Imagine a world where dangerous conditions in unborn babies can be treated with diamonds smaller than a virus, where gold can find and destroy cancer cells with laser-like precision, and where platinum can change the genetic code of tumours. This isn’t science fiction – it’s happening in modern medicine.
For example, scientists are developing a way to treat a rare but often fatal condition in babies called congenital diaphragmatic hernia using nanodiamonds. At just five nanometres wide – about 10,000 times narrower than a human hair – the diamonds can slip through cell walls to deliver hormones to help babies’ lungs grow while they are still in the womb – giving them a better chance at survival.
So far, the treatment has only been tested on lab-grown mini-lungs.
Nanodiamonds are just the latest example of how gemstones, precious metals and rare elements are being harnessed to save lives. They are a potential answer to the problem of finding materials that the body can handle safely – ones that don’t cause immune reactions or toxicity, or break down in the body.
Gold
Gold has been used in medicine for centuries. Archaeologists have found evidence of gold treatments dating back to AD300. Today, gold is still used in surprising ways.
You might even encounter gold at your doctor’s office without realising it. Rapid tests for COVID, flu, malaria and HIV rely on tiny amounts of gold to produce the lines that show test results.
Gold nanoparticles can also help detect cancer early, when treatments work best. They can even act as tiny heat weapons for tumours. Exposed to near-infrared light, they heat up and destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
Gold is still used in dentistry, though less often as patients prefer tooth-coloured fillings. And, until a few years ago, gold-based drugs were prescribed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, though newer drugs with fewer side-effects have replaced them.
Gold in its pure form is inert in the body, meaning it doesn’t interfere with bodily processes. In fact, the average human body contains about 0.2mg of gold, mainly found in the liver, blood, brain and joints. It enters the body through the water we drink and the air we breathe.
These drugs enter cancer cells, and the platinum molecule attaches to the cancer cells’ DNA, stopping the cells from multiplying. In effect, the drugs rewrite the tumour’s genetic instructions. They work against cancers of the blood, breast, head and neck, stomach, testicles, ovaries and more.
The downside is that platinum can’t always tell cancer cells from healthy ones, which can cause serious side-effects. Still, for many patients, the benefits outweigh the risks.
It isn’t just cancer cells that platinum is killing; it is being used in alloys as an antimicrobial coating for prosthetics that go into the body, such as knees and hips, where it has been shown to kill germs such as Staphylococcus and E coli.
Platinum also helps the heart. The electrodes in implantable cardioverter defibrillators – devices that shock the heart back into rhythm if it falters – use platinum-iridium alloys to deliver lifesaving pulses.
Other rare elements are transforming medicine, too. Gadolinium is used in over a third of all MRI scans. As a contrast agent, it highlights inflammation, cancers, blood vessels and certain organs, making them stand out more clearly against surrounding tissue.
A cutting-edge approach called “theranostics” combines therapy and diagnostics. It uses the same target to both find and treat diseases, often cancer. For example, thyroid cancer can be located with technetium-99 and treated with radioactive iodine. Other metals like scandium and yttrium are being tested to detect and destroy cancer using different versions of the same element.
The future treasure hunt
As medicine becomes more precise and personalised, the demand for these rare materials will grow. This raises questions about mining, sustainability and how far we’ll go to get elements that save lives.
From ancient gold remedies to tomorrow’s designer elements, some of Earth’s rarest treasures are most valuable not in jewellery or investment, but in healing people.
Next time you see a diamond ring or gold necklace, remember: similar materials might be quietly working inside someone’s body, fighting cancer, imaging organs or saving an unborn child’s life. In medicine, real value isn’t measured in carats or cash, but in lives saved and improved.
Adam Taylor 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Toby Doyle, Research Associate, Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter
On a North Sea oil rig several years ago, an engineer noticed a strange phenomenon. A cloud of insects would descend from the sky and land on the upper reaches of the platform.
There were thousands of them, carpeting the superstructure and barely moving. They would sit there for a few hours, then suddenly they would all rise up into the sky and fly off again.
The engineer, whose name was Craig Hannah, was also a keen naturalist and photographer. He saw the same thing happening repeatedly and wondered if it would be of interest to insect researchers. This led him to the University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, to which we are both affiliated.
Craig diligently collected small specimen-tubes of flies at the rig, which is in the UK Britannia oil field, and they started arriving regularly on our desks. We’ve spent the past few years studying them, and the results have now been published for the first time.
The insect cloud mostly consisted of hoverflies. Hoverflies are a stripey little class of winged insects that sometimes get mistaken for wasps or hornets. They play an unsung role as nature’s pest controllers, gobbling up aphids on plants, and also have another important claim to fame: they are the second most important pollinators after bees.
Unlike bees, which are territorial creatures that generally stay in their patch, hoverflies can move over great distances. If you’re wondering why they don’t become the king pollinators as a result, it’s to do with their larvae.
Bee larvae depend on nectar and pollen, so when bees land on flowers, they are collecting for the hive. Infant hoverflies, on the other hand, eat aphids, leaving adult hoverflies to gorge on all the pollen and nectar themselves.
Long insect journeys
It has been shown before that insects can carry pollen for many miles. Painted Lady butterflies, for instance, have been shown to travel from west Africa all the way to French Guiana in South America.
The evidence about hoverflies has been more limited. There was a 2019 paper from our centre that used radar to show billions of them carrying pollen across the English Channel. But for the first time, our paper shows this happening over much greater lengths.
We focused on the marmalade hoverfly, so-called because of its distinctive orange and black stripes, which made up a large proportion of the flies landing on the rig. There were also a lot of other hoverflies, particularly the common hoverfly, as well as some blowflies and root-maggot flies. (It’s not unusual for different insect species to move together in this way; we’ve previously observed it in mountain passes in the Pyrenees, for instance).
From analysing the pollen on the bodies of the marmalade hoverflies, we showed that they were carrying it from as far as 500km away. This was only part of a much bigger journey, however.
Just like birds, some species of hoverfly migrate with the seasons. They move to southern Spain in the early autumn and then as far north as Norway in spring (the northern leg is less well understood, and seems to take place over several generations, since each fly only actually lives for a few weeks).
This migration is an incredible feat of nature: hoverflies don’t go all the way to sub-Saharan Africa in the way that, say, swallows would, but they move much more slowly so there’s perhaps an even greater effort involved overall.
