for the past several billions of years (protecting Earth from harmful radiation), takes a lot of energy.

This was delivered to the core as heat during the Earth’s formation. But it is only released to drive the geodynamo as it conducts outwards to cooler, solid rock floating above in the mantle. Without this massive internal heat transfer from core to mantle and ultimately through the crust to the surface, Earth would be like our nearest neighbours Mars and Venus: magnetically dead.

Enter the Blobs

Maps showing how fast seismic waves (vibrations of acoustic energy) that traverse Earth’s rocky mantle change in its lowermost part, just above the core. Especially notable are two vast regions close to the equator beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean, where seismic waves travel more slowly than elsewhere.

What makes these “big lower-mantle basal structures”, or “Blobs” for short, special is not clear. They are made of solid rock similar to the surrounding mantle, but may be higher in temperature, or different in composition, or both.

Strong variations in temperature at the base of the mantle would be expected to affect the underlying liquid core and the magnetic field that is generated there. The solid mantle changes temperature and flows at an exceptionally slow rate (millimetres per year), so any magnetic signature from strong temperature contrasts should persist for millions of years.

From rocks to supercomputers

Our study reports new evidence that these Blobs are hotter than the surrounding lower mantle. And this has had a noticeable effect on Earth’s magnetic field over the last few hundreds of millions of years at least.

As igneous rocks, recently solidified from molten magma, cool down at Earth’s surface in the presence of its magnetic field, they acquire a permanent magnetism that is aligned with the direction of this field at that time and place.

It is already well known that this direction changes with latitude. We observed, however, that the magnetic directions recorded by rocks up to 250 million years old also seemed to depend on where the rocks had formed in longitude. The effect was particularly noticeable at low latitudes . We therefore wondered whether the Blobs might be responsible.

The clincher came from comparing these magnetic observations to simulations of the geodynamo run on a supercomputer. One set was run assuming that the rate of heat flowing from core to mantle was the same everywhere. These either showed very little tendency for the magnetic field to vary in longitude or else the field they produced collapsed into a persistently chaotic state, which is also inconsistent with observations.

By contrast, when we placed a pattern on the core’s surface that included strong variations in the amount of heat being sucked into the mantle, the magnetic fields behaved differently. Most tellingly, assuming that the rate of heat flowing into the Blobs was about half as high as into other, cooler, parts of the mantle meant that the magnetic fields produced by the simulations contained longitudinal structures reminiscent of the records from ancient rocks.

A further finding was that these fields were less prone to collapsing. Adding the Blobs therefore enabled us to reproduce the observed stable behaviour of Earth’s magnetic field over a wider range.

What seems to be happening is that the two hot Blobs are insulating the liquid metal beneath them, preventing heat loss that would otherwise cause the fluid to thermally contract and sink down into the core. Since it is the flow of core fluid that generates more magnetic field, these stagnant ponds of metal do not participate in the geodynamo process.

Furthermore, in the same way that a mobile phone can lose its signal by being placed within a metal box, these stationary areas of conductive liquid act to “screen” the magnetic field generated by the circulating liquid below. The huge Blobs therefore gave rise to characteristic longitudinally varying patterns in the shape and variability of Earth’s magnetic field. And this mapped on to what was recorded by rocks formed at low latitudes.

Most of the time, the shape of Earth’s magnetic field is quite similar to that which would be produced by a bar magnet aligned with the planet’s rotation axis. This is what makes a magnetic compass point nearly north at most places on Earth’s surface, most of the time.

Collapses into weak, multipolar states, have occurred many time over geological history but they are quite rare and the field seems to have recovered fairly quickly afterwards. In the simulations at least, Blobs seem to help make this the case.

So, while we still have a lot to learn about what the Blobs are and how they originated, it may be that in helping to keep the magnetic field stable and useful for humanity, we have much to thank them for.

Andrew Biggin receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.

– ref. How giant ‘Blobs’ of rock have influenced Earth’s magnetic field for millions of years – new research – https://theconversation.com/how-giant-blobs-of-rock-have-influenced-earths-magnetic-field-for-millions-of-years-new-research-272378

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Hawkins, Professor of Climate Science, University of Reading

The world is warming. This fact is most often discussed for the Earth’s surface, where we live. But the climate is also changing from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean. And there is a clear fingerprint of humanity’s role in causing these changes through greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels.

