Source: The Conversation – UK – By Georgia MacMillan, PhD Scholar – Research Ireland Employment Based Scheme, University of Galway
Without a view of the stars at night, Don McLean would never have been able to write Vincent and Vincent van Gogh would not have painted Starry Night. Viewing a sky full of stars is part of what makes us human. The light from stars has travelled thousands of miles to reach our eyes.
So where is all this extra light coming from? A recent German study reveals that, contrary to common assumption, public street lighting may not be the biggest cause of light pollution. The sources are closer to home. Improved energy efficiencies in LED technology means that artificial light is now cheaper than ever to run. As a result, people are lighting up front doors, sheds and garden paths like never before.
Artist Vincent van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting was inspired by clear, dark skies. Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock
Artificial light at night has undoubtedly revolutionised our productivity and transformed our social environment as the sun sets. However, when used excessively or inappropriately, artificial light at night becomes light pollution. This changes our outdoor spaces by creating daytime conditions at night.
In particular, LEDs emitting high levels of harsh blue-white light are known to scatter more widely into the atmosphere, increasing levels of light pollution, which can have unintended consequences by interrupting our sleep cycles and circadian rhythms and disrupting nature at night.
Just one lamp can attract hundreds of insects, many of them important nocturnal pollinators, away from their natural environment, every single night. Once trapped in what’s called the “vacuum cleaner effect” of artificial light, scientists estimate that over 30% of these insects will die before dawn from exhaustion or predation. This disrupts the balance of nocturnal ecosystems.
The German researchers used a specially developed mobile app called NightLights to survey sources of light at night. More than 250 citizen scientists surveyed their local surroundings. The results challenged common assumptions that streetlights are the primary contributor to urban light pollution, and showed that residential, commercial and other non-street lighting sources play a significant role in brightening our night skies.
Insects are attracted to lights on houses, in gardens and public spaces. eleonimages/Shutterstock
In Ireland, we are coordinating similar surveys as part of a pilot programme to raise awareness of light pollution. Some of the most noticeable sources of night light include home security lights being angled up instead of down, garden runway lights over-illuminating pathways throughout the night and considerable light spilling from large windows without blinds or curtains.
Another growing issue in Ireland is the increasing intensity of illuminated sports grounds, often reported to the environmental non-profit group Dark Sky Ireland by concerned residents.
These issues can be easily resolved. Light pollution is just about the simplest of all pollutants to fix. Our study focuses on County Mayo’s Dark Sky Park, a place where naturally dark skies are protected and internationally recognised as a cherished form of natural heritage. We examined the role of dark sky tourism and community engagement in addressing light pollution. By making some simple changes to the type of light and being a little more judicious about how it is used, the level of unnecessary light currently polluting our night skies can be reduced.
Seeing the light
The community of Newport, County Mayo, has led the way in making these changes with some impressive results. Light pollution over the town of Newport has been reduced by 50% by redesigning the town’s lighting scheme – this award-winning project focused on replacing excessive flood lighting on heritage and architectural structures with a sensitively designed lighting scheme to enhance the town’s nightscape. As a feature of this initiative, the beautiful stained glass window at St Patrick’s Church in Newport, created by 20th-century artist Harry Clarke is delicately interpreted with light at night.
Lighting solutions that help protect dark skies include angling outdoor lights downwards and using shielded lamps to avoid illuminating the sky. Only direct light towards the area that needs to be lit, not into a neighbour’s garden or home. Use a visually warmer colour of light (such as amber) to reduce glare and improve conditions for wildlife and natural sleep cycles. Employing timers ensures that lights are only switched on when needed.
By making small changes to how we light our homes and gardens at night, the beauty of a starry night can be restored for generations to come.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Georgia MacMillan is affiliated with Dark Sky Ireland as a voluntary director (unpaid). Dark Sky Ireland is a non-profit CLG.
Marie Mahon receives funding from Horizon Europe
I am the Lead PI for the Research Ireland funded PhD project for Georgia McMillan. While I don’t directly receive/benefit the funds I have a role in managing them for Georgia.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation
For the past few weeks the headlines about Gaza have focused on the hundreds of people who have been killed while queueing for food. The aid distribution system put in place in May, backed by the US and Israel and run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has proved to be chaotic and allegedly resulted in violence, with both Israel Defense Forces personnel and armed Palestinian gangs blamed for killing about 1,000 people in the two months the new system has been operating.
Now the headlines are focusing on the growing number of people dying of starvation.
Harrowing reports from the Gaza Strip report almost daily on the children dying of malnutrition in hospitals and clinics that simply don’t have the food to keep them alive. Writing in the Guardian this week, a British volunteer surgeon working in one of Gaza’s hospitals, Nick Maynard, described patients who “deteriorate and die, not from their injuries, but because they are too malnourished to survive surgery”.
The UK and 27 other countries this week has condemned the “drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians” who are trying to get food and water. And yet, writes Simon Mabon, still the world’s leaders look on: “Most are apparently content to condemn – but little action has been taken.”
Mabon, a professor of international relations at Lancaster University, quotes the latest report from the IPC, which monitors food security in conflict situations. It estimates that 500,000 people in Gaza are considered to be facing “catastrophe”, while a further 1.1 million fall into the “emergency” risk category. Both categories anticipate a steadily rising death rate among civilians in Gaza.
So how can Israel’s allies apply pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to bring an end to the violence and allow Palestinian civilians access to the food, water and medical supplies they so desperately need?
Mabon canvasses a range of options. First of all, countries that have yet to recognise the state of Palestine can do so. It’s nonsense, Madon believes, to talk of a two-state solution – as the UK government does – when you haven’t actually recognised the second state in the equation.
Then they could stop selling arms to Israel. Many countries already have. But the US still issues export licenses for some weapons that are sold to Israel.
There are a plethora of other things world leaders could do to pressure Israel. Mabon recommends having a look at what the world did to isolate South Africa during the apartheid years, measures which eventually helped bring about meaningful change there.
As for Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister is reported to be considering an early election. In previous months this looked like a move freighted with jeopardy. An election loss brought on by a disenchanted electorate, heartbroken at the hostage situation and exhausted by the conflict, would probably mean having to face the charges of corruption which have hung over him for more than five years.
But recent polls have suggested a bump in popularity following his 12-day campaign against Iran. Netanyahu is nothing if not a clever political manipulator. But Brian Brivati, a professor of contemporary history and human rights at Kingston University, believes that to have a chance of winning, the prime minister will need to fight a campaign on three narratives of his government’s success: securing the release of the hostages, defeating Hamas and delivering regional security. “It is a tall order,” Brivati concludes.
