Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Politics; Director, Lau China Institute, King’s College London

Zhang Youxia, a top military general and vice-chairman of the body in overall command of China’s military forces, was removed from office on January 23. His departure means all but one of the seven members of the central military commission (CMC), which is chaired by Chinese president Xi Jinping, have lost their positions in the last three years.

Xi has an established record of purging senior officials. Back at the dawn of his tenure as head of the Chinese Communist party in the early 2010s, there were a series of high-level fellings. Bo Xilai, a fellow politburo member who was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges, was perhaps the most commented on.

But even Zhou Yongkang, a former senior party leader, was taken in under corruption charges in 2013 and expelled from the party. The slogan used by party leadership at the time was that even tigers needed to be afraid, not just flies. There were no exceptions when it came to party loyalty – no one was exempt and no one was safe.

Xi then turned his attention to the party’s armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which has been undergoing a series of abrupt personnel changes in recent years. In mid-2023, the then-minister of defence, Li Shangfu, disappeared from public view before being removed from office. This was followed by the removal of a number of senior military figures, largely on corruption claims.

The formal announcement of Zhang being under investigation was issued in the official party newspaper, the People’s Daily. He was accused with fellow CMC member Liu Zhenli of having severely fuelled political and corruption problems that threaten the party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces. It has thus led to external speculation of power struggles and internal fights.

No one really knows what is happening in the inner circle of Chinese leadership at the moment. It is a largely watertight place. Stories of Zhang leaking nuclear secrets to the US and plotting a coup against Xi that led to a gunfight in Beijing thus need to be treated with a great deal of scepticism. What is less contentious is the claim that the PLA is afflicted with ongoing structural issues.

China’s military issues

Zhang is in his seventies and is one of the very few senior military figures in China with actual combat experience, having served in the war against Vietnam in the late 1970s. He is also reportedly a native of an area near to where Xi’s family hailed from in the Shaanxi province of north-west China. This has been given as reason for the claim that the two are long-term friends.

But in the uppermost reaches of Chinese politics, sentiments and emotional links are unlikely to have much currency. For Xi, the priority is to deal with a world undergoing dramatic change. The US has become unpredictable and is now fighting not just with its enemies but also its friends.

That unpredictability is not welcome to a China that is dealing with significant economic, environmental and demographic issues. It does not want to become burdened with international obligations before it feels it can manage these.

And while many China-watchers have talked of 2027 marking the date when China may launch an invasion of Taiwan, over which it continues to claim sovereignty, the reality is that China’s military is untested in combat in recent decades. No one, including the Chinese themselves, know how it might perform.

The unease of China’s leaders at the poor showing of the much more experienced Russian forces in Ukraine underlines this. Several months after the invasion, an article in the People’s Daily criticised Russia’s performance, concluding that its military was too weak and its capabilities too limited to achieve its objectives. An amphibious operation in Taiwan will be far more difficult than Russia’s ground invasion of Ukraine.

Xi has demanded absolute loyalty and discipline from his political colleagues. The same extends to the PLA. The main objective is that it is battle-ready and able to deploy should opportunities arise, even if these were not expected to happen. The military must be ideologically and practically ready to move. It cannot be distracted by divisions and fractures within.

Zhang is clearly a man with rich and extensive experience, but there have been rumours for some time that he and Xi had disagreed on specific issues. As the Chinese saying goes, there can never be two tigers on the same mountain – Xi can only tolerate so much dissent, even from a figure with huge stature and seemingly incontestable credentials.

In the short term, all of this shows that the PLA is likely to be viewed as not yet fully ready to undertake major tasks such as mounting operations against Taiwan that are expected of it. In the longer term, the key thing is to watch is who replaces the figures already felled.

The coming year is likely to be one of generational change in China, at the provincial and then national level. China’s current key leaders are all in their late sixties and early seventies. While Xi himself is unlikely to move aside any time soon, those around him are going to experience a reshuffle.

The military will be seeing new core leaders. Who is appointed, what their backgrounds are and what that may mean for the overall posture of the country will be crucial things to track in the weeks and months ahead.

Kerry Brown 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. Why Xi purged China’s top military general – https://theconversation.com/why-xi-purged-chinas-top-military-general-274384

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University

For most people, cold weather is an inconvenience, requiring an extra layer of clothing or the thermostat to be turned up. For others, exposure to cold can trigger an allergic reaction severe enough to cause them to collapse.

Cold urticaria is a rare but potentially dangerous condition in which contact with cold temperatures causes the immune system to misfire. The results can be hives, swelling, pain and in some cases, life-threatening anaphylaxis.

The condition was first described in 1792 by a German physician called Johann Peter Frank. Today, we know it is almost twice as common in women than in men, with the average age of onset in the early twenties, though it can affect people at any age.

There is some good news: between 24% and 50% of people with the condition see improvement – or even full recovery – over the years.

There are two forms of the condition. Primary cold urticaria is the most common, accounting for about 95% of cases and often has no known cause. The remaining 5% are classified as secondary urticaria, which is linked to underlying conditions or infections, such as the Epstein-Barr virus, certain types of lymphoma (blood cancer), HIV and hepatitis C.

Primary cold urticaria typically causes a rash, swelling, bumps or hives, though some people also report fatigue, fever and aching joints. Symptoms usually appear when the skin is exposed to cold, but can also occur as the skin warms up again. Triggers aren’t limited to cold weather – they can include swimming, eating frozen food, drinking cold liquids and handling cold objects.

Aside from a few very rare genetic causes, why some people develop primary cold urticaria remains unknown. What is clear is that mast cells are involved. These sentinel cells act as first responders in the body’s tissues – including the skin – alerting the immune system to danger signals or germs.

What triggers their activation in cold urticaria remains a mystery, though one theory suggests that cold exposure causes the body to produce so-called autoallergens – substances that trigger an immune response against the body’s own tissues. Much more research is needed to understand how this happens.

