Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By William Plowright, Assistant Professor in International Security, Durham University

A few years ago, you might have balked if someone told you that the US president would be photographed in the White House shaking hands with a man who was a former member of al-Qaeda, an insurgent against US forces in Iraq, and had led one of the largest Syrian Islamist armed groups.

But that’s exactly what happened when Donald Trump welcomed his Syrian counterpart, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to Washington on November 10. Al-Sharaa became the first Syrian leader in history to be invited to the White House.

Al-Sharaa’s stunning ascendancy to power has seen him become an almost mythic figure in Middle Eastern regional politics. As the head of an armed group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), he overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2024 and ended the family’s 50-year reign.

In the process, HTS also brought the Syrian civil war to a close. This was a brutal 13-year period in which more than 600,000 lives were lost and more than 6.5 million people were displaced.

Al-Sharaa has complicated roots in the broader al-Qaeda family, but he has long taken steps to distance himself from that legacy. His approach has been described by some observers as shifting “from jihad to politics”.

During the latter half of the war, HTS was restricted to its powerbase in the north-western governorate of Idlib. The group began to eschew terrorism by publicly breaking with al-Qaeda, and instead sought to earn trust and provide a legitimate base of governance.

Since taking control of Syria, HTS has continued this public personification of tolerance and stability. The group’s leadership regularly asserts that it is willing to accept diversity and that its primary goal with all parties – even longstanding rival Israel – is peaceful cohabitation.

Al-Sharaa has also worked hard to project a moderate image. He was recently photographed playing basketball with US military commanders – hardly the typical image most of us would have in mind of a former jihadist leader.

Some people have raised concerns that HTS is only pretending to be moderate and is hiding its true intentions. Others have noted conservative policies that were put in place while HTS was in control of Idlib.

Although the war in Syria has largely ended, it would also be naive to think that sectarian violence has disappeared. Conflicts have broken out between communities including the Druze and Sunni Bedouin groups.

There have also been a string of targeted killings against the Alawite community, the Assad family’s traditional base of support. It is in this context that al-Sharaa undertook his trip to Washington.

US-Syria ties

Since HTS took power, there has been a large international debate over how to engage with the new regime in Syria. Clearly, the approach of the Trump administration is to be pragmatic. This is not the first time that powerful figures in the US have contemplated working with al-Sharaa in some way.

As far back as 2015, former CIA director David Petraeus suggested that the US should consider working with members of HTS’s predecessor, Jabhat al-Nusra, in the battle against Islamic State (IS). And although HTS was officially listed as a terrorist organisation by the US in 2018, this approach was softened in July 2025.

The question remains of what Trump and al-Sharaa want from each other. The legitimacy granted by the trip to Washington is incentive enough for al-Sharaa, but he stands to gain more. With an aggressive and retaliatory Israel still occupying the Golan Heights and other parts of southern Syria, and regularly bombing inside Syria’s borders, al-Sharaa needs allies.

Trump has already revoked most of the US sanctions that were placed on Syria during the civil war – and suspended some more following the meeting in Washington. He will also probably play a role in unlocking World Bank funding for rebuilding in Syria.

The incentives for the US may include gaining an airbase in Syria’s capital, Damascus, that would help it rival Russia’s influence in the region. There is also a rumour that Syria will join the Abraham accords, the agreements normalising diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states, which Trump is pushing to expand. However, this is unlikely as long as Israel occupies the Golan Heights.

Stronger ties between the US and Syria would mean successfully turning Iran’s strongest regional ally away from it, while also helping the US further combat the IS group. During his visit to Washington, al-Sharaa publicly joined the global coalition against IS. Though, in reality, HTS has been fighting the group on the ground for years.

Many regional players have an interest in al-Sharaa’s project succeeding. Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan want an end to conflict on their borders and to see refugees return home, while Saudi Arabia is keen to steal Syria as an ally from Iran. Al-Sharaa is even in talks with Israel about a military and security agreement, and he has already visited the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow.

Shia-led Iraq is likely to be at best suspicious and at worst hostile to al-Sharaa, though both it and Iran may be left with no choice but to accept the new status quo. And this is to say nothing of the Kurds in north-eastern Syria. They bore the brunt of the war against IS and have already been repeatedly abandoned by Trump in their conflict against Turkish forces. They may not react positively to al-Sharaa’s plans to reunify the country.

It remains to be seen if al-Sharaa can consolidate power, end the sporadic violence in Syria and stabilise the country. An unstable Syria means an unstable Middle East, and an unstable Middle East is a problem well beyond the borders of the region.

William Plowright 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 former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa ended up being welcomed to the White House – https://theconversation.com/how-former-jihadist-ahmed-al-sharaa-ended-up-being-welcomed-to-the-white-house-269631

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Dix, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Film, Loughborough University

When a house mysteriously explodes in the sleepy suburbs of south Oxford and a child goes missing in the aftermath, concerned neighbour Sarah Trafford is driven to seek the truth. As an art conservator, Trafford is way out of her depth, so she enlists the help of a private investigator, Zoë Boehm. However, the pair end up in a plot far more serious than Boehm’s usual work of checking credit ratings and tracking adulterous husbands.

This is the story of Down Cemetery Road (2003), the debut novel of writer Mick Herron, which has been adapted into an eight-part series by Apple TV. Down Cemetery Road is the second of Herron’s book series to be adapted by Apple, coming hot on the heels of the fifth season of the critically acclaimed Slow Horses, which centres on misfits and renegades navigating bureaucracy and corruption at MI5.

