Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jeremiah Stanley, Postdoctoral Researcher, Viral and Cancer Genes, University of Limerick

Serotonin is often described as the happiness chemical because of its well-known role in regulating mood. However, recent research suggests this familiar molecule may play an unexpected role in cancer development. Not through its effects on the brain, but through a completely different mechanism in other parts of the body.

Despite serotonin being commonly associated with the brain, almost 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. From there, it enters the bloodstream and travels to various organs and tissues, including the liver, pancreas, muscles, bones, fat tissue and immune cells.

Gut serotonin helps regulate blood sugar levels through its actions on the liver and pancreas, and regulate body temperature by acting on fat tissue. It also contributes to maintaining healthy bones, stimulating appetite and gut motility, stimulating sexual health, promoting wound healing, and supporting immunity against harmful microbes. It essentially drives the functions of many cells throughout the body, and its effects extend far beyond mood regulation.

In 2019, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York discovered that serotonin can enter cells and interact directly with DNA. They found that it binds to molecular “switches” that control whether genes are active or inactive – and this binding can turn specific genes on.

Studies since then have shown that serotonin can switch on genes involved in cancer growth. This mechanism has been seen in brain, liver and pancreatic cancers – and it may play a role in many other types of cancer.

My colleagues and I at the University of Limerick in Ireland are currently investigating the interaction between serotonin and DNA to better understand how it influences cancer. Identifying the specific sites where serotonin binds to cancer-related genes could support the development of targeted “epigenetic” therapies – treatments that control which genes are switched on or off.

Epigenetic therapies aim to reprogramme cancer cells by adjusting their gene activity directly. They can specifically turn off the harmful genes and turn on the beneficial ones in cancer cells without altering the DNA sequence itself. Such therapies may one day attack cancer cells with greater precision than current methods: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. (While these approaches can be life-saving, they are often aggressive, carry significant side-effects and do not always prevent recurrence.)

Scientists are also exploring how serotonin produced in the gut reaches cancer cells. Understanding this pathway could allow doctors to manage serotonin levels in patients. Approaches might include dietary changes, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome, or using antidepressant drugs called “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” (SSRIs).

Cells take up serotonin through tiny “transport channels” and the SSRIs block these channels, limiting serotonin’s entry into cancer cells. These drugs increase serotonin levels in the body but prevent it from reaching the DNA to cause their cancer-promoting effects. This strategy could complement existing therapies and possibly improve their effectiveness.

Untangling serotonin’s double life

Brain and gut serotonin operate largely independently. The serotonin that influences mood does not appear to drive cancer growth. For instance, people with depression may have lower serotonin activity in the brain, but the serotonin produced in the gut doesn’t seem to have a clear effect on brain serotonin. SSRI antidepressants, such as Prozac, Celexa and Zoloft, act by increasing serotonin levels in the brain and, therefore, people taking these pills need not worry that their pills may be driving cancer.

On the contrary, as mentioned above, early studies suggest that SSRIs could have beneficial effects against certain cancers – although larger clinical trials are needed to confirm this.

Our research aims to build a detailed understanding of serotonin’s role across different tissues and cellular pathways, potentially opening new avenues for treatment. However, significant challenges remain.

A clearer understanding of how serotonin interacts with cancer-related genes is needed to determine which targets are most effective. Accurate delivery systems must also be developed to ensure epigenetic drugs reach their intended sites of action. Most importantly, encouraging results from cell-based experiments must be validated in ethically designed animal studies and human clinical trials before meaningful progress can be claimed.

If therapies can be developed to target serotonin’s activity specifically in cancer cells, tumours could become less aggressive and easier to remove surgically, with a lower risk of recurrence.

A more complete understanding of serotonin’s functions in the body – across mood, metabolism and cancer – may guide the development of more precise and effective therapies in the future.

Jeremiah Stanley receives funding from the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme of the European Commission.

– ref. Scientists are uncovering serotonin’s role in cancer – here’s what we know – https://theconversation.com/scientists-are-uncovering-serotonins-role-in-cancer-heres-what-we-know-266199

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pragya Agarwal, Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice, Loughborough University

The Land Sings Back, a new exhibition at the Drawing Room gallery in London, is a gorgeous evocation of our rights to our lands and our symbiotic relationship with nature.

Thirteen artists with ancestral lands in south Asia, Africa and the Caribbean are subverting the role that sketching and drawing have played in conquest and colonialism. Instead, they have reimagined it as a way to reclaim indigenous knowledge for environmental justice. Drawing on archival research, soundscapes, zines, ceramics, found objects and ephemera, the work on show dissolves the boundaries and lines between various media, questioning the institutionalisation of knowledge.

The exhibition draws on the concept of ecofeminism, first coined by French writer Françoise d’Eaubonne in her 1974 book Feminism or Death. Ecofeminism maintains that patriarchy and colonialism are inherently interlinked. The subjugation of women and marginalised people, which has severed their connection to the lands and the oppression of their myths and stories, has created an imbalance between nature and humans.

The exhibition opens with the work of Lado Bai, a Bhil artist from Madhya Pradesh in India. Bai combines traditional motifs with contemporary symbolism to show a deep connection to the natural world. The Bhil religion is deeply rooted in animism. Animism is the belief that everything from trees and rivers to rocks and animals possesses a spiritual essence and that these entities must be respected through rituals and offerings.

In the 1901 census, 97% of Bhils identified as animists, and they retain this connection through stories and folklore. This forms the basis of Bai’s work. Like so much of indigenous art from India, there is a deceptive simplicity to her work, but within the dots and lines, there is a deeper story of ancient knowledge. Every painting presents an episode in the larger story of Bhil ritual and tradition.