When mast cells are activated, they release a chemical called histamine. Think of histamine as an alarm that alerts other immune cells to rush to the area. It also makes the blood vessels in that part of your body widen and become “leakier”, which causes the telltale swelling, redness and itchiness.

Normally, this response is helpful – the extra blood flow and leaky blood vessels allow immune cells to squeeze out of the bloodstream and into the surrounding tissue to fight off a genuine threat. But in cold urticaria, it’s a false alarm. Your body is mounting a full-scale immune response when there’s nothing to fight, causing discomfort without any benefit.

Doctors test for cold urticaria by placing an ice cube on a patient’s forearm and watching what happens after they remove it. This test typically follows patients noticing they develop welts, hives or rashes on exposure to cold things. This must be done by a medical professional because in about 20% of cases, it can trigger anaphylaxis.

The condition is quite rare, affecting six in every 10,000 people. But it may be underdiagnosed as not all sufferers have severe symptoms and, in some countries, particularly tropical ones, temperatures tend not to drop below 0°C in winter.

Once diagnosed, it’s important to help people with cold urticaria avoid or recognise their trigger temperatures. There are two measures that may be assessed, depending on the availability of measuring devices. One is the cold stimulation time test, which indicates how quickly your skin reacts to cold with a lump or rash (a shorter time suggests a more active response). The other measure is the critical temperature threshold, which is the warmest temperature that can still trigger symptoms.

Antihistamines and beyond

There are treatments that can help manage the symptoms. One approach is taking antihistamines before exposure to cold environments or stimuli.

For many people, though, a standard oral antihistamine dose isn’t enough. Sometimes, up to four times the standard dose may be needed. The trade-off is that some antihistamines can have a sedating effect, so caution is needed.

About 60% of people with cold urticaria respond well to treatment with antihistamines.

During short flare-ups, other drugs, such as corticosteroids, may be beneficial, although longer-term use brings side-effects, such as weight gain, indigestion and mood changes.

Severe cases can be treated with a monoclonal antibody called Omalizumab, which targets immunoglobulin E, a molecule involved in mast cell activation.

Another option is desensitisation: gradually exposing the skin to cooler temperatures over several days (although, sometimes over a few hours) to try to overcome the response and histamine release. There have been some successes with this approach, but most of the studies have been small.

For people with the most severe cases, adrenaline is a lifesaving option in response to anaphylaxis, though it appears to be under-prescribed in patients with cold urticaria.

People with this condition also face increased risk during surgical procedures, where anaesthetic drugs reduce core body temperature and operating theatres are kept deliberately cool. While warming measures are used during surgery, for people with heightened sensitivity to cold, this can present an additional risk.

As winter continues, it’s worth remembering that for some people, the cold isn’t just uncomfortable – it can be genuinely dangerous. Understanding and recognising cold urticaria could make all the difference.

Adam Taylor 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. Allergic to the cold? It’s a real thing and it can even kill – https://theconversation.com/allergic-to-the-cold-its-a-real-thing-and-it-can-even-kill-273984

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Duncan Sayer, Professor in Archaeology, University of Lancashire

Four early Anglo-Saxon swords uncovered during a recent archaeological excavation I took part in each tell a story about how weapons were viewed at the time. There was also a striking discovery of a child buried with spear and shield. Was the child an underage fighter? Or were weapons more than mere tools of war to these people?

Weapons are embedded with values. Would, for example, the Jedi knights in the Star Wars franchise have as much nobility if they were armed with knives instead of light sabres? Today, modern armies fight remotely with missiles and drones, or mechanically with guns and armour. Yet in many countries, an officer still has a ceremonial sword, which worn incorrectly might even reveal an imposter.

The excavation, which I carried out with archaeologist Andrew Richardson, focused on an early medieval cemetery and our swords were found in graves. Our team from the University of Lancashire and Isle Heritage has excavated around 40 graves in total. The discovery can be seen in BBC2’s Digging for Britain.

One of the swords we uncovered has a decorated silver pommel (the rear part of the handle) and ring which is fixed to the handle. It is a beautiful, high status 6th century object sheathed in a beaver fur lined scabbard. The other sword has a small silver hilt and wide, ribbed, gilt scabbard mouth – two elements with different artistic styles, from different dates, brought together on one weapon.

This mixture was also seen in the Staffordshire Hoard (discovered in 2009) which featured 78 pommels and 100 hilt collars with a range of dates from the 5th to the 7th centuries AD.

In medieval times, swords – or their parts – were curated by their owners, and old swords were valued more highly than new ones.

The Old English poem Beowulf (probably composed between the 8th and early 11th century) describes old swords (“ealdsweord”), ancient swords (“gomelswyrd”) and heirlooms (“yrfelafe”). As well as describing “waepen wundum heard” – “weapons hardened by wounds”.

There are two sword riddles in the Exeter Book, a large codex of poetry written down in the 10th century (although the texts within it may describe earlier attitudes). In riddle 80, the sword describes itself: “I am a warrior’s shoulder-companion”. It’s an interesting turn of phrase given our 6th century discoveries. In each case the hilt was placed at the shoulder and the arm of the deceased appeared to hug the weapon.

A comparable embrace has been seen in burials at Dover Buckland, also in Kent. There were two in Blacknall Field, Wiltshire, and one in West Garth Gardens, Suffolk. It is, however, unusual to see four people buried like this in one cemetery, and interestingly they were found in close proximity.

The part of the cemetery we have excavated includes several weapon burials placed around a deep grave with a ring ditch enclosing it. A small mound of earth would have been built over the top of the grave marking it out.

This earliest grave – the one that the others weapon graves used to guide their location – contained a man without metal artefacts or weapons. Weapon graves were more popular in the generations either side of the middle 6th century, so it is likely this person was buried before the fashion to dress the dead with weapons was established. Perhaps because during the tumultuous later 5th century and earliest years of the 6th century weapons were valued too highly for the defence of the living.

Our further discovery of a 10-12 year old child’s grave with a spear and shield adds to this picture. The child’s curved spine made it unlikely he could use these weapons comfortably.

