Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Torkel Klingberg, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet

The digital revolution has become a vast, unplanned experiment – and children are its most exposed participants. As ADHD diagnoses rise around the world, a key question has emerged: could the growing use of digital devices be playing a role?

To explore this, we studied more than 8,000 children, from when they were around ten until they were 14 years of age. We asked them about their digital habits and grouped them into three categories: gaming, TV/video (YouTube, say) and social media.

The latter included apps such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Messenger and Facebook. We then analysed whether usage was associated with long-term change in the two core symptoms of ADHD: inattentiveness and hyperactivity.

Our main finding was that social media use was associated with a gradual increase in inattentiveness. Gaming or watching videos was not. These patterns remained the same even after accounting for children’s genetic risk for ADHD and their families’ income.

We also tested whether inattentiveness might cause children to use more social media instead. It didn’t. The direction ran one way: social media use predicted later inattentiveness.

The mechanisms of how digital media affects attention are unknown. But the lack of negative effect of other screen activities means we can rule out any general, negative effect of screens as well as the popular notion that all digital media produces “dopamine hits”, which then mess with children’s attention.

As cognitive neuroscientists, we could make an educated guess about the mechanisms. Social media introduces constant distractions, preventing sustained attention to any task.

If it is not the messages themselves that distract, the mere thought of whether a message has arrived can act as a mental distraction. These distractions impair focus in the moment, and when they persist for months or years, they may also have long-term effects.

Gaming, on the other hand, takes place during limited sessions, not throughout the day, and involves a constant focus on one task at a time.

The effect of social media, using statistical measures, was not large. It was not enough to push a person with normal attention into ADHD territory. But if the entire population becomes more inattentive, many will cross the diagnostic border.

Theoretically, an increase of one hour of social media use in the entire population would increase the diagnoses by about 30%. This is admittedly a simplification, since diagnoses depend on many factors, but it illustrates how even an effect that is small at the individual level can have a significant effect when it affects an entire population.

A lot of data suggests that we have seen at least one hour more per day of social media during the last decade or two. Twenty years ago, social media barely existed. Now, teenagers are online for about five hours per day, mostly with social media.

The percentage of teenagers who claim to be “constantly online” has increased from 24% in 2015 to 46% 2023. Given that social media use has risen from essentially zero to around five hours per day, it may explain a substantial part of the increase in ADHD diagnoses during the past 15 years.

The attention gap

Some argue that the rise in the number of ADHD diagnoses reflects greater awareness and reduced stigma. That may be part of the story, but it doesn’t rule out a genuine increase in inattention.

Also, some studies that claim that the symptoms of inattention have not increased have often studied children who were probably too young to own a smartphone, or a period of years that mostly predates the avalanche in scrolling.

Social media probably increases inattention, and social media use has rocketed. What now? The US requires children to be at least 13 to create an account on most social platforms, but these restrictions are easy to outsmart.

Australia is currently going the furthest. From December 10 2025, media companies will be required to ensure that users are 16 years or above, with high penalties for the companies that do not adhere. Let’s see what effect that legislation will have. Perhaps the rest of the world should follow the Australians.

Torkel Klingberg receives funding from the Swedish Medical Research Foundation.

Samson Nivins receives funding from Stiftelsen Frimurare Barnhuset

– ref. Social media, not gaming, tied to rising attention problems in teens, new study finds – https://theconversation.com/social-media-not-gaming-tied-to-rising-attention-problems-in-teens-new-study-finds-271144

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Yijing Li, Senior Lecturer on Urban Informtics, King’s College London

Premier League football stadiums in England can be hotspots for certain types of crime on match days, demanding a heavy police presence. But for much of the year, community sports clubs located in nearby neighbourhoods play an important role in reducing levels of crime.

Our recently published research focused on men’s match days at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Haringey, north London – using Haringey Council’s daily crime counts for 2023 to highlight local variations in crime on the stadium’s 23 Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League match days.

We found an average increase in all “expressive” crimes of 20 percentage points over non-match days, with drug offences also increasing significantly. Expressive crimes are those driven by emotional release and identity conflict – often fuelled by increased alcohol or drug consumption – which can lead to disorder and violence against other fans or local residents.

Our study, in conjunction with London Sport, also used the UK police’s open data portal to analyse the relationship between crime and distribution of sports clubs across the whole of London. This showed how community sports clubs serve an important protective role against crime in higher-risk neighbourhoods, such as the White Hart Lane and Hermitage & Gardens wards close to Tottenham’s stadium.

Three factors of “routine activity theory” converge to create crime opportunities on Premier League match days: a spike of people influenced by alcohol or team rivalry (“motivated offenders”); a sudden influx of large, dense crowds of opposing fans (“suitable targets”); and diverted or overwhelmed police resources by the sheer volume of people (“absence of capable guardians”).

Around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium over the course of 2023, there were 33 public order offences on match days, representing 20% of all such offences in the area that year. There were also 78 drug-related offences, accounting for 47% of all drug offences in the area in 2023. The average attendance for a Spurs Premier League match is over 61,000 fans, including around 3,000 away supporters.

The crime hotspots were highly localised, spiking around transport hubs such as White Hart Lane and Bruce Grove train stations, and the Bounds Green and Woodside shuttle bus locations.

But our study also highlights the risk of police displacement when officers flood a stadium zone, meaning neighbouring areas can be left under-protected. We conclude that police forces should ensure that the “ring of steel” around a stadium on match days does not create a security vacuum in adjacent residential areas.

Crime-reducing effects of sports clubs

In many parts of London, community sports clubs play an important protective role against crime in their neighbourhoods. The White Hart Lane and Hermitage & Gardens areas around Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, for example, are recognised crime hotspots with above-average rates of violence against women and drug offences.

