Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kerry Howell, Professor of Deep Sea Ecology, Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Somewhere in the North Atlantic, more than a kilometre beneath its surface, a cold-water coral reef stretches across an unnamed seamount. Despite never appearing on a chart, this underwater forest has existed for centuries, growing a centimetre or two each year.

The reef is a home and feeding ground for dozens of species that depend on it the way a woodland creature depends on trees. It has survived ice ages – but whether it will survive increasing pressures from industrial fishing, deep-sea mining and climate change is, in part, a question about data. If we don’t know it exists, how can we protect it?

A new project called Deep Vision could fundamentally transform our understanding of the deep ocean by digging into pictures and videos sat largely unexamined in research archives around the world. By using AI, thousands of hours of seafloor footage can be analysed to produce the first comprehensive maps of vulnerable marine ecosystems across the entire Atlantic basin.

Over the past two decades, robotic and autonomous underwater vehicles have collected vast quantities of footage from the deep sea. This represents an extraordinary resource – a record of ecosystems that most humans will never see.

The difficulty is that less than half of this imagery has ever been analysed. A single dive can take a trained human analyst two months to process. Multiply that by thousands of dives and you begin to appreciate why this treasure trove of information has remained largely locked away.

The solution, I am convinced, is artificial intelligence.

In research published in 2022, my colleagues and I showed that AI could be trained to successfully analyse over 58,000 deep-sea images in under ten days. The AI model helped us map the distribution of a fragile xenophyophore – a giant single-celled organism that is a recognised indicator of vulnerable marine ecosystems – at a depth of 1,200 metres in the north-east Atlantic. What would have taken a human analyst many months was accomplished in days.

AI also provides consistency. Human analysts, however expert, do not always agree with one another. Indeed, they do not always agree with themselves: a researcher identifying marine species may classify specimens differently at different times. A machine makes errors but it makes them consistently, which means these errors can be identified, corrected and accounted for.

Forests of the deep

Deep Vision is focusing specifically on what we call vulnerable marine ecosystem indicator taxa, such as deep-sea corals and sponges.

These are the organisms I think of as the forests of the deep. In an environment where there are no plants to provide habitats, these animals fulfil this role. They are keystone organisms in the most literal sense: remove them and the ecosystem collapses.

Once AI has extracted biodiversity observations from the imagery, the next stage is to build habitat-suitability models – predictive maps that extend our understanding beyond the specific locations where cameras have surveyed.

Our research shows that high-resolution habitat suitability models are a useful tool in spatial management, capable of informing decisions about where marine-protected areas should be located. However, the quality of the underlying seafloor data remains critical to how well they perform.

As a marine biologist, I sometimes get asked why people should care about a sponge living two kilometres beneath the surface of the Atlantic. It is a fair question, and the answer is more immediate than most people expect. These animals recycle essential nutrients and play a key role in the carbon cycle, and that effects us all.

The ocean is the engine room of a planetary life-support system, and effective management of it relies on having the best possible understanding of the species and ecosystems within it.

If this project succeeds in the Atlantic, the methods could be replicated in other ocean basins. The Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean all present the same challenges of insufficient data and vast unexplored territory.

Kerry Howell receives funding from the Bezos Earth Fund’s AI for Climate and Nature Grand Challenge.

– ref. How AI could unlock deep-sea secrets of marine life – https://theconversation.com/how-ai-could-unlock-deep-sea-secrets-of-marine-life-276717

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Udisha Saklani, Lecturer, King’s College London

When wind turbines rise above a Welsh hillside, who should benefit financially? Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth believes it should be local communities.

In a recent speech, the leader of the party that is currently heading the polls for the upcoming Welsh election said he would require renewable energy projects over 10 megawatts to offer communities 15%-to-25% ownership stakes, or other benefits.

Ap Iorwerth also said if his party won the upcoming election, they would create a national energy body to develop renewables at scale, with the aim of keeping more profits in Wales and advancing a “just green transition”.

The proposal responds to a familiar grievance: that Welsh natural resources generate wealth which leaves the region, while local communities live with the infrastructure and gain little in return.

Yet the details of how this would work remain unclear. Who buys the shares? Who can afford them? And how do financial returns translate into wider community benefit?

There are lessons for Plaid from how similar initiative work elsewhere. Several countries already use financial participation schemes that allow communities to invest in local renewable energy projects. In Denmark, for instance, developers must offer at least 20% ownership of new wind projects to nearby residents.

Nepal has adopted a related model for hydropower projects. People living in nearby areas are typically offered shares in a new project. Like any equity investment, these shares can generate dividends once the power plant becomes operational and profitable. In practice, payouts often arrive several years after construction begins and returns vary widely across projects.

In my recent research on the huge Arun III hydropower project in Nepal, I explored how opening up shares to local people contributed to shifting local debates around a once highly contested scheme.

From protest to negotiation

The project to build a 70m high, 466m wide concrete gravity dam across the Arun river stalled in the 1990s after intense opposition to what critics saw as externally imposed, foreign-led development. Decades later, developers offered around 1.6 billion Nepalese rupees (£9 million) in shares to local communities.

Based on interviews with civil servants, project developers and residents, I found this changed the political conversation. Opposition did not disappear, but debates shifted from outright rejection to negotiation over how water, land and energy should generate long-term local benefit.

