Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hillary Burlock, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History, University of Liverpool

The ballrooms of Jane Austen’s Britain have been hailed in literature and period dramas as a marriage market where young men and women could meet and mingle. The ballroom set the scene for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy’s first encounter at Meryton’s assembly rooms in Pride and Prejudice (1813), and where Catherine Moreland and Henry Tilney bantered in Bath in Northanger Abbey (1817).

Austen herself frequented balls in Basingstoke and Southampton. The ballroom was the place to see and be seen, the focal point for socialising during “the season”. The season took place during the winter months and involved a concentrated period of public entertainments like balls, concerts and card assemblies (in which guests met to play card games).

Ball-goers needed months to prepare for these events. This included ordering gloves and shoes, and buying new gowns or dressing up old ones. Austen deliberately kept her china crepe dress from being seen before the next ball, observing that the ballroom “was a place where you would be judged”.

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Read more:
Jane Austen perfected the love story – but kept her own independence

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Ladies and gentlemen also needed to polish their dance steps. From an early age, they were instructed in how to dance, bow and curtsy, walk and greet people of differing ranks. Mastering these basics of deportment was essential, as they would be scrutinised in the ballroom.

While in Bath in 1740, Elizabeth Robinson (future leader of the 18th-century English women’s intellectual circle the Bluestockings) observed that the education of another woman was lacking, writing: “[as] for her Curtsey where she got that I cannot guess, but I will venture to say, not from the Dancing School”.

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This article is part of a series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Despite having published only six books, she is one of the best-known authors in history. These articles explore the legacy and life of this incredible writer.

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In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Moreland’s first ball at the Upper Rooms in Bath is filled with anxiety, as: “The season was full, the room crowded, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr Allen, he repaired directly to the card-room, and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves.”

To quell the “mob”, the ballroom was managed by a master of ceremonies, who had the role of facilitating introductions, enforcing the rules and mediating disputes.

Balls opened with the minuet (a French social dance) performed by one couple at a time. A well-danced minuet was a source of pride for genteel society, as some revelled in exhibiting their accomplishments. But it was also a source of anxiety.

When a young woman named Eliza Smith married the Austens’ wealthy neighbour William Chute in 1793, she was so nervous about dancing that her mother wrote: “I am glad for your Sake there are no Minuets at Basingstoke, I know the terror you have in dancing not that you have any occasion for such fears.”

Assessing dance skill was central to the experience of the ballroom, making it even more important for dancers to try to put their best foot forward. Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Canning (cousin of the prime minister George Canning) wrote to her mother from Bath in December 1792 that: “I was very much entertained with the bad minuet-dancers, especially with a Mr Badcock who was obliged to stand up with seven, or eight Ladies successively, to the great diversion of the Spectators.”

After the minuets, country dances filled the evening, with a column of men standing opposite their female partners. Relieved the minuets were over, Miss Canning wrote: “At last the Country dances began, there was great humming, & hawing whether or no I should dance … & I declared … that I should like to dance if I could get some mighty smart partner.”

Young ladies recorded triumphant lists of dance partners, and, indeed, Austen recalled dancing with Stephen Terry, T. Chute, James Digweed and Catherine Bigg one evening, observing: “There was a scarcity of men in general, and a still greater scarcity of any that were good for much … There was commonly a couple of ladies standing up together, but not often any so amiable as ourselves.”

For the most part, men were expected to ask women to dance with them. According to dance manuals by Thomas Wilson and G.M.S. Chivers, the ballroom occasionally saw two women or two men dancing together.

While it is assumed that it was the lady’s prerogative to accept or decline invitations to dance, she could not afford to refuse an offer unless she had no intention to dance at all “and consequently may be considered no lady”. In Pride and Prejudice, though Elizabeth Bennet would prefer not to dance with Mr Collins at the Netherfield Ball, refusing him would mean losing the opportunity to dance altogether.

However, Austen herself found a way of skirting around these rules at the Kempshott ball. Writing to her sister Cassandra in 1798 she explained that: “One of my gayest actions was sitting down two dances in preference to having Lord Bolton’s eldest son for my partner, who danced too ill to be endured.” Austen was an excellent dancer herself, proudly proclaiming that she could dance 20 dances in an evening “without any fatigue”.

Balls at the assembly rooms lasted for about five hours until precisely 11 or 12am, when, upon a signal from the master of ceremonies, the dancing concluded, even in the middle of a dance. Grudgingly, the dancers changed their dance pumps for sturdier shoes and donned their cloaks, with sedan chairs and carriages ready to whisk them home to their lodgings by the light of the moon.

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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.

Hillary Burlock receives funding from the British Academy as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

– ref. Inside the Regency ballroom: what you’d experience on a night out with Jane Austen – https://theconversation.com/inside-the-regency-ballroom-what-youd-experience-on-a-night-out-with-jane-austen-270628

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tara Lai Quinlan, Associate Professor in Law and Criminal Justice, University of Birmingham

The right to trial by jury dates back to at least the 12th century. The government’s proposals to limit it in England and Wales, many argue, run counter to the UK’s core democratic principles. And as others have pointed out, scrapping jury trials for some crimes is unlikely to solve the massive backlog in the crown courts.

Our research suggests that there is another reason why it is a bad idea to scrap jury trials. They can play a vital role in reducing racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

The proposals laid out by justice secretary David Lammy would have a disproportionately negative impact on people of colour – both defendants and victims – for whom jury trials give a glimmer of hope in a criminal justice system where “ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) appear to be over-represented”.

