Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor, The Conversation

It’s been almost a decade since the #MeToo movement promised to bring abusers in Hollywood to account. I’ve watched with interest as films have interrogated the moment in the years since. In 2020, there was Promising Young Woman, in which Carey Mulligan played a woman hellbent on punishing those who get away with abuse. And in 2023, Women Talking focused on a group of American Mennonite women who meet to discuss their future after discovering a history of rape in the colony.

Sorry Baby, which won awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, joins this decade of conversation. The film follows Agnes (played by the film’s writer-director Eva Victor), an English professor at a small American college, in the aftermath of a sexual assault.

The story, based on Victor’s own experiences, is structured in non-linear chapters that encompass the time after, before and during the abuse. This makes for an unflinching yet nuanced depiction of trauma’s aftermath. As our reviewer argues: “Victor portrays her female characters in a broad light, not allowing them to be solely defined by trauma, and in doing so allows something truly authentic to emerge.”

Sorry Baby is in select cinemas now

Another film experimenting with non-linear storytelling this week is The Life of Chuck. It’s an adaptation of a novella by Stephen King. When I told our resident King expert, international affairs editor Jonathan Este, about the film, he was puzzled – surely, he asked, the structure of that story is unfilmable? But somehow, director Mike Flanagan makes it work.

Starring Tom Hiddleston, The Life of Chuck explores the formative moments of Charles “Chuck” Krantz, chronicled in reverse chronological order. But this is no Benjamin Button story. It’s a joyful adaptation that honours the King novella while bringing in nice touches of its own.

As Hiddleston – who gets to show off his dancing skills in the film – told the audience at a recent screening: “I think the most important word in the title of the film is the word ‘life’. This is a film about life.”

The Life of Chuck is in cinemas now

Now open at the Bowhouse in Fife, Making Waves; Breaking Ground brings together the work of 11 artists to explore the natural environments of our modern world. Spanning painting, photography and film, these artists share a commitment to pursuing a more compassionate way of looking and being in a place.

And the works are stunning. Photographs of flowers frozen in time in extreme close-up by Kathrin Linkersdorff. A painting by Susan Derges that at first appears to be the Moon surrounded by clouds, but soon morphs before your eyes to be its shimmering reflection in a scummy river, and then something stranger – the perspective of a creature below the surface. A trout’s-eye view of the night sky.

As our reviewer, art historian Alistair Rider explains, these artists “don’t see themselves as separate from the worlds they depict. Our seeing eyes, they suggest, are made of the same physical substances as the things they see.”

Making Waves; Breaking Ground is a free exhibition running until August 31 at the Bowhouse, St Monans, Fife

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that every arts and culture editor has a secret taste for terrible TV. Mine? Love is Blind. I’ve binged the American show – all eight seasons of it – but my real soft spot is for Love is Blind UK. The couples are a little older, a little less media-savvy and all the more entertaining for it.

What I love about this show is the central premise – testing the idea that two people can fall in love without seeing each other in the flesh. Or, as the show cloyingly puts it, fall in love “sight unseen”. With the second season streaming now, we asked a psychologist to tell us what the research says – is love truly blind?

Love is Blind UK is streaming on Netflix now

While I’m in a confessional mood, here’s another guilty pleasure of mine. In moments of overwhelm, I have been known to turn off my phone, curl up under a blanket and fire up my laptop for a marathon game of The Sims. In that life simulation game, I create mini avatars who decorate their houses, fall in love, make friends and steadily work their way up the career ladder.

Turns out I’m not alone. More and more gamers are spending their time playing virtual jobs over fantasy adventures. The latest offering is Tiny Bookshop, where players spend hours organising shelves, recommending novels and chatting with customers.

Is it a little dystopian to finish work and log straight in for a virtual shift in your favourite video game? Perhaps. But as creative industries expert Owen Brierley argues: “The next time someone questions why you’re wasting time managing a virtual bookshop, remind them you’re not escaping work. You’re experiencing what work could be. Voluntary. Meaningful. Genuinely productive.”

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– ref. #MeToo in the movies – what to watch, see and play this week – https://theconversation.com/metoo-in-the-movies-what-to-watch-see-and-play-this-week-263659

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Kashi, Post-Doctoral Research Officer, Liverpool John Moores University

Most people know they should drink more water, but our new research reveals an unexpected consequence of falling short: it could be making everyday stress significantly harder to handle.

Our study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, found that people who drank less than 1.5 litres daily showed dramatically higher levels of cortisol – the body’s primary stress hormone – when faced with stressful situations. The finding suggests that chronic mild dehydration may amplify stress responses in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

We tested healthy young adults by dividing them into two groups based on their usual fluid intake. One group drank less than 1.5 litres daily, while the other exceeded standard recommendations of roughly two litres for women and 2.5 litres for men. After maintaining these patterns for a week, participants faced a laboratory stress test involving public speaking and mental arithmetic.

Both groups felt equally nervous and showed similar heart rate increases. But the low-fluid group experienced a much more pronounced cortisol surge – a response that could prove problematic if repeated daily over months or years. Chronic elevation of cortisol has been linked to increased risks of heart disease, kidney problems and diabetes.

Surprisingly, the under-hydrated participants didn’t report feeling thirstier than their well-hydrated counterparts. Their bodies, however, told a different story. Darker, more concentrated urine revealed their dehydration, demonstrating that thirst isn’t always a reliable indicator of fluid needs.

The mechanism behind this stress amplification involves the body’s sophisticated water management system. When dehydration is detected, the brain releases vasopressin, a hormone that instructs the kidneys to conserve water and maintain blood volume. But vasopressin doesn’t work in isolation, it also influences the brain’s stress-response system, potentially heightening cortisol release during difficult moments.