Shareholding changed how communities engaged with the project. Residents invoked their status as shareholders when seeking roads, schools and improved compensation. Ownership did not eliminate disputes, but it shifted expectations about accountability.

Wales faces lower stakes. Resistance to onshore renewables often centres on fairness and profits not being shared. Community ownership can help address this – if it is meaningful rather than symbolic.

The percentage is less important than the design, according to my research. Nepal mandates around 8%-to-10% local shareholding in large hydropower projects, and the policy has proven immensely popular. Across 17 listed schemes, it raised more than US$10 million (£7.4 million) and was oversubscribed many times over.

Yet strong demand masked deeper inequalities. In 2019, a review by the International Finance Corporation, a global development institution that is part of the World Bank Group, found some households borrowed at interest rates of 18%-to-20% from microfinance institutions (and even higher from informal lenders), or sold livestock and jewellery to buy shares.

Dividends typically arrived three-to-five years after construction began. So, share ownership came down to who could afford to participate and wait for dividends.

For Wales, the key question is how participation is structured. Will shares be affordable? Will returns flow to individuals, collective funds or both? Will vulnerable households be protected from financial risk?

Wales starts from a stronger position than Nepal did. Nearly 60 community energy groups already operate successfully through the not-for-profit Community Energy Wales, with elected boards, annual general meetings and transparent reporting as standard practice. Platforms such as Ethex, an ethical investment platform that lists share offers, allow relatively low-cost entry.

Plaid’s proposal would extend these principles beyond small, voluntary schemes into commercially developed renewable energy projects, embedding community ownership within more formal policy.

Ownership changes expectations

The most important lesson from Nepal is not that local shareholding gives communities control over infrastructure projects – it usually does not. Rather, it can reshape expectations about how communities relate to these projects.

In interviews for my research on Arun III, residents described how share offers changed the tone of the debate. Some referred to their status as shareholders when raising concerns about project benefits, timelines or local infrastructure.

Individual holdings were small and did not confer formal decision-making power. But they changed how residents justified requests for local benefits and accountability.

Debate over renewable energy projects often peaks during the planning stage, when communities can object before decisions are finalised. Once approval is granted, local influence typically narrows to compensation or community benefit arrangements.

Financial participation schemes aim to extend engagement by linking communities to a project’s economic outcomes. Research shows that public acceptance of renewable energy projects depends strongly on how they are designed – and in particular, whether communities have influence over decisions and share in the financial benefits.

But expectations must be managed, and local trust is important. In Nepal, dividend payments were often delayed for several years. Early enthusiasm faded when returns did not materialise as expected. Ownership works only when expectations are realistic and governance is clear.

Why look to Nepal from Wales?

These projects differ in scale, governance and impact. Yet all involve resource-rich regions grappling with energy security, economic transition and questions of distributive justice.

Infrastructure projects are rarely simply accepted or rejected. In practice, they are worked through and contested over time. Community ownership can move debates beyond simple for-or-against positions – but only when schemes are carefully designed and inclusive.

The challenge for Plaid is not only to set a bold ownership plan, but to define how it will work. If done well, community ownership could anchor renewable expansion in local belief and acceptance. If done poorly, it risks undermining public trust.

Udisha Saklani received funding from the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under grant number ES/P011373/1, as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund. She also acknowledges support from the Margaret Anstee Studentship awarded by Newnham College, University of Cambridge.

– ref. Plaid Cymru plans to share wind farm profits with local people – here’s how that idea has been tried elsewhere – https://theconversation.com/plaid-cymru-plans-to-share-wind-farm-profits-with-local-people-heres-how-that-idea-has-been-tried-elsewhere-277546

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Washington, Professor of Climate Science, University of Oxford

When Saharan dust reaches the UK and Europe, as a huge country-sized cloud did over the past few days, it can transform the sky. Tiny particles drifting in the atmosphere scatter blue light while allowing reds and oranges to reach us intact, producing beautiful sunsets.

But these striking displays are also a reminder of how connected the Earth is. Dust drifting over my head in England may have rested on the dry surface of the Sahara for thousands of years, before a burst of wind lifted it into the atmosphere and carried it thousands of kilometres north.

In spring, the massive temperature difference between the already-hot Sahara and still-snow-covered mountains in Europe can generate powerful low-pressure systems that sweep dust northwards.

But these familiar weather systems are not actually responsible for most Saharan dust. Instead, much of it is produced by a special kind of desert thunderstorm – a process that climate models struggle to simulate.

When faced with the question of how dust outbreaks will change as the climate warms, simulations from the latest generation of climate models suggest Saharan dust emissions could increase by up to 13% by the end of the century. If winds blow in the right direction, that could mean more dust reaching Europe.

However, the real story of how Saharan dust is generated is more complicated – and much more interesting.

Hunting the world’s biggest dust source

Some 20 years ago, colleagues and I travelled to one of the most remote places in the Sahara: the Bodélé Depression in Chad. A satellite that was intended to measure ozone also, by accident, seemed capable of measuring dust – and suggested this basin might be the world’s single biggest source of airborne dust.

At that time, there were no direct meteorological measurements – so we installed instruments across the desert to measure winds and atmospheric conditions. We discovered an astonishing wind concentrated between the Tibesti and Ennedi mountains, which we called the Bodélé low-level jet.

