Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Antje Jackelén, Senior Advisor and Systematic Theologian., Lund University

In 1917, Sigmund Freud described three “narcissistic insults” that had been caused by science. These were moments of scientific breakthrough that showed humans that we are not as special as we once believed.

The first came with astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’s discovery%5D) that we are not at the centre of the universe, because the sun rather than the Earth is at our solar system’s centre. It was followed by two more: the loss of humanity’s position as “the crown of creation” through Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the loss of sovereignty over our own selves through the discovery of the power of the unconscious. The latter was Freud’s own work and, according to him, the toughest one of all.

Had Freud heard of artificial intelligence (AI), I believe he would have been prompted to add a fourth. The cosmological, biological and psychological insults have now been followed by the intellectual. AI deals a fateful blow to our human self-understanding.

As a theologian, I’m particularly interested in the implications of this threat for our sense of spirituality. Generally speaking, humanity has coped quite well with the first three “narcissistic insults” described by Freud. But what cures are available for the wound of this most recent development?

1. Changing the language of AI

Even though the range and achievements of AI are breathtaking, the term “artificial intelligence” could be questioned to quell the damage it presents to our self-image. “Co-intelligence” may be more adequate, indicating that, for example, large language models should be used only as complementary to our own mental resources. This language softens the harshness.

2. Questioning the intelligence of AI

Some researchers have questioned the intelligence of AI by pointing out that a large language model merely is “a stochastic parrot”. This suggests that AI seems to have a deep understanding of what it conveys, but in reality, it’s just a system that combines linguistic patterns it has encountered in its extensive training data, based on probable associations, without any actual grasp of meaning.

“We are not going to be AI’s stupid pets,” wrote cognitive scientist Peter Gärdenfors. Rather than fearing AI, we should be fearful of ourselves, because, seduced by AI, we could give up the fruits of the Enlightenment.

Focusing on the differences between human intelligence and its artificial counterpart makes us understand that as long as collective human intelligence can judge the plausibility of AI output, the insult can be handled.

3. Speaking of ‘intelligences’ rather than intelligence

Instead of a single phenomenon, human intelligence can be understood as a variety of intelligences: artistic, personal and moral. They all come together in a mode of intelligence that is intuitive, socially embedded and holds special importance for spirituality – the opposite of a stochastic parrot.

Humans seek and find meaning even beyond ordinary reality, whereas AI is stuck in the “here”, in the profane. When a large language model creates nonsensical or inaccurate outputs, this is called a hallucination. Artificial intelligence hallucinates, human intelligence transcends.

In view of this integration of intelligences in humans, AI is inferior to human intelligence – at least for now.

Yes, but …

These attempts to address the insult of AI recognise that it functions differently from human intelligence. Unlike humans, AI has its identity in computation and statistics. But that does not mean that we need not fear. The speed, volume and complexity of data processing by AI can reach levels that render this difference irrelevant, because the output will count, rather than the way it is achieved.

Say I suffer from massive fear of death and my partner is too affected to be of any help, while my AI assistant shares advice that I experience as caring and valuable. Would it then matter what I call this thing (example one), whether it is indeed intelligent (example two) or how many intelligences it represents (example three)?

Experienced usefulness is likely to trump philosophical questions about the intelligence of AI systems. So what now?

Wavering between techno-messianism (AI will save us and the planet) and techno-dystopia (AI is the end of humanity) is an understandable reaction to the intellectual insult. Yet, uncritical embrace is socially irresponsible, and panic often leads to irrational actions or apathy.

AI development is quicker than adaptation of social and legal systems – especially when the law follows democratic principles. In the haze of this dilemma, transparency gets lost, lines of responsibility become blurred, consequences strike unexpectedly and unevenly. AI will change the way we think about knowledge, work, communication and integrity. It will create winners and losers in the labour market. Social unrest may arise. Without critical humanistic reflection, it’s possible that AI will fail to contribute to a good society for all.

In response, all sectors of society must cooperate. Technical and legal expertise is not enough. It is in civil society that existential questions are asked, and answers sought not only in calculations about power and economics or in legal and technical intricacies, but also in the cultural, philosophical and theological sources from which humanity has drawn orientation over centuries.

The hallmarks of western modernity – individualism, consumerism and secularism – will not suffice in face of AI’s narcissistic insult. Instead, human qualities such as relationality, transcendence, fallibility and responsibility are key.

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Antje Jackelén 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. Freud would have called AI a ‘narcissistic insult’ to humanity – here’s how we might overcome it – https://theconversation.com/freud-would-have-called-ai-a-narcissistic-insult-to-humanity-heres-how-we-might-overcome-it-255802

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elliot David Convery-Fisher, Research Fellow in the Socio-Ecology of Fire Management, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

For the tenth time this year, a wildfire warning covers most of Scotland. The latest alert came after a recent, and not the first, gorse fire on Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh’s iconic ancient volcano that draws millions of visitors every year. Fire crews think human activity caused the fire. This is exactly the kind of incident that triggers our instinct to find someone to blame.

But with over 41,000 hectares already burned across Britain in 2025 (an area larger than the Isle of Wight) pointing the finger misses the point. News reports focus on who lit the spark, but Arthur’s Seat was primed to burn: flammable gorse has flourished since sheep stopped grazing the slopes. The real question isn’t who started this fire, but why we are caught off guard when fires happen in the wrong places.

This isn’t just an Edinburgh problem. Millions of Britons live near fire-prone landscapes, from Dorset heathlands to the Scottish Highlands.

My colleagues and I work with national parks in southern Africa to understand how they manage this challenge. The challenges I see in South Africa mirror what Britain now faces because of climate change: how to keep people and infrastructure safe when fire an unavoidable part of our reality.

