Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Punita Chowbey, Senior research fellow, Sheffield Hallam University

Economic abuse may not be as obvious as physical abuse, but for the millions of people it affects in the UK, economic abuse can be totally devastating.

Economic abuse, which is recognised as a form of domestic abuse in law, involves controlling a person’s (often a woman’s) ability to acquire, use and maintain economic resources.

Separating or divorcing does not mean the end of economic abuse in a marriage, particularly when children are involved. Post-separation economic abuse is often related to child maintenance or spousal support payments, which may be manipulated or withheld by abusers.

This harms mothers’ financial independence, mental health and parenting, and has consequences for children’s wellbeing.

A recent national survey found that minority ethnic women face economic abuse at twice the rate of white women (29% vs 13%). Our recently-published research explores why, through the experiences of 28 separated or divorced British south Asian Muslim women. This research is part of our continuing research on divorce and economic abuse.

Two-thirds of our participants had been financially dependent upon their husbands during their marriages, in keeping with broader statistics on the low employment rates of British Pakistani and Bangladeshi women. Further, several participants described their husbands preventing them from working.

UK-born Afsana had to work secretly as a tutor for meagre pay: “This tutoring was undercover with my dad. My working would have looked bad on [my husband].”

After separation or divorce, women were left economically vulnerable. Some struggled to find work, due to lack of recent employment experience as well as labour market discrimination.

“I worked in one school as a volunteer, but the Jobcentre said ‘that’s not enough, we need more evidence of work,’” said one woman. “I said, ‘everywhere you apply, they ask for a qualification, and experience is the main thing.’ I was not going out … how could I have undertaken any work?”

A major theme in our research was how abusers used child maintenance as a means to control women economically. In 18 cases, the father was not paying any child maintenance. Of the rest, only two mothers felt that the amount paid was fair.

Many women described child maintenance mirroring earlier patterns of economic abuse during their marriages. As UK-born Afsana put it: “He didn’t provide when he was with me, so I didn’t expect him to provide when he was not with me.”

Where women had involved the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), they felt it was unresponsive, especially those in transnational marriages involving economic assets overseas.

UK-born Kiran described her experience with CMS after her ex-husband hid assets in Pakistan: “I’ve even given the telephone numbers and addresses in the properties which are in Pakistan. [But] ‘Excuse me. We know that you’re upset. It just takes a bit of time.’ I go, ‘How long does it need?’”

Women felt disbelieved, which undermined their confidence in the system. Although the CMS may face limits in investigating finances held overseas, women felt the evidence they provided was often ignored. Many of the men were in self-employment, which may have made it difficult for the CMS to investigate.

Legal blind spots and immigration abuse

Post-separation economic abuse can also occur through institutions like courts and banks. UK-born Hora described how her husband remarried via an unregistered Islamic marriage, which allowed him to transfer money and assets to his new wife.

She told us: “My barrister said, ‘You’re not divorced from this lady yet, but you’ve remarried.’ He said, ‘Yes judge, in my religion I can have four wives.’ And this is a High Court judge, and he said, ‘Yes, quite!’”

Hora felt that this comment suggested the judge supported her husband’s use of religious justification for re-marrying before divorce, rather than recognising it as part of financial abuse.

Women with an insecure immigration status might also experience “immigration abuse”. This too can be a form of economic abuse, where, for example, an abuser uses the threat of deportation or immigration enforcement to trap women in financially dependent relationships.

Several women described struggling to open a bank account or obtain credit due to their migration status being exploited by their abusers. Pakistan-born divorcee Fauzia had never had a national insurance number, child benefit or bank account until these were arranged for her by a social worker at the women’s refuge she turned to with her children.

Our research suggests that south Asian women can face severe post-separation economic abuse due to multiple, intersecting disadvantages across the home, labour market and state institutions. Addressing these inequalities requires policies that take women seriously, while also being culturally sensitive and aware of the multiple challenges these women face.

Punita Chowbey receives funding from the NIHR, UKRI and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Punita works closely with charities working on gender based violence.

Kaveri Qureshi receives funding from the NIHR and the ESRC. Kaveri Qureshi works closely with charities working on gender violence.

– ref. Minority ethnic women in the UK face economic abuse at twice the rate of white women. These are their experiences – https://theconversation.com/minority-ethnic-women-in-the-uk-face-economic-abuse-at-twice-the-rate-of-white-women-these-are-their-experiences-267263

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David C. Gaze, Senior Lecturer in Chemical Pathology, University of Westminster

Most of us think of orange juice as a simple breakfast habit, something you pour without much thought. Yet scientists are discovering that this everyday drink may be doing far more in the body than quenching thirst.

A recent study has shown that regular orange juice consumption can influence the activity of thousands of genes inside our immune cells. Many of these genes help control blood pressure, calm inflammation and manage the way the body processes sugar, all of which play an important role in long-term heart health.

The study followed adults who drank 500ml of pure pasteurised orange juice every day for two months. After 60 days, many genes associated with inflammation and higher blood pressure had become less active.

These included NAMPT, IL6, IL1B and NLRP3, which usually switch on when the body is under stress. Another gene known as SGK1, which affects the kidneys’ ability to hold onto sodium (salt), also became less active.

Such changes match previous findings that daily orange juice drinking can reduce blood pressure in young adults.

This is noteworthy because it offers a possible explanation for why orange juice has been linked to better heart health in several trials. The new work shows that the drink does not simply raise blood sugar. Instead, it appears to trigger small shifts in the body’s regulatory systems that reduce inflammation and help blood vessels relax.

Natural compounds in oranges, particularly hesperidin, a citrus flavonoid known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, seem to influence processes related to high blood pressure, cholesterol balance and the way the body handles sugar.

The response also varies by body size. People carrying more weight tended to show greater changes in genes involved in fat metabolism, while leaner volunteers showed stronger effects on inflammation.

A systematic review of controlled trials involving 639 participants from 15 studies found that regular orange juice consumption lowered insulin resistance and blood cholesterol levels. Insulin resistance is a key feature of pre-diabetes, and high cholesterol is an established risk factor for heart disease.

Another analysis focusing on overweight and obese adults found small reductions in systolic blood pressure and increases in high density lipoprotein (HDL), often called the good cholesterol, after several weeks of daily orange juice consumption. Although these changes are modest, even slight improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol can make a meaningful difference when maintained over many years.

More clues come from studies that examine metabolites, the tiny molecules produced as the body processes food. A recent review found that orange juice influences pathways related to energy use, communication between cells and inflammation. It may also affect the gut microbiome, which is increasingly understood to play a role in heart health.