Near the Earth’s surface, the wind there regularly exceeded 16 metres per second – a “moderate gale” in the Beaufort wind scale, easily strong enough to lift vast quantities of fine sediment into the atmosphere.

These winds explain why Bodélé is such a big dust source. There are many such low-level jets across the Sahara, but none as grand as this one.

Nowadays, climate models can simulate these jets. While they typically underestimate their strength, these are tolerable errors – the model at least simulates the mechanism that makes the dust.

However, in the early 2010s, when we turned our attention to summer dust storms elsewhere in the Sahara, the story became far more surprising.

The hidden storms that raise most Saharan dust

During summer, the largest sources of dust shift westwards to countries like Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania. To understand what drives these emissions, we deployed around 30 tonnes of meteorological equipment across the region, with the assistance of the Algerian meteorological service.

This produced some enthralling results – most notably: around 80% of Saharan dust emissions in summer are produced by thunderstorms.

These are special thunderstorms. Because the Saharan air is so dry, clouds often sit more than five kilometres above the surface. Rain falling from these storms usually evaporates long before it reaches the ground.

The evaporation cools the surrounding air, which becomes dense and plunges downwards, spreading out rapidly when it hits the surface. As it spreads across the desert floor, this wall of wind scrapes up huge quantities of dust.

Using satellites, we tracked more than 1,500 of these events. Many travel hundreds of kilometres across the desert, mostly at night, raising huge plumes of dust. In fact, these “dry thunderstorms” appear to be responsible for the vast majority of Saharan dust produced during summer.

The modelling problem

This discovery creates a problem for climate predictions.

The global climate models used to estimate future dust levels are very powerful. But they do not zoom in enough to simulate individual thunderstorms, or the pools of cold air they produce. In other words, the models that suggest Saharan dust emissions could increase by 13% do not simulate the processes that are responsible for most Saharan dust in the first place.

Instead, they are typically tuned to match dust concentrations measured by sparse monitoring networks far from the sources of the dust. This means we cannot rely on these particular tools.

There is hope, though. A new generation of very high resolution “convection-permitting” climate models do simulate thunderstorms and will, given time, provide us with better estimates of the future.

Climate change could also influence the storms themselves. A warming Mediterranean may pull the West African Monsoon further north into the Sahara, for instance, potentially creating more favourable conditions for dust-producing thunderstorms.

Exactly how this will play out remains an open question. For now, Saharan sunsets in Europe are a reminder that the atmosphere around us is linked to distant deserts – and that some of the most important processes linking the two are still being uncovered.

Richard Washington receives funding from NERC and FCDO.

– ref. Most Saharan dust is generated by ‘hidden thunderstorms’ high above the desert – https://theconversation.com/most-saharan-dust-is-generated-by-hidden-thunderstorms-high-above-the-desert-277778

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

While driving recently, a long-forgotten song came on the radio. I found myself singing along; not only did I know all the lyrics to a song I hadn’t heard in 25 years or more, but I also managed to rap along. How is it that I could give this rendition, but often cannot remember what I came into the room for?

It is tempting to treat these moments as evidence of cognitive decline. A quiet, creeping sense that something is slipping. But the contrast between flawlessly (it was) performing a decades-old song and forgetting a just-formed intention is not a sign that memory is failing. It is a demonstration of how memory works.

We tend to talk about “memory” as if it were a single thing. It isn’t.

Remembering song lyrics relies on long-term memory – networks distributed across the brain that store information consolidated over years. These include language areas in the temporal lobes, auditory cortex, motor regions involved in speech production, and emotional circuits of the brain that help tag experiences as meaningful.

Music is neurologically extravagant: it recruits multiple systems at once – rhythm, language, movement and emotion. That multiplicity strengthens encoding.

Each time you repeated those lyrics – in your bedroom, in a car, at a party – you reinforced the synaptic connections involved. Over time, the pathway becomes efficient and stable. Retrieval becomes almost automatic.

By contrast, remembering why you walked into the kitchen relies on working memory – the brain’s temporary holding space. Working memory is fragile. It can hold only a small amount of information for a short period, and it is highly sensitive to distraction. A single competing thought is enough to overwrite it.

Psychologists have described what is sometimes called the “doorway effect”. When you move from one physical space to another, the brain updates context. It segments experience into discrete episodes.

The intention formed in the previous room – “get my glasses”, “find my charger” – was encoded in that earlier context. Crossing a threshold can weaken the retrieval cue. The task disappears.

This isn’t inefficiency, it’s organisational strategy. Our brains evolved to structure experience into meaningful chunks. That segmentation supports long-term memory formation – even if it occasionally leaves us standing in the hallway, perplexed.

Why music survives

Music benefits from structure. Rhyme and rhythm create predictable patterns. Predictability supports recall because the brain is constantly anticipating what comes next.

Brain imaging studies show that musical memory activates widespread cortical and subcortical regions. Strikingly, even in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, musical memory can remain relatively preserved long after other forms of recall deteriorate.

The fact that you can still deliver a flawless rap verse decades later tells us something important: memory strength is less about age and more about depth of encoding. A lyric repeated hundreds of times in adolescence may be neurologically “stronger” than a single fleeting intention formed five seconds ago.

Processing speed does tend to slow modestly with age. Working memory becomes more vulnerable to interference. Multitasking grows harder. But long-term knowledge – vocabulary, expertise, well-rehearsed information – is often maintained or even enhanced.

