Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate Kane, PhD Candidate in Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow

Internationally synonymous with Scottish identity, Robert Burns is Scotland’s national bard, a status he has achieved through his popularity since his death in 1796. He wrote some of the country’s most famous poems, including the satirical ode, Address to a Haggis and the rousing Scots Wha Hae. His most well-known work, the emotive Auld Lang Syne, is belted out the world over every New Year’s Eve.

On the 25th of January each year, Scots celebrate his life with good food (including the haggis he declared “Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race”) and recitations of his poetry. This Burns Night, I urge you to read one of the Bard’s lesser-known works from 1790, Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots, on the Approach of Spring.

A figure who also looms large in the Scottish cultural imagination, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in 1587 for plotting against her cousin, the English queen, Elizabeth I. Following her execution and the death of Elizabeth, Mary’s son James was crowned king of both countries in 1603, meaning Mary is often viewed as the last distinctively Scottish monarch.

Mary’s legacy has long been contested. In her lifetime, she was depicted as either a papist jezebel, a “monstrous” female ruler, or a Catholic martyr.

Since her death, a slew of writers, including Burns, have written fictional versions of the Queen of Scots according to their own beliefs about her cultural significance. However, Burns’ poem, written 200 years after her execution, played a large part in shaping her legacy.

Mary was the subject of heated debate among Scottish men in the 18th century. Figures such as the philosopher David Hume labelled Mary “a whore” who had “murdered her husband”.

Hume was using the same smears weaponised by Mary’s contemporary political enemies to control her public reputation. The Scottish lords at the time implicated the queen in the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley. Her marriage to the man accused of Darnely’s killing just months after his death seemed to support perceptions of her guilt. They denounced her as a murderer and adulteress, and she was forced to abdicate in 1567.

Burns’ representation of the “amiable but unfortunate” Mary is, by contrast, sympathetic. His lament first appeared in a letter in 1790 to his friend the heiress Francis Dunlop. He went on to describe the work, in another letter, this time to Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable in 1791, as “a tribute to the memory of our greatly injured, lovely Scottish Queen”.

Burns’ sympathy for the queen was probably influenced by the popular defence of her written by his friend William Tytler. Challenging accounts from the likes of Hume, Tytler critically re-examined the evidence used to condemn Mary for her second husband’s death.

Burns’s portrayal of Mary was also influenced by his Jacobite sympathies – he believed that the exiled Stuart dynasty, represented by Mary, should be restored to the British throne. A burgeoning romantic literary tradition, oriented around natural imagery and individualistic emotional expression, also informed his representation of the Queen.

Written in Mary’s voice as she awaits execution, Burns’ Mary contrasts her youthful happiness as “the Queen o’ bonie France” (she became Queen of France through her first marriage in 1558 to the French dauphin, Francis II) with her current imprisonment in “foreign bands” in England. She decries “mony [many] a traitor” in Scotland and wishes “kinder stars” for her son James.

The Lamentation of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots by the female poet Anne Hunter (1742-1821) may also have influenced Burns’ depiction of the queen. Published around 1780, it bears marked similarities to Burns’ later lament.

Hunter and Burns both write as Mary in the first-person, describe Elizabeth I as a “false woman”, use nature-based imagery, and conclude with Mary’s defiant belief that she will live on after her death. Unfortunately, the likely influence of Hunter’s work on the bard has largely been forgotten, as her poem was often published anonymously.

With his lament, Burns cemented Mary’s status as a tragic figure ripe for romantic literary representation. Burns’ work inspired the romantic poet William Wordsworth to write three poems about the queen of “weeping captivity” in the early 1800s – one remarkably similar lament and two works that also appropriated her voice.

With Burns’s Mary declaring Elizabeth to be a lesser woman as “the weeping blood in woman’s breast / Was never known to thee”, he also helped to create an enduring trope that presents womanly, incompetent Mary as having been the victim and opposite of cold and shrewd (unwomanly) Elizabeth.

This idea has been perpetuated in works from Walter Scott’s The Abbot (1820) to Phillipa Gregory’s The Other Queen (2008). Liz Lochhead’s 1987 play Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off is the most significant work to date to take issue with this portrayal of the queens as two “mean girls locked in a catfight to the death”.

Both Mary and Burns were poets, both of their corpses were exhumed in attempts to redefine their cultural reputations, and both are now profitable attractions for Scotland’s tourism and heritage industries.

As Burns Night comes around again and Mary’s last letter goes on display for the first time in Perth, now is the time to read Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots, on the Approach of Spring and remember two figures whose lives and mythologies have shaped Scotland greatly.

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.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Kate Kane receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council via the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities.

– ref. Robert Burns and Mary, Queen of Scots: how the poet shaped the enduring cultural legacy of the executed monarch – https://theconversation.com/robert-burns-and-mary-queen-of-scots-how-the-poet-shaped-the-enduring-cultural-legacy-of-the-executed-monarch-273950

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.

“Observing Greenland from a helicopter,” one scientist wrote last year, “the main problem is one of comprehending scale. I thought we were skimming low over the waves of a fjord, before … realising what I suspected were floating shards of ice were in fact icebergs the size of office blocks. I thought we were hovering high in the sky over a featureless icy plane below, before bumping down gently onto ice only a few metres below us.”