One study showed that drinking blood orange juice for a month increased the number of gut bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids. These compounds help maintain healthy blood pressure and reduce inflammation. Volunteers also showed improved blood sugar control and lower levels of inflammatory markers.

People with metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that includes high blood pressure, raised blood sugar and excess body fat, may see particular benefits.

In one study, daily orange juice consumption improved the function of the lining of blood vessels, known as endothelial function, in 68 obese participants. Endothelial function describes how well blood vessels relax and widen, and better function is associated with a lower risk of heart attacks.

Not all studies report the same outcomes. A broader analysis of blood fat concentrations found that although levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), often called the bad cholesterol, often fall, other lipid measurements such as triglycerides and HDL may not change much. Even so, people who regularly drink orange juice may still benefit.

A study of 129 workers in an orange juice factory in Brazil reported lower blood concentrations of apolipoprotein B, or apo-B, a marker that reflects the number of cholesterol-carrying particles linked to heart attack risk.

Altogether, the evidence challenges the idea that drinking citrus fruit juice is simply consuming sugar in a glass. Whole fruit remains the better choice because of its fibre, but a modest daily glass of pure orange juice appears to have effects that build up over time.

These include easing inflammation, supporting healthier blood flow and improving several blood markers linked to long-term heart health. It is a reminder that everyday foods can have more influence on the body than we might expect.

David C. Gaze 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. Your daily orange juice could be helping your heart – https://theconversation.com/your-daily-orange-juice-could-be-helping-your-heart-270492

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vikram Niranjan, Assistant Professor in Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Limerick

As a public health dentist and researcher, for years I saw the same pattern. Patients with deep root infections often had wider health problems, particularly those with diabetes. I did not yet understand why. Now, scientific studies are beginning to explain the link: treating a deep tooth infection may also help the body manage blood sugar.

A tooth infection might seem like a relatively minor health issue, but its effects can reach far beyond the mouth. Recent research found that people who had root canal treatment for long-lasting infections at the root tip experienced lower blood sugar and reduced inflammation over the following two years.

The same pattern was also seen in a longitudinal metabolomic analysis, which is a type of investigation that tracks people over time and uses detailed blood tests to measure hundreds of small molecules that show how the body is functioning. It allows scientists to see how a treatment influences overall metabolism, not just the infected tooth.

The patients in the metabolic analysis had apical periodontitis, which is a deep infection around the very tip of a tooth root. It often causes no pain, so many people do not know they have it until it shows up on an X-ray.

Blood tests before and after treatment showed improvements in long-term blood sugar and markers linked to heart and metabolic health. Simply removing the infected tissue inside the tooth seemed to benefit the body far from the site of the infection.

One reason is that these infections do not always stay local. When bacteria reach the tissues around the tooth root, the immune system responds. If the infection persists, the body produces low-grade inflammation: a constant, simmering immune response that never fully switches off.

This type of background inflammation can spread through the bloodstream. It can make it harder for the body to regulate sugar effectively because chronic inflammationinterferes with how insulin works, reducing the body’s ability to move sugar out of the blood and into cells.

To understand how this local problem can spark body-wide effects, researchers have pulled the evidence together: a narrative review summarises findings from many studies and maps the biological pathways that may link apical periodontitis to wider systemic disease.

Oral infections and diabetes

Many studies have explored this connection between oral infections and diabetes, and these findings can be summarised more simply. A review of seven studies found that people with diabetes are more likely to have persistent lesions around root-treated teeth.

In this case, it is diabetes that increases the risk of slow healing – not the other way around. High blood sugar weakens the immune response and disrupts bone repair, so lesions at the tip of the root (seen on X-rays as darker areas where bone has not healed properly) are more common.

Another review found that people with diabetes also face a higher risk of developing new apical periodontitis in root-filled teeth compared with people without diabetes. A clinical study involving hundreds of root-filled teeth reported the same trend.

Patients with diabetes had more persistent lesions than those without, reflecting poorer glycaemic control – meaning blood sugar levels remain consistently higher than recommended, something known to slow healing throughout the body, including in bone and connective tissue.

More information on this connection can be found in clinical guidelines from diabetes and oral-health organisations, and in research on wound healing and glycaemic control, which all highlight how high blood sugar impairs immune function and tissue repair.

Researchers are now studying what happens when these infections are treated successfully. One study using detailed metabolic testing found that root canal therapy not only resolved the infection but also led to better blood sugar control and reductions in inflammatory markers.

Root canal treatment removes the infected tissue and seals the space, stopping bacteria and toxins from affecting surrounding tissues. Another study confirmed that while lesions in root-treated teeth heal more slowly in people with diabetes, they do improve once the infection is managed. Even gradual healing seems to benefit the body as a whole.

These findings echo what we know about gum disease. Treating gum infections can improve blood sugar control in people with diabetes, a relationship supported by studies showing that periodontal therapy – professional treatment to remove plaque, tartar and infection from below the gumline – modestly reduces HbA1c levels.

HbA1c is a measure of average blood sugar over several weeks, so even a small reduction indicates improved long-term glucose control. Scientists suggest that reducing chronic inflammation in the mouth may help the body regulate sugar more effectively.

What makes infections at the tip of the tooth root so interesting is how easy they are to miss. Unlike gum disease, which often causes pain, swelling, or bleeding, apical infections can exist silently, while inflammation quietly spreads through the body. Reviews of apical periodontitis emphasise how often it goes unnoticed.

None of this means that root canals are a treatment for diabetes. The changes observed in studies are moderate and depend on factors such as infection severity and overall health.

And researchers are clear that causality is not yet established, so more controlled trials are needed. But the research strongly suggests that oral health has a wider role in metabolic health than most people realise.

For people with diabetes or at risk of it, this connection matters. A painful tooth, or even one that simply feels different, could be more than a local problem.

These findings also highlight a bigger issue, which is that dental care and medical care are often treated as separate worlds. The research on root canal infections shows how closely linked they can be. A properly treated tooth can save more than a smile; it may contribute to better overall health.

Vikram Niranjan 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. Root canals and blood sugar: the connection you probably haven’t heard of – https://theconversation.com/root-canals-and-blood-sugar-the-connection-you-probably-havent-heard-of-270129

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sabine Lee, Professor in Modern History, University of Birmingham

I was in Khartoum when the conflict started. Armed soldiers of Arabs came to our house and they wanted to loot groundnuts, but my mother resisted opening the door. Immediately, one soldier shot her. I screamed but three of the soldiers surrounded me. They grabbed me and I was taken behind a building where ten soldiers raped me. Nobody came to rescue me because my mom was already shot dead and neighbours ran away. After two days, when my mom was buried, I joined others to come to South Sudan.