What feels like memory loss is frequently attentional overload. Modern environments are saturated with interruptions: notifications, internal thoughts, competing demands. Working memory was never designed to withstand this level of interference.

How to reduce ‘roomnesia’

The issue is not that your brain can no longer store information, it’s that it is selective about what it stabilises. Small adjustments can reduce those frustrating “roomnesia” moments.

One of the simplest is to say the task out loud before you move. Verbalising an intention – “I’m going upstairs to get my charger” – strengthens its encoding by engaging additional language networks.

Another approach is brief visualisation. Taking a second to picture the object you are about to retrieve creates a richer mental trace than a vague intention alone.

Even carrying a physical cue can help: picking up an empty mug before heading to the kitchen anchors the purpose of the journey in something tangible. These strategies work because they reinforce the intention before a change in context disrupts it, making the memory less vulnerable to interference.

If you can still perform a 1990s rap in full but occasionally forget why you walked upstairs, your brain is not betraying you. It is prioritising deeply rehearsed, emotionally tagged information over transient intentions. In other words, it is doing exactly what it was built to do.

Michelle Spear 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 you can remember every word of a song from 25 years ago – but not why you walked into the room – https://theconversation.com/why-you-can-remember-every-word-of-a-song-from-25-years-ago-but-not-why-you-walked-into-the-room-277330

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Georgia Cole, Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh

The UK’s asylum system is being overhauled. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has laid out a series of reforms that will affect refugees seeking safety in Britain. Mahmood argues that these changes – which include removing financial and housing support for asylum seekers who break the law, and offering incentive payments for asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected to return home – will remove “incentives” drawing people to Britain. She says they are necessary as part of a “firm but fair approach” to asylum.

One of the headline announcements is to make refugee status temporary, subject to review every 30 months. “Those whose country has now become safe, and therefore no longer require protection, will be expected to return home,” according to the home secretary.

Under the current rules, asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status are permitted to stay for five years, after which they can apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Mahmood claims that “this means refugee status is, in effect, permanent from day one”.

But this is not true. Refugee status was always intended to be temporary. Most refugees have never wanted to be refugees forever, and states have never been expected to host them indefinitely.

Since the creation of the UN refugee convention, states have had the right to end refugee status. The convention itself, as the home secretary even noted, says that its protections no longer apply if “the circumstances in [connection] with which [someone] has been recognised as a refugee have ceased to exist”.

If someone is no longer in need of international protection, they must either return to their country of origin or find another legal way to stay where they are. The UN refugee agency has always been clear though that the onus of proving this falls on states. Refugees should neither be required to continuously justify their right to international protection nor “be subject to constant review in the light of temporary changes” in the country that they came from. This puts the UK government’s position at odds with a key principle designed to protect refugees, by requiring them to apply for further permission to stay.

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Read more:
What Labour’s migration reforms mean for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers

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Technically, the UK government already had the right to remove refugee status and, if individuals had no other legal claim to stay in the UK, send people back to countries it deemed “safe”. For several reasons, however, this has been difficult to implement in practice.

To end a person’s refugee status, states must prove that a refugee is no longer at risk of persecution, and that if they must return to their country of origin, they will not face a threat to their life and fundamental liberties. States must hence demonstrate that there has been a “fundamental, stable and durable” change in the country of origin. This should be related to the specific reason for the refugee’s asylum claim.

Looking at major recent refugee-producing countries, such as Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan, conflict and violence still rage. It seems implausible that any government would be able to prove that significant numbers of citizens from these countries no longer have valid claims to protection.

Denmark – the country whose asylum system has inspired Mahmood – has been attempting to reject Syrians’ applications to renew their refugee status, on the grounds that parts of Syria are safe for them to return to. These efforts have been criticised by international groups including the UN refugee agency, and are so far only applicable to a small number of people.

Determining safety

Refugees can become pawns in domestic and international politics, regardless of their ongoing need for protection.

Who, for example, gets to decide what is an acceptable standard of human rights? Or whether a change is actually “fundamental, stable and durable”? Countries of asylum have pushed to end refugees’ statuses to reduce their responsibilities to host them. This appears to be Mahmood’s plan.

Countries of origin can also manipulate this process. They have pushed for refugees to be returned to them, in order to silence legitimate political opposition in exile, and in the hope of restoring their images as peaceful countries. This happened during the protracted application of the cessation clause to Rwandan refugees, leaving many in a vulnerable position.

Practically too, in stating that the status of refugees will be reviewed every 30 months, Mahmood is introducing another costly and time-intensive bureaucratic process when the asylum system is already chronically backlogged. The government has already trialled using artificial intelligence in asylum decision making, so it’s possible that this is on the horizon here. But this comes with its own risks to due process, fairness and privacy.

I would argue that the government is dressing up a legal option that they have always had as a “new policy”, while downplaying the safeguards that have prevented them from turning this option into reality.

It is unlikely that this reform will make the asylum process either more efficient or humane, or that it was ever intended to do so. Mahmood insists that it will make the system “fair … to those seeking a new and better future in this country” – but requiring refugees to relive and defend their trauma every two and a half years will only heighten the suspicious, hostile and punitive nature of the asylum system.