Another Indian artist on display is Manjot Kaur. Kaur reimagines the historical miniature paintings from Mughal art and Rajasthani tradition and uses anthropomorphism to challenge black-and-white thinking. It’s a hopeful response to the climate crisis and extinction. Not merely content with representing the traditional stories and rituals, Kaur is reimagining the mythologies for a post-queer world – a world where people no longer feel the need to define themselves through queer labels – or even a post-human one.

This series is titled Chthonic Beings. The title comes from the Greek mythological creatures of the underworld. These monstrous looking beings are gods of fertility – but also of death. Both coexist, fluidly merging into one another. And so, here too, Kaur decentres the human, instead imagining many of the local Indian species such as blackbuck and great Indian bustard playing the roles of protectors and care givers.

Whose truth and whose land?

Every artist in this exhibition is unique in their approach and response, but drawing is the thread that weaves their stories together. There are broad questions at play: what does a line on the paper mean? Whose labour is hidden? Who has the power to imbue meaning in these lines?

Historically, lines have been drawn to divide people, marginalise them and push them away from the mainstream of society where power lies. Here, the lines are doing the opposite. They are discordant, but only to challenge the disharmony and oppression of the past and the present.

The lines are uncomfortable at times, as in Anupam Roy’s work, which uses satirical imagery and protest posters to draw attention to the land rights movement against the many mining projects in rural Bengal. In February 2025, local activists from west Bengal’s Birbhum district demanded the mining work in the Deocha-Pachami-Dewanganj-Harisingha coal block be cancelled.

It led to the displacement of thousands of indigenous people from their lands. Roy’s drawings demand urgent action for the subaltern subjects (those people who have been historically marginalised and excluded from the dominant power structures) and their precarious condition in the contemporary capitalist system.

But the larger question in Roy’s work is the matter of truth, and whose truth we see represented in images around us. Truth and propaganda are very much on the same axis, as we are seeing today in our current political climate.

The Land Sings Back is beautifully curated by Natasha Ginwala, artistic director of Colomboscope. And it is an emotional experience too, which left me with more questions than answers. But then, that is what good art always does.

The Land Sings Back is on at Drawing Room, London until December 14 2025

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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.

Pragya Agarwal 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 Land Sings Back: a gorgeous exhibition of drawings inspired by ecofeminism – https://theconversation.com/the-land-sings-back-a-gorgeous-exhibition-of-drawings-inspired-by-ecofeminism-269033

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Theo Stanley, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Geography, University of Southampton

Until the end of October, China had refused to purchase a single soya bean from the US’s 2025 harvest. It usually spends tens of billions of dollars on the crop, which is a key ingredient in animal feed, so the boycott hit US farmers hard – and affected food systems far beyond US and Chinese borders.

Since then, a meeting between the countries’ two presidents has meant that the soya bean trade is back on for the time being. But the stand-off is yet another reminder of the vulnerability of global trade to geopolitical crises.

Shocks in supply chains often lead to rising prices, and expensive soya beans can quickly push up the cost of meat elsewhere. This happened after the price of wheat, another animal feed ingredient, spiked in 2022 following Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Many countries are completely reliant on imported soya. In the UK, around 70% of the cost of producing a chicken is what farmers feed them, and soya is a vital ingredient.

Last year the UK imported 2.4 million tonnes of soya beans and “meal” (made from grounding and heating the beans after their oil has been extracted), mostly from Argentina and Brazil, two of the world’s largest exporters. China imported 105 million tonnes, including 27 million tonnes from the US.

If China switched to buying more, or even all, of its soya from South America, prices could increase for UK companies whose import infrastructure is locked in to the South American supply chain. To keep chicken prices low, some supermarkets and wholesalers may start selling fresh chicken produced overseas, which can be reared to much lower welfare and environmental standards than in the UK.

One of the reasons for the high demand in the UK for soya beans is that the meal used to feed chickens has an extremely high concentration of protein, at around 48%. Similar produce made from sunflower seeds or fava beans is about 30%.

It is this high protein content which allows modern meat (“broiler”) chickens to grow quickly and efficiently.

In the 1950s, chickens required around 4.4kg of feed per 1kg of meat produced. Improvements in the sciences of genetics and nutrition mean that today that ratio can be as low as 1.3kg of feed for the same amount of meat. The most common chicken strain, known as the Ross 308, can grow to 2.5kg in just six weeks.

For many in the industry, these developments are a triumph of science and biotechnology. Less feed means lower costs and a smaller environmental footprint. But animal welfare experts have highlighted that these efficiency gains can come at the expense of welfare and lead to increased mortality rates.

And there are also fears about a national protein shortage if the soya supply were to be compromised. This might be the result of drought in soya-growing regions, geopolitical tensions, trade blockades or war. As part of ongoing government-funded research into the resilience of the UK food system, I have been interviewing animal feed experts, and many expressed concern that the UK does not have a domestic protein source in sufficient quantities.

Protein fix

Currently the UK chicken industry – and all the roast dinners, nuggets, curries and sandwiches it provides – relies on soya beans. But because they struggle to grow in the UK’s cool and wet climate, they have to be imported.

Attempts to grow a domestic alternative protein for chicken feed have struggled. Peas, beans, sunflower and rapeseed, all of which grow in the British climate, have a much lower protein content than soya beans, are harder to grow predictably, and are difficult to digest.

Distillers’ grain, the byproduct leftover from bioethanol production, could be a promising high-protein alternative. But the largest bioethanol plant in the UK shut down in August 2025 because of changing US-UK tariff agreements, and cheap imports have now made domestic production economically non-viable.