We know from previous research that many insects will make these trips by burning carbohydrates and stores of body fat. Thankfully their pollen luggage is at least light, so it’s not making the journey much more arduous. That said, the flies seem exhausted when they land on the oil platforms. Craig was able to coax them into specimen tubes with a little nudge.
The pollen count
The flies’ pollen came from a much wider range of plants than might have been expected – more than 100 species in all – which demonstrates why these insects are such good pollinators. The most common types on their bodies were common nettle, black elder and meadowsweet, all of which are ubiquitous from one end of Europe to the other.
One thing that isn’t yet clear is whether by the time it has been carried long distances, this pollen is viable for pollination (it may have been degraded by UV light for instance). There weren’t ideal conditions for preserving the insects on the oil rig, meaning that the pollen was always dead by the time it reached us.
We’re aiming to remedy that in future either by finding a better way to store the flies or by collecting them ourselves on another site. We also have a PhD student looking at the physiology of hoverflies, to get a better understanding of how they are able to migrate such long distances.
Meanwhile, Craig is still sending us regular samples, and now even has a friend providing a similar service from a neighbouring rig. This is enabling us to study all the species of hoverflies that land on the rig to see if they have the same pollen preferences as their marmalade cousins. It’s a great example of how fruitful a collaboration can be between researchers and members of the public. If anyone else is encountering bugs behaving unusually, we’d love to hear from you.
Toby Doyle is affiliated with The University of Exeter.
Eva Jimenez-Guri is affiliated with The University of Exeter.
Across England, flags are visible like never before. They are being hoisted on lamp-posts. Hastily painted representations of the St George’s flag, typically little more than a couple of red lines painted on an available white background, are popping up on mini-roundabouts and other surfaces.
For some, this impromptu flagging of England’s streets is a celebration of patriotism. For others, it’s a far-right, borderline-racist provocation. In 2012, a survey by the thinktank British Future found that around a quarter of the English consider their flag to be racist, presumably as a result of its appropriation by rightwing groups.
To be sure, debates about what flags mean have been around for years. The association of the English flag with a particular type of politics and thinking has certainly generated heat in the past.
One notable example occurred during 2014’s Rochester and Strood by-election, when Labour MP Emily Thornberry tweeted a photo of a house with St George’s flags and a white van, captioning it “Image from Rochester”. The post was widely criticised as Thornberry supposedly being snobbish towards precisely the type of voter Labour was seen to have lost touch with. She was forced to resign from the shadow cabinet.
But it’s not only in England where we see debates over flags and their political meanings. In the US, the Confederate flag is viewed by some as a racist symbol connected with slavery and the oppression of black Americans, while for others it remains a source of pride in the historical defiance of the southern states.
The territorial marking of communities through the flying of flags, or the painting of constituent colours on kerbs, has long been recognised as a visual manifestation of political divisions in Northern Ireland. And in Scotland, the Saltire – which, after the 2014 referendum, had come to be associated by many with the independence movement – has assumed new meanings as the country’s flag has proliferated in urban settings, mirroring events south of the border.
In a 2019 paper focusing on the social and spatial dimensions of flags and flag performances, my co-authors and I showed that we need to recognise that flags are complex signs open to multiple interpretations and meanings. In turn, these interpretations are affected by how, why and where a flag is being displayed. It also matters who or what organisation or movement is displaying the flag.
Of equal importance is the intended audience. Different people will interpret the same flag in various ways, according to their socio-political beliefs and perspectives. Any such interpretation can be influenced not only by the facts people have about a particular display but also by their assumptions, correct or otherwise.
There may be more than one interpretation of how a flag relates to the space around it – characterised by what is known as semiotic “slippage”.
A St George’s flag flying on an Anglican church tower, for example, projects a different meaning to one flown on an English municipal building in an area with a Reform-led council. Similarly, a flag painted on the face of an England football fan at an international fixture is attached to a different kind of emotion than one held by a Britain First supporter at a protest rally.
What’s more, an inability to recognise this semiotic nuance can inflame debate and entrench societal divisions. When we assume we all see the flag in the same way, we find it harder to tolerate different perspectives. This is evident in the current flag debate.
Certainly, it is not always possible to know the exact motivations of those hoisting flags. It’s also difficult to prosecute a convincing case to police their activities.
But what is clear is that no one benefits from a national moral panic about flags, other than those who wish to sow political and social division. Instead, it might be best to let people hang their flags, whatever their motivations, and have their moment of semiotic free speech.
In any case, as with many other contemporary concerns, the issue may soon fade into the background and be left, like the flags themselves, to hang in the breeze.
Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.
John Byrom 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Whittle, University Fellow in AI and Human Decision Making, University of Salford
The much-lauded UK-US tech deal landed to coincide with President Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK. It has been dubbed the “tech prosperity deal”, but who, exactly, is set to prosper? After all, the deal will make the UK more reliant on US tech and may hasten the embedding of US artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the UK economy.
Having said all that, it is a significant investment by a variety of US firms in the UK. Headline announcements include a £10 billion commitment from private equity firm Blackstone supporting an AI growth zone in the north-east of England; Palantir to invest up to £1.5 billion to help make the UK a defence innovation leader, a £22 billion commitment from Microsoft (with half of this for capital expenditure for AI and cloud services); and an £11 billion injection into the UK economy from chip maker Nvidia.
Further announcements include CoreWeave (a data centre company) investing £1.5 billion in UK data centre sites, software firm Salesforce investing £1.4 billion in the UK; Google’s parent company Alphabet investing £5 billion in AI; and further investment from Nvidia in UK AI startups.
A record-breaking £150 billion of investment has been announced in total. All of this is also expected to bring forward billions of pounds of investment into nuclear energy to power this tech explosion.
It’s impressive stuff – investment at the size and scale to make a difference. It is clear that the UK government sees AI as a way to bring jobs, productivity and economic growth. From the government’s perspective, AI is a panacea for the UK’s economic woes.
This deal signals confidence in the UK’s tech sector. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has predicted that the country will become an “AI superpower”, noting that the UK has the expertise and research facilities to excel. But he added that what is currently missing from the UK is the infrastructure. This deal could build that.
It could be that the puzzle pieces are slotting into place. The UK’s world-leading research and expertise, long hamstrung by the lack of infrastructure is finally getting the boost it needs. AI is boom and bust in nature, but these long-term strategic investments should outlast an AI hype cycle.
Money in people’s pockets?
However, a thriving AI tech sector does not automatically translate to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s promise to put more money in people’s pockets and spread the economic and employment benefits across the UK. Even those high up in the industry concede that capturing the upside of the AI boom is not guaranteed.
