Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Shanahan, Associate Professor of Political Engagement, University of Surrey

The meeting and venue were the same, but the style and tone of the two most anticipated keynote speeches at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos could not have been more different. On Tuesday, January 20, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney addressed the assembled political and business leaders as one of them: a national leader with deep expertise in finance.

He spoke about a “rupture” in the world order and the duty of nations to come together through appropriate coalitions for the benefit of all. It was a paean to multilateralism, but one that recognised that the US would no longer provide the glue to hold alliances together. Carney never mentioned the US by name in his speech, instead talking of “great powers” and “hegemons”.

Carney’s quiet, measured and evocative case-making demonstrated his ability to be the leader France’s Emmanuel Macron would like to be and the UK’s Keir Starmer is too cautious to be. He was clear, unequivocal and unafraid of the bully below his southern border. In standing up to the US president, Donald Trump, he appeared every inch the statesperson.

Then, on January 21, Trump took the stage. There was none of Carney’s self-awareness and nor did he read the room recognising the strengths, talents and economic power of the audience. Trump started with humour, noting he was talking to “friends and a few enemies”.

But he quickly shifted to a riff on the greatest hits of the first year of Trump 2.0 with the usual weaving away from his script down the rabbit holes of his perceived need for vengeance. Joe Biden still takes up far too much of Trump’s head space, but the next hour could be summed up as: “Trump great: everyone else bad.”

The president is the most amazing hype man for his own greatness, but it’s a zero-sum game. For him to win, others must lose, whether that’s the UK, Macron or the unnamed female prime minister of Switzerland whom he mocked for the poverty of her tariff negotiation skills. It’s worth noting Switzerland has no prime minister and its current president is a man.

While Carney was at pains to connect with his audience of allies, Trump exists happily in his own world where support – and sovereign territory – can be bought, and fealty trumps all. As ever, Trump played fast and loose with facts, wrapping real successes, aspirations and his unique view of the truth into a paean to himself.

He actually returned to his script to make the case for taking Greenland. The case is built on a notional need for “national and international security”, underscored by pointing out the territory is “in our hemisphere”. As so many commentators have said, collective security will do the job Trump insists that only the US can – and won’t require Denmark to cede territory. But Trump is sounding ever-less the rational actor.

Contrasting visions

The coming year is one of inflection for Trump’s presidency. His Republican party may well lose control of the House and possibly the Senate in the November midterms, which would severely curtail his ability to impose his will unfettered.

Trump is focused on his legacy and demands he’s up there with former US presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, James Polk and William McKinley, expanding the American empire and its physical footprint. This may be a step too far, even for a president with such vast economic and military power.

Carney’s speech played well both at home and around the world. His line, “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” clearly resonated with his fellow western leaders. His vision for how “the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield them together”, also offered a positive vision in a dark time.

Trump told the audience that he would not use “excessive strength of force” to acquire Greenland. But, ever the real estate developer, he demanded “right, title and ownership” with an ominous threat: “You can say no – we will remember.”

As Trump laid out his grand vision of protecting and cherishing the rich and aligning nations to do America’s bidding, it was in stark contrast to Carney. The hyperbole and self-aggrandising, the insults and threats, and the singular vision of seeing the world only through the personal impact it has on him mark the US president out as remarkable, even exceptional.

But is this the exceptionalism the US wants? Is America about more than the strongman politics of economic and military coercion?

The immediate reaction in the US was relief, jumping on the line that Trump won’t take Greenland by force. It will be telling to look at the commentary as the country reflects on the president’s aim of lifting America up, seemingly by dragging the rest of the world down.

One leader donned the cloak of statesmanship at Davos this week. It wasn’t Donald Trump.

Mark Shanahan has a new edited collection of essays, Trump Unbound, due for publication by Palgrave Macmillan in October 2026.

– ref. One venue, two speeches – how Mark Carney left Donald Trump in the dust in Davos – https://theconversation.com/one-venue-two-speeches-how-mark-carney-left-donald-trump-in-the-dust-in-davos-274062

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Prachi Agarwal, Research Fellow in International Trade Policy, ODI Global

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to ease economic pressures on households and restore US economic strength. Central to that promise was the claim that tariffs would revive manufacturing and rebalance trade in America’s favour. Once in office, the second administration quickly made trade policy – especially tariffs – a central pillar of its economic agenda.

The introduction of a sweeping tariff regime on April 2, framed as “reciprocal tariffs”, became the signature economic intervention of the administration’s first year in power – and it appears we have not heard the last of it.

The tariffs were not a single event but a sequence of trade actions launched immediately after Trump’s inauguration. In January, the administration announced the “America first” trade policy. This prioritised reductions in the US trade deficit to revitalise domestic manufacturing and promised tougher economic relations with China. Sector and country-specific tariffs followed.

While Trump’s so-called “liberation day” in April set the stage as he announced a range of tariffs to levy against various countries with which the US was running a trade deficit, the implementation was delayed until August, creating prolonged uncertainty for firms and trading partners.

The tariff regime pursued three objectives: raising government revenue, reducing the US trade deficit, and compelling changes in China’s trade behaviour. But one year into Trump’s second term, has this strategy worked?

What worked

On revenue, the policy has delivered. Customs revenue rose sharply by US$287 billion (£213 billion), generating additional fiscal revenue outside the normal congressional appropriations process. In headline terms, the tariffs achieved what they were designed to do: they raised money – but mainly (96%) from American buyers.

Progress on the trade balance (exports minus imports) has been far less convincing. Despite a modest depreciation of the US dollar and stronger export growth during much of 2025, the total US trade balance (goods and services) fell by US$69 billion. While the deficit on the goods trade balance (without services) at times narrowed, there is no evidence that this will be a sustained trend.