Insect meal is promising in theory but cannot be scaled to anywhere near the same quantities as soya, which arrives in Liverpool from South America every week in huge amounts.

Modern supply chains have been built on systems of logistics which are incredibly efficient when things go right, but are not necessarily resilient to things going wrong. And while the “soya bean war” might not end up drastically disrupting the UK food system, it does highlight the precarious framework of international trade.

MI5 has a saying that the UK is “four meals away from anarchy”, suggesting any serious interruption to the country’s food supply chain would lead to mass disorder. Chicken, the county’s most popular meat, is completely dependent on overseas imports. And although global commodity supply chains have stayed generally stable throughout the 21st century, that stability can never be taken for granted.

Theo Stanley receives funding from the UK Government (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation; and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

– ref. How the China-US trade war could push up the cost of British chicken dinners – https://theconversation.com/how-the-china-us-trade-war-could-push-up-the-cost-of-british-chicken-dinners-268040

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jamie Thompson, Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology, University of Reading

Every mind-bending molecule in nature has an evolutionary origin; a defence against being eaten, a lure for pollinators, or perhaps a happy biochemical accident. Though they seem extraordinary, life has evolved psychedelic molecules that alter consciousness across almost every ecosystem.

Let’s take a tour of our surprisingly psychedelic planet.

The tropical rainforests hum with chemical diversity. Among the 10,000 tree species living in the Amazon are several which produce dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the molecule that makes psychedelic brew ayahuasca so powerful. DMT is a naturally occurring tryptamine molecule, which derives from the same chemical building block that gives us serotonin and melatonin, chemical messengers that change our mood and help us sleep.

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One of these tree species, the Psychotria viridis, or chacruna, is a small understory tree from the plant family that also gives us coffee. Other DMT-producing species include yopo (Anadenanthera peregrina), a tree native to the Amazon that is also found in the Caribbean. Yopo is in the legume family, a close relative of beans, chickpeas and lentils. Scientists aren’t sure why some species in the same family develop psychedelic compounds while others don’t.

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Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.
This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

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Many tryptamine compounds like DMT are thought to have evolved in plants as chemical defences against herbivores and pathogens, the result of an evolutionary arms race going back millions of years. Scientists are not yet sure which species the plants were trying to defend against.

The deserts may not appear to hum with life. Their extreme heat, punishing aridity and sparse vegetation make survival seem improbable, and the organisms that persist often look strange.

However, deserts have given rise to powerfully psychedelic organisms. The peyote cactus is small and round and lives in the deserts of Mexico and south Texas, where it grows extremely slowly, often taking decades to reach maturity. Peyote is threatened as it is subject to intense poaching by collectors and recreational users of the mescaline it produces, a psychedelic alkaloid.

Alkaloids are part of the same chemical class as caffeine and nicotine, and are also thought to have evolved to defend plants against herbivores. Desert-living peyote are not the only psychedelic cactus though. A distant cousin of the high Andes, the San Pedro cactus (Trichocereus macrogonus var. pachanoi), also produces mescaline. But unlike peyote, San Pedro grows fast and tall.

Beyond cacti, the Sonoran desert is host to the Sonoran Desert toad, which produces one of the most potent hallucinogens known to scientists, 5-MeO-DMT.

Tundra and toadstools

Like the deserts, the tundra hardly appears a friendly place to live. But even in the frozen north of Siberia, psychedelics can be found. When asked to visualise a
toadstool, many of us will picture a red-capped mushroom with white spots. This is the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), a species complex with a distribution in the boreal and temperate forests of the northern hemisphere including the UK, that originated in Siberia or Beringia.

Fly agaric produces psychedelic compounds including muscimol and ibotenic acid, which differ chemically from the more well-known psilocybin, but are also hallucinogenic. Like the psychedelic trees of the Amazon, mushrooms probably evolved these molecules specifically to put off animals that might eat them.

This mushroom has plenty of lore, spanning Viking berserkers, early Christianity and even the Father Christmas tradition. Whether these stories are true is up for debate, but we know there is deep use in indigenous cultures. We also know how important the fly agaric is for many trees including birch and oak, with which it forms symbiotic relationships, helping trees survive in the soil.

The world’s grasslands might appear serene, but they host one of nature’s darker psychedelic stories.

Hidden among the grains lives ergot (Claviceps purpurea), a tiny fungus which fills grass seeds with ergot alkaloids. These compounds, the chemical cousins of LSD, have haunted humanity for centuries. In the middle ages, outbreaks of ergot poisoning caused mass hallucinations and hysteria throughout Europe. Entire villages succumbed to visions and manic dancing, often attributed to demonic possession.

In 1938, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesised LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) from ergot molecules. The consequences of this discovery shaped modern culture and technology, even inspiring a Nobel prize winner to invent the PCR reaction that underlies modern genetic research and COVID testing.

Beyond ergot, the temperate grasslands are host to the liberty cap (Psilocybe semilanceata). This is a common and unassuming mushroom that produces some of the highest concentrations of psilocybin and psilocin, powerful psychedelic molecules. It is one of the most abundant mushrooms in some regions and grows undetected in many back gardens. The liberty cap recycles decaying grass and sedge roots, playing an important role in its ecosystem. And lab studies in the early 2000s discovered it also produces antimicrobial compounds, to prevent pathogens growing on it.

Some psychedelic species are found all over the planet. The psilocybin and psilocin producing mushrooms of genus Psilocybe can be found in regions as diverse
as the Mexican highlands, Australia, India and Japan. Several species of common ornamental grasses (Phalaris) living in the US and Eurasia produce DMT, as do certain Australian species of Acacia and South American Mimosa, which are in the legume family.