Research shows that climate change has made the UK’s risk of ideal conditions for wildfires six times higher. While ignition sources haven’t changed much – most UK fires still start from human activity like discarded cigarettes or campfires – the conditions that allow fires to spread have transformed. Warmer, wetter winters create more plant growth and therefore fuel, which turns bone-dry during hot, dry spells.

Fire is a natural and vital feature of many landscapes globally. In fire-adapted ecosystems it can clear invasive species while promoting native grasses, reduce the buildup of dead vegetation that fuels dangerous blazes and create some of our most iconic places where plants and animals thrive.

The problem isn’t fire itself, but where, when and how it happens. Over 1.8 million British homes now sit within 100m of countryside edges – exactly where most wildfires occur. During one of Britain’s biggest wildfires on a North Yorkshire moor in 2018, flames nearly reached homes and critical infrastructure: the trans-Pennine railway, M62 motorway, major power lines and drinking water reservoirs. Another recent fire in the same area was close to a ballistic missile base.

I have interviewed fire managers in South Africa, where humans have worked with fire for millennia. Their approach suggests a fundamentally different relationship with fire, understanding fire as part of a landscape’s natural processes. Instead of treating every fire as a crisis, they study how fire behaves – when it helps ecosystems, when it threatens communities, and how to work with these patterns rather than against them.

Take Cape Town as an example, where fire authorities publish daily risk ratings that residents check like weather forecasts. High-risk days mean banned barbecues and closed trails. When safe, fire crews deliberately burn mountain slopes in small sections – having the right fires at the right times to prevent catastrophic ones. Property owners in Cape Town form neighbourhood fire protection associations to support each other and the emergency services during unplanned fires, creating a coordinated response network.

The UK is catching on

The UK government is reviewing its wildfire management strategy, focusing on prevention, collaboration and risk reduction. Landowners are also taking a more proactive approach. The Cairngorms national park in Scotland approved the UK’s first comprehensive wildfire management plan in June 2025, introducing seasonal fire management plans and setting up community groups to communicate fire risk and response. Fire services in the Cairngorms now use drones for real-time aerial mapping and off-road vehicles to fight fires in tough terrain.

However, we are still playing catch up. Fire services recorded 286 wildfires between January and April 2025. That’s over 100 more than the same period in 2022’s record year. Yet services receive little dedicated wildfire funding.

Britain could learn from South Africa’s holistic approach. Starting with the need to understand our own landscapes first. What role does fire play in our landscapes? How can we safely manage fire risk in different landscape types? Which of our ecosystems and places might actually benefit from carefully managed fire?

Edinburgh could start by studying Arthur’s Seat as Cape Town studies Table Mountain – not to implement identical solutions, but to understand how fire behaves in this specific landscape. This means researching how gorse burns, whether controlled burns could reduce dangerous fuel loads, and how visitors can safely coexist with proactive fire management.

The lesson isn’t to transplant South African methods to British soil, but to embrace their comprehensive approach to understanding fire. Every landscape is different. What works on Cape Town’s fynbos shrubland won’t necessarily work on Scottish moors. But the principle of studying fire as a part of the landscape rather than simply an emergency to suppress could transform how Britain manages its growing fire risk.

Fire isn’t the enemy. Poorly understood, unmanaged fire is. Climate change guarantees greater fire risk. Britain’s choice is clear: continue reacting with shock to each blaze, or develop our own integrated understanding of how fire works in British landscapes. The Arthur’s Seat fire was a warning shot. The question is whether we’ll heed it.

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Elliot David Convery-Fisher works for the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh. He receives funding from UK International Development through the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund project ‘Achieving Sustainable Forest Management through Community Protected Areas in Madagascar’ (ecm 62237).

– ref. Why the Arthur’s Seat burn is a cautionary tale for the UK’s wildfire management strategy – https://theconversation.com/why-the-arthurs-seat-burn-is-a-cautionary-tale-for-the-uks-wildfire-management-strategy-263065

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Hunter, Professor of Medicine, University of East Anglia

The UK’s Health Security Agency has advised overseas travellers to take precautions to avoid contracting the potentially severe mosquito-borne virus, Chikungunya.

This warning was issued in response to recently published data, which shows that during the first six months of this year, there have been 73 reported cases of Chikungunya virus in England. Only 27 cases were reported during the same time last year. All of these infections were associated with travel to regions which have had ongoing outbreaks of Chikungunya virus, including Sri Lanka, India and Mauritius.

Chikungunya is a viral infection caused by the Chikungunya virus, which is almost always spread by Aedes mosquitoes. These mosquitoes usually breed in standing water, which means they generally live close to human populations. Unlike the mosquitoes that spread malaria, Aedes mosquitoes bite during the day.

A person infected with Chikungunya virus will usually start experiencing symptoms about four to eight days after the bite. The illness usually starts with a sudden high temperature, typically alongside severe joint pain. Other symptoms may include joint swelling, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash. Joint pain usually lasts a few days but can last for weeks, months and, in rare cases, years.

The infection is usually mild and almost all people recover without needing medical treatment. However, joint pain when it occurs can be very severe and can last long after the initial illness. Deaths from Chikungunya virus are rare. When they do occur, it’s usually in people over 60 years of age, or those who have other health conditions such as hypertension, heart disease and diabetes.

There is no treatment for the infection. Treatments, when needed, are limited to those which control the infection’s associated symptoms – such as fever or joint pain. Drugs such as paracetamol or ibuprofen would be used for joint pain.

Preventative measures are the most important step a person can take to avoid contracting Chikungunya virus.

There are currently two vaccines available which prevent Chikungunya. The UK currently recommends these vaccines are considered for people travelling to regions with active outbreaks or for long term visitors to regions which have had active transmission of the virus in the past five years.