Like Slow Horses, Down Cemetery Road is fronted by British acting greats, with Ruth Wilson as art conservator Sarah Trafford and Emma Thompson as private investigator Zoë Boehm. It also exposes failings at the heart of British institutions, this time the UK government.

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Read more:
Slow Horses: high drama and comedy abound in this gripping spy thriller about reject spooks

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Boehm and Trafford uncover evidence that the UK government has deliberately maimed its own soldiers during illicit chemical weapons testing on the battlefield (the Gulf war in Herron’s novel, Afghanistan in the adaptation). To an even greater extent on screen than on the page, however, this military premise feels like one of Alfred Hitchcock’s “MacGuffins”: something to get the narrative engines firing, rather than a theme for profound exploration.

As a conspiracy thriller, then, Apple’s Down Cemetery Road does not compare with such classics of British TV as Edge of Darkness (1985, exploring a shadowy expansion of nuclear power) and State of Play (2003, about corrupt links between politicians and the oil industry). But while it is politically thin, it is nevertheless satisfying as a TV spectacle.

One of the incidental delights in watching the series is to encounter stalwarts of British acting even in minor roles. Mark Benton, a PI himself in the long-running series Shakespeare & Hathaway, turns up here as an Oxford academic.

He momentarily emerges from his wineglass to reminisce about Sarah as a gifted student who memorised the whole of The Waste Land (including, he marvels, the footnotes). Sara Kestelman, best known for her career in theatre, is touching as a bereaved mother. Gary Lewis, the initially scornful father in Billy Elliot, is bracing as a Scottish skipper who believes Zoë and Sarah to be yet more English folk intent on telling “humble Highlanders” what to do.

But the star turns are Thompson and Wilson. Zoë’s sustained presence on screen actually represents a promotion from the novel, where she is surprisingly absent until the second half.

Thompson is visibly having fun as she breaks away from the buttoned-up gentility of films such as Sense and Sensibility, Howards End and The Remains of the Day that, even now, will define her for many viewers. Her language is as spiky as her punkish silver hair, such as when she talks of collecting her husband from “the fuck-up creche”.

Wilson, as throughout her film, TV and theatre career, embodies intelligence and curiosity as Sarah. We are alerted to her vigilance from the start, as we see her scrutinising a painting through her art conservator’s magnifying glasses. But if she looks outwards keenly, she has fewer opportunities as the series unfolds to turn her gaze inwards.

The adaptation is relatively uninterested in the inner lives of others, too. In Herron’s novel, even the frightening government operative Amos Crane has interiority, chafing at the bureaucratic confines within which he has to work. Here he is played by Fehinti Balogun as a robotic killer, seemingly incapable of feeling (other than briefly mourning his brother and, improbably, laughing at an episode of the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances).

While characterisation is thinned in Apple’s adaptation, the action is thickened. Morwenna Banks and her co-screenwriters are unafraid to introduce fights and chases not found in Herron’s novel. In an especially thrilling sequence, Down Cemetery Road joins films such as The Lady Vanishes and Murder on the Orient Express in exploiting the suspense possibilities offered by a speeding train, with no opportunity to get off.

The spectacular sometimes takes a homelier form. The moment when Zoë eats a giant meringue is made striking when it shatters into sugary shards, an explosion scarcely less apocalyptic than that in the opening episode.

The moment is funnier than the repeated conversations between civil servant mandarin C. (Darren Boyd) and hapless underling Hamza Malik (Adeel Akhtar). Their scenes, offered as comic relief, come to grate and indicate a certain self-indulgence about the adaptation.

There are thoughtful sounds, too. Mozart’s Requiem is heard as the action reaches a deathly climax. And bebop jazz by Dizzy Gillespie plays over a scene of narrative discordance at the end of the opening episode. Particular thought has also been given to each episode’s closing music: songs such as P.J. Harvey’s Big Exit and Björk’s Bachelorette are witty, apt choices.

Over the final credits, we hear Billie Holiday’s I’ll Be Seeing You. With three more Zoë Boehm novels already written by Herron, it is an open question whether we will be seeing her again.

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Andrew Dix 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. Down Cemetery Road: Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson delight in this light conspiracy thriller – https://theconversation.com/down-cemetery-road-emma-thompson-and-ruth-wilson-delight-in-this-light-conspiracy-thriller-269536

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eleanor Dobson, Associate Professor in Nineteenth-Century Literature, University of Birmingham

November 2025 marks 100 years since archaeologists first examined Tutankhamun’s mummified remains. What followed wasn’t scientific triumph – it was destruction. Using hot knives and brute force, Howard Carter’s team decapitated the pharaoh, severed his limbs and dismembered his torso. Then they covered it up.

Tutankhamun’s tomb was first discovered in the Valley of the Kings by a team of mostly Egyptian excavators led by Howard Carter in November 1922. However, it took several years for the excavators to clear and catalogue the tomb’s antechamber – the first part of what would become a decade-long excavation.

This meticulous work, as well as delays caused by friction between Carter and the Egyptian government, meant that it wasn’t until 1925 that Tutankhamun’s remains were uncovered. This milestone whipped up another wave of what has been termed “Tutmania” after the tomb’s initial discovery generated a wave of popular fascination for Egyptian archaeology.

When Carter’s team eventually opened Tutankhamun’s innermost coffin, they found the pharaoh’s body fused to the casket by a hardened, black, pitch-like substance. This resin was poured over the wrappings during burial to protect the body from decay.

Carter described the corpse as “firmly stuck” and noted that “no amount of legitimate force” could free it. In a desperate attempt to soften the resin and remove the body, the coffin was exposed to the heat of the sun. When this failed, the team resorted to hot knives, severing Tutankhamun’s head and funerary mask from his body in the process.