Curiously, DMT has also been found in small amounts in mammals, including humans, where it may possibly act as a neuromodulator, a molecule facilitating communication between neurons.

This is only scratching the surface of Earth’s psychedelic supply. The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants by Amazon explorer Richard Evans Schultes, published in 1976, describes over 100 plant and fungi species.

And this field of research is still young. Two new Psilocybe mushroom species, which both produce psilocybin, were scientifically recorded in southern Africa only in 2023. Recent work suggests that the 400,000 plant species alone may produce millions of unique molecules, with more than 99% of these unknown and not characterised in a lab. We do not even know how many fungal species there are, but there are likely to be millions, most yet to be discovered.

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

– ref. A psychedelic tour of Earth’s ecosystems – from the desert to Siberia – https://theconversation.com/a-psychedelic-tour-of-earths-ecosystems-from-the-desert-to-siberia-268719

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Boylan, Professor of Education, Sheffield Hallam University

Proposed changes to England’s national curriculum aim to ensure it is fit for the future, writes Professor Becky Francis in her introduction to the final report of the government’s independent curriculum review. The panel that conducted the review sought to address the “rich knowledge and skills young people need to thrive in our fast-changing world”.

From the outset, the review limited itself to “evolution not revolution”, and in the report the changes are described as a “refresh” to the current curriculum rather than a new one. This is understandable given the current challenges education faces of tight budgets and teacher supply.

The present curriculum came into use in 2014. It tended to look more to the past, with the aim to “introduce pupils to the best that has been thought and said”.

The proposed revised curriculum looks more to the future. It expands the idea of a curriculum rich in knowledge to value “applied knowledge”, including life skills.

The review’s recommendations highlight the importance of financial literacy, digital literacy and media literacy, as well as education on climate change and sustainability, as well as oracy (speaking skills).

England is currently an outlier in not including life skills in the curriculum. Other countries, such as Singapore and Estonia, combine high standards with explicitly addressing these skills.

One way of doing this is to treat life skills as a whole in a similar way to a main curriculum subject. The other is to embed them as cross-curriculum themes within all subjects: making sure that every subject includes communication or digital skills.

The report is notable for recommending more of a hybrid approach. Citizenship is currently only taught as a subject in secondary schools, but in future will be taught in primary schools too. In both secondary and primary schools many of these life skills will be taught in citizenship lessons.

Some skills will be more explicitly addressed as part of other subjects, such as financial literature literacy? in maths and digital literacy in computing. But a new oracy framework will support communication skills across the whole curriculum.

The curriculum assessment review also uses recommendations specific to school subjects to promote a new way of combining knowledge and skills. Many of these changes are about addressing inconsistencies, gaps or weaknesses in the current subject curricula.

What counts as important cultural knowledge is expanded from the current curriculum to reflect current times and the diverse nation we live in. This is reflected in changes in the English curriculum with the inclusion of modern texts with authors from more diverse backgrounds.

Knowledge, the review recommends, should be “powerful” to support young people to collectively address the issues they face. This does not mean a dramatic rewriting of each subject curriculum but translates, in some subjects, to a shift in emphasis. This includes highlighting to pupils how relevant certain content is to their lives and to give them more opportunity to use what they know.

A standout way in which skills are valued in the report are recommendations in 16-19 curriculum and assessment. The introduction of new V-levels, already proposed in the government’s recent post-16 education and skills policy paper, intends to allow students to combine vocational and academic learning.

Other changes in the post-16 sector, such as different ways to support young people to gain GCSE-equivalent maths and English qualifications, also recognise that qualifications designed partly as gateways to A-level study are not appropriate for all learners.

These recommendations might well improve the experience of learners, in particular those who find secondary school demotivating. But the proposals in the curriculum review are limited. They are unlikely to do much to address the needs of those young people who are far from thriving in the current system.

The review notes the comparatively good performance by England on international tests. However, the same tests indicate that young people in England report low levels of life satisfaction. Enjoyment of school is falling, and school is affecting young people’s mental health.

The report’s final recommendation is for another review in ten years’ time. Even if the report is fully implemented, it is likely that in ten years a significant number of young people will still not be thriving in school. To address that we may need a much more fundamental curriculum change.

Mark Boylan receives funding for research from the Education Endowment Foundation

– ref. New national curriculum’s skills agenda starts to bring England in line with world-leading education systems – https://theconversation.com/new-national-curriculums-skills-agenda-starts-to-bring-england-in-line-with-world-leading-education-systems-268961

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

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It’s probably just as well that the Doomsday Clock is only changed once a year. The clock, which measures existential risks to humankind, was moved forward by one second at the end of 2024 to 59 seconds to midnight. This was in large part because of the war in Ukraine and the very real risk that it might bring a confrontation between the US and Russia which could turn nuclear.

As things stand you would get fairly short odds on the second hand nudging even closer to midnight at the end of 2025. And what would probably prompt a hollow laugh from the scientists that decide where the hands should point is that the latest crisis appears to be the result of some characteristically wayward talk from the US president, Donald Trump.

Flying home from South Korea after his summit with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Apec conference on October 30, Trump announced that “because of other countries’ testing programs”, he had ordered the Pentagon to restart the process for testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

His statement followed an announcement by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, about recent tests of a new nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik. Days later, Putin announced that Russia had tested a nuclear powered drone torpedo called Poseidon.

Potent weapons both, no doubt. And both capable of carrying nuclear payloads. But neither are nuclear weapons in themselves. Russia has not carried out nuclear tests since the end of the cold war and nor has China, the third largest nuclear power after Russia and the US.