Many of the announcements are of investment that the AI firms need to make. They could invest in other countries – these firms need data centres and are building them globally – and so capturing the investment for the UK is an achievement. There is a sense that Trump’s state visit has allowed the firms to garner US political capital by promising UK investment at the same time.
The UK’s technology secretary Liz Kendall has said the deal did not include guarantees on scrapping a tax for big tech or on copyright for AI companies. But on the other hand, is this the same as guaranteeing the tax won’t be scrapped or watered down?
The Trump administration has argued that the UK’s new Online Safety Act (which obliges tech companies to protect users from harmful content) and its digital services tax erode free speech rights and unfairly target American tech giants.
And the UK’s former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, also a former executive at Facebook parent company Meta, has argued that the deal will simply make the UK more reliant on US technology. The UK, he has argued, will be “defanged” as it is not building its own AI capacity.
Indeed, these considerable investments show US companies harnessing the latent potential (and ownership) of UK artificial intelligence. For example the announcements also include Huang’s £500 million equity stake in NScale – a UK cloud computing company – which he predicts will have revenues of up to £50 billion over the next six years.
Of course those who invest and take the risk should get their returns. But if AI is seen as the technology to revitalise the UK economy, and if the prime minister’s AI Opportunities Action Plan talks of sovereign AI, should this investment not come from the UK itself?
The same could be said for much of the capital investment that has been announced. Data centres may have significant environmental costs – certainly questions are being asked about their water usage and burden on the grid.
US ownership of these facilities could leave the UK dealing with the negatives and not receiving maximum benefits from the returns. And will they create long-term employment for the regions that may suffer the impacts? The evidence is mixed. Data centres certainly create jobs in their construction (some are very large indeed and they are generally getting bigger). But once they are operational they need far fewer staff.
The US-UK tech deal may take the UK a step closer to achieving its tech ambitions. But even if it does become an AI superpower, the country will need to do more if it really wants to feel the widespread benefits.
Richard Whittle receives funding from numerous sources including Research England, UKRI and local government. It is unlikely any organisation would benefit from the content of this article.
Hypertension is the No. 1 risk factor for heart disease and stroke. In addition, hypertension increases risk of dementia and cognitive decline. Heart disease, stroke and dementia are the first-, fourth- and sixth-leading causes of death in the U.S. Unfortunately, only 1 in 4 people with a history of high blood pressure have this condition under control.
In August 2025, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released new guidelines on prevention and management of hypertension, based on a comprehensive analysis of literature published over the past 10 years.
The Conversation U.S. asked cardiologist Dr. William Cornwell of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to explain what the new guidelines mean and how you can work with your doctor to manage your blood pressure.
What are the primary takeaways of the new guidelines?
The most recent guidelines prior to this new statement were in 2017. Since that time, the medical community has learned a lot about hypertension and the best way to control it. The new guidelines provide a great deal of new information.
First, the definition of hypertension has changed. The criteria are more strict, and the target blood pressures are lower than in the past.
The criteria depend on the values of the “systolic” and the “diastolic” pressure. Systolic blood pressure, the top number, represents the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart is squeezing blood into the body. Diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, is the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart is relaxing. Both numbers are important when determining the severity of hypertension and how it is most appropriately managed.
The new guidelines have removed the category of “prehypertension,” which was defined by a systolic pressure of 120-139 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), or a diastolic pressure of 80-99 mm Hg. Now, patients are categorized as having “elevated blood pressure” if their blood pressure is 120-129 over less than 80 mm Hg, or stage 1 hypertension if they are 130-139/80-89.
A reading of 140/90 or more is considered stage 2 hypertension, and a reading of 180/120 or greater is a hypertensive crisis. In essence, the bar has been lowered, and this change may impact millions of Americans.
People need to ask their doctors if they have hypertension based on these new criteria and whether or not they should be treated. It is also very important for patients to get advice from their doctors about lifestyle habits that they can incorporate into their daily routine, like diet, exercise and healthy sleep habits to help lower blood pressure.
In addition, the guidelines encourage providers to use a risk calculator, called PREVENT – short for Predicting Risk of Cardiovascular Disease EVENTS – to determine a patient’s overall risk of cardiovascular disease and heart failure. This tool represents a significant advance in personalizing medical care, since it incorporates risk factors unique to the individual, allowing for a tailored approach to medical care.
What is the link between alcohol intake and high blood pressure?
The guidelines encourage people to limit alcohol intake because alcohol increases blood pressure.
A 2023 meta-analysis of seven studies with nearly 20,000 people showed that systolic blood pressure will increase by about 1mmHg for every 10 grams of alcohol consumed. A standard beer contains about 14 grams of alcohol, so regular alcohol consumption may increase blood pressure by several points over time. For people who have been drinking an excessive amount of alcohol but stop, their blood pressure may come back down.
That might not sound like much, but when combined with other unhealthy and risky behaviors, like sedentary behavior, excessive weight, inadequate sleep, psychological stress and smoking, the risk factors start to add up quickly. Together, they can very quickly increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and dementia.
The new guidelines encourage patients to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption entirely compared with the old guidelines. For people who do want to drink alcohol, the new guidelines recommend that men should drink no more than two drinks per day, and women should drink no more than one drink per day.
What other lifestyle factors did the new report focus on?
The new guidelines also emphasize the fact that diet can have a major impact on blood pressure. They recommend that all adults – with or without hypertension – consume less than 2,300 milligrams of salt, or approximately 1 teaspoon, per day, and more ideally, less than 1,500 milligrams per day. For a comparison, the average American eats more than 3,300 milligrams of salt per day. Patients may also consider potassium-based salt substitutes to further lower blood pressure.
The guidelines recommend a specific diet called the DASH diet, short for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, for patients with or without hypertension to prevent or treat elevated blood pressure. The DASH diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, low-fat or nonfat dairy and whole grains. This diet may lead to a reduction in blood pressure by up about 10 mm Hg.
The guidelines also emphasize the need to increase physical activity. On average, for every additional 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a person gets per week, systolic blood pressure decreases by 2 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure drops by 1 mm Hg, with the largest reduction occurring at 150 minutes of dynamic exercise per week.
The new guidelines recommend that doctors encourage patients to check their blood pressure at home. Kmatta/Moment via Getty Images
What are the main preventive strategies in the report?