A second grave of a younger child contained a large silver belt buckle. This looks to have been far too large to be worn by the boy who was just two to three years old. Graves with objects like these usually belong to adult men, large buckles were a symbol of office in later Roman and early Medieval contexts, for example the spectacular gold examples from Sutton Hoo.

So why were these objects found in the graves? Recent DNA results point to the importance of relatedness, particularly within the Y chromosome that denotes male ancestry.

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At West Helsterton in east Yorkshire, DNA results point to a biological relationships between men buried in close proximity. Many of these men had weapons, including one with a sword and two spears. Many of the other male graves were placed around their heavily armed ancestor.

We are not saying that ancient weapons were purely ceremonial. Dents on shields, and wear on bladed weapons speak of practice and conflict. Injury and early death seen in skeletons testifies to the use of weapons in early medieval society and early English poetry speaks of grief and loss as much as heroism.

As Beowulf shows, feelings of loss were bound up in the display of the male dead and their weapons as well as fears for the future:

The Geat people built a pyre for Beowulf, Beowulf’s funeral

stacked and decked it until it stood four-square,

hung with helmets, heavy war-shields

and shining armour, just as he had ordered.

Then his warriors laid him in the middle of it,

mourning a lord far-famed and beloved.

The weapons in our graves were as much as an expression of loss and grief, as they were a physical statement about strength or masculinity and the male family. Even battle hardened and ancient warriors cried, and they buried their dead with weapons like swords that told stories.

The spear, shield and buckles found in little graves spoke of the men these children might have become.

Duncan Sayer would like to thank Dr Andrew Richardson who is a co-director of the east Kent excavation project.

– ref. Four early medieval swords found in Kent – child graves reveal they were more than just weapons – https://theconversation.com/four-early-medieval-swords-found-in-kent-child-graves-reveal-they-were-more-than-just-weapons-274059

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jay Silverstein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Forensics, Nottingham Trent University

When Aztec emissaries arrived in 1520 to Tzintzuntzan, the capital of the Tarascan Kingdom in what is now the Mexican state of Michoacán, they carried a warning from the Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc.

They cautioned that strange foreigners – the Spaniards – had invaded the land and posed a grave threat. The emissaries requested an audience with the Tarascan ruler, known as the Cazonci, King Zuanga. But Zuanga had recently died, most likely from smallpox brought by the Spaniards.

Relations between the two empires had long been tense. They had clashed on the western frontier since 1476, fighting major battles and fortifying their borders. The Tarascans viewed the Aztecs as deceitful and dangerous – a threat to their very existence.

So, when the emissaries arrived to speak with a king who was already dead, they were sacrificed and granted audience with him in the afterlife. In that moment, the fate of the Aztecs was sealed in blood.

The Aztec empire did not fall because it lacked capability. It collapsed because it accumulated too many adversaries who resented its dominance. This is a historical episode the US president, Donald Trump, should take notice of as his rift with traditional US allies deepens.

Carl von Clausewitz and other philosophers of war have distinguished the concepts of force and power in relation to statecraft. In the broadest sense, power is ideological capital, predicated on military strength and influence in the global political sphere. In contrast, force is the exertion of military might to coerce other nations to your political will.

While power can be sustained through a strong economy, alliances and moral influence, force is expended. It drains resources and can erode internal political capital as well as global influence if it is used in a way that is perceived as arrogant or imperialistic.

The Aztec empire formed in 1428 as a triple alliance between the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, with Tenochtitlan eventually dominating the political structure. The empire exerted force through seasonal military campaigns and balanced this with a power dynamic of sacrificial display, threat, tribute and a culture of racial superiority.

In both its use of force and power, the Aztec empire was coercive and depended on fear to rule. Those subjugated by the empire, and those engaged in what seemed perpetual war, held great animosity and distrust of the Aztecs. The empire was thus built on conquered people and enemies waiting for the right opportunity to overthrow their overlords.

Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador who ultimately brought large parts of what is now Mexico under the rule of Spain, exploited this hostility. He forged alliances with Tlaxcala and other former Aztec subjects, augmenting his small Spanish force with thousands of indigenous warriors.

Cortés led this Spanish-indigenous force against the Aztecs and besieged them in Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs had only one hope: to persuade the other great power in Mexico, the Tarascan empire to the west, to join forces with them. Their first emissaries met an ill fate. So, they tried again.

In 1521, Aztec envoys arrived once more in Tzintzuntzan and this time met with the new lord, Tangáxuan II. They brought captured steel weapons, a crossbow and armour to demonstrate the military threat they faced.

The Tarascan king paid attention. He sent an exploratory mission to the frontier to determine whether this was Aztec trickery or truth. As they arrived at the frontier, they met a group of Chichimecs – semi-nomadic warrior people who often worked for empires to patrol borders.

When told the mission was heading to Tenochtitlan to scout the situation, the Chichimecs replied that they were too late. It was only a city of death now, and they were on their way to the Tarascan king to offer their services. Tangáxuan submitted to the Spanish as a tributary kingdom the following year before being burned to death in 1530 by Spaniards trying to find where he had hidden gold.

Had the Tarascans maintained normal political relations with the Aztecs, they might have investigated the report of the first emissaries. One can imagine how history would be different if, during the siege of Tenochtitlan, 40,000 Tarascan warriors – renowned archers – had descended from the mountains to the west. It is unlikely that Cortés and his army could have prevailed.

American foreign policy

The failings of the Aztec empire were not due to a lack of courage or military prowess. During their battles with the Spanish, the Aztecs repeatedly demonstrated adaptability, learning how to fight against horses and cannon-laden ships.

The failing was a fundamental flaw in the political strategy of the empire – it was built on coercion and fear, leaving a ready force to challenge its authority when it was most vulnerable.

The foreign policy of the US since 2025, when Trump entered office for his second term, has emulated this model. Recently, the Trump administration has been projecting coercive power to support its ambitions for wealth, notoriety and to project American exceptionalism and manifest superiority.