So now Putin has responded by announcing Russia will also resume testing, citing Trump’s statement and the ongoing modernisation of America’s nuclear forces. But at the same time, Russian diplomats are talking with their US counterparts to clarify Trump’s intention, reporting that the White House and the State Department “evaded a specific response”.

It’s a reminder from the cold war of just how delicate the balance can be with two leaders at loggerheads who control the means to destroy the planet several times over.

Tom Vaughan, a lecturer in international security at the University of Leeds, notes that the UK is pressing ahead with its procurement of F-35 stealth fighter aircraft. These can carry nuclear bombs but, as Vaughan notes, would require US authorisation before they could be used. Equally, Britain’s nominally independent nuclear weapons system, Trident, is reliant on US support and maintenance.

As Vaughan points out, it makes the UK into “a target in any nuclear war that might be started by two unpredictable and violent superpowers”.

For anyone who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, these are familiar themes. But we heaved a sigh of relief when, thanks to leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, it felt as if we were stepping back from the brink of an unthinkable conflagration. And when the fall of the Berlin Wall was followed by the end of the cold war, it felt as if those days might be gone for good.

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Read more:
Talk of new atomic tests by Trump and Putin should make UK rethink its role as a nuclear silo for the US

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Nor has the rapidly increasing diplomatic temperature escaped Hollywood film-maker Kathryn Bigelow. Bigelow, whose successes include The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, has a new film streaming on Netflix which addresses this theme. A House of Dynamite imagines how officials in the US might respond if it looked like a nuclear strike was imminent.

Mark Lacy, a philosopher at the University of Essex, who has written for us several times about the future of war, says the film paints an imaginative picture of the confusion and complexity of such a situation, in which it’s more than likely that an enemy which is capable of disrupting communications – something we are already seeing in the forms of repeated cyberattacks by inimical state-sponsored enemies.

To paraphrase Lacy’s conclusion, it’s just as well this is fiction. But Trump and Putin’s latest exchanges have made it just that little bit more easy to imagine things getting out of hand.

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Read more:
Netflix’s A House of Dynamite sounds the nuclear alarm, but how worried should we be?

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Mamdani: a politician who listens

The other big US news this week was from Big Apple, where democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election. He was up against Andrew Cuomo, the former Democrat governor of New York state who won 41.6% of the vote, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, who won just 7%.

Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of New York city, the youngest since 1892 and the first mayor born in Africa. He won on a platform of lowering the cost of living, introducing rent controls and providing free buses and childcare for all. To do this, he proposes taxing millionaires more.

Predictably Trump, who has launched regular attacks on Mamdani in recent months, calls him a communist and has said he will defund New York (something he doesn’t have the constitutional power to do – not that this would stop him trying, of course). Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called him a “mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda”. Which is all very predictable.

But most New Yorkers weren’t in the mood to listen to either criticism. Which is apt, as one of the refreshing features about Mamdani’s style of politics is his ability to listen to others, says Daniel Hutton Ferris, a lecturer in political theory at Newcastle University.

Hutton points to Mamdani’s habit on the campaign trail of soliciting people’s views, especially those of people who weren’t intending to vote for him. He says this is a smart tactic, not only because people like to be heard and respect politicians who listen, but also because of the voting system in New York.

Similar to the single transferable vote system used for Australia’s federal elections, New York’s voting system asks voters to rank candidates in order of their preference rather than choosing just one. That way they can put the candidate who they dislike most at the bottom of the list. If their candidate doesn’t win, the vote goes to the person next on the list of a voter’s preferences.

As Hutton says, it’s a great way of dealing with polarising candidates. It penalises people who rely on taking extreme and divisive positions to attract the support of a core base of passionate supporters. The UK spurned a chance to switch to something like this in the 2011 referendum.

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Read more:
How Zohran Mamdani’s ‘talent for listening’ spurred him to victory in the New York mayoral election

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Mamdani wasn’t the only winner on Tuesday. The Democratic party scored victory in two gubernatorial elections and successfully passed proposition 50 in California, which allows for the “redistricting” of voting areas. It’s a move that could provide the party with as many as five seats in next year’s midterm elections.

It’s a sign, says Andrew Gawthorpe, an expert in US politics at Leiden University, that the coalition that delivered Trump to the White House in 2024 might be beginning to collapse. Close analysis of the voting patterns shows that groups like Latino voters, who came out in unexpectedly high numbers for Trump in the 2024 election, may be moving back to the Democrats. Equally, many suburban areas of Virginia and New Jersey, which turned out for Trump in 2024, voted heavily for the Democrat candidates.

It’s premature to predict the outcome of next year’s elections based on Tuesday night’s results, cautions Gawthorpe. But it’s certainly a sign that the self-styled “highest polling Republican President in HISTORY!” may not be as popular as he likes to tell himself.

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Read more:
US election results suggest Trump’s coalition of voters is collapsing

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– ref. What will the UK do in a new nuclear arms race? – https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-uk-do-in-a-new-nuclear-arms-race-269224

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Gorard, Professor of Education and Public Policy, Durham University

A government-appointed review panel has just released its long-awaited report on England’s national curriculum. Its stated intention is to improve curriculum quality for all children, but particularly those “for whom the system is currently not working well,” such as children with special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A new national curriculum will be published in 2027 and will come into force in September 2028. The review panel wanted this phased in, but the government says that it will happen in one go. The review’s recommendations for the curriculum include an oracy framework to join the reading and writing frameworks, to encourage children and young people to become confident, effective speakers.