Anyone following the situation in Gaza over the past 18 months will have encountered Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for Palestine’s occupied territories. For three years she has monitored the human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, delivering trenchant criticism of Israel’s conduct and those who, by their inaction – and sometimes contrivance – have enabled it.
Earlier this months, the US government imposed sanctions on Albanese, because – as US secretary of state Marco Rubio insisted – she has engaged with the International Criminal Court (also subject to US sanctions) “in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel”. Also she has written “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies”.
Alvina Hoffman, an expert in diplomatic affairs and human rights at SOAS, University of London, explains what a special rapporteur does and why their work is so valuable in the defence of human rights.
To Istanbul, where delegations from Russia and Ukraine met yesterday for their third round of face-to-face talks. All 40 minutes of them. There was another agreement of prisoner swaps and the two sides decided to set up some working groups to look into various political, military and humanitarian issues – but online rather in person.
The brevity of the talks came as no surprise to Stefan Wolff. Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham who has provided commentary for The Conversation throughout the conflict in Ukraine, points out that both sides remain wedded to their maximalist war aims. For Russia, this is for Ukraine to accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea and four provinces of eastern Ukraine, a ban on Ukraine’s membership of Nato and a much reduced military capacity. For Ukraine, it is getting their territory back and Russian acceptance of their national sovereignty, meaning it gets to determine for itself what alliances it seeks.
Donald Trump has told Vladimir Putin that, if there’s no ceasefire in 50 days, he’ll apply harsh secondary sanctions on the countries buying Russian oil and that he plans to supply Ukraine with American weapons (via Nato’s European member states, that is). Wolff believes both sides will now play the waiting game. They will calculate their next move after September 2, when the 50 days run out, and when they know more about what the US president plans to do.
Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, faces pressure from his own people. There have been days of protest at his decision to bring two formerly independent anti-corruption organisations under the direct control of the government. He argues that this was necessary to prevent Russian infiltration, while critics are saying that the Ukrainian president has launched a power grab designed to prevent independent investigation of alleged corruption against people close to him.
Jenny Mathers says these protests, which involve people from all political shades, including people who have fought in the defence of Ukraine since 2022, some with visible injuries, represents a fracture of the “informal agreement between the government and society to show a united front to the world while the war continues”.
Ukrainians protest after Zelensky signs law clamping down on anticorruption agencies.
It’s not as if Zelensky is in clear and present danger of losing his job. His party holds a majority of seats in the Ukrainian parliament, so he governs without having to depend on coalition partners. And the country’s constitution prohibits the holding of elections in wartime – whatever Putin, who regularly insists that Zelensky is an illegitimate leader because he is governing past his term limit, might think. Plus his approval rating sits at 65%.
Zelensky has been quick to soften his stance on this. Mathers says that political corruption is a very sore point in Ukraine, where there was decades of it until the Maidan protests of 2013-14 unseated the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. As she writes here, “the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ that rejected Yanukovych’s leadership and his policies was also a resounding demonstration of the strength of Ukraine’s civil society and its determination to hold its elected officials to account. Zelensky would be rash not to heed that.
He also knows it’s important for him to present a squeaky clean image to his supporters in the west. So while the protests may not present an immediate threat to his own position, he knows that unless he acts to root out corruption in Ukraine, it’ll be a threat to the future of the country itself.
But ethicist Marcel Vondermassen from the University of Tübingen believes another recent decision by the Ukrainian government is storing up trouble for the future. Ukraine has recently announced its decision to pull out of the Ottawa convention, the treaty that forbids the use of anti-personnel landmines.
In doing so, he’s following the example of Finland, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia which have all also quite the treaty in recent months for fear of Russian aggression.
But as Vondermassen points out, landmines don’t usually switch themselves off when a conflict ends and people are still being killed an maimed in former conflict zones around the world. Often it is farmers at work or children at play who are the victims. If other ways to protect countries from aggression aren’t pursued, as he puts it, in future decades we’ll still be “counting thousands of child casualties … from the landmines laid in the 2020s”.
Thailand-Cambodia: centuries-old dispute flares again
A dispute between the two south-east Asian countries that has been simmering since May flared into life yesterday when five Thai soldiers patrolling the border region were injured after stepping on a landmine – the second such incident in the past week. Both countries have sealed their border and there have been tit-for-tat ambassadorial expulsions.
Cambodia fired rockets and artillery into Thailand, killing 12 civilians. Thailand in turn has launched airstrikes against Cambodia. Both countries are blaming the other for starting it.
Petra Alderman, an expert in south-east Asian politics from London School of Economics and Political Science, traces the origins of this row, which go back to the colonial era in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yvonne Reddick, Reader in English Literature and Creative Writing, University of Lancashire
“Far over the misty mountains cold,” Dad read. Every evening before my light was turned out, he read me a story about a hobbit who left his comfortable burrow to journey to the Lonely Mountain. Searching for gold at the mountain’s roots, talking to eagles, scaring wolves off by starting a forest fire, tricking a dragon: these were the tales he read to me.
View of the south-eastern slopes of Braeriach. The River Dee flows out of An Garbh Choire. By Angus, CC BY-SA
We lived in a granite house on the western edge of Aberdeen. Mum planted rhubarb and runner beans in the garden. Summer holidays meant going to Aviemore, in the lap of the Cairngorm mountains. We’d stay in a wooden chalet, where knots in the pine planks looked down at me like the eyes of owls. We’d always walk near the gentle hill of Craigellachie, fledged with silver birches. I learnt to recognise the mountains: Braeriach with its three scooped-out corries, Cairngorm scarred with ski runs.
Dad knew how to disappear. Some weeks, he’d leave before dawn to take the helicopter out to the North Sea oil platforms. During summer weekends, he’d vanish for the summits of those rounded Cairngorm hills. One day, he marched in through the door with his muddy boots still on, and hoisted his battered blue Berghaus backpack onto the kitchen table, grinning:
I’ve got a surprise for you.
What is it?
He hefted out a football-sized lump of mountain quartz and put it on the table in front of me. It shone white as a glacier.
Dad’s “Munro Book” was a gift from my mum, given shortly after I was born. It was always referred to as the Munro Book, never by its title, and it detailed all of Scotland’s peaks over 3,000 feet high – first charted by the tweedy Victorian baronet, Sir Hugh Munro. Getting to the top of all 282 of them is a popular challenge for hikers. For dad, it was an obsession.
Dad was a hillwalker, but the Munro Book was written by mountaineers. It contained sentences such as: “A pleasantly airy scramble, for which some might prefer the security of a rope.” (I only ever saw Dad attempting a climbing wall once, when the two of us clambered up – and slithered off – orange and green plastic holds at a gym in Scotland.)