Government data repeatedly shows black, Asian and minority ethnic defendants are less likely to plead guilty than white defendants, and more likely to take their cases to trial. Lammy’s own 2017 review of racial inequality in the justice system suggests this is driven by a perception that the plea-bargaining process is unfair to defendants of colour, and that only a jury of peers will give them a fair trial.

Once black defendants choose a jury trial, research shows they are “more likely … to obtain acquittals or reductions in charges as a result”, compared to black defendants who plead guilty without opting for a trial.

A jury of 12 people brings a broader array of diverse perspectives and opinions which enhance the quality of discussions in deliberations, particularly in cases involving an ethnic minority defendant. Defendants should have their fate decided by people who might better understand their experiences, backgrounds and motivations.

Lammy’s 2017 review emphasised the importance of juries in making the criminal justice system more legitimate, particularly for people of colour: “Juries deliberate as a group through open discussion. This both deters and exposes prejudice or unintended bias: judgements must be justified to others.”

Sentencing is also disproportionate for defendants of colour when compared to white defendants, following both jury trials and plea agreements. Research has found that explicit or implicit judicial biases – whether judges stereotype the defendant, how they interpret sentencing recommendations from prosecutors and defence counsel, or how they apply aggravating and mitigating factors – may all contribute to these disparities.

Empirical evidence from other jurisdictions shows that more diverse juries are fairer to black defendants. Indeed, studies repeatedly show that all-white juries much more readily convict black defendants. Juries with even one black member are less likely to do so.

The UK’s Contempt of Court Act limits this type of research with live juries. But there is enough evidence from other jurisdictions to suggest that retaining juries, and ensuring those juries are diverse, is essential for protecting the fair trial rights of people of colour generally, and black people in particular.

Justice for victims

Jury trials are also essential for black victims and their families. Since 2022, we have worked with the family and friends of Dea-John Reid, a 14-year-old black boy who was racially abused and chased through the streets of Birmingham by a group of white boys and men who fatally stabbed him in broad daylight.

In their 2022 trial, the perpetrators were acquitted of racially aggravated murder, with only the principal offender found guilty of manslaughter by a jury of one Asian and 11 white members. Dea-John’s family felt that the lack of diversity on the jury, which did not have a single black member, could have meant they were less likely to see Dea-John as a worthy victim. Research shows that black men and boys are stereotyped as suspects – even when they are victims of crime.

Since 2022, we have worked with the family’s campaign, which supports retaining jury trials, but wants them to be more ethnically diverse, particularly in cases involving black victims. Our research has documented the campaign and is addressing critical gaps in UK research on jury diversity.

Diversity in the judiciary

Lammy’s proposals for reform include expanding the use of bench trials. This means that more cases would be heard by a single judge alone.

The judiciary in England and Wales is neither sufficiently diverse nor representative of the population. While black, Asian or minority ethnic people make up around 22% of the population, as of 2025, they make up only 11% of all court judges.

Lammy’s proposal also goes against what the public wants. In 2024, we surveyed 1,000 members of the public, 75% of whom stated explicitly that they believed the UK should have jury trials.

While most of our respondents believed that jury trials were fair (51%) and trustworthy (60%), they also felt strongly that more diverse juries were fairer (61%). Around half of people (51%) believed juries should look like the communities they serve. We found that for people of colour, taking part in jury service was viewed as even more important than for white respondents.

When it comes to perceptions of fairness and trust in the courts, we found important racial differences. Our research found that people of colour trust judges and the courts at lower rates than white people. People of colour in our survey were also more likely than white people to believe that judges treat them more unfairly compared to white people. And most of our respondents believed that more diversity in the judiciary is needed.

If Lammy remains committed to reducing inequality in the criminal justice system for people of colour, rather than reducing jury trials, he should be increasing them, and the diversity on them, to ensure justice for all.

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

– ref. Limiting jury trials will harm minority ethnic victims and defendants, research shows – https://theconversation.com/limiting-jury-trials-will-harm-minority-ethnic-victims-and-defendants-research-shows-270869

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Magnus Linden, Associate Professor of Psychology, Lund University

It’s often said that Donald Trump’s power base in the Maga movement has contributed to the radicalisation of the Republican party. Political scientists worry about the implications of this for the future of American democracy itself.

One example of that radicalisation was the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021 in an attempt to overturn the result. Exacerbating that radicalisation is the movement’s hostility towards much of the mainstream media. This is something that has been amplified by the US president himself, who has famously referred to the media as “the enemy of the American people”.

But how has this radical movement movement emerged from the socially conservative Republican Party? The rise of Maga has marked an important political shift in America that has many liberal-minded people scratching their heads. Psychology studies can offer insights that can help explain the Maga movement’s motivations.

1. Fused identity

Identity is central to understanding the way Maga holds together as a group and can also explain many of its motives. Trump has been able to mobilise his base effectively by communicating that shared identity. And it’s this sense of common identity and purpose that has been so important in the development of Maga as a powerful political movement.

The almost absolute faith in Trump’s leadership has a lot to do with negative resentment of other groups that he singles out for criticism, particularly migrants, liberals and feminists. But it is actually a positive identification with white nationalism that is a stronger indicator of the sort of person who might identify with Maga.

Maga supporters unite around a shared perception of threat to their status, often related to issues of race and immigration. But it is also seen to be motivated by the desire to cultivate belonging and group pride as a way to regain lost esteem.

Some researchers also believe that even the act of wearing a Maga hat is a sign of what is known as “identity fusion” – when boundaries between the self and the group blur. When this occurs, wearing a Maga hat may be a symbol of who I am rather than just who I voted for.