But our analysis shows activities organised by local sports clubs there – and throughout much of London – suppress these crimes during school term times, when the clubs are operating.

The crime-suppressing effect of community sport centres fluctuates with the calendar, however, with the effect weakening significantly in December and January when cold weather limits outdoor sports activities and the school holidays leave many young people with more unstructured, unsupervised leisure time – exacerbated by a reduction in the availability of organised club activities.

This suggests policymakers seeking to address youth crime should not only fund programmes during the summer holidays but also winter “bridge” programmes – investing in indoor facilities and youth camps during the Christmas break to maintain the social supervision structure that reduces delinquency.

However, a “one-size-fits-all” policy for sports community clubs is not advisable. We found that some sports clubs located in quiet, low-density areas of London did not show the same protective effect against crime. In these residential pockets, levels of expressive crime tended to increase slightly around the club, probably because the inflow of visitors and noise created some disruption to the local social fabric.

Nonetheless, there is much evidence for sporting activities developing skills and traits in young people that offer deterrents against youth violence – including self-control, teamwork and cooperation, prosocial behaviour and conflict resolution skills. Taking part in sport can encourage a sense of belonging and ways of expressing stress that have positive effects on self-esteem and mental wellbeing.

Organised sports occupy the leisure time of adolescents who might otherwise engage in unstructured, risky behaviour. The community clubs provide “capable guardians” in the form of coaches and mentors offering social supervision that can be particularly lacking in high-deprivation areas.

In April 2025, London’s mayor Sadiq Khan announced the capital’s Violence Reduction Unit was investing a further £1 million to provide sports and physical activities to young people at the highest risk of being affected by violence in London. The unit is now partnering with London’s 17 professional football clubs in an attempt to provide positive opportunities for young people across the capital.

This article was commissioned in conjunction with the Professors’ Programme, part of Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.

This article was commissioned in conjunction with the Professors’ Programme, part of Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025

Rui Wang 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. Premier League football matches can be crime hotspots – but community sports centres have the opposite effect – https://theconversation.com/premier-league-football-matches-can-be-crime-hotspots-but-community-sports-centres-have-the-opposite-effect-271483

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Steve Rintoul, CSIRO Fellow, CSIRO

Sometimes, we get lucky in science. In this case, an oceanographic float we deployed to do one job ended up drifting away and doing something else entirely.

Equipped with temperature and salinity sensors, our Argo ocean float was supposed to be surveying the ocean around the Totten Glacier, in eastern Antarctica. To our initial disappointment, it rapidly drifted away from this region. But it soon reappeared further west, near ice shelves where no ocean measurements had ever been made.

Drifting in remote and wild seas for two-and-a-half years, the float spent about nine months beneath the massive Denman and Shackleton ice shelves. It survived to send back new data from parts of the ocean that are usually difficult to sample.

Measurements of the ocean beneath ice shelves are crucial to determine how much, and how quickly, Antarctica will contribute to sea-level rise.

What are Argo ocean floats?

Argo floats are free-floating robotic oceanographic instruments. As they drift, they rise and fall through the ocean to depths of up to 2 kilometres, collecting profiles of temperature and salinity. Every ten days or so they rise to the surface to transmit data to satellites.

These floats have become a mainstay of our global ocean observing system. Given that 90% of the extra heat stored by the planet over the past 50 years is found in the ocean, these measurements provide the best thermometer we have to track Earth’s warming.

Little buoy lost

We deployed the float to measure how much ocean heat was reaching the rapidly changing Totten Glacier, which holds a volume of ice equivalent to 3.5 metres of global sea-level rise. Our previous work had shown enough warm water was reaching the base of the ice shelf to drive the rapid melting.

To our disappointment, the float soon drifted away from Totten. But it reappeared near another ice shelf also currently losing ice mass and potentially at risk of melting further: the Denman Glacier. This holds ice equivalent to 1.5m of global sea-level rise.

The configuration of the Denman Glacier means it could be potentially unstable. But its vulnerability was difficult to assess because few ocean measurements had been made. The data from the float showed that, like Totten Glacier, warm water could reach the cavity beneath the Denman ice shelf.

Our float then disappeared under ice and we feared the worst. But nine months later it surfaced again, having spent that time drifting in the freezing ocean beneath the Denman and Shackleton ice shelves. And it had collected data from places never measured before.

Why measure under ice?

As glaciers flow from the Antarctic continent to the sea, they start to float and form ice shelves. These shelves act like buttresses, resisting the flow of ice from Antarctica to the ocean. But if the giant ice shelves weaken or collapse, more grounded ice flows into the ocean. This causes sea level to rise.

What controls the fate of the Antarctic ice sheet – and therefore the rate of sea-level rise – is how much ocean heat reaches the base of the floating ice shelves. But the processes that cause melting in ice-shelf cavities are very challenging to observe.

Ice shelves can be hundreds or thousands of metres thick. We can drill a hole through the ice and lower oceanographic sensors. But this is expensive and rarely done, so few measurements have been made in ice-shelf cavities.

What the float found

During its nine-month drift beneath the ice shelves, the float collected profiles of temperature and salinity from the seafloor to the base of the shelf every five days. This is the first line of oceanographic measurements beneath an ice shelf in East Antarctica.

There was only one problem: because the float was unable to surface and communicate with the satellite for a GPS fix, we didn’t know where the measurements were made. However, it returned data that provided an important clue. Each time it bumped its head on the ice, we got a measurement of the depth of the ice shelf base. We could compare the float data to satellite measurements to work out the likely path of the float beneath the ice.