It proposes a shake-up of literacy testing in year six. It suggests that primary tests could be revised to make them more accessible to children with special educational needs and disabilities. Schools are encouraged to make use of existing optional tests at the end of key stage one, for children aged seven.

The report also recommends greater representation of ethnic and other diversity in the subject matter of GCSEs, religious education to be better integrated in a national curriculum, and a substantial reduction in the length of GCSE examinations. In its response to the report, the government has committed to reducing GCSE exam time by two and a half to three hours on average – less than the “at least 10%” the review suggested.

Confusingly, the government has made a number of additional suggested changes to education and entitlement at around the same time as the publication of the review’s final report. The review suggests new diagnostic maths and reading tests for year eight. But these are presumably not in addition to the new year eight reading tests already proposed by the government.

Each proposal may have merit, and making primary tests more accessible for children with special educational needs might work. But overall there is little here that will directly help overcome disadvantage.

It is not clear that encouraging more schools to use key stage one tests, rather than abolishing them or making them mandatory, will help. Schools with more resources will be better able to make use of the tests. Nor is it clear that poor children are especially disadvantaged by religious education not being part of the national curriculum.

Triple science

The report proposes that all students should be entitled to study the three separate traditional sciences at GCSE – physics, chemistry and biology. This proposal has been accepted by the government. The argument here is that for those students wanting to continue in a scientific career, or enter university to study a science, access to the individual specialist subjects is crucial.

Schools in some disadvantaged areas have offered only GCSE qualifications in dual or combined science. This is a double qualification covering all three traditional sciences, but in two thirds of the time.

In some respects, therefore, this reform should be welcomed. It offers parity for pupils of all backgrounds across schools. However, in other ways it is already out of date. Students pursuing science careers beyond school aren’t necessarily going to take a degree in physics, biology or chemistry. They may well study degrees in combined sciences, more specialist topics such as cybernetics, or subjects such as nursing science, forensic science or psychology.

The biggest barrier to success in the “hard” sciences may actually be the lack of specialist teachers. Currently it is estimated that over half of all physics lessons are not taught by specialists in those subjects. And, as with dual science, this is more likely to occur in disadvantaged, remote or otherwise hard-to-staff schools.

Even if all schools were to offer three sciences, perhaps by relocating new and existing specialist teachers more evenly between schools, there would still not be enough specialist teachers to teach everyone. What would happen instead is that only some students in each school would be able to study three separate sciences (with appropriate teachers). This could lead to social or other stratification within schools. The policy could only work as intended if recruitment of specialist teachers were rapidly improved.

In truth, changes that fall outside the national curriculum – such as recruiting better qualified teachers in remote areas, or increasing funding for areas with high proportions of long-term disadvantage – would be better bets to tackle disadvantage. If this new proposed curriculum is to have any chance, it must be met with a seismic shift in teacher funding and recruitment.

Stephen Gorard receives funding from DfE and ESRC. But none is relevant to this article.

– ref. What the review of England’s national curriculum means for disadvantaged schools – https://theconversation.com/what-the-review-of-englands-national-curriculum-means-for-disadvantaged-schools-268960

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Turns, Senior Environment Editor, The Conversation

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.

A close friend of mine escaped her home in the British Virgin Islands during Hurricane Irma in September 2017. She and her young family had to grab their passports and not much else when they fled 200mph winds. At the time, she described the total devastation as “like a bomb going off”. Every hurricane season, she and so many other people relive the trauma of that experience. Eight years on, the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica has been particularly terrifying because the storm intensified so rapidly as a result of global warming.

“Once the winds fall silent, anxiety and grief settle in,” write psychology researchers Gulnaz Anjum and Mudassar Aziz. “The fear, disconnection and exhaustion that follow a disaster of this scale are not fleeting. They can shape lives for years.”

Anjum and Aziz describe how hurricanes like Irma and Melissa can trigger a form of distress known as “deep anticipatory anxiety”. Combine that fear of this disaster happening again with the psychological isolation associated with an experience like this, and it’s clear that every subsequent storm compounds mental strain. This, they explain, leaves people more vulnerable to lasting emotional distress.

An invisible toll

Aid is often quickly sent to rebuild communities, fix infrastructure and reconnect telecommunications. But the mental health toll is not so tangible. Perhaps that’s why it’s so often overlooked.

Only as recently as 2022, the UN’s climate authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted that climate change poses serious risks to mental wellbeing. And we’re not all equally affected.

“Some people and communities are most at risk for increasingly worsening mental health outcomes due to their proximity to the hazard, their reliance on the environment for livelihood and culture and their socioeconomic status,” write three Canadian researchers, who study the mental health implications of climate change.

That includes farming communities already experiencing drought and people living in areas most at risk of floods or wildfires.

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Ukraine’s massive nature project is helping veterans and land recover

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The bullseye effect?

Collective trauma is currently being felt across the Caribbean and way beyond.

Psychiatry experts at Florida International University in the US, Jonathan S. Comer and Anthony Steven Dick point out that more studies now show that the negative mental health effects of disasters extend far beyond the immediate disaster area.

That goes against the once-dominant theory of disaster mental health, sometimes called the “bullseye model”, which proposed that the negative mental health effects of a disaster were directly related to how close the person was to the centre of the event – the bullseye.

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Mental health distress in the wake of Bangladesh cyclone shows the devastation of climate-related loss and damage

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When Hurricane Irma struck in 2017, they used a national long-term research project that was already underway to study how 11,800 children were coping both before and after the disaster.

“Greater media exposure was associated with higher reporting of post-traumatic stress symptoms – and the link was just as strong in San Diego youth as it was in Florida youth,” write Comer and Dick, who advise limiting exposure to social media because “extended exposure to such content rarely provides additional actionable information”.