Addressing the trade imbalance with China is at the core of the Trump’s tariff strategy. According to trade data from the US Department of Commerce, during the first ten months of 2025, US imports from China declined by 27% – the largest of all US trading partners bilateral decline observed. Tariffs on Chinese products were imposed immediately, without the transition periods granted to most other trading partners. On paper, this aligns with the administration’s objective of curbing Chinese market access.

But this contraction must be placed in context. US imports from China had already fallen by 19% between 2022 and 2024 amid rising geopolitical tensions and earlier trade restrictions. More importantly, China continues to post large global trade surpluses and has diversified both its export destinations and its product composition, reducing reliance on the US.

Rather than weakening China’s trade position, the tariff regime has accelerated supply-chain reconfiguration, as trade is now being trans-shipped through other countries before arriving in the US. Additionally, China has also increased trade with other countries that has replaced the reduction in US-China trade.

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On January 20 2025, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. His first year in office has seen profound changes both in his own country and across the globe. In this series, The Conversation’s international affairs team aims to capture the mood after the first year of Trump’s second term.

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As imports from China fell, US trade diversification intensified due to the uneven application of tariffs across countries. US imports from Vietnam increased by 40% and Taiwan by 61%, while imports from Mexico grew modestly by 5%. Imports from Canada declined, largely reflecting lower oil prices rather than tariff exposure. Overall, several economies increased their share of US imports, pointing to a reshuffling of suppliers rather than a reduction in US import dependence.

What did not work

The uneven rollout of the tariffs, coupled with limited data available through October 2025, complicates assessment of its impact. It is also possible that the January 2025 tariff announcements prompted US firms to bring forward imports ahead of the August implementation date, temporarily distorting trade patterns.

Nonetheless, the domestic price effects are clearer.

Evidence suggests tariff costs have largely been passed through to wholesale and retail prices, contributing to higher consumer prices of everyday goods rather than easing inflationary pressures.

Manufacturing output rose by a meagre 1% in 2025, a muted response given the scale of protection introduced. Industrial growth has also been held back by labour shortages caused by tighter immigration rules, even with strong trade protection in place.

Development impacts

Some of the significant unintended impacts of the tariff regime have been felt beyond the US. Analysis by London-based thinktank ODI Global highlights the extreme vulnerability of low- and middle-income countries caught in the crossfire with high export dependence, lack of other trade partners, and constrained fiscal space.

Combined with cuts to international aid, US higher tariffs could reduce export earnings for many of these countries by up to US$89 billion annually – about 0.7% of GDP on average. In effect, the cost of US protection has been pushed onto other countries.

Beyond this combined exposure of aid cuts and tariff increases, least developed countries (LDCs) face other economic risks. The tariffs were based on bilateral US trade deficits rather than the ability of partner countries to adapt to changes in US tariff policy. This design penalised economies that were highly dependent on the US market, and relied on labour-intensive manufacturing sectors such as clothing and footwear for employment and foreign exchange.

Women make up a large share of workforce in these sectors and have been hit harder than men by the tariff measures.
The tariff shocks transmitted quickly through reduced orders, factory closures, and unemployment, despite the absence of strategic intent to target these economies.

Looking ahead

This tariff experiment now rests in the hands of the US supreme court, with a ruling expected within days. If the reciprocal tariffs are overturned, other options remain available, including a flat 10% tariff on most countries. Under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, tariffs against trade imbalances could be imposed, but only up to 15% and for a maximum of 150 days.

At the same time, the administration has signalled potential new tariffs linked to geopolitical disputes, such as Greenland. This raises the risk of widening trade conflicts.

One year on, China’s global trade position remains resilient and US trade balances show no sustained improvement. Instead, the costs of adjustment have been unevenly distributed across countries, sectors and households. In short, the tariffs may not have made America any greater, but have certainly created economic hardship for others.

Bernardo Arce Fernandez, ODI’s research officer, assisted with the research for this article.

Jodie Keane and Prachi Agarwal 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. After a year of Trump, who are the winners and losers from US tariffs? – https://theconversation.com/after-a-year-of-trump-who-are-the-winners-and-losers-from-us-tariffs-273925

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gerard Dooly, Assistant Professor in Engineering, University of Limerick

Plastic pollution is one of those problems everyone can see, yet few know how to tackle it effectively. I grew up walking the beaches around Tramore in County Waterford, Ireland, where plastic debris has always been part of the coastline, including bottles, fragments of fishing gear and food packaging.

According to the UN, every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic lands up in lakes, rivers and seas, and it has a huge impact on ecosystems, creating pollution and damaging animal habitats.

Community groups do tremendous work cleaning these beaches, but they’re essentially walking blind, guessing where plastic accumulates, missing hot spots, repeating the same stretches while problem areas may go untouched.

Years later, working in marine robotics at the University of Limerick, I began developing tools to support marine clean-up and help communities find plastic pollution along our coastline.

The question seemed straightforward: could we use drones to show people exactly where the plastic is? And could we turn finding the plastic littered on beaches and cleaning it up into something people enjoy – in other words, “gamify” it? Could we also build on other ways that drones have been used previously such as tracking wildfires or identifying shipwrecks.

Building the technology

At the University of Limerick’s Centre for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, my team combined drone-based aerial surveillance work with machine-learning algorithms (a type of artificial intelligence) to map where plastic was being littered, and this paired with a free mobile app that provides volunteers with precise GPS coordinates for targeted clean-up.

The technical challenge was more complex than it appeared. Training computer vision models to detect a bottle cap from 30 metres altitude, while distinguishing it from similar objects like seaweed, driftwood, shells and weathered rocks, required extensive field testing and checks of the accuracy of the detection system.

The development hasn’t been straightforward. Early versions of the algorithm struggled with shadows and confused driftwood for plastic bottles. We spent months refining the system through trial and error on beaches around Clare and Galway so the system can now spot plastic as small as 1cm.

We conducted hundreds of test flights across Irish coastlines under varying environmental conditions, different lighting, tidal states, weather patterns, building a robust training dataset.

