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March 10, 2026

Blood tests for cancer? We’re still a way off

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

A new kind of blood test promises to find cancer early – sometimes even before symptoms appear.

The pitch is compelling: a single sample of blood could scan the body for dozens of different cancers at once, catching disease at a stage when it is easier to treat and more likely to be curable. For people who fear cancer – which is most of us – this sounds like a medical revolution.

These tests look for tiny pieces of DNA from cancer cells that are circulating in the blood – something my research teams have spent years working on. In the lab, powerful machines analyse these DNA fragments, searching for patterns that suggest a hidden cancer somewhere in the body.

Instead of waiting for a lump, unexplained weight loss or other symptoms, you could have a blood test every six or 12 months to check if cancer is starting to grow. NHS England described the test – which they were trialling in 142,000 patients – as “the beginning of a revolution”.

The revolution postponed

But when researchers have put these tests through their paces, the reality has fallen well short of the headlines. In one large recent UK study, the blood test missed most cancers that participants went on to develop.

A negative test may feel like a clean bill of health, but at the moment, it is nothing of the sort. This matters because people naturally change their behaviour when they are reassured. If you believe a high-tech blood test has “ruled out” cancer, you may delay seeing a doctor when symptoms appear, or dismiss nagging changes in your body as nothing to worry about.

Traditional screening tests have their own problems, but they are built on decades of evidence. Mammograms for breast cancer, colonoscopy or stool tests for bowel cancer, and cervical screening all went through long, careful trials to show they save lives overall, not just that they find more abnormalities.

Even then, they can miss cancers, and they can also pick up growths that would never have caused harm. With multi-cancer blood tests, the evidence is much thinner, and we still do not know whether using them in healthy people actually reduces deaths from cancer.

The tests also generate false alarms. Sometimes the test can flag people as having cancer when they don’t, causing huge amounts of stress. Health systems that are already stretched risk being overwhelmed by follow-up investigations, triggered by blood test results, that may ultimately lead nowhere.

A woman receiving a mammogram. — Mammograms are built on decades of evidence.
My Ocean Production/Shutterstock.com

Cost is another consideration. These tests are not cheap to develop or buy. If these tests are used widely before we know whether they work, health services could waste money and staff time on unproven technology instead of on proven measures like prompt diagnosis, smoking cessation, weight management and ensuring that existing screening programmes reach the people who need them most.

Yet it would be wrong to dismiss these tests entirely. The underlying science is sophisticated, and it is advancing quickly. In high-risk groups – for example, people with strong family histories of certain cancers, or those with inherited genetic mutations – carefully used blood tests might genuinely help to detect tumours earlier than we can today.

They are also helpful in checking if cancer is returning after treatment, or in choosing treatments that match the specific biology of a person’s cancer.

The deeper issue is how we introduce such technology into everyday life. There is a long history of medicine being captivated by new treatments and procedures, only to discover later that the harms and compromises were greater than expected.

Early cancer blood tests are arriving at a time when trust in institutions is fragile, misinformation spreads fast, and many people understandably feel that getting to see a doctor at all is increasingly difficult. Adding another layer of complexity and uncertainty could easily widen inequality between those who can pay privately for extra tests and those who cannot.

Sensible steps you can take

While we wait for better evidence, there are still sensible steps people can take. First, if you are invited to take part in a trial of a new cancer blood test, ask what the study is trying to show and what is already known. Genuine clinical trials, run through the NHS or academic centres, are how we answer important questions about benefits and harms.

Second, if you are offered one of these tests privately, ask who will interpret the result, what support you will get afterwards, and whether it is likely to change your care in a meaningful way.

Most importantly, do not let the idea of a “simple blood test” overshadow the basics. If you notice a new lump, unexplained bleeding, persistent cough, weight loss or a change in bowel habit that goes on for more than a few weeks, you should still contact your GP, even if a previous test was normal.

Trust your instincts about your own body and keep pushing if you feel something is wrong. Stories of delayed diagnoses repeatedly show that persistence from patients, families and doctors can make a crucial difference.

Cancer outcomes have been improving slowly over time, thanks to a combination of better treatments, earlier diagnosis and public health measures. New technology, including blood tests that scan for traces of cancer, will probably play a part in the next chapter of that story. But on their own, they are not a magic bullet against disease.

Justin Stebbing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Blood tests for cancer? We’re still a way off – https://theconversation.com/blood-tests-for-cancer-were-still-a-way-off-277798

March 10, 2026

Why it’s unlikely that Saudi Arabia wanted the US to bomb Iran

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Mabon, Professor of International Relations, Lancaster University

A report in the Washington Post the day after the Iran war began suggested that Saudi Arabia and Israel had both lobbied Donald Trump to attack Iran. The Saudis swiftly denied that they had pushed for war.

In the days since, as Iran lashed out in retaliation, Saudi Arabia came under attack. An Iranian drone hit the US embassy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and an oil processing plant at Ras Tanura was targeted. Two people were killed on March 8 after a projectile fell on a residential area in Al-Kharj city, near an airbase used by the US military.

My academic and civil society contacts in Saudi Arabia expressed deep scepticism of the idea that Saudi Arabia had pushed the US to bomb Iran. The attacks go against everything that the Saudis have been doing for the past few years, when long-simmering tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia had begun to thaw.

Heated history

Iran and Saudi Arabia have a long and complex history. Saudi Arabia is an overwhelmingly Arab, Sunni state, while Iran is a mainly Persian, Shia state.

Tensions between the two rivals came to a head in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Iran’s new leader, Ayatolloh Ruhollah Khomeini, began to criticise the Saudis, saying they were unfit to be the custodians of the two holy places of Islam, Mecca and Medina. That antagonised the Saudis, who tried to diminish the credibility of the new Islamic Republic

Iran then began to provide support to groups across the region who wished to change the status quo, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. For the Saudis, this attempt to undermine regional order fuelled the antagonism.

In the early 1990s, after the death of Khomeini, more political space opened up and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran eased. But after 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, relations deteriorated. Iraq descended into a civil war, with Iran and Saudi Arabia supporting different groups in the conflict.

By 2010, diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks revealed Saudi King Abdullah had repeatedly pushed the US to strike Iran’s nuclear capabilities, urging the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake”. In 2016, the two countries cut off diplomatic relations after an attack on the Saudi embassy in Iran following the execution of a Saudi Shia cleric.

An era of rapprochement

Ever since a deal struck in 1945 between US President Franklin D Roosevelt and the Saudi King Abdul Aziz Al Saud on an aircraft carrier, Saudi Arabia has relied on the US for its security.

But after an attack using Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles in September 2019 against oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Saudis became worried that they couldn’t rely purely on the Americans. The Houthi rebel group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but subsequent investigations by the UN said they were not involved.