This is the view described by Durham glaciologist Tom Chudley, when writing about his research showing the Greenland ice sheet isn’t just melting – it’s falling apart. Chudley and his colleagues found crevasses are growing fast, channelling meltwater deep into the ice sheet, accelerating its slide into the ocean.

And as the ice cracks, so does the geopolitical status quo.

Many world maps make Greenland seem even bigger than it actually is. The “Mercator projection” implies it’s almost the size of Africa, when in reality it is “only” about as big as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Over my time in this job, I have noticed Greenland having a similarly outsized role in climate science. In recent years, The Conversation has published stories, among many others, on melting ice, climate-changing microbes, fast-adapting polar bears, Chudley’s creaking crevasses, the race to map the world’s most spectacular and remote fjords, and a skyscraper-sized tsunami that vibrated through the entire planet and no one saw. All relied on scientists – often in big international teams – having access to Greenland.

Read more:
The Greenland ice sheet is falling apart – new study

Access denied?

But the political stability that allows these scientists to work there is also under threat. In a piece explaining why Greenland is indispensable to global climate science, Martin Siegert, a glaciologist who heads the University of Exeter’s Cornwall campus, points out that Antarctica has been governed for decades by an international treaty that ensures it remains a place of peace and science. Greenland has no such protection.

“Its openness to research”, writes Siegert, “therefore depends not on international law, but on Greenland’s continued political stability and openness – all of which may be threatened by US control.”

The stakes are high: if Greenland’s colossal ice sheet fully melted, it would “raise sea level globally by about seven metres (the height of a two storey house)”.

Read more:
Why Greenland is indispensable to global climate science

Why the sudden urge to take over Greenland, anyway?

Many assume America’s ambitions are ultimately about oil or other minerals. But Lukas Slothuus, who researches fossil fuel production at the University of Sussex, takes a more sceptical view on the supposed economic jackpot.

Logistical nightmares

Greenland does have vast natural resources, he says, but they won’t necessarily translate into huge profits. That’s because the logistics are so tough. Slothuus notes that: “Outside its capital Nuuk, there is almost no road infrastructure in Greenland and limited deep-water ports for large tankers and container ships.”

He contrasts this with other potential mining operations around the world, which can “exploit public infrastructure such as roads, ports, power generation, housing and specialist workers to make their operations profitable”. Greenland has none of this. That means “huge capital investment would be required to extract the first truckload of minerals and the first barrel of oil”.

This is one reason why Siegert believes “economics dictates” Greenland’s resources will “most likely be used to power the green transition rather than prolong the fossil fuel era”. The sheer cost of extraction means the commercial focus is on “critical minerals”: high-value materials used in renewable technologies from wind turbines to electric car batteries.

As Slothuus puts it, oil from Greenland is “implausible even in the event of a full US takeover”.

“There are many reasons why the Trump administration might want to dominate the Arctic, not least to gain relative power over Russia and China. But natural resource extraction is unlikely to feature centrally.”

Read more:
Why Greenland’s vast natural resources won’t necessarily translate into huge profits

This hasn’t stopped the superpowers, of course. And in the medium-term, Greenland looks set to host a massive military build up – whether or not the US takes over.

That’s according to Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, a professor of war studies at Loughborough University. She says Greenland is in a strategic position that will only become more important as climate change opens up new shipping lanes, enabling further conflict in the far north. “The Arctic in general,” she writes, “will become a showcase for the latest military technology the US has in its armouries.”

Read more:
Whether or not US acquires Greenland, the island will be at the centre of a massive military build-up in the Arctic

I’m not aware of any research on the climate impact of a military showcase on or around a pristine ice sheet. But as our glaciologist in the helicopter warned us, the ice is already fragile enough.

To contact The Conversation’s environment team, please email imagine@theconversation.com. We’d love to hear your feedback, ideas and suggestions and we read every email, thank you.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

– ref. Why Greenland plays an outsized role in climate change science – https://theconversation.com/why-greenland-plays-an-outsized-role-in-climate-change-science-274053

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

Fears that Donald Trump’s newly minted “Board of Peace” might supplant the United Nations appear to have been premature. The US president has touted his brainchild as “an international organization” that aims to “secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”. This, of course, is a mission that is central to the UN’s raison d’etre.

But António Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general, is unlikely to lose much sleep over Trump’s new vehicle for global governance. Just 19 countries have signed up of the 60 invited, ranging from Argentina to Uzbekistan. From Europe, just Hungary and Bulgaria have joined. None of the major European powers were represented, neither were Russia or China.

The board’s charter amounts to what must be one of the more bizarre documents doing the diplomatic round at the moment. Despite being set up and given a mandate by the UN security council as a vehicle to oversee the future governance and rebuilding of Gaza, you’d search in vain in the charter for mentions of the embattled Palestinian territory.

Instead it confers on the US president some extraordinary powers as chairman of the board. He can dictate who is eligible to join (just not, as we have seen, who actually joins). He will occupy the chair for as long as he wishes and has the power to choose his successor. He will choose when to meet and what to discuss. In the event of a decision before member states being tied, he gets a casting vote.

Membership is for three years, and can be turned into a permanent seat for a fee of US$1 billion (£740 million). Funds will be controlled by the executive board, selected by the chairman, with a chief executive officer, nominated by the chairman. The chairman also has the power to remove or renew the tenure of members of the executive board.

