Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Servante, Postdoctoral Researcher, Cereal Symbiosis, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

It’s an exciting time to be a microbiologist working in rice research. A global push towards the cultivation of water-saving rice is enabling farmers to harness the power of microbes that thrive in less water.

Some farmers already use rice production systems that reduce or eliminate the length of time rice is submerged in a flooded paddy field. At the sowing stage, planting of pre-germinated seeds (direct seeding) rather than traditional transplanting of small plants into flooded paddies reduces the need for waterlogged fields. Waterlogged rice paddies emit huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Similarly, an irrigation practice known as alternate wetting and drying uses pipes drilled into fields to encourage water management and intermittent flooding, reducing water usage and methane emissions.

Among microbes thriving in less water are arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. These are beneficial soil fungi that live inside plant roots and help to extend plants’ reach into the soil to collect nutrients, acting as “natural biofertilisers”.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are aerobic, meaning they require oxygen for survival. This makes them more likely to be well suited to the drier, more aerated soils (with air spaces to allow efficient exchange of nutrients, water and air) that are increasingly promoted in sustainable rice systems.

To test this theory, I stepped out of the Crop Science lab at the University of Cambridge and into the field at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.

Using some ink stain and a microscope, I examined roots from IRRI 154, a direct-seeded water-saving rice variety developed by the institute.

The results were striking: in IRRI 154 grown in traditional flooded paddy conditions, there were no signs of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonising the rice roots. But in irrigated, non-flooded “dry” conditions, the fungi were present in up to 20% of the root. This was a clear indication that water-reducing farming practices like dry direct-seeding can promote arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonisation in rice.

Similarly, a recent study reported that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi help rice grown under alternate wetting and drying in Senegal to have increased resilience to changes in water and nutrient levels.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi don’t just help plants access nutrients. They can also provide resistance to pathogens and increased survival in harsh climate conditions such as drought. Encouraging them to colonise rice plants could therefore enhance the overall resilience of rice, an increasingly important trait in the face of climate change and water shortages.

By supporting and even boosting beneficial microbes like these, our team at the Crop Science Centre also hope to reduce the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. Fertilisers are a major source of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas. One alternative is for farmers to apply biofertilisers, products containing live beneficial microorganisms such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to promote growth.

Determining and testing optimal formulations and application strategies is a big challenge for researchers like me. The effectiveness of biofertilisers depends on several critical quality-control factors. This includes avoiding contamination, preventing spoilage during storage, successful establishment in the soil and efficient colonisation of plant roots.

The soil is a complex environment. Solutions need to be tailored to local landscapes and specific situations. That’s where an ongoing partnership with Tilda, a UK rice brand, comes in. Tilda successfully implemented water-saving alternate wetting and drying with thousands of basmati farmers in India. Since this encourages the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, it has enabled my colleagues and I to put our science into practice.

I visited farmers in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to ask about their thoughts on using local arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi-based biofertilisers to reduce the use of synthetic fertiliser. To my surprise, many had heard of “mycorrhizae” and were optimistic about its potential.

Our first mission was to check the presence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Pusa 1, a popular basmati variety grown in the area. Together with the rice farmers in Haryana, we turned the local rice market (mandi) into a lab, setting up ink staining and microscopes for people to see. I found the characteristic tree-like structure of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in a root, and ran outside to tell the crowd of over 20 farmers and agronomists to take a look.

From lab to field

Having confirmed that the fungi were present in Pusa 1 basmati, and with advice from Tilda’s local agronomists, we decided to test two locally available “mycorrhizae” biofertilisers in 31 pilot farms.

We visited the farmers involved in this pilot in September 2025. In Uttar Pradesh, we visited the family farm of Bhoti Devi, a female farmer, and gathered under a tree for shade while discussing field observations with her and some other farmers in the area.

The farmers told me that the rice with added mycorrhizae biofertiliser appeared to have increased root growth and a higher number of tillers (farm machinery with rotating blades that churn up and aerate the soil), indicating a potential boost in yields. I shared images from my own tests in Cambridge which showed similar results. It was so exciting to share and compare our observations.

In Haryana, ten farmers similarly described improved root growth. This visible improvement gives us and farmers confidence that these biofertilisers could be improving crop performance while water-saving techniques are being used. Now, we’re gathering data from this season to confirm these initial observations.

Our next steps for the biofertiliser testing are two-fold: to investigate whether we can apply them to reduce the use of synthetic fertiliser, and to examine the composition and sustainability of the available commercial biofertiliser products. This will ensures they reduce the use of synthetic fertiliser and associated greenhouse gas emissions. With more than 4,000 farmers in Tilda’s network, tests can be scaled up to assess the effects of reduced synthetic fertiliser on rice yields.