This girl’s story was shared with us near the Aweil border crossing between South Sudan and Sudan, and it mirrors what we heard from many others. In the sweltering heat of July 2024 – and with mud underfoot and rainwater pooling along the road – South Sudanese members of our international team asked people to share stories about experiences of women and girls making the perilous journey between the two countries. The accounts they shared were harrowing, urgent, and clear.

We spoke with nearly 700 returnees and forced migrants – women and men, girls and boys – many of whom shared similar experiences of being terrorised by soldiers and armed militias on both sides of the Sudan civil war. The war has been tearing the country apart since 2023 and has led to the deaths of more than 150,000 people.

The struggle for power between Sudan’s army and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to a famine and claims of a genocide in the western Darfur region. The RSF was formed in 2013 and has its origins in the notorious Janjaweed militia that fought rebels in Darfur, where they were accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the region’s non-Arab population. New reports about massacres and atrocities continue to emerge.

As the crisis deepens, our research has revealed that sexual and gender-based violence is a major driver of migration to South Sudan. Over half of our participants said it was the main reason they sought sanctuary across the border, with adolescent girls, aged 13 to 17, being far more likely to state that sexual violence was the reason they had to migrate.

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The research, which was recently published in Conflict and Health , uncovered multiple harrowing accounts of gang rapes and murder, some on children as young as 12.

What is happening in South Sudan and Sudan?

Since its independence in 2011, South Sudan has remained among the most fragile states globally, plagued by chronic political instability and humanitarian crises. Following internal divisions, a devastating civil war, fought largely along ethnic lines, erupted in 2013. This conflict resulted in nearly 400,000 deaths and an estimated 2.3 million people forcibly displaced, including 800,000 to Sudan. Another two million people were internally displaced within South Sudan, severely undermining state-building efforts. The country has remained on a knife-edge with the UN stating in October that it is on the brink of returning to all-out civil war.

The outbreak of war in Sudan in 2023 further exacerbated South Sudan’s fragilities and vulnerabilities, jeopardised peace efforts and worsened the existing humanitarian crisis. The Sudan conflict triggered a massive influx, this time with over 1.2 million refugees and returnees crossing into South Sudan – placing immense pressure on already overstretched resources and services.

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Read more:
Why has Sudan descended into mass slaughter? The answer goes far beyond simple ethnic conflict

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As of 2024, over 9.3 million people in South Sudan – more than 70% of the population – required humanitarian assistance, with 7.8 million facing acute food insecurity. Over 2.3 million children were at risk of malnutrition, with some regions nearing famine conditions.

Even before 2023, South Sudan was among the highest-ranking countries for sexual and gender-based violence globally, having the second-highest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The border between Sudan and South Sudan has long been a corridor of cyclical displacement, shaped by decades of war, famine, and political instability. However, the scale and complexity of the current crisis has intensified vulnerabilities, particularly for women and girls. The effects have manifested in rape, sexual abuse, trafficking, and forced prostitution – on both sides of the border.

Fleeing sexual violence and terror

We focused our study on that border and the people who were fleeing through it. We used “sensemaking” methodology (based on the principle that storytelling is an intuitive way to convey complex information and helps people make sense of their experiences) to document what happened to women on their journeys and the risks they faced in the South Sudanese settlements. We had adopted a similar approach when examining accounts of sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers in Haiti and DRC.

The fieldwork team – three female and three male researchers from the not-for-profit STEWARDWOMEN – worked on the border of Aweil North for two weeks to collect these stories. STEWARDWOMEN is a women-led South Sudanese organisation which aims to address violence against women, including sexual violence.

Our team collected 695 stories from 671 people. The vast majority were South Sudanese returning to a country they had once fled (98%), and most were women of child-bearing age (88%). Over half of the stories were first-person accounts of their own migration, while others were shared by men about their female relatives.

The aim was to make sure people felt safe and empowered to speak openly. Josephine Chandiru Drama, a South Sudanese human rights lawyer and former director of STEWARDWOMEN, said:

By inviting women and girls to share their migration experiences in their own words, the data collectors honoured their agency and voice. This approach fostered trust, reduced retraumatisation, and yielded richer, more authentic narratives that reflect the lived realities of displacement.

‘They took the girls by force’

While violence is forcing families to flee Sudan, the risk is not shared equally. Our findings show how adolescent girls are disproportionately at the greatest risk.

Girls face acute danger that families often can’t easily prevent. Armed groups raid homes and camps, abducting girls or seizing them on roads and at checkpoints. Girls are singled out and subjected to sexual harassment and rape.

Parents may try to travel in groups, change routes, or hide their daughters, but when men with guns stop a bus or enter a village at night, their protection options are limited. These risks intensify as poverty deepens and safe transport is scarce. These conditions leave girls visible, isolated, and at risk. One woman told us how they were attacked:

… the rebel car came towards us. They took the girls by force and they raped us, the men could not do anything to protect us. What hurts is raping you in open even when the men are seeing us … what the Arabs did to women and girls was terrible and it is not only me going through it.

Another woman shared a desperately traumatic story about the rape and murder of her daughter. She said:

My 12-year-old daughter was raped by a group of soldiers and died instantly. This is a very sad story to tell but I have to talk about it so that the world can know what happened to women and girls in Sudan … The soldiers then raped all the five girls … Unfortunately, my raped little daughter died on the roadside … It was such a painful moment …

Our data confirmed this terrifying reality. When we looked at the responses by age, a statistically significant pattern emerged: adolescent girls, aged 13 to 17, were far more likely than older women to state that sexual violence was the reason they had to migrate.

We asked participants to place the experience they shared on a spectrum: was sexual violence the reason for migrating, or did it happen because of migrating? For adolescent girls, the answers clustered overwhelmingly at one end: sexual violence was the trigger, not a consequence of the journey.

It is possible that among older women sexual violence has become somewhat normalised after surviving previous conflicts in the region, compounded by the fact that younger, unmarried girls are specifically targeted for abduction and forced marriage. One girl explained what happened to her sister:

As we travelled to look for safety in our motherland of South Sudan … all the women and girls were ordered out of the car… and were raped by a group of five soldiers. As an innocent young girl, my 15-year-old sister tried to resist […] and she was beaten badly, raped by all the five soldiers and then killed … We were ordered to leave, and my sister was no more.

‘I came here … to change my life’

One young woman – barely out of her teens – reported feeling ashamed and embarrassed, as she told us about how they were attacked while fleeing to South Sudan.