This is significant since identity fusion is associated with reported willingness to undertake more extreme actions such as hurting people and damaging property to uphold the Trump community and to achieve his aims.

2. Moral self-righteousness

Maga members also tend to adhere to the idea that one’s own ethnic group is more morally pure than others. Maga ideology tends to divide America into “good” and “evil” groups, with themselves as good and out-groups, such as the ones mentioned above, cast as evil. This positions “true Americans”, the people who built the nation, patriots who have “had enough”, as part of the former.

Since it frames politics as a struggle over “right values and lifestyles”, such rhetoric heightens the risk of malignant moral superiority. When communicated by a leader, it creates in followers the sense that they have an obligation to act against these “evil” forces which threaten their group.

When this sense of superiority is threatened, it can lead to aggression, such as the assault on the US Capitol .

3. The right to dominate other groups

Aggressiveness in political groups such as Maga is also connected to what is known as “social dominance orientation”. This relates to belief in a hierarchy – the idea that one social group has the right to dominate other groups.

Research shows people who believe in hierarchy are more likely to disregard basic democratic principles. They see society as a “competitive jungle” where groups struggle for power and dominance.

As a result, they view groups that differ from them as inferior. This justifies any actions that maintain their in-group status.

This holds true even if – as in the case of Maga-followers – it means a belief in violence in response to unwelcome social and cultural changes. Polling has found that Maga supporters are also far more likely to believe that there will be a civil war in the US and that violence in order to advance the movement’s political objectives would be justified.

4. Aggressive followership

There’s a scientific debate about what draws people to authoritarian leaders. Some scholars emphasise the tendency to want to submit to authority, high levels of aggression when sanctioned and adherence to conventional values such as traditional views on religion and sexuality. Others focus more on a preference for conformity over personal autonomy.

But they agree on one point: authoritarian followers submit to leaders who stress the superiority of their social group and who they consider to be capable of handling the threats they see as coming from other groups.

Research on the Maga movement from 2016 shows that Trump supporters were more likely than other supporters of other Republican party candidates to score high on one facet of authoritarianism: the willingness to resort to aggression towards people seen to go against social norms if encouraged by someone they’ve accepted as an authority figure. But they don’t appear to score as highly on two other facets: submission to established authorities and an adherence to conventional values.

This suggests that authoritarianism among the Maga movement has evolved into a more distinct profile, characterised primarily by a prejudiced aggressiveness towards other social groups.

History tells us that radical political movements tend to pop up when the societal context is perceived as threatening. In this process, some people have personal dispositions that make them more prone to follow authoritarian leaders. So it’s important to take both personality and context into account when trying to understand movements such as Maga.

Claire Campbell works for Ulster University. She receives receives funding from PEACE PLUS for research on peace building.

Fredrik Björklund and Magnus Linden 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. Maga explained: how personality and context shape radical movements – https://theconversation.com/maga-explained-how-personality-and-context-shape-radical-movements-270191

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Parveen Akhtar, Senior Lecturer: Politics, History and International Relations, Aston University

The launch of Your Party, a new leftwing offering for British voters, was meant to embody a different kind of politics. It was to be collective and collaborative – a political movement built from the grassroots up.

At a time when trust in politicians is low and cynicism high, the idea of a new movement on the left captured imagination. Almost immediately after it was announced, 80,000 people expressed their interest in joining.

Yet the collective has, from the start, been beset with problems. Former Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced the party’s launch apparently before Jeremy Corbyn, her partner in the endeavour, was ready. A debacle over who was holding on to some £800,000 in donations led to a very public spat between the two even before the party could get on its feet.

Amid this confusion, between launching in July and holding its inaugural conference in November, Your Party has already shrunk. Those original 80,000 potential members have become 55,000 signed-up members.

Of these, 2,500 people were selected through a lottery system to attend the party conference. And as they congregated in Liverpool, it quickly became clear that it would not be plain sailing. Delegates were caught between idealism and infighting – between a genuine and urgent desire to create something new and the old factionalism that has long preoccupied the British left.

The tension was visible even before the conference began. On the eve of the event, Corbyn appeared at a poetry and music evening where he was interrupted by hecklers demanding he denounce Zionism.

For a man who has spent his political life campaigning for Palestinian rights, the moment was indicative of a key issue the party must confront: a puritanical one-upmanship. This was fringe politics, where nothing you do is quite sufficient. For all the talk of solidarity and comradeship, the left remains a space where interrogation around ideological purity is never far away.

Opening the event, councillor Lucy Williams attempted to confront the tensions head on. Everyone knew there had been loud disagreement, she said, “but I like to see our leaders fighting. I’d rather be in a movement where people care enough to argue than in a party where everyone nods along while the country collapses around them. Unity isn’t pretending that we all agree; unity is disagreeing honestly and then cracking on with it. We’re not perfect, but we’re real – and people will trust real.”

Her defence of the messiness of democracy was forceful. But for some delegates, her apparent defence of washing dirty laundry in public was read not as authenticity but as testimony that the endeavour was in descent. “Being real” in this incarnation was not an election winner.

Committed, diverse and hopeful

Attendees were young and old. Many were former Labour members. Others had never been involved in politics before. The conference was full of people deeply committed to a socialist cause: equality, equity and social justice.

But ideas about what these buzzwords meant were deeply divided. Divisions were not just about personalities and internal factions but about ingrained beliefs.

The promise of unity was quickly met with the realities of ideology. From revolutionary communists to conservative Muslims to trans-rights activists, there are uneasy alliances in Your Party’s broad church, many wanting change on their own terms. Compromise is too often viewed as weakness and a lack of commitment to the cause.