The PREVENT risk calculator that the new guidelines recommend incorporates several factors, including demographics, cholesterol levels, medical history and blood pressure, to determine risk. This risk calculator is free and available online to the general public. The PREVENT calculator may be a helpful tool for all Americans since it reliably provides patients and providers with an assessment of overall risk assessment. But it is particularly helpful for people with multiple chronic conditions, like hypertension, high cholesterol, overweight/obesity or diabetes.
The American Heart Association recommends eight essential health behaviors for controlling blood pressure and reducing risk of cardiovascular disease overall. These include healthy diet, regular exercise, stopping or avoiding smoking, sleeping seven to nine hours per night, and controlling weight, cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure.
Will the new guidelines change how doctors address high blood pressure?
One of the greatest advances with these new guidelines is the personalized approach to medical care through the use of the PREVENT calculator.
The guidelines recommend that doctors encourage their patients to check blood pressure at home to better understand the fluctuations in pressure that occur throughout the day.
Finally, the guidelines encourage physicians to be more aggressive about treating blood pressure. This may be an important change since uncontrolled blood pressure is a major risk factor for eventual development of heart disease and stroke.
William Cornwell 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jonathan Larsen, Legal Technology Manager, Beasley School of Law Center for Public Health Law Research, Temple University
Pennsylvania is due to receive US$2.2 billion dollars from the national opioid settlements, and a new database shows the public where that money is going.
Starting in 2021, a national, bipartisan coalition of attorneys general, including now-Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, reached settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors who had directly contributed to the opioid addiction crisis.
The opioid settlement payments, which began in 2022 and are slated to continue until 2038, are supposed to fund opioid overdose prevention, treatment, harm reduction, recovery support and other programs. This includes a broad array of interventions in Pennsylvania, from first-responder training for law enforcement to handle people who have overdosed to stigma reduction education and support for medication-assisted treatment, to name just a few.
In Pennsylvania’s case, 70% of the funding goes to counties. Cities and other organizations that were involved in the lawsuits, such as county district attorney offices, get 15%. The remaining 15% goes to the state.
This means that in Pennsylvania, it is mostly up to counties to determine how to best spend the US$2.2 billion. Counties must interact directly with their communities through requests for proposals to distribute funds. They will face critical decisions about how to invest the funds in ways that move beyond pilot programs to sustainable, system-level change.
States that have not given majority control of settlement spending to local governments have created a variety of ways to spend the money. These include a mix of state and local disbursement, as well as special fund-governing bodies charged with deciding how settlement funds are distributed. In some states, the state is the primary decision-maker about how settlement funds are used.
The requirement in Pennsylvania that opioid settlement funds are primarily sent to counties creates an opportunity for local innovation. It will also, eventually, allow experts to evaluate the effectiveness of this local control of funds compared with state control or other structures.
A screenshot from the Pennsylvania Opioid Settlement Data dashboard shows that Philadelphia has so far spent about $20 million of the $80 million it has received, with nearly $6 million going toward the city’s housing programs for people experiencing homelessness. Pennsylvania Opioid Settlement Data
2. Website improves transparency and accountability
When members of the public can see where the money is going, they can hold systems accountable for using the funds effectively. County leaders, meanwhile, can see what programs are currently being funded in other counties that they may want to replicate or scale up.
3. Spending is a marathon, not a sprint
Settlement dollars are just beginning to be distributed and spent. According to the tracker, over $80 million had been spent on approved opioid remediation programs as of Dec. 31, 2024. Settlement payments will continue over the next seven to 18 years, varying by company.
This is a marathon and not a sprint, so communities and decision-makers will have to balance spending that produces short- and longer-term objectives.
Additionally, not all counties are receiving the same amount of money, and that affects what they can do with it.
Kratom-derived products are increasingly available in smoke shops and gas stations. The products, which are largely unregulated, mimic opioids and can lead to addiction and cause withdrawal symptoms. Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images
4. New challenges will arise in opioid crisis
Emerging issues in the opioid crisis will continue to evolve, such as how contaminants like the animal tranquilizers xylazine and medetomidine, or products derived from kratom, a tropical tree, have entered the street drug supply in recent years.
Systematically tracking data will help expand our knowledge base of all programs in Pennsylvania that aim to address the opioid crisis. Some of these programs are based on strong existing evidence, while others will help to build new evidence, especially considering the ever-changing landscape of the crisis.
5. Funding gaps will remain
Opioid settlement funds are an important opportunity to address the opioid crisis, but will not on their own cover all funding gaps needed to address the crisis or the broader public health crises that are its major drivers. These include food and housing insecurity, unemployment, lack of access to mental health care, and so many other related issues.
As the country faces major and rapid federal disinvestment in states and communities, these funding gaps will grow and increase the pressure on local decision-makers to make the most of each dollar while demonstrating evidence of impact.
Jonathan Larsen receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust. He is the Chair of the Haverford Township Democratic Committee.
Amy Yeung receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust
Dennis Scanlon receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust.
Renee Cloutier receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust.
Lady Godiva – an icon of protest, myth and sensual defiance – has galloped through centuries of our cultural imagination. She is most widely known for the legend of her naked horse ride, in which she supposedly rode through the city of Coventry, England, in nothing but her cascading hair.
According to the popular tale, Godiva pleaded with her husband, Lord Leofric of Mercia, to lift an oppressive tax that threatened to impoverish the people of Coventry.
Leofric issued a provocative challenge: he would only revoke the tax if she rode unclothed through the town. In a gesture of defiance and compassion, she undertook the ride.
The townspeople, in respect, shuttered their windows, except for one man named Tom, who was struck blind. This is where we get the phrase “peeping Tom”. Moved by her courage, Leofric kept his word and abolished the tax – or so the story goes.
While many historians believe this naked ride never actually took place, Godiva, the 11th century noblewoman, was real – as is her enduring influence.
Godiva has been endlessly remixed, from appearances in literature, to art, to music, to comics, and even chocolate.
Artist John Collier’s 1897 oil painting of Lady Godiva depicts her as holding her head down in shame. Wikimedia
Although Godiva has historically been objectified, her legacy is ever-evolving. Through parades and processions, political protest, and philanthropic campaigns, fans and activists alike have transformed Godiva into a symbol of resistance.
The lady behind the legend
Countess Godgyfu (meaning “God’s gift” in Old English) was born around 990 CE and died sometime after 1066. She was the only female Anglo-Saxon landowner listed as “tenant-in-chief” in the Domesday book.