Over the last several decades, satellites have monitored the Earth and measured how much heat enters and leaves the atmosphere. Over that time, as greenhouse gas concentrations have increased in the atmosphere, there has been less heat escaping to space, causing an imbalance with more heat being retained.

The consequence is a rapidly heating planet.

The “warming stripes” are one striking and simple way of visually highlighting the resulting variations in Earth’s surface temperature using shades of blue and red for cool and warm, with one stripe per year.

One billion individual measurements of a thermometer combine to produce the clearest picture of our warming planet from 1850 to 2025. The last 11 years have been the warmest 11 years on record and this sequence is unlikely to end anytime soon.

We recently extended this concept upwards through the atmosphere and downwards into the ocean, although the available datasets are shorter.

Satellites have monitored the temperature of different layers of the atmosphere since 1979. The warming stripes for the troposphere (the lowest layers of the atmosphere, within which commercial flights operate) are very similar to the warming stripes of the surface, with the warmest years predominantly occurring over the last decade. Instead of using surface temperature measurements from thermometers, the atmospheric temperature is measured by instruments on satellites called radiometers that detect how much infrared radiation is emitted from air molecules. These satellite-based estimates help corroborate the surface warming that we have already observed.

Higher up in the atmosphere, the picture changes.

The warming stripes over the upper atmosphere (the part called the stratosphere that’s above typical airline cruising height) reveal a cooling trend, with the warmest years around 1980 and the coolest years over the past decade. This feature may appear surprising. If the atmosphere is gaining heat, shouldn’t the stratosphere be warming too?

Actually, this feature is a clear fingerprint of how human activities are the direct cause of our changing climate.

Why is there this pattern of temperature change? The concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased throughout the atmosphere, making the atmosphere more efficient at absorbing and giving off heat. In the lower atmosphere, this effect acts as a blanket, retaining more heat and warming the surface.

Higher up, where the air is thin and very little heat arrives from below, extra carbon dioxide allows the stratosphere to lose more heat to space than it gains, so the stratosphere cools. Another factor is the destruction of stratospheric ozone by substances known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which produces cooling in the lower stratosphere.

This human-caused fingerprint of a warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere was first suggested by scientists as a consequence of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the 1960s, long before the cooling stratosphere was observed. Importantly, this pattern would not be seen if, for example, changes in the sun’s brightness were the primary cause of global warming, which instead would lead to warming throughout the atmosphere.

Beneath the surface

Warming stripes for different depth levels in the ocean reveal a broadly similar warming trend as at the surface, with the warmest years occurring over the past decade. The timing of the warming also suggests the heat moves downwards into the ocean from the surface, again consistent with a human influence.

This uptake of heat by the ocean is important, as otherwise there would be a much greater rise in surface air temperature. Globally, the ocean accounts for around 90% of the extra heat stored by the planet. We also see sea levels rising due to sea water getting warmer and expanding, and because land ice is melting and entering the ocean as extra water.

All these observations tell a very clear story. The burning of fossil fuels increases the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The physics of why such an increase should warm the surface was understood in the 1850s, before the warming was observed. And the pattern of change observed from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean indicates that greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant cause.

But, what happens next? Because our emissions are causing the climate to change, our collective global choices about future emissions matter.

Rapid action to reduce emissions will stabilise global surface temperatures but delayed action means worse consequences. Which choice will we make?

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Ed Hawkins receives funding from UKRI NERC grants and is supported by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

Ric Williams receives funding from UKRI NERC grants and works at University of Liverpool.

– ref. Climate ‘fingerprints’ mark human activity from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean – https://theconversation.com/climate-fingerprints-mark-human-activity-from-the-top-of-the-atmosphere-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-274659

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Bradley Elliott, Reader in Ageing Physiology, University of Westminster

Why do some people live to 100 while their sibling dies decades earlier? Is it luck, lifestyle, or something written into their DNA?

Relative to many other species, humans are particularly long lived, but there is an ongoing argument about how much of our long lifespan is shaped by our genes and how much to our environment. It’s the old “nature versus nurture” debate.