Translating our lab-based research into a real-world, scalable application is a dream scenario. From breeding programmes at IRRI in the Philippines to farmer fields in India, water-saving rice systems like direct seeding and alternate wetting and drying are promoting the presence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in rice roots.

Together with rice farmers in India, we can explore how to use more natural biofertilisers to reduce synthetic fertilisers and build more sustainable farming systems.

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Emily Servante is collaborating on a project with Tilda, funded by the Ebro Foundation.

– ref. How I’m helping rice farmers in India harness the power of fungi in the soil – https://theconversation.com/how-im-helping-rice-farmers-in-india-harness-the-power-of-fungi-in-the-soil-269209

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Beverley O’Hara, Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition, Leeds Beckett University

New advertising restrictions on unhealthy food and drink have come into force in the UK, targeting products deemed to be high in fat, salt or sugar. From now on, TV, radio or online adverts that feature these foods will be banned before 9pm.

The advertising ban is part of a government plan to halve childhood obesity by 2030. It includes a range of strategies including marketing and advertising controls on unhealthy food, changes to retail environments such as removing high-calorie foods from checkouts, and industry targets to reformulate unhealthy products.

The government wants to incentivise brands to reformulate and promote healthier options, and there is some evidence that this approach can be successful. The sugar tax, for instance, has reduced total sales of sugar from soft drinks by 35% since it was introduced in 2018.

Restrictions on promotions of less healthy foods in supermarkets and online retailers have also led to a small reduction in the sales of these products.

The government is generally reluctant to disclose the extent to which lobbying by industry has a bearing on regulation, citing issues of confidentiality. However, implementation of the new legislation, which was originally due to come into force in October 2025, was delayed and ultimately amended to exempt “brand advertisements”.

In essence, companies cannot advertise a restricted product, but are allowed to advertise their brand. This means they can comply with the legislation by advertising their brand or range as long as they do not show a specific identifiable less healthy product. So a fast-food chain could show its logo or other elements of its brand identity but could not show its burgers or milkshakes.

Losing this “appetite appeal” in adverts may not be a big problem for brands. Some of the most iconic food adverts do not feature the specific food product.

Instead of explicit images of foods, creatives can use storytelling and emotion to do the persuading. It now seems that the creative sector is chomping at the bit to meet this challenge by finding inventive ways to get the brands noticed.

When it announced the brand exemption in May 2025, the government said it wanted to ensure that the food industry “has confidence to invest in advertising” while simultaneously wishing to “protect children from advertising of less healthy products”. In truth, both can’t be achieved simultaneously. The exemption is effectively a massive loophole and points to the government’s capitulation to industry pressure.

The fact that outdoor advertising is not included in the restrictions is also a missed opportunity. Since the regulations were announced in 2020, there has been a marked increase in spending on outdoor advertising like billboards and posters on bus shelters by food companies. Outdoor advertising of less healthy foods is pervasive and effective.

Bans on this form of advertising, as happened across the Transport for London network from 2019, for example, have been shown to reduce spending on calories from less healthy foods and are widely accepted by the public. But the food industry tempts cash-strapped local authorities into selling council-owned sites to advertise their products.

Restricting marketing of less healthy foods on television and online but not extending the measures to outdoor advertisements does not make sense. There is a need for a coordinated national strategy on outdoor advertising to make the ban apply across the board, which should include restrictions on non-council owned assets such as billboards and displays.

Taken together, the current set of policies on less healthy foods are a step in the right direction, but they need to go much further. Of course, providing more transparency on lobbying from the food industry would be a start.

Implementing policies using the stricter 2018 nutrient profiling model would also help because it has a different approach to scoring sugar, salt, fibre and calories. This means it is harder for products to be classed as healthy.

While policies that restrict marketing and promotion of less healthy foods can incentivise companies to reformulate their products, this approach has significant limitations from a public health perspective.

Other initiatives like the sugar reduction programme may benefit individual health, but risk creating new environmental problems. Some non-sugar sweeteners have been identified as environmental contaminants, meaning that products reformulated to be “healthier” for consumers may actually prove harmful to the planet.

This tension highlights the broader complexity of public health nutrition policy, where improvements in one domain can inadvertently create problems in another.

Read more:
Some artificial sweeteners are forever chemicals that could be harming aquatic life

The UK cannot reformulate its way out of a poor national diet. A big part of the problem of diet and health in the UK is the poor overall quality of what people are eating.