Narratives and neurons

Climate trauma can result “from knowing about or experiencing climate change crises”, according to education researchers at the University of Regina in Canada who point out that young people are particularly susceptible. Focusing on responses to problems can guide people to imagine better futures rather than teaching doomsday clock narratives: “It is more helpful to share concrete examples of community-led climate mitigation, adaptation and financing initiatives,” they write.

Trauma from experiencing extreme weather can change the way our brains function. In 2023, Jyoti Mishra, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California in San Diego, studied how climate change-related trauma affected the memory, attention and ability to process distractions of people who survived the 2018 wildfire that destroyed the town of Paradise, California.

“People who were exposed to the wildfire had greater frontal lobe activity while dealing with distractions,” she writes. The frontal lobe is the brain’s hub for higher-level functions and frontal brain activity can be a marker for cognitive effort. People exposed to the fires may be having more difficulty processing distractions and compensating by exerting more effort.

Rebuilding resilience

Globally, over a billion people already live with a mental health condition, according to the World Health Organization. Climate catastrophe will “intensify” that, according to researchers at the United Nations University who explain that “mental health support systems should be a fully integrated part of any plan to adapt to climate change and respond to disasters”.

Usually, mental health is considered in relation to emergency response and disaster management but support needs to go beyond that, into the long term. That’s because psychological wellbeing enables people to withstand adversity and build constructive relationships.

Acting as part of a collective, rather than alone, helps people achieve a sense of agency and solidarity while driving positive change. The researchers also explain that funding for mental health support should also be part of the debate at global climate summits, like the UN’s Cop30 climate summit that begins next week in Brazil. That would help transition “from a state of fear and anxiety for many and create hope to build more resilient societies, leaving no one behind and empowering future generations to take climate action”.

As Mishra, the psychiatry professor, outlines: “Resilient mental health is what allows us to recover from traumatic experiences. How humans experience and mentally deal with climate catastrophes sets the stage for our future lives.”

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– ref. How to build mental resilience to climate change – https://theconversation.com/how-to-build-mental-resilience-to-climate-change-268811

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eef Hogervorst, Professor of Biological Psychology, Loughborough University

A new study suggests that even low levels of physical activity could protect the brain from Alzheimer’s disease – but not in the way scientists expected.

The researchers tracked almost 300 older adults with early brain signs of Alzheimer’s for nine to 11 years using pedometers. They found that physical activity didn’t reduce the toxic amyloid plaques that most Alzheimer’s treatments now target.

Instead, in people who already had these plaques, physical activity reduced the accumulation of misfolded tau proteins in specific brain areas. These proteins appear later in Alzheimer’s disease and are more closely linked to cognitive and functional decline. These signs of dementia were reduced by almost half in more active participants.

Benefits appeared at just 3,000 steps – roughly half an hour of walking at a moderate pace. The optimal range was 5,000 to 7,500 steps daily, after which the effect plateaued. More steps didn’t necessarily mean greater protection, which suggests a realistic target for older, sedentary people, rather than the often-cited 10,000 steps.

The study had limitations, however. It involved a fairly small group of mostly white, well-educated people in the US, and it didn’t take other lifestyle or health factors into account. Also, there may be other protective mechanisms of walking at play. But it does support other research suggesting that being physically active may lower the risk of dementia.

A UK study of 1,139 people over 50 found that those who were moderately to vigorously active had a 34-50% reduction in dementia risk when followed over eight to ten years. Among those who developed dementia, staying active reduced their memory decline, particularly in older women.

A larger 2022 UK study tracked 78,430 people for seven years using wrist accelerometers. It found a 25% reduction in dementia risk with just 3,800 steps daily, rising to 50% at 9,800 steps.

However, people who walked more also had better cardiovascular health – lower cholesterol, better sleep and blood pressure and reduced diabetes risk. Since these heart and stroke risk factors also increase dementia risk, the picture is complex.

Healthy habits often go together. People who exercise are more likely to eat well, not smoke, look after their heart health and have fewer financial stresses. This makes it hard to know which factor is having the biggest effect. The researchers tried to account for this, but because these habits are so closely linked, it’s difficult to say that exercise alone is responsible.

However, there is a strong case for this as there are multiple ways exercise might support the brain: improving cardiovascular health, increasing blood flow and boosting chemicals that promote brain-cell connections.

One such substance is irisin, a hormone produced by muscles that acts on almost all faulty brain mechanisms associated with Alzheimer’s, including inflammation. This and other chemicals, such as BDNF, associated with exercise, provide plausible biological pathways for how physical activity might directly influence brain health beyond its cardiovascular benefits.

But the relationship might work in reverse, too. People may become less active because of early Alzheimer’s symptoms. Those with hearing problems, for instance – itself a dementia risk factor – often report barriers that make them stop being active before other dementia symptoms appear.

Vicious circle

Reduced activity then accelerates memory decline. This creates a vicious circle. Early disease symptoms – such as not hearing – can affect self-esteem and reduce engagment in physical activity, which in turn worsens cognitive decline.

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Read more:
How your vision can predict dementia 12 years before it is diagnosed – new study

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Brisk walking might be particularly beneficial. A small trial of 15 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s who did Nordic walking (an enhanced walking technique that uses poles to work your upper body as well as your legs) maintained brain function over 24 weeks, with some functions even improving.

The 15 who received only standard care showed decline or no improvement. Though small, the trial suggests that even people already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s might benefit from increased physical activity, including brisk walking.

