Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jim Smith, Professor of Environmental Science, University of Portsmouth

“Dogs at Chernobyl are now genetically distinct … thanks to years of exposure to ionizing radiation, study finds.”

That’s just one of many similar headlines that appeared in response to a scientific study published a few years back. They present a compelling story of radiation, mutation and survival against the odds.

But the underlying science didn’t actually show any genetic differences were caused by radiation. The idea of “radioactive dogs of Chernobyl” is better understood as a modern scientific myth. Indeed, our appetite for scare stories about mutant animals is obscuring the reality: the most significant and fascinating thing about the animals there is the absence of humans, not the presence of radiation.

Forty years after the Chernobyl explosion, the controversy over how the accident affected people and ecosystems goes on. I’ve been studying the environmental impacts of the disaster since I began my PhD research in 1990 on radioactive fallout in the English Lake District. Scientists have learned a lot since then, with thousands of studies published.

But the mainstream and social media remain rife with misinformation and exaggeration about the accident’s effects. Scientists often blame the media for this, but maybe we should put some of the blame on ourselves.

Radioactive dogs make a great story

The Chernobyl disaster tapped into our enduring fascination with radiation and mutation, with all sorts of claims being made about damaged wildlife and mutant animals in the exclusion zone. But clear scientific evidence for significant long-term radiation effects is surprisingly hard to find.

Research on the feral dogs of Chernobyl, published in the highly regarded journal Science Advances in 2023, is just one of many examples. Go through any checkpoint in the zone and you’ll see at least a couple of dogs hanging around waiting for scraps from guards or visitors. The study found genetic differences between dogs living at the power plant and those living further away.

The authors themselves do not explicitly say that the differences they find were due to radiation. However, to the casual reader it is difficult not to draw that conclusion from the paper and accompanying press release.

The press release overstated the link to radiation. It suggested that the dogs “may be genetically distinct due to varying levels of radiation exposure” and said they are experiencing “high and continuous environmental assault” – claims not supported by the evidence.

Even experienced science journalists would find it hard not to be influenced by that framing. As a scientist who has worked on radiation issues and Chernobyl for decades, it took me a long time to read and understand all the relevant papers and conclude that the hype was in no way supported by the evidence.

What the science actually said

The genetic differences are real. But, given the relatively low radiation doses in most of the zone, more plausible explanations include differences in initial breed types and factors such as habitat, nutrition and disease. With only three populations to study, it’s very difficult to separate any radiation effect from these other important factors.

Yet in media coverage, this became a story about radiation driving rapid evolutionary change in just a few generations. That interpretation is not supported by the available evidence.

As the great science communicator Carl Sagan put it: “Extraordinary results require extraordinary evidence.” Yet a previous study showed that only four out of 198 dogs studied at Chernobyl had contamination levels higher than those seen in sheep, wild boar and reindeer in parts of western Europe in the years after the accident.

There are some radiation “hot spots” in the zone, but the dogs tend to stay near people working at the reactor site or living in the town. The rest of the zone is now effectively a nature reserve where wolves and other large predators roam freely.

---

Read more:
40 years on from the disaster, why there are foxes, bears and bison again around Chernobyl

---

In the media’s telling, radiation doses well below established thresholds for damage to animal populations are driving such strong natural selection that radiation resistant breeds are evolving. The science behind the story does not provide clear evidence – extraordinary or otherwise – to support this claim.

Misleading science stories have real world impact

Chernobyl remains a globally symbolic landscape. It shapes debates about nuclear risk, environmental resilience and even future energy policy. Yet research there is repeatedly clouded by stories that emphasise dramatic but weakly supported claims.

The more interesting truth is that ecosystems in the exclusion zone are complex, surprisingly resilient and shaped more by the absence of humans than by long term radiation exposure.

The accident undoubtedly had profound impacts on people, including a rise in thyroid cancer, though long-term radiation health effects have often been hard to find statistically. A major UN-backed report 20 years after the accident concluded that the biggest public health impacts were socio-economic and mental health problems. Even today, many people in northern Ukraine and southern Belarus live with very low-level radiation but continue to believe it poses a serious danger.

Stories of radioactive dogs play into those fears. As scientists, we owe it to the public to communicate our science more responsibly.

Jim Smith is founder and shareholder in The Chernobyl Spirit Community Interest Company, a social enterprise making safe spirits from Chernobyl affected areas. He has in the past (>10 years ago) done small consultancy projects for government organisations and the private sector. He does not currently do consultancy work or have any links to the nuclear industry.

– ref. Chernobyl’s wildlife: the real story isn’t the presence of radiation – it’s the absence of humans – https://theconversation.com/chernobyls-wildlife-the-real-story-isnt-the-presence-of-radiation-its-the-absence-of-humans-281084

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Susanne Masters, PhD Candidate, Institute of Biology, Leiden University

Each spring, the meadows and hillsides of the Mediterranean draw tourists to admire flowering orchids. But in some regions, these astonishing blooms are steadily declining – or at risk of disappearing altogether.

Collection for trade is depleting these wild orchids. It’s not their flowers but their tubers that have most value. Tubers are underground storage organs that sustain plant growth and development. Harvesting them effectively kills the plant.

International trade in orchids is strictly regulated, although national regulations vary. Lack of monitoring makes it difficult to assess the scale of trade, but it is probably much higher than officially reported.

Orchid tubers have been collected from the wild in the eastern Mediterranean region – from Greece to Turkey – for centuries. Dried and powdered, they are the defining ingredient of both a hot drink called salep and maraş dondurma, a type of ice-cream.

Today, salep is not only available at local herbal shops and supermarkets. It is sold globally and online, causing salep harvests and sales to expand across a larger region than ever before. In combination with other threats such as climate change and habitat loss, this growing trade threatens to eradicate orchid populations.