… we were suddenly attacked by the militia and I was among the eight girls to be abducted. I was raped by four repeatedly for two days … The rape made me miscarry a three-month old baby and I contracted syphilis.

While violence is not unexpected in war, when we analysed the stories, a stark pattern emerged: overall 53% of participants specifically identified sexual and gender-based violence as a major reason to flee, and across every age group it was the primary driver. For many, it wasn’t simply a consequence of war – it was the final straw in the decision to leave Sudan.

The stories brought this data to life. A mother recounted the death of her child along the migration route, a direct result of the violence they were escaping. One man described how his wife and daughter were abducted along the route, leaving him to care for four other children and wondering whether they were still alive. He said:

It pains me a lot because I don’t know whether they are alive. Information circulates that most of the women and girls who were abducted were mob raped and many died. Maybe my wife and her daughter are victims.

These stories, like those of countless other women and their families, illustrate clearly that sexual violence was not a mere background noise to war – it was indeed the breaking point that sent them on the road. As one woman told us, the sexual violence she feared prompted her family to migrate to South Sudan:

My husband was taken by the Rapid Support Forces and I was stabbed when I refused to be raped by those men, I even still have the scar. I came here [to South Sudan] to change my life.

In the Aweil North temporary settlement, Kiir Adem, the team found shocking conditions. Designed as a short-term shelter, prior to resettlement by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), many people had been there for three months or longer. Some had been registered as refugees or returnees, others had not. All were struggling to survive without adequate food or shelter, and with no access to desperately needed healthcare.

Chandiru Drama said: “Due to rampant looting and robbery along the journey, countless individuals reached their destination stripped of essentials – no food, no clothing, no supplies.”

The reality after crossing

After crossing the border to relative safety in South Sudan, returnees and refugees were met with a new set of struggles: lack of infrastructure, limited access to medical care, and few humanitarian provisions.

Unlike in better established reception centres along the border, Kiir Adem had little in the way of support. The nearest health centre was over two hours away by car, an often impossible journey for exhausted, injured women and girls who had been robbed of any money or supplies they had carried. One woman told us:

It took me six days to reach South Sudan border. At the border, I reported the rape case but no treatment was given to me. The IOM officials referred me to health facilities in Gok Marchar which is about 50km but it was very far that I couldn’t travel and I didn’t have money for transport.

It is crucial for survivors of rape to receive prophylactic treatments and other emergency sexual and reproductive healthcare as soon as possible post-assault. Some participants detailed devastating physical injuries resulting from sexual violence, and still others were pregnant when raped or became pregnant as a result of rape. In these cases, the lack of medical care may result in dire outcomes.

Returnees were left, in many cases, to piece together their own makeshift shelters and to forage for food in the forests. The area was prone to flooding, with researchers having to wade through water to get to people. One woman said:

I travelled to South Sudan in April 2024 with two children. I am now stranded with my children because my husband ran away when the Arabs were rampantly sexually assaulting women … I never know whether he is alive or not. There were two girls who were also abducted during the migration to South Sudan. I am now in the returnees camp sleeping in grass thatched huts, a lot of rain, no tents, no food.

When asked how often they struggle to make ends meet, over 80% of women and girls responded, “all the time or most of the time”. Informal settlements, like the one where we collected data, have been developed along the length of the Sudan-South Sudan border.

The porousness of the border, regular movement across the border in times of relative peace, and the difficulties accessing formal crossing points make it near-impossible to effectively channel displaced peoples through formal crossing points and into comparatively well-serviced settlements. Improved services, including transports to official settlements and for medical care, are urgently needed in the border region to meet the high needs of returnees wherever they are located.

Urgent response needed

There must now be a shift in humanitarian response – from reactive service provision to proactive, survivor-centred protection strategies. For example, NGOs should increase activities along known migration routes and along the border and humanitarian aid funding must be increased by donor governments. The UN peacekeeping mission could also increase protection of civilian activities in South Sudanese border regions, in partnership with South Sudanese civil society organisations.

Sexual violence is not simply collateral damage of the war in Sudan. For many girls and their families, it is the primary catalyst for flight. The pervasive threat of abduction and rape is a key driver of migration, shaping who flees, when they flee, and compelling women and girls to take the unimaginable risks for a chance of safety in South Sudan.

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‘People who spent years saving lives are now struggling to survive’ – how we witnessed Trump’s USAID cuts devastate health programmes in Kenya

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Since our data collection in the summer of 2024, the situation in Sudan has not improved and the security context in South Sudan has worsened. On the southern side of the border, increased conflict between ethnically-based armed groups and an uptick in political tensions between President Salva Kiir and first Vice-President Riek Machar, including the house arrest and subsequent treason trial against Machar, have stoked fears of a possible return to war in South Sudan.

Combined with increased economic pressures and spillover effects from the war in Sudan, South Sudan’s political and security status is increasingly precarious. The risk of South Sudan returning to war increases the urgency with which returnees must be resettled and their immediate needs met. The risks of increased conflict and violence will disproportionately impact those who are already displaced and vulnerable. Legally trained NGO personnel could help here by advancing criminal investigations which in turn could inform service provision.

International law has also been very slow to react. It was only in October this year that judges at the International Criminal Court advanced the first conviction for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. Victims and survivors of the current war should not have to wait more than 20 years for trials.

The international community should work with women’s organisations, Sudanese and South Sudanese lawyers and human rights defenders to advance justice now, in whatever way is possible.

This could include survivor-centred investigations and evidence gathering, community justice initiatives, and safe spaces for survivors to begin their healing.

Women-led civil society organisations are well placed to support the immediate needs of women and girls, but they need support. Funding cuts have hit these organisations hard around the world, with many at risk of shutting down.

Chandiru Drama added: “If civil society organisations are to continue performing their lifesaving work, they must be funded at scale. This is not just a funding issue – it’s a justice issue … Because in the face of unimaginable violence, these groups are not just service providers – they are lifelines.”

The women and girls we met were clear: sexual violence forced their decision to run. If they are to stop running, an urgent response is needed: resettlement, humanitarian support, and justice must be prioritised.

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Sabine Lee received funding from the XCEPT Cross-Border Research and the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, which funded the research detailed herein.

Heather Tasker receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), International Development Research Council (IDRC), and the XCEPT Cross-Border Research and the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme. XCEPT funded the research detailed herein.