He never acquired the paraphernalia that winter hikers (or walkers who fancy themselves as climbers) accumulate: crampons, ice axes, ropes, the ironmongery of nut-keys, hexes and cams. However, he did claim that he scrambled up Ben More on the Isle of Mull via a route he termed “the wrong one”. It was one of his favourite stories.
The Munro Book shared bookshelves with Mountaincraft and Leadership, The Pennine Way, The South Downs Way, The Northern Fells, and 30 battered, pink Ordnance Survey maps in miles and feet.
From the age of nine, dad dragged me out with him. At first, I’d whine about the mud and midges. Later, I felt my heart lifting when I reached a cairn and could see as far as Mull and Skye. I learnt to name the whaleback of Ben Nevis.
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Dad kept a weather-eye on the forecasts. His kit list included: cheese-and-pickle sandwiches; an itchy wool balaclava; a Berghaus waterproof; a survival blanket; a map, compass and GPS; spare batteries in case the ones in the GPS went flat; a second compass, in case the first compass malfunctioned; and the phone number of Mountain Rescue. All of this was crammed into the ancient blue rucksack.
Dad’s love of the outdoors developed alongside his work as an oil reservoir engineer. There are North Sea oilfields named Everest, Banff, Cairngorm and Munro. And the ease with which Dad read charts of mountains and valleys deep below the sea translated into the mathematical precision with which he navigated with map, compass and GPS.
When I was old enough to read for myself, I read The Hobbit and longed to journey through the Misty Mountains: “The mountain smoked beneath the Moon … The trees like torches blazing bright.” I’d never seen a forest fire, but even in rainy Scotland, there were signs that blazes were becoming more frequent. Just south of Loch an Eilein (the loch with the island), you came across bunches of strange brooms and paddles by the path: fire beaters, in case the heather caught alight. Aviemore was a busy ski resort in winter, but the snowline was inching higher and higher up the mountains.
I never worried about Dad. Even when he grumbled about tightness in his chest before his last holiday in the Cairngorms, it never occurred to me that the path could run out so soon.
Peak oil
Mountains rise skywards when one of Earth’s plates collides against another. Deep in the guts of great ranges, rocks fold and buckle. Ancient seabeds, turned to stone, are heaved upwards. The same rock-fold, the anticline, can forge mountains and harbour oil.
The Rockies stand on the largest reservoir of untapped shale oil in the world. The richest oilfields west of Russia are near the Carpathians. Iran’s oil and gas deposits lie at the feet of the Zagros, the high range that transects the country from north-west to south-east. North Sea oilfields are named for Highland mountains: Beinn, Schiehallion, Foinaven.
I look up a 3D schematic of an oil deposit, not unlike the one pictured below. It reminds me of a miniature massif: oil and gas seeping upwards through rock, resembling ice-falls in reverse. In place of a summit scarved with cloud, there’s a pointed deposit of trapped methane gas.
The next zone down, where a mountain’s glaciers would be, is an area on the diagram that is coloured green, showing oil. I look at a seismology map – the kind Mum used to work on in Oman. This time, the image shows a vertical cross-section through layers of rock. Its contours are shallower – more hillock than Himalayan peak. I think of knolls and hill forts – Arnside Knott on the Lancashire coast, or Torside on the shoulder of Bleaklow in the Peaks.
A 3D schematic of the reservoir properties of the Illizi Basin in eastern Algeria. SEG Wiki, CC BY
Mountains and petroleum share a similar vocabulary. Exploration, frontiers, surveying. I look at graphs of peak oil production and note coincidences with the so-called golden age of mountaineering. 1854-1865: the dawn of a prolific decade of Alpine mountaineering, the time of Edward Whymper and the Matterhorn disaster. 1859: the drilling of the first oil well by the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company in Titusville. The 1950s and ’60s saw western companies exploiting deposits in the Middle East and South America, leading to my grandfather’s time working in Venezuela and Iran. Expansion to the Earth’s highest peaks; drilling into its rocky depths.
Richard Bass, the first man to climb the “Seven Summits” – the highest peaks on each continent – ran a Texan oil-and-gas business. Black gold funded Bass’s Snowbird ski resort in Utah. The first rope access workers on North Sea oil platforms were climbers and cavers.
Many of dad’s friends found that a youthful passion for rock climbing gave them an intimate knowledge of the character of different kinds of stone, or that reading maps translated easily into mapping the deep layers of Earth’s bedrock. For a geology or engineering graduate with an enjoyment of adventure and a love of travel, a career in oil exploration was an exciting and well-paid career path.
But expanding oil frontiers and summiting the world’s highest peaks bring similar controversies. It is no coincidence that mountaineering exploits and oil extraction share common ground with colonialism, foreign control, nation-building and struggles for self-rule. Local and Indigenous people are determined to protect their land, or want a stake in the wealth of an industry whose history is mired in colonial exploitation.
I think of the far-north of Canada and Alaska – of Athabasca people either fierce in their resistance to the incursions of oil companies under the ice, or wanting their fair share of the industry’s colossal profits. Sherpas, Sherpanis and Nepalis reclaiming Mount Everest after decades of western exploitation, smashing the time records for summit successes.
Murky soot and tiny microplastics from the oil industry touch even the shining Alpine summits that I love. They taint the high snows of Everest. The cataclysmic impact of fires, blowouts and everyday fossil-fuel burning strips them of their ice. Oil is there in the mountains of plastic waste I saw on the outskirts of Himalayan towns. And perhaps the most explosive place where fossil fuels meet mountains is Azerbaijan’s Yanar Dag, which dad visited in 2002 on the back of a drunken horse.
Mountain of Fire
Nightfall in the countryside near Baku. The horses hung their heads in the stalls. Bahram the guide poured beer on their oats. They shook themselves awake, started munching. Dad hauled himself into the stirrups and thudded into the saddle like a sack of gravel: “Don’t drink and ride!” The horses began the slow plod uphill.
Rocks and thirsty thorn-scrub. A wooden bridge over a parched river. Bahram paused, dismounted, lit a cigarette and flicked the ash towards the riverbed. It touched off flame.
Wink of fire through twilight. Whiff of gasoline on the breeze. Flames surged from a blackened fissure in the rocks. Yanar Dag means Mountain of Fire. This fissure has burned for 3,000 years at least. People raised temples where priests tend eternal fires. Did fires like this inspire Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s most ancient faiths? I look up the prophet Zarathustra, glance through Nietzche’s imagining of his words. I read about Zoroastrian fire rituals and trial by flame. I read about sacred fire, symbolising the light of the deity and the illuminated mind.