Ireland’s plastic problem

The urgency of this work becomes clear when you look at the Marine Institute’s work. Ireland’s 3,172 kilometres of coastline, the longest per capita in Europe, faces a deepening crisis.

A 2018 study found that 73% of deep-sea fish in Irish waters had ingested plastic particles. More than 250 species, including seabirds, fish, marine turtles and mammals have all been reported to ingest large items of plastics.

The costs go beyond harming wildlife, and the economic impact can be significant.

Our drone surveys revealed that some stretches of coast accumulate plastic at rates five to ten times higher than neighbouring areas, driven by ocean currents and river mouths. Without systematic monitoring, these hotspots go unaddressed.

Making the technology accessible

The plastic detection platform accepts drone imagery from any source, such as ordinary people flying their own drones.

Processing requires only standard laptop software. Users upload footage and receive GPS coordinates showing detected plastic locations. The mobile app, available free on iOS and Android, displays these locations as an interactive map.

Community groups, schools and individuals can see nearby plastic pollution and find it, saving a lot of time.

It has already been tested with five community groups around Ireland with positive results, averaging 30 plastics spotted per ten-minute drone flight, varying by location.

Working through the EU-funded BluePoint project, which is tackling plastic pollution of coastlines around Europe, we’ve distributed over 30 drones to partners across Ireland and Europe, including county councils and environmental organisations.

The technology has been deployed in areas including Spanish Point in County Clare, where the local Tidy Towns group (litter-picking volunteers), were named joint Clean Coast Community Group of the Year 2024.

The wider waste story

This is part of a broader European effort to address plastic pollution. Partners such as the sports store Decathlon are exploring how to transform recovered beach plastics into new consumer products – sports equipment, textiles and components.

The challenge isn’t just collection. Beach plastics arrive contaminated with sand and salt, in mixed types and grades. Our ongoing research characterises what’s actually found on Irish coastlines, providing manufacturers with data to design appropriate sorting and recycling processes.

The open source software platforms and the drone technology have already been used in nine countries, engaging more than 2,000 people. Pilot programmes are running in France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil and the UK. What began as a question about making beach clean-ups more effective has evolved into a practical system connecting citizen action to environmental outcomes.

Community feedback from pilots has been overwhelmingly positive. Groups report that the drone-derived GPS coordinates transform clean-up work. One participating Tidy Towns group said that volunteers now head straight to flagged locations.

Groups have also reported increased participation, the gamification aspect appeals to families and participants who might not volunteer otherwise. Additionally, the data we’ve gathered so far is being used by local authorities to understand litter patterns and inform policy decisions around waste management and coastal protection.

Gerard Dooly works for the University of Limerick, Ireland. He receives funding under the BLUEPOINT project (EAPA_0035/2022), co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Atlantic Area Programme.

– ref. I developed an app that uses drone footage to track plastic litter on beaches – https://theconversation.com/i-developed-an-app-that-uses-drone-footage-to-track-plastic-litter-on-beaches-272322

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Roberta Blake, Professor of Animal Performance Science, Anglia Ruskin University

Humans have long believed horses can “smell fear”. Nervous riders are often told to “relax, or the horse will feel it”. Until recently, though, there was little scientific evidence to show whether this was anything more than folklore.

A new study has found that this belief is no myth. Its results show that horses can detect chemical signals linked to human emotions, and that these signals can influence their behaviour and physiology.

Previous research has pointed to a form of emotional contagion between humans and horses. This is a phenomenon in which the emotional state of one person or animal influences the emotional state of another. But this is the first study to find evidence horses can detect human fear using their sense of smell.

Horses rely heavily on their sense of smell to understand the world around them. Their olfactory system is far more sensitive than ours, allowing them to detect subtle chemical differences in the environment.

There is scientific evidence that horses can select the most nutritious food by smelling it. A 2016 found that horses select foods based on nutrient content (such as protein), not just flavour, and that the way their body responds after eating influences future choices they make about food.

So how can horses smell our fear? Well, human emotions come with physiological changes. When people experience fear or stress, their body, face and voice changes. Their body also releases hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, heart rate increases, and their sweat composition changes. These changes alter the chemical profile of a person’s body odour, which can carry information about their emotional state.

The scent of fear

The new study found evidence horses not only detect but also respond to human emotional odours. Horses in the study were exposed to human body odours collected via cotton pads wiped under the armpits of people.

These research participants watched either an excerpt from the 2012 horror movie Sinister (to induce fear) or clips, like the Singing in the Rain’s dance scene (to induce joy). The researchers also collected control odours with no emotional association.

The horses showed distinct behavioural and physiological changes when exposed to fear-related odours through the cotton pads, which were secured by a nylon mask on the horses’ noses. They were more alert, more reactive to sudden events and less inclined to approach humans.

And they showed increases in maximum heart rate, which indicates stress, during the exposure to the fear smell from sweat. Crucially, these responses happened without any visual or vocal cues from humans displaying fear.

This finding shows that smell alone can influence a horse’s emotional state. Horses were not reacting to tense body language, facial expressions or nervous movements – they were responding to chemical signals carried in human scent.

Previous research has shown horses seem to be sensitive to humans’ emotional states. In a May 2025 study, horses were shown videos of humans expressing fear, joy or neutral emotions in their facial expressions and voice.

Researchers measured the horses’ heart rate, behaviour and facial expressions while they watched the videos. The horses showed increased heart rates when exposed to fearful or joyful human expressions compared with neutral ones, which indicates heightened emotional arousal.

Fearful expressions depicted in the videos were associated with alert postures in the horses, like holding their head high and pointing their ears back and stress-related facial movements, like wide eyes. Joyful expressions depicted in the videos were linked to patterns associated with positive emotional states, like relaxed nostrils and ears.