---

Read more:
Famous monkey-face ‘Dracula’ orchids are vanishing in the wild

---

Using historical collections of salep kept in museums plus samples from current trade, our new study has mapped the species of orchid collected for its production, and their regions of origin, over the last two centuries.

By extracting and sequencing their DNA, we showed that the market for salep is not just growing – it is transforming. More and more species are being harvested across larger regions and during longer harvesting seasons.

From the early 19th century to the mid-20th century, salep was made predominantly from early purple orchid (Orchis mascula). Now, a broader mixture of orchids is used, including green-winged orchid (Anacamptis morio) and early marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata).

But early purple orchid is still collected for salep in Eastern Iran – a region where salep is not traditionally consumed and where orchid tuber collecting is a relatively new business. This shows that a preference for salep made from orchids and not substitutes persists. However, orchids are now harder to find, partly due to increased demand and possibly declining abundance of these flowers in the wild. As a result, the frontier of salep trade has been pushed eastward into new territories.

“In Iran, orchid harvesting is mainly for export purposes,” explains Abdolbaset Ghorbani, a researcher at Uppsala University and co-author on our study.

During fieldwork in Iran, he noticed that orchid tubers are not commonly known as salep but rather “mountain potatoes”. “This name was coined by locals in the northeast, as orchid tuber harvesting was new to them and most people were not familiar with salep or its uses.”

Our findings mirror patterns observed in Greece, where salep is now harvested less by local communities and increasingly sourced from outside the country.

At the same time, in areas where salep consumption is common, it is increasingly supplied through other means. People are not only turning to different species of orchid, but they are doing so at lower elevations than the traditionally harvested mountain species – possibly to make a wider repertoire of substitutes more accessible.

The risk of extinction that more intensive harvesting brings to these orchids can be seen in their tuber size. By measuring more than a thousand tubers collected over two centuries, we discovered that the size of salep tubers has been steadily declining, regardless of the species concerned. A reduction in harvested body or organ size is a classic symptom of overexploitation, and can be an early warning signal of population collapse.

Ghorbani notes that dwindling orchid populations may lead to a further shift in collection efforts: “I think that now, after some years, as orchids have become scarce in the region, the trade has also decreased.”

He adds that it is also possible that collectors have started moving into new areas, such as protected nature reserves, to collect orchid tubers: “Perhaps harvesting has expanded even further east into central Asian countries that have not yet been exploited, in order to meet the demand for tubers.”

If this trend persists, orchid blooms may become a rare sight not just across the eastern Mediterranean region, but parts of Asia as well.

Putting protection in place

To protect orchids from the risks of overexploitation and trade, orchid material should not be internationally traded without permits. However, trade regulations are poorly enforced and don’t address the problem of domestic trade. Increased compliance with international trade regulations is therefore necessary to curb the salep trade, but can only be a partial solution.

Other measures are necessary to satisfy the growing demand for salep. Consumers could turn from wild to cultivated sources, a practice still in its infancy but with a promising outlook for sustainable production of salep.

Sustainable standards such as FairWild can guide the legal harvest of small amounts salep that do not harm orchid survival. Both options depend on increased consumer awareness and the right market incentives.

As the trade and extinction of edible orchids is a global problem, effective solutions require international coordination. Global initiatives such as the Illegal Plant Trade Coalition can help disseminate knowledge of the risks of unrestricted harvest and trade, and promote existing alternatives.

Such efforts will not only serve to protect the precious sight of flowering orchids in spring, but also the treasures they keep underground – and the traditions they support.

Susanne Masters is affiliated with IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group.

Margret Veltman has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 765000
Margret Veltman is affiliated with the IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group.

– ref. Edible orchids are being overharvested in the Mediterranean – how to protect these astonishing blooms – https://theconversation.com/edible-orchids-are-being-overharvested-in-the-mediterranean-how-to-protect-these-astonishing-blooms-279495

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kirsten Stevens-Wood, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff Metropolitan University

As conflict intensifies in the Middle East, energy markets swing wildly and the cost of living keeps climbing, a pressing question is emerging for anyone who is tied in to the fluctuating energy and food markets: how do we build resilience?

Big political and economic solutions still matter. But they take time. Increasingly, attention is turning closer to home, and to communities themselves.

Among these, intentional communities – once seen as niche – stand out as an increasingly viable option. Intentional communities are groups of people that share land and resources collectively. They can include cohousing and housing cooperatives as well as other projects. These communities do not constitute an escape from the world, but a way of coping with it. In some cases, they are already softening the shocks of global instability.

One of the most visible consequences of conflict in the Middle East is felt in energy bills at home. Disruptions to oil and gas supply chains push up fuel prices. That ripples through everything like transport, food and heating. In the UK, households feel it quickly.

But some intentional communities are less exposed. They have changed how they produce and use energy. At Bridport Cohousing in Dorset, residents share heating systems and generate solar power. On the Isle of Eigg in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, the entire island runs on a community-owned electricity system powered by wind, water and sun.

Of course, these systems don’t make communities immune to wider pressures. But they can cushion the blow by lowering bills and reducing dependence on volatile global markets.

Rising energy prices feed directly into food, housing and everyday costs. For many households, the pressure is relentless. Intentional communities respond differently. They pool resources. Food is often bought in bulk or grown collectively. Meals are shared. Housing is organised cooperatively, which can help to bring down rents and mortgages.

While pooling resources doesn’t eliminate costs, it can spread them. And that makes a difference, especially for those on tight or fixed incomes.

Social resilience in uncertain times

Resilience isn’t just financial. Intentional communities can also help buffer the psychological and social effects of living in times of conflict or uncertainty.

The pandemic offered a glimpse of this. While many people experienced isolation, collaborative housing communities often mobilised quickly because support networks were already in place.