Dad worked in the Caspian region when I was a teenager, flying to Baku for one week every month. He admired the Flame Tower skyscrapers, relished lamb-and-rice plov. Deals were toasted with copious quantities of vodka. I heard about Shah Deniz, the King of the Sea, a gargantuan gas field under fathoms of rock and water.
Dad longed to hike the ochre-red foothills of the Caucasus, and loved spinning yarns about “Hell’s Doorway”, the crater over a natural gas deposit that burst into flames after a Russian drilling rig collapsed. At garden parties for his colleagues back in the Home Counties, I met Bahram and Mehtab, their daughters Farah and Donya.
The Caspian seabed was tough drilling. One of Dad’s Azeri colleagues showed me a map of the bedrock, riddled with faults. Dad enjoyed the reservoir engineering challenge this posed, in much the same way he relished building Meccano or getting my second-hand Scalextric cars to work.
Forty-eight billion barrels lie under the world’s largest inland water-body. The Caspian is split into four basins; the most southerly is the deepest, divided from the others by the Apsheron Ridge. This anticline linked to the Caucasus Mountains spans the entire Caspian from Baku to Turkmenistan. The Caspian was formed by a complex interplay of plates shifting and rifting.
One of the greatest hazards for oil exploration in the region – apart from the earthquakes – are the mud volcanoes. Found near petroleum deposits and mountainous regions, these bizarre formations belch up methane, creating mucky splatter cones. They may bubble up under a body of water, or erupt on land. The rounder ones on land are known as “mud domes”; the flatter ones are sometimes referred to as “mud pies”.
Dad loved telling stories about them. Soviet scientists wanted to predict their habits, proposing that variable water levels in the Caspian, and even sunspots, might trigger their eruptions. Mud volcanoes are found in the Carpathians, the Caucasus, California, and even in the Gulf of Mexico. Dashli Island in the Caspian Sea is one giant mud volcano which exploded near an oil platform in 2021, erupting flames 500 metres high.
The Caspian region is one of the oldest oil-producing areas in the world. Troops of the emperor Cyrus the Great used Baku’s oil as an incendiary weapon. Caspian oil lit the way for Alexander the Great’s soldiers. Medieval Arab historians and travellers noted the region’s dependence on oil for heating and trade. An inscription from 1593 commemorates a manually-dug oil well near Baku.
Baku has been an oil town for centuries. An enterprising Azeri merchant drilled two oil wells in the Caspian in 1803, likely the world’s first offshore extraction, although a storm made short work of them in 1825. Robert Nobel arrived in Baku in 1873, tasked with finding walnut trees for wood to build rifles for the tsar’s army; instead, he decided to buy an oil refinery. Grainy sepia images of Russian oil production show forests of wooden derricks. In 1898, Franco-Russian filmmaker Alexandre Mishon filmed gushers and blowouts. Russian production of Azeri oil was the most prolific petroleum source on the planet from 1899 to 1901.
Azerbaijan is the birthplace of many innovations: the first mechanically drilled oil-wells, the first pipelines, the first tankers. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, competition for oil production partnerships in newly independent Azerbaijan was intense. A deal with BP in 1992 began three decades of exploration and drilling. The offshore platforms became enormous: photos show helipads, flarestacks, workers’ quarters, tangles of pipework. As the shallower oil reserves were exhausted, drilling became more ambitious. The Deepwater Gunashli platform began to pump petroleum from 175 metres below the water’s surface.
After “peak oil” – the height of demand and production – economists predict that we are entering the age of “tough oil”. Deep water, distant locations, greater danger. The oil reserves that dad and his colleagues explored were already becoming increasingly hazardous and hard to reach.
Portrait of Madeleine by Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1800).Louvre
According to one strand of history, slavery was abolished when Europeans found their conscience. According to another, it was abolished when it stopped being profitable. Both approaches tend to underplay the significance of Black resistance.
In a revolution that upended ideas about white superiority, the enslaved Black people of the French Caribbean colony Saint-Domingue liberated themselves to create Haiti, the first free Black nation in the Americas. The country was established in 1804, after more than a decade of armed struggle. This historic victory is part of a long series of violent rebellions that regularly shook the Caribbean islands and undermined the transatlantic slave economy.
These rebellions helped make the “slavery question” one of the most contested political issues of its time. Philosophers and statesmen balanced the wrongs of enslavement against the huge profits to be made for individual merchants and for nations as a whole. One after the other, European nations abolished first the trade in enslaved people and later slavery itself.
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Yet, even in abolition, European nations kept a close eye on their rivals. Britain’s abolition of the slave trade was followed by the creation of a West Africa Squadron of the Royal Navy. Its task was to interrupt the trade of other nations by capturing their slave ships and “liberating” their African captives.
These “liberated Africans” were given the choice of working for the Royal Navy or contributing to Britain’s colonisation of Sierra Leone. None of them were allowed to return home.
While this was going on, romanticism spread throughout Europe. It was a movement that affected every aspect of culture – art, literature, music, philosophy, science and politics. It centred on the idealisation of human freedom in all its forms. Old monarchies were to be swept away by democratic revolutions, stale aesthetic forms by sublime feeling, constrictive gender norms by free love.
The romantic drive for freedom is generally interpreted in relation to the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Both symbolise a shift of power from the old nobility to the new bourgeoisie (or middle classes) and a concurrent shift from agrarian to urban economies. Romantic freedom is rarely read in the context of the slavery question.
My new book, The Trembling Hand, addresses this omission. It explores how enslavement shaped European culture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I trace how profits made from slavery supported literary work. I analyse how writers absorbed and refracted ideas about Africans that emerged in the public debate around slavery. Above all, I try to recover the presence of Black people, hovering at the edges of the archive.
How do we teach this history?
The links between ongoing Black insurrection in the Caribbean and the romantic obsession with freedom were felt by writers and artists at the time. But they have been obscured by the ways in which this period has traditionally been taught in schools and universities.
Today, the status quo is beginning to shift. In response to calls to decolonise and diversify the curriculum, a new canon of Black romantic writing is beginning to be taught. It’s centred on a handful of authors, especially Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, as well as the unknown author of the novel The Woman of Colour (1808). Their presence in the curriculum is definitely an improvement – yet it also raises some problems.
To study Black writing of the romantic period inevitably means to study the history of slavery. This is because the only Afro-diasporic people who wrote in English in the 18th and 19th centuries had acquired the language in context of the transatlantic slave economy. It is very hard, if not impossible, to find a Black bildungsroman, gothic romance, or epic poem.
This is a historical fact. Yet it also means that only focusing on works published by Black authors risks playing into the notion that Black people’s only contribution to history was as “slaves”. This erases the multifaceted ways in which Afro-diasporic peoples affected the course of European history in the 18th and 19th centuries. Not only as “slaves” but also as cultural agents in their own right.