There are two vaccine options in the UK: Vimkunya and IXCHIQ. Vimkunya can be offered to people aged 12 years and over. IXCHIQ vaccine can only be offered to people aged 18 to 59 years old. The use of IXCHIQ vaccine was recently suspended for people aged 65 years and over because of possible serious side-effects in this age group.

The other important preventative measure is avoiding mosquito bites – even during the day – by using insect repellents and wearing loose fitting clothing that cover most exposed skin.

But the best way to reduce risk is by controlling mosquito populations. The most effective and sustainable measures for doing this are those which reduce breeding sites close to home – such as covering water containers and removing objects where water can collect, such as old tyres.

Evidence for the effectiveness of other measures at preventing Chikungunya, such as chemical or biological treatments, is not strong.

Safe travels

Over the past couple of years, there have been increasing reports of Chikungunya infections in Africa, South America, South East Asia and China. So it’s not surprising that Chikungunya virus infections have been increasing in England in returning travellers who had visited these regions.

What is particularly worrying is that we’re now seeing outbreaks of locally-transmitted Chikungunya infections in several parts of France and Italy. Although such outbreaks are not new – in fact, we’ve seen outbreaks in Europe in six out of the past 20 years – what is new is the number of localised outbreaks we’re seeing. This year, 27 clusters of localised transmissions have been recorded mainly in the south of France and northern Italy. Infection rates are still increasing.

France is clearly at risk for imported Chikungunya as Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, one of its overseas territories, has been experiencing a particularly severe outbreak with 47,500 cases and 12 deaths between August 2024 and May this year. Reunion is a popular tourist destination particularly for French tourists. It is likely that many of the clusters we are seeing in France would be traced back to a returning traveller.

This summer’s heatwaves have been particularly severe and prolonged and this could be further increasing the risk of local transmission in Europe after an infection has been brought back. Work on dengue fever, a similar mosquito-borne infection, shows that for localised transmission to occur, you generally need daily temperatures of around 30°C to 35°C for several weeks.

The most likely explanation for the increase in Chikungunya in UK residents is the general global increase with travellers picking it up abroad. And if the outbreaks in France and Italy continue to spread, this could mean an even greater number of UK travellers might pick up Chikungunya virus.

It’s unlikely the UK will see localised transmission – though not impossible. We would need the very hot weather to continue for longer than we are seeing in the UK.

The best advice to remain safe from Chikungunya, and the similar but more lethal dengue fever, is to avoid mosquito bites. This is especially important for people over 60 or those who have existing medical problems.

If you’re planning on travelling to a region where there is an active Chikungunya outbreak, it’s advised you speak to your doctor about getting vaccinated. Where Chikungunya virus is present, use insecticides on exposed skin and wear loose fitting clothes that cover arms and legs.

Paul Hunter consults for the World Health Organization. He receives funding from National Institute for Health Research and has received funding from the World Health Organization and the European Regional Development Fund

– ref. Chikungunya: what UK travellers should know about this mosquito-borne virus – https://theconversation.com/chikungunya-what-uk-travellers-should-know-about-this-mosquito-borne-virus-263296

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Esther Kuehn, Professor of Neuroscience, University of Tübingen

I recently asked myself if I’ll still have a healthy brain as I get older. I hold a professorship at a neurology department. Nevertheless, it is difficult for me to judge if a particular brain, including my own, suffers from early neurodegeneration.

My new study, however, shows that part of your brain increases in size with age rather than degenerating.

The reason it’s so hard to measure neurodegeneration is because of how complicated it is to measure small structures in our brain.

Modern neuroimaging technology allows us to detect a brain tumour or to identify an epileptic lesion. These abnormalities are several millimetres in size and can be depicted by a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which operates at around 30,000-60,000 times stronger than the natural magnetic field of the Earth. The problem is that human thinking and perception operate at an even smaller scale.

Our thinking and perception happens in the neocortex. This outer part of our brain consists of six layers. When you feel touch to your body, layer four of your sensory cortex gets activated. This layer is the width of a grain of sand – much smaller than what MRI scanners at hospitals can usually depict. When you modulate your body sensation, for example by trying to read this text rather than feeling the pain from your bad back, layers five and six of your sensory cortex get activated – which are even smaller than layer four.

For my study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, I had access to a 7 Tesla MRI scanner which offers five times better image resolution than standard MRI scanners. It makes snapshots of the fine-scale brain networks during perception and thought visible.

Using a 7 Tesla scanner, my team and I investigated the sensory cortex in healthy younger adults (around 25 years old) and healthy older adults (around 65 years old) to better understand brain ageing. We found that only layers five and six, which modulate body perception, showed signs of age-related degeneration.

Layer four, needed to feel touch to your body, was enlarged in healthy older adults in my study. We also did a comparative study with mice. We found similar results in the older mice, in that they also had a more pronounced layer four than the younger mice. However evidence from our study of mice, which included a third group of very old mice, showed this part of the brain may degenerate in more advanced old age.

Current theories assume our brain gets smaller as we grow older. But my team’s findings contradict these theories in part. It is the first evidence that some parts of the brain get bigger with age in normal older adults.

Older adults with a thicker layer four would be expected to be more sensitive to touch and pain, and (due to the reduced deep layers) have difficulties modulating such sensations.

To understand this effect better, we studied a middle-aged patient who was born without one arm. This patient had a smaller layer four. This suggests their brain received fewer impulses in comparison to a person with two arms and therefore developed less mass in layer four. Parts of the brain that are used more develop more synapses, hence more mass.