Georgia Cole 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. Shabana Mahmood is wrong: refugee status was never ‘permanent from day one’ – https://theconversation.com/shabana-mahmood-is-wrong-refugee-status-was-never-permanent-from-day-one-277662

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ben Rider-Stokes, Post Doctoral Researcher in Achondrite Meteorites, The Open University

Asteroids are some of the oldest objects in the Solar System: leftovers from the chaotic time when planets were assembling from dust and rock. They’re time capsules, preserving clues about what the early Solar System was like, and, ultimately, what the building blocks of planets are.

Knowing what an asteroid is made of also matters for very practical reasons. If an asteroid were ever on a collision course with Earth, its composition would affect how dangerous it is, how it breaks up in the atmosphere, and how we might successfully nudge it away. This area of research is called planetary defence.

Understanding the make-up of asteroids also matters for the future of exploration: some asteroids may contain metals, minerals, and even water – potentially useful resources. But how can we tell what asteroids are made of when most of them are millions of kilometres away?

Asteroid ‘fingerprints’

One of the most powerful techniques is spectroscopy, the science of splitting light into components and measuring what wavelengths are absorbed or reflected. Minerals interact with light in characteristic ways, leaving subtle dips and slopes in a spectrum. In effect, an asteroid’s surface leaves behind a chemical fingerprint in sunlight.

These fingerprints let us place asteroids into broad families. One of the most common groups near Earth is the S-complex, a class of relatively reflective asteroids often associated with silicate minerals such as olivine and pyroxene. For decades, researchers suspected that S-complex asteroids were linked to a particular category of meteorites that frequently fall to Earth: the ordinary chondrites.

A phenomenal example of how well this can work came from Japan’s sample-return mission Hayabusa, which visited the near-Earth asteroid (25143) Itokawa. Hayabusa reached the asteroid in September 2005. From its reflected light, Itokawa was inferred to be an S-complex asteroid, and spectroscopic comparisons suggested it should resemble ordinary chondrites, particularly the LL subgroup.

Hayabusa returned tiny grains of asteroid regolith to Earth, and laboratory analyses showed the mineralogy and mineral chemistry were identical to LL chondrites. In other words, the remote spectral prediction matched the physical reality of the samples.

Then Dart arrived — and raised the stakes. In September 2022, Nasa deliberately slammed a spacecraft into the small moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits the larger asteroid Didymos, in the Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission.

The goal wasn’t to destroy the asteroid; it was to test whether a kinetic impact could measurably change its orbit. Didymos has been observed extensively with spectroscopy and is classified as an S-complex and inferred to have a LL chondrite composition.

But is there a possibility we could we be misreading the make up of some space rocks? A 2026 paper argues that another meteorite group, brachinites, can show spectral properties that overlap with S-complex asteroids. One sample (NWA 14635) even shows spectroscopic band parameters similar to Didymos.

This is a big deal, because it means there may not be a neat one-to-one mapping between asteroid types and meteorite types. Asteroids are the left over building blocks of planets in our Solar System, often termed “space rocks”. Meteorites are space rocks that have survived the journey through a planet’s atmosphere, reaching the surface.

For planetary defence, this distinction matters. A chondritic “rubble pile”, composed of loosely bound rocks, and a more strongly processed, coherent igneous body (which would cover the brachinites) might respond differently when hit.

An ordinary chondrite-like surface might absorb energy like a “cosmic beanbag”, while a more magmatic surface might behave more like brittle rock. If we want to predict what happens when we try to deflect an asteroid, we need to know what its surface resembles.

This is exactly why the European Space Agency’s Hera mission is so exciting. Hera isn’t repeating Dart; it’s doing the follow-up crime scene investigation. Hera launched in October 2024 and is now on its way to the Didymos system, with arrival planned for late 2026. Once there, it will map both asteroids in detail.

Hera also comes with two small satellites known as cubesats: Juventas and Milani. Milani will help study the surface composition. This will give insights into not just what Dimorphos looks like from a distance, but what it’s made of, how it’s structured, and how it responded to Dart’s impact.

In the context of the new brachinite result, Hera’s role becomes even more important. If Didymos and Dimorphos turn out to be less “ordinary chondrite-like” than we assumed, or if their surfaces disguise a more complex origin, Hera is the mission that can test that assumption directly. It’s a reminder that asteroids still have the power to surprise us.

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

– ref. How do we know what asteroids are made out of? – https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-know-what-asteroids-are-made-out-of-275244

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Benjamin Quail, Lecturer in US Cultural and Social History, Queen’s University Belfast

The Anglo-American “special relationship” has hit a low ebb following American strikes on Iran. US president Donald Trump disparaged British prime minister Keir Starmer with a negative comparison to Winston Churchill, making clear his “disappointment” over British reticence to offer logistical support to the American military.

This is the latest in a series of comments Trump has made about Starmer’s authority on foreign policy concerns – particularly the British return of Diego Garcia to Mauritius.

For his part, Starmer has publicly broken from the president on the matter of Greenland, offering “strong support” to Denmark in response to US threats to take over the territory. In January, when Trump disparaged British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Starmer called the remarks “appalling.”. Despite Trump’s attempts on Truth Social to smooth the matter over following a “stern” call from Starmer, one controversial exchange has bled into the next. Trump is understood to be very unhappy that the UK won’t join strikes on Iran. Starmer has stood by his decision and insists it is his duty to decide what action is in “Britain’s national interest,”.