This points to the problem of the archive: its gaps and silences, but also its violent distortions.
Many of the archives that we have access to were created by enslavers. They had a vested interest in perpetuating the slave system even as it was being challenged by Black rebels and abolitionists. They threw all their rhetorical force at demonising Black people so as to justify enslavement.
Literature, alongside art, philosophy and the social and natural sciences contributed to spreading these ideas. These writings were instrumental in shaping public understanding about race, enslavement and empire.
We need to understand how literary writers contributed to constructing a vision of Britain as an imperial power entitled to subjugate foreign peoples and extract their resources.
How does the brutal violence of colonisation come to seem like a reasonable activity for a civilised nation to engage in? How does the idea that white Europeans have a “natural” right to rule over the whole world become widely accepted? Or the idea that people with a darker skin tone are born to serve? Or the idea that being a European power involves having colonies outside of Europe?
These questions prompt us, as readers interested in decolonising and diversifying the teaching of English literature, to turn our gaze on white authors. Especially those major authors whose work had an “impact” on their society. In addition to studying marginalised voices, we need to interrogate the ideas about race that have been created and propagated through canonical literature.
As these works become part of our national heritage, for example by being selected to be taught in schools, so the racial prejudice they harbour become wired into our own minds. Some of the racist ideas that I find in the historical archive are intimately familiar from my own experience.
That’s why I set out to write a new history of romanticism, one that reckons with the impact of the transatlantic slave economy on British culture – an impact so strong that it still resonates today.
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.
Mathelinda Nabugodi has received funding from The Leverhulme Trust, The Deborah Rogers Foundation, and the Whiting Foundation.
You need fibre. That much is true. But in the world of online health trends, what started out as sound dietary advice has spiralled into “fibremaxxing” – a push to consume eye-watering amounts in the name of wellness.
In the UK, NHS guidelines suggest that an adult should consume at least 30g of fibre a day. Children and teens typically need much less.
Yet despite clear guidelines, most Britons fall short of their daily fibre target. One major culprit? The rise of ultra-processed foods, or UPFs. UK adults now get over 54% of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods. For teenagers, it’s nearer 66%.
This matters because UPFs are typically low in fibre and micronutrients, while being high in sugar, salt and unhealthy fats. When these foods dominate our plate, naturally fibre-rich whole foods get pushed out.
Studies show that as ultra-processed food intake increases, fibre consumption decreases, along with other essential nutrients. The result is a population falling well short of its daily fibre target.
Adding high fibre foods to your meals and snacks throughout a typical day, such as switching to wholegrain bread for breakfast, keeping the skin on fruits like an apple, adding lentils and onions to a chilli evening meal and eating a handful of pumpkin seeds or Brazil nuts between meals, would help an average person hit their 30g-a-day dietary requirements.
Displacement
With fibremaxxing, what might make this trend somewhat dangerous is the removal of other food groups such as proteins, carbohydrates and fats and replacing them with fibre-dense foods, supplements or powder. This is where the potential risk could mitigate the benefits of increasing fibre, as no robust studies in humans – as far as I’m aware – have been conducted on long-term fibre intakes over 40g a day. (Some advocates of fibremaxxing suggest consuming between 50 and 100g a day.)
Eating too much fibre too quickly – especially without enough water – can lead to bloating, cramping and constipation. It can also cause a buildup of gas that can escape at the most inconvenient moments, like during a daily commute.
Rapidly increasing fibre intake or consuming too much can interfere with the absorption of essential micronutrients like iron, which supports normal body function, as well as macronutrients, which provide the energy needed for movement, repair and adaptation.
However, it’s important to remember that increasing fibre in your diet offers a wide range of health benefits. It supports a healthy digestive system by promoting regular bowel movements and reducing the occurrence of inflammatory bowel disease.
Soluble fibre helps to regulate blood sugar levels by slowing the absorption of glucose, making it especially helpful for people at risk of type 2 diabetes. It also lowers LDL (bad) cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart disease. Fibre keeps you feeling full for longer, which supports healthy weight management and appetite regulation. These findings are all well documented.
Additionally, a high-fibre diet has been linked to a lower risk of certain cancers, particularly colon cancer, by helping to remove toxins efficiently from the body. Gradually increasing fibre intake to recommended levels – through a balanced, varied diet – can offer real health benefits.
Given the evidence, it’s clear that many of us could benefit from eating more fibre – but within reason.
Until we know more, it’s safest to stick to fibre intake within current guidelines, and get it from natural sources rather than powders or supplements. Fibre is vital, but more isn’t always better. Skip the social media fads and aim for balance: whole grains, veg, nuts and seeds. Your gut – and your fellow commuters – will thank you.
Lewis Mattin is affiliated with The Physiological Society, The Society for Endocrinology, In2Science & UKRI funded Ageing and Nutrient Sensing Network.
Netflix’s recent use of generative AI to create a building collapse scene in the sci-fi show El Eternauta (The Eternaut) marks more than a technological milestone. It reveals a fundamental psychological tension about what makes entertainment authentic.
The sequence represents the streaming giant’s first official deployment of text-to-video AI in final footage. According to Netflix, it was completed ten times faster than traditional methods would have allowed.
Yet this efficiency gain illuminates a deeper question rooted in human psychology. When viewers discover their entertainment contains AI, does this revelation of algorithmic authorship trigger the same cognitive dissonance we experience when discovering we’ve been seduced by misinformation?
The shift from traditional CGI (computer-generated imagery) to generative AI is the most significant change in visual effects (VFX) since computer graphics displaced physical effects.
Traditional physical VFX requires legions of artists meticulously crafting mesh-based models, spending weeks perfecting each element’s geometry, lighting and animation. Even the use of CGI with green screens demands human artists to construct every digital element from 3D models and programme the simulations. They have to manually key-frame each moment, setting points to show how things move or change.
Netflix’s generative AI approach marks a fundamental shift. Instead of building digital scenes piece by piece, artists simply describe what they want and algorithms generate full sequences instantly. This turns a slow, laborious craft into something more like a creative conversation. But it also raises tough questions. Are we seeing a new stage of technology – or the replacement of human creativity with algorithmic guesswork?
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El Eternauta’s building collapse scene demonstrates this transformation starkly. What would once have demanded months of modelling, rigging and simulation work has been accomplished through text-to-video generation in a fraction of the time.
The economics driving this transformation extend far beyond Netflix’s creative ambitions.
The text-to-video AI market is projected to be worth £1.33 billion by 2029. This reflects an industry looking to cut corners after the streaming budget cuts of 2022. In that year, Netflix’s content spending declined 4.6%, while Disney and other major studios implemented widespread cost-cutting measures.