And yet, there was also hope, one young man who had left the UK after Brexit to live on the continent said he had to come back for the conference, “when your home country does something like this you just have to”.

Sultana was conspicuous by her absence during Corbyn’s opening speech. She had announced she was boycotting her own conference over what she called a “witch hunt” against members of other socialist organisations, especially those associated with the Socialist Workers Party.

Some had reportedly been barred because dual party membership was not allowed – until a vote at the conference changed the rules.

By day two, anticipation was building about whether Sultana would show. The name of the party was formally recognised and a collective leadership model agreed. Corbyn had wanted a single leader model, Sultana, who had originally wanted to be joint co-leader, had favoured a collective model (knowing a contest between her and Corbyn would be difficult to win).

And then the waiting was over, Sultana’s arrival saw delegates pack the hall. There was almost a sigh of relief. She started by calling out the party leadership, for bullying, pointing to underhand tactics “straight from the Labour right handbook”. She set out her vision for a new approach – radical, impatient and angry. This would be a united left – all socialists fighting together. She was received rapturously. Her speech ended with chants of “Oh, Zarah Sultana.”

Yet this was not a unifying moment. Corbyn was present too, extending the courtesy she did not afford him when he first spoke to conference. The two did not appear together.

His supporters were disillusioned by her public dressing down of the unelected faceless bureaucrats (or the adults in the room, as they saw themselves). The votes may have been for maximum member democracy, but Sultana was really setting out the blueprint for Sultanaism. “This isn’t going to go anywhere. Any hope I had of an alternative to what we have now, of a united left, well it’s been tanked,” one disillusioned Corbyn supporter told me.

Before leaving Liverpool, the party had at least achieved some of its formal aims. It has a name, a leadership structure and some key constitutional provisions. The broader picture, however, remains harder to read.

The excitement of participatory politics was still there, but this was a hall full, mainly, of the converted. Those who wanted a more moderate or what they see as “electable” party, were left out in the cold. They will now be hoping that the chill does not kill any potential green shoots. Or it will be the Green party who will ultimately benefit, come elections in the spring.

Parveen Akhtar has previously received funding from the ESRC and the British Academy.

– ref. ‘A united left? It’s been tanked’ – what I heard when I went to Your Party’s first conference – https://theconversation.com/a-united-left-its-been-tanked-what-i-heard-when-i-went-to-your-partys-first-conference-271162

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mehdi Chougan, Research and Innovation Associate at the School of Engineering, Cardiff University

Imagine waking up in 2040 to unusually quiet streets. By then, an estimated 60% of vehicles worldwide could be electric, cutting air pollution and noise in cities. But the shift to cleaner transport comes with a lesser-known problem – a huge rise in mining waste.

Lithium, a vital ingredient in electric vehicle batteries, leaves behind extraordinary amounts of waste. In 2023 alone, the global battery industry generated 1.8 million tonnes of lithium-related waste, almost all of it sent to landfill.

At the same time, the construction sector faces its own environmental crisis. Concrete is the most widely used man-made material on Earth. We produce enough of it each year to build a wall around the planet twice over.

Its main ingredient, Portland cement, is responsible for nearly 8% of global carbon emissions. As demand rises, the industry is running out of cleaner alternatives.

These two challenges – booming lithium production and the carbon cost of cement – may seem unrelated. But the solution to both could be the same: turning lithium mining waste into a new kind of low-carbon cement.

A waste problem hiding in plain sight

Lithium-ion batteries have reshaped the global energy landscape since they were invented in the 1970s. Their value is expected to soar to more than US$400 billion (£302 billion) as electric vehicle sales continue to increase.

But lithium does not appear in nature as a pure metal. It must be extracted from minerals or salty brines. Most of them are in the “lithium triangle” of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, which together hold more than 60% of the world’s reserves.

Extracting lithium is a messy business. For every tonne of battery-grade lithium carbonate produced, around nine to ten tonnes of waste are created. As countries race to meet climate targets, demand for lithium is expected to triple by 2030.

The UK government plans to develop new extraction sites in Cornwall and the northeast of England.

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

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But this growing waste stream contains something valuable. Chemically, lithium mining waste is rich in the same compounds (silicates, alumina and calcium oxides) that help cement harden and gain strength. In other words, the waste from one green technology could help clean up another.

Our team is testing whether UK lithium mining waste can be used to replace cement in concrete.

The idea is simple. If this waste can act as a supplementary binding material, it could cut the amount of traditional cement needed. This could reduce carbon emissions by up to 50%. But proving this requires detailed scientific work.

Work is underway to analyse the microstructure, chemical behaviour and long-term durability of lithium waste-based concretes, from early lab tests to full-scale trials in real conditions. If successful, “lithicrete” could provide the UK with a way of using waste from the country’s emerging lithium industry to build low-carbon infrastructure.

For years, the concrete industry has tried to reduce its reliance on Portland cement by blending it with industrial byproducts such as fly ash and blast furnace slag. But these materials are becoming scarce as coal power plants shut down and heavy industry changes. In fact, there could be an imminent shortfall in traditional cement alternatives, threatening progress on decarbonisation.

This makes the search for new materials urgent. Lithium mining waste, available in large volumes and chemically compatible with cement, offers a promising option just as the sector faces a bottleneck.

Why this matters

The environmental stakes are high. Concrete underpins almost everything we build, from homes to hospitals, schools and bridges. Demand is only growing. Cutting emissions from clinker (the core component of cement) and using alternative binders could deliver 20% of the reductions needed for the sector to reach net zero by 2050.