Iran denied allegations it was behind the attacks. The US did deploy air and missile defence forces to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the attacks, but the muted response still led to a dramatic change in Saudi Arabia’s approach to regional politics.

At the same time, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) realised that if Saudi Arabia wanted to enact its domestic reforms, in particular the ambitious Vision 2030 transformation, the country needed investor confidence and – crucially – regional stability. That meant a move away from comments, such as those by MBS in 2018, likening Iran’s supreme leader to Hitler.

A softening of Saudi rhetoric on Iran began, and back channel dialogue opened up. Then, in April 2021, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran sat down in the Iraqi capital Baghdad for talks, followed two years later by a Chinese-brokered normalisation deal signed in Beijing.

The two countries reopened embassies and started diplomatic initiatives, expressing joint statements in support for each other and carrying out joint military drills. All of this pointed to a thawing in relations – until the new Iran conflict began.

Iran conflict

With the arrival of a US armada in the Gulf in recent months, the Saudis and their Gulf neighbours would have expected another attack on Iran was imminent. But they don’t want a destabilised Iran.

Iraq in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hossein experienced a terrible, violent period of instability that did not improve the region’s political, social or economic conditions, or encourage investment – all things the Gulf’s leaders hanker after. The US killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khameini in the hope that it would facilitate some type of peaceful transformation will seem like a huge gamble to Gulf leaders at a delicate time in their political trajectories.

If the perception in Iran is that Saudi Arabia has been pushing for war, it could start to pull the US and Saudi Arabia closer together. There is some anger from the Saudis too, however, that the Americans have not done more to protect them. A Saudi analyst told Al Jazeera that America had abandoned it. While Gulf states have very advanced hardware, they have small militaries, and will be now worried about their own security, and about being drawn into a long regional war.

With the future of Iran still deeply uncertain, and very real potential for prolonged instability on their doorstep, Gulf states will be carefully weighing their next move. Whatever happens, Iran’s decision to bomb its neighbours will make it very difficult to rebuild the sort of the trust that had been cultivated over recent years.

This article is based on an interview Simon Mabon gave to The Conversation Weekly podcast, published on March 5.

Simon Mabon receives funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Henry Luce Foundation. He is a Senior Research Fellow with The Foreign Policy Centre

– ref. Why it’s unlikely that Saudi Arabia wanted the US to bomb Iran – https://theconversation.com/why-its-unlikely-that-saudi-arabia-wanted-the-us-to-bomb-iran-277687

March 10, 2026

Treaty 4 brings up hard questions like how did ‘Crown land’ come to be?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ken Wilson, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Regina

In my recently published book, Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road, I describe standing beside the Regina Bypass, a new (and politically controversial) highway around Saskatchewan’s capital, asking myself how settlers came to own the land that stretched to the horizon in all directions.

Canadian courts have generally treated the numbered treaties as land cessions, though they also recognize them as solemn agreements requiring honourable interpretation.

I recalled what the late Stó:lō Elder Lee Maracle wrote in My Conversations With Canadians: settlers like me rarely get curious about “how the shift from Indigenous authority over the land to Canadian authority over the land occurred.”

I decided to get curious, and what I learned surprised me.

The official story: Surrender

Regina is in Treaty 4 territory. In September 1874, treaty commissioners representing the Crown negotiated that treaty with Cree, Saulteaux and Nakoda chiefs at Fort Qu’Appelle, now a town east of Regina, but then a Hudson’s Bay Co. trading post.

What Treaty 4 means depends on whose story you believe. The federal government tells one story; First Nations treaty Elders and legal scholars tell another. Those stories offer radically different versions of that treaty.

According to the federal government, First Nations surrendered their title to the land through the historical numbered treaties, including Treaty 4. That interpretation depends on the words of the treaty document: First Nations “do hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up” their land.

There’s a problem, however. As historian Sheldon Krasowski points out in No Surrender: The Land Remains Indigenous, there’s no evidence those words were mentioned by the treaty commissioners during the negotiations, or that their translator, Charles Pratt, a Cree-Nakoda catechist who often translated for Anglican missionaries, would have been able to convey the treaty’s legalese into the chiefs’ languages.

When pioneering Cree lawyer Harold Cardinal and historian Walter Hildebrandt explained the meaning of what’s come to be known as the “surrender clause” to First Nations Treaty Elders, those Elders were incredulous that anyone would think the chiefs would have agreed to give up their rights to the land. Elder Kay Thompson (Treaty 4) told Cardinal and Hildebrandt:

“We never gave it up; we never surrendered anything.”

If that interpretation is wrong, then Canada’s legal claim to much of the land west of Ontario rests on uncertain ground.

A different account of Treaty 4

If the so-called “surrender clause” wasn’t interpreted, and if contemporary Treaty Elders say no surrender of land took place, then the federal government’s story about the treaties doesn’t make much sense. And, if there was no surrender of land, then what gave the federal government the right to survey, sell or give away to settlers everything outside of reserves?

How did the notion of “Crown land” come about? How did the shift in authority that Edler Maracle describes happen?

First Nations legal scholars and Elders offer a completely different account of Treaty 4 and the other historical treaties: they were about sharing the land and establishing an ongoing relationship with settlers.

The most important speech of the Treaty 4 negotiations, the one that brought the talks to a conclusion, was made by Chief Loud Voice on the last day of the discussions. He said:

“Let us join together and make the treaty; when both join together it is very good.”

Those words suggest a desire to create a relationship with the newcomers to the Plains, not a surrender of land. Contemporary Indigenous legal scholars agree with this interpretation.

In Two Families: Treaties and Government, writer and lawyer Harold Johnson argues that the treaties represent sacred ceremonies in which First Nations adopted settlers as their kin. That’s why the Elder he consulted suggested he use the Cree word kiciwâminawak — “our cousins” — to refer to settlers.

For Johnson, the key element of the negotiations was the Sacred Pipe Ceremony, which solemnized that adoption, not the treaty document. “The paper at treaty was ancillary to ceremony,” he explains. “My ancestors recognized your paper as your ceremony and participated so as not to offend.”

Ceremony, not paper, constituted the agreement.

What if the story isn’t true?

Interpreting Treaty 4, like the other historical treaties, as a sharing agreement rather than a surrender of land raises profound questions. How did so much land in Saskatchewan, as in other parts of Canada, come to belong to settlers?

This disagreement is not simply about history; it is about what counts as law.

In Saskatchewan, as elsewhere, reserves are a tiny part of the total area. The rest belongs to the Crown or has been sold or given to settlers.

How can that situation be considered sharing? How did the Crown come to possess the land? On what basis was the land sold or given away? Is our title to the land the product of a story that simply isn’t true? Did that shift from Indigenous to Canadian authority happen through a misunderstanding, at best, or trickery, at worst?