The autopsy that followed was devastating. Tutankhamun was left “decapitated, his arms separated at the shoulders, elbows and hands, his legs at the hips, knees and ankles, and his torso cut from the pelvis at the iliac crest”. His remains were later glued together to simulate an intact body – a macabre reconstruction that concealed the violence of the process.

Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley has pointed out that this destruction is conspicuously absent from Carter’s public account of the autopsy. It is also absent from his private excavation records, which are available at the University of Oxford’s Griffith Institute and online.

Tyldesley suggests that Carter’s silence may reflect either a deliberate cover-up or a respectful attempt to preserve the dignity of the deceased king. His omissions, however, were documented in photos by the archaeological photographer Harry Burton. These shots offer a stark visual record of the dismemberment.

In some of Burton’s images, Tutankhamun’s skull is visibly impaled to keep it upright for photography. These images sit in grim contrast to the one Carter chose for the second volume of his work detailing the excavations, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen, published in 1927. In this sanitised image, the pharaoh’s head is wrapped in fabric, concealing the severed spinal column, presenting a more palatable view for public consumption.

As we reflect on the centenary of this examination, it is worth reconsidering the legacy of Carter’s excavation, not just as a landmark in Egyptology, but as a moment of ethical reckoning. The mutilation of Tutankhamun’s body, obscured in official narratives, invites us to challenge narratives of archaeological triumph and to look back on the past with a more critical view.

“Today has been a great day in the history of archaeology,” Carter wrote in his excavation diary on November 11 1925, when the medical examination of Tutankhamun’s remains began. But the archival evidence suggests something far more morally complicated, even grisly, lying behind the seductive glint of gold.

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Eleanor Dobson 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. Tutankhamun was decapitated 100 years ago – why the excavation is a great shame instead of a triumph – https://theconversation.com/tutankhamun-was-decapitated-100-years-ago-why-the-excavation-is-a-great-shame-instead-of-a-triumph-269015

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Molly Sheila Harbor, PhD Candidate in Psychology, University of Reading

It’s safe to say nobody likes vomiting. But while it’s not a pleasant experience by any means, few of us really give much thought to it – except maybe when we’ve had a few too many drinks or when stomach flu is doing the rounds.

But for around 2%-7% of the population, vomiting) provokes anxiety so severe they’ll do anything to avoid it. This specific fear of vomiting is known as emetophobia. Though much about the condition remains unknown, research is beginning to explore the debilitating impact it can have on sufferers.

Emetophobia affects everyone differently. For some, this fear centres around vomiting themselves, while for others it’s a fear of seeing somebody else vomit. Many also experience a combination of both fears. Some people can also pinpoint a specific traumatic event related to their phobia, while for others there is no distinct cause.

Emetophobia can also have varying degrees of impact on a person’s life – ranging from mild to debilitating, according to a recent review my colleagues and I published.

The most common characteristic of emetophobia is avoidance. People with the condition often steer clear of situations where they think vomit might be a risk. Many avoid public transport, crowded places, theme parks, dining at restaurants or consuming alcohol. Some even go so far as refraining from saying or typing the word “vomit.”

This fear and avoidance can even influence long-term life decisions – with some people avoiding pregnancy and children due to concerns with morning sickness and the illnesses (such as stomach flu) that kids are prone to.

Not only can these avoidance behaviours affect social and professional life, they can also have an impact on physical health. For example, some people with emetophobia restrict their diet or avoid certain foods – such as meat, due to perceived risk of Salmonella (a food-borne illness that can cause vomiting). This can result in nutrient deficiencies and becoming underweight.

People have also been shown to engage in compulsive behaviours such as hand washing, magical thinking (the belief that certain habits or specific thoughts can stop vomiting from happening) and excessive cleaning to avoid being sick. These symptoms overlap with other psychiatric disorders – specifically anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This has often led to misdiagnosis, with patients referred to services who are not specialised in treating emetophobia.

Another common and often overlooked symptom of emetophobia is nausea – with the majority of people experiencing feelings of sickness on a daily basis, despite having no underlying medical condition. As emetophobia goes hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with vomiting, there’s usually a heightened awareness of bodily sensations which can cause anxiety.

Everyday mundane experiences such as feeling overly full after a meal or getting a headache from too much screen time can trigger the automatic thought: “I am going to be sick.” This creates a vicious cycle, as the more attention a person gives to these sensations, the more likely they are to misinterpret them as signs of illness. This in turn reinforces and entrenches the fear.

Treating emetophobia

A lack of research into emetophobia means treating the condition currently remains a hurdle.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) seems to be the most evidence-based treatment investigated so far. This treatment approach aims to change thought patterns and behaviour. For emetophobia, this involves changing beliefs about vomiting and slowly reducing avoidance habits through exposure – such as visiting feared places and reducing excessive hand-washing.

Although some studies have shown promising results from using CBT for emetophobia, these studies only investigated a small number of participants. This means it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions about the treatment’s effectiveness until larger studies have been done.

Another option is exposure therapy, which has been tried and tested on people suffering from other phobias and has shown great outcomes. Exposure therapy involves gradually facing feared situations with the help of a therapist to teach the brain these things are not dangerous and reduce overall fear.

But it’s worth noting that although exposure therapy is recommended for other phobias, only 6% of people with emetophobia would be willing to try it. This doesn’t make exposure therapy a very accessible option for the majority of people struggling with this disorder.

Further complicating matters is the fact that people with emetophobia often avoid places such as GP surgeries and hospitals because of the risk of seeing someone who is unwell or catching a vomiting bug. This means they struggle to access what help might be available.