This has manifested in threats or the exercise of limited force, such as tariffs or military attacks in Iran, Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela. Increasingly, other nations are challenging the effectiveness of this power. Colombia, Panama, Mexico and Canada, for example, have largely ignored the threat of coercive power.

As Trump uses American power to demand Greenland, his threats are becoming more feeble. Nato nations are abiding by their longstanding pact with economic and military resolve, with their leaders saying they will not give in to Trump’s pressure. The US is being pushed towards a position where it will have to switch from coercive power to coercive force.

If this course persists, military engagements, animosity from neighbours and vulnerabilities arising from the strength of other militaries, economic disruptions and environmental catastrophes may well leave the world’s most powerful nation exposed with no allies.

Jay Silverstein received funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Foundation for the Advancment of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI), and The Penn State Hill Foundation that supported his doctoral studies.

– ref. The Aztec empire’s collapse shows why ruling through coercion and force fails – https://theconversation.com/the-aztec-empires-collapse-shows-why-ruling-through-coercion-and-force-fails-273528

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Coxhead, Visiting Professor in Solution Oriented Policing, De Montfort University

The government has announced a massive shake-up of policing in England and Wales, with the aim to balance providing a local police service across the country while also facing national threats. It involves the creation of a new National Police Service (touted as a “British FBI”) and reducing the number of forces across England and Wales from 43 to a possible 12 bigger, regional forces.

Elected police and crime commissioners will be replaced by regional mayors, or police and crime boards from 2028. And Whitehall will be given refreshed powers to intervene in failing forces.

The last strategic reform of policing in England and Wales was informed by a royal commission, in May 1962. This examined policing function, accountability, public relationships and staffing. It led to the current structure, cutting the number of forces down from 117.

The government claims its plans will deliver better governance and improve both national capabilities for challenging crimes and local visibility of policing. Yet, unlike in 1962, 2026 reform avoids addressing a key problem: the relationship the public wants with the police.

The idea of “policing by consent” underpins policing in the UK. Key to this is the police working with the public. But fewer than half of the public have confidence in their local policing. Data consistently shows the public do not like or want what they are getting.

The government is proposing to introduce new local policing guarantees, setting out “the minimum levels of service the public should expect to receive from their police force wherever in England and Wales they live”.

But this doesn’t need to involve a massive structural overhaul. Research tells us what the public wants is basic: they want the police to turn up, and care. Good policing relies on building relationships of trust – but you can’t achieve that by not being there.

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Police are failing to deliver a minimum standard of service, according to the UK public

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Lack of response

The police inspectorate has noted in recent years that understaffing and inexperienced policing teams have left forces unable to respond effectively: “This can lead to non-emergency calls for help from the public waiting days for a response, or investigations failing because key lines of enquiry have been missed.”

As part of the overhaul, the government is proposing national response and performance targets for 999 calls and for officers attending a scene. Slow response times are one thing, but not turning up at all is the bigger issue. Reports of forces screening out calls sends a message to the public that the police don’t care, and to criminals that they can get away with it.

The government argues that its proposed approach will mean less pressure on local forces to address national issues, freeing up resources to deal with local crime. But the current largest force, the Met, struggles to solve large numbers of reported crimes. I would argue that moving local policing further away from communities will further erode any working relationship with policing’s greatest stakeholder: the public.

The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee introduced in April 2025 promised to deliver better response times, but the public are still frustrated with the lack of police response to visible, low-level crimes.

Shoplifting alone is seen to be “spiralling out of control” with a brazen 20% increase in the year to March 2025. And yet the head of the Met police has called on shopkeepers to do more to protect themselves.

The proposals aim to “ensure that shop theft and assaults on shopworkers will no longer go unpunished by bringing in new powers and providing additional funding to policing, working with retailers, to take further action”.

When the police do turn up, they do not need new powers, they just need to use the powers they’ve already got. But to do that warranted police officers (with actual powers of arrest) need to be the boots on the ground – not an app, a bot or a drone.

Just like ambulances, the public should be able to rely on the police in an emergency. There needs to be far more proactive, preventative work done with partners on long-term solutions. We simply can’t afford a perpetual reactive problem solving model.

Rebuilding trust

The government is proposing a number of reforms to increase policing standards and trust, including (a yet-to-be costed) “Licence to Practise” that police officers will need to renew over their career. But officers already swear an oath of operational independence for their warrant card – this risks adding more administrative burden on overly stretched officers, despite a claim that administrative red tape will be cut.

Police officer numbers are already falling, with forces losing nearly 1,500 this year alone, largely driven by losses at the Met. The government has committed to 13,000 more neighbourhood officers, but has also placed an emphasis on automative technology. This could, I argue, be used to justify fewer actual police officers in the future.

Rising crime, coupled with falling public confidence, represents a crisis in policing. The argument is that there is an “urgent” need to better tackle crime and improve trust and confidence, yet reforms of this scale will take time.

The police must work with the public on solutions that pay for themselves. This would not rely on restructuring necessarily, just listening to people about what good policing looks like, then working together on making that happen.

John Coxhead receives funding from the Police for Research.

– ref. The public wants police to show up and care – will new reforms in England and Wales do this? – https://theconversation.com/the-public-wants-police-to-show-up-and-care-will-new-reforms-in-england-and-wales-do-this-274439

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Roberts, Professor of Nutritional Physiology, Anglia Ruskin University

Finding the energy to exercise in the morning or after a long day is a common problem. This might explain why pre-workout supplements have become so popular. These supplements can bring you more focus and energy for your training sessions – making it possible to get to the gym, no matter how tired you are.

Pre-workout supplements usually contain multiple ingredients – each of which have different effects on the body.

The primary ingredient in most pre-workouts are stimulants such as caffeine or guarana (a plant which contains caffeine). Stimulants help increase focus and alertness. Caffeine may also make workouts feel easier.