Double burden

This creates a physiological double burden. Although vasopressin helps preserve precious water, it simultaneously makes the body more reactive to stress. For someone navigating daily pressures – work deadlines, family responsibilities, financial concerns – this heightened reactivity could accumulate into significant health harms over time.

Our findings add hydration to the growing list of lifestyle factors that influence stress resilience. Sleep, exercise, nutrition and social connections all play roles in how we handle life’s challenges. Water now emerges as a potentially underappreciated ally in stress management.

The implications extend beyond individual physiology. In societies where chronic stress is increasingly recognised as a public health crisis, hydration emerges as a surprisingly accessible intervention. Unlike many stress-management strategies that require significant time or resources, drinking adequate water is straightforward and universally available.

However, our research doesn’t suggest that water is a cure-all for stress. The study involved healthy young adults in controlled laboratory conditions, which cannot fully replicate the complex psychological and social stressors people face in everyday life. Hydration alone cannot address all aspects of real-world stress. We need long-term studies to confirm whether maintaining optimal hydration genuinely reduces stress-related health problems over years or decades.

Individual water needs vary considerably based on age, body size, activity levels and climate. Guidelines provide useful targets, but tea, coffee, milk and water-rich foods also contribute to daily fluid intake. The key is consistency rather than perfection.

A simple check involves monitoring urine colour: pale yellow typically indicates adequate hydration, while darker shades suggest increased fluid needs. This practical approach removes guesswork from an essential daily habit.

Good health stems from accumulated daily choices rather than dramatic interventions. Although proper hydration won’t eliminate life’s pressures, it might help ensure your body is better equipped to handle them. In a world where stress feels inevitable, that physiological advantage could prove more valuable than we’ve previously recognised.

Water remains essential for life in ways that extend far beyond basic survival. Our research suggests it may also be essential for managing the psychological demands of modern life, offering a simple but powerful tool for supporting both physical and mental resilience.

Dr Daniel Kashi’s Post-Doctoral salary was paid by Danone Research & Innovation

Prof Neil Walsh received no honoraria for the completion of this work. Liverpool John Moores University received funding for this work from Danone Research & Innovation specifically to cover research staff salaries and costs associated with data collection.

– ref. Hydration may be your best defence against stress, new study shows – https://theconversation.com/hydration-may-be-your-best-defence-against-stress-new-study-shows-263361

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Karen Lander, Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology, University of Manchester

The way someone walks, talks, smiles, or gestures gives a clue to who they are. Whether through the flick of an eyebrow, the rhythm of our walk, or the tilt of a head, movement speaks volumes.

And my recent paper shows that people may have their own movement fingerprint. This is a style of movement that is characteristic of a person’s identity. So, someone who uses expressive facial gestures might also speak with animated hand movements or walk with a lively gait. These consistencies could form a motion fingerprint that is unique to the individual.

First, let’s explore how faces move and why this matters.

Everyone has their own style of moving their face, for example, how they raise an eyebrow, purse their lips, or squint when laughing. These patterns of movement help us recognise familiar people even when visual quality is poor – such as in low lighting or from a distance. And as a person becomes more familiar to us, we become tuned to the way they move, learning their unique patterns of motion, just like we remember their face or voice.

Human faces are constantly in motion; they blink, smile, grimace and talk, to name a few movements. Researchers categorise facial motion into rigid movements (such as turning or nodding the head) and non-rigid movements (like expressing emotion or speaking). It’s the non-rigid movements that tend to be most personally distinctive.

The way we gesture with our hands, shift our posture and tilt our heads all carry identity information. Gestures are often shaped by personal habits or cultural norms, for example, someone might habitually nod three times when agreeing, or use a distinctive hand wave common in their home country.

Facial movements are synchronised with the way we sound. When we talk our face plays a role in shaping the sound of our voice. For example, if you talk with a wide open mouth, your speech sounds deeper and richer. Studies show that people can match other people’s voices to moving faces more accurately than to static ones. This suggests that dynamic cues to identity are present in the movement of the face and the sound of the voice.

People with face recognition difficulties (those who are “face blind” or prosopagnosic) may be better at recognising moving faces than still ones. Typically, people who are face blind can see faces and the differences between them, but struggle to link the face to a specific person. Here, idiosyncratic information from movement can provide an additional clue to identity.

Gait, a person’s walking style, is one of the most studied body movements. Early research, such as a 2005 study, investigated participants’ recognition of identity from gait using point-light displays. In this case, bright spots (lights) were placed on key areas of a person’s body. All other visual cues were removed. Participants could only see bright spots against a dark background. The study found participants could tell fairly well who someone was from the way the spots moved.

Characteristics such as stride length, limb movement, posture and pace form a consistent motion pattern that is unique and surprisingly difficult to fake, making gait analysis a reliable clue for identifying people.

Movement fingerprints

My review brought together evidence from behavioural and brain imaging studies to consider if such consistencies between different types of motion exist and how we might explore this phenomenon further. The paper proposes that people have an overall style of movement.

More work needs to be done to find direct evidence of movement fingerprints. For example, we still aren’t sure what part of the brain processes these movement-based identity cues.

So far, research shows that the posterior temporal sulcus – an area of the brain located roughly above your ear on each side – responds not just to faces and bodies, but to how someone moves more generally. This area is active when we hear voices or see people speak, suggesting it may help link motion and sound. Also, this region plays a key role in allowing us to understand our social world, interpreting other people’s actions, determining where they are looking, and picking up on social cues such as gestures, facial expressions and changes in gaze direction.

However, it’s probably just one part of a larger brain network involved in recognising others through motion.