Together, these findings are consistent with emotional contagion. Emotional contagion has been documented between humans and dogs, for instance, and these results suggest horses may also be affected by human emotions.

What this does – and doesn’t – mean

These studies do not suggest that horses understand fear in the same way humans do, or that they know why a person is afraid. Instead, the evidence shows horses are highly sensitive to the chemical, visual and vocal cues associated with emotional states.

Smell is probably just one part of a broader physiological system. Horses are adept at reading human posture, muscle tension, breathing patterns, heart rate and movement – all of which change when a person is anxious. These cues shape how a horse perceives and responds to a human.

Understanding how horses perceive human emotions has important implications for welfare, training and safety. Riders, handlers and therapists working with horses may unintentionally influence an animal’s emotional state through their own stress or calmness.

More broadly, the research challenges outdated assumptions about animal perception. Horses are not passive responders to human commands, as equine professionals and researchers thought until recently. They are sensitive social partners, finely tuned to the emotional signals we give off.

Horses evolved as social prey animals living in large herds on open grasslands, where survival depended on detecting danger quickly. Although humans began domesticating horses around 5,500 years ago, this is evolutionarily recent, meaning modern horses still retain highly sensitive sensory systems adapted for vigilance and social awareness.

So, when people say horses can smell fear, science now suggests they may be closer to the truth than we originally thought. And next time you are close to a horse, try to relax, and make the interaction more enjoyable for both of you.

Roberta Blake 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. Horses really can smell fear, new study claims, and it changes their behaviour – https://theconversation.com/horses-really-can-smell-fear-new-study-claims-and-it-changes-their-behaviour-273652

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paty Paliokosta, Associate Professor of Special and Inclusive Education, Kingston University

A campaign – backed by celebrities including actress Sally Phillips and broadcaster Chris Packham as well as MPs – is calling on the government not to scrap or reduce education, health and care plans (EHCPs).

These provide legally binding extra support for children with special educational needs. There are fears that this will be a change outlined in a forthcoming policy paper on schools.

The pressure point for the government is how much it costs. At the moment, EHCP costs come from local authority budgets, which are too low to cover them. A significant rise in EHCPs meant that councils are racking up a cumulative deficit in the billions. From 2028, these costs will be managed by the central government budget.

Mainstream schools in England currently provide what’s called “universal provision”. This is standard support for all pupils, funded by the Department for Education.

If a child needs extra help, schools must offer targeted interventions and resources to remove barriers to learning. This comes from a local authority managed notional special educational needs budget of up to £6,000 per pupil.

If progress still isn’t happening, families can request an EHCP. This unlocks additional funding from (currently) the local authority. It can be used to pay for specialist teaching, equipment, or extra staff, or for alternative provision – education in a specialist school.

Not enough money and bureaucratic delays

The system has been in real need of reform for a good while now.

Waiting times for EHCP assessments are often painfully long. Some families say they feel treated as though they are an inconvenience. Many are fighting legal battles for support: if an EHCP is denied, this can be appealed at a tribunal, where parents are usually successful.

Without the right resources in schools to meet the needs of the children they educate, teachers say they are exhausted. Sencos – teachers in mainstream schools with the overview of special educational needs, and the people holding the fragile system together – report feeling overwhelmed and undervalued. This is not sustainable, but it can be changed.

Under the current funding system, most of the increased costs come from funding special school placements, rather than on inclusive education in mainstream classrooms. The government’s December 2025 announcement of a funding investment to create 60,000 specialist placements in mainstream schools is welcome.

To make special educational needs and disabilities provision fair and effective, better management of budgets at both national and local levels, stronger leadership in schools through a properly resourced Senco role, and comprehensive training for all teachers to support inclusion is needed.

The government has recently announced £200 million to be spent on teacher training to create a “truly inclusive education system”. This very welcome investment marks a significant shift: it recognises that inclusion cannot be achieved through structural reform alone.

It requires a confident, well‑trained workforce able to meet diverse needs early and effectively. If delivered at scale and with fidelity, this could begin to rebalance the system. It would reduce dependence on EHCPs by strengthening universal and targeted provision, and easing the need for specialist placements.

EHCPs are far from perfect, but they cannot disappear overnight without reforms that place inclusion in the heart of universal education provision with statutory protection.

However, once the system is gradually robust enough, EHCPs will be needed less and less.

Without these reforms, families will continue to fight for support without knowing whether this is the best way to have their children’s needs met. Schools will feel pressured to move pupils out of mainstream settings, and costs will continue to rise.

What works

Investment in strong local provision and workforce development can reduce reliance on expensive independent placements, improve outcomes and restore trust between families and schools.

In Kirklees, Yorkshire, schools, families and communities are encouraged to engage in mutual support and shared learning to foster collective responsibility.

Some local authorities are demonstrating what reform can look like. Haringey’s Send and Inclusion Improvement Plan (2024–2025) is built on five priorities: early intervention, meeting needs locally, providing choice, working together with families, and preparing children for adulthood.

Providing early, expert support for the 800,000 UK children with lifelong speech and language challenges would transform lives and save £8 billion annually, according to the Disabled Children’s Partnership and the Speech, Language and Communication Alliance.

Universities need to be involved more than ever, equipping teachers and Sencos with neurodiversity-friendly and dyslexia-friendly research and training interweaved in mainstream, holistic instruction that can continue through in-service training and professional development opportunities.

We’ve seen that children are being placed in costly independent schools with their fees paid by the state. Many are owned by private equity firms that have turned special education into a lucrative business. This is draining public funds at an unsustainable rate, while outcomes for pupils remain stubbornly poor.

The question now is whether the government will be brave enough to overhaul a system that has become both inefficient and inequitable, and deliver sustainable reforms, beyond one-off package funds, prioritising inclusion and early support over bureaucracy and profit.