Rather than systematically degenerating, older adults’ brains seem to preserve what they use, at least in part. Brain ageing may be compared with a complex machinery in which some often used parts are well oiled, while others less frequently used get roasted. From that perspective, brain ageing is individual, shaped by our lifestyle, including our sensory experiences, reading habits, and cognitive challenges that we take on in everyday life.

In addition, it shows that the brains of healthy older adults preserve their capacity to stay in tune with their surroundings.

A lifetime of experiences

There is another interesting aspect about the results. The pattern of brain changes that we found in older adults – a stronger sensory processing region and a reduced modulatory region – shows similarities to neurodivergent disorders such as the autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Neurodivergent disorders are characterised by enhanced sensory sensitivity and reduced filtering abilities, leading to problems in concentration and cognitive flexibility.

Do our findings indicate that ageing drives the brain in the direction of neurodivergent disorders? Older adults brains have been formed by a lifetime of experiences whereas neurodivergent people are born with these brain patterns. So it would be hard to know what other effects building brain mass with age might have.

Yet, our findings give us some us clues about why older adults sometimes have difficulties adapting to new sensory environments. In such situations, for example being confronted with a new technical device or visiting a new city, the reduced modulatory abilities of layers five and six may become particularly evident, and may increase the likelihood for disorientation or confusion. It may also explain reduced abilities for multitasking with age, such as using a mobile phone while walking. Sensory information needs to be modulated to avoid interference when you’re doing more than one thing.

Both the middle and the deep layers had more myelin, a fatty protective layer that is crucial for nerve function and communication, in the older mice as well as humans. This suggests that in people over the age of 65, there is a compensatory mechanism for the loss of modulatory function. This effect seemed to be breaking down in the very old mice though.

Our results provide evidence for the power of a person’s lifestyle for shaping the ageing brain.

Esther Kuehn works for the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Tübingen. She receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC).

– ref. Part of your brain gets bigger as you get older – here is what that means for you – https://theconversation.com/part-of-your-brain-gets-bigger-as-you-get-older-here-is-what-that-means-for-you-257156

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Frank Ledwidge, Senior Lecturer in Military Strategy and Law, University of Portsmouth

Last week I visited Ukraine to update my knowledge of the military situation there. I was privileged to be invited to visit Kharkiv by a friend – and spent several days there seeing the sights, while avoiding the more dangerous parts of the city where drone and missile attacks are relatively common.

There aren’t many trains to Kharkiv, and if you’re late in booking, then it’s an eight-hour bus ride from the capital Kyiv. Buses in Ukraine, like anywhere else, have their advantages. For a start, there is the opportunity to see some of the small and often very poor communities on the way. These towns say a great deal more about the country than the sophistication and relative wealth of Kyiv.

It is striking that while Kyiv has no apparent shortage of military-age men on the streets and in the bars and restaurants, the eastern towns and Kharkiv itself are notably man-free. When you do see males between 25 and 60 (the ages between which men are liable to conscription), they are clearly on leave from the front.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s Soviet capital between 1919 and 1934, was the centre of tank and military production until 2022. Now its dozens of factories are silent. With Russia about 25 miles away there is little warning for missile or drone attacks, and it would be impossible to sustain any kind of wartime production. The eastern suburbs have been ravaged by artillery and bombs and are almost uninhabited.

Kharkiv’s centre is far more visibly embattled than the almost undamaged centre of the country’s capital. Many public buildings, including those around its vast central Freedom Square, have been smashed or burned out. Nonetheless throughout the city, few windows are visibly broken. As soon as blast shatters them, they are boarded up almost immediately by the astonishingly efficient city authorities. The city is remarkably clean and evidently far better run than most English cities.

Life during wartime

At first sight life seems to go on much as anywhere else. Shevchenko and Gorky parks are immaculate in the summer sunshine with flowers in bloom and children riding their little trains along the litterless paths. Something of the Soviet idyll remains, with classical music wafting through trees, piped in through speakers.

The plush Nikolsky shopping mall just off the central Sumy Prospekt, said to be the largest in Ukraine, is well stocked, bright and vibrant. At night the bars are busy. Their clientele is regarded by their young counterparts in Kyiv as little short of crazy just for being there. It is appropriate that Kharkiv’s proud epiphet – “unbreakable” – is seen on signs everywhere.

Despite all this, there is an abiding sense of emptiness. Before the full-scale war began in 2022, Kharkiv had a population of around 1.5 million. My friend, an academic, estimates that less than half remain, although no official figures are available. Perhaps a million are abroad or elsewhere in Ukraine. People worry about how many will return.

The city was Ukraine’s academic powerhouse, hosting among its 30 or so colleges and universities the country’s oldest, the Karazin Kharkiv National University, named after its eponymous founder in 1804. This year, student enrolment is expected to be well under 100,000 – down from 300,000 before the war. Previously, many students were from Asia and Africa – a tradition stretching into Soviet times. They are all gone now and may never come back.

It is thought not to be advisable for foreigners to stay in hotels. Several of them have been targeted by the Russians on the basis that journalists may be staying there. Foreign media and troops from the Ukrainian Army’s foreign legion are the only non-Ukrainians seen around now, and then not very often. With so many apartments empty, there is no shortage of accommodation on offer.

Everpresent war

The war is always there. There are few commercial advertisements. Instead, the ads on bus shelters, hoardings and buildings promote the images of leaders of the various elite army corps: Azov, Kartiia (which defends Kharkiv), the marines, the 93rd mechanised.

These young generals are likely to be prominent in a post-war Ukraine. Citizens are never left in any doubt that they and their men stand directly between them and the brutalities of the Russian army.

Despite its firm ground defences, Kharkiv has little of the kind of air defences that protect Kyiv. Sirens sound half a dozen times a day and at all hours of the night, accompanied by a baleful female voice echoing almost preternaturally over the rooftops: “Attention, air alarm. Please proceed to shelters.”