Real-world applications

Motion-based identity traits aren’t as stable or specific as fingerprints or DNA. They’re what researchers call soft biometrics: useful but not always accurate.

But as we better understand the link between motion and identity, exciting real-world applications are emerging.

Motion analysis could support contactless identity verification from gait-based authentication at airports to gesture-based identification in smart environments, such as homes that respond to a user’s unique movement patterns. In clinical settings, movement analysis might help support people with social cognition impairments, face recognition or movement issues. For example, helping a doctor identify changes in the way a patient produces non-verbal cues.

But many questions remain. We still aren’t sure how consistent motion fingerprints are as someone gets older and in different contexts. Individual differences in people and environmental factors like lighting, clothing or stress could affect them.

Researchers also aren’t sure how exactly we manage to understand all this movement in everyday life without even thinking about it.

Figuring this out could not only help improve technologies like social robots and develop tools for people with recognition and communication difficulties, but also tell us more about how we process and react to other people.

Karen Lander 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. Movement signatures: how we move, gesture and use facial expressions could be as unique as a fingerprint – https://theconversation.com/movement-signatures-how-we-move-gesture-and-use-facial-expressions-could-be-as-unique-as-a-fingerprint-262893

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Filmer, Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance, Aberystwyth University

The relaunching of Glasgow’s famous Citizens Theatre – known locally as the “Citz” – marks the end of a significant seven-year redevelopment project that has seen the people of the city go without a cherished cultural landmark. It also highlights wider trends in how historic theatres are being redeveloped to make them more accessible, socially connected and sustainable while also preserving their heritage.

Extensive work has been done to improve almost all areas of the theatre, from foyer spaces and audience access, to sightlines in the auditorium and technical facilities. The redevelopment makes a feature of the Citizens’ history by revealing previously hidden sandstone walls in the foyer, and restoring its beloved statues of William Shakespeare, Robert Burns and assorted Greek goddesses to their position above the front entrance.

Opened in 1878 as the Royal Princess’s Theatre, the building has been the home of the Citizens Theatre Company since 1945, known for its bold stage productions, its youth and community theatre and participatory arts programmes.

Like many theatres, the Citizens has been continuously adapted over its 147-year history. In 1977 its neoclassical facade was removed following an earlier fire, and in 1989 a new foyer space and studio theatre were added. The current redevelopment, which began in 2018, was undertaken to ensure the building continues to serve the needs of the company and its community in the working-class Gorbals area, south of the river Clyde.

Connection, accessibility, sustainability

The redevelopment and restoration of older theatres such as the Citizens has become important as their social value and anchoring presence in towns and cities has been recognised. And of course it makes better sense environmentally and economically to reimagine and modernise old buildings than construct new ones.

Recent trends in redevelopments such as the Citizens provide insights into our shifting cultural values. Theatres are being renovated and redeveloped to make them more accessible and inclusive, more energy efficient and more flexible, while also keeping their history and heritage at the heart of the project.

Accessibility is a key feature of the redeveloped Citizens, reflecting the importance of the theatre as a place for social connection, community and inclusion. Attention has been focused on connecting the theatre to its urban environment, and improving the physical accessibility of audience spaces through step-free entrances, better circulation and lifts. Audiences will also be able to glimpse views of backstage activities.

Theatres increasingly serve an expanded social role with cafes, bars and spaces for exhibitions, not to mention education and participation programmes. Redesigned foyers signal this spatially, reinvented as public spaces. The Bristol Old Vic, which reopened in 2021, has a substantial new foyer which connects the existing theatre to the street, serves as a social space and can house events and performances.

Energy efficiency measures and lower carbon emissions are another factor in recent redevelopments, reflecting the need to address the climate emergency. According to a 2008 report by the Greater London Authority, around 80% of carbon emissions produced by London’s theatres come from building operation. Lowering energy consumption through energy efficiency measures like insulation, passive ventilation, and lighting controls are increasingly common.

Even relatively modern civic theatres from the late 20th century are hugely inefficient compared with contemporary standards and technologies. Theatr Clwyd in Mold, first opened in 1976 and recently refurbished, has replaced gas heating with air-source heat pumps, solar panels and natural ventilation. The renovated theatre now has “green” walls and roofs and has avoided significant use of concrete in favour of more sustainable materials.

Another feature in redeveloping older theatres is the need to design in flexibility so venues can house multiple types of events and also be adaptable for new art forms and technologies. Regular schedules for maintenance and the gradual upgrade of electrical and mechanical systems are being introduced to avoid less frequent, and more costly, redevelopments.

In July 2022 the Sydney Opera House completed a ten-year renewal programme which has seen significant upgrade of its concert hall. New features including movable wooden acoustic panels, automated systems to change the stage level and sound dampening drapes enable it to better accommodate different musical performances and events.

Theatres play an important role in the social and cultural life of towns and cities. The mix of old and new features in the redeveloped Citizens’ Theatre is a final important aspect which is common to all redevelopment projects. Theatres anchor communities, serving as places of memory and sites for the stories which connect us to each other, to the past and to our possible futures.

The reopening of Glasgow’s most famous theatre reflects how we value accessibility, social connection and sustainability. Theatres are never just performance spaces, but rather places which support our shared cultural life. The decisions we are making in their renewal today reveal a positive vision of the cultural life we want to sustain in the years ahead.

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Andrew Filmer 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. Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre reopens: what its seven-year transformation reveals about the future of historic venues – https://theconversation.com/glasgows-citizens-theatre-reopens-what-its-seven-year-transformation-reveals-about-the-future-of-historic-venues-263688

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Graham J Dwyer, Associate Professor of Social Innovation, Trinity College Dublin

The island of Ireland has a moderate climate, with few temperature extremes. Its temperature record is still “only” 33°C – almost every other country has been hotter at some point.