According to historian Daniel Donoghue, this implies an exceptionally high noble status and independent authority, suggesting Godiva held her estate by birth, rather than through marriage.
Her will included a string of prayer beads – an early reference to the rosary.
Fanning herstory
The legend of the naked horse ride draws from older mythological traditions.
In his book The White Goddess (1948), English writer Robert Graves interprets Godiva as a medieval manifestation of a pagan goddess. Her symbolic nudity and ritualistic ride echo fertility rites and goddess worship.
Like many medieval legends of pagan or folkloric origin, it was transformed into a Christian narrative over time, intertwined with the real history of the philanthropic Countess Godgyfu.
Fandom offers a compelling lens through which to view Godiva, and the ways her story continues to resonate in contemporary culture.
A Lady Godiva-themes clock in Broadgate, Coventry. A ‘peeping Tom’ looks at her from the window. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
In the 2016 book I’m Buffy and You’re History, author Patricia Pender explores how fandom enables playful and subversive representations of femininity. For instance, Buffy – a female character who nonchalantly slayed vampires, rather than running screaming – subverted expectations. By riding naked, Godiva, too, subverts expectations.
At the same time, feminist scholars have critiqued representations of nude women in culture and the arts as catering to the male gaze, rather than being subversive. Researcher Melisa Yilmaz argues Godiva has been moulded into a passive symbol of erotic spectacle, rather than female empowerment.
Godiva’s image is also commodified globally, most notably by the Godiva chocolatier.
Yet, reinterpretations of her legend through centuries of fandom offer a counter-narrative.
She gained renewed popularity through women writers, activists and suffragists. For instance, in the 1870s, British political activist Harriet Martineau told women who feared exposure and condemnation for taking up controversial causes to “think of the Lady Godiva”.
Once such cause at the time was the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act. This act, which applied only to women, meant police could arrest women assumed to be prostitutes and have them medically examined.
Similarly, social reformist Josephine Butler entitled her 1888 political play The New Godiva. In it, she wrote about the need for a female campaigner to
compare her[self] to Godiva, stripping herself bare of the very vesture of her soul […] exposing herself to something worse than physical torture.
Radical reclamation
Lady Godiva is widely referenced in film and TV. She was the subject of the historical 1955 film Lady Godiva of Coventry, starring Hollywood starlet Maureen O’Hara, and has appeared as a character in shows such as Charmed (1998–2006) and Fantasy Island (1977–84).
Irish-American actress Maureen O’Hara portrayed Lady Godiva in the 1955 film Lady Godiva of Coventry. Wikimedia
Contemporary women authors have also offered up various twists of Godiva’s tale.
In Judith Halberstam’s young adult novel Blue Sky Freedom (1990), for example, Godiva is the name given to an anti-apartheid resistance leader.
In the DC Comics, the character Godiva is a beautiful woman with powerful hair she can control to her advantage.
She shows up in music, too. The cover of Beyonce’s 2022 album, Renaissance, shows the singer astride a holographic horse in a seemingly Godiva-inspired pose – boldly facing the camera.
In Queen’s song Don’t Stop Me Now, Lady Godiva is likened to a racing car:
I’m a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva
I’m gonna go, go, go, there’s no stopping me.
Coventry city has had an official Lady Godiva, Pru Porretta, for more than three decades. Porretta’s role involves a range of community and philanthropic work.
Elizabeth Reid Boyd 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.
In the 1990s, I was a rock journalist striving to assert myself as a young woman, working at the heart of the United Kingdom’s male-dominated music press. I loved my job. I met and interviewed all my favourite bands, and spent my twenties and early thirties in a whirl of parties, clubs, gigs and all-expenses trips to America and Europe.
I began my career through a combination of ignorance, bloody-mindedness, and good timing. With no idea about the protocol of editorial commissions, I was annoyed when a music paper failed to publish my unsolicited live review of a friend’s band. Determined to succeed, I followed a tipoff from an artist who lived in a squat with a media contact (this was London in the 1980s), and soon found myself writing for a bi-monthly heavy metal magazine.
Review: Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty – Kate Mossman; Maybe I’m Amazed: A Story of Love and Connection in Ten Songs – John Harris (John Murray)
The editor, Chris Welch, was a softly spoken, conservatively dressed man in his late forties whose office walls were lined with photos of himself hanging out with Marc Bolan, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, in his days as a young reporter. I rarely saw him during my year at the magazine, but I’ve never forgotten his gentle demeanour and the trust he placed in my inexperienced, 22-year-old self. Without his support, my life may have taken a very different turn.
Chris was one of a kind. Other than him, respectful, benevolent older men did not figure in my work for the music press.
Kate Mossman’s debut is ‘a meditation on the powerful archetype of the ageing rock star’. Bonnier
By contrast, Kate Mossman is a British arts and music writer whose debut book is presented as “a meditation on the powerful archetype of the ageing rock star”. Her fixation with rock’s fading old guard provides a compelling premise for Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty, but the blurb is a little misleading. This is essentially a collection of republished interviews and personal reflections, rather than an in-depth analysis.
That said, Mossman has produced a thoughtful and entertaining retrospective. Her conversations with the likes of Wilko Johnson, Terence Trent D’Arby, Ray Davies (The Kinks), Jeff Beck and Kevin Ayers are humorous, perceptive and beautifully composed.
She describes the Happy Mondays’ and Black Grape’s Shaun Ryder as resembling “a Russian Mafia boss in the corner, whisky in hand, arms elevated by the pressure of a thick leather jacket”. She chats with Paul Stanley of KISS while he applies his makeup before a show.
“Here is my clown white,” he says softly, picking up a pot of the thick, sweat-resistant foundation he discovered in the ‘70s. “And here are my puffs.”
These encounters afford the reader a certain insight into Mossman’s idiosyncratic predilection for wrinkly rock stars twice her age. Yet while the book affectionately probes her strange, decidedly gendered interest, it avoids the glaring issue of structural misogyny that contaminates the music industry.
It’s not as if Mossman is unaware of the sexual politics at play. She positively delights in the “exciting father-daughter energy” of the older man-younger woman dynamic, intentionally exaggerating her youth and assumed innocence in the presence of ageing rockers. She knows men like Tom Jones and Gene Simmons will respond openly to her coltish, unthreatening persona, because what could be safer than “just a pretty lady”? It’s a clever and effective strategy.