This breakdown in relations between the two heads of state is remarkable – but it is not unprecedented. Britain’s refusal to follow America into a foreign conflict has inflamed tensions before. President Lyndon B Johnson and prime minister Harold Wilson endured a breakdown in the 1960s over Vietnam. The way Wilson handled this situation should be Starmer’s guiding light has he charts his own course on Iran.

Vietnam

The UK did not publicly participate in the Vietnam war. At the time it was searching for a way to join the European single market against French wishes and extricate itself from its military bases in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia. Wilson was seeking to move away from costly military commitments abroad.

Publicly, Wilson pushed for an end to the war, meeting with the Soviet Union’s Alexei Kosygin to try and move negotiations forward. He backed Johnson when the US agreed to what Wilson called “unconditional negotiations” with North Vietnam in 1966. Behind closed doors, Wilson reiterated his private support for Johnson regularly. He also met with the president to justify British reticence to join the war on several occasions, using trips to Washington as a way of trying to bolster the public image of a strong affiliation.

However, the Wilson and Johnson governments clashed over a number of concerns. Johnson faced criticism in Britain for failing to attend the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965. LBJ was allegedly so infuriated by the lack of British troop commitment to the war that he called Wilson a “little creep” behind closed doors. The Americans also lamented the weakness of the British pound, as Wilson had it devalued by 14.3% in 1967. This threatened the stability of the US dollar and other western currencies.

The White House began to see Britain as a much less valuable – or stable – ally in the ongoing cold war. The British in return felt pushed to acquiesce to American pressure, while also relying on American support on issues such as Rhodesia, which unilaterally declared independence from the UK in 1965.

With this change in attitude, Johnson turned to other allies for public support. The then Australian prime minister, Harold Holt, went “all the way with LBJ,” joining other Pacific allies in sending troops to fight alongside Americans. Johnson lavished support on them, granting Australia its first state visit by a sitting US president in late 1966.

Conversely, he never visited Britain once. Johnson’s antipathy towards the UK is perhaps best summed up by an act of political disrespect towards Wilson in 1965, when he had the White House band play “Plenty of Nuttin’” at a diplomatic dinner following economic talks – a sarcastic rejoinder for Wilson’s lack of what he deemed proper support.

A third way

Ultimately, the “special relationship” cooled significantly during the Johnson-Wilson era. But despite the sometimes-wretched relations between the two leaders, the connection between the two countries in terms of intelligence sharing, training and support on other matters remained intact. Wilson saw the value of American support, travelling to the United States several times during the 1960s despite criticism from anti-war campaigners and from some in parliament. Wilson’s conciliatory approach is mirrored by Starmer’s attempts to carve a third way over the first year of Trump’s government. Starmer was heavily criticised for inviting Trump to carry out a second state visit – the first US president to receive a return invite.

The situation has changed since then, and the Iran strikes have indeed put pressure on the US-UK relationship. But there is precedent for resistance to American pressure in the Wilson-Johnson relationship. The effects were stark – it was not until Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were in charge that the relationship truly felt “special” once again – but it endured and thrived again despite what had been a severe clash in personalities.

Trump’s climbdown over the criticisms he made of Nato troops in January shows that the United States still values its British ally to some extent. The prime minister should remember that the relationship will endure long after the current occupants of both the White House and 10 Downing Street leave their respective offices.

Benjamin Quail has received funding from the US-UK Fulbright Commission.

– ref. What Keir Starmer can learn from ‘little creep’ Harold Wilson in dealing with an angry US president – https://theconversation.com/what-keir-starmer-can-learn-from-little-creep-harold-wilson-in-dealing-with-an-angry-us-president-277695

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joanna Syrda, Assistant Professor in Business Economics, University of Bath

Couples often disagree about who does more housework. Part of that disagreement reflects real differences in behaviour. But part of it is perception: what each person notices, remembers and counts as “work”.

That same problem turns out to influence the research that feeds headlines about gender equality at home. Many household surveys ask just one person to report how much housework both partners do. My research shows that this seemingly minor design choice – whether the husband or the wife in a heterosexual couple answers – can fundamentally change what the data appears to say about money, gender and chores.

For decades, researchers have tried to understand how couples divide housework when both partners earn money. Two broad explanations dominate the debate.

One focuses on economics. Exchange and bargaining theories predict that the higher earner does less unpaid work at home, because their time has a higher opportunity cost and more negotiating power. From this perspective, as women’s earnings rise, their share of housework should fall, while men’s should rise.

The other explanation emphasises gender norms. Sociologists have argued that when couples depart from the traditional male-breadwinner model – especially when wives earn more than their husbands – they may “do gender” at home to compensate. In this view, women may end up doing more housework, and men less, to symbolically reassert traditional roles.

The evidence has been mixed. Some studies support bargaining. Others find patterns consistent with “doing gender”. One reason for this discrepancy may lie not in how couples behave, but in how their behaviour is measured.

To explore this, I analysed 24 years of data (1999-2023) from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics – a nationally representative longitudinal survey of US families run by the University of Michigan and funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

I focused on married, dual-earner heterosexual couples, the group most often studied in research on housework and income. The survey repeatedly interviews households and asks how many hours per week each spouse spends cooking, cleaning and doing other work around the house.

In each wave, one person answers on behalf of the household. Sometimes it is the wife, sometimes the husband. This creates a valuable opportunity. Because the survey follows the same couples for years, we can compare households to themselves and ask a simple question: what changes when the respondent changes?