It is, writes Stefan Wolff, like a “privatised UN with one shareholder: the US president”. And it comes a week after Trump pulled the US out of 31 UN organisations, including the peace-building commission and the peace-building fund, as well as office of the special representative for children in armed conflict. Perhaps we’ll see the Board of
Peace taking these roles on?

More likely, it would seem, is that the transactional ethos which appears to run through Trump’s foreign policy endeavours will persist in the Board of Peace’s efforts to solve today’s international crises. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have both been appointed to the executive board (alongside, among others, Tony Blair). Kushner presented the plan for the next phase of the Gaza plan, which will focus on decommissioning Hamas.

Read more:
Donald Trump’s ‘board of peace’ looks like a privatised UN with one shareholder: the US president

The launch of the Board of Peace took place on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos, a gathering which had appeared to have lost traction in recent years, but which has this week been the epicentre of global diplomacy. This has largely been thanks to Trump’s threat to acquire Greenland from Denmark by fair means or foul. Given that Denmark (and the Greenlanders themselves) have resolutely insisted that the island is not for sale, fair means appear to have been ruled out and there was much consternation about what foul might mean and whether it would involve military action.

Trump addressed the gathering on Wednesday, rowing back on his earlier threat to take Greenland by force. But it what was still clear that most leaders are coming to terms with the disintegration of the world order put in place in the aftermath of the second world war and the dawn of a new era dominated by great powers acting purely in their own interests. Or as Stephen Miller, Trump’s ideologue in chief puts it, a world “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”.

It’s hard to see how America’s erstwhile close allies can resist this, writes Robert Dover. Dover, an expert in international affairs at the University of Hull, with a focus on security and intelligence, sees just how intimately entwined the US and the rest of Nato are, particularly in terms of intelligence sharing and military cooperation.

Still, he writes: “There is a dawning realisation that the US might be Europe’s adversary, not ally.” Or, as Canadian prime minister Mark Carney put it in his speech on January 20: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” It’s up to the rest of the world to decide how to face up to the new reality.

Read more:
Trump at Davos marks the start of a new era in world affairs

Carney’s speech, with its quotations from Václav Havel and Thucydides, has been much praised. (Take a look at this piece from Thucydides expert Neville Morley for a detailed look on what the ancient historian really meant by the line referenced by Carney.) One journalist even put it up there with Churchill’s iron curtain speech after the second world war.

There was, writes Mark Shanahan, professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, one venue and two speeches but Carney’s “left Donald Trump in the dust”. It was clear-sighted, determined, reasonable and fact-based. Trump, meanwhile, served up 70 minutes that had it not been for the teleprompter you could have taken for stream of consciousness, including the usual jibes against friend and foe alike and a medley of his own greatest hits, many of them imaginary.

Shanahan contrasts the style and substance of the two leaders, concluding that: “One leader donned the cloak of statesmanship at Davos this week. It wasn’t Donald Trump.”

Read more:
One venue, two speeches – how Mark Carney left Donald Trump in the dust in Davos

Trump 2.0: one year in

So busy a week has it been that we’ve hardly had time to stop and notice that it marked a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term, promising to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”.

He rode to victory in November 2024 thanks to a broad coalition with its core comprising what have become known as Maga voters – for his slogan that he will “make America great again”. Prominent among those voters were farmers and small business owners in rural communities across the heartland of America: rust-belt and rural communities drawn to his promise of economic regeneration.

But a year own there are signs that these people are becoming increasingly disillusioned, writes Inderjeet Parmar, an expert in US politics at City St George’s, University of London. The mass deportations of migrants has deprived farmers of vital labour while Trump’s regime of tariffs has increased costs for struggling families. With the midterms looming this November, the Republican party will be anxious that these crucial votes might not materialise.

Read more:
Signs that Trump’s economic policies are alienating his rural Maga base

Tariffs have been at the heart of Trumpian economic policy over the first year of his second term. Economists Prachi Agarwal, Jodie Keane and Maximiliano Mendez-Parra of independent research organisation ODI Global assess who are the winners from Trump’s tariff regime and who have lost out.

Read more:
After a year of Trump, who are the winners and losers from US tariffs?

Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

– ref. Trump’s Board of Peace launches into a warring world – https://theconversation.com/trumps-board-of-peace-launches-into-a-warring-world-274147

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Thusha Rajendran, Professor of Psychology, The National Robotarium, Heriot-Watt University

On the arm of Swiss tennis player Stan Wawrinka is tattooed a quote by Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

This excerpt from novella Worstward Ho seems motivational and suggests that perseverance is needed for success. However, the word failure carries a weight with it, especially if used as a label, as if it were an essential part of someone.

Yet, in evolution, the creative arts, engineering and education, failure is a process – without which success is not achievable.

“Error” might actually be a better term than failure, because error generates variation. And this variation is important in understanding the uniqueness of human creativity.

Generative AI can create fashion models, award-winning art and actors. But generative AI lacks the artist’s drive, their ability to reflect and know the significance about why and for whom the art is being created.

If we consider creativity as a process, then in order to create new and novel art, errors, mistakes, dead ends are required. In short, failure.