But even somewhere with a relatively pleasant and cool climate isn’t immune to the risks of climate change. Recent severe storms like Floris, Bert, Darragh and Eowyn have brought strong winds, more intense floods and a greater risk of blackouts and eroded coastlines.

It’s too soon to definitively link this extreme weather to climate change, but computer models that simulate the climate decades into the future predict stronger storms and more floods. We are already noticing extreme weather happening at unexpected times of year. The sea level is rising and coastlines are eroding at an alarming rate.

Ireland’s position on the edge of the Atlantic – the very reason for its mild climate – makes it especially vulnerable. Those recent severe storms remind us that climate change is a serious threat to wellbeing and, in the longer-term, survival of human life as we know it.

Environmental threats are economic threats

Around 40% of the Irish population lives within a few miles of the coast. That’s where the ports, airports and other infrastructure Ireland’s small open economy depends on are concentrated. Key industries like tourism, fisheries and aquaculture are particularly exposed to disruption.

Higher seas and stronger storms are particularly economic and social threats, not just environmental threats. As coastal populations grow, risks to homes, businesses and infrastructure will only escalate.

A government opinion tracking initiative has indicated there is no shortage of climate change awareness in Ireland. But awareness alone has not translated into urgent action. Too often, the conversation around climate change gets stuck on the reliability of electric vehicles or whether wind turbines spoil the view. Such debates miss the point and risk fuelling climate scepticism.

Recognising our human selves as the chief perpetrator of climate change is the first step towards real behavioural change. This means moving away from a linear economy of extraction and waste, towards a circular one based on reusing, repurposing and recycling resources wherever possible.

Building resilience

Scientists have an invaluable role to play here. Given the relatively recent recognition that a climate-driven increase in extreme weather is a serious hazard, Ireland now needs a foundation of relevant evidence to ensure it makes the right decisions about living with and adapting to climate change. This must include robust modelling and predictions about what is in store, particularly around storms and rising seas.

Policymakers must translate this into clear strategies for coping with the risk of flooding – from flood defences and storm-resistant infrastructure to better water management during periods of alternating droughts and downpours.

There is some good news, as some communities are showing resilience in action. For instance, a community initiative called the Maharees Conservation Association is leveraging local knowledge to protect the northern peninsula of Dingle in Kerry – one of the first places Atlantic storms slam into. The area is implementing a coastal erosion management plan and the Dingle Hub, a non-profit community enterprise, is working to turn the region into a low carbon society. Also, social entrepreneurs are not only contributing to lower carbon emissions but they are also educating, facilitating and supporting communities in tackling climate change.

The Irish government too has made a statutory commitment to achieve a “climate-neutral” and climate-resilient economy by 2050: a crucial step in a country with one of the larger carbon footprints in the world. Meanwhile local authorities are leading campaigns on circular economies, energy use, and are establishing climate action regional offices to focus on climate change.

Ireland cannot hold back the seas or calm the storms. But it can decide how to respond – through stronger science, smarter policy and, above all, collective responsibility.

As sea levels rise, storms surge and flooding increases there is a need for us all to find ways of being part of climate solutions rather than merely being part of the problem.

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Graham J Dwyer is Co-Director, Trinity Centre for Social Innovation. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the University of Melbourne.

Karen Helen Wiltshire is Professor of Climate Sciences and receives funding from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She holds the TCD-CRH Chair of Climate Science. She is affiliated with the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Science and the University of Kiel in Germany. She is the Chief Author in the UNEP GEO 07. Chapter 5 Oceans and Coasts.

– ref. Why Ireland’s mild temperatures won’t protect it from the climate crisis – https://theconversation.com/why-irelands-mild-temperatures-wont-protect-it-from-the-climate-crisis-259070

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Shelley Brady, Postdoctoral Researcher in Animal Behaviour, Assistive Technology and Epilepsy, Dublin City University

How is an animal feeling at a given moment? Humans have long recognised certain well-known behaviour like a cat hissing as a warning, but in many cases we’ve had little clue of what’s going on inside an animal’s head.

Now we have a better idea, thanks to a Milan-based researcher who has developed an AI model that he claims can detect whether their calls express positive or negative emotions. Stavros Ntalampiras’s deep-learning model, which was published in Scientific Reports, can recognise emotional tones across seven species of hoofed animals, including pigs, goats and cows. The model picks up on shared features of their calls, such as pitch, frequency range and tonal quality.

The analysis showed that negative calls tended to be more mid to high frequency, while positive calls were spread more evenly across the spectrum. In pigs, high-pitched calls were especially informative, whereas in sheep and horses the mid-range carried more weight, a sign that animals share some common markers of emotion but also express them in ways that vary by species.

For scientists who have long tried to untangle animal signals, this discovery of emotional traits across species is the latest leap forward in a field that is being transformed by AI.

The implications are far-reaching. Farmers could receive earlier warnings of livestock stress, conservationists might monitor the emotional health of wild populations remotely, and zookeepers could respond more quickly to subtle welfare changes.

This potential for a new layer of insight into the animal world also raises ethical questions. If an algorithm can reliably detect when an animal is in distress, what responsibility do humans have to act? And how do we guard against over-generalisation, where we assume that all signs of arousal mean the same thing in every species?

Of barks and buzzes

Tools like the one devised by Ntalampiras are not being trained to “translate” animals in a human sense, but to detect behavioural and acoustic patterns too subtle for us to perceive unaided.

Similar work is underway with whales, where New York-based research organisation Project Ceti (the Cetacean Translation Initiative) is analysing patterned click sequences called codas. Long believed to encode social meaning, these are now being mapped at scale using machine learning, revealing patterns that may correspond to each whale’s identity, affiliation or emotional state.