Researchers have repeatedly used large population studies to estimate how much genetics influences longevity. Historically, these studies have found relatively modest effects, typically around 25% to 33%, with some estimates as low as 6-16%.

A recent study published in Science challenged this trend, revising the estimate upward to about 50% by accounting for changes in external causes of death – such as accidents and infectious diseases – and separating the effects of genetics and environment in large historical cohorts of twins.

We know that individual genes affect lifespans in different species. A single mutation in the gene coding for the insulin sensor of worms would cause them to double their lifespan. Since that 1993 discovery, scientists have experimentally extended the lifespans of flies and mice, and even found hints of similar effects in long-lived humans.

However, the effect of this single gene variation seems to be lessened as the species becomes more long lived, so don’t expect a single gene mutation to suddenly cause 200-year human life expectancies. Also, these were gene mutations affecting the sensitivity of insulin and insulin-like growth factor hormones – in other words, the mutations seem to mimic the metabolic effects of a healthy diet and regular exercise.

Perhaps an obvious statement to make, but many of our body’s traits, including longevity, are the sum of all our inherited genes, not just a single gene. But how much is genetics and how much is lifestyle is the open question.

This amount is more than an interesting number. If genetics mostly controls how long we live, then new anti-ageing treatments and lifestyle changes won’t help much. But if genetics plays a smaller role, then what we do and the treatments we use could make a bigger difference in how long we live.

Nature’s perfect experiment

To tackle this question, the authors of the Science paper used data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Ageing. Because it includes a rare set of twins raised apart, the data makes it easier to tease apart the effects of genes and environment, creating something close to a natural experiment in humans.

By studying monozygotic (“identical”) twins, or people with identical genomes born between 1900 and 1935 and attempting to correct for rapidly changing external influences of health and mortality during this period, the authors conclude that the inherited influence of lifespan is about 50%.

Put another way, about 50% of your potential lifespan is given to you by your parents, and the other 50% is the environment you live in. Things such as exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress, pollution and infectious disease exposure all fall into this external category.

The researchers then validated their models using data from populations in Denmark and the US. However, this also means the study populations were largely white, wealthy and European. Including more diverse populations will be important for determining how well these findings apply to humanity as a whole.

The reason that the authors put forward for their number being so much higher than others is their accounting for the effects of changing external influences on longevity, things such as improving sanitation and medication.

Indeed, if they don’t correct for external causes of death, their model finds numbers in the 20-30% range, or much closer to prior estimates. As the authors note, many health traits seem to be about 50% heritable, so there’s an internal logic of longevity as a trait following this trend.

These estimates could still change. Longevity studies in humans are time consuming, relying on historical records or following populations over roughly 100 years as people live their normal lives. As the authors note: “Heritability is a statistic that applies to a particular population in a particular environment at a particular time.”

This doesn’t mean that your personal actions aren’t helping you – this debate probably isn’t over yet. This is the largest estimate of the effect of genetics on longevity to emerge recently in the scientific literature, but even if genes account for about half our lifespan’s story, the other half is still being written every day.

Bradley Elliott receives funding from the Physiological Society, the British Society for Research on Ageing, the Altitude Centre, and private philanthropic individuals, and has consulted for industry and government on longevity research. He is on the Board of Trustees of the British Society for Research on Ageing.

– ref. What new twins study reveals about genes, environment and longevity – https://theconversation.com/what-new-twins-study-reveals-about-genes-environment-and-longevity-274763

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University

No accident waiting to happen can ever have delivered on its promise so spectacularly as Lord Mandelson, with the continuous revelations of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The decision by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to appoint Mandelson as ambassador in Washington DC always appeared a high-risk, high-reward strategy. But no reward could ever have repaid such risk.

There is a grim fascination in seeing a prominent public figure’s reputation incinerated in real time. Mandelson’s entreating emails to a convicted abuser and trafficker of minors were still quite recently sufficient of an embarrassment before he was then photographed urinating in public.

The new normal is to appear on front pages in his underpants. Next will come questions about the meaning of emails that appear to show him betraying the most cardinal principles of public office, for monetary gain, from a criminal.

Mandelson had clearly started 2026 with the intention of rehabilitating himself and re-entering public life: a Sunday morning BBC interview, columns in the Spectator, an interview in the Times. Journalists’ requests for comment were replied to. No longer.