Generative AI also cannot understanding concepts such as aesthetic failure (when musicians use failure as a catalyst for improvisation), or have the desire to connect with an audience in a live performance. Creation can be outsourced but human creativity and the impulse to connect cannot.

Perfectionism is an illusion

Learning from mistakes in not a new idea in teaching, but with the rise of generative AI the temptation for both students and educators might to see generative AI as a way to eradicate failure, a guarantee of high grades at school and university.

However, this risks not providing students with the experiences they will need to be lifelong learners. British psychiatrist and cyberneticist W. Ross Ashby wrote: “The whole function of the brain is summed up in: error correction.”

Here, the key to understanding the brain is not in the error, but the process of correcting the error. Similarly, in his book To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, the engineer Henry Petroski argues that failure is vital to the advancement of engineering and design, because it drives process.

Not that anyone deliberately designs bridges to collapse, but the knowledge of how to put things right comes from understanding why things went wrong. Petroski also argues that prolonged success leads to failure, but this is because of complacency.

In deciding what we want from AI, complacency (not failure) is our biggest enemy. Across many domains failure is not just necessary, but vital for success.

For example, a research study has found that both AI models and human dermatologists perform worse on images of dark skin tones and uncommon diseases when presented with a set of diverse skin images. This highlights the problems of a lack of exposure to variations in skin types and rare skin diseases in both AI trained datasets and humans.

Driverless vehicles have issues with merging into traffic and halting because they do not have a mental representation of the intentions of other road users.

By contrast, humans understand driving as a social, interactional and transactional endeavour – as much as a technical one – and, so, find ways to negotiate, to yield and say thank you.

Appreciating this a powerful counter narrative to perfectionism in all its guises. The most seductive of which is perhaps the promise of an AI-created utopia.

The question is whose vision of paradise is this and what are we forsaking by not questioning it. What we do risk losing by not striving, by not making (or accepting mistakes), of seeing beauty in imperfection?

The fallacy is that we have no agency, that technology cannot be imbued with moral ambition. However, history shows us that humans can and do shape technologies. For example, the printing press was repurposed from publishing books to printing newspapers – thereby creating the means and a mechanism for a free press.

So, there is no such thing as technological inevitability. We can decide what the relationship between humans and AI will look like – through consumer choice, the ballot box and legislation – and with it all the groundbreaking, creative and beautiful mistakes it will bring.

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

– ref. Why failure is a necessary ingredient for success – especially in the era of AI – https://theconversation.com/why-failure-is-a-necessary-ingredient-for-success-especially-in-the-era-of-ai-272820

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yasemin Kor, Beckwith Professor of Management Studies, Cambridge Judge Business School

Consumers are surrounded by food that is highly conducive to weight gain. No one likes dieting and very few have lasting success. But now weight-loss injections are seen as gamechangers, yielding results that seem miraculous for people who have struggled with their weight.

Around the world, obesity, high blood pressure, and abnormal blood sugar and lipid levels (so-called “metabolic syndrome”) have now been shown to affect 31% of women and 26% of men. The same study estimated that globally 1.54 billion adults had metabolic syndrome in 2023.

The new genre of weight loss injections (GLP-1 agonists) have been shown to reduce weight by 16-23% in roughly one year. These drugs are expensive, but some healthcare programmes cover the cost for those who need them the most.

In the UK, they are covered by the NHS for patients who are both severely obese and also suffer from specific weight-related health problems such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Some who can afford to pay may be able to get a prescription with less-pressing health conditions.

In the meantime, prices of the drugs are starting to come down thanks to commercial competition and patents expiring. And a more convenient pill form is now available in the US and likely to become available in some other markets in the near future, meaning the overall uptake of these drugs could grow exponentially.

This might all seem like bad news for the food industry. After all, the people who are taking these drugs, often for at least a year, have significantly reduced appetite. This will amount to a sizeable drop in demand for food products. So it’s interesting to consider how the food industry might react to this – with an aggressive response that revamps food product lines to promote better nutrition and health? Or with a wait-and-see approach to determine the long-term future of the drugs?

People taking weight-loss drugs still need to get enough protein, fibre and other nutrients to prevent muscle loss and to keep their digestive systems functioning. It takes tricky calculations and consistent planning to figure out how to obtain all essential nutrients in small plates day after day. This can be a new business opportunity for food companies.

Companies in the sector have introduced product lines with meals designed specifically for those on weight-loss medications – M&S (Nutrient Dense), Morrisons (Small & Balanced) and Nestle (Vital Pursuit). There are also smaller entrepreneurial companies in the mix – BistroMD, Field Doctor, Jane Plan and MealPro, for example. These specialise in meal preparation and delivery based on customers’ needs (for example, GLP-1-optimised, heart-healthy or diabetes-friendly) or taste preferences.

Others will no doubt follow – but companies like M&S and small specialised firms are the ones showing more agility and capability in this space right now.

The shadow of ultra-processed foods

However, beyond GLP-friendly ready meals, food companies must confront a major problem: they are a significant contributor to the global epidemic of metabolic syndrome due to their promotion of the ultra-processed and highly processed foods found everywhere – from supermarkets, to workplace cafeterias and food outlets.