There’s a clear need for increased awareness of this condition, from both the general public and doctors. Awareness can help limit misdiagnosis, show sufferers treatment is available and reduce misconceptions.

Emetophobia is more than simply not liking vomit. It can affect every aspect of life. Our continued research aims to explore effective treatment options for this complex disorder.

Molly Sheila Harbor 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. Emetophobia: what it’s like to have a fear of vomiting – https://theconversation.com/emetophobia-what-its-like-to-have-a-fear-of-vomiting-269310

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elena Papagiannaki, Lecturer in Economics, Edinburgh Napier University

The Greek government has passed a law allowing private employers to extend shifts to 13 hours per day, framed in terms of “flexibility” and “growth”. It’s marketed as voluntary and fairly paid, but effectively it dismantles the standard eight-hour day, despite survey data showing workers overwhelmingly oppose it.

But while critics question its legality, technically it does comply with the European Union’s working time directive. For many, especially in hospitality, it simply formalises what already exists: long hours, low pay, little rest.

The reform mirrors a broader European and global shift towards deregulated work. And it proves that the fight for shorter hours is far from over, as I set out in a chapter in the forthcoming book Global Futures of Work: A Critical Introduction.

After Greek workers’ 1936 victory securing the eight-hour day, the country has now reached a point where Greeks are again among the most overworked in Europe. Data from the EU’s statistics office and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show full-time employees log about 1,900 hours a year, compared with 1,510 in the UK and 1,330 in Germany.

Weekly hours add up to 41-42 on average, the highest in the EU. Yet wages and productivity remain low. This paradox of working more but earning less reflects a regime centred on labour intensification and wage suppression, weak collective bargaining and precarious jobs.

Since 2005, Greece has loosened its working time regime under “flexibility” reforms. A 2005 law allowed daily shifts to be stretched by two hours, another change in 2021 redefined overtime, while a third law two years later revived the six-day week.

And now the fair work for all bill permits 13-hour days on a “voluntary” basis. Together, these measures have eroded the eight-hour norm, substituting collective bargaining for the needs of employers.

The Greek government claims that workers want longer days, but the evidence suggests otherwise. The drive to extend working hours masks a refusal to raise real wages and household income. Since the 2008-09 financial crisis, GDP has shrunk by 27% and remains below pre-crisis levels, while household disposable income has fallen by 35 percentage points.

Even the recent minimum-wage hike (a 6% increase to €880 (£775) per week for full-time workers) offers no real gains in purchasing power, leaving workers poorer than before the crisis. Instead of higher pay, the government’s solution is longer days – stretching time when it cannot stretch income.

A survey earlier this year by the Greek labour institute found that 94% of workers support shorter hours with no pay cut, and nearly 60% reject a 13-hour day outright. Among those already working such hours, 70% say the “voluntary” label is meaningless, with workers forced to put in these hours to make ends meet.

For many, the new law simply confirms the overwork they already face. For others, it represents a return to the 19th century. The wave of nationwide strikes demanding its repeal raises a clear question. If workers reject it, and EU law supposedly guarantees the opposite, how can the measure pass?

EU – protector or enabler?

Most opposition parties questioned the 13-hour workday’s legality under EU law, but the EU working time directive itself provides the loophole. It stipulates a 48-hour weekly average and 11 hours’ daily rest, yet imposes no cap on daily hours.

Member states may grant opt-outs, allowing workers to “voluntarily” exceed the limits, effectively legalising overwork. In response to a Greek MEP, the European Commission confirmed that Greece’s reform complies with EU rules. It admitted that the directive allows the 13-hour workday if the 48-hour weekly average is met in the reference period of four months. It is presented as “worker protection”, but this logic simply permits exhaustion now, rest later.

The UK government’s rebuke of South Cambridgeshire District Council for trialling a four-day work week shows that resistance to shorter hours is hardly unique to Greece. Across advanced economies, longer working time has been normalised.

And NHS staff reportedly performed more than 1 million hours of unpaid overtime every week before the pandemic. By 2025, it has been claimed that inefficiencies and delays have added another 7.5 million extra work hours every week across the NHS workforce.

Amazon workers in the US work ten-hour shifts and 55-hour weeks during peak seasons, with similar patterns in the UK. Amazon said its work patterns offer flexible career opportunities and that its staff were the “heart and soul” of its operations. Another elite tech firm looks like following suit: Google’s Sergey Brin actually called for a 60-hour week.

The push to extend working hours is not an anomaly in Greece, but part of a broader trend across advanced economies – the normalisation of overwork in the name of flexibility and growth.

Workers are expected to adapt, erasing boundaries between work and life. Greece’s 13-hour day doesn’t mark progress but a retreat from hard-won labour rights. And it threatens to undo historic victories on working conditions in pursuit of further productivity increases and profits.

Elena Papagiannaki is a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future of Work (ifow.org)

– ref. Exhausted employees don’t want it – so why has Greece introduced a 13-hour work day? – https://theconversation.com/exhausted-employees-dont-want-it-so-why-has-greece-introduced-a-13-hour-work-day-269118

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marika Taylor, Pro-vice-chancellor, Professor, University of Birmingham

In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called “Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?”

Hawking, who later became my PhD supervisor, predicted that a theory of everything – uniting the clashing branches of general relativity, which describes the universe on large scales, and quantum mechanics, which rules the microcosmos of atoms and particles – might be discovered by the end of the 20th century.