AI’s cost disruption is bewildering. Traditional VFX sequences can cost thousands per minute. As a result, the average CGI and VFX budget for US films reached US$33.7 million (£25 million) per movie in 2018. Generative AI could lead to cost reductions of 10% across the media industry, and as much as 30% in TV and film. This will enable previously impossible creative visions to be realised by independent filmmakers – but this increased accessibility comes with losses too.
While AI grants filmmakers unprecedented access to complex imagery, it simultaneously strips away the granular control that defines directorial vision.
As an experiment, film director Ascanio Malgarini spent a year creating an AI-generated short film called Kraken (2025). He used AI tools like MidJourney, Kling, Runway and Sora, but found that “full control over every detail” was “simply out of the question”.
Malgarini described working more like a documentary editor. He assembled “vast amounts of footage from different sources” rather than directing precise shots.
Kraken, the experimental AI short film by Ascanio Malgarini.
And it’s not just filmmakers who prefer the human touch. In the art world, studies have shown that viewers strongly prefer original artworks to pixel-perfect AI copies. Participants cited sensitivity to the creative process as fundamental to appreciation.
When applied to AI-generated content, this bias creates fascinating contradictions. Recent research in Frontiers in Psychology found that when participants didn’t know the origin, they significantly preferred AI-generated artwork to human-made ones. However, once AI authorship was revealed, the same content suffered reduced perceptions of authenticity and creativity.
The UK faces similar challenges, with the government launching a consultation in December 2024 on copyright and AI reform. This included a proposal for an “opt-out” system, meaning creators could actively prevent their work from being used in AI training.
The 2023 Hollywood strikes crystallised industry fears about AI displacement. Screenwriters secured protections ensuring AI cannot write or rewrite material, while actors negotiated consent requirements for digital replicas. Yet these agreements primarily cover the directors, producers and lead actors who have the most negotiating power, while VFX workers remain vulnerable.
Copyright litigation is now beginning to dominate the AI landscape – over 30 infringement lawsuits have been filed against AI companies since 2020. Disney and Universal’s landmark June 2025 lawsuit against Midjourney represents the first major studio copyright challenge, alleging the AI firm created a “bottomless pit of plagiarism” by training on copyrighted characters without permission.
The industry faces an acceleration problem – AI advancement outpaces contract negotiations and psychological adaptation. AI is reshaping industry demands, yet 96% of VFX artists report receiving no AI training, with 31% citing this as a barrier to incorporating AI in their work.
Netflix’s AI integration shows that Hollywood is grappling with fundamental questions about creativity, authenticity and human value in entertainment. Without comprehensive AI regulation and retraining programs, the industry risks a future where technological capability advances faster than legal frameworks, worker adaptation and public acceptance can accommodate.
As audiences begin recognising AI’s invisible hand in their entertainment, the industry must navigate not just economic disruption, but the cognitive biases that shape how we perceive and value creative work.
Edward White is affiliated with Kingston University.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Busra Nisa Sarac, Senior Lecturer in International Security and Gender Studies, University of Portsmouth
A French national called Sonia Mejri will stand trial for her alleged involvement in crimes committed against the Yazidi community, a Paris court ruled in early July. Mejri is accused of having joined the Islamic State (IS) group’s so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and participating in its genocidal campaign against the Yazidi religious minority group 11 years ago.
At that time, IS overran the Sinjar region of northern Iraq and carried out atrocities against the civilian population. The Yazidi people were subjected to murder, rape, enslavement and forced conversion to Islam. Approximately 12,000 Yazidis were killed or abducted by IS, and around 250,000 fled to Mount Sinjar where they faced near starvation.
The Paris court’s ruling follows the prosecution of several other people across Europe in recent years for their role in enslaving Yazidis. These developments have offered the Yazidi community a glimmer of hope for justice.
In 2021, for example, a former member of IS called Taha al-Jumailly was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. A court in Frankfurt, Germany, ruled that he intended to eliminate the Yazidis by purchasing two women and enslaving them. This was the world’s first trial concerning the Yazidi genocide.
More recently, in 2024, a Dutch woman known as Hasna Aarab stood trial in The Hague, Netherlands, for charges also related to the enslavement of Yazidi women. She was sentenced to ten years in prison. Then, in February 2025, a Swedish woman called Lina Ishaq was convicted of committing genocide, crimes against humanity and gross war crimes against Yazidis in Syria.
Despite the fact that the international community has been slow in prosecuting members of IS for their roles in the genocide, these cases are a positive development. But it should also be noted that they are the result of years of advocacy and campaigning by Yazidi organisations and activists.
Notwithstanding these developments, and the fact that IS lost control of its territory in Iraq and Syria in 2017, there are still significant challenges facing the Yazidi community. One pressing concern is the whereabouts of the more than 2,000 Yazidis who are still missing.
A few Yazidi women have emerged from different locations in recent years, which has made families hopeful. But the missing elderly women are now presumed dead and many others are believed to have been killed by airstrikes in the international military campaign against IS. These people are thought to be buried in mass graves.
Another concern is linked to the detention camps in northeast Syria, where suspected members of IS are detained indefinitely. A 2024 report by Amnesty International indicated that hundreds of Yazidis are probably being held in the camps.
This can be explained by two factors. First, Yazidi women in these camps may avoid identification due to fears of being separated from their children born in IS slavery. Yazidi leaders have declared that children born to IS members are not welcome and could never be assimilated into Yazidi society.
Second, it’s possible that some Yazidis in the camps no longer know their identity due to prolonged captivity and exposure to radical views from IS members. Both factors may prevent many Yazidis from returning to their communities, compounding the long-term consequences of the genocide.
The Al-Hol detention camp in north-eastern Syria, where many people with ties to IS are held. Trent Inness / Shutterstock
Persistent security challenges
The Yazidis also continue to face persistent security challenges, as they lack the necessary infrastructure and support to rebuild their home towns. More than a decade on, 200,000 Yazidis remain displaced, with the majority living in makeshift camps. These camps are mainly located in Duhok, a city in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The Kurdistan regional government has been actively working to close down or merge the displacement camps in an attempt to encourage the displaced families to return home. But a lack of infrastructure, including access to water, and limited employment opportunities continue to hinder their return and resettlement.
Iraq’s federal government has said it will give 4 million Iraqi dinars (roughly £2,250) to each Yazidi family that returns home, as well as offering interest-free bank loans. But the compensation scheme has now been paused due to a lack of funds. Even when it was offered, the amount was not enough to help people rebuild their lives in places that are in ruins.