Paty Paliokosta 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. What’s at stake in special educational needs reform – https://theconversation.com/whats-at-stake-in-special-educational-needs-reform-267474

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

People have become used to living with AI fairly quickly. ChatGPT is barely three years old, but has changed the way many of us communicate or deal with large amounts of information.

It has also led to serious concerns about jobs. For if machines become better than people at reading complex legal texts, or translating languages, or presenting arguments, won’t those old fashioned human employees become irrelevant? Surely mass unemployment is on the horizon?

Yet, when we look at the big numbers of the economy, this is not what’s happening.

Unemployment in the EU is at a historical low of around 6%, half the level of ten years ago. In the UK, it is even lower, at 5.1%, roughly the level of the booming early 2000s, and it is even lower again (4.4%) in the US.

The reason why there are still so many jobs is that while technology does make some human enterprise obsolete, it also creates new kinds of work to be done.

It’s happened before. In 1800 for example, around a third of British workers were farmers. Now the proportion working in agriculture is around 1%.

The automation of agriculture allowed the country to be a leader in the industrial revolution.

Or more recently, after the first ATM in the world was unveiled by Barclays in London in 1967, there were fears that staff at high street bank branches would disappear.

The opposite turned out to be the case. In the US, over the 30-year period of ATM growth, the number of bank tellers actually increased by 10%. ATMs made it cheaper to open bank branches (because they needed fewer tellers) and more communities gained access to financial services.

Only now, with a bank on every phone, is the number of high street bank staff in steep decline.

An imposition?

But yes, AI will take away some jobs. A third of Americans worry they will lose theirs to AI, and many of them will be right.

But since the industrial revolution, the world has seen a flow of innovations, sustaining an unprecedented exponential economic growth.

AI, like the computer, the internet, the railways, or electric appliances, is a slow revolution. It will gradually change habits, but in doing so, provide opportunities for new businesses to emerge.

And just as there has been no immediate AI boom when it comes to economic growth, there is no immediate shift in employment. What we see instead are largely firms using AI as an excuse for standard job cutting exercises. This then leads to a different question about how AI will change how meaningful our jobs are and how much money we earn.

With technology, it can go either way.

Bank tellers became more valuable with the arrival of ATMs because instead of just counting money, they could offer advice. And in 2016, Geoff Hinton, a major figure in the development of of AI, recommended that the world “should stop training radiologists” because robots were getting better than humans at analysing images.

Ten years later, demand for radiologists in the US is at a record high. Using AI to analyse images has made the job more valuable, not less, because radiologists can treat more patients (most of whom probably want to deal with a human)

So as a worker, what you want to find is a job where the machines make you more productive – not one where you become a servant to the machines.

Any inequality?

Another question raised by AI is whether it will reduce or increase the inequality between workers.

At first, many thought that allowing everyone to access an AI assistant with skills in processing information or clear communication would decrease earning inequality. But other recent research found the opposite, with highly skilled entrepreneurs gaining the most from having access to AI support.

One reason for this is that taking advice is itself a skill. In my own research with colleagues, we found that giving chess players top-quality advice does little to close the gap between the best and the worst – because lower-ability players were less likely to follow high-quality advice.

And perhaps that’s the biggest risk AI brings. That some people benefit from it much more than others.

In that situation, there might be one group which uses AI to manage their everyday lives, but find themselves stuck in low-productivity jobs with no prospect of a decent salary. And another smaller group of privileged, well-educated workers who thrive by controlling the machines and the wealth they create.

Every technological revolution in history has made the world richer, healthier and more comfortable. But transitions are always hard. What matters next is how societies can help everyone to be the boss of the machines – not their servants.

Renaud Foucart 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 AI has not led to mass unemployment – https://theconversation.com/why-ai-has-not-led-to-mass-unemployment-273405

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Johan Linåker, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Computer Science, Lund University

Imagine the internet suddenly stops working. Payment systems in your local food store go down. Healthcare systems in the regional hospital flatline. Your work software tools, and all the information they contain, disappear.

You reach out for information but struggle to communicate with family and friends, or to get the latest updates on what is happening, as social media platforms are all down. Just as someone can pull the plug on your computer, it’s possible to shut down the system it connects to.

This isn’t an outlandish scenario. Technical failures, cyber-attacks and natural disasters can all bring down key parts of the internet. And as the US government makes increasing demands of European leaders, it is possible to imagine Europe losing access to the digital infrastructure provided by US firms as part of the geopolitical bargaining process.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, has highlighted the “structural imperative” for Europe to “build a new form of independence” – including in its technological capacity and security. And, in fact, moves are already being made across the continent to start regaining some independence from US technology.

A small number of US-headquartered big tech companies now control a large proportion of the world’s cloud computing infrastructure, that is the global network of remote servers that store, manage and process all our apps and data. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are reported to hold about 70% of the European market, while European cloud providers have only 15%.

My research supports the idea that relying on a few global providers increases vulnerabilty for Europe’s private and public sectors – including the risk of cloud computing disruption, whether caused by technical issues, geopolitical disputes or malicious activity.

Two recent examples – both the result of apparent technical failures – were the hours‑long AWS incident in October 2025, which disrupted thousands of services such as banking apps across the world, and the major Cloudflare incident two months later, which took LinkedIn, Zoom and other communication platforms offline.

The impact of a major power disruption on cloud computing services was also demonstrated when Spain, Portugal and some of south-west France endured a massive power cut in April 2025.

What happens in a digital blackout?

There are signs that Europe is starting to take the need for greater digital independence more seriously. In the Swedish coastal city of Helsingborg, for example, a one-year project is testing how various public services would function in the scenario of a digital blackout.

Would elderly people still receive their medical prescriptions? Can social services continue to provide care and benefits to all the city’s residents?

This pioneering project seeks to quantify the full range of human, technical and legal challenges that a collapse of technical services would create, and to understand what level of risk is acceptable in each sector. The aim is to build a model of crisis preparedness that can be shared with other municipalities and regions later this year.