These two interpretations aren’t just trivia. The unsettling questions they raise block genuine reconciliation today because the official interpretation relies on a version of the treaty that partners reject. Thinking about those questions, and discussing them with Indigenous Peoples, won’t be easy for settlers, but it needs to happen.

As Dallas Hunt and Gina Starblanket, Cree authors and advocates for Indigenous thoughts, point out:

“Treaty is work; it takes labour to be in relationship with other people.”

Are we settlers ready for that work? The first step might be reconsidering which story about the treaties we believe.

Ken Wilson 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. Treaty 4 brings up hard questions like how did ‘Crown land’ come to be? – https://theconversation.com/treaty-4-brings-up-hard-questions-like-how-did-crown-land-come-to-be-270036

March 10, 2026

‘Life is a Miracle,’ but learning from disasters isn’t: Lessons from Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Fatma Ozdogan, PhD Candidate & Researcher, School of Architecture, Université de Montréal

In April 2012, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle was found on Graham Island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of British Columbia. It belonged to Ikuo Yokoyama, a survivor of the earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan a year earlier, in March 2011. Yokoyama lost his home and three family members.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the earthquake.

On March 11, 2011 a magnitude-9.0 earthquake occurred off Japan’s northeastern coast. It triggered a tsunami that devastated coastal communities and caused significant damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Almost 20,000 people were killed, and economic losses exceeded US$235 billion. Fifteen years later, the disaster remains a reference point in public debate because of the unprecedented damage, and because of the long-term questions it raised about risk, responsibility and preparedness.

Yokoyama’s motorcycle has since become part of a memorial culture dedicated to the 2011 disaster. After receiving offers to have it returned, Yokoyama decided that the motorcycle should be exhibited at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, where it still stands today as a memorial to those whose lives were affected by the disaster.

The limitations of infrastructure become visible not only in moments of failure, but also in what survives and circulates afterward. And in Japan, the motorcycle has become part of a broader conversation about what remains after catastrophes, along with other objects swept away by the tsunami and later discovered in different parts of the world.

Importance of risk awareness

Japan has long been widely regarded as a global leader in disaster risk reduction. Advanced seismic engineering standards, earthquake-resistant buildings, extensive early warning systems and massive coastal defences such as seawalls and floodgates have been designed to protect the disaster-prone country.

Reconstruction in tsunami-affected areas involved major planning decisions. In many communities, neighbourhoods were relocated to higher ground or further inland, changing multi-generational settlement patterns.

New residential areas were developed in highland areas, while some low-lying coastal zones were converted to green buffers, agricultural land or designated memorial spaces.

Yet, as the tsunami showed, physical infrastructure alone cannot eliminate risk. People’s risk awareness, preparedness and willingness to act swiftly — often informed by local knowledge and disaster education — also play decisive roles in preventing the loss of life.

This understanding directly shaped Life is a Miracle, an initiative launched in Yamamoto, a coastal town severely affected by the tsunami.

During our field research on disaster memory practices in the Tohoku region, we visited the project’s exhibition space and spoke with people involved in documenting the disaster’s legacy.

By using Yokoyama’s motorcycle as an example, it highlights how life itself is fragile and valuable, and how tsunami survival is shaped by warning systems, evacuation infrastructure, land-use decisions, housing location and institutional choices made well before a disaster occurs.

The motorcycle’s journey gained meaning in a country where major catastrophes are integrated into public life. Recurrent earthquakes and tsunamis, along with fires and wartime destruction, have shaped not only city planning policy but also disaster education and commemoration. Across these histories, memory in Japan serves a practical purpose, linking past events to present awareness and future responsibility.

Life is a Miracle puts this claim into practice through clothing bearing its name, each individually numbered and linked to dialogue-based activities that document experiences of loss, displacement and rebuilding and emphasize disaster preparedness. These items prompt conversation in everyday settings. The motorcycle acts as a tangible entry point for reflection on disaster preparedness and memory.

Memory infrastructure

Across the Tohoku region most affected by the tsunami, memorial museums, monuments and preserved school buildings present detailed accounts of evacuation decisions and reconstruction processes. These sites anchor memory in place. Visitors encounter physical traces of the disaster alongside guided tours intended to encourage disaster preparation and reduce future loss.

The 3.11 Densho Road project connects many of these memorial sites through a regional network, mapping their locations across northeastern Japan and sharing information about disaster memory sites and relevant workshops, guided tours and disaster educational programs. More than 300 such sites are registered today.

At the national level, the NIPPON Disaster Prevention Assets framework, launched in 2024 by Japan’s government, certifies facilities and activities that convey past disaster experiences and lessons in accessible ways.

Memorial museums, preserved disaster sites and initiatives such as storyteller programs, disaster-prevention tours and public events can receive this designation after review by an expert committee. The program aims to encourage residents to treat disaster risk as a personal responsibility, motivating people to understand hazards in their communities and take proactive evacuation and preparedness actions.

Yet sustaining disaster memory in Japan also depends on individual and community efforts. Kataribe, survivor-storytellers who share their experiences with visitors and younger generations, play a vital role in this process. Their accounts convey emotion, hesitation and decision-making under pressure in ways that curated exhibitions cannot fully reproduce.

The Life is a Miracle project is part of a larger network of memory infrastructure in Japan. It is one node in a system that treats the remnants of disasters as tools for education and raising awareness. Memory sites enable discussions about disaster risks and preparedness. By sharing experiences and lessons learned, as well as healing for those affected, they make a constant dialogue possible.

Countries around the world face increasing exposure to floods, wildfires and extreme weather. Physical recovery after disasters is often accompanied by public attention that fades within months.

The Japanese case shows how sustaining lessons requires infrastructure. A well-organized memory culture can help keep conversations going years later and integrate valuable lessons into educational and policy frameworks.

Life is indeed a miracle. Whether societies learn from disasters, however, depends on deliberate choices about how experience is translated into enduring practices.

Fatma Özdoğan received funding from Mitacs Inc. through the Mitacs Globalink Research Award to support her research visit at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University. The research presented in this article was conducted in the context of that funded research visit.

Elizabeth Maly has received research funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
(JSPS) and the Disaster Resilience Co-creation Center, IRIDeS, Tohoku University.

Julia Gerster receives funding from JSPS, the Uehiro Foundation on ethics and education, and the Disaster Resilience Co-creation Center, IRIDeS, Tohoku University.