Research shows even a single dose of pre-workout supplement containing caffeine before exercising can lead to small improvements in the number of repetitions a person can do, their power and the amount of weight they can lift during a session.

However, these benefits may solely be due to the caffeine itself. When pre-workout supplements are directly compared against the same dose of caffeine on its own, the supplements generally don’t outperform caffeine. Sometimes, caffeine even works as well or better in improving performance.

Taking between 3-6mg of caffeine per kg (around 225-450 mg for a 75kg person, the equivalent of 2-4 cups of strong coffee) can increase strength by around 7%. It can also enhance endurance by around 15%. This might not sound like much, but over time this can lead to significant training gains.

Alongside caffeine, pre-workout supplements contain other ingredients that reportedly help reduce fatigue and boost fitness gains. For instance, many pre-workouts contain beta-alanine – an amino acid usually found in meat which can counteract muscle tiredness.

One challenge of training is that we produce the chemical lactic acid. This can lead to fatigue and impact training quality, particularly if the training is hard.

This is where beta-alanine comes in. Beta-alanine increases muscle levels of carnosine, a molecule that buffers against lactic acid. This helps delay the fatigue we often experience lifting weights or doing intense training.

However, unlike caffeine, beta‑alanine doesn’t work from a single dose. It must be taken daily for around 2–4 weeks to have any effect.

Creatine is another nutrient added to pre-workout formulas to maximise training gains. Creatine works by restoring short-term energy. This helps us recover faster between sets, making it possible to do more work when training.

Creatine also works better if taken regularly for around four weeks. Taking a single dose of a pre-workout containing creatine probably won’t benefit training quality – though some research does suggest it may help reduce fatigue and boost brain power after a poor night’s sleep.

Alongside creatine, many blends include amino acids such as leucine and taurine. Leucine supports muscle gains, while taurine may help reduce muscle soreness. Both work alongside creatine to support training benefits.

Other amino acids sometimes found in pre-workout formulations include citrulline and arginine. These nutrients increase nitric oxide, a molecule which increases blood flow and oxygen to muscles – helping them function more efficiently.

This effect may improve endurance ability or temporarily make muscles look bigger when doing resistance training, which many people look for. However, not all evidence supports this.

Some pre-workouts formulas also claim to contain ingredients that can help with weight loss or fat burning – such as green tea or carnitine.

These nutrients may enhance the body’s ability to burn fat for energy during and after exercise – although not all studies agree on this. It’s also not clear whether these nutrients actually lead to greater, long-term weight loss as a result.

More recently, supplements have begun including natural nootropics. These plant-based compounds support brain chemicals involved in concentration or energy required by the brain, which is why nootropics may help improve focus, alertness, mood and motivation.

Nootropics such as theanine can improve alertness and athletic performance. Others nootropics, such as ashwagandha or rhodiola rosea, may enhance endurance and the ability to deal with physical and mental stress.

The verdict

Looking at the evidence, pre-workout supplements can modestly boost energy, strength, focus and stamina when used alongside a training program. However, as it may take several weeks for specific ingredients to have an effect, such supplements may need to be taken consistently.

If you’re going to take a pre-workout supplement, it’s best to take it around 30-60 minutes before your workout so it can take effect. Preferably, choose products that are batch‑tested to ensure quality.

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Does coffee burn more fat during exercise? What the evidence tells us

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Since the main ingredient in pre-workouts tends to be caffeine, those who train later in the day might want to use formulas with a lower caffeine content (or none at all) to avoid sleep issues and anxiety.

Excessive caffeine intake can also lead to gut issues for some, so always check the label to see what the doses are.

Most pre-workout formulas are generally considered safe for most people to use over a period of a few weeks.

However, those with heart issues should avoid formulas containing high levels of stimulants – particularly products containing p‑synephrine (bitter orange). This plant derivative has been linked with heart issues – especially when combined with caffeine.

Researchers also currently don’t know the effects of pre-workout supplements during pregnancy, so it might be best to avoid them – particularly if the caffeine content is high.

Some people may also experience side-effects from taking pre-workout supplements – most commonly tingling or itchiness which occurs around 30 minutes of taking a pre-workout. This is usually caused by higher intake of beta-alanine which affects sensory receptors in the skin.

These effects are harmless, and usually subside within an hour. Taking a smaller dose or using a timed-release formulation can minimise effects.

Overall, although the benefits of pre-workouts may be small, if the supplement helps you train more consistently, this will ultimately benefit your training results.

Professor Justin Roberts is employed by Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge and Danone Research & Innovation, and has previously received external research funding unrelated to this article.

Fernando Naclerio is employed by the University of Greenwich (UK) and is a consultant for Crown Sport Nutrition, Spain.

Joseph Lillis 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 pre-workout supplements benefit your workouts? – https://theconversation.com/can-pre-workout-supplements-benefit-your-workouts-273496

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Helen Margetts, Professor of Society and the Internet, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, University of Oxford

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web, he articulated his dream for the internet to unlock creativity and collaboration on a global scale. But he also wondered “whether it will be a technical dream or a legal nightmare”. History has answered that question with a troubling “both”.

The 2003 Broadway musical Avenue Q brilliantly captured this duality. A puppet singing about the internet cheerfully begins the chorus “the internet is really, really good …” only to be cut off by another puppet who adds “… for porn!” The song illustrates an enduring truth: every new technological network has, ultimately, been used for legal, criminal and should-be-criminal sexual activity.

In the 1980s, even the French government-backed pre-internet network Minitel was taken over by what one publisher described as a “plague” – a “new genre of difficult-to-detect, mostly sexually linked crimes”. This included murders, kidnaps and the “leasing” of children for sexual purposes.

The internet, social media and now large language models are “really, really good” in many ways – but they all suffer from the same plague. And policymakers have generally been extremely slow to react.

The UK’s Online Safety Act was seven years in the making. The protracted parliamentary debate exposed real tensions on how to protect fundamental rights of free speech and privacy. The act received royal assent in 2023, but is still not fully implemented.