No Patriot anti-aircraft missiles streak into the skies over Kharkiv – it’s just too close to potential Russian counterstrike capabilities which could identify and target the critical launchers and radars. The rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns, which provide more encouragement than efficacy, can be heard at night all over the city. The occasional thump announces a drone or missile strike.

The bus back to Kyiv and the west begins its journey in one of the “fortress cities” of Donetsk Oblast – or province – picking up passengers in Kharkiv. Most are women with large bags or tired soldiers, going home for their few days’ leave away from the front, the drones and the artillery. The bus winds once again through those dilapidated towns and villages. Few get off in the capital. I’m reminded once again that this, like all others is a poor man’s war.

Frank Ledwidge 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. Kharkiv: what I saw in Ukraine’s ‘unbreakable’ eastern capital – https://theconversation.com/kharkiv-what-i-saw-in-ukraines-unbreakable-eastern-capital-263452

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mike Watts, Professor of Education, Brunel University of London

A-level results in 2025 show the increasing popularity of Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) among students. For students taking three A-levels – the majority – the most popular combination of subjects was biology, chemistry and maths.

The subject with the greatest rise in entries from 2024 is further maths, followed by economics, maths, physics and chemistry. Maths remains the most popular subject, with entries making up 12.7% of all A-level entries.

Conversely, subjects such as French, drama, history and English literature are falling in exam entry numbers.

There is considerable incentive for young people who may be looking beyond school and university to the job market to study Stem. Research has found that Stem undergraduate degrees bring higher financial benefits to people and to the public purse than non-Stem subjects.

Many of the world’s fastest-growing jobs need Stem skills. These include data analysts, AI specialists, renewable energy engineers, app developers, cybersecurity experts and financial technology experts.

Within Stem itself, science alone is a broad church that spans astronomy to zoology and all letters of the alphabet between. Add to this the many variations of technology, engineering and maths and the range of subjects and specialisms is enormous.

It might come as no surprise, then, that young people have considerable scope in the possible careers and employment they might follow in life. From accountancy to the environment, medical engineering to computer technology, etymology to vulcanology, the possibilities are vast. There is little doubt that this very broad arena is attractive as possible employment.

What’s more, maths, engineering and the sciences are now vital parts of careers that might have once seemed unrelated. It was once the case that the division between arts and science was seen as unbridgeable: you were firmly on one side or the other. Today this is far less evident.

Artists, in their many manifestations, are almost by default material scientists. Architects, photographers, musicians, video-makers, sound and lighting technicians are (arguably) technical engineers. Landscape gardeners are environmentalists, chefs are food scientists.

Everyday Stem

Stem affects everyday life at all levels. Wearing a smart watch to track our health and fitness, as so many of us do, requires analysis of data, averages and percentages. We need maths skills to navigate our personal finances. Following directions means programming a Satnav.

Young people take their attitudes, advice and directions from a multitude of sources. Concern about the environment may lead teens to consider careers in areas such as ecology or environmental engineering. The ubiquity of social media apps and the tech companies that run them raises awareness of the use of computer science or tech skills.

And leaving aside Instagram, TikTok and other social media, Sir David Attenborough’s TV series Blue Planet prompted a surge of interest in marine ecology and plastic pollution.

Nor are young people immune to social influences more broadly. In more diffuse ways, peers and parents are also influential in shaping career choices, as are science centres, museums, botanical gardens, planetariums, aquariums, environmental centres, city farms and such like.

Then there are teachers and schools. Positive experiences in school Stem prompt further study. There is increasing evidence that individual project work, industrial placements, role-model scientists, school outreach and class visits all play an important part in promoting career intentions and aspirations.

One important factor here is imbuing students with a positive Stem identity. When young people think they are good at Stem subjects and are able to be successful, they are much more likely to choose a Stem career.

The upshot here is that, as the world changes, and changes quickly, so does the realisation that Stem is an essential and invaluable dimension of life and that career prospects are varied and available at many, many levels. It seems little wonder that students have to come to see this and are enrolling in study and employment in greater numbers than before.

Mike Watts 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. Teenagers are choosing to study Stem subjects – it’s a sign of the times – https://theconversation.com/teenagers-are-choosing-to-study-stem-subjects-its-a-sign-of-the-times-263218

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Magda Osman, Professor of Policy Impact, University of Leeds

Several pieces of legislation across the world are coming into effect this year to tackle harms experienced online, such as the UK’s Online Safety Act and Australia’s Online Safety Act. There are also new standards, regulations, acts and laws related to digital products (including smart devices such as voice assistants, virtual headsets) and services such as social media platforms.

Of the many harms these types of legislation are designed to address, “psychological harm”, “mental distress” or similar terms are commonly included.

Unfortunately, when psychological harm and the like are referred to, there is typically no detailed corresponding definition of them. But while we might have an intuitive understanding of what psychological harm is, we still need precision on what it means in law. This means evidencing what it is, agreeing on how to measure it and designing the best methods to tackle it.

How do we do this? An obvious place to look is psychological science.

The origin story

The earliest reference to psychological harm was made in the 1940s. Back then, it was about the destabilising impact of war propaganda and the use of psychology to subvert people’s understanding of reality. Psychological harm was a broad term, which also applied to those witnessing the horrors of war on the front line.

In the 1950s and 1960s, psychological harm was more associated with advertising tactics that aggressively exploit people’s emotions and insecurities.

Fast forward to the early 2000s, and tools for assessing psychological harm emerged alongside clinical assessments of mental health disorders. For instance, research on abuses experienced online, such as cyberbullying and cyberstalking, documented several psychological impacts. These ranged from withdrawal from social groups, self-doubt and reduced self-esteem to mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety and PTSD.