– ref. ‘Life is a Miracle,’ but learning from disasters isn’t: Lessons from Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami – https://theconversation.com/life-is-a-miracle-but-learning-from-disasters-isnt-lessons-from-japans-2011-earthquake-and-tsunami-276985

March 10, 2026

Astrophysicists trace the origin of valuable metals in space, from colliding stars to merging galaxies

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Simone Dichiara, Assistant Research Professor of Astrophysics, Penn State

This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode. ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser, CC BY

Billions of light years away in a remote part of the universe, two neutron stars – the ultradense remnants of dead stars – collided. The catastropic cosmic event sent light and particles, including a sudden flash of gamma rays, streaming through the universe. These gamma rays traveled for 8.5 billion years before reaching Earth.

In a new study, our team of astrophysicists examined this gamma-ray signal. We learned that the stellar collision it came from was likely caused by an even more catastrophic encounter – a merger between two galaxies.

An illustration of a galaxy merger, with a bright spot in the center pulling in smaller sources of light. — An illustration shows a galaxy merger, an event that leads to star collisions and the creation of valuable metals.
Fortuna, Dichiara/ERC BHianca 2026, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, CC BY-SA

This is the first time astronomers associated this type of signal with such a large-scale galactic interaction. Our finding offers new insight into how stellar collisions spread metals across the universe.

Why it matters

When two neutron stars orbit each other and finally collide – a system called a binary neutron star merger – they produce the most powerful explosions in the universe. They release intense flashes of gamma rays, which astronomers call short gamma-ray bursts. They can release as much energy as our Sun will produce over its entire lifetime in less than a couple of seconds.

In binary neutron star mergers, two dense neutron stars orbit together and eventually collide. In the process, they send out bursts of gamma rays.

These collisions can also eject debris pieces into space, which may create new radioactive elements when they collide. Many valuable elements, including gold and platinum, are forged in these mergers.

What makes the particular event, known as GRB 230906A, extraordinary is where it happened. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, we pinpointed the location of the explosion and identified its host galaxy as one of the faintest galaxies ever associated with a short GRB.

Observations obtained by the Very Large Telescope in Chile revealed that the burst occurred within a tangled system of interacting galaxies. Streams of stars and gas, torn out by past galactic encounters, stretched across the region. The gamma-ray burst lies directly within one of these tidal streams, suggesting it took place inside a tiny dwarf galaxy formed from the material stripped away from its host during a galaxy collision.

Four telescope units on a concrete platform. — The Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
ESO/H.H.Heyer, CC BY

This is the first time that a binary neutron star merger has been linked to such an environment. This discovery reveals new homes for these cosmic collisions and shows they don’t just happen in big galaxies. It points to a new path for spreading heavy metals where we least expect them.

Our study traces the origin of these neutron star mergers back to the slow and far-reaching pull of gravity between galaxies. It tells us more about where these extraordinary events can take place and, most importantly, how the elements that make up our world came to be.

What still isn’t known

As this explosion was far away, our instruments could not measure which elements were forged in the collision. Similar bright explosions may be produced not only by binary neutron star mergers, but also by mergers involving neutron stars and black holes, or even other types of compact stellar remnants such as white dwarfs, the leftover cores of Sun-like stars.

What’s next

New powerful observatories, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will enable the discovery and detailed study of distant mergers responsible for producing heavy elements.

Future advanced X-ray missions, such as NewAthena and AXIS, will increase our ability to identify these types of explosions.

These new capabilities will move side by side with the development of the next generation of gravitational wave detectors: Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer. These will allow us to decipher the nature of these mergers, marking a new era for multimessenger astronomy. Together, these telescopes will be essential for understanding how the elements that make up our world are formed.

Simone Dichiara receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Eleonora Troja receives funding from European Research Council.

– ref. Astrophysicists trace the origin of valuable metals in space, from colliding stars to merging galaxies – https://theconversation.com/astrophysicists-trace-the-origin-of-valuable-metals-in-space-from-colliding-stars-to-merging-galaxies-272328

March 10, 2026

TikTok’s period scooping trend shows how little we still understand about menstruation

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sally King, Visiting Fellow in Menstrual Physiology, King’s College London

Social media has a habit of turning health topics into viral trends. The latest example is “period scooping”, a term circulating widely on TikTok that promises a way to manage or even shorten menstruation.

The idea sounds intriguing, even empowering. In reality, it reveals how much confusion still surrounds periods.

The term “period scooping” is being used to describe several different practices. One involves consciously contracting pelvic floor muscles while on the toilet or in the shower to push out menstrual fluid that has collected in the vaginal canal. This is not new and it is not dangerous. Many people have discovered it themselves over time. But it does not shorten a period, it merely reduces its flow for a short while. Menstruation is the shedding of the womb lining, a process driven by hormonal changes. What happens in the vaginal canal cannot stop or speed that up.

More concerning are posts that frame “scooping” as washing out the vagina with water, a shower head or soap. This is essentially douching, a practice that research has repeatedly linked to infections such as bacterial vaginosis and thrush, and to more serious complications like pelvic inflammatory disease and premature births. The vagina maintains its own protective environment, including an acidic pH and a balance of beneficial bacteria. Introducing water or soap disrupts this system and increases the risk of infection.

There are also videos encouraging people to insert fingers or pipettes to remove menstrual fluid. Again, this is not a new behaviour but it is unnecessary and carries risks if fingers or pipettes are not clean, or products such as hand moisturiser or soap are introduced internally.

What is striking is that these trends are emerging at a time when there are more effective menstrual products than ever. Menstrual cups, period underwear and reusable pads allow people to manage heavy bleeding, exercise and even swim without leaking. The persistence of “hacks” suggests a gap in education rather than a lack of options.

The same goes for other viral claims. Some influencers promote drinks made with lime juice, salt or spices as a way to shorten periods. This is physiologically impossible and so, unsurprisingly, there is no scientific evidence supporting such claims.

The menstrual cycle is governed by hormonal signals between the brain and ovaries over an average of four week cycles. Food and drink cannot abruptly interrupt this process. A healthy diet can reduce inflammation over time and may help with symptoms such as pain and heavy bleeding, but no food, drink or even medication can stop a period immediately.

Similarly, some social media influencers may claim that you must have a monthly period to stay healthy. This is misleading. Hormonal contraception can safely reduce blood loss and pain, with some methods eventually stopping periods for several months or years. For some people, particularly those with anaemia or endometriosis, this can be extremely beneficial. Periods can be a sign of overall health in certain contexts (elite sports training, or in recovery from anorexia or other health conditions), but they are not biologically required every month.

Another trend seems to take a more positive approach, celebrating menstrual blood as something powerful and even applying it to the skin as a face mask. Menstrual fluid does contain stem cells, and scientists are studying them for potential use in regenerative medicine. The womb sheds and rebuilds tissue every cycle without scarring, a process that fascinates researchers. But rubbing menstrual fluid directly onto the skin cannot deliver anti-ageing effects. The skin acts as a barrier, so these cells cannot penetrate to where they would have any biological impact.