I fully appreciate the quality of Mossman’s profiles, but her attempts to lean into the patronising attitudes of rock’s elders land uncomfortably with me. And having once had my own tender skin in the game, I can’t help seeing the book’s negation of sexism as a missed opportunity.
When I was a rock journalist, I never felt advantaged by my gender or energised by the older male rocker’s entrenched misogyny. Quite the opposite.
At Jarvis Cocker’s house party
Twenty or so years before Mossman began pursuing her beloved senior rockers across the US, I was being reprimanded by my editor for my “unprofessional” rejection of the creepy advances of a famous middle-aged musician.
Liz Evans in a shaving cream fight with Martin McCarrick from Therapy?.
In 1989, I was a staff writer for a fortnightly rock magazine based in London’s Carnaby Street. We smoked and drank at our desks, played loud metal on the stereo, took half-day lunches on record company money and hosted a constant stream of visiting rock stars in all manner of altered states throughout the working day.
One of my regular jobs was to review the singles with a handful of guest musicians, depending on who was in town. This was often a riotous affair that occasionally descended into chaos. One time, a German drummer, old enough to be my dad, asked me to sit on his lap while we listened to the records. When I didn’t see the funny side, he sniggered at my rebuttal and asked if I was having my period. So I walked out, leaving him with his embarrassed band mate in a room shocked into silence.
A year or so later, the editor who scolded me would help bring about my eventual redundancy after I started to retaliate against a toxic male colleague. This man, previously a friend who’d tried to date me, bullied and ostracised me for the entire duration of my employment. I put on a brave face, cried in the toilets and still managed to enjoy my work. But when I eventually reacted, I was blamed for aggravating the situation, and the magazine let me go.
I spent the next eight years escalating my freelance career and writing books. I waded in the ocean with The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft, toasted a Chicago sunrise on tour with Alice in Chains, went snowboarding with a young British band in California, tripped over Jarvis Cocker at his own house party, and gratefully received a pair of secondhand John Fluevog sandals from the closet of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon in New York. But my confidence remained dented until I published my first academic article in the early 2000s.
Liz Evans in Los Angeles to interview L7, with Dom Wills from Melody Maker. Liz Evans
Forgive me then, for baulking when Mossman describes herself as “a small girl sitting on the knee of Father Rock” at her first job for the now-defunct UK music monthly, The Word.
While I’m sure she’s attempting to describe a more supportive, paternalistic workplace environment than the one I endured, she is nevertheless referring to a situation in which she, too, was the only woman in a small team of men. In her case, a generational divide reinforced the sense of male authority which left her wondering “who I was without these men, and who I would be”.
Years before Mossman met him, one of the men she mentions reportedly claimed women were unable to write effectively about music. I once encountered him too, and found him to be smooth, charming and arrogant, with the ruthless attitude of a tabloid journalist.
Working with men like this produced some of the worst experiences of my career. Luckily, such occasions were rare, but could be significant. Bands never saw the bigger picture, of manipulated stories and doctored headlines, but their lives were directly affected by decisions made by people they’d often never met.
I remember once having a conversation with Kurt Cobain about power and the media, and telling him journalists like me could only do so much. Ultimately, we were at the mercy of our editors, which is why I tried to pick mine wisely. Musicians don’t have the choice. Under contract with record labels, they are legally obliged to engage with the media and must take what’s on offer. I’d known Nirvana before they were famous, and watching Kurt develop from a shy, goofy kid into a cynical megastar persecuted by the press was heartbreaking.
Part of the reason Mossman’s book sits uneasily with me is because it appears to ignore the hard-won heritage of female music journalists, and the struggles women like me had in the workplace. Deferring to big daddy editors and accommodating the fragile egos of doddery rock gods feels too much like turning the clock back.
More interested in her
Interestingly, at the back of her book, an intriguing detail lies almost buried in the acknowledgments. Here, Mossman says she recently learned her mother was responsible for introducing a bunch of records she thought had belonged to her dad into the family home.
This untold chapter of Mossman’s story speaks volumes about women and rock culture. Swinging like a loose thread, it threatens to unravel so much of what we have come to accept about the world of rock and the stories of its appointed gods.
Hence my other frustration with the book. While Mossman is a critically acclaimed journalist and former Mercury prize judge, nothing can fire my interest in men such as former Journey singer Steve Perry, or the insufferable Sting. I simply don’t care about them. I’m much more interested in her.
Had Mossman developed the snippets of memoir she uses to contextualise her interviews, and foregrounded herself instead of her tired old giants, I believe her book would have been much more powerful. The strongest, most illuminating passages are when she interrogates her past and mines her personal experiences for clues to her adult obsession with the old guys.
Her teenage infatuation with Queen, her discomfort with the irreverence of 1990s pop culture, her desperate need for parental approval, the peculiar sense of shame she feels in writing about people she loves. The way she listens to music through her father’s “imaginary ears”, the energy writing affords her. All of this outshines the perpetually recycled male rock-star myths, no matter how well Mossman interprets them.
Perhaps in trying to convince the reader to share her love for middle-of-the-road musicians, Bruce Hornsby and Glen Campbell, both of whom had their heyday before she was born, Mossman is still trapped in her teenage cycle of needing her parents to approve of Queen. If so, I hope she manages to shake this off and step more fully into her own story with conviction and faith. With her talent, a full-blown memoir would be a runaway bestseller.
In many ways, Mossman’s book highlights the limits of music journalism as a genre. Her long-form profiles are detailed sketches rather than complex studies, reflecting the fleeting nature of the interview format. Ultimately, even with a fascinating subject, this type of interaction will always be a superficial exercise and therefore something of a game.
For Mossman, with her obsessive fan tendencies, this may be hard to accept, but faced with Sting’s smooth professionalism, she has no choice. “There is a desire for connection that drives every interview,” she writes, “and with Sting, it was a connection I never got.”
For me, ten years of music journalism was enough. By 1998, I’d met everyone I wanted to meet and there were only five or six bands I still wanted to hang out with. I was ready to expand my writing skills and deepen my understanding of the human psyche. Funnily enough, given Mossman’s interest in Jungian theory, I retrained as a Jungian psychotherapist.
Liz Evans writes ‘ten years of journalism was enough’. Here, she’s pictured with Art Alexakis from Everclear. Liz Evans
An elitist boys’ club
I wasn’t the only one to quit music journalism after the 1990s. With magazines folding left, right and centre, many writers moved onto other careers. One of them was John Harris, now a political and arts columnist for The Guardian. We met briefly at the NME during my six-month stint as its rock correspondent, and occasionally ran into each other at Britpop gigs with mutual friends.