More terms entered into clinical and forensic lexicons, such as “psychological distress”, “psychological damage” and “psychological injury”. All of them concern some form of mental adverse experience which may happen immediately or as a delayed reaction to traumatic events.

Where we are now

In reviewing the 80 years’ worth of work in clinical, forensic and cognitive psychology, here is what I see as the major issues concerning psychological harm.

There is no agreement as to where to draw the boundary between psychological harm or related concepts and mental disorders outlined in the diagnostic manual called DSM-5-TR (such as depression, anxiety or personality disorders).

There is also no standardised measure of psychological harm or psychological distress or damage. For instance, if we just take social media, there are different metrics that vary even on how they measure negative mental experiences on Tiktok, Instagram and Threads, Facebook, Youtube and Weibo.

Why does this matter? Take for example cyberbullying. There are 17 tools in existence to measure psychological harm. And because the tools don’t all align, we don’t have an accurate picture of rates of psychological harm. Some tools are too narrow in scope – they fail to include severe cases that require psychiatric treatment. And other assessments are too broad – failing to exclude those that are malingering.

What’s more, how we perceive and experience adverse events, which can be very serious and debilitating, vary – they are subjective in nature. Research in clinical and forensic psychological recognises this. These disciplines have spent time establishing standards of assessment when supporting legal decisions for ensuring appropriate punitive measures when we face terrible situations.

Three practical suggestions

For legislation to do the job of guarding against psychological harm from serious adverse experiences online and through digital technologies, forensic psychology offers a path forward.

The first thing is to have an agreed definition. For example, in 2025, the psychologist Amanda Heath proposed a viable general-purpose definition as “a sustained drop in stable functioning, negatively impacting wellbeing”.

This works in the same way as legal requirements for defining physical harm, which needs a baseline of functioning to show how an injurious event causes a change to it. The severity of the damage varies, based on, say the length of recovery (such as a week, a month, a year, never). In the same way, the length of recovery from exposure to illegal content online would indicate the severity of the psychological harm experienced.

Second, there should to be a process for demonstrating causality between a particular adverse event online and the harm itself. So far, there doesn’t appear to be any set criteria laid out in online safety or harm acts for establishing causality.

Again, legislators could learn from forensic research, which outlines two levels in psychological injury cases that establish causality – psychologically and legally. Forensic psychologists weigh the evidence for the relative ratio of pre-existing and event or post-event factors to determine causality using something called counterfactual analysis.

For example, sometimes people have pre-existing injuries, vulnerabilities, or psychopathologies. So in such cases there needs to be a baseline, where the evidence shows how an indiviudal’s conditions have been exacerbated by experiencing an injurious event. For example, if we applied this analysis to psychological harm experienced online it would work like this. Forensic psychologists would weight the evidence to determine that, in the absence of seeing the illegal content, an individual would not have experienced PTSD to the same extent that they are experiencing it currently.

Finally, there need to be standards for the evidence used to show causality between a particular adverse event online and the harm itself, which we don’t yet see in current online safety or harm acts.

In forensic psychology, on the other hand, the legal standards of evidence are high, requiring independent corroboration of psychological impacts. This is where psychiatric assessment tools of PTSD, depression and anxiety are used along with other sources of evidence. Physical outcomes (such as neurological damage) and behavioural outcomes (such as substance abuse, self-harm) are also required.

To serve the public, the law needs to improve. This can’t be achieved without a fleshed out definition of psychological harm, tools of assessment and a framework that traces a causal path from the injurious content to the harm it is considered to have caused.

Magda Osman receives funding from ESRC, EPSRC, Research England, UKRI Innovate UK, Wellcome Trust, Turing Institute, Food Standards Agency, DFG, British Academy, DSTL, Counterterrorism Policing.

– ref. Laws are introduced globally to reduce ‘psychological harm’ online – but there’s no clear definition of what it is – https://theconversation.com/laws-are-introduced-globally-to-reduce-psychological-harm-online-but-theres-no-clear-definition-of-what-it-is-263061

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amalendu Misra, Professor of International Politics, Lancaster University

A seismic political shift has taken place in Bolivia. The country’s leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) party, which has dominated Bolivian politics for nearly 20 years, was voted out of power in a general election on August 17.

Centre-right Rodrigo Paz Pereira and rightwing Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who briefly led the country in 2001, will now compete for the presidency in a run-off vote in October. According to the electoral court’s preliminary tally, Paz Pereira won 32.2% of the vote and Quiroga won 26.9%.

Bolivia’s deeply unpopular president, Luis Arce, who was the Mas presidential candidate in 2020, chose not to run. And his pick, current interior minister Eduardo del Castillo, only won 3.16% of the vote. That is just enough for the party to avoid losing its legal status.

Beyond exhaustion with the rule of Mas, the election was dominated by two critical issues. First was the dire state of the economy. Bolivia is enduring its worst economic crisis in four decades, with US dollars and fuel in short supply. Inflation also jumped from 12% in January to 23% in June. Many Bolivians are struggling to make ends meet.

Second, voters were confronted with a decision to continue Bolivia’s old style status quo politics of patronage or opt for a new political ideology. Bolivians have long experienced divisive politics under the old order. The voters were clear; they wanted change.

Speaking after the results were announced, Paz Pereira said: “Bolivia is not only calling for a change of government, it is also calling for a change to the political system. This is the beginning of a great victory and a great transformation.”

End of an era

The results are likely to put an end to the political career of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s three-time former president and the founder of Mas. Morales first entered office in 2006 as part of the “pink tide” of leftist leaders that swept into power across Latin America during the commodities boom of the early 2000s.