In 2021-22, the children’s commissioner for England led a government review into online sexual harassment and abuse. She found that pornography exposure among young people was widespread and normalised.

Action was slow to follow. Three years after the commissioner’s report, the UK became the first country in the world to introduce laws criminalising tools used to create AI-generated child sexual abuse material as part of the crime and policing bill. But a year on, the bill is still being debated in parliament.

It takes something really horrible for policymakers to take swift action. As the extent to which xAI chatbot Grok was being used to create non-consensual nudified and sexualised images of identifiable women and children from photographs became clear, it transpired that the provisions in the UK’s Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, which criminalises creating such images, had not been activated. Only after widespread outcry did the government bring these provisions into force.

When it comes to the issue of children and sexual images, AI has supercharged every known harm. The Internet Watch Foundation warned that AI was becoming a “child sexual abuse machine”, generating horrific imagery.

The UK public are increasingly in favour of AI regulation. In a 2024 survey of public attitudes to AI, 72% of the British public said that “laws and regulations” would make them more comfortable with AI, up 10 percentage points from 2022. They are particularly concerned about AI deepfakes. But bigger debates about what regulation of the internet means have stymied action.

The free speech question

Some politicians and tech leaders conflate the issue of regulating nonconsensual sexual content with the issue of free speech.

Grok’s abilities to create sexualised images of identifiable adults and children became evident at the end of last year, reportedly after Elon Musk, founder of xAI, ordered staff to loosen the guardrails on Grok because he was “unhappy about over-censoring”. His view is that only content that breaks the law should be removed and any other content moderation is down to the “woke mind virus”. When the controversy erupted, he claimed that critics “just want to suppress free speech”.

Linking regulation to attacks on a “free” internet has a long history that plays on the heartstrings of early internet enthusiasts. According to Tim Berners-Lee’s account, in 1996 when John Patrick, a member of the world wide web consortium, suggested there might be a problem with kids seeing indecent material on the web, “Everyone in the room turned towards him with raised eyebrows: ‘John, the web is open. This is free speech. What do you want us to do, censor it?’”

But the argument that child sexual abuse imagery is on a par with “woke” political criticism is patently absurd. Child sexual abuse material is evidence of a crime, not a form of meaningful expression. Political criticism, even when highly objectionable, involves adults exercising their capacity to form and express opinions.

Placing guardrails on Grok to stop it producing illegal content is not widespread censorship of the internet. Free speech has proven to be a convenient angle for US resistance to technology regulation. The US has persistently intervened in EU and UK AI safety debates.

The need for action

X has now announced that it would no longer allow Grok to “undress” photos of real people in jurisdictions where this is illegal. Musk has said that “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

Yet reports have continued of the technology being used to produce on-demand sexualised photos. This time, Ofcom seems emboldened and is continuing its investigations, as is the European Commission.

This is a technical challenge as well as a regulatory one. Regulators will need the firepower of the best AI minds and tools to ensure that Grok and other AI tools comply with the law. If not, then fines or bans will be the only option. It will be a game of catch-up, like every technology spiral before, but it will have to be played.

Meanwhile, users will need to decide whether to use the offending models or obey Grok’s pre-backlash exhortation: “If you can’t handle innovation, maybe log off” – and vote with our feet. That’s a collective action problem – a problem even older than the sexual takeover of computer networks.

Helen Margetts has received funding for AI-related research from UK Research and Innovation, and currently receives funding from the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation.

Cosmina Liana Dorobantu has received funding for AI related research from UK Research and Innovation.

– ref. Regulating sexual content online has always been a challenge – how we got here – https://theconversation.com/regulating-sexual-content-online-has-always-been-a-challenge-how-we-got-here-274149

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hollie Booth, Senior Research Fellow, Conservation Science, University of Oxford; Bangor University

More than one-third of sharks and rays are now threatened with extinction, making them among the most imperilled vertebrates on Earth. Why? Overfishing, both as targeted catches for their valuable fins, meat, gills and liver oil, and as bycatch in nets and lines set for other fish.

In late 2025, governments took sweeping action for sharks and rays. At a global conference on wildlife trade in Uzbekistan more than 70 shark and ray species received new or stronger international trade limits.

Whale shark, oceanic whitetip shark, wedgefish, devil rays and gulper sharks were among those subject to stricter regulations. This is a major political milestone for shark conservation.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: as I outline in my new research paper published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, trade regulation alone won’t save sharks.

Cites, the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, is the main global agreement regulating international wildlife trade, seeking to ensure the survival of the 41,000 species covered by the convention.

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Read more:
The world wildlife trade regulator is 50 – here’s what has worked and what needs to change

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Countries can only export most of the more than 1,000 shark and ray species covered by Cites regulations if they demonstrate trade is sustainable. A handful of highly threatened species (including sawfishes, manta and devil rays, whale shark, oceanic whitetip shark) are afforded the highest protection, where international trade is permitted only under exceptional circumstances.

In theory, these regulations can reduce fishing pressure. In practice, the pathway from paperwork to population recovery is far from guaranteed.

Promise and pitfalls

International trade is only one driver of shark overfishing. Shark and ray fishing mortality is also a byproduct of wild-caught fish. And, in many small-scale fisheries, sharks and rays are valuable secondary catch – meaning they are not the main target catch, but they still have value to fishers because they are sold in domestic markets or eaten locally.

These local drivers sustain fishing mortality, which means lots of sharks and rays get killed regardless of what happens to international trade.

Some shark fishing isn’t even driven by demand. In many coastal communities, production is supply driven: shaped mainly by the need to generate income and survive.

In Indonesia, when I’ve asked fishers what they’d do if shark prices fell, some say they’ll fish harder, not less, to maintain their income. In such contexts, Cites listings alone are unlikely to reduce fishing pressure unless trade regulations drive efforts to address local causes of overfishing.