These measurements showed the Shackleton ice shelf (the most northerly in East Antarctica) is, for now, not exposed to warm water capable of melting it from below, and therefore less vulnerable.

However, the Denman Glacier is exposed to warm water flowing in beneath the ice shelf and causing the ice to melt. The float showed the Denman is delicately poised: a small increase in the thickness of the layer of warm water would cause even greater melting.

What does this mean?

These new observations confirm the two most significant glaciers (Denman and Totten) draining ice from this part of East Antarctica are both vulnerable to melt caused by warm water reaching the base of the ice shelves.

Between them, these two glaciers hold a huge volume of ice, equivalent to five metres of global sea level rise. The West Antarctic ice sheet is at greater risk of imminent melting, but East Antarctica holds a much larger volume of ice. This means the loss of ice from East Antarctica is crucial to estimating sea level rise.

Both the Denman and Totten glaciers are stabilised in their present position by the slope of the bedrock on which they sit. But if the ice retreated further, they would be in an unstable configuration where further melt was irreversible. Once this process of unstable retreat begins, we are committed. It may take centuries for the full sea-level rise to be realised, but there’s no going back.

In the future, we need an array of floats spanning the entire Antarctic continental shelf to transform our understanding of how ice shelves react to changes in the ocean. This would give us greater certainty in estimating future sea-level rise.

Steve Rintoul receives funding from the Australian Government as part of the Antarctic Science Collaboration Initiative, through
the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Esmee van Wijk receives funding from the Australian Government as part of the Antarctic Science Collaboration Initiative, through the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Laura Herraiz Borreguero receives funding from the Australian Government as part of the Antarctic Science collaboration initiative, through the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Madelaine Gamble Rosevear receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. What our missing ocean float revealed about Antarctica’s melting glaciers – https://theconversation.com/what-our-missing-ocean-float-revealed-about-antarcticas-melting-glaciers-271201

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) lives alone in a rickety Victorian house near London’s King’s Cross railway station. She rents a room to Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness), who claims to be a musician, and asks to use the room for practice sessions with his string quintet.

But wait. Professor Marcus and his four associates are in fact plotting an armed robbery and plan to use Mrs. Wilberforce in their dastardly scheme.

What a pleasure it is to revisit The Ladykillers (1955) – a jet-black, peculiarly subversive marriage of genteel English manners and anarchic criminality.

With its cast of eccentrics, dry wit and distinctively British whimsy, this film from London-based Ealing Studios perfectly zig-zags between kind-hearted and creepy. And 70 years on, it is fondly remembered as the closing flourish of the golden age of Ealing comedies.

A comic institution

Ealing Studios, based in the west London suburb of the same name, was founded in 1902, making it the world’s oldest continuously running film studio.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, under the leadership of Michael Balcon, the studio became known for producing a series of comedies that reflected British values, class tensions and post-war anxieties, often in a light-hearted or ironic way.

Films such as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Passport to Pimlico (1949) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) portrayed a particular brand of British humour: ironic, restrained and, above all, socially observant.

These films gently poked fun at the British class system while celebrating quirky individuals and tight-knit neighbourhoods. As Balcon himself later said:

We made films at Ealing that were good, bad and indifferent, but that were indisputably British. They were rooted in the soil of the country.

Earlier successes depicted criminal protagonists whose schemes were both ingenious and only slightly morally dubious. The Ladykillers took this tradition to its logical extreme: the criminals were no longer charming anti-heroes, but grotesque figures, hapless in their execution of the robbery.

The film’s delicious central irony, in keeping with the Ealing ethos, is that the one person capable of undoing the criminal plot is the least likely: a frail old woman with a kettle and a parrot.

Making a masterpiece

The Ladykillers was written by William Rose, who allegedly dreamt the plot and awoke to write it down. This dream-like provenance makes its way into the film.

Scottish-American director Alexander Mackendrick, who had previously worked for Ealing on Whisky Galore! (1949) and The Man in the White Suit (1951), gave the film its distinctive atmosphere of part-grotesque fairy tale and part-suburban farce. As Mackendrick once remarked

the characters are all caricatures, fable figures; none of them is real for a moment.

Mrs. Wilberforce’s house, where most of the action is set, was constructed on an Ealing backlot – a convincing reminder of the sooty urban geography of post-war London.

Prague-born cinematographer Otto Heller used shadow and deep contrast to lend a macabre quality to a comedy that often flirts with horror. A perfect example is when Mrs. Wilberforce opens the door to the professor for the first time.

Alec Guinness’s performance is a revelation. His waxen features, exaggerated false teeth and vulture-like gestures are a far cry from Obi-Wan Kenobi and George Smiley. He turns Professor Marcus into a grotesque parody of a criminal mastermind.

Guinness is abetted by stalwarts such as Herbert Lom and Danny Green. And Peter Sellers gives a nervy performance as Harry, in a role that would mark the beginning of his rise to Hollywood stardom.

A profoundly moral tale

Professor Marcus and his band of misfits mock the pretensions of criminal sophistication, contrasting them with the quiet rectitude of an old woman who represents a vanishing Britain.

They brilliantly capture the contradictions of 1950s London: the post-war optimism laced with paranoia, social deference mingled with subversion, and a genteel facade barely concealing the chaos beneath. It’s little wonder some critics see this Ealing output as deeply political.

Without spoiling the plot, The Ladykillers concludes with a restorative, comic sense of moral order. The criminal enterprise collapses, not due to law enforcement or clever detection, but because of the gang’s own ineptitude and Mrs. Wilberforce’s stubborn innocence and moral clarity.