Getting outside, particularly in nature, may be especially beneficial for preventing dementia – possibly because it improves mood and sleep while reducing isolation – all dementia risk factors. The combination of physical movement, natural light exposure and social interaction when walking outdoors may create multiple protective effects that complement each other.

The challenge now is helping people overcome barriers to outdoor activity, such as safety concerns, fear of falling, or simply preferring the comfort of the sofa – particularly during wetter, colder months. But the evidence suggests that even a few minutes of walking could make a difference, and that modest, achievable targets – a half-hour stroll rather than a marathon training regime – may offer substantial protection against cognitive decline.

Eef Hogervorst has received funding from Economic and Social Research Council, Road Safety Trust, Alzheimer’s Research UK, ISPF, Dunhill Medical Trust. She was affiliated with NICE as expert on menopausal hormone treatment and dementia risk.

– ref. Even a few thousand steps a day can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s – new study – https://theconversation.com/even-a-few-thousand-steps-a-day-can-reduce-your-risk-of-alzheimers-new-study-269020

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick Diamond, Professor of Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London

There is increasingly bad blood between ministers and civil servants in the UK government. The trend has been apparent for at least a decade, with the mood between officials and ministers darkening during the Conservative administrations of Theresa May and Boris Johnson, fuelled by conflict over Brexit.

It was anticipated that the arrival of Keir Starmer’s government would mark a renaissance in civil service-ministerial relations. To symbolise a new era, Starmer instructed ministers to write welcome notes to their civil servants.

Yet, so far, there has been little visible improvement in the relationship, as ministers have become increasingly frustrated. The prime minister denounced the British state as slow-moving, “flabby” and ineffectual.

Rumours are circulating in Whitehall that Starmer and his allies regret appointing Chris Wormald, a civil service traditionalist, as the new cabinet secretary. In July, the Guardian reported the prime minister had “buyer’s remorse” in the light of Wormald’s apparent inability to get the ship of state moving in the right direction.

But it’s not one-way traffic. Civil servants have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of politicians. Moazzam Malik, a former director-general in the Foreign Office, reflected that “our system of government is built on the principle that civil servants provide impartial, evidence-based advice and ministers make decisions. But when ministers behave badly, it is usually because they don’t like what they are being told – and decide to take it out on the messenger.”

An obvious factor in the growth of this animosity and ill-feeling between ministers and civil servants is the prevailing belief that the British state is failing and that, in the current climate, “nothing works”.

All recent governments have struggled with delivery. Politicians castigate bureaucrats for being slow-moving and incompetent. Civil servants respond by insisting there is insufficient clarity from ministers who are prone to favour disruptive public sector reorganisations rather than focusing on the hard slog of continuous improvement. And when blunders happen, the two sides are liable to blame each other.

Another element is confusion within the civil service about what it exists to achieve. Is the role of officials to advise and support ministers, or oversee practical implementation at the front line? Different ministers patently want different things from their officials, while too few politicians arrive in office with a clear understanding of how to get the best out of civil servants.

At the same time, there is a belief that officials are rarely held accountable, while senior leaders can too easily evade responsibility for high-profile failures. Not surprisingly, the modern civil service has suffered an identity crisis.

On top of this, politicians of all parties are less likely to respect prevailing institutional norms. Historically, civil servants and ministers in Britain formed a strong bond based on a mutually beneficial partnership, depicted by academics as a “public service bargain”. This idea was elaborated in the 1970s by social scientist Bernard Schaffer to analyse the characteristics of civil service bureaucracy.

That bargain, encapsulated in the 19th century Northcote-Trevelyan report, meant that officials “exchanged overt partisanship, some political rights and a public political profile in return for permanent careers, honours and a six-hour working day”. Ministers had to accept merit-based appointment in return for the loyalty, obedience and dedication of civil servants.

The Whitehall model was predicated on a “governing marriage” between ministers and bureaucrats reflecting the ethos of “club government”. Both sides knew one other through educational and social ties based on class background and there was implicit ideological consensus. This was articulated in the post-war era through support for liberal civil service Keynesianism. Above all, there was the prevailing belief in the “Rolls-Royce” Whitehall machinery as the most effective in the world.

End of the bargain

The shift to a “them and us” model began in earnest during the 1980s as the consensus shattered and politicians became more critical of civil servants. Increasingly, ministers sought to create an entourage of advisers and consultants, marginalising career officials.

The monopoly over policy advice was eroded, as thinktanks and non-governmental organisations were encouraged to enter the policy-making arena. Civil servants were incentivised to become managers overseeing delivery rather than policy advisers – a trend reinforced by subsequent governments.

The cumulative effect was to create distance between ministers and officials. Yet such developments were scarcely unique to Britain. A recent survey revealed that across the world, bureaucracies are struggling to provide impartial advice to ministers.

This was the consequence of “political interference, where there are increasing instances of political agendas overshadowing expert advice worldwide”. Alongside that is the growth of “misinformation, where the rapid spread of incorrect or partial information in the digital age is undermining the credibility of factual, unbiased advice”.

The problem is that in this environment, Britain is in danger of losing one of its most trusted institutions: an impartial, capable civil service. For all its faults, this service acts as a bulwark against the overweening power of the executive, while supporting ministers to achieve their goals.

Rather than castigating officials behind closed doors, the new administration should produce a reform agenda that will improve civil service performance, acting as a catalyst for wider public sector transformation.

Patrick Diamond receives funding from the UKRI/ESRC Productivity Institute.

He is a member of the Labour Party.

– ref. Why have relations between civil servants and ministers turned so sour – and can they be repaired? – https://theconversation.com/why-have-relations-between-civil-servants-and-ministers-turned-so-sour-and-can-they-be-repaired-269025