It is not only consumers who rely on these products; food companies earn significant profits from them. GLP-1 drugs may help reduce consumers’ dependence on such foods, but could they also encourage companies to adjust their product ranges and offer more space for healthier options on shelves and menus?

And even though recent research has shown that people who stop taking the drugs often gain back the weight they lost very rapidly, these drugs will not go away. They will most probably be carefully combined with other tools for effective long-term weight and metabolic syndrome management.

Customers can expect to spot more GLP-1-friendly food products in all supermarkets this year. But unfortunately, with some exceptions, it is unlikely that consumers will see a significant reduction in highly processed or ultra-processed foods – or a big increase in the amount of healthier food on sale.

Food companies are likely to continue generating revenue from less healthy products for as long as demand remains strong. That’s the usual response of established firms that are disrupted by technology, competition and new business models. Most prefer to take a wait-and-see approach, keeping their bigger portfolio and overall business strategy intact, and plan to calibrate a response based on the perceived urgency and size of the threat.

But, in this case, that could be a big mistake. A tentative approach reinforces the already negative image of large food firms when it comes to public health. Introducing a limited range while failing to act on the damaging effects of their other product lines could further erode consumer trust.

It could also open the door to competition from pharmaceutical companies, technology startups, and speciality food firms that take alternative approaches to food and health. These could involve even more sophisticated prepared-meal options, supplements and customised meal kits. The wait-and-see approach, however, delays the development of new products and business strategy.

Ultimately, customer choices matter – and increasingly shoppers have more options. People with metabolic syndrome are more than likely to try weight-loss medications that may reverse their health problems. They are also likely to invest in approaches that will help them maintain their weight loss. Food and health companies that make it their mission to promote wellbeing are going to be tomorrow’s winners.

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

– ref. How will weight-loss jabs change the food industry? – https://theconversation.com/how-will-weight-loss-jabs-change-the-food-industry-273849

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Boxall, Senior Lecturer in Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton

Over Christmas, vegetables, bananas and insulation foam washed up on beaches along England’s south-east coast. They were from 16 containers spilled by the cargo ship Baltic Klipper in rough seas. In the new year, a further 24 containers fell from two vessels during Storm Goretti, with chips and onions among the goods appearing on the Sussex shoreline.

For most people this is a nuisance – or perhaps a bit of fun. For oceanographers like me, who study tides and currents, it is also an accidental experiment – a rare chance to watch the ocean move things around in real time. Think of it as a very large message in a bottle.

In reality, cargo has been falling off ships since traders first went to sea. What has changed is that, in the modern world, most goods are transported in standardised containers. Apart from oil, gas, vehicles, bulk grain, aggregates – and people – pretty much everything is moved this way.

More than 250 million containers are shipped around the world each year, and it is likely that over 80% of goods in your home travelled at some point in a container by sea.

Losses are rare. Industry group the World Shipping Council estimates that over the past ten years an average of 1,274 containers a year have been lost globally, out of hundreds of millions transported. This figure does vary: in 2020 a single huge ship the ONE Apus lost around 1,800 containers of its 14,000 load in a Pacific storm, while in 2024 global losses were estimated at just 576.

Ducks go global

Some losses make the news in unexpected ways. In January 1992, 12 containers washed off the Ever Laurel in the North Pacific. One of these contained 28,800 bath toys – plastic beavers, frogs, turtles and ducks – which spilled into the ocean and washed up on beaches around the Pacific over the next decade or more.

Curt Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham, oceanographers from Seattle, tracked these so-called “friendly floatees” around the world and used them to improve scientific models of ocean circulation. In more recent years I’ve looked at the progress of these floatees into the Arctic and beyond.

Not all cargoes are this benign or useful. In January 2007, the MSC Napoli was hit by a major storm in the Channel and lost 114 containers, 80 of which washed up on beaches around Branscombe in Devon. Containers of wine, BMW motorbikes and perfumes drew locals to scour the beach for prizes but there were also far more sinister containers of explosives, weed killers, fertilisers and acid.

Both the cargoes and the containers themselves pose serious risks. Chemicals can destroy habitats, while containers can sometimes lurk one or two metres below the surface, kept semi-buoyant by trapped air, making them difficult to detect and capable of causing serious damage in a collision.

Designed for speed – not 100% security

Modern container ships are designed for speed and efficiency in port. A single 400-metre vessel can carry up to 25,000 containers, many towering high above deck like a block of flats. The containers interlock and are secured using industry standard fixings – one reasons cranes are able to rapidly move them around a port. In severe storms, however, the forces involved can exceed what the fixings are designed to withstand, and containers can be dislodged, particularly those at the edge.

It is almost impossible to secure cargo 100% safely. To do so would mean smaller ships, with cargo held internally, reversing decades of efficiency gains. That would mean far more ships required to move the same volume of goods, higher costs for consumers, great fuel use per tonne of goods, and a higher overall risk of accidents. It would also clog up ports around the world.

The English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and is regularly battered by storms. Southampton, the UK’s second busiest container port, is also one of only a few worldwide that can accommodate the largest container ships. It is therefore no surprise that container losses are often visible along England’s south coast.

Looking ahead, the risks are unlikely to diminish. Climate change is intensifying storms as oceans warm, while international trade continues to grow and ships become ever larger.