A beloved film, then and now

The Ladykillers was a critical and commercial smash in the United Kingdom. Critic Penelope Houston applauded its “splendid, savage absurdity”. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won Katie Johnson a BAFTA for Best British Actress, aged 77.

The film was remade by the Coen Brothers in 2004, this time with Tom Hanks as a Southern gentleman crook. But this version was widely panned, illustrating just how specific the tone of the original was.

Its reputation has only grown since December 1955, with the British Film Institute ranking it among the best British films of the 20th century.

At one point in the film, Professor Marcus cries out

We’ll never be able to kill her. She’ll always be with us, for ever and ever and ever, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Just like the stubborn, indomitable spirit of Mrs. Wilberforce, The Ladykillers isn’t going anywhere.

Ben McCann 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. The Ladykillers at 70: how one film turned British whimsy into a darkly comic masterpiece – https://theconversation.com/the-ladykillers-at-70-how-one-film-turned-british-whimsy-into-a-darkly-comic-masterpiece-250781

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sarah Sasson, Scientia Senior Lecturer in Medicine (Immunology), UNSW Sydney

The terms tumour and cancer can refer to different types of lumps and bumps. But the terms are often confused and misused – by the general public and even health professionals.

For instance, doctors can use euphemisms such as tumour, mass, lesion or spot when they really mean cancer.

So what’s the difference between a tumour and cancer? And why is it important to use the right terms?

What’s a tumour?

The Oxford dictionary defines a tumour as “any abnormal swelling in or on a part of the body”. They develop in nearly any part, including fat, muscle, bone, nerves and glands.

But not all tumours are cancer, and not all cancers are tumours.

Tumours can be “benign” (not cancer) or “malignant” (cancer).

Some benign tumours are harmless and don’t need treatment. These include lipomas (deposits of fat cells under the skin) or haemangiomas (an overgrowth of blood vessels often looking like reddish-purple birthmarks).

Other benign tumours can cause problems due to their location. These include uterine fibroids, which can cause heavy menstrual bleeding, and benign pituitary adenomas, which can over-produce hormones. Even though these tumours are not cancer, they can be dangerous and doctors sometimes advise surgery to remove them.

What’s cancer?

Cancer develops when normal cells acquire genetic changes, called mutations, that allow them to escape the body’s normal “checks and balances”.

Several hallmarks of cancer were defined more than 25 years ago and include uncontrolled growth and avoiding immune destruction.

Importantly, cancer cells can invade surrounding structures (known as invasion) and spread to other sites (metastasis). These are the key features that distinguish malignant tumours (cancer) from benign ones (not cancer).

Cancers in solid organs – such as the breast, skin or lung – are sometimes called malignant tumours because they form masses. But not all cancers form masses. Blood cancers, such as leukaemia, usually do not.

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Read more:
How does cancer spread to other parts of the body?

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How are they detected?

Both tumours and cancers can cause lumps and bumps, either detected by the patient (Doc, what’s this lump?) or during investigation for a symptom (Doc, I can’t swallow).

Symptoms differ depending on where the tumour (both benign and malignant) is and what types of cells it is made of. For example, tumours in the gastrointestinal tract (oesophagus, stomach, bowel) can cause symptoms because the mass starts to obstruct the digestive tract.

Imaging such as ultrasound, CT or MRI might be needed to investigate further. The tissue may also be sampled (via a needle or surgery) then a pathologist can look at the sample under the microscope to determine the cell type to determine whether it’s benign or malignant.

How are they managed?

Management can be similar, such as cutting out a benign meningioma (brain tumour) or a malignant basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer).

Management can also be very different. Malignant tumours (cancer) have the potential to spread, and at advanced stages are associated with increased risk of death. So managing cancer is often more time-sensitive and complex.

Treatment for some malignant tumours involves a combination of surgery, radiotherapy and/or systemic treatment, such as chemotherapy, which affects the whole body.

Why it’s important to get the words right

Misusing the words cancer and tumour can be confusing and misleading. This may be because the word “cancer” carries a stigma of sickness and death, even though many cancers have a good outlook.

When talking to patients, it’s important for doctors to “get it right”. Less than half of patients understand that a doctor means cancer if they use euphemisms such as tumour, mass, lesion or spot.

In fact, any type of ambiguous language doctors use when communicating with patients about cancer can increase confusion.

In a nutshell

The terms tumour and cancer are not interchangeable. Solid cancers are tumours and malignant tumours are cancers.

But not all tumours are malignant, and not all cancers are solid.

Megan Barnet receives funding from Boehringer Ingelheim, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and government-funded grants including the NHMRC.

Sarah Sasson 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. What’s the difference between a tumour and cancer? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-a-tumour-and-cancer-266363

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate in Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

When people think of gym goers using steroids, the picture that comes to mind is often of a man pumping iron, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or modern day shirtless masculinity influencers like “the Liver King”.

But the image is changing. Women now represent a growing share of people who use steroids. And so harm minimisation efforts, currently targeted at men, will need to change too.

It’s not just men

Research shows women are increasingly represented among steroid-using communities, even though precise long-term trend data are limited.

A 2024 systematic review of international studies found about 4% of adult women had used anabolic steroids at least once, up from 1.6% in 2014.

Among women bodybuilders, nearly 17% – around one in six – report using steroids, and rates among women in strength sports or recreational lifting communities are also markedly higher than in the general woman population.

This emerging evidence suggests the gender profile of steroid use is shifting, even if precise historical rates are not available to confirm the exact scale of the increase.

While we don’t have robust national statistics for Australia, data show the weight of steroids seized nationally increased 1,372% between 2011-12 and 2020-21 (from 33.7 kilograms to 496.8kg).

This trend almost certainly mirrors what’s happening overseas: continued, escalating growth of the bodybuilding and fitness communities, including among women in amateur strength sports.