Cites is also implemented through each country’s own policies and domestic management measures. Those can range from exemplary – with meaningful, well-implemented trade management that helps wild populations recover (such as the saiga antelope in Kazakhstan) to performative – where regulations exist on paper but are never implemented in practice (this includes, arguably, protection for some sharks, based on recent global trade analyses).

Even trade restrictions implemented with good intentions can backfire. For example, when supply is restricted but demand stays strong, prices rise – potentially incentivising more fishing and black markets.

This dynamic has played out with pangolins and ivory and cannot be ignored for sharks and rays, especially due to the “the snob effect” – when demand for a product increases as it becomes rarer or more expensive. When people consume shark products to display their status, scarcity can make them more attractive – meaning that restrictions on shark fishing might accidentally drive up demand rather than reduce it.

There’s also displacement to consider. When Indonesia protected manta rays, some fishers shifted to catching other unprotected ray species instead. Restrictions in one part of the market can redistribute pressure rather than reduce it.

From paperwork to positive outcomes

Three broad scenarios now lie ahead for sharks and rays.

In the best case, Cites catalyses integrated reforms across trade chains and the entire seafood sector. Supply countries establish sustainable catch limits to manage bycatch and targeted fisheries in small-scale and commercial contexts. Limits are implemented through effective compliance management including fair support for small-scale fishers already on the margins.

On the demand side, targeted demand management for shark products and other seafood with embedded negative impacts weakens the market signals that makes overfishing profitable in the first place. Overfishing halts and populations begin to recover. Evidence from mammals suggests this pathway is possible – but only if Cites triggers a range of global-to-local management measures.

In a business-as-usual scenario, the new listings deliver little. Countries adopt policies on paper while fishing continues unabated. Trade continues legally, in domestic markets or through new international bureaucracies, or moves illegally, through black markets and laundering. Current evidence on global shark trade flows suggests this is the direction of travel, though these new listings may shift the needle.

In the worst case, well-intended restrictions backfire. Prices spike, black markets expand, and fishers – squeezed economically – fish harder and riskier. Policy inadvertently accelerates decline.

Which future unfolds depends on what happens next. New Cites listings represent an opportunity for transformative change. But only if they are seen as a means to an end – one which catalyses broader reforms, from fisheries through to consumption, focused on limiting fishing mortality – rather than a standalone measure.

If the goal is a more sustainable future for both people and nature, then success must be measured in both the abundance and diversity of species and the wellbeing of people, not in the number of new policies. New trade regulations got the headlines. The harder, messier work of making them count starts now.

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Hollie Booth is the Co-Founder and Director of Yayasan Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan, a marine conservation non-profit in Indonesia.

– ref. New limits on global trade of sharks won’t be enough to save them from overfishing – new research – https://theconversation.com/new-limits-on-global-trade-of-sharks-wont-be-enough-to-save-them-from-overfishing-new-research-273256

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aldo Zammit Borda, Reader, City St George’s, University of London

A recent investigation by the Guardian newspaper and humanitarian NGO Insecurity Insight has exposed how childbirth and reproduction is being weaponised in conflicts worldwide. The evidence is alarming.

In Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict, soldiers reportedly inserted metal objects into women’s wombs. They told victims: “You will never be able to give birth.” In Russian detention facilities, Ukrainian men tell of being subjected to electric shock torture targeting their reproductive organs. Captors declared: “We’re going to sterilise you now.”

During its assault on Gaza, the Israeli military destroyed the territory’s largest fertility clinic in October 2023. The strike eliminated about 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples. The attack was cited by a UN investigation as a possible example of genocidal intent.

These are examples of reproductive violence. And they are not isolated atrocities. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has defined this as violence that “violates reproductive autonomy and/or it is directed at people on account of their actual or potential reproductive capacity, or perceptions thereof”.

Reproductive violence targets people’s capacity to have children. It is used as a tool of persecution, demographic control and collective punishment.

Serious atrocities such as murder, torture and rape make headlines and should be prosecuted as war crimes, as they often are. But systematic attacks on reproductive capacity remain, as scholars have noted, “in the shadows” of international law.

At the individual level, reproductive violence strikes at something deeply personal: the wish to have children and build a family. When a woman is forcibly sterilised, as has been reported about Uyghur women, the harm goes beyond physical injury. It takes away the possibility of motherhood.

When a man’s reproductive organs are targeted, as has reportedly happened to Ukrainian detainees, it is an assault on identity and future fatherhood. The knowledge that the loss could be permanent compounds the trauma.

At the collective level, reproductive violence enables the slow destruction of a group’s future. Mass killing provokes immediate international outrage. But destroying a fertility clinic or sterilising a population achieves the same outcome over time, with less visible evidence.

As one Uyghur survivor of China’s re-education camps put it: the strategy is “not to kill us in cold blood, but to make us slowly disappear. So slowly that no one would notice”.

Reproductive violence also offers perpetrators plausible deniability. Forced sterilisation can be framed as family planning as China insisted in the case of Uyghur women. Destroyed maternity wards may be explained as collateral damage, as the Israeli government has in the cases of hospitals destroyed in Gaza.

But deniability is not the only reason it is used. Reproductive violence is also devastatingly efficient. When Israeli forces destroyed Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, the United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that “the Israeli security forces knew of the function of the clinic and intended to target it”. One attack, thousands of potential children lost.

A hidden category of harm

While recognition of reproductive violence is growing, it remains poorly understood and rarely prosecuted. Several factors explain this gap.

First, reproduction has historically been classified as belonging to the “private sphere,” outside the proper concern of international law. Forced pregnancies, forced contraception and miscarriages are considered too intimate for public discourse. This creates what international legal scholar Fionnuala Ní Aoláin has called a “zone of silence”.

Second, reproductive violence has traditionally been absorbed into sexual violence. This approach has overshadowed reproductive violence as a distinct category. Rape and other sexual crimes have rightly gained attention. But it has also rendered reproductive violence invisible as a distinct category, with its own victims and its own harms.