The ship owners – usually through their insurance companies – are responsible for cleaning up spills, but the system only works if the losses are reported. Until now, containers lost at sea have often gone unreported or their contents have been barely documented.

However, from January 1 2026, new international rules introduced by the World Shipping Council working with the International Maritime Organisation (the UN Agency responsible for shipping) will require ship owners to report all cargo losses and their contents. While this may not prevent containers being lose at sea, it should improve tracking, recovery and accountability.

If you see a container on a beach, resist the temptation to see it as an early Christmas present. You should report it immediately to the coastguard – scavenging wrecks can count as theft. In the UK, who owns what washes up is decided by a single civil servant with the grand title of the Receiver of Wreck. Critically, that container may contain a far less pleasant cargo that could ruin your Christmases for years to come.

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

– ref. Why do onions and chips keep washing up on England’s south coast? Here’s the science – https://theconversation.com/why-do-onions-and-chips-keep-washing-up-on-englands-south-coast-heres-the-science-274095

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Katya Rubia, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, King’s College London

Diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are rising rapidly in the UK. More children and teenagers than ever are being referred for assessment and support, and families are often facing long waits and limited options once a diagnosis is made. Schools, health services and parents are all under growing pressure to find treatments that genuinely help children manage their difficulties with attention, impulsivity and activity levels.

At the same time, there is no shortage of new ideas being promoted as solutions. Some are supported by evidence, while others sound promising but rest on much shakier foundations. One of the challenges for families is working out which treatments are truly effective and which are driven more by hope than by solid proof.

For many children with ADHD, stimulant medication such as methylphenidate is known to be highly effective. Decades of research show that these medicines can reduce core symptoms and help children function better at home and at school. For some families, medication can make a life-changing difference.

Even so, medication is not an easy choice for everyone. Many parents and young people worry about side-effects, stigma or the idea of taking medication long term. These concerns are understandable and often lead families to look for alternatives that feel more natural or less medical.

Against this backdrop, brain stimulation devices have increasingly been promoted as a drug-free option for ADHD. These devices deliver very mild electrical stimulation to specific nerves or parts of the brain. They are generally considered safe, with side-effects that tend to be mild and short-lived, such as skin irritation or tingling. Safety, however, is not the same as effectiveness.

One of the most widely discussed of these technologies is trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS). The trigeminal nerve is the largest nerve in the face and carries signals to the brain. Devices using this approach are worn on the forehead and deliver gentle electrical pulses, usually during sleep. The idea is that stimulating this nerve might influence brain systems involved in attention and self-control.

This technology became the only medical device cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration for ADHD in children in 2019. For many families seeking non-medication options, regulatory clearance can suggest effectiveness, even when the supporting evidence is limited.

What is less widely understood is that this decision was based on very limited evidence. The main study supporting clearance involved just 62 children. While the study reported improvements in ADHD symptoms, it had major weaknesses. In particular, the children who were meant to act as a comparison group received no stimulation at all.

This matters because expectations can strongly influence how people experience and report symptoms, especially when a treatment involves advanced technology. If children or parents can easily tell whether a device is switched on, beliefs about whether it “should” work can affect how improvements are noticed or reported, even if the device itself has no real effect.

Despite these limitations, FDA clearance helped legitimise the device and fuelled interest around the world. TNS began to be marketed in private clinics, including in the UK, often at significant cost to families.

Some families bought the device abroad or through private providers, hoping it would offer benefits without medication. Meanwhile, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has taken a more cautious stance, saying that stronger evidence is needed before such devices could be recommended within the NHS.

It was clear that better evidence was needed to answer a simple question that matters deeply to families: does TNS actually help children with ADHD?

Testing the claim

Our new study was designed to find out. We carried out a large, independent UK clinical trial of TNS, recruiting 150 children and teenagers with ADHD in London and Southampton. This made it substantially larger than the studies that had come before. Crucially, our study was designed so that expectations were carefully controlled.

Children in both groups wore identical-looking devices, and both groups felt sensations from the device. This meant that neither families nor participants could easily tell whether they were receiving real stimulation or a placebo version. This kind of design allowed us to test whether TNS itself had any effect beyond expectation alone.

Our findings were clear. We found no evidence that trigeminal nerve stimulation improved ADHD symptoms. Children who received active stimulation did no better than those who received the placebo device. There were no improvements in attention, behaviour, anxiety, mood or sleep.

These results challenge the earlier study that led to regulatory clearance in the US. They also highlight why large, carefully designed trials are so important, particularly for treatments that generate excitement and hope. Without strong controls, it is easy to mistake expectation for effectiveness.

Technology-based brain treatments are especially vulnerable to this problem. When families are told that a device can “correct” or “normalise” brain activity linked to ADHD, expectations can understandably run high. Without rigorous testing, this can lead to the benefits being overstated and families being misled.

For families in the UK, the message from our research is an important one. TNS appears to be safe, but safety alone is not enough. A treatment that does not work offers no real benefit and may divert time, money and energy away from approaches that are known to help.

Our findings also serve as a reminder that official approval or marketing claims do not always mean a treatment is effective. Clearance can sometimes reflect that a device is safe to sell, not that it has been proven to work well.

ADHD can be a serious and lifelong condition for many children and young people. As diagnoses continue to rise, so too does the responsibility to ensure that families are offered support and treatments guided by robust evidence – not hype, hope or premature conclusions.