Policies on less healthy foods are just one part of the solution. It is much more complex and challenging to increase the proportion of healthier foods in people’s diets, which is why the government should invest in public health nutrition research.

If the UK is serious about preventing diet-related poor health, it needs to consider its food culture and values. It must be possible to find ways to increase the appeal, cost and convenience of healthier foods. This new advertising ban is a small part of the puzzle that is improving the national diet. But essentially, eating better needs to get a lot easier.

Beverley O’Hara 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. There’s a huge loophole in the new UK ban on daytime junk food ads – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-huge-loophole-in-the-new-uk-ban-on-daytime-junk-food-ads-272410

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joshua Hobbs, Lecturer and Consultant in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds

Many people want to try to address injustice, but don’t know where to start. Some forms of injustice can be addressed by donating money to charities or aid organisations. However, as the American political theorist Iris Marion Young argued, many of the most serious injustices in the world are structural and require political solutions.

Structural injustices are not the result of people deliberately acting wrongly, but instead come about when large numbers of people act in tiny, normal and morally acceptable ways. Without necessarily meaning to, they help perpetuate injustices such as sweatshop labour, as well as factors that lead to poverty and climate change. We might say that these injustices are baked into society.

Individual efforts – for example by buying less, donating to charity or buying ethical alternatives – can’t solve these problems entirely. The structures will remain unchanged without political action. Becoming an activist is a way of taking up what philosophers call our “political responsibility” for structural injustice.

But despite all the injustice in the world, and the pressure from social media to care loudly about every issue, devoting a significant amount of time to activism isn’t achievable for everyone.

Most people – especially those with caring responsibilities – have scarce free time to develop the requisite knowledge about the political issues or the relevant skills to take part. People also need to manage the practicalities of activism, such as attending a demonstration or participating in a letter-writing campaign. Some forms of activism also require skills, such as speaking in public or expressing political views online.

If this sounds intimidating, here are three small ways you can help tackle injustice.

1. Activism light

Getting involved in activism doesn’t have to be a full-time job. For those with other commitments, it’s still better to do something rather than nothing.
This might mean engaging in small ways around other commitments, for example, by attending occasional protests or posting political content on social media.

You might worry that this route is minimally effective, and engaging in what may appear to be tokenistic activity is certainly a concern here if that time could be better spent on more effective alternatives.

But lots of small actions can quickly add up when they take place as part of a collective effort. Engaging in smaller forms of activism can also provide learning opportunities. Small actions can help skill you up to participate more effectively in more complicated and demanding forms of activism in the future.

2. Work within existing social roles

A second way to address structural injustice without becoming activists comes from the ethicist Robin Zheng. Zheng argues that we can alter unjust structures by pushing the boundaries of our existing social roles.

We all occupy various social roles, such as parent, teacher or friend. As these roles are part of the social structures we live in, performing these roles with “a raised consciousness” can help challenge injustice from where we already are.

This doesn’t have to be by doing anything additional, but by doing what we already do – differently. For example, as teachers we might educate our students on the injustice of sweatshop labour, or as parents we might prioritise gender equality in raising our children.

3. Be a scaffolder

Finally, you might support the activism of others without engaging in activism yourself. This (often unrecognised) work is vital for the success of collective political action. Without it, activism would be more burdensome for activists, and much activism would simply not occur.

Take, for example, the role of many ordinary citizens within black communities during the 1960s struggle for civil rights in the US who supported activists without engaging in activism themselves. Rather than attending protests, many supported the actions of those who did, through supplying food, transport or places to stay.

Engaging in scaffolding could be as simple as looking after someone’s child so that they can attend a protest, or providing protesters with food or coffee.

Scaffolding can still take place even if you don’t come into contact with activists in your everyday life. Campaigns exist where people can sponsor activists by organising training, covering the costs of childcare and transportation, or even paying the bail of those detained while protesting.

Supporting activism at a distance without providing financial contributions is more difficult. Crafting supplies for protesters is one way this can be achieved – as in the case of the “pussyhats” created by knitting circles around the world for attendees at the Women’s March on Washington.

Challenging unjust structures can seem daunting, but it is something we all can do without becoming full-time activists.

Joshua Hobbs 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. Three ways to tackle injustice without being a full-time activist – https://theconversation.com/three-ways-to-tackle-injustice-without-being-a-full-time-activist-271248

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael La Corte, Research Associate, Curation and Communication, University of Tübingen

Imagine waking up to find strangers in your home – eating your food, killing your animals, then laughing as they blind you. Later, they tell the world you were the monster.