Susan Bartels received funding from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, which funded the research presented in this article. She also receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

– ref. ‘I have to talk about it so that the world can know what happened to women and girls in Sudan’ – rape and terror sparks mass migration – https://theconversation.com/i-have-to-talk-about-it-so-that-the-world-can-know-what-happened-to-women-and-girls-in-sudan-rape-and-terror-sparks-mass-migration-269456

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Edward Lavender, Postdoctoral Researcher, Aquatic Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology; Edinburgh Napier University

The development of miniaturised electronic tags that can be attached to animals has been one of the most spectacular developments for biology, environmental science and wildlife conservation in the 21st century.

In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, my colleagues and I unlocked new opportunities to track animals underwater, using advanced statistical techniques also adopted in military and aerospace contexts.

Animals are tracked all over the world: in deserts, grasslands, forests, rivers, lakes and oceans, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Satellite-based tags, which transmit the locations of tagged animals, have been particularly important, providing an unprecedented “eye on life and planet”.

But reconstructing the movements of animals that live exclusively underwater without ever surfacing remains a great challenge.

Beneath the waves, satellite-based trackers don’t work because the transmissions can’t pass effectively through water. So scientists have to rely on indirect observations to study animal movements, like detections on hydrophones or animal-borne depth measurements.

In Scotland, we have spent over a decade studying the movements of the critically endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius). Skates, and their close cousins the sharks, are an ancient and diverse group of animals. The flapper skate is the world’s largest skate.

Growing over two metres long and 100kg in weight, flapper skate can be found roaming in the darkness over the seabed in the north-east Atlantic. It’s thought they may live for over 40 years.

For generations, flapper skate was mislabelled as common skate. It was only in 2010 that the common skate was shown, genetically, to comprise two species: the flapper and the common blue skate. Both are thought to be critically endangered due to historical overfishing.

In 2016, the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura marine protected area in Scotland was established with fisheries restrictions to conserve flapper skate. It’s an inspiring place. The mountains of Scotland’s west coast rise dramatically out of the sea, which is peppered with islands and inlets. But the landscape is just as rugged underwater, where flapper skate roam in the deep.

Listening for animals underwater

Since 2016, we’ve been tracking flapper skate in Scotland using a technology called passive acoustic telemetry. It’s used in aquatic environments all over the world to track fish and other animals underwater. Animals are tagged with acoustic transmitters and networks of listening stations (hydrophones) are deployed that can detect those signals when tagged animals swim within range.

For flapper skate, we also deploy pressure sensors that record their depths. The challenge has been to integrate these different kinds of information to reconstruct individual movements, deep below the surface.

In our study, we took a step forward to solving this problem with a powerful statistical approach. It’s quite intuitive. We treat animals as “particles” that can swim around and reproduce or dwindle. Particles that move in ways that align with the data we collected are more prolific breeders and come to dominate the (digital) population. Similar techniques can be used in military tracking because the data updating step, which drives particle frequency, can happen in real time.

It’s just like building a sandcastle. We have a bunch of particles and the collection of all these particles forms a 3D map of an animal’s possible locations.

This is a great advance for conservation. By integrating information from multiple technologies into the algorithm, we can build up more detailed pictures of animal movements in the ocean. We can map their patterns of space use, work out how long they spend in particular habitats and use this information to inform conservation action.

For flapper skate, we found that they spend a remarkable amount of time in the protected area, so the fisheries restrictions there should support local recovery. We also identified specific hotspots beyond protected areas, where additional management may be beneficial. This work takes us another step towards targeted, data-driven conservation.

We’re now refining our methods and software implementations to reduce computing time. We’re also further developing our analyses to reconstruct detailed animal tracks, identify egg nurseries and build immersive virtual reality experiences of the lives of animals underwater. There is still much more to learn about animals in the deep.

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The study was funded by Eawag, using data made available via the Movement Ecology of Flapper Skate project. Data collection was funded by the Marine Directorate, NatureScot and the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland.

– ref. Introducing a new way to track animals in the deep blue – https://theconversation.com/introducing-a-new-way-to-track-animals-in-the-deep-blue-270592

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Lord, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Employment Law, University of Salford

Women in the UK face a “motherhood penalty” in the workplace when they have a child. New figures from the Office of National Statistics show that mothers in England lose, on average, more than £65,000 in earnings across the five years after a first child. This gap is driven by reduced hours, stalled progression and job moves to fit around caring for a child.

These dynamics are acute in higher education. Promotion in academia is tightly linked to the uninterrupted production of research papers and grant proposals, as well as the ability to move between institutions and even countries.

Our research has found that patchy implementation of family-friendly policies and unsympathetic managerial cultures push women to work as if nothing has changed. They are required to give birth to the “ideal academic baby”: a child who never disrupts grant deadlines, seminars or student emails.

Universities have various policies in place for new parents: parental leave, flexible working, and accreditation schemes that are intended to help institutions promote gender equality. But what actually happens when an academic gets pregnant, takes leave and returns to work?

We followed that journey across four stages: pregnancy at work, maternity leave, return to work, and career progression. We’ve found that culture regularly defeats policy. Motherhood can feel professionally risky even where formal policies exist.

Viewed as less committed

We conducted in-depth interviews with 26 academic mothers from five different UK universities. During pregnancy, many interviewees described subtle but telling signals that they were now seen as less “able” or less committed.

One was discouraged from attending a career-development programme. Another was told she looked unsuited to lab work “in your condition”. A third reported colleagues simply stopped discussing career plans with her.

These moments matter because they set the tone for what follows. This can include leave arrangements that depend on goodwill rather than process, and returns to work that start with heavier loads than before. As one participant put it: “Motherhood should be renamed guilthood.”

Maternity leave itself often failed the basic test of organisational care. Several women said there was no real cover, so their supervisory and email duties quietly continued while they were supposedly on leave, which is both exhausting and unsustainable. Others returned to find their office moved or their role reorganised without consultation. Such experiences erode trust.

The return to work was frequently the hardest stage. Some departments offered empathy, phased returns and informal mentoring. However, many mothers described an experience of “invisible motherhood”: the sense that parenting should be kept out of sight because colleagues might infer that it meant lower ambition.

That norm is amplified by the UK’s university model. High-stakes research metrics, student-as-consumer expectations and stretched staffing narrows tolerance for absence or unpredictability.

Two universities with identical policies can feel radically different. Culture and especially the line manager relationship governs whether support is meaningful and useful.

Parliament’s women and equalities committee has concluded the UK’s parental leave system “does not support working families effectively”, and the government has opened a full review. Shared parental leave, designed to normalise care across genders, continues to see low uptake.

This limits the cultural shift universities say they want. Without more equal leave and stronger childcare infrastructure, mothers will keep carrying the larger career risk.

International comparisons show what better alignment looks like. Nordic countries pair generous, gender-neutral leave with strong childcare provision.