If lithium mining waste could replace part of the cement used in concrete, it would help slash emissions, reduce landfill and strengthen the UK’s resilience as it moves away from imported industrial by-products. It would also mean the transition to green transport like electric cars doesn’t simply shift environmental burdens elsewhere.

We argue that the transition to cleaner technology must also be circular. Rather than allowing one part of the green transition to create problems for another, materials should be reused and designed to stay in the system for as long as possible.

Riccardo Maddalena receives funding from UKRI EPSRC.

Mehdi Chougan 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. Could electric vehicle battery waste fix concrete’s carbon problem? – https://theconversation.com/could-electric-vehicle-battery-waste-fix-concretes-carbon-problem-268609

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sandy Brian Hager, Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy, City St George’s, University of London

Psychedelic medicine has regained momentum in 2025. Investors are coming back, regulatory attitudes are softening, trial results are improving and major pharmaceutical firms that kept their distance are starting to pay attention.

This is quite a turnaround for a sector whose share prices collapsed and whose funding dried up when weak trial results combined with rising interest rates in 2022. But enthusiasm should be tempered.

Psychedelic drugs are hard to turn into profitable medicines. Some of the strategies companies are using to overcome these obstacles could ultimately remove the elements that many people believe make them effective in mental health treatment.

My research points to three features of psychedelics that make commercial development unusually complicated.

The first challenge is intellectual property. Developing a new medicine is expensive, and investors only commit money if they think a company can recover those costs later. Patents make that possible: they grant a temporary monopoly, allowing firms to raise prices once a drug is approved.

But psychedelic compounds don’t fit comfortably with this model. Psilocybin and mescaline are natural, so companies cannot claim them as inventions.

Synthetic drugs such as LSD were created decades ago, and their original patents have expired. Many of these substances also have well-documented histories of use in Indigenous healing traditions, which makes it harder to argue that therapies based on them are genuinely new.

Firms can still patent delivery methods, formulations or small chemical tweaks. But these protections are narrow and fairly easy to challenge, so they don’t provide the kind of security investors look for.

The second challenge is practical. A psychedelic session isn’t like taking an antidepressant at home. A psychedelic trip can last six to 15 hours, so patients are prepared in advance of the session, supervised throughout and supported afterwards to help them process the experience. This requires trained staff, clinical space and time.

Health systems and insurers have not yet agreed on how to pay for this type of care, and companies have no clear model for delivering psychedelic therapy at scale. The economics of a treatment that occupies a clinic room and several professionals for most of a working day bear little resemblance to standard antidepressants.

The third challenge concerns clinical testing. Most medicines are evaluated in trials where neither participants nor researchers know who has received the real drug and who has received a placebo. With psychedelics, this becomes obvious as soon as the effects begin. Participants know when they are tripping, and researchers know too.

Some trials experiment with low doses or active placebos that cause mild sensations. But it is unclear whether regulators will treat these designs as equivalent to the gold-standard trials used for conventional medicines. This uncertainty makes it harder for investors to see a clear path to regulatory approval.

Two directions

In response to these challenges, the field is developing in two directions. One route is to develop short-duration compounds like 5-MeO-DMT, which produce a very intense altered state that lasts minutes rather than hours.

A session of that length is easier to supervise, demands fewer clinical resources and does not tie up a treatment room for most of the day. Companies pursuing this strategy have encouraging early results and have attracted renewed investment.

But safety remains an issue: delivering such a powerful psychedelic can be overwhelming, especially when therapeutic support is limited. As one researcher warned, “you don’t want to advance the world’s most powerful psychedelic experience on the timescale of a dental cleaning”.

The other route goes further. Instead of compressing the trip, some companies are trying to remove it altogether with so-called neuroplastogens. These molecules are designed to trigger the brain changes associated with classic psychedelics without the trip.

Because these compounds are new, they offer the intellectual property protection investors look for. They also avoid the unpredictable experiences that make psychedelic sessions difficult to deliver in clinics and are more compatible with the insurance and regulatory systems of conventional medicines.

However, the science behind them is still young, and it is not yet clear whether drugs without the trip can provide the same benefits that drew attention to these compounds in the first place.

Both approaches seek to make psychedelics easier to administer, insure and patent, but they also push the experience itself to the margins.

Many patients credit the psychedelic trip with their progress in therapy. Biotech companies see it as an obstacle to profitability. If that patient view is right, commercialised psychedelic medicine may never become the mental health revolution that companies and their investors expect.

Sandy Brian Hager 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 the future of psychedelic medicine might not be psychedelic at all – https://theconversation.com/why-the-future-of-psychedelic-medicine-might-not-be-psychedelic-at-all-270605

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ravindra Jayaratne, Reader in Coastal Engineering, University of East London

When Cyclone Ditwah made landfall on November 28 2025, Sri Lanka experienced one of its deadliest environmental disasters in modern history.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared it the “largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history”. Torrential rains triggered widespread floods and landslides, leading to more than 350 confirmed deaths, hundreds missing and over 1.4 million people affected nationwide.

Major road and rail systems were cut off, hydropower stations and water treatment plants failed, and thousands of families were forced into emergency shelters. Reservoirs overflowed, riverbanks collapsed and communities near the Mahaweli, Kelani, Malwathu Oya and Mundeni Aru river basins were inundated within hours.

These were not random failures. They were systemic. Many of the regions that flooded were vulnerable areas adjacent to coastal lagoons and low-lying river plains. Cyclone Ditwah was not an anomaly. It exposed the underlying fragilities of Sri Lanka’s existing flood-management and drainage infrastructure.