He was long seen as the shining light of the Latin American left. His policies lifted millions of people, particularly Bolivian indigenous communities who have suffered centuries of marginalisation and discrimination, out of poverty.

But his critics accuse him of undermining Bolivia’s political and legal institutions by, for example, appointing loyalists to the judiciary and electoral bodies.

In 2016, when a referendum narrowly failed to lift restrictions on presidential term limits, Morales appointed a constitutional court to circumvent the rules and scrap term limits altogether. This gave him the power to run for office indefinitely.

Then, in 2019, widespread protests over a disputed election resulted in Morales losing the support of the military and police. He fled Bolivia, with his supporters saying he was forced out in a coup. Morales has remained highly active in Bolivian politics since then, though this has morphed into a contentious struggle for influence.

Mas has fallen victim to bitter infighting. Arce and Morales, who initially both wanted to be the Mas 2025 presidential candidate, became locked in a fight for control of Mas. And when a constitutional court ruling barred Morales from running, he accused the government of trying to disqualify his candidacy.

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Read more:
Bolivia slides towards anarchy as two bitter rivals prepare for showdown 2025 election

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Morales called for his supporters to boycott the vote. Preliminary results suggest 19.1% of ballots were null and void, an unusually high proportion in Bolivia’s electoral history. This followed months of regular violent protests, which were most intense in rural areas where support for Morales is concentrated.

The election outcome can be seen as representing the resolve of Bolivian citizens to prevent the further erosion of their democratic institutions and put a stop to the politics of populism. While waiting to vote at polling stations across La Paz, several people said they were choosing to vote for el menos peor, the lesser evil.

Paz Pereira was a surprise vote leader. Opinion polls had suggested Samuel Doria Medina, one Bolivia’s most successful businessman, was the frontrunner. But support for Paz Pereira seems to have surged after he teamed up with Edman Lara, a TikTok-savvy former police captain who went viral for denouncing corruption within the police.

Quiroga and Doria Medina, who has now announced he will back Paz Pereira in the run-off, used their election campaigns to warn of the need for a fiscal adjustment to save Bolivia from insolvency. This may include the elimination of food and fuel subsidies, which some analysts say risks sparking social unrest.

The road ahead for Bolivia’s incoming president will be hard and bumpy. His first task will be to rein in runaway inflation. Then he will have to put back together a fractured nation marked by racial and ideological divides.

He will also have to work on realigning Bolivia’s relationship with rest of the world – by extricating itself from its strong association with pariah regimes like Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The new leader has a mountain to climb.

Amalendu Misra 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. Bolivia election: voters bring two decades of leftist politics to an end – https://theconversation.com/bolivia-election-voters-bring-two-decades-of-leftist-politics-to-an-end-263238

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

At a high-stakes meeting at the White House on August 18, the US president, Donald Trump, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, tried to hammer out the broad contours of a potential peace agreement with Russia. The tone of their encounter was in marked contrast to their last joint press conference in Washington back in February which ended with Zelensky’s humiliation by Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance.

The outcomes of the presidential get-together, and the subsequent, expanded meeting with leaders of the European coalition of the willing, were also a much more professional affair than Trump’s summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on August 15. The results of the meetings in the White House were still far from perfect. But they are a much better response to the reality in which Ukrainians have lived for the past more than three-and-a-half years than what transpired during and after the brief press conference held by the two leaders after their meeting in Alaska.

This relatively positive outcome was not a foregone conclusion. Over the weekend, Trump had put out a statement on his Truth Social platform that: “President Zelenskyy (sic) of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately”. But this came with the proviso that Zelensky would need to accept Ukraine’s loss of Crimea to Russia and forego his country’s future Nato membership. This, and similar ideas of land swaps between Russia and Ukraine, have already been roundly rejected by the Ukrainian president.

Importantly, Kyiv’s position has been fully backed by Ukraine’s European allies. Leaders of the coalition of the willing issued a joint statement on August 16 to the effect that any territorial concessions were Ukraine’s to make or refuse.

On Nato membership, their statement was more equivocal. European leaders asserted that Russia should not be allowed to have a veto on Ukraine’s choices.
But the coalition’s reiteration of the commitment that it is “ready to play an active role” in guaranteeing Ukraine’s future security opened up a pathway to Trump to “Article 5-like protections” for Ukraine against future Russian aggression and promising “a lot of help when it comes to security”. Nato’s Article 5 guarantees that an attack on one member is an attack on all and commits the alliance to collective defence.

A possibly emerging deal – some territorial concessions by Ukraine in exchange for peace and joint US and European security guarantees – appeared to become more certain during the televised meeting between Trump and his visitors before their closed-door discussions. In different ways, each of the European guests acknowledged the progress that Trump had made towards a settlement and they all emphasised the importance of a joint approach to Russia to make sure that any agreement would bring a just and lasting peace.

As an indication that his guests were unwilling to simply accept whatever deal he had brought back with him from his meeting with Putin in Alaska, the US president then interrupted the meeting to call the Russian president. Signals from Russia were far from promising with Moscow rejecting any Nato troop deployments to Ukraine and singling out the UK as allegedly seeking to undermine the US-Russia peace effort.

Peace remains elusive

When the meeting concluded and the different leaders offered their interpretations of what had been agreed, two things became clear. First, the Ukrainian side had not folded under pressure from the US, and European leaders, while going out of their way to flatter Trump, held their ground as well. Importantly, Trump had not walked away from the process either but appeared to want to remain engaged.

Second, Russia had not given any ground, either. According to remarks by Putin’s foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, posted on the Kremlin’s official website, Russia would consider “the possibility of raising the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian parties”. His statement falls short of, but does not rule out, the possibility of a Zelensky-Putin summit, which Trump announced as a major success after the White House meetings yesterday.