_The Conversation asked NeuroSigma, the maker of the TNS device mentioned in this article, to comment on the issues raised in this article. A company spokesperson said the study design mentioned in this article may have limited the ability to detect treatment effects. In particular, they noted that the primary outcome measure relied on parent-reported assessments rather than clinician-rated ADHD scales. NeuroSigma maintains that clinician assessments are more reliable and less prone to bias, and says it is therefore unsurprised by the study’s findings.

NeuroSigma also highlighted an ongoing, larger double-blind randomised controlled trial led by researchers at UCLA, involving 225 children and using clinician-rated outcomes alongside biomarker data. The company says it expects results from this study later this year and believes they will confirm both the safety and effectiveness of eTNS therapy.

This project was funded by the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme (NIHR130077), a Medical Research Council (MRC) and National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) partnership. The design, management, analysis and reporting of the study are independent of the funder and the device manufacturer. Katya Rubia is also supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS foundation Trust and King’s College London (NIHR BRC Maudsley) and by NIHR grant (NIHR203684), Medical Research Council (MRC) (APP32868), Medical Research Foundation (MRF-176-0002-RG-FLOH-C0929) and Rosetrees Foundation (3442198). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the MRC, NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care or any of the other funding bodies.

Aldo Alberto Conti 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. Brain device for ADHD shows no benefit in major UK trial – https://theconversation.com/brain-device-for-adhd-shows-no-benefit-in-major-uk-trial-273628

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hammad Nazir, Senior Lecturer in Engingeering, University of South Wales

Space agencies are no longer talking about visiting the Moon, they’re planning on living on it.

Nasa wants a permanent lunar presence by the 2030s through its Artemis programme. China, meanwhile, has set its sights on landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the decade, with plans for a construction of a permanent lunar base alongside international partners. The goal is to establish a lunar research station by the mid-2030s.

But all of these grand ambitions rest on a surprisingly fragile foundation. How do you store energy in a place where almost everything is trying to destroy your battery?

It’s a question science fiction rarely pauses to consider. Films are happy to show rockets launching and habitats glowing against the darkness of space, but the power that keeps those systems alive is usually treated as a given. In real life, engineers know better because in space, batteries are often the weakest link.

In films such as The Martian and Interstellar, we see solar panels, generators or reactors in passing. But the hardest part of the problem – how energy is stored, protected and managed over long periods in extreme environments – is largely invisible.

Power systems just work reliably in the background. Batteries don’t degrade, freeze, overheat or fail at the worst possible moment. The chemistry that keeps rovers moving and life-support systems running is rarely questioned. After all, a degrading anode probably doesn’t make for gripping cinema.

Back in real life on Earth, batteries benefit from a mild, predictable environment. Space is the opposite, however. Temperatures can swing between -150°C during a lunar night and more than +150°C in direct sunlight. Intense radiation breaks chemical bonds. With no atmosphere, heat has nowhere to go. Even microgravity can alter how fluids move inside a battery cell.

The lithium-ion batteries that power phones, laptops and electric cars were never designed for this. Even today’s space missions rely on heavily modified, specialised systems. For example, the Perseverance rover on Mars carries batteries built to survive deep cold and dust storms. While the International Space Station replaced its ageing nickel–hydrogen units with lithium-ion packs engineered to withstand years of rapid thermal cycling.

If the human race is serious about lunar habitats, long-range rovers and sustained missions, we will need battery chemistry far more resilient than those used on Earth.

What space really does to a battery

My colleagues and I are trying to understand what really happens to a battery when it is pushed far beyond the conditions it was designed for. We use advanced modelling tools to recreate the extremes of space, from radiation that slowly degrades electrode materials to the way heat builds up when there is no air to carry it away.

What we see is sobering. In our simulations, electrodes can fracture during the deep freeze of a lunar night. Under direct sunlight, cells can overheat rapidly. During Martian dust storms, certain components degrade far faster than many existing models predict.

Each of these simulations is paired with experiments in our laboratory, where we test this behaviour under controlled conditions. By combining modelling with hands-on research, we are trying to pinpoint the precise mechanisms that cause failure, and how they might be prevented.

Again and again, our work shows the same thing: space doesn’t just stress a battery but exposes every weakness at once. A design that works perfectly well on Earth may survive only minutes on the Moon.

Surviving in space means rethinking what a battery is for. Energy density matters, but so do issues like safety, thermal stability and longevity.

One promising option is magnesium–air batteries, which use a lightweight and abundant metal and could deliver very high energy for their mass. These systems may be well suited to drones, mobility units or emergency backup power, where weight is critical.

For crewed missions, reliability often matters more than capacity. Lithium titanate batteries sacrifice some energy density but offer exceptional thermal stability, long cycle life and improved safety under stress. They are qualities which make them attractive for spacecraft and lunar surface systems.

Why this matters now

As off-world bases grow, energy storage will start to resemble a terrestrial power-grid problem. Here, sodium-ion and potassium-ion batteries could play a role. They are cheaper and easier to scale than lithium-based systems, making them potential candidates for stabilising habitat-scale energy networks on the Moon or Mars.