A 2023 study of 18 intentional communities in England and Wales found they were able to quickly build on their existing and well-established social infrastructure. Regular contact, shared decision-making and mutual support helped people cope. In uncertain times, that kind of connection matters. It reduces isolation and makes crises easier to navigate.

One example was an older women’s cohousing group near London who set up online movie and book review clubs, as well as regularly sharing homegrown food from their communal allotment.

Disrupted fuel supplies – as we have seen in the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz – can have cascading effects on agricultural production and food distribution. This can lead to price increases and occasional shortages.

Many intentional communities try to buffer against this by growing their own food. Small-scale farming, permaculture and community gardens are common.

For example, the Redfield community in north Buckinghamshire grow much of their own food, as well as keeping chickens, a small flock of sheep and bees on their 17 acres of land. This increases self-sufficiency, meaning they are less exposed to global disruptions. It also builds skills – knowledge that often spreads beyond the community itself through friends, family and even courses on growing, permaculture and self sufficiency.

None of this makes intentional communities self-contained utopias. They still rely on wider systems. Renewable energy infrastructure requires investment, for example. Skills and resources are uneven, which means that no community is fully insulated from global crises. But that may not be the point.

What sets these communities apart is not independence, but adaptability. They spread risk and diversify how needs are met in terms of energy, food, housing and care. And systems that are more diverse tend to be more resilient.

Intentional communities are, in effect, testing grounds. They show what happens when people reorganise everyday life around cooperation rather than individual consumption. Some of their ideas, like shared ownership, local energy and community food networks are already spreading beyond them into local and national government policy, builders and architects and wider community groups.

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

– ref. What intentional communities can teach us about resilience amid global instability – https://theconversation.com/what-intentional-communities-can-teach-us-about-resilience-amid-global-instability-280635

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Max Carter-Brown, Lecturer, Evolutionary Biology, Anglia Ruskin University

I’m standing in a deconsecrated church in Lambeth, London, now home to the Garden Museum. It has a warm and pleasant atmosphere, undeniably a church, yet far removed from its original purpose. On this quiet Friday morning, I met with Emma House, the lead curator of the exhibition Seeds of Exchange. We wandered around the exhibit, which is deceptively small for the scale of its story, crossing continents, cultures, languages and time.

Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s tells a story that is both local and global. It centres on a short-lived but remarkable collaboration between an English botanist and his Chinese counterparts. Together, they documented the plant life of Canton (modern-day Guangzhou) at a time when global trade, science and empires were becoming deeply entangled.

As a botanist I love plants – but this story is not only about them. It is about how knowledge moves, and who gets to shape it.

A meeting point of worlds

The late 18th century was a period of carefully controlled contact between China and Europe. Trade with the outside world in China was tightly regulated through licensed Chinese merchant guilds. Foreign traders could only operate during part of the year.

Into this system stepped John Bradby Blake, an employee of the British East India Company in the early 18th century.

Like many of his contemporaries, he was not simply a passive participant in imperial trade. The East India Company allowed its agents a degree of personal enterprise, and Blake – having suffered substantial financial losses in tea speculation – turned to botany as both scientific pursuit and potential commercial opportunity.

His project was ambitious: to catalogue Chinese plants in what he envisioned as a Compleat Chinensis (Complete Chinese). Between 1766 and his death in 1773, he commissioned over 150 botanical paintings, documenting many now familiar plant species, ranging from citrus fruits and camellias to turmeric and jackfruit.

What makes this project particularly striking is that it was not a solitary European endeavour. Blake relied heavily on local expertise, as he did not know the flora and did not speak Mandarin.

Mak Sau, a Chinese artist about whom we know very little, produced detailed botanical paintings that form the heart of this exhibition. These works are scientific documents, capturing colour and structure with fantastic precision. But they are also superb works of art and form a historically important collection of early botanically accurate watercolour paintings in China.

Local knowledge also helped identify species that Blake himself struggled to classify. Whang At Tong, Blake’s Chinese counterpart, was a merchant operating within the Canton system. He facilitated the exchange of materials, knowledge and, eventually, the transport of Blake’s collection back to Britain. The endeavour was, in many ways, a shared intellectual enterprise. Yet it unfolded within an unequal system shaped by imperial trade and economic ambition.

Plants, profit and empire

Many of the plants depicted in Seeds of Exchange hint at the economic motivations behind Blake’s work. Tea, citrus species, indigo and medicinal plants all had clear commercial value. Others carried horticultural interest that would later shape European gardens.

Blake cultivated plants in his own Canton garden, experimenting with germination and growth and sending seeds back to Britain. These botanical exchanges contributed, in small but significant ways, to breaking China’s monopoly on certain crops – particularly tea.

Yet the paintings also reveal a more complex botanical landscape. Some species, such as chilli peppers and watermelon, were themselves recent arrivals to China (from South America and Africa respectively).

Even in the 18th century, plant distributions were already shaped by centuries of movement across continents. Today, the movement of plants across the world is on a monumental scale, driven by crops and horticulture. The exhibition quietly reminds us that “native” and “foreign” are often more fluid categories than we assume.

Blake’s death in 1773 brought the project to an abrupt halt. He never completed his Compleat Chinensis, and his work might easily have faded into obscurity. Instead, Whang At Tong transported the collection to London, where it entered elite scientific circles. He is one of the earliest recorded Chinese people to have come to the UK. He met figures such as Joseph Banks, a central figure in British botany, and even sat for a portrait by Joshua Reynolds – a rare moment of cultural visibility for a Chinese visitor in 18th-century Britain. The Reynolds painting is in the exhibit, and exquisitely done.

Despite this, the botanical paintings themselves were never fully integrated into British science. Seeds were sent to Kew, but the visual and documentary archive remained largely unused. Over time, the collection became physically divided. One portion, consisting of manuscripts and herbals (historical books describing the properties of plants), ended up, remarkably, in Canterbury Cathedral. Another, including many of the paintings, passed through the art market before being acquired by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia in the 20th century.