The presence of various armed groups supported by different states in the region also threatens the safety and security of the Yazidis. Sinjar’s rugged terrain and remoteness from political centres has long encouraged groups, including the Kurdish Workers’ Party and Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, to establish transit routes there to support their allies in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkey.
Sinjar is also a disputed territory, claimed by the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government in Erbil. Clashes between local militia groups continue to destabilise Sinjar, leading to the re-displacement of some Yazidis who have only recently returned, while preventing many others from returning even if they wanted to do.
The trials of IS members have given Yazidis some hope for justice. But persistent problems since 2014 have made it hard for them to return to their hometowns, or feel safe if they do so. Until these things are dealt with properly, the same problems will continue in the years to come.
Busra Nisa Sarac 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.
Would you dab perfume on a six-month-old? Paint their tiny nails with polish that contains formaldehyde? Dust bronzer onto their cheeks?
An investigation by the Times has found that babies and toddlers are routinely exposed to adult cosmetic products, including fragranced sprays, nail polish and even black henna tattoos.
While these may sound harmless – or even Instagram-friendly – the science tells a more concerning story. Infant skin is biologically different from adult skin: it’s thinner, more absorbent and still developing. Exposure to certain products can lead to immediate problems like irritation or allergic reactions, and in some cases, may carry longer term health-risks such as hormone disruption.
This isn’t a new concern. A 2019 study found that every two hours in the US, a child was taken to hospital because of accidental exposure to cosmetic products.
Newborn skin has the same number of layers as adult skin but those layers are up to 30% thinner. That thinner barrier makes it easier for substances, including chemicals, to penetrate through to deeper tissues and the bloodstream.
Young skin also has a higher water content and produces less sebum (the natural oil that protects and moisturises the skin). This makes it more prone to water loss, dryness and irritation, particularly when exposed to fragrances or creams not formulated for infants.
The skin’s microbiome – its protective layer of beneficial microbes – also takes time to develop. By age three, a child’s skin finishes establishing its first microbiome. Before then, products applied to the skin can disrupt this delicate balance. At puberty, the skin’s structure and microbiome change again, altering how it responds to products.
The investigation found that bronzers and nail polish were being used on young children. These products often contain harmful or even carcinogenic chemicals, such as formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate.
Even low-level exposure to formaldehyde, such as from furniture or air pollution, has been linked to higher rates of lower respiratory infections in children (that’s infections affecting the lungs, airways and windpipe).
Irritating ingredients
In the US, one in three adults experiences skin or respiratory symptoms after exposure to fragranced products. If adults are reacting, it’s no surprise that newborns and children with their developing immune systems are at even greater risk.
Perfumes often contain alcohol and volatile compounds that dry out the skin, leading to redness, itching and discomfort.
Certain skincare ingredients have also been studied for their potential to affect hormones, trigger allergies or pose long-term health concerns:
alkylphenols used in detergents and cosmetics may disrupt hormone activity
benzophenone is found in many sunscreens and some forms may act as allergens and hormone disruptors.
While many of these ingredients are permitted in regulated concentrations, some researchers warn of a “cocktail effect”: the cumulative impact of daily exposure to multiple chemicals, especially in young, developing bodies.
Temporary tattoos, particularly black henna, are popular on holidays but they aren’t always safe. Black henna is a common cause of contact dermatitis in children and may contain para-phenylenediamine (PPD), a chemical approved for use in hair dyes but not for direct application to skin.
Products marketed as “natural” or “clean” can also cause allergic reactions. Propolis (bee glue), for instance, is found in many natural skincare products but causes contact dermatitis in up to 16% of children.
A study found an average of 4.5 contact allergens per product in “natural” skincare ranges. Out of 1,651 “natural” personal care products on the US market, only 96 (5.8%) were free from contact allergens. Even claims like “dermatologically tested” don’t guarantee safety; they simply mean the product was tested on skin, not that it’s free from allergens.
Babies and young children aren’t just miniature adults. Their skin is still developing and is more vulnerable to irritation, chemical absorption and systemic effects: substances that penetrate the skin can enter the bloodstream and potentially affect organs or biological systems throughout the body. Applying adult-targeted products, or even well-meaning “natural” alternatives, can therefore carry real risks.
Adverse reactions can appear as rashes, scaling or itchiness and, in severe cases, blistering or crusting. Respiratory symptoms like coughing or wheezing should always be investigated by a medical professional.
When in doubt, keep it simple. Limit what goes on your child’s skin, especially in the early years.
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Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
People are becoming more divided and ill informed. In January 2024, a report by the World Economic Forum identified misinformation and disinformation as “the most severe global risk anticipated over the next two years”.
As a result, it predicted “perceptions of reality are likely to also become polarised” – and that unrest resulting from unreliable information may cause “violent protests … hate crimes … civil confrontation and terrorism”. Many people would agree that something is needed to bridge the ever-widening gaps between ourselves.
In my view, this is not just a problem of alternative sets of facts, but a failure to perceive and empathise with that which is outside of our own experiences.
While the smartphone, with its capacity to provide users with sources from across the world, can provide endless opportunity to learn about other perspectives and experiences, research suggests social media increasingly cocoons users within their own interests.
This algorithmically encouraged self-importance means we are stuck in a feedback loop – the echo chamber – where our own experiences, values and desires are seen as the norm.
In contrast, by encouraging people to imagine beyond their own experience, reading poetry can serve as an exercise in seeing things from a different perspective.
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Poetry has always been political. The writer and civil-rights activist Audre Lorde argued it produces “a revelatory distillation of experience”. In other words, by distilling aspects of an experience, poetry can reveal powerful truths about reality.
Lorde’s poem Afterimages (1981) records her memory of turning 21 in the same year that 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi. The poem’s revelation is a simple one. For black Americans, coming of age means coming to terms with the constant threat of extreme racial violence.
Poetry’s success often relies upon showing people aspects of the world which they might otherwise have ignored, repressed or simply missed.
Some poetry experiments with form itself to produce this revelatory effect. Estate Fragments (2014) is a long poem written by Gavin Goodwin, exploring the Bettws council estate in Newport. It juxtaposes quotations from academic writing alongside interviews with residents – a practice referred to as “found poetry”.
Goodwin attempts to consider the effect that seemingly abstract political decision-making and discussions have on a particular place and community. Take this stanza:
Increased inequality
ups the stakes
‘People that were younger than you
were more dangerous.’
The first two lines quote Common Culture by Paul Willis (1990), a sociological study in the cultures of young people. The latter are from an interview with a resident of the Bettws estate. Together, they tell a story: national economic inequality causes people in a working-class community to fear each other.