Who answers changes the story

Previous research has long shown that husbands and wives report housework differently, and the same pattern appears in my research. When husbands answer surveys, they tend to report a more equal division of labour than wives do, crediting themselves with a larger share of household work and reporting slightly fewer hours for their partners. Even before income enters the picture, who answers the survey shapes what “sharing the load” appears to look like.

The more revealing differences emerge once income is taken into account. When wives are the respondents, the relationship between earnings and housework looks like economic bargaining: as wives’ share of household income rises, they report doing less housework and their husbands doing more, in a largely linear way.

When husbands are the respondents, the same households tell a different story. Their reports show a non-linear pattern: husbands report increasing their own housework as their wives’ earnings approach parity. They then report doing less once wives earn more than they do, while reporting higher housework hours for their wives. This pattern is consistent with what sociologists call gender deviance neutralisation, where departures from the male-breadwinner norm are symbolically offset at home.

The crucial point is not that one theory is right and the other wrong. It is that the same couples can appear to support competing explanations depending on who answers the survey.

The results do not reveal the “true” number of hours someone spent cleaning in a given week. Instead, they reveal something more fundamental about the evidence base: reported housework is filtered through gendered perceptions and self-presentation, especially in situations that challenge traditional expectations, such as near equal or reversed earnings.

Housework is not just a set of tasks. It is a socially loaded activity tied to ideas about fairness, competence and identity. When people report on it, they are likely not just simply recalling time, they are also telling a story about how their household works.

Housework statistics are widely used to judge whether societies are becoming more equal, and to evaluate policies affecting dual-earner families. If researchers pool responses without treating respondent identity as central, they risk averaging away meaningful differences and drawing muted – or misleading – conclusions.

In the end, the question is not only who does the chores. It is also who gets to describe them – and how much our conclusions depend on that storyteller.

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

– ref. How big is the housework gender gap? It depends if the husband or wife answers the question – https://theconversation.com/how-big-is-the-housework-gender-gap-it-depends-if-the-husband-or-wife-answers-the-question-274448

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sanam Mahoozi, Research Associate, City St George’s, University of London

From brutal crackdowns on nationwide protests in January, to Israel and the United States’ recent strikes, Iran has been in the international spotlight for weeks. Reporting on Iran is challenging, both from inside the country and from outside. During periods of unrest and political turmoil, it becomes even harder and more restrictive.

Iran’s media landscape is divided between outlets closely affiliated with the state and those considered reformist. State-aligned outlets include organisations such as Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Tasnim, Fars News and Mehr News.

These conservative outlets often promote narratives that support Iran’s ruling clerical establishment. Their coverage frequently aligns with the views of hardline leaders such as the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial strikes on February 28. Other state-affiliated outlets, including Mizan, which is linked to Iran’s judiciary, similarly publish coverage that portrays the Islamic Republic as the victim of foreign aggression in the current conflict.

There is also a smaller group of reformist publications, such as Shargh Daily, Ham-Mihan and Donya-e-Eqtesad, which tend to offer more analytical and critical coverage of political and economic issues in the country.

But reformist papers operate under constant pressure. During the height of the protests in early January, Iranian authorities imposed a severe internet shutdown and communications blackout. Many domestic news outlets became inaccessible online. A small number of hardline outlets, such as Fars and Tasnim, continued to distribute information through Telegram channels.

For more than two weeks, much of the information emerging from Iran downplayed the scale of the government’s crackdown on protesters. Instead, official narratives emphasised alleged foreign interference, blaming the unrest on the US and Israel.

Reformist outlets that challenge this narrative often face retaliation. Journalists are frequently arrested and newspapers are suspended or closed. The authorities shut down Ham-Mihan in January 2026 after its editor-in-chief published an opinion piece reflecting on the current political unrest and the 1979 revolution that ended the monarchy.

These restrictions mean that state-aligned media outlets often dominate the narrative out of Iran, shaping how events inside the country are presented to the outside world.

Challenges for international media

International media organisations face a different but equally complex set of obstacles. Foreign journalists have a limited presence inside Iran, largely because of the risks involved.

Several reporters working for major outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have been detained by Iranian authorities in the past, creating a climate of caution among international news organisations.

As a result, only a small number of outlets maintain reporters in the country. Organisations such as the Financial Times and Al Jazeera have limited representation on the ground, while many others operate regional bureaus in Turkey or the United Arab Emirates. Agencies such as Reuters, Bloomberg, CNN and CNBC often rely on these regional hubs, while others report on Iran from Europe or North America.

Even from outside, gathering reliable information remains difficult. Many sources inside Iran are afraid to speak with foreign media, as authorities routinely intimidate or arrest individuals who communicate with international journalists. Government officials are also reluctant to speak with foreign reporters.

Internet shutdowns during protests and wartime further complicate reporting. With communications frequently restricted, journalists must rely on information from human rights organisations, activist networks and official social media accounts.

Diaspora media organisations, which operate outside Iran but broadcast and publish in Persian, play a crucial role in filling some of the gaps in information. These outlets reach audiences both inside and outside the country. Examples include Iran International, BBC Persian, IranWire, Manoto and Voice of America. Though Voice of America was defunded and taken down by the Trump administration, its Persian-speaking news is still operating and providing news from the US to the public. However, it has been accused by some of its staffers of censoring coverage of Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, who has emerged as the leading opposition figure during the latest uprising.