Reuniting the past

Seeds of Exchange marks the first time these materials have been brought back together in over two centuries. Seen together, the paintings, herbals, notebooks and maps reveal a network of knowledge production that was collaborative, cross-cultural and contingent. Recent research indicates that Blake mainly used texts by European authors for identification, however the exhibition shows Chinese floras which were used in the work, highlighting the depth of local contribution.

The exhibition also sits within a broader historical context. The Garden Museum itself stands on land once associated with early botanical collectors such as the Tradescant family, whose 17th-century “cabinet of curiosities” helped lay the foundations of modern museums. From these early collections to Blake’s Canton project, the gathering and classification of plants has long been tied to exploration, trade and power.

What, then, does this exhibition tell us today? At one level, it is a fascinating story of early globalisation. But it also prompts deeper questions about authorship and recognition. Projects like Blake’s were often framed as European achievements, even when they depended heavily on local knowledge and labour.

Seeds of Exchange highlights that scientific knowledge has almost always been co-produced, even if the historical record has not always acknowledged this. In an era when museums and collections are increasingly reexamining their collections and histories, this matters.

Like the plants it documents, the knowledge this exhibition represents has travelled, adapted and taken root in new contexts – and we are still tracing its origins more than two centuries on.

Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s is at the Garden Museum in London until May 10 2026

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

– ref. Seeds of Exchange reveals the untold story of the plant collectors who connected Canton and London in the 18th century – https://theconversation.com/seeds-of-exchange-reveals-the-untold-story-of-the-plant-collectors-who-connected-canton-and-london-in-the-18th-century-281057

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University

When Donald Trump deported a group of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador in 2025, it was the fulfilment of a long-held wish. Across both of his administrations Trump has pushed officials to find ways to brutalise immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented, believing that doing so will deter others from making the trip.

The Venezuelan nationals were destined for El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot. When they arrived, according to a Human Rights Watch report, they were subjected to systematic beatings, sexual abuse and psychological duress.

The Trump administration amplified reports of conditions in the prison. Trump’s former homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, for example, filmed a video inside Cecot in 2025 in which she thanked El Salvador for “bringing our terrorists here and incarcerating them”.

Trump’s deportations were a chilling sign of how easy it is for US presidents to sidestep the constitution. If Cecot were in the US, it would be recognised as a site of illegal abuses. The constitution’s protection against “cruel and unusual punishments” would cause judges to order it shut down – and it is likely that political outrage would not cease until that order was followed.

Yet by making an agreement with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, Trump managed to get around these legal and political obstacles. In a recent paper, I explored how Trump’s deportations are part of a broader pattern of what I call “presidential extra-territorialization” – American presidents acting in or through a foreign jurisdiction to circumvent the US constitution.

There is a long-term pattern of cooperation between presidents from both the Republican and Democratic parties and the leaders of foreign countries. It is a pattern that could have grave implications for the future of US democracy.

Outsourcing abuses

The ability of US presidents to engage in this outsourcing of abuses is rooted in two things. First, their control over the vast capabilities of the modern executive branch, with its array of spies, soldiers and law enforcement officials. And second, control over US diplomacy, which is enshrined in Supreme Court precedent.

In 1936, the court ruled that the president is “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations”. This has commonly been interpreted as meaning US presidents cannot be constrained by the other branches of government when conducting diplomacy.

Combined, these factors mean presidents face fewer constraints in foreign affairs than in the domestic realm. They are able to avoid oversight from the courts and Congress by keeping agreements with other governments secret and by acting too fast to be stopped. If they can find just one foreign government willing to enable them, then what is not possible at home suddenly becomes possible overseas.

This lack of constraint was evident in Trump’s deportations. The US government sent the men to El Salvador despite a last-minute ruling by a federal court ordering their return.

And once they were in El Salvador, the Trump administation claimed it was no longer responsible for them and could not be expected to bring them back. The Supreme Court stepped in to pause further such deportations, but only weeks after the fact.

Other examples of the power and flexibility of extra-territorialization became apparent during the “war on terror”, when successive US presidents faced the issue of where to send detainees who were suspected terrorists.

If they were brought to the US, they would have had constitutional rights and could not have been tortured or indefinitely imprisoned. So presidents from Bill Clinton in the 1990s onward established a series of agreements with other countries to take and mistreat them instead.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the Bush administration established a series of “black sites” in countries such as Poland, Thailand and Romania in which to hold detainees in secret. Abuses were committed directly by US agents, but still beyond the reach of US courts. The administration held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba too, another place where the constitution’s reach was limited.

Presidents can also shift territory in response to attempts to constrain their actions. When the US Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo Bay had to be afforded certain rights in 2008, the Obama administration transferred some detainees to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Bagram was not covered by the Supreme Court ruling.

As a US court of appeals noted in 2010, the ability to shift territories so easily seemed to allow the administration to “switch the constitution on or off at will”.

Yet another example of extra-territorialization is the “Five Eyes” intelligence agreement between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US. As part of this pact, members have been reported to spy on each other’s citizens – an outsourcing of surveillance that allows each to circumvent domestic privacy constraints.

The fact that Trump has engaged in extra-territorialization so openly, in contrast to previous administrations who tried to keep it hidden, is a stark warning.

Even when the president said he was exploring a proposal to send US citizens to Cecot in April 2025, he received little pushback from within his own party. This suggests they have accepted it as a legitimate strategy to achieve policy goals.

In the hyper-polarised atmosphere of contemporary US politics, extra-territorialization is threatening to become a regular tool of governance. To stop that from happening, it is vital to expose and confront it. But first we must understand it.