Forty-five years later, there is still no definitive theory of everything. The main candidate is string theory, a framework that describes all forces and particles including gravity. String theory proposes that the building blocks of nature are not point-like particles like quarks (which make up particles in the atomic nucleus) but vibrating strings.

It suggests that, if we could look deep inside electrons, we would see loops of strings, vibrating just like those on a violin. Different patterns of string vibrations correspond to different particles.

String theory unifies all the forces of nature. Forces that seem very different, such as gravity and electricity, are deeply related to one another. The forces are linked by so-called dualities: the same underlying phenomena can be described in different ways.

The force of gravity is described in terms of geometry, shapes and positions. Other forces are described in terms of different mathematical concepts, including algebra and numbers.

The unification of forces hence implies profound relationships between branches of mathematics. Such relationships had previously been proposed by mathematicians, particularly by Robert Langlands, and string theory gives physical explanations for the relationships.

Although string theory could be the correct theory of everything, it is hard to test experimentally. The effects of string theory become visible at very small scales and very high energies.

Particle accelerators explore the internal structure of particles by colliding them and breaking them apart. However, even the biggest colliders at Cern in Switzerland don’t have enough energy to break particles down into strings.

Clues in the cosmos

How can we test string theory experimentally if we can’t reach high enough energies in colliders? The answer may lie in looking up to the skies.

The very early universe was dense and hot, and the primordial soup would have been made up of strings. We can see the history of the universe imprinted in current day observations, from surveys of galaxies through to measurements of the cosmic radiation that permeates all of space and is a leftover from the big bang.

In the early 20th century, American astronomer Edwin Hubble showed that the universe is expanding. Galaxies are moving further apart from each other.

At the end of that century, detailed observations of the expansion showed that it is in fact accelerating. Galaxies today are moving apart faster than they were a million years ago.

What is driving this acceleration? Gravity is an attractive force so it slows down the expansion of the universe. The acceleration of the universe is driven by a new kind of energy, which is spread throughout the whole of space. Scientists call this dark energy and it makes up about 70% of the energy of the universe.

We don’t know exactly what dark energy is. The most plausible explanation is that it is the inherent quantum energy of the universe. In the quantum world, particles can never just sit still, with no energy. There is always a little bit of quantum jitter and associated energy.

Atoms cooled down to absolute zero temperature still have energy because of their quantum motion. Dark energy could potentially be explained as being the underlying quantum energy of all the forces and particles in nature, including gravity.

Experiments are pinning down the properties of dark energy. Desi is an observatory based in Arizona, US, which is mapping out galaxies and quasars. The space based telescopes Euclid and Roman will measure the universe in unprecedented detail, mapping out the history of billions of galaxies over billions of years.

Recent results from Desi suggest that dark energy is changing in time in a way that is consistent with string theory models – although this is yet to be fully verified by further measurements.

This doesn’t prove string theory because string theory can produce a variety of different universes, with differing patterns of dark energy. However, the Desi results suggest that interpreting dark energy as quantum energy of strings may be on the right track. There are of course phenomena other than strings that could explain the change in dark energy.

Euclid and Roman will make very precise measurements and will be able to exclude many such theories of dark energy and some specific versions of string theory – helping to narrow down the bits theorists should focus on.

Another way to verify string theory may be via black holes. Once something falls inside a black hole, it cannot escape. Inside a black hole there are very strong forces and particles are torn apart. We still don’t understand exactly what happens inside a black hole, but string theory teaches us how a black hole retains information about what has fallen inside.

That’s because string theory assumes there is no “singularity” inside a black hole – a point of infinite density and gravity – but instead that the objects are spread out as balls of strings called fuzzballs.

Future, more precise, measurements of gravitational waves (ripples in the fabric of spacetime) will be looking for the subtle signals of the quantum behaviour inside black holes predicted by string theory. If black holes are fuzzballs, they should produce a different signal when they merge, lasting longer and containing echoes. What’s more, if extra dimensions exist, as string theory proposes, black holes may oscillate in different ways which we could also detect.

In addition to cosmological measurements, scientists can run thought experiments, just as Einstein did with his theories of relativity. String theory has led to new insights not just in mathematics but also in other areas of science. For example, string theory has proven to be useful in understanding how quantum systems can be used in computing.

I don’t think a complete understanding of a theory of everything is just around the corner, but in the 45 years since Hawking’s Lucasian lecture we have certainly learned a lot. And right now, things are looking up for string theory.

Marika Taylor currently receives funding from EPSRC, STFC, UK government deparments and the European Horizon programme.

– ref. String theory: scientists are trying new ways to verify the idea that could unite all of physics – https://theconversation.com/string-theory-scientists-are-trying-new-ways-to-verify-the-idea-that-could-unite-all-of-physics-268149

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natalie Pollard, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Culture, University of Exeter

What do you picture when you think about climate change? For many of us, it is the same set of dramatic images: melting glaciers, sinking landforms, rising seas or extreme weather.

These are powerful visuals. They shock, grab headlines and galvanise environmentalism. However, this imagery offers a partial account of transformation, often underplaying political responsibility and colonial history. In my new book, 21st-Century Climate Imaginaries, I call these charismatic images “climate memes”.

Monumental images of melting or calving glaciers lend drama to earth’s changing form, but tend to bypass the thorny social and economic roots of ice loss. Research shows that glacial melt is accelerating especially in regions at the frontline of resource extraction and colonial occupation. My research asks: why is this?

Imagine a glacier melting in the Andes. Blood-red threads of wool – like streams of meltwater – are running down the mountain. It is 2006. This is an activist intervention by Chilean-born artist Cecilia Vicuña. It is the first in her series of performances and soft sculptures, The Blood of the Glaciers. Her giant-order red threads spell out the effects of foreign direct investment in the wake of Augusto Pinochet’s regime, which sparked a dramatic rise in overseas mining corporations in Chile.