Elsewhere in Europe, other forerunners are taking action to strengthen their digital sovereignty by weaning themselves off reliance on global big tech companies – in part through collaboration and adoption of open source software. This technology is treated as a digital public good that can be moved between different clouds and operated under sovereign conditions.

In northern Germany, the state of Schleswig-Holstein has made perhaps the clearest break with digital dependency. The state government has replaced most of its Microsoft-powered computer systems with open-source alternatives, cancelling nearly 70% of its licenses. Its target is to use big tech services only in exceptional cases by the end of the decade.

Across France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, governments are investing both nationally and transnationally in the development of digital open-source platforms and tools for chat, video and document management – akin to digital Lego bricks that administrations can host on their own terms.

In Sweden, a similar system for chat, video and online collaboration, developed by the National Insurance Agency, runs in domestic data centres rather than foreign clouds. It is being offered as a service for Swedish public authorities looking for sovereign digital alternatives.

Your choices matter

For Europe – and any nation – to meaningfully address the risks posed by digital blackout and cloud collapse, digital infrastructure needs to be treated with the same seriousness as physical infrastructure such as ports, roads and power grids.

Control, maintenance and crisis preparedness of digital infrastructure should be seen as core public responsibilities, rather than something to be outsourced to global big tech firms, open for foreign influence.

To encourage greater focus on digital resilience among its member states, the EU has developed a cloud sovereignty framework to guide procurement of cloud services – with the intention of keeping European data under European control. The upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act is expected to bring more focus and resources to this area.

Governments and private companies should be encouraged to demand security, openness and interoperability when seeking bids for provision of their cloud services – not merely low prices. But in the same way, as individuals, we can all make a difference with the choices we make.

Just as it’s advisable to ensure your own access to food, water and medicine in a time of crisis, be mindful of what services you use personally and professionally. Consider where your emails, personal photos and conversations are stored. Who can access and use your data, and under what conditions? How easily can everything be backed up, retrieved and transferred to another service?

No country, let alone continent, will ever be completely digitally independent, and nor should they be. But by pulling together, Europe can ensure its digital systems remain accessible even in a crisis – just as is expected from its physical infrastructure.

Johan Linåker 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. Europe wants to end its dangerous reliance on US internet technology – https://theconversation.com/europe-wants-to-end-its-dangerous-reliance-on-us-internet-technology-274042

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rachel Woods, Senior Lecturer in Physiology, University of Lincoln

After the indulgence of festive treats, the idea of starting the year with a clean slate can be appealing. Detox powders, pills, teas and juice “cleanses” all promise a fast reset, often with bold claims about flushing toxins from the body.

These promises sound scientific, but they don’t match what detox actually means. In medicine, detoxification refers to the removal of harmful substances from the body under controlled conditions, especially in the context of substance dependence or poisoning.

Outside of this context, the wellness industry has stretched the word to cover a wide range of practices and products that claim to rid the body of unspecified toxins. These claims are not supported by medical science.

Our bodies come with their own highly effective detoxification system. The liver and kidneys do most of the work. When we eat or drink, nutrients and waste products enter the bloodstream and pass through the liver. The liver produces bile to help break down fats and remove toxins through faeces and urine.

Blood then passes through the kidneys, where tiny filtering units called nephrons remove waste and excess substances, sending purified blood back into circulation.
Smaller amounts of waste are also removed through sweat, exhaled air and normal digestion. When this system fails, the effects are serious and obvious. People develop symptoms that require urgent medical care, not a special juice cleanse.

An issue with detox culture is that it could even encourage overconsumption, particularly of alcohol, in the hope that a post-binge cleanse will undo the damage. The only reliable way to limit alcohol’s impact is to reduce how much we drink. No smoothie or detox drink reverses the effects of excess alcohol.

Detox approaches vary widely. Some are mostly harmless but unhelpful, while others carry real risks. The harmless group tends to rely on ideas that sound healthy at first glance but are not backed by good evidence.

Juice cleanses and liquid-only diets, for example, remove or break down a lot of the fibre from the fruit and vegetables. Some vitamins and antioxidant compounds are also lost, and the sugars become more rapidly available because the structure of the plant is broken down. While drinking fruit and vegetables as a juice is better than not having them at all, eating whole fruits and vegetables tends to keep you fuller longer and provides more consistent nutritional benefits than drinking juice.

Lemon water is another common recommendation. It may taste sharp and refreshing, but it does not burn fat or remove toxins.

Detox teas are frequently marketed with added herbs or minerals. Some contain nutrients such as selenium, but these are already found in many everyday foods including seafood, poultry and nuts.

Many detox plans encourage cutting out alcohol and caffeine. Reducing alcohol intake has clear, well-established benefits for health, but cutting out coffee or tea entirely is unnecessary for most people. Moderate caffeine intake, roughly three to four cups of coffee a day, can fit comfortably into a healthy diet and may even have some benefits.

Some detox practices move beyond being unhelpful and become dangerous. Excessive fluid intake is a feature of several detox regimes.

A case report described a woman who arrived at hospital with seizures after consuming large amounts of water and herbal remedies as part of a detox regime. Her sodium levels had dropped sharply, a condition called hyponatraemia, caused by diluting the salts in the body faster than the kidneys could correct the balance.

Detox pills and powders can also pose risks, and their ingredients are not always clear.

Some herbal supplements marketed for cleansing or liver support have been associated with liver injury, such as products containing concentrated green tea extract, turmeric or complex herbal mixtures. It is an unfortunate irony that these products can end up harming the very organ that performs most of the body’s detoxification.

So, is there any evidence to support a New Year’s detox diet? The short answer is no. Healthy liver and kidney function is sufficient to process everyday dietary intake. When the body’s detox system fails, as in kidney failure, medical interventions such as dialysis (not lemon water or herbal drinks) are required.
For the rest of us, small, sustainable changes are far more effective than extreme short-term cleanses.