Andrew Gawthorpe is affiliated with the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. How US presidents shift controversial actions abroad to get around limits at home – https://theconversation.com/how-us-presidents-shift-controversial-actions-abroad-to-get-around-limits-at-home-280769

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Stein, PhD Student, University of Leicester

The word “heritage” generally calls to mind the distant past. Ancient buildings, historic objects or traditions passed down over generations. “Heritage” feels old by definition, but it’s not simply something we inherit. It is something we actively make. What matters is not age but the decision to preserve, display and interpret particular parts of culture as meaningful.

Researchers have long argued that heritage is created through social and political processes rather than discovered fully formed. Professor of heritage and museum studies Laurajane Smith, for example, describes heritage as a cultural process rather than a set of old things.

South Korea offers a clear example of how this shift is playing out today. Forms of popular culture that still feel contemporary – including music, television and fashion – are increasingly entering museums and cultural institutions. Rather than waiting decades to be recognised as historically important, they are being treated as heritage in real time.

This challenges the idea that heritage naturally emerges from the past. Instead, it shows how heritage is shaped by present-day choices.

---

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

---

For much of the 20th century, heritage institutions focused on age, tradition and permanence. Museums prioritised monuments, fine art and objects connected to political or national history. Everyday life and popular culture were often seen as too ordinary, too commercial or too temporary to preserve.

This distinction has been questioned by museum and heritage researchers. Studies of museum collecting practices show that heritage is always selective and reflects contemporary values and power structures rather than neutral historical importance. Smith’s concept of “authorised heritage discourse” explains how institutions define what counts as heritage and what does not.

Even so, for many people “heritage” still carries an aura of distance. It is associated with what has survived time, rather than what is happening now.

What has changed is how quickly museums are responding to contemporary culture. Internationally, museums have increasingly collected popular music, film, fashion and everyday objects. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s work on contemporary fashion and popular music collections is one prominent example. In the US, the Smithsonian Institution has similarly expanded its collecting to include popular culture and everyday life.

Korean popular culture in heritage spaces

Korean popular culture makes this shift especially visible. The global success of K-pop, television dramas, film and fashion has drawn attention to contemporary Korean culture both within South Korea and internationally. This global circulation is often described as the “Korean Wave” or Hallyu.

In response, museums and cultural centres have begun collecting and exhibiting these cultural forms alongside more established historical material. K-pop costumes have been displayed in museum exhibitions as material evidence of changing aesthetics, performance labour and global cultural exchange, including at the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History. Television dramas are represented through sets, props and production materials that document how these programmes are made and consumed.

Food culture and domestic interiors are also increasingly framed as heritage. The National Folk Museum of Korea has expanded its exhibitions on modern and contemporary daily life, including housing, food-ways and consumer culture.

What is striking is how recent many of these objects and practices are. They are not relics from a distant past. They are things people still watch, wear, eat and listen to. By bringing them into museums, institutions are effectively declaring their cultural value in the present.

When popular culture enters a heritage space, it changes. Objects are removed from everyday circulation and placed within interpretive frameworks that encourage visitors to see them differently. Exhibition texts, display choices and narratives guide audiences towards particular meanings, such as creativity, national identity or global influence.

Research on museum interpretation shows that these framing decisions are central to how visitors understand cultural value. Korean museums show how quickly this process can happen. Popular culture does not need to age into heritage. It can be made heritage through institutional recognition.

This does not mean everything popular is preserved. Selection remains central. Certain artists, styles and narratives are chosen, while others are excluded. Research on museum collecting has highlighted how gaps and silences are produced alongside preservation.

Who decides what is remembered?

The move towards contemporary heritage raises important questions about authority. Museums, government bodies and cultural organisations all influence what is collected and displayed. In South Korea, heritage decisions are closely tied to cultural policy, tourism and international cultural promotion, as outlined in government cultural policy documents.

Audiences also play a role. Exhibitions focused on popular culture often attract visitors who might not usually engage with museums. Research on visitor engagement shows that popular culture exhibitions are often designed to be immersive and accessible, reshaping expectations of what heritage looks like and who it is for. At the same time, making heritage in the present carries risks. Not all voices are equally represented. Less visible or less marketable forms of culture may be overlooked, even as heritage appears to become more inclusive.

Looking at contemporary Korean culture helps make a broader point. Heritage is no longer confined to the distant past. It is increasingly shaped by the present and reflects what societies value now, not just what they inherit. Recognising this does not diminish the importance of preserving historical sites and objects. Instead, it offers a clearer understanding of heritage as an active process. What we choose to collect, display and remember says as much about today as it does about yesterday.

In a world saturated with popular culture, heritage is no longer something we wait for. It is something we are making all the time.

Anna Stein 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. Heritage is created, not inherited – as Korean pop culture shows – https://theconversation.com/heritage-is-created-not-inherited-as-korean-pop-culture-shows-273613

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sharha, PhD Candidate in Kamasutra Feminism, Cardiff Metropolitan University

We often assume, when it comes to sex, that women’s voices have only been taken seriously in relatively recent history. However, female sexual power and liberation can be found in the Kamasutra, which dates back to the 3rd century.

You can be forgiven for thinking that the Kamasutra isn’t an empowering or forward-thinking text, based on what you likely know and assume about it. But this idea is based on a colonial era misunderstanding that has been carried on and projected through popular culture representations of the “sex guide”. The man responsible for this misunderstanding is Richard Francis Burton who translated the text into English in 1883. This “translation”, however, was not a faithful one but more of an interpretation crafted through a decidedly narrow, male-centred lens.

In my research, however, I have discovered a very different text — one which could be seen even been seen as feminist by modern standards. The original text from the third century attributed to the philosopher Vatsyayana, and more recent translations and interpretations, present women as active, articulate participants in desire.

Far from a simple sex manual, it treats consent as central to sexual freedom, emphasising mutuality, enthusiasm and the right to refuse. Indian scholar Kumkum Roy describes how Vatsyayana believed that desire promotes harmony, supports ethical care and encourages mutual love.