The boom in women’s strength training and weightlifting since 2021 will benefit the physical and mental health of most who partake in it.

But the simultaneous increase in steroid use may be cause for concern without effective harm reduction via education, health promotion and health services engagement.

3 reasons more women are using them

The reasons are complex but three stand out.

First, the rise of strength sports. Women’s participation in powerlifting, weightlifting and bodybuilding has grown rapidly in Australia since the early 2020s.

These sports have opened up new spaces for women to feel strong, confident and physically capable. But they also expose women to online communities where performance-enhancing drugs are normalised.

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Read more:
Strongman used to be seen as a super-human novelty sport. Now more women and novices are turning to it

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Second, the influence of social media. Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are filled with “fitfluencers” showcasing dramatic transformations. Many of these women are seeking the “perfect body”.

Some openly promote steroid cycles and other chemical shortcuts. Women who follow these influencers – often for training or nutrition advice – can end up in online spaces where performance-enhancing drugs are normal.

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Read more:
Get big or die trying: social media is driving men’s use of steroids. Here’s how to mitigate the risks

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Third, many women are being encouraged or “brought into” performance-enhancing drugs use by others.

Qualitative research from Australia and Scandinavia shows women often start using steroids through male friends, partners or coaches, who may position these drugs as necessary for progress or competition.

Of course, taking any performance- or image-enhancing drug is not without risks.

The dangers are real

While steroids carry risks for everyone, women may face unique and irreversible side effects.

These include:

• facial and body hair growth
• deepening of the voice
• menstrual changes or infertility
• breast tissue reduction
• acne and hair loss
• clitoral enlargement
• severe mood changes, including anxiety and irritability, among other symptoms.

And beyond these risks, emerging Australian research shows another danger: many underground steroid products contain toxic contaminants such as lead, arsenic and cadmium – substances linked to cancer, organ damage and cardiovascular disease.

The biggest long-term risks are the ones people rarely talk about: heart disease, stroke, liver damage and mental health problems.

Interviews with women who use steroids show many are less informed than men about these dangers, often because the research has historically focused on male use.

There is also the issue of stigma. Women report being judged more harshly than men when seeking medical help and some avoid health services entirely.

That leaves them more vulnerable to complications.

How do we turn this trend around?

Policing steroid use in isolation won’t work. Nor will repeating the old message that women should simply “just say no.”

The evidence suggests three promising approaches.

1. Better health promotion education that actually speaks to women. Most steroid information online is written for men, by men. Health agencies need to produce clear, accessible, women’s resources that explain risks honestly and without shame.

2. Meeting women where they are. Social media is where many women learn about these drugs, so it should also be where they see accurate information. This may include partnering with credible fitness influencers – especially women – who can explain risks, promote safer training practices and counter misinformation.

3. Reducing stigma in healthcare. Women who use steroids may avoid doctors because they fear judgement. Training clinicians to respond without moralising – the same way we approach other drug-related issues – would make it easier for women to seek support early.

Sonya Weith, a peer educator at Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action, provided an expert review of this article.

Samuel Cornell receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Timothy Piatkowski is affiliated with Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action (Vice President & Research Lead) and The Loop Australia (Research Lead QLD),

– ref. More women are using steroids – and many don’t know the risks – https://theconversation.com/more-women-are-using-steroids-and-many-dont-know-the-risks-271183

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Steven Siems, Professor in Cloud Microphysics, Monash University

If you ever find yourself on Macquarie Island – a narrow, wind-lashed ridge halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica – the first thing you’ll notice is the wildlife. Elephant seals sprawl across dark beaches. King penguins march up mossy slopes. Albatrosses circle over vast, treeless uplands.

But look more closely and the island is changing. Slopes are becoming boggier. Iconic megaherbs such as Pleurophyllum and Stilbocarpa are retreating.

For years, scientists suspected the culprit was increasing rainfall. Our new research, published in Weather and Climate Dynamics, confirms this – and shows the story goes far beyond one remote UNESCO World Heritage site.

A major – but little observed – climate player

The Southern Ocean plays an enormous role in the global climate system.

It absorbs much of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and a large share of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity.

Storms in the Southern Ocean also influence weather patterns across Australia, New Zealand and the globe.

Yet it is also one of the least observed places on Earth.

With almost no land masses, only a handful of weather stations, and ubiquitous cloud cover, satellites and simulations struggle to capture what is actually happening there.

That makes Macquarie Island’s climate record from the Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Antarctic Division exceptionally valuable, providing one of the very few long-term “ground truth” records anywhere in the Southern Ocean.

These high-quality records of the observed daily rainfall and meteorology date back more than 75 years and are commonly used to validate satellite products and numerical simulations.

Rising rainfall

Earlier work has found rainfall at Macquarie Island had risen sharply over recent decades, and ecologists documented waterlogging that harms native vegetation.

But no one has explained how the island’s weather patterns are changing, or directly compared the field observations to our best reconstructions of past weather to assess Southern Ocean climate trends.

To fill this gap, we analysed 45 years (1979–2023) of daily rainfall observations and compared them to a widely used reconstruction of earlier weather, known as the ERA5 reanalysis.

We wanted to understand the meteorology behind the increase in rainfall – that is, whether it was caused by more storms or more intense rainfall during storms. To do this we placed each day in the dataset into one of five synoptic regimes based on pressure, humidity, winds and temperature.

These regimes included low pressure systems, cold-air outbreaks and warm-air advection (the warm air that moves poleward ahead of a cold front).

Storms are producing more rain

Our analysis showed that annual rainfall on Macquarie Island has increased 28% since 1979 – around 260 millimetres per year.