We are describing one of the better known episodes of Homer’s Odyssey, written around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. The intruders are protagonist Odysseus’s men, and the “monster” they attack is Polyphemus, a solitary giant shepherd later remembered only as a cyclops.

For centuries, we’ve followed the hero’s journey without asking what it costs. But what if the cyclops wasn’t the monster, but just one of many lives shattered along the way?

Director Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation of The Odyssey hits cinemas in July 2026. But will it celebrate Odysseus as the clever hero – or finally confront the wreckage he leaves in his wake?

Homer’s Odyssey, composed at the turn of the 8th to the 7th century BC, follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he struggles to return home from the Trojan war, outwitting monsters, gods and fate. It’s a tale of resilience and cunning – and the template for countless stories since: the clever man triumphs over the monstrous other and sails home in glory.

We know the pattern by heart. But we rarely ask: who gets trampled along the way, and whose story is never told?

This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist.

In the scene of Odysseus v Polyphemus, the cyclops is cast as a brute, a savage who traps the hero and his men in a cave. Odysseus responds with legendary cunning: wine, lies, a sharpened stake – and escape.

From the outside, it’s textbook heroism, yet Homer himself hints at the cost of that victory. He has Odysseus reveal his name only after the escape: “Tell them it was Odysseus, sacker of cities, who blinded you.” It’s a moment of pride, not necessity – the spark that seals his fate. In that instant, the clever survivor becomes the arrogant aggressor, and the story’s moral axis begins to tilt.

Yet if we shift perspective, the story changes. Polyphemus is a solitary shepherd, living in peace. Strangers break into his home, steal his food, kill his livestock, and leave him blinded and broken. His cave isn’t a prison but a home under siege. His violence, while brutal, emerges from desperation. You could easily argue that Polyphemus isn’t the villain. He’s the victim.

This reversal reveals a troubling pattern: our cultural instinct to root for the protagonist, no matter what they do – as long as the cause feels noble. From ancient epics to Hollywood blockbusters, we excuse deception, destruction, even murder, if it serves the “greater good”.

We cheer when the hero escapes – but rarely look back at what’s left behind. A burned city. A grieving family. A blinded shepherd. If it fits the story, we accept the collateral damage as necessary. That’s the seductive logic of heroism: clean endings, messy consequences.

In Homer’s writing, Polyphemus gets a single moment of anguish – a prayer to Poseidon, his father – and then vanishes from the story. His voice, his pain, his version of events do not fit the heroic arc.

And this pattern continues. Empires and conquerors have long branded enemies as “barbarians”, “savages” or “monsters” to justify violence. From Roman propaganda to colonial domination in the Americas and Africa – and, more recently, to claims of “denazification” in Ukraine – this tactic dehumanises the “other side” and erases their stories. Strip the enemy of humanity, and their suffering becomes legitimised.

If history is so often written by the victors, we must ask: what remains of heroism when we finally listen to the so-called monsters? As global conflicts polarise public discourse around heroes and villains, the stories we choose, and those we silence, matter more than ever.

What if we shift the spotlight? Polyphemus becomes more than a monster – he’s a mirror, showing how unchecked heroism can slip into cruelty. Cleverness isn’t virtue. And survival at others’ expense isn’t always justified.

Odysseus, the “man of many turns” is brilliant but ambiguous. His actions bring destruction alongside triumph. For every hero who returns, many suffer or are lost. True heroism lies not just in daring escapes, but in owning the cost left behind.

The cyclops’ tale warns us how easily we dehumanise those in the hero’s way. How we flatten complexity to fit a script. How we justify harm if the story feels right. Rethinking Polyphemus complicates Odysseus and challenges us as storytellers and audiences.

The real challenge for Nolan’s The Odyssey won’t be spectacle or scale, but perspective. Will it dare to look beyond the hero? Will it give voice to those left in his shadow? Clint Eastwood did just that with Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), telling the story of the battle of Iwo Jima from opposing sides. By letting the “enemy” speak, he shattered the illusion of a single, righteous story.

If Nolan embraces that sort of complexity, The Odyssey won’t just retell a myth but will challenge us to rethink who we name as heroes and to listen more closely to those we once dismissed as monsters.

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Odysseus the destroyer? Christopher Nolan’s new Odyssey adaptation revives an ancient moral question – https://theconversation.com/odysseus-the-destroyer-christopher-nolans-new-odyssey-adaptation-revives-an-ancient-moral-question-270312