In dogs, researchers are linking facial expressions, vocalisations and tail-wagging patterns with emotional states. One study showed that subtle shifts in canine facial muscles correspond to fear or excitement. Another found that tail-wag direction varies depending on whether a dog encounters a familiar friend or a potential threat.

At Dublin City University’s Insight Centre for Data Analytics, we are developing a detection collar worn by assistance dogs which are trained to recognise the onset of a seizure in people who suffer from epilepsy. The collar uses sensors to pick up on a dog’s trained behaviours, such as spinning, which raise the alarm that their owner is about to have a seizure.

The project, funded by Research Ireland, strives to demonstrate how AI can leverage animal communication to improve safety, support timely intervention, and enhance quality of life. In future we aim to train the model to recognise instinctive dog behaviours such as pawing, nudging or barking.

Honeybees, too, are under AI’s lens. Their intricate waggle dances – figure-of-eight movements that indicate food sources – are being decoded in real time with computer vision. These models highlight how small positional shifts influence how well other bees interpret the message.

Caveats

These systems promise real gains in animal welfare and safety. A collar that senses the first signs of stress in a working dog could spare it from exhaustion. A dairy herd monitored by vision-based AI might get treatment for illness hours or days sooner than a farmer would notice.

Detecting a cry of distress is not the same as understanding what it means, however. AI can show that two whale codas often occur together, or that a pig’s squeal shares features with a goat’s bleat. The Milan study goes further by classifying such calls as broadly positive or negative, but even this remains using pattern recognition to try to decode emotions.

Emotional classifiers risk flattening rich behaviours into crude binaries of happy/sad or calm/stressed, such as logging a dog’s tail wag as “consent” when it can sometimes signal stress. As Ntalampiras notes in his study, pattern recognition is not the same as understanding.

One solution is for researchers to develop models that integrate vocal data with visual cues, such as posture or facial expression, and even physiological signals such as heart rate, to build more reliable indicators of how animals are feeling. AI models are also going to be most reliable when interpreted in context, alongside the knowledge of someone experienced with the species.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the ecological price of listening is high. Using AI adds carbon costs that, in fragile ecosystems, undercut the very conservation goals they claim to serve. It’s therefore important that any technologies genuinely serve animal welfare, rather than simply satisfying human curiosity.

Whether we welcome it or not, AI is here. Machines are now decoding signals that evolution honed long before us, and will continue to get better at it.

The real test, though, is not how well we listen, but what we’re prepared to do with what we hear. If we burn energy decoding animal signals but only use the information to exploit them, or manage them more tightly, it’s not science that falls short – it’s us.

Shelley Brady 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. Can AI teach us how animals think? – https://theconversation.com/can-ai-teach-us-how-animals-think-263545

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rose Marroncelli, Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University

During the 2000s and 2010s, Topshop was a fashion powerhouse – an icon of the British high street. A combination of music, make-up and the latest fashions allowed the retailer to thrive in popularity. And high profile celebrity collaborations with model Kate Moss and singer Beyoncé also raised Topshop’s profile in a crowded retail market.

The retailer was renowned for being “cool”, fostering design collaborations with up-and-coming designers, including JW Anderson, Marques’ Almedia and Christopher Kane. The models which fronted campaigns were also “it girls”, such as models Lily Cole and Cara Delevinge and actor Kate Bosworth.

The brand’s success, however, did not prove sustainable. In 2020, its owner, the Arcadia group, entered administration and all physical stores closed shortly thereafter. The brand’s reputation was further damaged by allegations of financial mishandling surrounding its owner, Sir Philip Green. Green was also accused of poor treatment towards Arcadia staff, but has always denied any unlawful behaviour.

The online retailer, Asos, acquired Topshop in 2021 and continued to sell its clothes online. However, in 2024, Asos sold a 75% stake of the Topshop brand, in order to repay debts. The majority is now owned by Danish company, Bestseller.

Changing consumer shopping habits, predominantly the rise in online shopping, contributed to Topshop’s downfall. But Topshop was not the only high street retailer that struggled to keep up in the digital age. In recent years, Debenhams, Ted Baker and in mid-August Claire’s have all gone into administration. House of Fraser has also announced multiple store closures. With an ever increasing number of empty units on the high street, the news that Topshop is planning a return, with physical stores, may come as a surprise to some.

Topshop’s relaunch

In August, Topshop returned to the runway with its first catwalk show for seven years, in Trafalgar Square. The show was deemed a success, and “the comeback show of the year”, according to critics including Rolling Stone. Demonstrating the brand’s ability to embrace the digital era, a “see-now, buy-now” approach let audiences shop for pieces instantly. The catwalk show set the backdrop for the relaunch, and Michelle Wilson, managing director of Topshop and Topman, then confirmed to BBC News that standalone stores would be returning to the high street.

Can this high street plan be a success? The same struggles exist as they did when Topshop closed all physical stores in 2020. High rents and running costs remain a challenge, and the popularity of online shopping continues to grow.

Online brands such as Temu and Shein offer the latest styles at low prices. This is known as “ultra-fast fashion”, and appeals to younger consumers.

However, research has suggested that gen-Z are becoming sensitive to the issue of unsustainable production practices, which are widely reported at both brands. It may be the case that in an increasingly digital world, there remains a need for physical retail spaces, where consumers can touch garments and interact with their peers.

Global market research firm, Mintel, notes how successful retail spaces are evolving to provide more than just products; this is known as experiential retail. This includes creating spaces for socialising, learning and community events. Gymshark is an example of an online active-wear brand that followed these retail recommendations when opening its flagship store in Regent Street, London, in 2023. In addition to garments, the Regent Street store offers gym classes, running clubs and personal training sessions..