The ERA5 reanalysis, in contrast, shows only an 8% increase — missing most of this change.

The storm track’s gradual move toward Antarctica is well established, and our results show how this larger change is shaping Macquarie Island’s weather today.

Crucially, we found that these changes are not causing the increase in rainfall, as one wet regime (warm air advection) was largely replacing another (low pressure).

Instead, storms now produce more rain when they occur.

Why does this matter beyond one island?

If the rainfall intensification we see at Macquarie Island reflects conditions across the Southern Ocean storm belt – as multiple lines of evidence indicate — the consequences are profound.

A wetter storm track means more fresh water entering the upper ocean. This strengthens the different layers in the oceans and reduces the amount of mixing that occurs. In turn, this alters the strength of ocean currents.

Our estimate suggests that in 2023 this additional precipitation equates to roughly 2,300 gigatonnes of additional freshwater per year across the high-latitude Southern Ocean – an order of magnitude greater than recent Antarctic meltwater contributions. And this difference continues to grow.

More rainfall will also affect the salinity of water on the ocean’s surface, which influences the movement of nutrients and carbon. As a result, this could change the productivity and chemistry of the Southern Ocean – one of the world’s most important carbon sinks – in still-uncertain ways.

This increase in rainfall requires a matching increase in evaporation, which cools the ocean, just like our bodies cool when our sweat evaporates. Over the cloudy Southern Ocean, this evaporation is the primary means of cooling the ocean.

Our analysis indicates the Southern Ocean may be cooling itself by 10–15% more than it did in 1979 – simply through the energy cost of evaporation that fuels the extra rainfall. This evaporation is spread over the broader Southern Ocean.

In effect, the Southern Ocean may be “sweating” more in response to climate change.

The next challenge

Macquarie Island is just one tiny speck of land in Earth’s stormiest ocean.

But its long-term rainfall record suggests the Southern Ocean – the engine room of global heat and carbon uptake – is changing faster and more dramatically than we thought.

The next challenge is to determine how far this signal extends across the storm track, and what it means for the climate system we all depend on.

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The authors would like the acknowledge Andrew Prata, Yi Huang, Ariaan Purish and Peter May for their contribution to the research and this article.

Steven Siems receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Zhaoyang Kong 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. Storms in the Southern Ocean are producing more rain – and the consequences could be global – https://theconversation.com/storms-in-the-southern-ocean-are-producing-more-rain-and-the-consequences-could-be-global-270880

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Michael J. Ostwald, Professor of Architectural Analytics, UNSW Sydney

In April 2005, The Simpsons featured an episode where Marge, embarrassed by her hometown’s reputation for being uneducated and uncultured, invites a world-famous architect to design a new concert hall for the city.

The episode cuts to the architect, Frank Gehry (playing himself), outside his house in Santa Monica, receiving Marge’s letter. He is frustrated by the request and crumples the letter, throwing it to the ground. Looking down, the creased and ragged paper inspires him, and the episode cuts to a model of his concert hall for Springfield, which copies the shape of the crumpled letter.

By building Gehry’s design, the people of Springfield hoped to send a signal to the world that a new era of culture had arrived. As it often did, this episode of The Simpsons references a real-life phenomenon, which Gehry was credited with triggering, the “Bilbao effect”.

In 1991, the city of Bilbao in northern Spain sought to enhance its economic and cultural standing by establishing a major arts centre. Gehry was commissioned to design the Bilbao Guggenheim, proposing a 57-metre-high building, a spiralling vortex of titanium and glass, along the banks of the Nervión River.

Using software developed for aerospace industries, Gehry designed a striking, photogenic building, sharply contrasting with the city’s traditional stone and masonry streetscapes.

Finished in 1997, the response to Gehry’s building was overwhelming. Bilbao was transformed into an international tourist destination, revitalising the city and boosting its cultural credentials and economic prospects. As a result, many cities tried to reproduce the so-called “Bilbao effect” by combining iconic architecture and the arts to encourage a cultural renaissance.

Gehry, who has died at 96, leaves a powerful legacy, visible in many major cities, in the media, in galleries and in popular culture.

An architect’s life

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada, in 1929 and emigrated to Los Angeles in the late 1940s, where he changed his surname to Gehry. He studied architecture and urban planning and established a successful commercial practice in 1962.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s, when he began experimenting with alterations and additions to his own house, that he began to develop his signature approach to architecture. An approach that was both visionary and confronting.

In 1977, Gehry purchased a colonial bungalow on a typical suburban street in Santa Monica. Soon after, he began peeling back its cladding and exposing its structural frame. He added a jumble of plywood panels, corrugated metal walls, and chain-link fencing, giving the impression of a house in a perpetual state of demolition or reconstruction.

Its fragmented, unfinished expression offended the neighbours but also led to his being exhibited in the landmark 1988 Museum of Modern Art’s Deconstructivist Architecture show.

At this event, Gehry’s house was featured alongside a range of subversive, anti-establishment works, catapulting him to international fame.

Unlike other architects featured in the exhibition – such as Coop Himmelblau, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind – Gehry was not driven by a political or philosophical stance. Instead, he was interested in how people would react to the experience of architecture.

It was only after the Bilbao Guggenheim was completed that the world could see this vision.

Throughout the 2000s, Gehry completed a range of significant buildings, led by the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) in Los Angeles, which has a similar style to the Bilbao Guggenheim.

Gehry’s Museum of Pop Culture (2000) in Seattle is a composition of anodised purple, gold, silver and sky-blue forms, resembling the remnants of a smashed electric guitar.