What was striking across these appearances – given Mandelson’s talents – was his maladroitness. Not to have apologised to the victims of trafficking when pressed in that initial high-profile interview, only to realise his error and concede the following day did not bear the hallmark of a master of public relations.

The rehabilitation plan, moreover, evidently did not include a strategy for the documents that were to be released as part of another huge cache of material relating to Epstein.

There is now the suggestion that Mandelson may have forwarded government-sensitive information to a foreign banker while he was, effectively, the deputy prime minister and that he encouraged that banker to intimidate his colleague, the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling. The banker allegedly did “mildly threaten” Darling. Darling knew someone was leaking, but, having died in 2023, never knew who. Now we have an idea.

To separate the procedural from the human, for now, the issue that leaves the current government most exposed is Starmer’s personal choice of Mandelson as US ambassador. One of two things must have happened: a catastrophic failure in vetting and in due diligence, or the government ignoring red lights from vetting and due diligence.

This is also an origin story scandal for the Labour party, in which Mandelson has deep roots. It has always lived in fear of its leaders succumbing to the charms of plutocrats. It happened in 1931, in the “great betrayal”, when Labour leader Ramsey McDonald formed a government with the Tories and Liberals to resolve a financial crisis – one reason the saintly Clement Attlee nationalised the Bank of England in 1946. Attlee’s deputy leader was Herbert Morrison, Mandelson’s grandfather.

This matters more now because Mandelson’s influence in the party meant that he has acted as a mentor to so many – not least the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, the man arguably more responsible for this government than Starmer himself, and the person said to have pushed for Mandelson to be given the ambassadorship. The fissures of the Blairites and the soft left are reopening.

Removing Mandelson

There will be those who take pleasure from so public a defenestration of so polarising a figure. Two such will be the Reform and Green party candidates in the Gorton and Denton byelection.

A room of scriptwriters could not have devised a situation calculated to land more effectively for a canvasser from an insurgent party to stand on a doorstep and asks a voter how satisfied they are with the way the country’s run, and in the qualities of their leaders.

Even before the revelations about his friendship with a billionaire paedophile, Mandelson was the personification of the increasingly maligned and resented globalist, lanyard-wearing, chauffeured classes. The online conspiracist hares that have already been sent running are unnecessary: this scandal is in no need of embellishment.

Some always knew. Mandelson masterminded Labour’s electoral approach for a decade, but when he succeeded Neil Kinnock as leader in 1992, John Smith would have nothing to do with him. Smith died suddenly, and Tony Blair’s sudden ascent was facilitated by Mandelson, to the undying enmity of Gordon Brown.

Brown appointed Mandelson his first secretary of state, but from a position of weakness. He is now making his fury known. The current prime minister appointed Mandelson his ambassador to the UK’s closest and most important ally, but from a position of weakness. Brown, at least, can vent his fury – he no longer has office to lose.

In the space of a few hours, Mandelson’s future shifted from the certainty of ignominy to the possibility of prison. We are already beyond historical parallel. For 60 years, John Profumo has been the yardstick for political scandal in the UK (and another where the exploitation of women was lost in a voyeuristic melee). We have a new one.

In other political cultures, Mandelson would by now have been airlifted to a safehouse outside Moscow or Riyadh, given sanctuary, never to be seen or heard of again. But the prime minister will be seeing and hearing of Mandelson for some time to come.

When it comes to making appointments – a prime minister’s elemental power – Starmer has frequently made the wrong choices, though innate caution and timidity, to the detriment of his government. It is the one exception to this cautious approach that may prove to be the most consequential of all.

Martin Farr 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 fall of Peter Mandelson and the many questions the UK government must now answer – https://theconversation.com/the-fall-of-peter-mandelson-and-the-many-questions-the-uk-government-must-now-answer-275011

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rod Thornton, Senior Lecturer in International Studies, Defence and Security., King’s College London

There is a major sticking point often overlooked in the ceasefire negotiations between Ukraine and Russia currently being held in Abu Dhabi. This relates to the fact that, as part of any agreement, Kyiv is being asked to give up the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

If it does so, it will also be giving up the strategic positions that have prevented major advances by the Russian military for many months now. This is the significant line of defensive fortifications across the Donbas, known as the “Donbas line”. It’s Ukraine’s equivalent to the Maginot line of forts which were France’s main line of defence against Germany before the second world war.