Relationships in Vatsyayana’s text, and its more faithful translations, are presented as negotiated exchanges grounded in desire, communication and emotional attentiveness. Women are not passive. They voice preferences, set boundaries, initiate intimacy and pursue pleasure.

The verses depict a playful, warm exchange among close individuals, sharing comfort through humour, teasing, and using hints rather than direct words, creating an inviting atmosphere that draws them into intimacy and enjoyment. Take this excerpt:

They talk together about things
That they have done together before,
Joking and titillating, touching upon
All sorts of things hidden and obscene.
– Book two, chapter ten

As shown here, consent is conveyed not only through words but through gestures, expressions and responsive signals that require attentiveness rather than assumption. Vatsyayana states that a man should interpret a woman’s gestures and signals of sexual desire to gain her trust before making contact:

When these various erotic moods are evoked
According to the particular nature of the woman
And of her region, they inspire
Women’s affection, passion, and respect.
– Book two, chapter six

Indologist Wendy Doniger argues that the Kamasutra teaches a “sexual language” that extends beyond the bedroom. It is about reading cues, respecting autonomy and recognising desire as something co-created, not imposed, skills that should extend into all social interactions.

According to the verses, showing sensitivity and understanding in romance can really help strengthen a woman’s feelings and respect. Crucially, the text is clear: without a woman’s permission, a man should not touch her.

This stands in stark contrast to many contemporary experiences. Research – including my own, drawing on over 1,000 women’s accounts of coercion – shows how consent is often blurred, unspoken or performed. As the feminist academic and activist, Fiona Vera-Gray has documented, women frequently feel pressure to comply, sometimes faking desire or orgasms to meet expectations.

Revisiting the Kamasutra through a feminist lens reveals something striking: an ancient framework that centres women’s agency, pleasure and choice. It imagines women as confident subjects of desire – capable of saying “yes”, “no” or leaving altogether. In this sense, consent is not merely a legal threshold but a practice shaped by timing, reciprocity and mutual recognition.

What emerges is less a “sex manual” and more a philosophy: one that insists good sex depends on attention, patience and genuine agreement.

Even at the end, love
Enhanced by thoughtful acts
And words and deeds exchanged in confidence
Give rise to the highest ecstasy.
Responding to their feeling about themselves,
Inspiring mutual love.
– Book two, chapter ten

The verses remind us that it’s really the thoughtfulness, trust and emotional honesty that make love truly meaningful and fulfilling. Vatsyayana advises men to listen to women’s voices and become gentle lovers.

The Kamasutra in its true form challenges the idea that women should accommodate male desire, instead positioning their voices as essential to any meaningful encounter. Recovering this perspective matters.

When women are supported to recognise and express their sexual agency, the balance of power shifts. Consent becomes clearer and more mutual, and intimacy, in turn, becomes something that is enjoyed rather than endured.

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.

Sharha 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. Consent is a core principle in the Kamasutra – what we can learn from it today – https://theconversation.com/consent-is-a-core-principle-in-the-kamasutra-what-we-can-learn-from-it-today-280620

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Philip Broadbent, Wellcome Multimorbidity PhD Fellow & Public Health Registrar, University of Glasgow

Hospitals that score poorly on feedback from female patients could soon see their budget cut under a plan unveiled in April by Wes Streeting, the UK’s health secretary. Branded “patient power payments”, the scheme would tie a slice of hospital income to women’s experiences of care, a measure designed to end what Streeting himself has called an “appalling culture of medical misogyny” in England’s National Health Service.

The instinct behind the policy is understandable. Women’s anger is real, well founded and widely overdue for a serious answer.

The current backlog experienced by women is the clearest summary of the problem. Nearly a quarter of a million women are on waiting lists for gynaecological care in England. This number has roughly doubled since 2018 and grown faster than any other clinical speciality’s waiting list.

In a survey of more than 100,000 women, half said their pain had been disregarded and overlooked. In the UK today, obtaining a diagnosis of endometriosis (a painful condition affecting roughly one in ten women) now takes an average of nearly nine years and roughly ten visits to a GP.

This is a cultural sickness. Whether the right response is to dock money from overburdened hospitals is a different question.

Pay-for-performance schemes for hospitals have a long and somewhat chequered history abroad. A US review found that American hospitals serving the poorest patients paid roughly 10% of all penalty dollars under Medicare’s quality programmes while taking home only 5% of the bonuses. Research has also found that such programmes risk widening inequality by diverting funds from hospitals that care for the sickest patients.

The surveys themselves are not without bias. Female, Asian and black doctors score lower on patient experience ratings than their white male peers, even when the care is identical. These scores often pick up charm, confidence and continuity rather than clinical quality.

The problem with importing this logic into England is that the hospitals most likely to score the worst are already in the worst shape.

Patients in deprived areas tend to be sicker and develop multiple long-term conditions up to seven years earlier than those in wealthier neighbourhoods – factors that drag satisfaction scores down without necessarily reflecting poor clinical care.

Hospitals serving patients in the most deprived areas recorded the steepest fall in finances last year, and the NHS as a whole is carrying a deficit above £1 billion, with more than 20,000 roles needing to be cut just to balance the books.

The inverse care law

Strip cash from hospitals with the longest waits, the hardest caseloads and the smallest budgets, and the women least well served to start with will find their care worse, not better. That is what the inverse care law, first set out in 1971, predicts: good healthcare is scarcest where it is needed most, and scarcer still where market pressures dominate.

The doom loop is easy to foresee: a struggling hospital loses funding because its ratings are poor; it cannot adequately recruit or retain gynaecologists; waiting times lengthen; ratings drop further; more money disappears.

The question, then, is what would actually work.