Where this research does hold real promise is in healthcare. Menstrual fluid may eventually help diagnose conditions such as endometriosis or cervical cancer through simple testing. Biobanks are already collecting samples to support this work. Scientists are also exploring how these unique stem cells might aid wound healing or tissue repair. These developments are still in early stages, but they highlight how valuable menstrual fluid could be if not subject to societal taboos and stigma.

Menstruation itself is rare among mammals. Only about 1.6% of species experience it, among them some primates, a few bats, the spiny mouse and the elephant shrew. In humans, menstruation is thought to be linked to a protective reproductive strategy. The uterine lining prepares itself in advance for pregnancy and may help filter out embryos that implant abnormally or invade too aggressively. If fertilisation does not occur, that lining is shed as menstruation. Yet despite its biological significance, it remains surrounded by myths and misinformation.

Menstrual ignorance and stigma shapes behaviour. Feelings of shame about smell, discharge or infection can push people toward harmful practices like douching. Lack of education means many learn about their bodies through social media rather than reliable sources. Even medical training has historically paid limited attention to menstrual health.

Better education from an early age would change this. Teaching children that menstruation is normal, not something secret or shameful, would help dismantle myths before they take hold. It would also make it easier for people to seek medical advice when they need it.

Social media can play a positive role by opening conversations and challenging taboos. But it should not be the primary source of health information. Many viral trends are designed to capture attention or sell products, rather than provide evidence based guidance.

Menstruation is not dirty, and it is not a problem to be hacked. It is a protective biological process that still holds great scientific potential. Treating it as normal rather than something weird or shocking would be a better starting point than most viral trends.

Strange Health is hosted by Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt. The executive producer is Gemma Ware, with video and sound editing for this episode by Anouk Millet. Artwork by Alice Mason.

If you’ve got a question about a viral trend or video you’ve seen and you’d like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at strangehealth@theconversation.com.

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

Sally King is the founder of Menstrual Matters, a non-profit online platform about menstrual health and associated rights issues. She previously received funding from the ESRC for her doctoral research into PMS. She is a visiting fellow in menstrual physiology at King’s College London and an unpaid elected board member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR).

– ref. TikTok’s period scooping trend shows how little we still understand about menstruation – https://theconversation.com/tiktoks-period-scooping-trend-shows-how-little-we-still-understand-about-menstruation-277075

March 10, 2026

Gifts from top 50 US philanthropists jumped to $22.4B in 2025 − Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates and the estate of Paul Allen lead a list of the biggest givers

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By David Campbell, Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, one of the top 50 donors of 2025, talks with his son Josh Blank. Kara Durrette/Getty Images

The 50 American individuals and couples who gave or pledged the most to charity in 2025 committed US$22.4 billion to foundations, universities, hospitals and more. That total was 35% above an inflation-adjusted $16.6 billion in 2024, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s latest annual tally of these donations.

Media entrepreneur and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg led the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list, followed by Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Allen died in 2018, but his estate is still being settled.

The Conversation U.S. asked David Campbell, Lindsey McDougle and Hans Peter Schmitz, three scholars of philanthropy and nonprofits, to assess the significance of these gifts and to consider what they indicate about the state of charitable giving in the United States.

What trends stand out overall?

Schmitz: Higher education, hospitals, medical research, foundations and donor-advised funds – which serve as savings accounts reserved for charitable giving – drew the biggest gifts in 2025. The education and medical fields are a perennial favorite of high-dollar donors. To a degree, these preferences for supporting education and health were first expressed by Andrew Carnegie in his 1889 essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he famously claimed that “the man who dies rich dies disgraced.”

Campbell: This list changes little from year to year. Of this year’s top 20 donors, 16 have appeared at least one other time over the past five years. Six others have also made this list at least two other times since 2021. For the third year in a row, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is at the top of the list. He gave away over $4 billion in 2025, over $500 million more than the next highest donor.

Half of these 22 repeat top-50 givers have signed The Giving Pledge, in which they made a public commitment “to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes in their lifetime or wills.” Their appearance on the list shows that they are making at least some progress toward that commitment.

How they give their money hasn’t changed much either. A dozen of the 22 who make this list year after year regularly fund the same causes – often their own family foundations. Donations to foundations increase the amount of money those philanthropic institutions may give away in the future, but that money might not be disbursed anytime soon. By law, foundations only have to donate or spend 5% of the money they possess every year.

McDougle: The top 50 donors gave more in 2025 than they had since 2021. But this growth is highly concentrated. Mike Bloomberg alone accounts for 19% of the $22.4 billion they gave in 2025, and the top 10 accounted for nearly three-quarters of what all 50 gave to charity.

This pattern reflects a broader reality: A small number of ultra-wealthy individuals increasingly dominate American philanthropy. This concentration is raising questions about democratic accountability, including this one: Whose priorities define the public good?

In my opinion, this kind of concentration can skew philanthropic priorities. Decisions about education, health care, climate policy and democracy can increasingly become influenced not through public deliberation, but through the discretionary choices of a few members of a financial elite.

What surprises you about the biggest donors?

Schmitz: I find it odd that MacKenzie Scott isn’t on this list. She says she gave $7.1 billion in 2025. If she had met the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s criteria, that would have landed her in first place by far. Unfortunately, the Chronicle says that MacKenzie Scott has never provided sufficient information about her generosity since becoming a major donor on her own, following her 2019 divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. And that leaves her off the list year after year.

Campbell: The Trump administration’s defunding of the U.S. Agency for International Development is among the most significant events of 2025. When it began, some philanthropy scholars wondered whether wealthy donors would replace at least a portion of the lost funds.

One example of that happening: Jacklyn and Miguel Bezos, the parents of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, pledged up to $500 million to UNICEF, the United Nations humanitarian relief organization. No other donors on this list clearly made gifts for international development or foreign aid such a high priority. However, some of these donors’ foundations, notably the Gates Foundation, do support those efforts.

Similarly, it’s unclear to what extent these donors are responding to the huge funding cuts to research that the Trump administration made in 2025.

Several of them have supported medical research in the past and continued to do in 2025. Sergey Brin gave the Michael J. Fox Foundation $50 million for Parkinson’s disease research, a continuation of his past commitment to that organization. Phil and Penny Knight, the founder of Nike and his wife, announced plans to give $2 billion to the Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute.

McDougle: I think it’s striking that there are no women who made this year’s Philanthropy 50 list on their own. The women listed appear only as part of a married couple, as members of a family, or within joint giving structures that include a male donor. By contrast, there are 24 male donors listed on their own.

Last year’s list included multiple women as sole donors, including two in the top 10.

The absence of women listed here who gave independently of men mirrors broader wealth disparities in the U.S.: About 86% of U.S. billionaires are men, according to the Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list.