The “Anchorage formula” agreed by the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia president, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska late last year calls for Ukrainian forces to abandon the areas of western Donbas they currently hold. Washington is now talking up the idea of establishing a “free economic zone” or “de-militarised zone” which would cover the whole of the Donbas, including those portions currently occupied by Russian forces.

This would mean Ukraine abandoning the Donbas line. The system integrates at least seven distinct defensive layers that any attacking force must penetrate sequentially to achieve effect.

These include minefields, anti-tank ditches, anti-tank obstacles (“dragons’ teeth”), bunkers, trench lines and anti-drone defences. Such obstacles can either physically halt assaulting Russian forces or “canalise” them into swampy or otherwise impassible ground or into pre-arranged kill zones, wherein fires (mortar and artillery) can be used to destroy Russian formations.

One of the most critical lines runs through the embattled town of Pokrovsk, which has been under constant Russian assault since early 2025. Lose Pokrovsk and the Ukrainians will then more than likely also lose the important city of Donetsk. Thus Pokrovsk has been referred to as the “gateway to Donetsk”.

The Donbas line took years to build and to perfect. It is very sophisticated. It would be a massive strategic blow for the Ukrainians if they were forced to give it up and pull back.

In essence, the Russian demand that Ukrainian forces vacate the western Donbas can also be seen as a demand that they likewise give up, in the shape of this Donbas line, their one true means of protecting not only the western Donbas but also, arguably, the whole of the rest of Ukraine.

Who can be trusted?

If Kyiv were to accede to Russian demands and abandon the Donbas line, then this would only help bring about a lasting peace if, of course, trust could be placed in the Russians to keep their side of the bargain. They would need to cease all their assaults across Ukraine and themselves “de-militarise” the area of the eastern Donbas they currently control.

But Putin has a history of reneging on deals. Anything agreed now by Kyiv in Abu Dhabi is likely, as respected Washington-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War points out, to suffer the same fate. This seems to certainly be the view of many on the Ukrainian side.

As Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, himself recently put it, “I don’t trust Putin”. He has good reason for doubting the Russian president’s bona fides. Russia was a signatory to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum alongside the US, UK and France by which those powers provided assurances for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for Kyiv giving up its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

This didn’t stop Russia invading. Nor did the two Minsk accords in 2014 and 2015 which aimed to stop the fighting between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian military in the Donbas region.

In the event of any peace deal being struck between Moscow and Kyiv, Ukraine’s western allies have offered what they are calling “robust security guarantees”. These would be provided by a “coalition of the willing” made up of more than 30 countries, mainly from within Europe.

What’s on the table

In terms of what these promises might actually mean, there is a proposal for a three-tier mechanism. A Russian breach of the ceasefire would initially trigger a diplomatic warning, as well as allowing Ukraine to respond militarily.

The second tier would be provided by the coalition of the willing, primarily the UK and France, which plan to send troops to Ukraine as part of the deal, but also many EU members plus Norway, Iceland and Turkey.

The third tier would be a military response from the US. But it’s been reported that the US has made its participation in any security guarantees contingent on the agreement of a ceasefire deal which gives Russia control of the “entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine”.

A further issue here is that Moscow is unlikely to agree to the presence of any Nato troops as official security guarantors. Moscow has said as much, insisting that any foreign troops in Ukraine would be a “legitimate target”.

Would western governments forces really commit their troops into a situation where they might become targets – leading perhaps to a wider war?

The whole idea of Ukraine abandoning its Donbas line is fraught with difficulties. For this is not just a question of Ukraine trading land for peace. It is more fundamentally a question of trading land and significant defensive lines for the promise of peace.

The original version of the Maginot line did not save France in 1940. It was bypassed by German forces moving through Belgium to outflank the Maginot fortifications. The danger for Ukraine is that its own Maginot line could itself be bypassed if it accedes to Russian demands at the negotiating table in Abu Dhabi.

Can Zelensky really give up the Donbas line that is protecting his entire country and can he really rely on security guarantees from western states that may yet prove equivocal? As one Ukrainian official told Reuters recently, to give up remaining positions in the Donbas region would be “suicide”.