This follows on from the devastating tropical cyclone in 1978 and the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami disaster. Fifty years ago, flood infrastructure was not in a good state. Significant improvements haven’t been made since then, mainly due to poor urban planning.

Between 2018 and 2022, I worked with a global team of coastal engineers, social scientists and policy makers from academia and government organisations in the UK, Australia and Sri Lanka. Our research project focused on producing a new generation of compound flood hazard maps, based on computer modelling that considers all the storm surge components (surge, tide and sea level rise) and the rainfall effect.

I led the hydrological modelling efforts for Sri Lanka – focusing on how tropical-cyclone rainfall and storm surge combine to generate destructive flooding patterns for three vulnerable cities: Batticaloa, Mullaitivu and Mannar. The team worked with Sri Lanka’s Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management Department (CCD) to address a critical question: How do storm surges from tropical cyclones interact with rainfall to produce extreme inland and coastal floods?

Through analysis of historic cyclone tracks, we showed that Sri Lanka lies at the convergence of multiple storm pathways in the Bay of Bengal. This is why the country repeatedly suffers not only from rainfall-driven inundation but also from saltwater intrusion driven deep inland through lagoons and estuaries.

My team and I developed the hydrologic model for Batticaloa, using the Mundeni Aru river basin as a pilot case. We combined rainfall data, digital terrain maps (that indicate trees, buildings, roads and bare land) and river-flow simulations to identify the most vulnerable communities depending on the topography. Low-lying settlements adjacent to the Batticaloa and Valachchenai lagoons were particularly vulnerable to tropical cyclone-induced flooding.

Similar modelling work was proposed for Mullaitivu and Mannar, both historic cyclone-landfall regions. However, COVID disrupted much of the planned in-country engagement, in-depth modelling and translation of findings into policy tools, creating a serious lag between scientific insights and what planning authorities are currently referencing.

Ditwah’s aftermath – breached embankments, power failures, displaced families, submerged neighbourhoods – corresponds almost exactly to the worst-case compound-flood scenarios shown by our data. These are not purely meteorological phenomena. They depend on the flow of water and land-based infrastructure.

Drainage networks still rely on outdated historical rainfall records. Coastal defences are built for storm surges of previous decades. Urban development continues to occupy natural flood buffers such as wetlands and lagoon edges. Vulnerability has become physically engineered into the landscape.

Proactive planning

Working with government agencies including the CCD, the Met Office and the Disaster Management Centre, Sri Lanka can proactively integrate compound-flood science into planning and disaster risk-reduction strategies.

This includes producing updated flood maps that capture rainfall, river flow, storm surge and sea-level-rise dynamics. Hydrological models can be translated into operational tools for national and municipal planning authorities.

Drainage and river-management systems (such as seasonal removal of sand and debris) can be redesigned with the future (not historical) rainfall intensities in mind. Improving early-warning systems involves incorporating multiple hazards and long-range scenario modelling can be embedded into disaster-preparedness and land-use planning.

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Read more:
Boxing Day tsunami: here’s what we have learned in the 20 years since the deadliest natural disaster in modern history

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These measures enable policymakers, engineers and local administrations to make evidence-based decisions that reflect accelerating climate-driven risks rather than obsolete assumptions.

Cyclone Ditwah should mark a turning point. With the right integration of science, planning and governance, disasters of this magnitude need not become inevitable hallmarks of Sri Lanka’s future. And by aligning infrastructure and policy with the real hydrological dynamics of our changing climate, governments can better protect people, environment and economy from the storms yet to come.

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Ravindra Jayaratne receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK.

– ref. Sri Lanka’s latest climate-driven floods expose flaws in disaster preparations – here’s what needs to change – https://theconversation.com/sri-lankas-latest-climate-driven-floods-expose-flaws-in-disaster-preparations-heres-what-needs-to-change-271181

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

Kimchi has been enjoyed for centuries in Korea. But the spicy fermented cabbage dish has recently gained popularity in other parts of the world not only because of its delicious taste, but because of its potential to positively influence the many thousands of important microbes living in our gut as well as our overall health.

A recent study suggests that kimchi may also help support the immune system.

The study looked at 13 overweight adults over a 12-week period. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups. One group received a placebo, while the other two groups received two different types of kimchi powder (kimchi that had been freeze dried and put into a capsule).

The first type of kimchi powder was naturally fermented using microbes already in the environment. The second type was fermented with a chosen bacterial culture instead of relying on natural microbes. The amount of kimchi powder participants were given daily was roughly equivalent to eating 30 grams of fresh kimchi.

Blood samples were taken before and after the study and analysed using a technique that shows what each immune cell is doing instead of giving an overall average. This gives a detailed view of how the immune system responded.

The study found that kimchi affected the immune system in a targeted way. It increased the activity of antigen-presenting cells (APCs). These are immune cells that ingest pathogens, process them and show pieces of those pathogens on their surface so the body’s helper T cells (which coordinate overall immune response) know to mount a response against those specific pathogens.

Kimchi also increased the activity of certain genes that act like switches, helping these immune cells send clearer signals to T cells.

There were also genetic changes in helper T cells that made them react more quickly to anything that triggers an immune response. Since helper T cells coordinate immune responses, these changes mean they’re better equipped to help other immune cells fight infections effectively.

Most other immune cells stayed the same, meaning kimchi targeted helper T cells rather than activating the entire immune system. Maintaining this balance is important because the immune system must be able to respond to infections effectively while avoiding excessive inflammation that can damage tissues.