What concerns do you have?

Schmitz: The list excludes donors like MacKenzie Scott, but includes other very rich donors with serious ethical issues. Businessman Denny Sanford is one example. He signed the Giving Pledge in 2010. He was removed from it in 2023 after being investigated for the alleged possession of child pornography. South Dakota prosecutors ultimately declined to levy charges against the philanthropist, who ranked 14th among the top 50 donors of 2025.

The reputation of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, one of the world’s biggest donors, is also getting tarnished. In February 2026, he apologized to the staff of the Gates Foundation for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

I suggest that the Chronicle of Philanthropy take ethically problematic behavior into consideration when it composes this annual list.

Campbell: It’s a bit surprising to see that only 19 of the top 50 donors are also on the Forbes 400, which lists the nation’s richest people. The wealthiest Americans have the most to give, and I would have expected to see more of them among the top 50 givers as well. Instead, what we see is that philanthropy is a higher and consistent priority more for some than for others, which I find disappointing.

I would like to see more members of the Forbes 400 on this list next year.

What do you expect to see in 2026 and beyond?

Campbell: We are living in a politically volatile moment, with high levels of polarization and increased concerns about democratic backsliding in the United States.

Several of these donors have made strengthening democracy a high priority, including Pierre and Pam Omidyar, and Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, through his family foundation. However, I don’t believe that this issue has been a high enough priority among the biggest givers in recent years. I would think that this kind of giving could increase in 2026.

McDougle: Another factor is demographic. Most of the top 50 donors are in their 60s or older. In the years ahead, philanthropy is likely to be influenced by a significant intergenerational transfer of wealth. Philanthropy scholars and consultants estimate that tens of trillions of dollars will transfer from older Americans to their younger heirs over the coming decades.

That shift could have substantial implications for large-scale giving. At the same time, it remains unclear whether the top 50 donors under 60 will be inclined to establish foundations. Surveys of very wealthy families suggest that younger donors often express different priorities than older ones.

Whether those preferences will reshape elite philanthropy remains an open question.

David Campbell is chair of the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation Board.

Lindsey McDougle is president-elect of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).

Hans Peter Schmitz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Gifts from top 50 US philanthropists jumped to $22.4B in 2025 − Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates and the estate of Paul Allen lead a list of the biggest givers – https://theconversation.com/gifts-from-top-50-us-philanthropists-jumped-to-22-4b-in-2025-mike-bloomberg-bill-gates-and-the-estate-of-paul-allen-lead-a-list-of-the-biggest-givers-276825

March 10, 2026

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a master in the political craft of doubt – a linguist’s take

Source: The Conversation – France – By Fatima-Zahra Aklalouch, Associate Professor, Université Paris Cité

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not just a controversial politician. There is more to him than meets the eye: he is a figure who has turned suspicion into a political identity, and who has learned how to weaponize the language of transparency in order to erode confidence in Public health itself.

His rise to power is not only a story about vaccines. It is a story about how distrust is produced. Sentence by sentence, metaphor by metaphor, until uncertainty feels like common sense.

Kennedy’s biography begins with inherited authority. Born in 1954, the nephew of John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy, he carries a name that still resonates with American idealism. Yet, as French newspaper Le Monde notes, he has increasingly become associated with conspiracy-inflected activism and vaccine skepticism, an uneasy fusion of dynasty and dissidence.

For decades, Kennedy’s public career was not centred on medicine but on environmental law. He built credibility as an environmental lawyer and activist battling corporate polluters, suing industries accused of poisoning rivers and communities. This period matters because it provided the moral template that continues to shape his rhetoric. Powerful industries harm the innocent, regulators fail, and the lone crusader exposes what has been hidden.

The problem is that Kennedy later imported this “template” and applied it to public health, treating vaccines less as medical tools than as symbols of institutional corruption.

The “RFK Jr. rhetoric” in the making

The pivot began in the mid-2000s, when Kennedy increasingly started promoting claims about vaccine safety. He became chairman of Children’s Health Defense, one of the most influential organizations in the American anti-vaccine ecosystem. Fact-checkers note that he repeatedly advanced debunked links between vaccines and autism, despite overwhelming scientific evidence rejecting them.

The language of doubt: reading between the lines

What distinguishes Kennedy is not simply his conclusions, but his rhetorical method. He rarely presents himself as an opponent of vaccination outright. Instead, he constructs a linguistic shield of moderation:

“I am pro-safety… I am not anti-vaccine… All of my kids are vaccinated.”

This disclaimer is not incidental. It is strategic. By denying the label while sustaining suspicion, Kennedy makes doubt appear reasonable, even responsible. The effect is to normalise distrust without ever owning its implications.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, this rhetoric expanded dramatically. Nature described Kennedy as one of the most prominent spreaders of vaccine misinformation in the United States. NPR similarly highlighted how he amplified distrust toward public health institutions during the crisis.

His language in this period reveals a consistent populist grammar of ordinary citizens and parents versus captured elites. Vaccination becomes not a medical intervention but a symbol of coercion. “Submit to the government, do what you’re told,” he says, lamenting that “there is no discussion.”

Pitching Science against ‘truth seeking’

This language is politically potent precisely because it shifts the terrain. The debate is no longer about epidemiology, but it is about freedom, betrayal, and moral agency. Science becomes not a method but an institution to be distrusted.

Kennedy’s discourse is sustained by a careful cultivation of uncertainty. “There isn’t proof,” he concedes, then pivots, “we don’t know what causes it yet, so shouldn’t we be open-minded?” The move is subtle – consensus is reshaped as premature closure, scepticism as intellectual virtue.

At times, Kennedy goes further, redefining science itself. “Science doesn’t say anything,” he declares. “Science is a dispute.” It is an epistemic manoeuvre with serious consequences. If science is merely an endless argument, then no evidence can ever fully settle the question. Doubt becomes permanent.

To legitimize dissent, Kennedy often relies on moral storytelling rather than rigorous methodology. He invokes Francis Kelsey, the FDA scientist who resisted thalidomide approval, celebrating her because she “questioned science.” The implicit suggestion is clear: today’s dissident may be tomorrow’s hero. But the analogy is misleading. Questioning regulatory negligence is not equivalent to undermining decades of vaccine evidence.

When challenged directly, Kennedy often replaces consensus with competing “alternative” studies, promising that if wrong he will “publicly apologise,” while insisting “there are other studies as well.” Closure is endlessly deferred and the conversation is designed never to end.

The most consequential shift, however, is that Kennedy’s rhetoric has begun to reshape institutions. Lawmakers accused him of destabilising vaccine governance after he dismissed all 17 members of a major advisory committee, calling the move unprecedented and reckless.