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. Trump wants Ukraine to give up the Donbas in return for security guarantees. It could be suicide for Kyiv – https://theconversation.com/trump-wants-ukraine-to-give-up-the-donbas-in-return-for-security-guarantees-it-could-be-suicide-for-kyiv-274779

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Meera Iona Inglis, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Glasgow

Campaigns like Veganuary (an initiative that encourages people to eat a plant-based diet in January) have been hugely successful in raising awareness about the climate and the health benefits of eating this way. However, making the switch longer term is not always easy – especially when there are usually limited meat-free options in workplaces.

For our recent study, my colleagues and I worked with Derek Bell (professor of environmental politics at Newcastle University) to identify public institutions like hospitals, universities and local councils as key players in the move towards a more sustainable food system. They account for a significant amount of the food that is sold in the UK – 5-6% of all food sales or £2.4 billion annually. They can also influence our dietary choices and help shift social norms around food consumption.

However, getting caterers to become more plant-based can be controversial. Some argue that public institutions should not limit our freedom of choice when it comes to what we eat, or that it is insensitive to the cultural preferences of staff and clients.

Our work tries to tackle these concerns. While eliminating or reducing the offering of meat and dairy might limit options, public institutions already limit our choices in various ways to promote health and sustainability. Also, norms and expectations can change. The 2006 public smoking ban initially faced considerable resistance, but support for it has since greatly increased, including among smokers.

Thoughtful catering

When introduced thoughtfully, plant-based catering has proved popular. In 2021, New York City Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal health system in the US, made plant-based food the default option for its inpatient meals. Their menus are both nutritionally balanced – assuaging worries about poorly designed vegan and vegetarian menus – and offer users a diverse range of choices. The menu includes Moroccan vegetable tagine, Spanish vegetable paella and a pad Thai noodle bowl.

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Read more:
Here’s how far people want the government to limit their freedoms for the sake of the planet – new research

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This shows how plant-based catering can take into account different dietary needs, while respecting a range of cultural backgrounds and not restricting the ability of people to choose. As many as 95% of eligible patients did not request alternative meals, and 90% reported being satisfied. Many patients reported that they would continue to eat vegetarian meals at home. This shows the power of defaults, and the influence public institutions can have on our actions.

New York City Health + Hospitals has also shown tangible environmental and economic gains. Its food-related carbon emissions fell by 36%, while food bills also went down: these meals cost roughly 59 cents (£0.43) less per tray than meat-based alternatives.

We’re seeing changes happening elsewhere too. In the UK, a growing number of universities are gradually shifting towards more plant-based catering. Sometimes this is being encouraged by students: at the universities of Kent, Lancaster and University College London, student unions have voted in favour of lobbying their university to adopt more sustainable and healthy catering options. In 2021, the four universities in Berlin successfully changed their menus to 68% vegan, 28% vegetarian and just 4% meat dishes. Like the New York City hospitals, they offer a wide range of nutritionally balanced meals with flavours from around the world.

Providing the right kinds of plant-based foods is an effective way of countering worries that people have about the health risks of going vegetarian or vegan, and about restricting their dietary preferences. In short, a well planned menu can keep plant-based foods on the table beyond Veganuary.

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Meera Iona Inglis is affiliated with the RSPB. This piece is based entirely on her academic research and is not funded by the RSPB or representative of the organisation’s views.

Andrew Walton and Johannes Kniess 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 to keep plant-based foods on the table now that Veganuary is over – https://theconversation.com/how-to-keep-plant-based-foods-on-the-table-now-that-veganuary-is-over-274131

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jeff Scheible, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, King’s College London

Table tennis and film have a surprisingly entangled history. Both depended on the invention of celluloid – which not only became the substrate of film, but is also used to make ping pong balls.

Following a brief ping pong craze in 1902, the game largely disappeared and was widely assumed to have been a passing fad. More than 20 years later, however, the British socialite, communist spy and filmmaker Ivor Montagu went to great lengths to establish the game as a sport – a story I explore in my current book project on ping pong and the moving image.

He founded the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and codified the rules of the game in both a book and a corresponding short film, Table Tennis Today (1929).

Montagu presided over the ITTF for several decades. In 1925, the same year he founded the ITTF, Montagu also co-founded the London Film Society. The society helped introduce western audiences to experimental and art films that are now considered classics.