Looking closer and looking deeper
More conventional lyric poetry can still reveal sociopolitical realities. Canadian Métis Nation writer katherena vermette’s collection North End Love Songs (2012) explores the North End in Winnipeg, Canada. In a CBC interview, vermette discussed how the local community are:
The people that get picked on [and] blamed … but what I’m trying to do in my work is to go into looking closer and looking deeper … and seeing that they’re not what they seem.
Misinformation and polarisation cause social tension, as particular groups are generalised and blamed. Vermette’s poem indians explicitly explores the devastation caused by preconceptions of peoples and places.
The poem recalls vermette’s brother going missing, before being found in the Red River, a powerful body of water that moves through Winnipeg. It focuses on the apathy of Winnipeg’s police service, who tell the family that there is “no sense looking”, as the man will return when “he gets bored/or broke”. The authorities come to this conclusion not through investigation, but by reducing the speaker’s brother to racist stereotypes.
This is then contrasted with what the family “finds out”. Not only has the brother drowned, but the “land floods/with dead indians”. The speaker discovers the fate of her brother is also the fate of many other Métis people in Winnipeg. This personal experience of loss comes to speak for many other loses:
indians get drunk
don’t we know it?
do stupid things
like being young
like going home alone
like walking across a frozen river
not quite frozen
Vermette links grief to struggles against systematic apathy and oppression. The poem’s sense of politics, people and place are a central part of its poetics.
Such explicitness means the poem meaningfully connects to important political issues – drawing attention to the startlingly high number of missing people found and suspected to be in the Red River. As such, it can also link to important grassroots initiatives like Drag the Red, which aims to “find answers about missing loved ones” which might lie in the river.
While North End Love Songs was published two years before Drag the Red’s formation, the poem and initiative are clearly formed by the same kind of traumatic, sociopolitical events.
Newsfeeds increasingly silo us into comfortable ways of thinking and perceiving. Forty years on, Lorde’s declaration that poetry “is not a luxury” takes on a whole new meaning. Now, it might be a political necessity.
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Alex Hubbard is formerly affiliated with the Labour Party, and Aber Food Surplus, a community hub.
There’s something oddly luxurious about a lie-in. The sun filters through the curtains, the alarm clock is blissfully silent, and your body stays at rest. Yet lie-ins are often treated as indulgences, sometimes framed as laziness or a slippery slope to soft living.
When the holidays arrive and alarm clocks are switched off, or are set later, something else emerges: your body reclaims sleep. Not just more of it, but deeper, richer and more restorative sleep. Anatomically and neurologically, a lie-in might be exactly what your body needs to recover and recalibrate.
Throughout the working year, it’s common to accumulate a chronic sleep debt – a shortfall in the sleep the body biologically needs, night after night. And the body keeps score.
On holiday, freed from early starts and late-night emails, our internal systems seize the opportunity to rebalance. It’s not uncommon to sleep an hour or two longer per night in the first few days away. That’s not laziness; it’s recovery.
Importantly, holiday sleep doesn’t just extend in duration. It shifts in structure. With fewer disturbances and less external pressure, sleep cycles become more regular, and we often experience more slow-wave sleep – the deepest phase, linked to physical healing and immune support.
The body uses this window not only to repair tissue but also to regulate metabolism, dial down inflammation and restore energy reserves.
Our sleep-wake cycle is governed by circadian rhythms, which are controlled by the brain’s master clock – the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus. These rhythms respond to light, temperature and routine. And when we’re overworked or overstimulated, they can drift out of sync with our environment.
A lie-in allows your circadian system to recalibrate, aligning internal time with actual daylight. This re-training leads to more coherent sleep cycles and better daytime alertness.
Holiday lie-ins also owe something to the drop in stress hormones. Cortisol, released by the adrenal glands, follows a diurnal pattern, peaking in the early morning to get us going.
Chronic stress – from work demands, commuting or constant notifications – can raise cortisol levels and disrupt this rhythm. When you take time off, cortisol production normalises. Waking up without a jolt of adrenaline allows the sleep architecture (the pattern of sleep stages) to stabilise, leading to fewer interruptions and more restful nights.
One of the more striking features of holiday sleep is a surge in vivid dreaming – sometimes unsettlingly so. This is because of a phenomenon called REM rebound. When we’re sleep-deprived, the brain suppresses REM (rapid eye movement) sleep to prioritise deep, restorative phases.
Once the pressure lifts – say, during a lazy week in the sun – the brain makes up for lost REM, leading to longer and more intense dream episodes. Far from frivolous, REM sleep is crucial for memory consolidation, mood regulation and cognitive flexibility.
Sleep also affects your body’s structure. When you lie down, your spine gets a break from the constant pressure of gravity. During the day, as you stand and move around, the intervertebral discs – soft, cushion-like pads between the vertebrae – slowly lose fluid and become slightly flatter. A lie-in gives these discs more time to rehydrate and return to their normal shape. That’s why you’re a little taller in the morning – and even more so after a long sleep.
Meanwhile, microtears in muscles, strained ligaments and overworked joints benefit from prolonged periods of cellular repair, especially during deep sleep stages.
Should we all be sleeping in every weekend? Not necessarily. While occasional lie-ins can help with recovery from acute sleep deprivation, habitual oversleeping –especially beyond nine hours a night – can be a red flag. It’s associated in some studies with higher rates of depression, heart disease and early death. Although long sleep might be a symptom, not a cause.
That said, the occasional lie-in remains anatomically restorative, especially when aligned with your body’s natural chronotype – a biological predisposition that determines when you feel most alert and when you feel naturally inclined to sleep.
Some people are naturally “larks”, who rise early and function best in the morning. Others are “owls”, who tend to feel sleepy late and wake later, with their peak cognitive and physical performance occurring in the afternoon or evening. Many fall somewhere in between.
Chronotype is governed by the same internal circadian system that regulates sleep-wake cycles, and it appears to be strongly influenced by genetics, age and light exposure. Adolescents typically have later chronotypes, while older adults often revert to earlier ones.
Crucially, chronotype doesn’t just affect sleep. It also plays a role in hormone release, body temperature, digestive timing and mental alertness throughout the day.
Conflict arises when social expectations, such as early work or school start times, force people, especially night owls, to adopt sleep-wake schedules that are out of sync with their biology. This mismatch, known as social jetlag, can lead to persistent tiredness, mood changes and even long-term health risks.
So if you find yourself sleeping in until 9 or 10am on the third day of your holiday, don’t berate yourself. Your body is taking the opportunity to repair, replenish and rebalance. The anatomical systems involved – from your brainstem to your adrenal glands, your intervertebral discs to your dream-rich REM phases – are doing what they’re designed to do when finally given the time.
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Michelle Spear 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.
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