Starting a new eating pattern in January can be motivating, but drastic, restrictive routines are difficult to maintain. Research shows that consistent, moderate changes, such as increasing fruit and vegetable intake, and reducing excess free sugar and alcohol support long-term health better than fad detoxes.

Ultimately, your body’s natural systems are remarkably efficient. Trusting them, and supporting them with everyday healthy choices, is far more effective than chasing the latest juice, powder, or tea. A sustainable approach, rather than a radical reset, will serve your health best, not only in January, but all year long.

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In the first episode of Strange Health, a new visualised podcast from The Conversation, hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt put detox culture under the microscope and ask a simple question: do we actually need to detox at all?

Strange Health explores the weird, surprising and sometimes alarming things our bodies do. Each episode takes a popular health or wellness trend, viral claim or bodily mystery and examines what the evidence really says, with help from researchers who study this stuff for a living.

Katie Edwards, a health and medicine editor at The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, a GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol share a longstanding fascination with the body’s improbabilities and limits, plus a healthy scepticism for claims that sound too good to be true.

Strange Health is hosted by Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt. The executive producer is Gemma Ware, with video and sound editing by Sikander Khan. Artwork by Alice Mason.

Dan and Katie talk about two social media clips in this episode, one from 30.forever on TikTok and one from velvelle_store on Instagram.

Listen to Strange Health via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Rachel Woods 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. What detox really means, and why most detox diets miss the point – https://theconversation.com/what-detox-really-means-and-why-most-detox-diets-miss-the-point-269585

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Setty, Associate Professor in Criminology, University of Surrey

The UK government has launched a consultation on introducing an Australian-style ban on social media for under-16s. The proposal is framed as a bold response to rising concerns about young people’s mental health, online abuse and exposure to harmful content.

At first glance, a ban sounds straightforward: keep children away from platforms that can cause harm. But as someone who has spent years researching young people’s digital lives, relationships and wellbeing, I believe that a blanket ban risks misunderstanding both the problem and the solution.

My research with teenagers consistently shows that the harms young people experience online are not separate from the harms they face offline. Bullying, racism, sexism, coercion, exclusion and body image pressures all pre-date social media. Digital platforms can amplify these problems, but they do not create them from scratch.

In focus groups I conducted with teenagers and research I carried out with young people during the pandemic, participants described online life as an extension of school corridors, peer groups and local communities. This is what scholars increasingly call a “post-digital” reality. Young people do not experience online and offline as separate worlds, but as a single, interconnected continuum.

If harms are socially rooted, then technical restrictions alone are unlikely to solve them. A ban treats social media as the problem, rather than asking deeper questions about why certain behaviours – harassment, shaming, misogyny, exploitation – occur in the first place.

We also need to ask why digital spaces have become the default arenas for meeting so many needs in the first place. Over years of funding cuts to youth services, reduced community spaces and intensified academic pressures, online platforms have filled a gap.

They did not simply colonise young people’s lives. They were invited into a vacuum created by adult policy decisions. A ban addresses the symptom of these developments while leaving the wider contexts untouched.

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Read more:
Young people’s social worlds are ‘thinning’ – here’s how that’s affecting wellbeing

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There is also a practical problem. Age-based bans are difficult to enforce. Young people are resourceful digital citizens. Many will find workarounds, migrate to unregulated platforms or simply lie about their age.

This risks driving online activity underground, away from any oversight of parents, teachers and support services. Instead of engaging with young people where they already are, a ban could make it harder to identify those who are struggling and need help.

A recent joint statement signed by more than 40 children’s charities, digital safety experts and bereaved families warns of the danger that blanket prohibitions may isolate vulnerable young people from peer support networks and crisis resources.

What young people say they need

Many young people are critical of social media. In my research on online harms and influencer culture, young people frequently describe feeling exhausted by comparison culture, constant notifications and the pressure to be “always on”. They often say they want more time offline and more meaningful face-to-face connection.

This ambivalence shows that young people are not passive victims of technology but can identify problems and articulate the kind of digital lives they want. They ask for better education, more honest conversations and greater adult understanding.

They want to learn how to set boundaries, recognise coercion and algorithmic manipulation, and manage conflict. Above all, they want to be taken seriously as partners in solving the problems they face.

A blanket ban treats young people as a single homogeneous group, ignoring the diversity of their experiences, needs and circumstances. It assumes that what is protective for one young person will be protective for all, rather than recognising that risks and benefits are shaped by identity, relationships, resources and context.

What parents are really worried about

Parents’ perspectives add another important layer. In research colleagues and I have carried out with families, many parents express deep ambivalence about social media. They worry about online harms and often voice a nostalgic desire to return to a pre-internet era of childhood.

Yet this nostalgia is rarely about technology alone. It is more often an expression of feeling out of control as parents, in the face of powerful tech companies, complex digital cultures and broader social changes they perceive to be reshaping their children’s lives.

Parents describe feeling torn between wanting to protect their children, while recognising that digital communication is central to modern friendship and learning. They fear both the risks of their children being online and the risks of exclusion from being offline.

In this context, a ban can feel like an attractive proposition. It promises to restore a sense of order and authority. But it risks misdiagnosing the problem. What parents are asking for is not simply prohibition but more support to navigate these tensions, including clearer regulation of platforms, better education in schools and more resources to help families manage digital life together.

The illusion of simple fixes

The appeal of a ban lies in its simplicity. But complex social problems rarely yield to simple technological solutions.

Real progress will be slower and less headline-grabbing. It involves investing in high-quality relationships and sex education that reflects young people’s digital realities, and supporting parents to have informed conversations. It means regulating platform design to reduce exploitation and harassment, and holding social media companies more accountable. And it requires rebuilding the offline services and spaces that give young people genuine alternatives.

Social media is not an external danger that young people occasionally visit. It is woven into their everyday social worlds. By cutting young people off from the spaces through which they meet real personal, interpersonal and social needs, a ban risks leaving them unmoored.