The Marqués de Riscal Vineyard Hotel (2006) in Elciego, Spain, features steel ribbons in Burgundy-pink and Verdelho-gold. The Louis Vuitton Foundation (2014) in Paris has 12 large glass sails, swirling around an “iceberg” of concrete panels.

Gehry only completed one building in Australia, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building (2014) in Sydney. Its design, an undulating form clad in custom-made bricks, was inspired by a crumpled brown paper bag. Marge Simpson would have approved.

Recognition and reflection

The highest global honour an architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize, often called the “Nobel prize for architecture”. Gehry was awarded this prize in 1989, with the jury praising his “controversial, but always arresting body of work” which was “iconoclastic, rambunctious and impermanent”.

While the Pritzker Prize is often regarded as a capstone for a career, most of Gehry’s major works were completed after the award.

Gehry revelled in experimentation, taking artistic inspiration from complex natural forms and constructing them using advanced technology. Over the last three decades, his firm continued to produce architecture that was both strikingly sculptural and playfully whimsical.

He ultimately regretted appearing on The Simpsons, feeling it devalued the complex process he followed. His architecture was not random; an artist’s eye guided it, and a sculptor’s hand created it. It was not just any crumpled form, but the perfect one for each site and client.

He sometimes joked about completing his home in Santa Monica, even humorously ending his acceptance speech for the Pritzker Prize by saying he might use his prize money to do this. Today, on the corner of 22nd Street and Washington Avenue, partly shielded by trees, Gehry’s house remains forever a work in progress. Its uncompromising yet joyful presence has endured for almost 50 years.

Michael J. Ostwald 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. Frank Gehry, the architect of the unconventional, the accidental, and the inspiring, has died at 96 – https://theconversation.com/frank-gehry-the-architect-of-the-unconventional-the-accidental-and-the-inspiring-has-died-at-96-266250

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Parth Shinde, Researcher, Birla Institute of Technology and Science

When your doctor thinks you might have an infection or an allergy, a simple blood test should give answers within hours. But for much of the world, that test can take days – or never happen at all. The problem is not usually the test itself, but an overlooked step between taking your blood and performing the diagnosis.

In most hospitals in high-income countries, separating plasma from blood is so routine that most people never think about it. A nurse takes your blood, sends it to the lab, and a machine called a centrifuge spins it at high speed to separate the liquid plasma from the cells. Lab staff then look for signs of infection, immune responses or bacteria, and your doctor uses those results to decide on treatment.

But centrifuges need electricity, regular checks and trained staff. When these things are not available or the lab is overwhelmed, testing slows down.

This doesn’t just affect rural clinics or refugee camps. This can also happen during busy winter months in emergency departments in wealthy countries. If plasma cannot be separated quickly with a consistent, high-grade quality, care is delayed even when fast tests are ready to use.

The scale of the issue became clear when my colleagues and I watched how doctors work day to day. A common pattern emerged as people with long-running, allergy-type symptoms were often told something like: “For now, try antihistamines, and if things get worse, we can arrange a test.” Tests were not avoided because they didn’t exist, but because they were too slow, too costly, or too far away.

A quiet bottleneck

This raised a basic question about healthcare: if diagnosis is the first step towards treatment, then why is it held back by cost, infrastructure and geography? The answer lies in sample preparation and testing – the quiet bottleneck at the centre of the process.

It was now clear the first biggest barrier to point-of-care testing was dependence on specialised equipment. The challenge became obvious: remove that dependency and testing could happen in the clinic or anywhere.

The problem appears in different ways in different countries, but the underlying pattern stays the same. In India, where I am based, many people can reach a doctor but avoid testing due to its delayed results and high costs. So, treatment is often based on symptoms.

During dengue surges in Brazil and Indonesia, tuberculosis care in rural South Africa, and COVID or RSV waves in the US and UK, care slowed not because tests were missing, but because samples relied on busy, centralised labs that patients or hospitals could not easily access.

In many field clinics and emergency health camps, teams have to depend heavily on equipment. A team might plan to run thousands of tests in a day, but they end up doing far fewer because someone has to separate plasma from every sample of blood before the test can even start.

A potential solution came from an unexpected place: paper towel. If you’ve ever dipped the end of a piece of paper towel in water, you will have noticed that the water “climbs” up the paper. My colleagues and I developed a device we call HemoSift that uses this principle (called “capillary action”) to separate red blood cells from the straw-coloured plasma (the part of blood needed for testing).

HemoSift uses capillary action to pull blood through tiny channels, and along the way something simple happens: plasma moves ahead while the red blood cells fall behind, the way faster and slower traffic sort themselves into different lanes. In under five minutes, it produces cell-free plasma with no pumps, no power and no moving parts.

HemoSift has passed benchtop testing with blood-like fluids at the nanofabrication and microfluidics facility at IIT Bombay and has moved into early testing using donated patient blood samples. More samples are now being tested to build strong and reliable data.

HemoSift encourages us to rethink where diagnosis takes place. Instead of asking how to push more laboratory services into more locations, it asks why diagnosis needs to rely on a lab at all.

By removing the infrastructure barrier, rapid testing could reach places where it was previously impossible: rural health posts, mobile clinics, refugee camps, or overstretched emergency departments during outbreaks.

The aim of our device – which my colleagues and I are now developing at our startup, Tvashtr Biotech – is not to replace laboratories, but to widen the places where diagnosis can happen. With a simple plastic device, a healthcare worker could give a patient not only attention, but an answer – wherever they meet.

This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.

This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.

Parth Shinde is the Founder and owns shares at Tvashtr Biotech.