Here, as in many regions of the developing world, mining and industrial transportation make the glaciers bleed. The problem is acute because glaciers are water savings banks, essential in years with low rainfall. Glaciers sustain life. Industry-heavy sacrifice zones bleed life dry. Vicuña’s artistic activism shows how extractive mining is a primary driver of glacial recession. Melting is not just a “climate” issue or “natural” disaster. The cause is human activity.

Standing knee-deep in seawater on the shoreline of Tuvalu, the country’s foreign minister addresses Cop26 delegates with these words: “We are sinking”. Simon Kofe’s 2021 speech was broadcast globally from a point that had recently been above sea level. From his semi-submerged podium, Kofe made visible to the world the situation people endure in low-lying Pacific islands.

Since the 1980s, sinking islands have become a powerful shorthand for climate crisis. Apocalyptic spectacles of raging seas symbolise planetary transformation. An often-cited example is the documentary of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It showed Tuvalu engulfed by tides, alongside the incorrect remark that “Pacific nations have all had to evacuate”.

In 2009, Marshallese activist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner joined forces with Greenlandic climate poet Aka Niviâna and environmentalist organisation 350.org. They produced an influential video-poem: Rise: From One Island to Another. The performance connects changing Greenlandic ice and Pacific waters with Indigenous resistance to fossil capitalism.

Climate images of melting and sinking often go hand-in-hand with colonial narratives of Indigenous vulnerability. In contrast, Rise brings to life the history of Greenlandic and Marshallese opposition to development for extraction and scientific exploitation. The two activists highlight the nuclear colonial legacy of the Pacific Proving Grounds and Greenland’s Camp Century, linking military histories in the Arctic and Pacific: “nuclear waste / dumped / in our waters / on our ice”.

It is not always easy to remember that environmental change is caused by specific technological, military and political acts. Indigenous arts activism helps by showing how climate memes make sense only in the context of histories of exploitation and resistance, which often take place in developing countries.

Today, activists and artists across the world are challenging popular, generalised climate memes, such as those of melting and sinking. As I show in 21st-Century Climate Imaginaries, attention to the local and specific helps people process how social and environmental violence are intimately linked. Arts activism, working directly with people’s lived experiences of change, can offer much-needed, grounded alternatives to spectacular climate soundbites. How far these interventions are positively reshaping how we understand our responsibilities to a fast-changing world is yet to be seen.

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Natalie Pollard 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. Apocalyptic images of melting glaciers and sinking islands won’t help anyone imagine a better future – https://theconversation.com/apocalyptic-images-of-melting-glaciers-and-sinking-islands-wont-help-anyone-imagine-a-better-future-268909

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Yates, Senior Lecturer in Accounting, University of Sheffield

It is difficult to ignore the intertwined nature of the commercialised UK higher education model and its reliance on international student fee income. One in four students enrolled in higher education courses in the UK in 2023-24 is of non-UK origin. This is an increase from just over one in five in 2019-20. A total of over £10 billion of universities’ student fee income is raised from non-UK students.

Recent reports that Sheffield Hallam University stymied an academic’s research as a result of pressure from China has thrust the influence that foreign nations may have on UK universities into the spotlight.

Sheffield Hallam has denied that commercial interests played a part in the decision. “For the avoidance of doubt, the decision was not based on commercial interests in China,” a university spokesperson said. “Regardless, China is not a significant international student market for the University.”

For many UK universities, though, international student fees are a vital part of their income. This has followed the reduction of government financial support for universities and successive steps towards marketisation of the higher education sector.

Marketisation means universities compete with each other to attract students, who pay fees for their education. However, fees in the UK are regulated (and Scottish and Welsh governments subsidise students from their respective juridictions) and often do not cover the total cost of teaching and administration of courses. Universities have responded by increasing recruitment of international students to plug the funding gap.

In a marketised model, international students are attractive as their fees are uncapped, meaning that institutions can charge much higher amounts for the same number of students.

Universities are also judged in rankings that include things like how international their student body is, and the ratio of staff to students. Recruiting more international students helps keep the ratio of staff to students lower because higher international student fees mean that fewer students are needed to fund a course.

In 2016-17, international student fee income made up 15.2% of an average institution’s total income. This has risen to 24.6% in 2022-23. This greater reliance on international student fee income as a percentage of overall revenues has been driven by several factors.

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency also shows how important individual regions are as part of the overall international student cohort. In 2023-24, the top two countries are India and China. India provided 107,480 students to the UK higher education sector, 25.1% of all international students. China contributed 98,400 students, 23.0% of international students.

Financial risk

The implications of such rises in the proportion of revenues being raised from international student fee income are vast. Most apparent is the increased risk that this exposes UK universities to in terms of volatility in international student numbers.

This is much more unpredictable than changes in government finance, which tend to be announced in advance. Simply put, fluctuations in international student numbers have a big effect on income. And this is a key factor in the current financial crisis in UK higher education.

Marketisation has been linked to cuts that universities are imposing on departments, closing courses and making significant redundancies. This is because greater volatility means that institutions are likely to seek to cut costs such as staff in response to lower revenues, as staff costs represent a large portion of the overall cost base for universities.

The Universities and Colleges Union estimates total job losses within the sector to be in the region of 15,000. Such widespread and rapid cuts are likely to have severe knock on effects for the UK economy as a whole and the universities sector. Industrial action is already affecting the delivery of courses, research activity, and key knowledge exchange and practical impact activities.