Sweden, for example, offers 480 days of paid parental leave per child. This has recently been expanded to allow transfer of some days to other carers such as grandparents, a policy that explicitly recognises care as a shared social responsibility.

UK universities cannot transplant those national systems, but they can emulate the cultural lesson: treat care as normal, predictable and plan-worthy, not as an individual inconvenience.

There are some reasons for optimism. Where departments were women-led or explicitly feminist in ethos, our research participants reported feeling “seen”, trusted and able to talk about their caring responsibilities without penalty. That points to a cultural truth often missed in compliance-driven equality work: belonging isn’t created by forms, it’s created by norms.

If universities want to keep talented scholars through the caregiving years, they need to retire the fantasy of the ideal academic baby – and the ideal worker who never has one.

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

– ref. How UK universities are failing mothers on their staff – https://theconversation.com/how-uk-universities-are-failing-mothers-on-their-staff-268261

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Hibbs, HARP Doctoral Research Fellow and Haematology Registrar, Queen Mary University of London

You receive a phone call: the results from routine blood tests show a “low white cell count”. Your doctor explains that more investigations are necessary, perhaps a referral to the haematologists. This might represent something concerning.

But what if this “low white cell count” were completely normal for you, because of a harmless genetic variant shared with millions of people worldwide?

This scenario describes the Duffy null variant: a genetic variation that leads to fewer neutrophils – a type of white blood cell – circulating in the blood. Even though neutrophils fight infections, people with the variant aren’t at higher risk of illness.

The Duffy null variant protects against Plasmodium vivax malaria, a form of the disease that relies on the Duffy antigen to enter red blood cells. In regions of Africa and the Middle East where P. vivax once circulated widely, this variant became common precisely because it blocked the parasite’s entry.

However, when a doctor receives a blood test result, none of this context is present. All they see is a number – often in red – and a reference range which explains what “normal” should be. It is this reference range that guides interpretation of an individual blood test result.

The miscategorisation of neutrophil counts as “low” in people with the Duffy null variant can lead to real-world harms. These include anxiety, as a flagged “low” white cell count can sound like an early warning sign of serious illness.

It also drives avoidable bone marrow biopsies, because clinicians may worry about bone marrow failure or blood cancer and order invasive tests that aren’t actually needed.

People with the variant may be excluded from clinical trials because their neutrophil count appears to fall below strict eligibility cut-offs, despite being completely healthy. And it can even lead to reduced chemotherapy doses, as treatment algorithms automatically lower doses in response to neutrophil numbers, potentially compromising care.

In the past, this pattern was labelled “ethnic neutropenia”, but that term creates its own problems. Race and ethnicity are socially constructed categories, not biological determinants. They’re based on social histories, cultural identities and the ways societies classify people, rather than on precise genetic differences.

Medical practices and technologies can contribute to how socially constructed categories are made and reproduced. People grouped together under the same racial or ethnic label can have very different ancestries and health profiles, so these categories don’t reliably map onto people’s blood counts.

Using them to judge whether a neutrophil level is “normal” risks reinforcing crude groupings and misdiagnosis. What matters is a person’s Duffy status – the genetic factor that actually drives the difference in neutrophil numbers – and blood tests need to be interpreted accordingly.

New research led by Lauren Merz at the University of Michigan and Stephen Hibbs at Queen Mary University of London shows that more than 20% of people with the Duffy null variant are miscategorised as “abnormal” by current reference ranges.

This study created new blood count reference ranges, specific for healthy people with the Duffy null variant. These new Duffy null ranges were consistent for varied participants living in Namibia, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US, and can be incorporated into clinical practice to support better interpretation and decision making.

What is a reference range?

This isn’t the first time that a reference range – the range of values doctors use to decide whether a test result is “normal” – has worked for some people but not others. Research shows that the HbA1c test, commonly used to diagnose and monitor type 2 diabetes, gives falsely low results in people with a genetic variant widespread among South Asian groups.

These miscategorisations raise a key question: what sort of technology is a reference range? When reference ranges appear in textbooks or on blood test reports, they look like they reveal fixed biological “truths”.

But approaches from science and technology studies encourage us to think differently about what biomedical practices and technologies do. They show how everyday medical practices produce and operationalise racial differences.

To understand this properly, we need to look at what happens in practice. Creating a reference range follows a set process. A laboratory identifies around 120 healthy people from the local population and measures their blood.

The third lowest result (the 2.5th percentile) becomes the “lower limit of normal”, and the third highest (the 97.5th percentile) becomes the “upper limit of normal”. Once a reference range is published, other hospitals can adopt it after checking it against as few as 20 people.

The problem is that these ranges are often built from samples taken mostly from majority groups in a particular region. As a result, they can miss important variation present in minoritised groups and those gaps can translate into mislabelling, misinterpretation and unnecessary worry for patients whose biology simply falls outside the narrow sample used to define “normal”.

While there are sophisticated systems and tools to verify the performance of blood testing machines and assays – the laboratory tests that measure things like cell counts, hormones or chemicals in the blood – there is no standard practice for re-examining reference ranges, even as population demographics change over time and across different locations.

Blood tests that work for everybody

It is time to update “normal” to better encompass the true variety that exists in human populations. This starts with incorporating new blood count reference ranges that adapt to Duffy status.

It also requires us to think carefully and critically about what purportedly neutral technologies and techniques like reference ranges do, and how medicine can work to reproduce racial categories.

This also extends to scrutinising and redesigning other medical practices that normalise one type of blood over another, such as chemotherapy dosing or clinical trial reporting.

We need to examine other everyday tools and practices used by healthcare staff, and ask: What does this technology do? What effects does it create? Does it work well for everybody? These questions illuminate how even routine practices can shape healthcare in ways that benefit some people more than others.

Stephen Hibbs receives funding from the Wellcome Trust through a HARP doctoral research fellowship.

Kari Lancaster has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council. She has no disclosures to declare in relation to this work.

Christina Barriteau 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. Rethinking blood test reference ranges could make medicine fairer – and safer – https://theconversation.com/rethinking-blood-test-reference-ranges-could-make-medicine-fairer-and-safer-269474

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ezgi Unsal, Lecturer in Development Economics, SOAS, University of London

In a break from tradition, the next major UN climate summit will be hosted by Turkey but chaired by a different country, Australia. This is the first split arrangement in three decades of these summits, known as “Cops”. The unusual deal, devised to avoid diplomatic tension, highlights new alliances to fight climate change globally.

Cop31 will take place late next year in the Mediterranean city of Antalya. While a representative from Turkey will be formally elected as “the president”, Australia will appoint a vice-president to lead the negotiations.