Can Topshop create a new physical space which consumers will want to pay repeat visits? The original consumer base from the 2000s and 2010s have now grown up, and are in a different life phase. However, research has shown that consumers can display strong emotional connections with retro brands, which may work for Topshop.

A successful return to the high street will hinge on its ability to balance nostalgia with innovation. Reviving emotional connections with its original audience while resonating with gen-Z will be crucial. If the brand can combine the latest fashions with sustainability, experiential retail and digital integration, it does have the potential to thrive once more.

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Rose Marroncelli 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. Topshop’s return to the high street must appeal to gen-Z to succeed – https://theconversation.com/topshops-return-to-the-high-street-must-appeal-to-gen-z-to-succeed-263567

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kyoko Murakami, Lecturer in psychology, University of Westminster, London, University of Westminster

To mark 80 years since the end of the second world war, a group of ten Japanese people whose fathers and grandfathers once fought against the British travelled to the UK to mark victory over Japan day (VJ day). The story of their ancestors is one that is often forgotten. These men fought during the Burma campaign between 1942 and 1945 – one of the most brutal but often overlooked episodes of the war.

The Burma Campaign Society’s (BCS) Japan branch hope to shed light on this episode by fusing personal memory with national histories. Their efforts are not only about remembering Japan’s past, but also about confronting the complex legacy of their families’ roles in it.

The Burma campaign was a gruelling battle between the Japanese imperial army and Allied forces, predominantly British, Indian, Chinese and American troops. Fought in then Burma, now Myanmar, it was marked by some of the toughest conditions of the war, fighting through disease-ridden jungles, during torrential monsoons across near-impossible terrain. For the men who fought there, it was a struggle for survival in one of the most hostile battlefields of the war.

On Friday August 15, the BCS group attended the national commemorative ceremony, Remembering VJ Day 80 Years On, at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The group, aged from 12 to 78, paid their respects and forged connections with surviving British veterans and descendants of the fallen in Burma. Their work is personal: each member can trace their lineage to soldiers who served, and in some cases died, in Burma. The purpose of their visit is to extend to the UK their work of “irei” – a Japanese word which means to console the spirits of the fallen; to pray for the repose of their souls for those who made the ultimate sacrifice in war.

Two years ago, BCS members held “irei-sai”, memorial services, in Tokyo and other locations in Japan, inviting British veterans and family members to join with Japanese and dignitaries from former allied countries.

In the special VJ Day 80th anniversary ceremony this year, BCS members prayed on British soil for the repose of the souls of the victims. They did so at the memorials and monuments including the Burma memorial, Chindit memorial and Thai Burma railway memorial.

Participating in the VJ Day ceremony was emotional for all concerned. BCS members were initially apprehensive about attending the historic ceremony as citizens of the former foe. They did not know what to expect or how the British would treat them.

Takuya Imasato (47) said he wanted his child to experience how the war is interpreted and commemorated in Britain. He commented that: “I did not feel any bitterness or animosities toward us.”

Another of the Japanese descendants at the ceremony, Hiroaki Fujimori (64), said some of the British people there approached him and shook hands, hugged him or even kissed him on the cheek: “I felt an overwhelming send of welcome and kindness.”

Colonel Yoshiaki Himeda (56), of the Japanese Self Defence Force, said the ceremony was quite different from what he was used to in Japan: “I was so surprised to experience a ceremony that was inclusive, acknowledging the diversity of Britain.” He continued, “It is as if a symbolic wall of the foe or friend quickly dissolved when I, in JDF uniform, saluted the military personnel and veterans in uniforms or with medals. There was more of a silent recognition, we were both children of men who endured something terrible.”

The chairperson of BCS, Akiko Macdonald (74), who lives in the UK, said she was delighted with how the visit went. “Until now, I felt like I was alone, leading the society’s work of irei in the UK with the UK Burma veterans. My father survived, but in his post-war years, he suffered from the survivor’s guilt and PTSD like those who repatriated to Japan. In postwar Japan, if one returns home alive, he is not a war hero and is made to feel ashamed.”

Intercultural dialogue

Many BCS members grew up with fragmented stories, often whispered about, but rarely discussed openly in postwar Japan. Wartime service, especially in campaigns marked by atrocities, was long treated with silence. Families often avoided the topic, torn between pride in their relatives’ endurance and discomfort over Japan’s imperial ambitions.

Showing me a photograph of her father, who, in his later years, trained to be a Burmese Buddhist monk, Yoshiko Fujiwara (70) reflected on the meaning of her irei work. She told me: “I accompanied my father, who worked tirelessly to achieve reconciliation and the reconstruction of Myanmar, helped build memorials and kept a detailed record of my father’s involvement in the battles. I felt duty-bound to succeed in his legacy of irei and to share the facts and personal memories.”

“We cannot change what happened, but we can listen, remember, and share. If my father fought in the atrocious conditions of Burma, perhaps our task is to fight against forgetting and to pay respect to those sacrificed for us,” Fujiwara explained. She told me his loss was huge for her family and that they knew little about what he experienced during his campaign. “Now, as his descendants, we feel it is our duty to tell the story – not to glorify, nor to be ashamed, but to understand and have dialogues.”

Bob White, the curator of the Kohima Museum in York told me how Burma is rarely mentioned in history books, which tend to focus on larger battles in the pacific. “My father, a British Burma veteran, spoke very little about his own experience in Burma. What makes these descendants’ work so valuable is that they bring in personal testimony – letters, diaries, memories passed down – that humanise an otherwise forgotten front,” he explained.