Now, NME is an online platform full of celebrity gossip and brimming with ads. But in the early 1990s it still held currency, for emerging bands and music fans alike. So when the editor invited me to interview Alice in Chains and Screaming Trees on tour in America, I was excited.
I arrived at the NME office fresh from the friendly clamour of Kerrang! magazine, and the first thing that struck me was the silence. Everywhere I looked, studious-looking guys with neat haircuts sat typing furiously away at their desks. There was no music, no talking – and, apart from the secretary, no women.
I soon discovered the few female writers who managed to find a way in were either resented (like me), or given “special dispensation”, whatever that meant.
It all seemed so weirdly petty, like an elitist boys’ club. I hated it.
On one occasion, I refused to disclose the location of a secret Hole gig – at the band’s request. I was punished for my disloyalty to the paper by not being allowed to review it. Another time, a couple of journalists offered to “help” me with a two-part feature on the Riot Grrrl movement, even though I’d single-handedly managed to gain the trust of some of the key women on the scene, all of whom despised the male-dominated music press.
The final straw came in the form of a commission to interview Aerosmith. Asked to “get the drug stories”, I argued for a more original angle: by then, the band was clean. But I was shut down and told to be “more humble”.
Needless to say, after spending a lovely afternoon laughing about outlandish but predictable druggy adventures with Aerosmith band members Joe Perry and Steven Tyler (who tried to steal my fake fur coat), I filed my copy and walked away from the NME with my head held as high as it would go.
Autistic and thriving with music
After freelancing for the NME, Harris went on to work for monthly music titles Q and Select. Now, he’s an award-winning journalist with a string of books to his name. His latest one, Maybe I’m Amazed: A Story of Love and Connection in Ten Songs, is his fifth, and arguably his most important work to date.
Harris’ memoir is a beautiful, heartwarming, enlightening and uplifting book that chronicles the profound impact of music on the life of an autistic child. It captures the grief and frustration of two loving parents as they struggle with the UK’s broken education system and underfunded health services, on behalf of their son. And it details the individual nature of autism and the multiple, miraculous ways an autistic person can flourish when given the right support.
As first-time parents, Harris and his partner Ginny, a former press officer with Parlophone Records, are not aware of any issues with their baby, James. He’s a little slow to speak and has some cute, characterful quirks, but nothing seems out of the ordinary until their daughter Rosa is born and the family moves from Wales to Somerset.
Slow to adapt to the new changes in his life, James begins to exhibit ritualistic behaviours that concern Harris. Three weeks after James starts attending his new nursery, Ginny is told her son might be autistic. Suddenly, she and Harris are plunged into a brutal spin of fear, anxiety, guilt, denial and fundamental uncertainty.
Together, the family embarks on a punitive round of tests and assessments as the tyranny of diagnosis takes hold. At first, supportive frameworks carry the weight of a heavy sentence. But Harris and Ginny immerse themselves in research and fact-finding missions to educate themselves about autism. After investing a significant amount of time and money, they manage to establish a viable routine to help James thrive.
It’s not an easy journey. Setbacks, personnel changes and bureaucratic complications are ever-present, but with a small team of specially trained, caring individuals, James makes progress. Meanwhile, as a lifelong music lover, Harris becomes increasingly aware of the profound relationships his son is developing with certain songs by particular bands. Kraftwerk, The Beatles and Mott the Hoople all exert a steadying influence on James, enabling him to communicate in ways he cannot through verbal language.
A visit from musician Billy Bragg, with whom Harris organises an annual talks tent for Glastonbury Festival, results in James actually making music himself. This leads to keyboard lessons and a slot at the school concert. By the time he enters his teens, James is playing bass, and looking every inch the rock star.
Structurally, Harris has produced a masterclass in memoir, seamlessly blending the past with the present. Cleverly shifting between his own life in music and his son’s, he charts his teenage years as a mod, his ill-fated band’s only performance and his forays into music journalism – all of which he now values anew in the context of parenting James.
He describes how the pair share their joy in gigs and experience the deep bond of making music together, sometimes with Rosa on drums. Watching his child come alive through rhythm and melody, Harris finds himself re-enchanted by music and uncovers the wonder of parenting through unexpected and creative channels.
The book delivers a wealth of information about the vast and complicated spectrum of autism, taking a deep dive into medical theories and the world of neurology. By weaving this complex material into his personal experience of huge emotional and practical challenges, Harris keeps it relatable. In many ways, he has forged a map, complete with a beacon of hope: albeit an individualised one. Informative, enriching and engaging, his story of love, persistence and hard-won daily miracles is music writing at its absolute best.
Wildly disparate in content, both Harris’ and Mossman’s books show how music can define us. In this way, their narratives speak to us all.
They remind me of a time when I couldn’t leave home without a Walkman and a spare set of batteries. They take me back to when I was a teenager, when music shaped my social life, determined my image and gave me the courage to withstand an emotionally abusive upbringing. And they return me to my twenties, when music powered my glamorous first career and launched me into a lifelong creative practice.
Ultimately, they remind me the pulse beneath my writing still belongs to music. And who knows? Maybe I’ll expand on that one day.
Liz Evans 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.
A modern-day political inquisition is unfolding in “digital town squares” across the United States. The slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk has become a focal point for a coordinated campaign of silencing critics that chillingly echoes one of the darkest chapters in American history.
Individuals who have publicly criticised Kirk or made perceived insensitive comments regarding his death are being threatened, fired or doxed.
Journalists have also lost their jobs after making comments about Kirk’s assassination, as has the late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.
A website called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” had been posting the names, locations and employers of people saying critical things about Kirk before it was reportedly taken down. Vice President JD Vance has pushed for this public response, urging supporters to “call them out … hell, call their employer”.
This is far-right “cancel culture”, the likes of which the US hasn’t seen since the McCarthy era in the 1950s.
The birth of McCarthyism
The McCarthy era may well have faded in our collective memory, but it’s important to understand how it unfolded and the impact it had on America. As the philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Since the 1950s, “McCarthyism” has become shorthand for the practice of making unsubstantiated accusations of disloyalty against political opponents, often through fear-mongering and public humiliation.
Joseph McCarthy. Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons
The term gets its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican who was the leading architect of a ruthless witch hunt in the US to root out alleged Communists and subversives across American institutions.