The game of table tennis has subsequently appeared at a number of moments when filmmakers and artists were experimenting with new technologies. An early example appears in one of the first works of “visual music”: Rhythm in Light (1934) by Mary Ellen Bute.

Meanwhile, an early work of expanded cinema, Ping Pong (1968) by the artist Valie Export, invited audiences to pick up a paddle and ball and attempt to strike a physical ball against the representation of one moving on the cinema screen. Atari’s adaptation of the game into the interactive Pong (1972) is often considered the first video game.

Perhaps the most familiar cinematic example of all, however, is the digital simulation of a photorealistic ping pong ball – made possible by a then-new regime of computer-generated imagery. It helped Tom Hanks appear to be a ping pong whiz in the Academy-Award-winning Forrest Gump (1994).

There are a number of other fascinating moments in which the game surfaces meaningfully: in Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Jacques Tati’s M Hulot’s Holiday (1953), Michael Haneke’s 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994), and Agnes Varda and JR’s Faces Places (2017).

And every day for more than two years, from 2020 to 2022, one of the world’s most beloved filmmakers, David Lynch, uploaded YouTube videos in which he pulled a numbered ping pong ball from a jar and declared it “today’s number”. It was a fittingly Dada-esque gesture that stands among the last mysterious works he shared with the world.

Enter Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. The title sequence alone discovers a new way of visualising the game’s iconography, as we see a sperm fertilise an egg, which then transforms into a ping pong ball (the digital effects first witnessed in Gump are now fully integrated into popular cinema).

Why Marty Supreme is different

Marty Supreme is very loosely based on the real-life player Marty Reisman (here Marty Mauser, played by Timothée Chalamet). What sets it apart from earlier cinematic appearances of table tennis is that it centres the game as a sport.

When table tennis has previously appeared in film, it is usually to help show off new special effects or as a brief plot device. Or it frequently appears in the background, helping to furnish the mise-en-scene of an office, basement, or bar. In these instances, we might not notice the game or its materials at all. When it does have a narrative function, it usually occupies a single scene, frequently serving to stage or resolve fraught interpersonal relations between the characters who are playing.

In Marty Supreme, however, table tennis seems neither tethered to special effects nor, certainly, to the game’s “background” status. Chalamet trained extensively over the seven years he spent preparing for the role, even taking his own table to the desert while filming Dune (2021). And despite the film’s sometimes compelling eccentricities, Marty Supreme in many senses follows the generic blueprint of a sports film.

Safdie has made a sports film, coincidentally or not, like his frequent collaborator and brother Benny Safdie, whose wrestling film The Smashing Machine was also released this past year. Marty Supreme, though, revolves around an athlete who plays a game that generally has been assumed to not have enough gravitas to command a place in the genre or to hold an audience’s interest.

The absence of sports films about ping pong certainly speaks to ways in which it is perceived as something not worth taking too seriously, for reasons that are surely at least partially linked to the same reasons for which the game is often celebrated. It is perceived to be what I refer to as an “equalising” sport, open to people and bodies of all backgrounds and types.

As actor Susan Sarandon, who founded her own chain of ping pong bars, puts it: “Ping pong cuts across all body types and gender – everything, really – because little girls can beat big muscley guys. You don’t get hurt; it is not expensive; it is really good for your mind. It is one of the few sports that you can play until you die.”

This perception of the game has perhaps also led it to appear in more comedic contexts, with athletes embodied by actors we might more readily laugh at, as source material for visual and sonic gags, from a slapstick scene in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939) to the widely panned Balls of Fury (2007).

The tension between the game’s perceived triviality and Mauser’s extreme dedication lends Marty Supreme a vast blank canvas – or ping pong table – onto which its oscillations can be painted, or played… and in turn felt by the audience, with its high highs and low lows.

While it’s great that a talented director has poured his heart into a cinematic treatment of Reisman for the screen, I’m holding out hope for an Ivor Montagu film, which could be even more beholden to its real-life character – and even more wild.