BCS’s irei journey remains committed to its mission. Yoshihiro Sekiba (75), whose father fought as an army doctor in Burma, wants to set up a scheme for a UK-Japan student exchange. BCS chair Akiko Macdonald is hoping to build on this historic attendance at the VJ Day commemoration in the UK, creating an archival learning centre in Japan that will allow descendants worldwide to upload family documents and testimonies related to the campaign. The aim is to make the Burma Campaign not just a footnote in history books, but a living, shared memory.

As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the voices of descendants of those who fought are reminders that conflict echoes across generations. It’s not distant history, but exists as stories that continue to shape identity, reconciliation, and the fragile pursuit of peace.

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Kyoko Murakami, PhD works for the University of Westminster. She is affiliated with the Burma Campaign Society.

– ref. Remembering the second world war’s Burma campaign with the descendants of Japanese fighters on the 80th anniversary of VJ day – https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-second-world-wars-burma-campaign-with-the-descendants-of-japanese-fighters-on-the-80th-anniversary-of-vj-day-263699

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rachel Pistol, Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton

The recent opening of an immigration centre in El Paso, Texas, has reignited protests of the Trump administration’s tough immigration plans from Japanese Americans. The internment camp, which opened in August 2025, is on the site of a military base that was used to intern Japanese Americans during the war.

In the past few months hundreds of Japanese Americans have been protesting the construction of new immigration centres and plans to detain thousands of people by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit (Ice), because it stirs up memories of how their families were rounded up during the second world war.

The US government has also invoked the 1798 Alien and Enemies Act, last used in the second world war, to increase the powers of Ice to detain individuals.

Much of the basis for the internment of Japanese Americans during the war was derived from the 1798 act, which allows the detention and deportation of foreign “enemies”.

Dublin prison, near San Francisco, was closed in 2024 but Ice is seeking to reopen it – and many other detention sites – to keep up with Donald Trump’s ambitious plan to arrest large numbers of immigrants.

The Japanese American community came out to protest in July around Dublin, outlining fears that the recent Ice raids are a repeat of the history that led to the incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans between 1942 and 1946. One internal Ice estimate suggests there are currently 60,000 immigrants held in detention throughout the US.

Latino neighbourhoods are being targeted, according to civil rights groups, although the Department of Homeland Security has denied it is targeting groups based on their skin colour or ethnicity.

One protester, Lynn Yamashita, said to ABC News: “I’m here because the Japanese were interned, my father was interned, and it can’t happen again – but it is happening, it’s shameful.” Douglas Yoshida, another protester, said: “There’s no invasion, but Trump has cited the Alien Enemies Act to detain and deport people without any due process.”

The Japanese American community in California has been quick to draw comparisons between the alleged targeting of Latino communities by Ice and their own treatment during the second world war. This attracted particular national attention when scores of masked and armed federal agents turned up and arrested a person outside the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles, during a speech by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

This is a highly symbolic site, as it is where Japanese American families were forced to board buses to American concentration camps in 1942. JANM has posted pictures comparing the cramped conditions in those WWII camps to the cages being used in Ice detention facilities. In both cases, families were ripped apart, causing huge amounts of trauma.

What is the history?

In the decades before the second world war, various pieces of legislation were passed to halt both Chinese and Japanese immigration to the US, and there was significant racism directed at Asian immigrants.

Many businesses run by white Americans refused to serve Asians or let them use leisure facilities such as swimming pools. They were also reluctant to allow anyone who looked Asian to rent or buy properties in white neighbourhoods. Despite these challenges, Asian immigrants worked hard to establish businesses and farms, as well as working in many American factories.

Today, immigrants from the Latino and Hispanic populations make up around 19% of the American workforce, yet regularly experience racism in the US.

Forcibly displaced and incarcerated

During the second world war, with the US and Japan on opposite sides, people of Japanese ancestry living in the US were forcibly displaced and incarcerated. The basis of their treatment was signed into being as executive order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942.

EO9066 authorised the forced removal of any person who might be a threat to national security from the west coast of the US. Although no mention was made of any specific group, the order was used almost exclusively to target individuals of Japanese ancestry – not just Japanese citizens but their US-born children.

Much of the argument for detention both then and now is to rid the country of “undesirables” – be they defined as “looking like the enemy” (then) or “violent criminals or illegal immigrants” (now). However, recent data shows large numbers of arrests are being made of people without criminal charges or convictions, and of some US citizens. This suggests Ice is very focused on meeting its alleged quota of arresting 3,000 migrants per day. The White House has denied this quota exists.

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Read more:
Masked and armed agents are arresting people on US streets as aggressive immigration enforcement ramps up

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Since Trump’s return to office, some people have reportedly been arrested during routine naturalisation appointments for errors as small as forgetting to submit a relevant form. Even when someone has entered the US legally, this is not necessarily protection from the new powers enacted under the Trump presidency.

Hundreds are being detained in hastily constructed detention camps in isolated areas. During the second world war, this was what happened with the ten so-called “relocation centres”, or internment camps, that were built across the west and south of the US for Japanese Americans, who were then denied habeas corpus – meaning they had no right to defend themselves in a court of law and could be detained indefinitely without a fair hearing.

In June this year, there were suggestions from the Trump administration that it was discussing suspending habeas corpus. If this happens, it could mean there is no limit for how long people can be detained in these camps, and that they no longer have a right to a fair hearing.

In 1988, the US accepted it had carried out a “grave injustice” against people of Japanese ancestry, and that these actions during the second world war were motivated by racial prejudice and “war hysteria”. It’s not clear what, if any, lessons have been learned from this history – and if so, why are they being ignored?

Rachel Pistol has received funding from the British Association for American Studies with the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition for a travelling exhibition in 2026 about Japanese American incarceration.