Such a meeting was seen as the next logical step towards peace by all the participants of the White House meeting and would be followed, according to Trump, by what he called “a Trilat” of the Ukrainian, Russian and American presidents. The lack of clear confirmation by Russia that such meetings would indeed happen raises more doubts about the Kremlin’s sincerity.

But the fact that a peace process – if it can be called that – remains somewhat intact is a far cry from an actual peace agreement. Little if anything was said in the aftermath of the White House meeting on territorial issues. Pressure on Russia only came up briefly in comments by European leaders, whose ambitions to become formally involved in actual peace negotiations remain a pipe dream for the time being. And, despite the initial optimism about security guarantees, no firm commitments were made with Zelensky only noting “the important signal from the United States regarding its readiness to support and be part of these guarantees”.

Peace in Ukraine thus remains elusive, for now. The only tangible success is that whatever Trump imagines as the process to a peace agreement did not completely fall apart. But as this process unfolds, its progress, if any, happens at a snail’s pace. Meanwhile the Russian war machine deployed against Ukraine grinds forward.

At the end of the day, yesterday’s events changed little. They merely confirmed that Putin keeps playing for time, that Trump is unwilling to put real pressure on him and that Ukraine and Europe have no effective leverage on either side.

Trump boldly claimed ahead of his meetings with Zelensky and the leaders of the coalition of the willing that he knew exactly what he was doing. That may be true – but it may also not be enough without knowing and understanding what his counterpart in the Kremlin is doing.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Transatlantic unity at the White House disguises lack of progress towards just peace for Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/transatlantic-unity-at-the-white-house-disguises-lack-of-progress-towards-just-peace-for-ukraine-263353

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rory Wilson, Professor of Aquatic Biology and Sustainable Aquaculture, Swansea University

Poohsticks, the game in which Piglet and Winnie the Pooh throw sticks into the river from one side of a bridge, and then rush over to the other side to see whose stick appears first, is all about current flow. Disappointingly, neither Piglet nor Pooh mention fluid dynamics despite its pivotal importance in determining who won.

Unlike sticks, though, animals can respond to those flows. The movement of water and air – with their winds and currents – can affect flying and swimming animals profoundly. And as we recently discovered, penguins are far more tuned in to these dynamics than anyone realised.

Anyone who’s ever swum in the sea will know how cross-currents can drag you along the coast, even when you’re trying to swim straight in. Magellanic penguins, a South American penguin, face this challenge daily, but they appear to have found a clever solution.

Penguins can swim far from land but seem to know exactly where they are. More importantly, they seem to know how to get back to their breeding colonies, whether currents are confounding them or not.

To understand how they do this, our team – which included researchers from Argentina, Germany, Japan and the UK – fitted high-tech tracking tags to Magellanic penguins breeding in Argentina. These birds often forage up to 43 miles offshore, far beyond the range of visual landmarks. And it’s unlikely they’re using the seafloor as a map, as Magellanics rarely dive that deep.

The tech we placed on the penguins recorded some pivotal information. Global positioning systems (GPS) gave the birds’ positions when they were at the surface between dives. And trajectories underwater could be calculated using dead reckoning. This is what a car navigation system does when it goes into a tunnel – it starts with the last GPS position and uses vectors on the car heading and speed to work out the path.

Our team did this with the penguins’ data, calculating the underwater pathways for every second of their one to three day trips. We then integrated this with the currents. This was no simple undertaking because currents change dramatically over the tidal cycle and vary with position.

So what could the penguins do in such a dynamic environment? One option (assuming they somehow knew both where they were and where home was) would be to head straight for the colony. But doing this would often have meant swimming against strong currents, sometimes of up to 2 metres per second (around 4.5mph). That’s about the same speed as an Olympic swimmer.

Although penguins can cruise at that speed, going faster to beat the current would cost them a lot of extra energy.

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Swimming in the sweet spot: how marine animals save energy on long journeys

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Interestingly, we found that during slack water, when the currents were trivial, the penguins headed directly home. So, somehow they knew where they were in relation to the colony. Theories about how animals might do this include them using magnetic field sensing, celestial cues, or even using smell to find their way but it’s a mysterious and hotly debated topic among experts.

When the current was strong, the penguins generally aimed in the right direction to return home. But they often combined this with swimming in the same general direction as the current, which typically flowed across the direct line to the nest. So, some birds appeared set to overshoot the colony, probably landing further down the coast.

However, the yin and yang of tidal currents means that what flows one way on the rising tide reverses on the ebb. The penguins seemed to understand this. They swam roughly equivalent, but mirror-imaged, trajectories on both incoming and outgoing tides, according to the direction of the current.

This strategy effectively cancels out potential overshoots over the course of a tidal cycle. Once they were close enough to the colony, the penguins launched into a final burst of power and made a direct line for home. This strategy increases the length of the path to get home. But it’s easy travelling since much of the work to move is done by the current and the increased distance gives the penguins opportunities to find prey.

Navigational experts

This suggests that Magellanic penguins can detect both the direction and speed of ocean currents. While some theories propose that animals sense small-scale turbulence to gauge flow, the mechanisms remain poorly understood.

Still, what these penguins manage is remarkable. It’s a kind of navigational party trick that helps ensure they return reliably to feed their chicks, seemingly untroubled by shifting currents.

Ocean and air circulation patterns are becoming more chaotic with climate change. If penguins, and other marine animals, can keep navigating our waters with skill and instinct, it’s one small piece of good news in a rapidly changing world.

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. Going with the flow: how penguins use tides to travel and hunt – https://theconversation.com/going-with-the-flow-how-penguins-use-tides-to-travel-and-hunt-262267