The agreement was reached after almost a full year of stalemate, as both countries had refused to withdraw their bids to host. Turkey had previously stepped back from its bid to host Cop26, which ultimately took place in Glasgow in 2021. For this reason, it was determined to serve as host this time to represent developing nations, as a bridge between Asia and Europe.

Australia, by contrast, aimed to highlight the concerns of endangered Pacific island states through its role in the event. The final agreement between the two countries is unusual, yet it may open the door to greater pluralism and new forms of partnership.

Turkey’s role as host is distinct not only because of the unique arrangement with Australia, but also due to its unique position within the UN’s climate convention. Turkey signed the Paris agreement in 2016 but delayed ratifying it for five years.

As a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – a group of largely high-income countries – Turkey was formally treated by the Paris agreement as an “industrialised” nation. That meant it was expected to provide financial support for emissions reduction efforts in developing nations – an obligation it disputed.

In 2021, Turkey finally secured a unique recognition as the only developing country among a list of OECD countries (known as annex I), allowing it to finally ratify the treaty.

This status still creates practical challenges. Unlike other developing countries, Turkey has only limited access to international climate finance such as the Green Climate Fund. As Ankara consistently raised the demand to be removed from annex 1, it is likely that the issue will surface during the Cop31 discussions.

Energy politics, climate ambitions

Sitting at the intersection of Europe, the Middle East and central Asia, Turkey also serves as a critical link for major oil and natural gas pipelines from Russia and the Caspian Sea to Europe.

As Europe seeks to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, its growing reliance on alternative routes has increased Turkey’s strategic significance. This geopolitical leverage shapes how Turkey approaches its climate diplomacy – and what it is likely to prioritise at Cop31.

After ratifying the Paris agreement, Turkey announced its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2053. There are credible proposals to phase out coal by 2030, while Turkey passed a “climate law” earlier this year to provide a legal framework for these transitions.

However, the feasibility of these targets remains uncertain. Partly, that’s because Turkey has an inconsistent record on complying with international law. But it’s also because the country’s energy production is booming.

Turkey is the world’s 15th-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, producing around 400 million to 500 million tonnes annually. Emissions are expected to keep rising as energy demand continues to increase in parallel with economic growth.

Although growth slowed after a 2018 currency crisis and the COVID shock, energy use is still projected to increase – just not as sharply as in the 2000s and early 2010s. Turkey’s pledge to cut emissions 40% by 2030 should therefore be understood as a reduction relative to a rising baseline.

As the economy boomed in the 2000s, Turkey more than doubled its energy generation capacity, with growth peaking in 2013. Wind and solar capacity grew rapidly, from virtually zero in the 1990s to around 17% in 2025, but most of the new capacity came from power plants fuelled by natural gas.

As the country pledged to phase out coal by 2030, coal plants were not prioritised during this expansion. Yet, the proliferation of gas power raises significant concerns about sustainability.

Adding to this uncertainty, a 2023 amendment now allows mining in previously protected forest areas, raising questions about whether Turkey’s legal framework can support a reliable and credible transition to net zero emissions.

All this means that when attention shifts to Antalya next year, Turkey will be under pressure to show its ambitious climate targets are more than just words. The world will be watching to see if a country so embedded in the global fossil fuel trade can help broker a deal that accelerates the end of that era.

Ezgi Unsal 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. Turkey will host the next UN climate summit – here’s how it plans to use its moment in the spotlight – https://theconversation.com/turkey-will-host-the-next-un-climate-summit-heres-how-it-plans-to-use-its-moment-in-the-spotlight-270495

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Kendall, Professor of Geophysics, University of Oxford

You’re probably reading this article on a phone or laptop containing more than 30 different metals. Some will be common: aluminium casing, copper wires. But other metals are less familiar and much more scarce. Each iPhone contains less than a gram of lithium, for instance, but would not function without it.

We are in the midst of a geopolitically charged race for lithium and other so-called critical minerals. These materials are crucial for renewable energy, transport, data centres, aerospace and defence, among other things, and the transition to net zero will place unprecedented pressure on their supplies.

Accordingly, the UK has just published a new Critical Minerals Strategy, identifying 34 of these raw materials as essential for national security and the economy. Meeting demand for them will be a monumental challenge.

Take copper: even though it is a well-established commodity, in the coming decades the world will need more of it than has ever been mined in human history. Yet opening a new mine takes a decade and costs billions.

Other minerals, such as cobalt or the 17 “rare earth elements”, present a different problem: supplies are concentrated in countries with competing strategic interests or developing nations, and can be hard to access.

For instance, most high-performance magnets – including those in wind turbines – use the rare earth neodymium, and the vast majority currently comes from China. The metal cobalt is used in batteries: about half of the world’s reserves are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Historically, mining has caused significant social and environmental harm in host countries – frequently developing nations – while delivering most of the benefits to consumers in wealthier countries.

Wealthier countries could just turn a blind eye to those harms, but there is a growing awareness of the impact of mining. This, combined with the concentration of supplies in certain countries, creates a challenge for places like the UK, which don’t have critical mineral resources.

Disruptive technologies

New extraction technologies are emerging in the UK and elsewhere. While some companies are making progress with “green mining” – using electric vehicles and renewable energy – the most promising solutions are more radical.

One new avenue is recovering geothermal energy alongside critical minerals. The hot fluids beneath ancient volcanoes can be rich in lithium, gold, silver and other critical elements, with each volcanic system offering its own distinct mix of resources.

Tapping into this heat can offer a double benefit: clean energy and useful minerals. In Cornwall, south-west England, there are plans to do this at a reopened lithium mine.

Synthetic biology is another exciting development. This involves scientists modifying microbe DNA to selectively scavenge specific elements from their surroundings, such as battery waste and sewage sludge. These micro-organisms could recover resources even in extreme environments.

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Read more:
As mining returns to Cornwall, lithium ambitions tussle with local heritage

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Circular resources

Making better use of the resources we already have is essential. This goes beyond traditional recycling to develop new ways to turn by-products and discarded materials into valuable resources, while simultaneously cleaning up legacy pollution.

For example, mining tailings and coal fly ash contain recoverable metals, and innovative “smart” minerals and microbes can be harnessed to extract them.

However, recycling alone won’t meet future demand. Many metals, while highly recyclable, remain in use for decades before re-entering the supply chain. Take nickel, for instance. It’s an important battery metal, but can stay in circulation for 30 years or more, limiting its availability in the short term.

Mining that does not curse the locals

Future mining must avoid the “resource curse” – the paradox where resource-rich countries often fail to benefit fully from their own mineral wealth. Principles for a new approach should include investment in local industries in producer countries so they can make batteries and magnets, not just export ore.