Overall, the results suggest that kimchi helps the immune system respond to threats more effectively without causing too much inflammation. Both types of kimchi produced these effects – though starter-culture kimchi showed a slightly stronger effect. Those taking the placebo saw no immune changes.

These findings point to potential benefits for defence against viruses, responsiveness to vaccines and regulation of inflammation – although further research is needed.

Immune cell function

It’s worth mentioning that this study was small and focused on changes in immune cells, not actual health outcomes. So we don’t yet know if eating kimchi in this way would reduce infections or inflammation in daily life.

However, the study does provide a plausible molecular explanation for how fermented foods can influence immune function. This tells us more than we can learn from studies that only observe people’s habits. It links a common fermented food to measurable effects on immune cells – supporting the idea that fermented foods may be used strategically to enhance immune regulation and overall immune balance.

Kimchi isn’t the only fermented food that may have immune benefits. Other foods such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, miso and kombucha contain live microbes and metabolites that have a positive effect on the microbiome and may influence immune function.

Some studies have also shown that fermented dairy products can increase beneficial gut bacteria and modulate immune responses, including T cell and antibody activity.

The exact effects of fermented foods will depend on many variables, including the microbes present, the fermentation method and an individual’s unique gut microbiome.

Different fermented foods may also have different effects due to the microbes they contain. This is why including a variety of fermented foods may be more beneficial than relying on a single type.

There’s no established recommendation for how much fermented food to eat. In this study, participants consumed the equivalent of 30 grams of kimchi per day, an amount that is feasible for most people.

While research is still unfolding, including a variety of fermented foods in your diet is an easy and enjoyable way to explore the potential benefits for your gut and immune system.

Try new options to discover what you like best, keep a few favourites ready in the fridge, and find simple ways to add them to everyday meals. Over time, these small, regular habits could help support your gut and immune health.

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. Kimchi may boost immune function, recent study shows – https://theconversation.com/kimchi-may-boost-immune-function-recent-study-shows-270747

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Friederike Döbbe, Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Business & Society, School of Management, University of Bath

The European parliament recently backed changes to the rules around the labelling and marketing of plant-based meat alternatives. New definitions specify that words like “burger”, “sausage” or “steak”, refer exclusively to animal protein. To get to the meat of the matter, this may mean that Europeans’ favourite soy-based patty can no longer be called a burger.

The vote took place amid a long-running European debate over the designation of plant-based alternatives to animal protein and the associated “linguistic gymnastics”.

A previous proposal to prohibit comparisons between dairy and plant-based foods was rejected. But the EU did decide to reserve the term “dairy” for products derived from animal milk. As a result, companies must now refer to their products as “almond drink” or “plant-based slices”, for example.

In the case of meat, the labelling propositions are part of a broader set of amendments to EU agricultural and food market regulations. These are supposed to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain.
Farmers in Europe have long expressed concerns that plant-based substitutes could threaten traditional farming practices.

But what about the role of the consumer in debates over how meat and its plant-based substitutes should be labelled?

Before the vote, MEPs had discussed a perceived lack of transparency for consumers. It was suggested that terms such as “veggie burger” or “tofu steak” obscure the distinction between meat and plant-based or lab-grown alternatives. These ambiguities, it was argued, could confuse or mislead consumers.

While member states must still negotiate the amendments detailing the labelling changes, the consequences could be significant. Some retailers, like supermarket chain Lidl, are working to increase sales of plant-based foods. This aligns with what the science says about sustainable diets.

After initial growth in the market for plant-based alternatives, sales have plateaued. Many producers fear they may now also face additional costs associated with rebranding and relabelling their products.

In response, a coalition of food producers and retailers have argued that avoiding familiar terms like “steak” or “burger” could actually create more confusion among consumers.

But how misled are consumers really?

Despite concerns on both sides of the debate, our research shows a different reality – one in which many consumers are much more knowledgeable than they are made out to be.

We studied how people reacted to a marketing campaign by Swedish chicken producer Kronfågel. The campaign implied that climate action is the consumer’s responsibility, suggesting that shoppers should switch from beef to chicken to “do something simple for the climate”.

As part of the campaign, an emissions calculation underscored this shift, even leaving the impression it could offset air travel – based on just one meal. While the campaign drew from standardised carbon footprinting, the calculation left more questions than answers.

Through analysis of comments on social media and complaints to the Swedish consumer protection agency, we studied how people reacted to the campaign – rejecting it vehemently. They took issue for a range of reasons, including the corporation’s use of climate science and debates about what constitutes sustainable food consumption and what does not.

The various sources of disagreement illustrate the polarisation over food consumption and production. Many people were critical of the suggestion to “offset” flying by eating chicken, while others questioned the appropriateness of a chicken producer, with suppliers in the agricultural sector, demonising beef production.

The company responded by saying that its intention was to “help consumers navigate” the difficulties of lowering their consumption-related carbon footprint. It also said that it took consumer criticisms about the campaign being misleading to heart and would learn from them. We know of no investigation into the campaign, but we sense a shift towards softer messaging more broadly as companies’ fears of greenwashing accusations increase.

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Read more:
Quick climate dictionary: what actually is a carbon footprint?

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Our research shows that many consumers are well informed about their choices, actively scrutinising food products about their health effects, climate impact and production processes. And in debating the advantages and disadvantages of meat and plant-based alternatives, we found that they would openly disagree with each other.

These discussions reveal that there are many relevant perspectives and values involved in choosing the “best” diet – and consumption choices are deeply tied to identity, emotion and culture. In light of this complexity, our research serves as a warning for businesses and other organisations, including political parties, to approach climate messaging with care and to make sure their claims are credible.