– ref. Why Japanese American memories of US internment during the second world war are stirring up protests in 2025 – https://theconversation.com/why-japanese-american-memories-of-us-internment-during-the-second-world-war-are-stirring-up-protests-in-2025-261989

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Owen Brierley, Course Leader in the Department of Creative Industries, Kingston University

In the recently released game Tiny Bookshop you are invited to “leave everything behind and open a tiny bookshop by the sea”. Tiny Bookshop has been described as an ambient narrative management game, which has a cosy and calming feel.

From Zoo Tycoon to SimCity and now Tiny Bookshop, computer games have made work feel like play. But the recent explosion of “cosy work simulators” reveals something profound about modern labour and why we’re seeking meaning in the most unexpected places.

Critics and fans have loved Tiny Bookshop, where players spend hours organising shelves, recommending novels and chatting with customers. Meanwhile, 15 million people have bought Euro Truck Simulator 2 to drive virtual trucks on digital motorways. Stardew Valley has sold over 20 million copies, letting players escape to virtual farms where they grow turnips and milk cows.

This isn’t just escapism. It’s something philosophers have been trying to explain for decades.

Research has shown that video games are as powerful as morphine. Other researchers have commented that gamification of work is pacifying workers who should be demanding better conditions. There’s truth here. It’s easier to download Tiny Bookshop than to quit your corporate job and start a real shop.

The romanticisation of small businesses also ignores that bookshop owners often earn little and have no benefits. You can quit playing a game and return to it when you feel like it. That’s not so easy with real jobs.

But dismissing these games as mere escapism misses something crucial. As political theorist Kathi Weeks argues, they function as “laboratories for post-work imagination”. Players aren’t escaping bad work. They are rehearsing better work. They are experiencing what labour could feel like if it served human needs rather than capital accumulation.

Beyond escape: reimagining labour

Johan Huizinga, the Dutch historian who invented game studies, had this concept called the “magic circle”. When we enter a game, we step into a special space with its own rules. Inside this circle, mundane activities become meaningful because we’ve chosen to be there.

Think about it: washing dishes is tedious. But washing dishes in the game Unpacking is meditative. Filing paperwork is soul crushing. But processing immigration documents in Papers, Please becomes a moral thriller. The difference? Agency and consent. We’ve voluntarily entered these spaces, transforming obligation into play.

Karl Marx would have had a field day with this. His theory of “alienation from work” argued that industrial capitalism separated workers from what they produce, how they produce it, and why they’re producing it. In real jobs, you might never see the finished product, never control the process, never understand the purpose.

But in Tiny Bookshop? You choose the stock, stack the shelves and sell to customers who thank you. The entire cycle is visible, controllable and meaningful. You’re experiencing what Marx described as work where you control the means of production and see direct results.

Work as play, play as work

Humans have always blurred these boundaries. Children, for instance, instinctively play house or play shop, rehearsing adult work through voluntary recreation.

What’s shifted is scale and context. The explosion of cosy work simulators around 2020 wasn’t coincidental. As research shows, these games attracted entirely new demographics, particularly women and older adults, who’d never identified as “gamers”. They weren’t seeking escape from reality but rather a different version of it.

The Korean game Work Time Fun (originally released as Baito Hell 2000) made this explicit, parodying meaningless labour by having players cap pens for virtual pennies. Critics called it “deliberately boring”. Yet people played it obsessively, suggesting something deeper than entertainment was at work.

The academic and game designer Ian Bogost’s concept of “procedural rhetoric” explains how games make arguments through their systems rather than stories. When Euro Truck Simulator rewards careful driving and timely delivery, it’s making a claim about what makes work satisfying. When Tiny Bookshop connects every sale to a customer’s happiness, it argues that commerce can be personal and meaningful.

This connects to what the Hungarian-American psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” – a state where time disappears because you’re perfectly balanced between challenge and skill. Real jobs rarely create flow: feedback is delayed, goals are unclear and difficulty spikes randomly. But games are flow machines, carefully calibrated to keep you in that sweet spot where work feels effortless.

The anthropologist David Graeber’s theory of “bullshit jobs” adds another layer. He argued that up to 40% of workers secretly believe their jobs are pointless, what he called “box-tickers”, “flunkies”, and “taskmasters” who exist only to manage other managers. These jobs violate something fundamental about human nature: our need to feel useful.

Virtual work offers the opposite. Every customer in Coffee Talk has a story. Every crop in Stardew Valley feeds someone. Even in Papers, Please, a game about bureaucracy, your decisions determine life and death. These games provide what philosopher Byung-Chul Han warns we’ve lost: clear connections between effort and outcome.

The shift from SimCity to Tiny Bookshop reflects changing aspirations. We’re less interested in managing systems and more interested in human-scale interactions. Less excited by efficiency and more drawn to meaning. The fact that millions choose to spend free time on virtual labour that mirrors real work but with agency, purpose and visible impact is itself a form of critique.

These games reveal the gap between what work is and what it could be. They show us that the problem isn’t work itself, but work stripped of autonomy, meaning and connection. In Huizinga’s magic circle, we glimpse what Marx imagined: labour that develops rather than diminishes us.

The next time someone questions why you’re wasting time managing a virtual bookshop, remind them you’re not escaping work. You’re experiencing what work could be. Voluntary. Meaningful. Genuinely productive. The fact that we have to find this in games rather than our own jobs isn’t a gaming problem. It’s a work problem.

And millions of us, controller in hand, are imagining solutions.

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

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Owen Brierley 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. Tiny Bookshop: why gamers are choosing to spend their free time simulating work – according to philosophy – https://theconversation.com/tiny-bookshop-why-gamers-are-choosing-to-spend-their-free-time-simulating-work-according-to-philosophy-263646