Current government policy implies a perseverance with the marketised model, although a proposed 6% levy on international student fees seeks to encourage institutions to pursue more diverse sources of revenue. However, this is unlikely to have any material effect on where institutions draw their students.

The Higher Education Policy Institute has suggested that such a levy could cost an already financially precarious sector in the region of £621 million. Universities may well react by increasing the volume of international students they take on board, as increasing domestic fees may deter home applicants.

Such behavioural effects may well exacerbate such risks in the future. Alternatively, further staff cuts are likely to have prolonged effects for the sector in terms of the quality of education it can provide, and the value delivered to students. Courses may become shorter, student-staff contact time reduced, and optional modules cut.

Rather than focus on one incident, it is the marketised model itself that has landed universities in this the current crisis. They find themselves beholden to the fee income that the market provides. Currently, the need to promise – and provide – a superior experience to their prospective student applicants is driving many financial decisions in the sector.

This includes large amounts of spending on capital projects that has left many institutions with budget deficits and in some cases, heavily depleted cash reserves.

Incentives are required that will encourage sustainable stewardship of our higher education institutions. Until that happens, it is unlikely that anything will change. Capital remains all powerful. The pursuit of it will continue to supplant traditional ideological values of the university, with seemingly no cost too high for universities seeking to “remain in the game”.

David Yates has historically received research funding grants from the British Accounting and Finance Association, the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, all for projects unrelated to this article. He is a former member of the Labour Party.

– ref. How the market for international students puts pressure on universities’ academic freedom – https://theconversation.com/how-the-market-for-international-students-puts-pressure-on-universities-academic-freedom-269007

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matt Jacobsen, Senior Lecturer in Film History in the School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London

Nearly four decades after Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscle-bound version sprinted across screens, The Running Man returns to cinemas. In Edgar Wright’s hands, this adaptation is a sharper, smarter reflection of a culture that still can’t look away from spectacle.

Following The Long Walk, this is the second film adaptation in 2025 of a Stephen King novel originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Both films are set in a near-future America under a totalitarian regime whose oppressed population glue themselves to violent televised contests.

Schwarzenegger’s dreadful version of The Running Man in 1987 used the title of King’s novel and the concept of deadly game shows in a future America – but the similarities ended there. Director Edgar Wright’s hugely entertaining new adaptation is more faithful to the plot of King’s book, if not the tone.

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Read more:
How Stephen King’s Bachman stories are fuelling 2025’s dark cinematic moments

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In The Running Man, America is effectively run by television syndicate The Network. They keep the population entertained and obedient through life-and-death TV game shows. Participants in the most popular show play a game of hide-and-seek against a team of armed hunters. The public are promised cash rewards if they report a sighting of the contestant that leads to their capture and killing.

Ben Richards (Glenn Powell) is a blue-collar worker who wants to compete to win money for his sick daughter’s medication. The film follows Richards as he encounters eccentric citizens (with cameos by Michael Cera, William H Macy and an unhinged Sandra Dickinson) who are either keen to help or hinder him as he flees north from New York City along the east coast of America.

The Running Man’s opening scenes vividly show a stratified America, a vast poverty gap dividing the complacent ultra rich from a working class without basic comfort and sustenance. Richards, like many of King’s Bachman book protagonists (and King himself when writing the first draft of this novel in 1972) is driven by a deep-seated rage at the injustices in the American system.

The Network’s oily executive Dan Killian (a typically brilliant Josh Brolin) knows Richards will make great cathartic TV for an impotent, rage-filled population – he’s “the angriest man he’s ever seen”. The overarching theme is that the populace likes it this way and can’t imagine an alternative. The Network’s programming offers a satisfying pound of flesh to their frenzied viewers, whose primal urges are kept at bay by the spectacle of violence. As Killian hammily asserts, for Americans: “Bloodlust is our birthright!”

Tuning into current debates, The Network heavily edits its programmes with use of seamless AI. The film suggests the population is uninterested in whether their entertainment and news are authentic or faked. As clearly doctored footage of Richards is screened, the crowd bays aggressively for his blood. In the film’s final act, there is the suggestion that this fervour could be redirected with hostility towards the hand that feeds.

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Read more:
‘AI actor’ Tilly Norwood is dividing Hollywood – but real acting requires humanity

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The film’s early depiction of the technology saturated sprawl of New York City is a superbly realised absurdist vision of an oppressive media-run state. It strongly evokes the style and tone of influential weekly British Science Fiction comic 2000 AD (1977-present), with its towering, neon-lit concrete structures. The overpowered and excessively violent police force particularly resembles the futuristic satire of the comic’s most famous character, Judge Dredd.

Wright and frequent collaborator Simon Pegg have expressed their admiration for the comic and its amplified visions of contemporary politics and society. Like 2000 AD, The Running Man is social commentary that delivers its message through aggressive, fast-paced action and explosive violence.

Edgar Wright and genre cinema

This is a great year for King adaptations, and while The Long Walk’s publicity campaign promoted his name heavily, The Running Man features Wright’s name and rising star Powell with no mention of the writer. This choice is likely to avoid misconceptions that this could be a horror film. Rather this is a breathless, hyper-kinetic action film that, like the smaller scale Baby Driver (2017) showcases Wright’s ability to beautifully direct explosive car chases and gun battles.

At the heart of Wright’s films is a love of genre cinema. In his last film, Last Night in Soho (2021), he paid tribute to gothic London films and to the cinematic myth of the swinging 60s. Here he shifts gears and celebrates the uncomplicated pleasures of the high-speed thrills of 1980s and 1990s action films in the vein of Die Hard (1988). It is an interpretation of King’s work that replaces the dour, bitter tragedy of the source material with a satirical, cartoonish absurdism.