So what then to make of the labelling debate? It is of course important to safeguard consumers from harmful or deceptive marketing. However, research has illustrated how powerful people and organisations may stereotype citizens. This may be, for instance, as “responsible”, “misled” or “duped” consumers – often the purpose is to serve their own commercial or political interests.

Politicians, food producers and retailers should be cautious about claims that consumers cannot differentiate meat from plant-based alternatives. Shoppers are often much more switched on than some in the EU debate suggest.

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

– ref. Is anyone really misled by the term ‘veggie burger’? Our research suggests consumers are savvy – https://theconversation.com/is-anyone-really-misled-by-the-term-veggie-burger-our-research-suggests-consumers-are-savvy-270635

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Danny Buckley, Workplace Learning Director, Loughborough University

The UK’s autumn budget tried to appeal to both workers and employers. But the decision the very next day to soften a key plan to improve workers’ rights shows how difficult that balance has become.

Just hours after Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her budget, the government announced it would backtrack on a manifesto pledge to give all workers the right to claim unfair dismissal from day one of their employment.

Business groups had warned that the plan could discourage hiring, particularly for smaller firms that depend on probation periods to assess staff. Critics, of course, call it a broken promise.

Other planned day-one rights – to sick pay and paternity leave – will still go ahead from next year. But the government argued that delaying protection from unfair dismissal until six months after someone starts a new job (it is currently two years) is a practical compromise.

The decision is supposed to be pro-business and pro-hiring. But while workers will now miss out on what would have been a major change to their rights as a new employee, the move is unlikely to be enough to encourage under-pressure firms to take on staff.

The fact is that this debate sits within a wider policy environment where employing people has become harder. Regardless of dismissal rights, rising labour costs, tight margins and increasingly complex rules mean many firms are hesitant to take on staff.

But this is not to say that watering down workers’ protections in a bid to help firms is the way forward. The standard employment relationship is still the main way workers access rights and social protection, so its erosion raises serious concerns for working conditions and basic benefits.

When formal employment offers fewer protections, the gap between secure jobs and insecure arrangement narrows. If the government is suggesting that strengthening workers’ rights is negotiable, then in the eyes of an employer it may seem like less of a leap to opt for informal hiring models that deny workers certain protections.

For example, bogus self-employment (when workers are classified as “self-employed” or “subcontractors” even when their working conditions are effectively the same as regular employees) allows employers to shift legal and financial responsibilities on to workers. Protections like sick pay, redundancy rights and holiday pay disappear. The worker absorbs the risk as the employer cuts their costs.

Wider research on the informal economy shows how quickly these models spread once the rules allow it. In essence, rather than encouraging firms to hire on standard contracts, weaker protections normalise risk-shifting and accelerate the move towards arrangements that sit outside standard employment law.

In sectors such as hair and beauty and construction, workers are often told they are “independent” while being given fixed hours, fixed prices and strict instructions. They look like employees in every meaningful sense, but receive none of the protections.

The unfair dismissal U-turn could legitimise the drift towards these models. And at the same time, issues that the budget did not address – such as the VAT threshold and the rising cost of employment – leave many small business-to-consumer (those that sell their products or services direct to the public) deliberately choosing not to grow.

For example, when firms cross the VAT limit with a turnover of more than £90,000, this increases their costs sharply. As a result, adding even one or two employees to the staff can make the business unprofitable – far more so than the risk of taking on a staff member who might not work out and may have to be let go quickly.

As such, many firms deliberately cap their growth, restructure their operations or rely on “contractors” as the only affordable way to bring in extra capacity.

The cost of complying

I’ve seen this repeatedly in my previous and ongoing research into the impact of regulations on small businesses in the UK service sector. Firms avoid formal employment not because they want to exploit people, but because the cost of compliance has become too high for them to absorb. Bogus self-employment becomes the only viable staffing model if they want to continue trading.

When this practice becomes widespread, responsible employers face a hard choice. Either they adopt the same practices to stay competitive or watch rivals undercut them. This is the classic race to the bottom. Rights fall away, protections shrink and low-quality employment becomes the baseline across the sector.

The government insists that new enforcement measures will prevent abuse but there is little evidence to suggest this will work. Enforcement capacity has been repeatedly cut and agencies such as HMRC, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and the Health and Safety Executive struggle to investigate even straightforward cases. Ambiguous rules are easy to exploit and hard to police.

This is why MPs from across the political divide are calling for a full review of worker status. Closing loopholes is essential as ambiguity only helps those who want to reduce standards. This U-turn goes in the opposite direction.

The UK says it wants to “make work pay”. This requires tackling the VAT threshold and the rising cost of employing people, both of which encourage small firms to avoid growth. Some argue for raising the threshold to give firms more room to expand, while others support reducing the VAT rate for the sectors that are hardest hit.

While the U-turn on unfair dismissal is a blow to workers, at the same time it is insufficient to nudge pressurised firms towards employing formally. And this is important: a labour market built on insecurity is not efficient in the long run. It produces high turnover, low commitment and low productivity. It penalises responsible employers, rewards those that exploit grey areas and leaves workers in precarious positions.

If the UK wants a stable workforce, economic growth and a competitive economy, it needs employment rules that support both workers and the businesses that want to grow. This plan moves the UK further away from that goal.

Danny Buckley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The UK’s latest compromise on workers’ rights will not fix its labour market problems – https://theconversation.com/the-uks-latest-compromise-on-workers-rights-will-not-fix-its-labour-market-problems-271045