A generation growing up in a networked world needs guidance, not exclusion from the spaces where their lives unfold. Policy must start from how young people actually live, not from adult fears about technology. If we want young people to be safer online, the answer is not to ban their digital lives, but to help them navigate them.

Emily Setty receives funding from ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, University of Surrey and various government, third-sector and for-profit organisations.

– ref. I research the harm that can come to teenagers on social media. I don’t support a ban – https://theconversation.com/i-research-the-harm-that-can-come-to-teenagers-on-social-media-i-dont-support-a-ban-273835

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Thomas Caffrey, Tutor/Lecturer in English Literature, Dublin City University

The 1995 Kobe earthquake was a catastrophe that disturbed the very foundations of modern Japan. In inspired, as many natural disasters do, great works of art, music, and literature, including Haruki Murakami’s sparse and enigmatic short story collection After the Quake.

After the Quake (2000) comprises six tales that alternate between emotional turmoil and flights of whimsy. The collection responds to the national tragedy that unfolded in the wake of the earthquake – families were divided, homes were destroyed and infrastructure was decimated.

This film first had life as a TV series for Japanese station NHK. The original episodes have been stitched together and repackaged as an anthology film for Netflix’s global audience. The film features four of the collection’s six stories and director Tsuyoushi Inoue confidently reconfigures Murakami’s tales so that they speak directly to other tragedies in chronological order.

The first story, UFO in Kushiro, takes place during the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The shoreline setting of Landscape With Flatiron ominously foreshadows the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis and still remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. All God’s Children can Dance is set during COVID, while the final story, Super-Frog Saves Tokyo is a modern-day fable that aims to tie all these disparate strands together.

Actor Masaki Okada and screenwriter Takamasa Ōe reunite after having previously worked together on the 2022 Academy Award-winning Murakami adaptation Drive My Car. Their expertise in Murakami-land renders them steady hands to guide the film.

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Read more:
How to read Haruki Murakami in English the Japanese way – in four steps

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As previously seen in Drive My Car, Ōe demonstrates a canny ability to transmute multiple stories into a satisfying overarching narrative. Meanwhile Okada, the lead of UFO in Kushiro, delivers a performance of polite banality entirely removed from his insidious and devilish Drive My Car character. His blank slate protagonist is a perfect representation of the typical Murakami narrator: a dazed and unremarkable man of submerged conflicts.

Meticulously constructed and shot, the first part follows a young man whose wife divorces him without explanation following the Kobe earthquake. The connection between the two events is unclear. In need of solitude to work out this puzzle, he travels to the northern island of Hokkaido with a mysterious package.

This section is strongly acted, with Okada finding good support in Ai Hashimoto. It is technically excellent too: cinematographer Yasutaka Watanabe makes the most of the vertical lines of Japanese houses, creating a paper theatre effect in which a pleasing sense of depth is created by a series of framed sliding doors and rigid, angular proportions.

This first part – and to a lesser extent, the two follow-up stories – feels indebted to the late-90s cinematic output of director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose work similarly features architectural geometry, static takes and an extensive wardrobe of heavy knit. After the Quake shares with Kurosawa a sense of the genuinely eerie: an early scene involving a woman whose face is preternaturally bathed in shadow is unsettling and recalls Kurosawa’s underrated horror Retribution (2006).

Moments like this capture the essence of Murakami’s appeal. As a writer, Murakami is an obsessive documenter of the mundane. His fiction is not so much punctuated as defined by grocery shopping, vegetable chopping, and red-light traffic stopping. But this has a paradoxical effect. Only through curating such a recognisable and “normal” world can the truly shocking and absurd moments of novels satisfyingly land. This is a quality often overlooked in Murakami adaptations.

Lee Chang-dong’s otherwise superior Murakami adaptation Burning (2018) is entirely neurotically bleak and fails to create a sense of normality. Meanwhile the recent Murakami animation Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2022) is weird and off-putting from the outset. After the Quake takes pains to create a feeling of safety and normality, before it threatens this stability with the absurd.

If After the Quake falters, it is at the finish line. The final 40 minutes of the film, which draws on Murakami’s beloved story Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, are spirited and funny. But attempts to unify too many disparate narrative threads stretch the section a little thin.

Earlier in the film, the thematic connections between stories were hinted at. By overtly making visible the connective strings, the engagingly synaptic structure of the film collapses a little as subtlety gives way to literalism. This undercuts the mysterious power of the apparently disconnected stories.

Nonetheless, the Super-Frog sequences remain entertaining and ambitious. Among Murakami’s most fantastical stories, it involves a giant talking frog who invites a man named Katagiri (delicately portrayed by Koichi Sato) to battle Worm, Frog’s arch nemesis who’s responsible for earthquakes all across Japan. Frog is wonderfully realised onscreen through an old-fashioned monster costume. He is lovable, trustworthy, and utterly bizarre.

Super-Frog is something of a Murakami classic and was recently re-released in English translation by Jay Rubin in a beautiful illustrated standalone volume. Ōe and Inoue do not adapt the story straight, instead presenting a wistful sequel to the original tale.

In the film’s version, 30 years have passed since Frog and Katagiri last met. By meeting again to battle Worm, the film argues for the timelessness of the original story. If Worm is a stand-in for natural disaster, there must always be a Super-Frog and an everyman to stand against it.

In all, After the Quake is an audacious and spirited film that captures the essence of the Murakami experience. The closing moments are touching, elegiac and tender, serving as a suitable closing for a fine adaptation of a master storyteller’s work.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

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Thomas Caffrey 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. After the Quake: an ambitious adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s stories born from the 1995 Kobe earthquake – https://theconversation.com/after-the-quake-an-ambitious-adaptation-of-haruki-murakamis-stories-born-from-the-1995-kobe-earthquake-273838