As Ní Aoláin observed: “While rape in armed conflict makes headlines, obstetric violence against women and girls generally does not.”

Third, much reproductive violence operates indirectly and may appear almost routine. A woman who miscarries because a maternity ward was bombed has suffered reproductive violence. But there is no direct perpetrator with blood on their hands. The deaths are statistical, diffuse, and emerge over time.

Making the invisible visible

Addressing reproductive violence requires first understanding it. A key obstacle has been conceptual: existing definitions fail to unpack its different harms. While forced pregnancy, castration and forced abortion are all reproductive violence, they affect victims in very different ways.

Research I have published in the International Journal of Transitional Justice develops a new typology. It categorises reproductive violence by its consequences for victims.

Birth-compelling harms force unwanted pregnancies. Birth-preventing harms deprive victims of reproductive capacity. Birth-endangering or terminating harms endanger wanted pregnancies or destroy health infrastructure.

This typology matters for three reasons. It makes visible the distinct harms each category inflicts. It helps investigators spot seemingly isolated acts as part of a concerted plan. And it strengthens the case for accountability under international law.

Recognition is slowly emerging. Today, more organisations treat reproductive violence as a distinct form of gender-based violence. But recognition requires deeper understanding of why reproductive violence occurs and its effects on victims. For too long, the law has treated this violence as incidental to mass atrocities rather than central to their execution.

Perpetrators have always known otherwise: control over whether a people can have children is control over whether that people will exist at all.

Aldo Zammit Borda receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council. He served as Head of Research and Investigation for the informal Uyghur Tribunal (https://uyghurtribunal.com/), and Head of Research for the Yazidi Justice Committee (https://www.yazidijustice.com/). The views herein are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any other person or organization.

– ref. How reproductive violence is being used in conflicts to deny people’s future – https://theconversation.com/how-reproductive-violence-is-being-used-in-conflicts-to-deny-peoples-future-273910

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louise Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Manchester

A byelection has been set for February 26 in the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton. This will be a big test for Keir Starmer’s Labour party and a temperature check on the state of multi-party politics in the North. Although Labour won the seat comfortably in 2024, some early polls are already suggesting Reform could win.

Byelections are awkward beasts and don’t necessarily follow the usual rules. What makes things harder in this case is that Gorton and Denton is a new constituency. It was formed by boundary changes in 2024 from parts of three different Manchester constituencies (Gorton, Denton & Reddish and Manchester Withington).

When we try to understand what might happen in a byelection, we rely on the constituency’s past election results as a marker, which is obviously limited to just one election in this case. Gorton and Denton is also “a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster”, as my colleague Rob Ford has written.

It has an elongated shape and combines areas with huge socio-demographic differences. Its Tameside wards are predominantly white, with a sizeable working class while its Manchester wards have a much higher student and Muslim population.

Labour has everything to lose

Ordinarily, this would be a constituency which Labour should easily win. Manchester is a Labour heartland through and through. Its other five constituencies are all held by Labour MPs, it boasts all but a handful of seats on the City Council and Andy Burnham trounced his opponents in the city’s last mayoral elections with a 68,000 majority.

But byelections are difficult for governments and Keir Starmer’s track record so far is not good. Labour lost a byelection in the Cheshire constituency of Runcorn and Helsby in May 2025 to Reform’s Sarah Pochin. Pochin won on a narrow margin of just six votes but had managed to overturn a majority of over 14,000. That makes Labour’s majority of 13,000 in Gorton and Denton look less than secure.

The real danger here is that Labour finds itself in the squeezed middle. It risks losing voters to Reform on the right and the Greens on the left. This is what happened in the Caerphilly Senedd byelection in November, which saw Labour pushed back into third place behind Reform and winners Plaid Cymru.

Reform has everything to prove

Nigel Farage’s party has the momentum at the moment. Polls suggest they are outperforming Labour nationally right now and the recent high-profile defections of Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman have increased the size of their parliamentary group to 8 MPs.

The Reform candidate in Gorton and Denton, former university academic and GB News presenter Matthew Goodwin, may be the most recognisable candidate to voters, but his political views may not go down well throughout the constituency.

His views on the white working class being left behind may resonate in some of Manchester’s Tameside wards, but his extreme views on immigration and what it means to be British will not play well in others, something the Greens in particular are trying to capitalise on.

Pitching the byelection as a “referendum” on Starmer’s leadership is a sensible strategy by Goodwin, especially as a recent YouGov poll showed that 76% of voters in the North think the prime minister is doing a bad job. Reform may struggle to bring together enough voters ready to sign up to all the party stands for, but may be able to borrow the votes from those who nevertheless want Labour out and would benefit from a split on the left.

Victory in Gorton and Denton would not only mean that Reform will equal the SNP in party group size in the Commons, it will be a further pull for disgruntled or panicking Conservative (or Labour) MPs, ahead of the May 7 deadline Farage has imposed on MPs thinking about defecting to his party. But there is a sizeable chunk of voters across the UK who say they would never vote for Reform, and who could vote tactically for Labour just to keep Reform out.

Green performance could be key

The Greens did not perform brilliantly in Gorton and Denton at the 2024 elections, but nationally the party received 7% of the vote and they hold over 800 seats on local councils. Since the election, they have elected a new leader, Zack Polanski, who has been instrumental in raising the Green voice in the media.

Their candidate is Hannah Spencer, a councillor in the region who stood for mayor in 2024 and finished in fifth place, behind Reform.

Polanski is confident that only the Greens can beat Reform in Gorton and Denton. And while that’s a bold claim, his supporters will be buoyed by the seat they took from Reform in a Derbyshire local byelection last year.

And even if they don’t win, a solid Green performance could be very bad news for Starmer.

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Louise Thompson 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. Gorton and Denton byelection: Labour won comfortably in 2024 but Reform could benefit from a split vote on the left – https://theconversation.com/gorton-and-denton-byelection-labour-won-comfortably-in-2024-but-reform-could-benefit-from-a-split-vote-on-the-left-274672