– ref. Why we created a phone-sized device to take blood diagnostics out of the lab into the real world – https://theconversation.com/why-we-created-a-phone-sized-device-to-take-blood-diagnostics-out-of-the-lab-into-the-real-world-271437

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sandra Joireman, Weinstein Chair of International Studies, Professor of Political Science, University of Richmond

Some 1.5 million Syrian refugees have voluntarily returned to their home country over the past year.

That extraordinary figure represents nearly one-quarter of all Syrians who fled fighting during the 13-year civil war to live abroad. It is also a strikingly fast pace for a country where insecurity persists across broad regions.

The scale and speed of these returns since the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s brutal regime on Dec. 8, 2024, raise important questions: Why are so many Syrians going back, and will these returns last? Moreover, what conditions are they returning to?

As an expert in property rights and post-conflict return migration, I have monitored the massive surge in refugee returns to Syria throughout 2024. While a combination of push-and-pull factors have driven the trend, the widespread destruction of property during the brutal civil war poses an ongoing obstacle to resettlement.

Where are Syria’s refugees?

By the time a rebel coalition led by Sunni Islamist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overthrew the Assad government, Syria’s civil war had been going on for more than a decade. What began in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring protests quickly escalated into one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century.

Millions of Syrians were displaced internally, and about 6 million sought refuge abroad. The majority went to neighboring countries, including Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, but a little over a million sought refuge in Europe.

Now, European countries are struggling to determine how they should respond to the changed environment in Syria. Germany and Austria have put a hold on processing asylum applications from Syrians. The international legal principle of non-refoulement prohibits states from returning refugees to unsafe environments where they would face persecution and violence.

But people can choose to return home on their own. And the fall of Assad altered refugees’ perceptions of safety and possibility.

Indeed, the U.N. refugee agency surveys conducted in January 2025 across Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt found that 80% of Syrian refugees hoped to return home – up sharply from 57% the previous year. But hope and reality are not always aligned, and the factors motivating return are far more complex than the change in political authority.

Why are people returning?

In most post-conflict settings, voluntary return begins only after security improves, schools reopen, basic infrastructure is restored and housing reconstruction is underway. Even then, people often return to their country but not their original communities, especially when local political control has shifted or reconstruction remains incomplete.

In present-day Syria, violence continues in several regions, governance is fragmented, and sectarian conflicts persist. Yet refugees are returning anyway.

A major factor is the deteriorating conditions in neighboring host countries. Most of those who came back to Syria in the early months after Assad’s fall came from neighboring states that have hosted large refugee populations for more than a decade and are now struggling with economic crises, political tensions and declining aid.

In Turkey, for example, Syrians have faced increasing deportations and growing structural barriers to integration, such as temporary status without the possibility of naturalization and strict local registration policies.

In Lebanon, meanwhile, recent violence and a steep drop in international assistance have left Syrian refugees unable to secure food, education and health care.

And in Jordan, international reductions in humanitarian support have made daily life more precarious for refugees.

In other words, many Syrians are not returning because their homeland has become safer, but because the places where they sought refuge have become more difficult.

We do not have data on the religious or ethnic makeup of returnees. But patterns from other post-conflict settings suggest that returnees are usually from the majority community aligned with the new dominant political actors. After the war in Kosovo, for instance, ethnic Albanians returned quickly, while Serb and Roma minorities returned in much smaller numbers due to insecurity and threats of reprisals.

If Syria follows this trajectory, Sunni Muslims may return in higher numbers, as the country’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, led the Sunni rebel coalition that overthrew Assad.

Syrian minority groups, including Alawites, Christians, Druze and Kurds, may avoid returning altogether. Violent incidents targeting minority communities have underscored ongoing instability. Recent attacks on the Alawite population have triggered new waves of displacement into Lebanon, while conflicts between Druze militias and the government in Sweida, in southern Syria, have led to more displacement within the country. These episodes illustrate that while pockets of the country may feel safe to some, instability persists.

Barriers to returns

One of the most significant obstacles facing refugees who wish to return is the condition of their homes and the status of their property rights.

The civil war caused widespread destruction of housing, businesses and public buildings.

Land administration systems, including registry offices and records, were damaged or destroyed. This matters because refugees’ return requires more than physical safety; people need somewhere to live and proof that the home they return to is legally theirs.

Analysis by the conflict-monitoring group ACLED of more than 140,000 qualitative reports of violent incidents between 2014 and 2025 shows that property-related destruction was more concentrated in inland provinces than in the coastal regions, with cities such as Aleppo, Idlib and Homs sustaining some of the heaviest damage.

This has major implications for where return is feasible and where it will stall. With documentation lost, homes reoccupied and records destroyed, many Syrians risk returning to legal uncertainty or direct – and sometimes violent – conflict over land and housing.

Post-civil war reconstruction will require not only the rebuilding of physical infrastructure but also the restoration of land governance, including mechanisms for property verification, dispute resolution and compensation. Without all this, refugee returns will likely slow as people confront uncertainty about whether they can reclaim their homes.

Shaping Syria

Whether the wave of returns throughout 2025 continues or proves to be a temporary surge will depend on three main criteria: the security situation in Syria, reconstruction of houses and land administration systems, and the policies of the countries hosting Syrian refugees.

But ultimately, a year after the civil war ended, Syrians are returning because of a mixture of hope and hardship: hope that the fall of the Assad government has opened a path home, and hardship driven by declining support and safety in neighboring states.

Whether these returns will be safe, voluntary and sustainable are critical questions that will shape Syria’s recovery for years to come.

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

– ref. Hope and hardship have driven Syrian refugee returns – but many head back to destroyed homes, land disputes – https://theconversation.com/hope-and-hardship-have-driven-syrian-refugee-returns-but-many-head-back-to-destroyed-homes-land-disputes-269555