This comedic approach works superbly in the film’s first half but can’t quite sustain the more serious critiques of American politics and media culture that the script tries to deliver in the final act.

The Running Man loses tension and nuance in its second half, especially with the late introduction of poorly conceived character Amelia Williams (Emilia Jones). She’s a young woman and member of society’s comfortable class who is embroiled in Richards’ escape plans. Her encounter with Richards leads her unconvincingly to reflect on her privilege and the injustices of her society.

The film wants viewers to imagine that there is potential for the entitled and complacent to reflect and for resistance against totalitarian control to blossom with the right catalyst. This is a deliberate choice to run counter to King’s original nihilistic vision. But it does not ring true in the face of what we’ve been shown about the film’s grim world. The final act messaging feels rote and unearned. Richards delivers a clunky, didactic dialogue that sits at odds with the film’s more interesting questions around the nature of violent spectacle and human nature – and our own enjoyment of the film’s violence.

Taken as a feather-light, fugitive-on-the-run film, this is an extraordinarily entertaining piece of mainstream action cinema. If you overlook messy plotting in the final act, it’s the most fun you are likely to have in the cinema this year. As a more focused and coherent critique of the threat of totalitarianism and media dominance, however, The Long Walk has the distinct edge over this film. Those looking for a more revealing social commentary may be left disappointed.

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Matt Jacobsen 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 Running Man is the most fun you’ll have at the cinema this year – https://theconversation.com/the-running-man-is-the-most-fun-youll-have-at-the-cinema-this-year-269314

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Basil Germond, Professor of International Security, School of Global Affairs, Lancaster University

China’s new Fujian aircraft carrier, unveiled recently by president Xi Jinping with great fanfare, has been hailed by Chinese state media as a major milestone in the country’s naval modernisation programme and a key development in the counry’s aspirations to become a maritime power.

In the context of Beijing’s sustained seapower strategy, the long-term implications for the security and leadership of the global maritime order are certainly significant and enduring.

The launch means China now has three aircraft carriers in service and is capable of maintaining a continuous carrier presence at sea. And there have been reports of satellite images which suggest construction has already begun on China’s fourth carrier.

This will increase Beijing’s ability to preventatively deploy warships to faraway locations it considers important. It gives China the potential to control the airspace wherever their battle group is operating, as well as the ability to project air power in more distant theatres of conflict.

The new carrier also means China can launch heavier and specialist aircraft, for example with airborne early-warning systems and fighter jets equipped with greater fuel and payload capacity.

This expands Beijing’s operational options. It elevates China into a select group of four nations (US, UK, France, China) capable of independently operating a carrier battle group with the capacity to generate substantial strategic advantages from the sea.

Among this group, however, the US remains far ahead. It enjoys a significant lead in terms of carrier fleet size, technological sophistication, operational experience, global reach and sustained carrier strike capabilities.

Aircraft carriers are obviously key naval assets in confrontations between comparable nations in open ocean environments – known as “blue-water engagements”. But they are also important in controlling the maritime battlespace – particularly through air superiority – and in projecting power ashore.

The Fujian does not dramatically shift the global balance of power in China’s favour. But its enhanced land-attack capabilities nonetheless expand Beijing’s operational toolkit, allowing a more flexible and assertive naval strategy.

A strong symbolic power

Since the second world war, aircraft carriers have replaced battleships as the capital ships, the principal and most powerful warships in any country’s navy that are designed to form the core of a fleet and deliver decisive combat power.

Such capital ships carry strong symbolic weight. They signal a state’s ability to mobilise the resources required to procure, sustain and operate such complex platforms, as well as its intent to function as an ocean-going naval power.

In this light, China’s aircraft carrier programme has considerable symbolic resonance. It reflects both Beijing’s intrinsic naval capabilities and its extrinsic power – that is, its increasingly elevated status within the international pecking order.

China’s comprehensive seapower strategy

China’s carrier programme needs to be understood as part of Beijing’s wider seapower strategy. Unlike other authoritarian states such as Russia or Iran, the power base of China’s regime is much more dependent on international trade and so on freedom of navigation. Consequently, China does not seek to disrupt the global maritime order. It wants to lead it and initiate a new cycle of global dominance.

To that end, Beijing is not only expanding its naval power but, perhaps more significantly, its civilian seapower. This includes a robust shipbuilding industry, a large and growing merchant marine registered as Chinese. And it has made substantial direct investments in critical western infrastructure, such as ports.

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Read more:
Maritime power shapes the world order – and is undergoing a sea change

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Many of these investments have been made via private Chinese firms which maintain close ties with the state. This gives Beijing additional leverage to exercise civilian seapower to further its political interests. For example, it can use Chinese shipping companies to circumvent western sanctions on Russia, or interfere in European ports owned by Chinese firms.

In the South China Sea, Beijing aggressively uses its fishing fleet, backed by its coastguard and navy to achieve a degree of control over contested areas it considers to have economic or strategic importance.

So the commissioning of the Fujian is more than a technical milestone for the Chinese navy – it is a signal of intent. It reinforces China’s growing capacity and willingness to shape the maritime domain. As part of a broader seapower strategy, it reflects Beijing’s ambition not just to contribute to, but to lead, the global maritime order.

Basil Germond 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 China’s latest aircraft carrier will challenge western maritime dominance – https://theconversation.com/how-chinas-latest-aircraft-carrier-will-challenge-western-maritime-dominance-269406