The American Public Health Association warned that his record reflects misinformation and poor scientific judgment. The Lancet went further, arguing that his influence could worsen global vaccine hesitancy, citing Samoa’s measles outbreak as a deadly example of mistrust amplified into catastrophe.

Kennedy does not operate alone. Around him exists an ecosystem that portrays him as a persecuted truth-teller. US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s report describes his leadership as a systematic pattern of anti-vaccine disruption. What emerges is not merely individual skepticism, but a movement in which mistrust is foundational and transparency becomes a political weapon.

The deeper question RFK Jr. forces upon public life is not whether vaccines are safe – a matter repeatedly settled by scientific evidence – but whether democratic societies can survive the strategic erosion of shared reality.

Where will RFK Jr.’s voice lead to?

At some point, the story stops being about one man’s claims and becomes about the culture that allows those claims to flourish.

How does doubt become identity? How does questioning become a form of power?

And what happens when the language of science is transformed into a battlefield rather than a method?

In such a world, science stops functioning as a common tool for establishing evidence. Instead, it becomes a rhetorical terrain. Competing actors claim the authority of science, each presenting their own version of it. The result is not clarity but permanent conflict, where the word itself becomes ammunition in the fight over who gets to define reality.

Kennedy began as an environmental crusader. He has become a Public health dissident. He is now something more troubling: a political actor whose influence lies not in solving uncertainty, but in sustaining it.

Perhaps the most urgent question is not what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes. It is what his rhetoric makes possible.

Fatima-Zahra Aklalouch ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a master in the political craft of doubt – a linguist’s take – https://theconversation.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-a-master-in-the-political-craft-of-doubt-a-linguists-take-276454

March 10, 2026

Nigeria’s crypto boom isn’t just about technology – trust plays a role in the local gadget trade with China

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Atta Addo, Senior Lecturer in Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Surrey

On a humid afternoon in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, a young trader in electronics pulls out his phone and opens Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform by trading volume. He’s not monitoring the Bitcoin market or chasing the next crypto craze. He’s paying a supplier in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou for 500 smartphones.

Like numerous other traders at the Lagos Computer Village, he has a Binance digital wallet to store, send and receive cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar (USDT). Within minutes, his payment lands in China. His supplier confirms. The phones will ship tomorrow.

Five years ago, this transaction would have been nearly impossible. The Lagos phone buyer would have had to queue at the nearby commercial bank; fill out forms for foreign exchange; and wait as long as 7-21 days for clearance. On top of that, there was no guarantee of foreign exchange approval being granted. The other alternative was turning to the black markets, which attract exorbitant rates.

Now? Welcome to Nigeria’s quiet cryptocurrency revolution. He taps his screen a few times. Done.

Developing countries are recording high cryptocurrency adoption rates surpassing more advanced economies. Nigeria stands out, with one of the highest rates of crypto adoption globally. But the reasons aren’t clear.

The focus of my scholarly research is digital innovation and entrepreneurship. My co-researcher and I sought to examine cryptocurrency adoption and diffusion and its use for cross-border payments in the Nigerian context. We took a case study approach. Data collection involved two rounds of interviews with retailers from Nigeria, suppliers from China, informal exchangers, crypto brokers, and mediators.

One might think cryptocurrency’s appeal lies in its technology: decentralisation, the fact that it cannot be altered once recorded, all that. But our research found something else. Crypto works in Nigeria because of human networks of trust.

We have evidence to suggest that crypto adoption and diffusion in this context occurs through:

a reinforcing process of technology transformation, adoption and use
a strong coalition of the interests of diverse actors
a dynamic relationship between the technical elements of crypto and contextual political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental influences.

Insights from the study might be useful for addressing adoption challenges and designing inclusive financial systems in similar contexts.

Meet the crypto brokers

Located in the capital of Lagos State, south-western Nigeria, the Computer Village hosts over 5,000 informal micro, small and medium enterprises. It is billed as Africa’s largest market for information and communication technology accessories. This was the focal point of our case study.

We interviewed retailers importing from China, the crypto brokers who help them, Chinese suppliers, and the network of intermediaries who make it all work. What emerged was a sophisticated parallel financial system processing millions monthly, built entirely outside traditional banking. Between July 2023 and June 2024, Nigeria is estimated to have processed US$59 billion in crypto transaction value, up to 85% of it from retail trade.

Here’s how it works in three quick steps lasting less than an hour:

A crypto broker sits in a small office near the market. Retailers call in with the local currency, naira.
The naira is converted into USDT using peer-to-peer exchanges; the stablecoin is sent to contacts in China.
These Chinese traders convert USDT to yuan and pay the supplier directly.

One broker told us:

Retailers don’t need to understand blockchain. That’s my job. They just know their supplier gets paid fast, and they save money.

Crypto brokers charge lower fees than banks or Western Union. But speed matters even more than cost. In Nigeria’s volatile economy, prices can shift overnight. A delayed payment might mean your supplier raises prices or your goods arrive after competitors have restocked. Crypto eliminates that risk.

These brokers didn’t emerge from fintech accelerators or venture capital. Many were young tech-savvy relatives of traders who saw a problem and built a solution. They positioned themselves as indispensable – the only way to get past Nigeria’s restricted financial system and and do global trade.

Brokers guarantee payments personally. If something goes wrong, they cover losses from their own pockets to maintain reputation. One broker told us he absorbed a ₦2 million loss (about US$2,500) when a Chinese intermediary disappeared with funds. Retailers recommend brokers to fellow traders in the tight-knit market community. Chinese crypto traders work only with verified contacts, often through elaborate referral systems.

Cryptocurrency here doesn’t replace human relationships. It’s technology that enables and extends existing trust networks, letting them operate at global scale.

The infrastructure of resilience

The system relies on more than just brokers and goodwill. Stablecoins like USDT solve volatility. Mobile wallets work on basic smartphones. QR codes enable transactions even when internet is patchy. Peer-to-peer exchanges bypass bank restrictions legally. Nigeria’s central bank had banned banks from crypto transactions since 2021 but reversed its decision in 2023, citing global regulatory trends.

When suppliers in China initially refused to accept cryptocurrency, brokers enrolled Chinese crypto traders as intermediaries. These traders buy USDT from Nigerian brokers (often at slight discounts, giving them profit), convert it to yuan, and pay suppliers through conventional Chinese banking. The supplier never touches crypto. They just receive payment.

This is innovation through adaptation. It is not building a perfect system from scratch, but cobbling together solutions from available pieces until something works.

Computer Village itself plays a role. Concentrated markets create information flow. Success stories spread fast. A trader mentions his broker completed a payment in 20 minutes, and suddenly five more retailers want introductions. Physical proximity accelerates network growth in ways digital advertising never could.