Certain types of technology could even serve multiple functions. Electrochemical systems that both store energy and generate useful compounds, such as hydrogen peroxide, could support sterilisation, water treatment or oxygen-related processes inside sealed habitats. In space engineering, a single system that does more than one job saves mass, and mass is everything.

If we can build batteries that survive space, the different futures imagined on screen may stop being fantasy and become genuine engineering problems. And that may be closer than most people realise.

Hammad Nazir 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. From lunar nights to Martian dust storms: why batteries struggle in space – https://theconversation.com/from-lunar-nights-to-martian-dust-storms-why-batteries-struggle-in-space-272379

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Noel Carroll, Associate Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Galway

The retirement of West Midlands police chief Craig Guildford is a wake-up call for those of us using artificial intelligence (AI) tools at work and in our personal lives. Guildford lost the confidence of the home secretary after it was revealed that the force used incorrect AI-generated evidence in their controversial decision to ban Israeli football fans from attending a match.

This is a particularly egregious example, but many people may be falling victim to the same phenomenon – outsourcing the “struggle” of thinking to AI.

As an expert on how new technology reshapes society and the human experience, I have observed a growing phenomenon which I and other researchers refer to as “cognitive atrophy”.

Essentially, AI is replacing tasks many people have grown reluctant to do themselves – thinking, writing, creating, analysing. But when we don’t use these skills, they can decline.

We also risk getting things very, very wrong. Generative AI works by predicting likely words from patterns trained on vast amounts of data. When you ask it to write an email or give advice, its responses sound logical. But it does not understand or know what is true.

There are countless anecdotal examples of people feeling like AI use is making them “lazy” or “stupid”. A recent study found that generative AI use among university students is driven by higher workloads and time pressure, and that greater AI use is associated with increased procrastination and memory loss and poorer academic performance. Misuse of generative AI tools (for example, to cheat on exams) may undermine skills like critical thinking, creativity and ethical decision-making.

Recognising atrophy

You might observe this happening in your own life. One sign might be that you’ve moved away from creating an initial unpolished version of a task. Not so long ago, you might have started with a rough draft – a messy, human brainstorming process on a whiteboard, a notepad or the back of a napkin.

You may now feel more comfortable with the “prompt-and-accept” reflex: asking for and accepting solutions, rather than trying to tease out your own ideas and solve problems.

If your first instinct for every task is to ask an AI tool to give you a starting point, you are skipping the most vital part of thinking. This is the heavy lifting of structure, logic and sparking new ideas which excite us.

Another sign of atrophy is a shrinking of your frustration threshold. If you find that after only 60 seconds of mental effort you feel an itch to see what AI suggests, your stamina for ambiguity, a little self-doubt and frustration is probably compromised. Impatience cuts off the cognitive space needed for divergent thinking – the ability to generate multiple unique solutions.

Do you find yourself accepting AI-generated output without questioning its validity? Or do you find yourself unable to trust your own gut instinct without checking with an AI search? This may be a sign that you are shifting from being a decision-maker to a decision-approver or worse, a passive passenger of your own thinking process.

Reclaim your thinking

How can you combat this cognitive atrophy? The goal should not necessarily be to quit using AI entirely, but to move toward responsible autonomy – reclaiming your capacity to think and make decisions for yourself, rather than blindly outsourcing judgement to AI systems. This requires building some strategic friction back into your daily life. It means embracing uncertainty and learning from the process of thinking, even if you are wrong on occasion. Here are some practical things you can try:

1. The 30-minute rule

Before you open any AI interface, try to commit to 30 minutes of deep thinking. Use a pen and paper. Pick your topic or task, and map out the problem, the potential solutions, the risks and the stakeholders. For example, before asking an AI tool to draft a marketing strategy, map out your target audience. Try to identify potential ethical or reputational risks and sketch out some ideas.

By doing the initial cognitive work, you will likely feel a stronger sense of ownership for your output. If you eventually use AI, use it to refine your thoughts, not replace them.

2. Be sceptical

One of the most persistent concerns is that people use AI as an oracle and believe its output without question. Instead, treat it as a deeply unreliable colleague who may know the right answer, but hallucinates from time to time.

Task yourself with finding three specific errors with AI’s output, or to break its logic. Tell yourself that you can do better. This forces your brain out of the consumer mode and back into creator and editor mode, keeping your critical faculties sharp.

3. Create thinking spaces

Identify one core task in your personal or professional life that you enjoy doing, and commit to performing it entirely without AI assistance. These thinking spaces help your brain maintain its ability to navigate complex and open-ended challenges from scratch.

As you regain confidence, try branching out to other tasks. If you lead a team at work, allow people to have time to think slowly in this way, free from the pressure of producing more.

4. Measure your ‘return on habit’

Think about the “return on habit” – the long-term benefits such as improved health or happiness gained from consistently practising small positive routines. Ask yourself: Is this AI tool making me smarter, or just faster? Is faster better? For whom?

If a tool helps you notice things you did not see before, it may enhance your thinking, not replace it. However, if it is merely replacing a skill you used to possess and did well, it is an atrophying agent. If you are not gaining a new capability in exchange for the one you have outsourced, you may be conceding to the algorithms.

Noel Carroll 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. Is AI hurting your ability to think? How to reclaim your brain – https://theconversation.com/is-ai-hurting-your-ability-to-think-how-to-reclaim-your-brain-272834