The campaign included both public and private persecutions from the late 1940s to early 1950s, involving hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Millions of federal employees had to fill out loyalty investigation forms during this time, while hundreds of employees were either fired or not hired. Hundreds of Hollywood figures were also blacklisted.
The campaign also involved the parallel targeting of the LGBTQI+ community working in government – known as the Lavender Scare.
And similar to doxing today, witnesses in government hearings were asked to provide the names of communist sympathisers, and investigators gave lists of prospective witnesses to the media. Major corporations told employees who invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify they would be fired.
The greatest toll of McCarthyism was perhaps on public discourse. A deep chill settled over US politics, with people afraid to voice any opinion that could be construed as dissenting.
When the congressional records were finally unsealed in the early 2000s, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the hearings “are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur”.
Another witch hunt under Trump
Today, however, a similar campaign is being waged by the Trump administration and others on the right, who are stoking fears of the “the enemy within”.
This new campaign to blacklist government critics is following a similar pattern to the McCarthy era, but is spreading much more quickly, thanks to social media, and is arguably targeting far more regular Americans.
Even before Kirk’s killing, there were worrying signs of a McCarthyist revival in the early days of the second Trump administration.
Supporters of the push to expose those criticising Kirk have framed their actions as protecting the country from “un-American”, woke ideologies. This narrative only deepens polarisation by simplifying everything into a Manichean world view: the “good people” versus the corrupt “leftist elite”.
The fact the political assassination of Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman did not garner the same reaction from the right reveals a gross double standard at play.
Another double standard: attempts to silence anyone criticising Kirk’s divisive ideology, while being permissive of his more odious claims. For example, he once called George Floyd, a Black man killed by police, a “scumbag”.
In the current climate, empathy is not a “made-up, new age term”, as Kirk once said, but appears to be highly selective.
This brings an increased danger, too. When neighbours become enemies and dialogue is shut down, the possibilities for conflict and violence are exacerbated.
Many are openly discussing the parallels with the rise of fascism in Germany, and even the possibility of another civil war.
A sense of decency?
The parallels between McCarthyism and Trumpism are stark and unsettling. In both eras, dissent has been conflated with disloyalty.
How far could this go? Like the McCarthy era, it partly depends on the public reaction to Trump’s tactics.
McCarthy’s influence began to wane when he charged the army with being soft on communism in 1954. The hearings, broadcast to the nation, did not go well. At one point, the army’s lawyer delivered a line that would become infamous:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness […] Have you no sense of decency?
Without concerted, collective societal pushback against this new McCarthyism and a return to democratic norms, we risk a further coarsening of public life.
The lifeblood of democracy is dialogue; its safeguard is dissent. To abandon these tenets is to pave the road towards authoritarianism.
Frank Mols received ARC funding
Gail Crimmins and Shannon Brincat 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.
Patrick Byrne samples the water in the Mersey catchment. Patrick Byrne, CC BY-NC-ND
The amount of toxic “forever chemicals” flowing into the River Mersey in north-west England has reached some of the highest levels recorded anywhere in the world.
My team’s research links much of this contamination to old landfills, waste facilities and past industrial activity. Even if these chemicals were banned tomorrow, they would continue polluting our rivers for decades, possibly centuries.
But there is a path forward. We’ve developed a new method
to track and prioritise the largest sources for clean-up, giving regulators a clearer picture of where to act first.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), more commonly known as “forever chemicals”, are a large family of human-made chemicals found in everyday products like food packaging, water-repellent clothes and fire-fighting foams. They are valued for their ability to resist very high temperatures and to repel water and oil, but these same properties make them extremely persistent.
Once released, some PFAS could take thousands of years to break down. They accumulate in the environment, build up – with different compounds accumulating at different rates – inside the bodies of wildlife and people, and have been associated with harms to health. The most studied types have been linked to cancers, hormone disruption and immune system problems.
Patrick Byrne has been measuring PFAS ‘loads’ in rivers over a period of time, not just the concentration at one moment. CC BY-NC-ND
Last year, my research team discovered that the amount of two potentially cancer-causing PFAS chemicals washing off the land and into the Mersey was among the highest in the world. In our follow-on research, we travelled upstream to try and locate where these PFAS are coming from. But with hundreds of potential PFAS sources, how do we isolate the largest ones?
The secret is measuring something called the PFAS load – the total amount of PFAS flowing through the river at a given point, rather than just the concentration in the water.
Here’s why that matters: a small stream can have high concentrations but carry only a small total amount, while a large river with lower concentrations can be transporting far more PFAS overall. If we only look at concentration, we risk missing the really heavy polluters.
By measuring PFAS loads at multiple points along the Mersey system, we could see exactly where the largest increases occurred. That told us both the location and the scale of PFAS inputs.
We detected PFAS chemicals at 97% of our sample sites, even in supposedly pristine streams draining from the Peak District national park. But the big breakthroughs came when we matched the largest PFAS load increases to specific areas.
PFBS (a type of PFAS) was coming in huge amounts from land draining old landfills in the Glaze Brook watershed near Leigh, west of Manchester. PFOA, a globally banned and cancer-causing PFAS, appeared to originate from a waste management facility on the River Roch, north of Manchester. PFOS, another banned PFAS, was entering the River Bollin, with strong evidence pointing to historic firefighting foam use at Manchester Airport.
What’s most striking to me is that all these sources are rooted in the past – old landfills, waste sites or historic industrial use. These chemicals are no longer in production, but they are still escaping into the environment, decades later.
This unmanned survey vessel is packed with sensors that measure PFAS loads in large rivers. credit, CC BY-NC-ND
This is where PFAS load measurements make a real difference. Instead of chasing the highest concentrations – which might lead to cleaning up small streams that contribute little overall – we can target the sites releasing the largest total amounts of PFAS into our rivers.
It’s a simple idea with major implications. In a world where environmental regulators face tight budgets and limited monitoring capacity, knowing exactly which sites are the biggest sources is vital.
The Mersey is just one example. Around the world, PFAS contamination follows a similar pattern: numerous potential sources scattered across the landscape, many of them historical. The chemicals’ extreme persistence means they will continue cycling through rivers, soils and wildlife for generations unless active steps are taken to remove or contain them.
Our latest study shows that measuring PFAS load can help solve one of the toughest challenges in managing chemical pollution: working out where to start. By identifying and prioritising the biggest sources, regulators have a realistic chance of reducing the flow of forever chemicals into our rivers – and perhaps one day, making that nickname a little less true.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