They should also require genuine community engagement, giving mining de facto permission and acceptance from locals. This unwritten set of positive (or at least tolerant) attitudes is sometimes termed the “social licence” to operate – and without it, mining operations can fail.

Mining companies should promote best practices with regard to the environment, health and safety, and workers rights. Regulators need to enforce environmental protection with teeth, including rewilding and ecosystem restoration after a mine has been emptied.

The mining industry has a bad reputation for a reason, with a history of high-profile environmental disasters. The growing emphasis on environmental, social and governance criteria for investors is encouraging, and may help deliver change.

The UK government’s new strategy outlines promising goals on domestic development, the circular economy and supply chain resilience – but its measures of success don’t match the ambition. Its support for innovation is also cautious and focuses on established approaches. What’s needed is an entirely new way of thinking about how to secure these resources.

This means recovering materials from new sources, using them more wisely, ensuring mining communities benefit, and cleaning up environmental damage. It also means building resilient supply chains that can withstand a major change of government, an economic crash, or some other geopolitical shock.

Michael Kendall and co-authors have received historical funding from UKRI to work on critical resources.

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

– ref. The UK must secure supplies of 34 critical minerals says new report – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/the-uk-must-secure-supplies-of-34-critical-minerals-says-new-report-heres-how-269022

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Sparks, PhD Candidate in Entomology, Swansea University

Scientists have discovered an ant species which uses a technique so devious to start a colony that it could change our understanding of animal social systems.

Beginning a colony can be perilous for a queen ant, as there is a high chance of being eaten by other animals while she is alone and therefore unprotected. Having yet to found a colony and raise her own workers, the lone queen must travel above ground to find a suitable nesting location.

Because of these risks, some ants species have evolved workarounds where, instead of doing the work themselves, they benefit from another ant species’ labour.

A new study has found that newborn queens of Lasius orientalis (found across Eurasia) and L. umbratus (also found across Eurasia and possibly the US) have developed a strategy that has not been observed until now. They attack the queens of other species, L. flavus and L. japonicus, by using the queen’s own workers to kill her.

To do this, the parasitic queen uses a chemical, which has yet to be identified, although based on what we know about ants it is probably a formic acid-based chemical. Formic acid is a defensive chemical created within the bodies of some groups of ants that don’t have a sting (it is found in nettles).

The formic acid can bind with other chemicals produced in various glands within the ant, allowing for a wide range of uses – one of these being as an alert pheromone.

The parasitic queen ant sneaks into a colony of L. flavus or L. japonicus (the hosts) and sprays the queen with this chemical. This changes the scent of the sprayed queen, tricking her workers into believing that she is a threat and causing them to attack and kill her.

This gives room for the parasitic queen ant to take her place as the new queen of the colony, without risking injury by attacking directly. She will then use the old queen’s workers to rear her own young until they eventually take over the colony, replacing the host species with her own.

In other insects, workers can gain direct benefit from matricide. For example in bumblebees, only the queen is allowed to reproduce and worker reproduction is suppressed by aggressive encounters (including egg-eating) and pheromones from the queen along with a select number of specialised workers.

When the colony is large enough and there is sufficient food, the queen stops producing female workers and instead switches to producing male drones and new queens (gynes) to begin the next generation.

At this time the workers are also able to produce male eggs as these can be laid without the need to mate. The workers and queen compete to have their own eggs survive, eating each others’ eggs. To increase the chances of their own (male) eggs surviving and going on to reproduce, a group of workers will sometimes kill their queen.

This matricide, although incredibly complex in its causes, and still not fully understood, clearly benefits the bumblebee workers. In contrast, the matricide caused by the parasitic queen ant provides no benefit to the original colony or its workers.

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This form of matricide opens up new possibilities for scientists studying the use of chemical communications within “eusocial” (highly organised) insects. This chemical trickery may be more common than scientists think. There’s still much we don’t understand about how ants communicate and the role of different chemicals within this.

Many animals, including humans, benefit from living in social groups, and these social systems can vary widely across animal groups. Matriarchy is a social system in which one female is in charge. It is unusual but appears across animal groups from mammals to insects, and it may have different causes.

Female orcas and elephants live longer than males, accumulating knowledge and passing on behaviour and traditions to younger group members, increasing their chances of survival. The oldest female dominates the close-knit family group, as she can guide them to food when it is scarce.

In spotted hyenas, the young males are forced to leave their own clans and must join other matriarchal clans as the lowest-ranking individuals in a hierarchy dominated by females.

Naked mole rats only have one reproductive female at a time, the queen. As with bees and ants, the presence of the queen suppresses the other females’ hormones, which prevents them from breeding.

The role of these females centres on the care of young, alongside other specific roles such as tunnellers and food gatherers. These naked mole rat groups are not without competition, however, with evidence from captive populations that female workers may kill and replace the queen.

Most eusocial insect groups are matriarchal, although termites have both a king and queen. Nearly all ants are eusocial. The main castes are the egg-laying queen, short-lived male drones and sterile female workers.

The workers serve the colony by foraging for food, transporting resources and caring for the eggs of the next generation. Being unable to reproduce, a worker’s only route to passing on their genes is through the survival of the colony. This promotes a social structure with high cooperation and low competition, different to the within-colony competition that can happen in naked mole rats.

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Read more:
One queen ant, two species: the discovery that reshapes what ‘family’ means in nature

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Normally, when queen ants infiltrate other colonies, they use chemicals to disguise themselves as part of their host colony (chemical mimicry) or to remain undetected (chemical camouflage). Some queen ants sneak into other species’ colonies and trick them into rearing her workers, who then go and raid other species’ colonies, bringing back pupae which become slave workers.

Other queens, for example Monomorium inquilinum, become permanent social parasites without killing the original queen. These invaders (who use chemicals to camouflage themselves in the colony) depend on the host workers for food, and trick them into raising the invaders’ eggs, which are often reproductive young.

Finally, some ants such as Acromyrmex insinuator are temporary social parasites, entering a host colony, killing the queen and taking over the colony until their own workers replace those of the host.

As the new study shows, we may only be starting to understand the complexities of matriarchal animal societies.

Matthew Sparks receives funding from a PhD studentship through an EPSRC UKRI Doctoral Training Partnership between Swansea University and Rentokil Initial under the name ‘Characterisation and manipulation of urban light environments for fly control’.

Wendy Harris 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 parasitic ant who makes workers kill their own queen – https://theconversation.com/the-parasitic-ant-who-makes-workers-kill-their-own-queen-270101