What happens when the state pushes back

In 2021, Nigeria’s central bank ordered commercial banks to close accounts dealing with cryptocurrency. The government worried about speculation, money laundering and capital flight. This sounded the death knell for crypto in Nigeria.

Instead, the network adapted. Brokers shifted to peer-to-peer platforms. Over-the-counter exchangers (informal traders who swap crypto for cash) expanded operations. Transaction volumes continued to grow.

What this means for Africa and beyond

Nigeria isn’t alone. Similar patterns appear across developing economies – Kenya, Ghana, Vietnam, India. Wherever formal financial systems strain under inflation, currency controls or institutional weakness, cryptocurrency fills gaps.

This isn’t speculation. Traders are using stablecoins as dollar-equivalent tokens that move faster and cheaper than wire transfers.

It’s also not “banking the unbanked” in the usual sense. Many of these traders have bank accounts. Banks just can’t provide what they need: rapid, affordable, reliable cross-border payments.

For policymakers, the lesson should be humbling. You can’t ban away an innovation that solves real problems. When formal institutions fail to serve economic needs, informal systems emerge. The question is whether governments will learn from these systems or simply fight them.

Mayowa Joy David contributed to the research on which this article is based.

Atta Addo 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. Nigeria’s crypto boom isn’t just about technology – trust plays a role in the local gadget trade with China – https://theconversation.com/nigerias-crypto-boom-isnt-just-about-technology-trust-plays-a-role-in-the-local-gadget-trade-with-china-268319

March 10, 2026

China in Africa: investment and trade work well when there’s strong oversight, and badly when there isn’t

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Vincent Tawiah, Assistant Professor in International Financial Reporting, Dublin City University

China’s economic footprint in Africa has grown fast over the last two decades. Across the continent, Chinese-backed mines, oilfields, railways and industrial zones have gone from being ambitious projects to central pillars of national development plans.

This has been made possible by over US$181 billion in infrastructure loans and about US$50 billion in foreign direct investment.

The China-Africa relationship is often portrayed as one of two things: either a threat to sovereignty or a development opportunity.

But the findings in a recent paper suggest it’s not so simple. Foreign investment becomes harmful only when domestic institutions allow it to be. Some forms of foreign engagement – such as natural resources for loans – may add to environmental pressures. But some strategic investment can support greener development. This is particularly true in infrastructure and productive sectors.

Based on these findings, and my work on economic, governance and environmental implications of Chinese investment and trade in Africa, it’s clear that Chinese engagement offers substantial economic opportunities. But it can also lead to the rapid depletion of vital energy and forest resources, undermining long-term development goals, if institutional “guardrails” are weak.

The results suggest that policymakers must insist on institutional reforms and environmental accountability if they want to achieve sustainable economic growth. Foreign economic activities must contribute to lasting national wealth rather than short-term extraction.

Beyond sustainability

The research looked at how Chinese foreign direct investment and trade influenced resource depletion across 28 African nations from 1998 to 2022.

It found that Chinese foreign direct investment accelerated depletion. This was notable in the energy and forestry sectors of countries with weak institutions.

Investment tended to push extraction beyond sustainable levels when:

environmental standards are unclear
enforcement bodies are underfunded
governance is compromised.

Forests shrank faster, mineral reserves were exploited aggressively and energy resources were depleted with little long-term planning.

The same study also noted that these risks were lower where governance is robust.

It found that foreign investment did not automatically lead to greater resource depletion were countries had stronger institutions, clear regulatory frameworks and credible oversight.

Botswana and Mauritius are examples.

Botswana has successfully averted the “resource curse” – when resource wealth leads to economic stagnation and corruption. It has done this by anchoring its economy in a robust rule of law and transparent institutional oversight. Central to this strategy is the Pula Fund, a sovereign wealth fund established in 1993.

The fund manages the long-term proceeds from the diamond industry by reinvesting them into foreign currency assets. This ensures that non-renewable mineral wealth is converted into sustainable financial capital for future generations.

Similarly, Mauritius uses regulations to ensure industrial investment does not harm the environment.

When oversight was credible, investment was channelled into sustainable, inclusive growth. This preserves national wealth for future generations.

But where governance was weak, the same investment could result in environmental degradation.

The Democratic Republic of Congo illustrated this. It has the world’s largest cobalt reserves. But weak government and persistent conflict have made it difficult to enforce mining codes. Artisanal and industrial mining practices cause severe water pollution and deforestation.

Similarly, Equatorial Guinea has an economy almost entirely dependent on oil. Producing more oil is seen as more important than meeting environmental standards. Transparency and accountability are poor.

The findings suggest that the environmental impact of Chinese involvement is not fixed. It hinges on whether African states have the institutional capacity to manage extraction responsibly.

Trade matters too, but governance still determines outcomes

Over the last two decades, China-Africa trade has rocketed. It shot up from US$10 billion in 2000 to $348 billion in 2025.

China exports high-value manufactured goods like electronics and solar panels. African exports mainly raw materials.

South Africa, the DRC, Nigeria and Angola together account for nearly half of the continent’s total trade volume with China.

The research found that trade with China played a more mixed role than investment.

On its own, trade didn’t appear to cause widespread environmental degradation. But in countries with weak governance, soaring trade demand often reinforced unsustainable practices. The energy sector was a case in point.

Without the referees of strong institutions, the pressure to meet export quotas encouraged intensified, unregulated extraction.

South Sudan and Nigeria illustrate this well. Conflict or corruption compromised oversight. Massive demand for crude oil led to bypassed environmental audits and severe localised pollution.

This creates a resource trap. Angola, for example, values immediate trade revenue over long-term ecological health. This leaves local communities to bear the cost of degraded landscapes and contaminated water.

What African governments can do

Across all forms of economic engagement, one factor shaped the outcome: governance quality.

The findings point towards what’s needed.

Firstly, stronger environmental regulation and enforcement.

Secondly, clear standards, independent oversight bodies and well-resourced regulatory agencies.

Thirdly, environmental safeguards in investment agreements. As part of project approvals, governments can require:

environmental restoration plans
transparent reporting of environmental impacts
community consultation.

Fourth, long-term resource management. Natural resources underpin energy security, biodiversity and future economic growth.

Fifth, transparency and public accountability. Open contracting, environmental disclosures and accessible data empower citizens and civil society to hold governments and investors to account.

Africa’s natural resources will become even more strategically valuable as global demand for minerals, energy and agricultural land continues to rise. Ensuring that this benefits African societies, rather than eroding their ecological foundations, will depend on one central factor: the strength of governance across the continent.

Vincent Tawiah 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. China in Africa: investment and trade work well when there’s strong oversight, and badly when there isn’t – https://theconversation.com/china-in-africa-investment-and-trade-work-well-when-theres-strong-oversight-and-badly-when-there-isnt-273815