Do other policies show more promise? Between 2023 and 2025, England funded women’s health hubs – one-stop community clinics offering contraception, menopause care and help with period problems and pelvic pain under one roof. Evaluations led by Rand Europe reported shorter waits, fewer hospital referrals and better patient experience. Dedicated funding for the hubs has not been renewed and many face being scaled back or closed in 2026.

A deeper fix might be found within medicine itself. Much of modern practice was built around male bodies, and women were largely excluded from clinical trials until the 1990s, leaving drug doses, pain research and disease criteria mostly calibrated around men.

The textbook heart attack symptom of crushing chest pain is one more likely to be experienced by men. This is one reason why women are around 50% more likely than men to be given the wrong diagnosis when having a heart attack.

---

Read more:
Are heart attack symptoms sexist?

---

Women reporting abdominal pain are routinely sent through slow general clinics rather than dedicated gynaecology services. Resetting those defaults costs relatively little and tackles the bias at its source.

The reality is that this problem is bigger than any one solution can deliver. Women are dismissed in consultations, wait years for routine gynaecology and are misdiagnosed for conditions from endometriosis to heart attacks – issues that need clinical time, training and steady staffing, not budget cuts.

Obstetrics and gynaecology has among the worst vacancy rates in the English health service. One in five obstetricians and gynaecologists plans to leave the NHS within five years and nurses are quitting the profession at record rates. A scheme that cuts the budgets of struggling hospitals threatens to speed the exodus driving the problem in the first place.

“Patient power payments” has the appeal of borrowing the language of consumer choice. It reframes our cultural failure as a marketplace one. But a marketplace will always reward customers with the most power to walk away. And punish the hospitals left to look after the women with the least.

Philip Broadbent receives funding from the Wellcome Trust 223499/Z/21/Z

– ref. Fining hospitals for medical misogyny won’t help women – it will hurt them – https://theconversation.com/fining-hospitals-for-medical-misogyny-wont-help-women-it-will-hurt-them-281079

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anja Shortland, Professor in Political Economy, King’s College London

When evolutionary biologist Joseph Popp coded the first documented piece of ransomware in 1989, he had little idea it would become a major criminal business model capable of bringing economies to their knees.

Popp, who worked for the World Health Organization at the time, wanted to warn people about the dangers of ignoring health warnings, poor sexual hygiene and (human) virus transmission.

He sent out 20,0000 floppy discs that, when loaded, flashed up a demand for money to regain files that had supposedly been encrypted (in fact, it was just their file names). He was later arrested and charged with 11 counts of blackmail, but declared mentally unfit to stand trial.

In 1996, two Columbia University computer scientists published a paper explaining how criminals could use more sophisticated versions of Popp’s scheme to mount large-scale extortion operations. At the heart of this was malicious software that could be used to encrypt, block access to or steal a person or organisation’s files and data.

However, two preconditions still had to be met for ransomware to become a feasible criminal business: communication channels that were difficult to monitor, and a payments process outside financial regulation.

The Tor protocol, released by US intelligence services to protect their covert communications, solved the first problem in 2004. Cryptocurrencies solved the second – in particular, when bitcoin cash machines started appearing in North American cities from 2013.

Today, artifical intelligence makes malware coding and crafting convincing phishing-emails in any language simple. And the latest model in Anthropic’s AI system, Claude Mythos, recently proved more effective at hacking into computer systems than humans.

As an expert in extortive crime, I am increasingly concerned about public and political apathy to the threats posed by ransomware. To better understand these, it’s worth tracing its evolution over the past two decades – and how improvements in computer security and law enforcement, plus changes in data regulation, have led to new criminal strategies each time.

Cut out the middlemen

The first generation, which came to global attention in the mid-2010s, was known as “commodity ransomware”. A pioneering example, Cryptolocker, was developed by Russia-based hackers who infiltrated hundreds of thousands of computers, seeking to cut out the middlemen previously needed to commit financial fraud. They proved that a large majority of their victims would happily pay a small ransom to restore data that had been locked by their malware.

As both competent and incompetent hackers piled into this new market, victims shared information about rogue operators and put them out of business. This led to the second generation of ransomware such as Ryuk, which emerged in 2018.

In this phase, criminals abandoned the indiscriminate “spray-and-pray” approach in favour of targeting individual cash-rich businesses. They would set an individual ransom, negotiate with the company, and even offer to help with decryption if paid. Fast-rising ransoms more than compensated for this increased administrative effort.

In response, many companies began investing in multi-factor authentication, better threat monitoring, advance warning systems and software patches for known vulnerabilities.

However, these security benefits were soon offset by the impact of COVID on work practices across the world. The pandemic led to widespread remote working, with many people using unsecured devices and connections that were vulnerable to cyber-attack.

A multibillion-dollar industry

The next ransomware innovation was driven by the emergence of back-up systems that enabled companies to restore encrypted files without the criminals’ help. This was coupled with the emergence of tighter data privacy regulation such as GDPR in Europe and the UK.

Invented in 2019, third-generation ransomware weaponised these regulations, which threatened firms with massive fines if confidential data about clients or staff was revealed. The criminal gangs now sought out and exfiltrated an organisation’s most sensitive files, then threatened to publicise them through dedicated dark web leak sites.

This so-called double-extortion model – encrypting an organisation’s data while threatening to make it public – brought many businesses back to the negotiation table.

Ransomware had become a multibillion-dollar industry – with the Conti gang, sheltered by Russia and employing hundreds of people, among the key players setting new records for ransomware demands. Its attacks on critical infrastructure and hospitals saw it sanctioned by the UK government in 2023.

This new approach forced many governments to row back on imposing hefty fines for data breaches, since many were the result of criminal attacks. Meanwhile, new initiatives by law enforcement – supported by the private sector – targeted and broke up the largest and most egregious ransomware gangs.