Pahlavi frequently appears on other disapora outlets, which provide a platform for opposition voices that rarely appear in Iran’s domestic media unless to be discredited.

Because they maintain extensive networks of sources inside Iran, diaspora outlets are often among the first to receive videos, images and eyewitness accounts of protests or military activity. After verification, this material is frequently used by international media organisations such as The New York Times, CNN and BBC World.

They also report more on the nuances that may be less obvious to foreign journalists, such as how Iranians feel about the war or the death of the supreme leader. While international outlets focused on those mourning the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the reality is that many ordinary Iranians were celebrating.

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Read more:
Mourning, celebration and a divided legacy: why the death of Ali Khamenei reverberates far beyond Iran

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Whether working for reformist newspapers inside Iran, international news organisations abroad or diaspora media outlets, journalists covering the country face extraordinary pressures. Many are subjected to hacking attempts, online harassment and, in some cases, physical threats. The work is emotionally demanding, particularly for Iranian journalists who are reporting on events impacting their own country, communities and families.

Sanam Mahoozi is a freelance Iran reporter for the New York Times

– ref. Iran’s divided media landscape makes getting information during wartime even harder – https://theconversation.com/irans-divided-media-landscape-makes-getting-information-during-wartime-even-harder-277321

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louise Kettle, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Nottingham

When Keir Starmer briefed the House of Commons on the situation in Iran, the UK’s prime minister ended with a clear message: “We all remember the mistakes of Iraq, and we have learned those lessons.”

Tony Blair’s decision to bring British forces into the Iraq war in March 2003 has long loomed over the Labour party and British foreign policy. In 2011, then prime minister David Cameron was keen to stress to parliament that any action in Libya would “not [be] another Iraq”.

Two years later, the same reassurance was provided for intervention in Syria – only this time, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, led the opposition to block military action.

For the current prime minister, the lessons from the events of 2003 were to ensure the legality of any military intervention, and that a clear plan for the future was in place.

It is unsurprising that he has picked up on the question of legalities, given his previous career. However, Starmer also specifically campaigned against action in Iraq. On the eve of the war, he wrote to The Guardian warning against military action: “Engaging in armed conflict in breach of international law is a precarious business.”

In the case of Iran, legalities remain just as sticky. There was no United Nations Security Council resolution to support US-Israeli activities, and it remains unclear how the current intervention relates to individual or collective self-defence.

When Starmer decided to instigate the use of British military assets in the region, and allow the US to use British bases for actions against missile sites, the language used in his statement was careful and specific. It focused on Iran’s “indiscriminate attacks” and “unlawful strikes”, allowing the UK to argue its position under international law as acting in self-defence.

There does not appear to be a “phase 4” – a post-combat plan for Iran. Nor is it clear what the US’s objectives are before combat operations can end.

Donald Trump has explicitly stated that he would like to see regime change. But whether a different leadership is sufficient, or if the full roots of the Islamic Republic have to be removed, remains unknown.

Lessons from the Iraq inquiry

Iran is not Iraq. There are many key differences in their political situations, geography and people, not to mention the amount of time to plan the military operation (despite pre-deployment at the beginning of the year and assets already in the area).

There are also differences in the intelligence situations, the recent diplomatic progress that has been made over nuclear issues, and the fact that the war in Iran is not an ideological pursuit akin to the neoconservative agenda of the 2000s.

However, both wars are ones of choice, and it is clear that Starmer intends to take a different approach to Blair. He would do well to return to some of the key lessons identified by the formal inquiry into events surrounding Britain’s role in the Iraq war.

In 2016, the results of the public inquiry – comprising 12 volumes and 2.6 million words – were published. Inquiry chair John Chilcot’s key points (as Starmer has alluded) were that “the circumstances in which it was decided there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory” – and that “the planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate”.

However, more issues remain relevant today. In particular, the ongoing Operation Epic Fury is a US military operation. It will not be possible for the UK to exert any significant influence in its planning. Any participation will be – as it was in Iraq – in subordination to the US.

As the Iraq inquiry report noted: “The US and UK are close allies, but the relationship between the two is unequal.” Despite the UK providing significant military assets and personnel to Iraq, it failed to exert any significant influence on US decisions.

Chilcot also reflected on the UK-US relationship in general. He stated that prime ministers will always exercise their political judgment in how to handle the US, depending on personal relationships and the issues under discussion. He also recognised there is no standard formula for this relationship.

Trump has made no secret of his frustration with the prime minister, telling journalists: “This is not Winston Churchill that we are dealing with.” Nonetheless, Starmer has so far refused to be pressured into a different approach.

The prime minister would do well to remember one of Chilcot’s points: that “the UK’s relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ.”

While this may be challenging in the short term when dealing with the Trump administration, it will remain true in the long term.

Chilcot offered one final point that rings true today: “Above all, the lesson is that all aspects of any intervention need to be calculated, debated and challenged with the utmost rigour. And when decisions have been made, they need to be implemented fully.”

Thus far, Starmer is following this advice, and should continue to do so.

Louise Kettle has received funding from the AHRC.

– ref. How lessons from Iraq are shaping Starmer’s Iran response – https://theconversation.com/how-lessons-from-iraq-are-shaping-starmers-iran-response-277642