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Jeff Scheible 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. A brief history of table tennis in film – from Forrest Gump to Marty Supreme – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-table-tennis-in-film-from-forrest-gump-to-marty-supreme-274445

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura O’Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

A revival of a beloved and notorious Irish play from 1907, Catriona McLaughlin’s production of The Playboy of the Western World treats J.M Synge’s play as a work with urgent contemporary force, creating a story with resonance in 2026.

Reuniting Derry Girls Nicola Coughlan and Siobhan McSweeney at the National Theatre, the play is set in a shebeen (an illicit drinking den) in western Mayo. The plot centres on Pegeen (Coughlan), whose life is jolted by the arrival of Christy Mahon (Éanna Hardwicke).

On the run and boasting that he has murdered his father, Christy becomes an instant local hero. His violent, wild tale of defying his father’s supposed tyranny captivates a community in need of a hero. Christy’s notoriety is quickly complicated by the arrival of his very-much-alive father (Declan Conlon) in act two, collapsing the young man’s carefully constructed myth.

First staged in 1907 in Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, The Playboy of The Western World famously enraged audiences who booed and rioted. At this time, Ireland was moving towards independence and national pride was growing. Irish audiences expected homegrown theatre to showcase a serious, disciplined national character.

Synge’s play, depicting a foolish man whose boasts of patricide are hailed as heroic by a drunken, sexually available community was deemed morally offensive, a direct affront to Ireland itself.

In the intervening century, the play has become recognised as a masterpiece of Irish literature. Synge’s biting dark humour and ear for richly authentic dialogue has endured, with the play now recognised as a classic of modernist drama.

Humour, cruelty and urgency

Told in Hiberno-English (the Irish version of English, influenced by Gaelic) dialogue, The Playboy of The Western World depicts rural life as complex and brutal. Almost 120 years later on a London stage, it rejects a nostalgic view of rural Ireland in a bygone era. These characters are human and imperfect, and just as susceptible to a tall tale as anyone in 2026.

Director Catriona McLaughlin has assembled a cast of familiar Irish names. Nicola Coughlan sparkles as Pegeen. Her sharp tongue and fortitude in a shebeen full of men is edged with frustration and a deep yearning for something exciting to happen.

Éanna Hardwicke’s Christy Mahon begins tightly wound, loosening as he basks in female adoration. His performance is infused with a coiled, elastic physicality giving Christy an electric intensity; Hardwicke dares the audience to fall in love with him, too.

Siobhan McSweeney, characteristically sharp and wickedly funny, is unmissable as the Widow Quin. Providing welcome comic relief are Marty Rea as a slyly humourous Shawn Keogh, and Lorcan Cranitch’s uproariously funny and drunken Michael James.

McLaughlin frames the Irish western coast as haunted and mysterious, reinforced by Katie Davenport’s straw mumming costumes (see image below) worn by musicians and extras, and the recurring use of the caoineadh or “keening” – mourning in song.

These design choices create an atmosphere which feels suspended rather than anchored to a particular period. The timelessness sharpens the impact of Christy’s unmasking: the community’s sudden turn against him when they witness a violent act mirrors a familiar real-world pattern. Violence absorbed as story, gossip or spectacle becomes intolerable once its physical reality intrudes.

The crowd’s horror is not prompted by the act itself, but by its visibility. In this way, the production speaks directly to contemporary audiences accustomed to consuming violence at a distance, yet quick to condemn when confronted with its immediate consequences.

Some critics have reported difficulty following Synge’s language, revealing how strongly expectations of “standard” English shape reception. Such dismissals reveal not a failure of intelligibility in the play, but a critical resistance to engaging with Hiberno-English on its own terms.

This requires attention to rhythm, tone and repetition, and dismissing it as unintelligible echoes the play’s broader concern with how stories are received and misread.

Dynamic and intellectually alert, McLaughlin’s production refuses to treat The Playboy of the Western World as a museum piece. It trusts both Synge’s language and its audience, allowing the play’s humour, cruelty and urgency to land without apology. So much more than a revival, this staging reasserts the work’s enduring relevance and makes a compelling case for why it remains essential viewing.

The Playboy of the Western World is at the National Theatre, London, till February 28

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Laura O’Flanagan 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 Playboy of the Western World: National Theatre staging ensures Irish play remains essential viewing – https://theconversation.com/the-playboy-of-the-western-world-national-theatre-staging-ensures-irish-play-remains-essential-viewing-274762