Today’s fourth generation of ransomware, building on the latest AI technology, looks nimbler and slimmed-down in comparison. Anyone who gains access to a network can lease weapons-grade malware on the dark web without forming long-term ties with a particular gang.

Advanced AI-based hacking tools make ransomware accessible to many more criminals and politically motivated hacktivists. And around one-quarter of breaches still result in ransom payments. For criminals sheltered by their governments, only the digital infrastructure is at risk of being taken down by western law enforcement.

Lessons not learned

While coverage of Claude Mythos suggests even the most sophisticated cyber defences could now be vulnerable, the troubling reality is that many individuals and organisations are still using out-of date, unpatched or only partially upgraded software. This means even early-generation ransomware techniques are still lucrative.

While Popp sent out his floppy discs to promote better sexual hygiene, today’s poor cyberhygiene is leaving many public and private networks open to malware attacks. The intended lesson of his original ransomware caper – be vigilant and properly heed health warnings – has still only been partially learnt in the digital world.

Many western societies appear to have grown accepting of criminals leaching on business conducted on the internet. Not even a steady stream of human fatalities, caused by attacks on hospitals and medical providers, has generated the level of response required to stamp out this dangerous threat.

The hope that governments sheltering cybercriminals can be encouraged (or forced) to stop them targeting critical national infrastructure appears increasingly fragile amid current geopolitical tensions. At all levels of society, we need to get smarter about cyber defence.

Anja Shortland 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. Anja’s latest book, We Know You Can Pay a Million: Inside the Dark Economy of Hacking and Ransomware, is published by Profile Books.

– ref. From floppy discs to Claude Mythos, how ransomware grew into a multibillion-dollar industry – https://theconversation.com/from-floppy-discs-to-claude-mythos-how-ransomware-grew-into-a-multibillion-dollar-industry-281000

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robert James Nicholls, Professor of Climate Adaptation, University of East Anglia

Venice has co-existed with the sea throughout its 1,500-year history, perhaps better than any other city on earth. Yet over the past century it has flooded increasingly often, as the sea rises and the city itself sinks under its own weight.

We recently published an academic analysis of the various options Venice has to ensure its long-term survival.

Our study compares a range of possible strategies against different degrees of sea-level rise. These include maintaining the current system of mobile barriers, building ring dykes to separate the city from the lagoon in which it sits, enclosing the whole lagoon within a much larger defence system, or – in the most extreme case – relocating much of the city and its population inland.

Each option becomes relevant at different points as sea levels rise. The city’s flood defences have already been upgraded substantially, at a cost of €6 billion (£5.2 billion). This involves a series of huge steel gates attached to the seafloor, known as the Mose barriers. When raised, these barriers effectively seal off the Venetian Lagoon from the wider Mediterranean Sea.

The Mose barriers mean the flood risks are currently manageable, but the frequency of their use is rising. In the first five years of use (between 2020 and 2025) the system was closed for 108 high waters, while in the first two months of 2026 it was activated 30 times. And as sea levels continue to climb, it would need to be closed more and more often – potentially for weeks at a time each year.

This creates a series of problems. Frequent closures would disrupt shipping and tourism, alter the lagoon’s ecology, and would require major new systems for sewage treatment and huge pumps to maintain lagoon water levels. A system designed for occasional protection risks becoming a semi-permanent barrier – something it was never intended to be.

With additional measures, such as raising the city by injecting sea water into the rocks deep underground, reversing the subsidence to some degree, these barriers could remain effective for some time – perhaps even after a metre of sea-level rise.

But even under relatively low levels of warming, the sea is projected to keep rising for centuries, eventually pushing beyond what the barriers can handle.

At that point, more radical measures may be necessary. Building a ring of dykes around the city would physically separate Venice from the lagoon, but may be necessary by the end of this century.

A fully enclosed lagoon – protected by a much larger “super levee” and supported by continuous pumping – could protect the city from up to 10m of sea level rise, but at severe cost to the living lagoon.

The only other option is to relocate the city to safer ground. This may be necessary beyond about 5m of sea-level rise, which is projected to occur after 2300.

Difficult choices ahead

The financial costs of these choices are substantial. We used the costs of Mose and other previous engineering projects (adjusted for inflation to 2024 prices) to estimate the cost of each adaptation strategy.

The dykes could cost between €500 million and €4.5 billion. Closing the lagoon with a super levee could initially cost more than €30 billion, and relocating the city could cost up to €100 billion.

But costs aren’t the only issue. How do you even put a price on the cultural value of Venice? Especially as none of these measures will be able to sustain the Venice we see today in the long-term. Adaptation can manage change up to a certain point – beyond that, we are no longer preserving the present. Rather, we are designing a fundamentally different future.

Our analysis shows there is no optimal adaptation strategy. Any approach involves trade-offs between the wellbeing and safety of Venice’s residents, economic prosperity, the future of the lagoon’s ecosystems, heritage preservation, and the region’s traditions and culture. In addition, many of these measures can take decades to fully implement, so early planning is essential.

At least Venice is thinking about these things in a long-term way. Most vulnerable coastal areas are not. In fact, many continue to attract businesses and people, even as rising seas gradually narrow the range of viable long-term options.

With its long and unique history, Venice has particular challenges, but all low-lying coastal areas should recognise the danger of long-term sea-level rise and start preparing now.

Robert James Nicholls received funding from the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission through the CoCliCo project (#101003598).

Piero Lionello has received funding from Italian Ministry for Education and Research (PNRR-HPC Center).
Piero LIonello is a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Centre for Climate Change Research and Studies
Co-coordinator of the MedECC network (Mediterranean Experts on Environmental and Climate Change)

Marjolijn Haasnoot 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. Venice is sinking – we analysed every plan to save it, and none would preserve the city as we know it – https://theconversation.com/venice-is-sinking-we-analysed-every-plan-to-save-it-and-none-would-preserve-the-city-as-we-know-it-280891