Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mikael Fauvelle, Associate Professor and Researcher, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University

When Iran began demanding payment in exchange for safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz, it offered the option to pay in cryptocurrency. Likewise, the shadowy network of tankers that have smuggled Russian oil to world markets since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have often been paid this way.

Illicit actors the world over have increasingly turned to cryptocurrency as a way to conduct business while avoiding the risk of US sanctions. In so doing, countries like Russia and Iran are drawing on a characteristic of money that has been around since at least the bronze age: its ability to facilitate trade between strangers and across political boundaries.

In my book Shell Money (2024), which investigates some of the world’s earliest forms of money, I show how similar dynamics have been at play throughout history.

Modern currencies like the US dollar and euro are backed by confidence in the financial institutions of nation states – in a similar way to the first metal coins of antiquity, which were issued by Greek city states in order to collect taxes and pay soldiers.

In prehistory, however, there are many examples of monetary systems that developed without state support, such as bronze ingots.

The bronze age (roughly 3300BC to 1200BC) was a time of long-distance voyaging and interregional connectivity. Against this backdrop, having a shared medium of exchange was critical for maintaining trade connections.

Bronze tools were made from copper and tin, which were only available in a few locations in the ancient world. In northern Europe, copper came from sources such as Wales, the Alps, Austria, Sardinia and Iberia, while tin largely came from Cornwall and Devon. This meant that all the copper used in Scandinavia, for example, had to be acquired through long-distance trade.

Much of this trade was dominated by bronze ingots – rings, bars or axe-heads – that were highly standardised in weight and form across regions. This meant that each ingot was interchangeable – a critical characteristic of money. Bronze objects were also broken down into sizes consistent with market-based trade.

The bronze age need for money

Travel during the bronze age would not have been easy. Long-distance journeys would have been dangerous and could take months to complete.

A travelling merchant would have no way to know if the traders they dealt with on one journey would still be around on the return trip. The reciprocity you could depend on in your home community would no longer hold – exchanges needed to be transactional.

Against this backdrop, bronze became standardised into a medium of exchange. By carrying bronze ingots, a traveller could conduct business across the world, confident that wherever they went their money would be accepted.

In other parts of the ancient world, shells and shell beads were accepted as money. The Chinese symbol 貝 (bèi) originated as a pictograph of the cowrie shell and is now used in hundreds of finance-related Chinese characters, including those for buy, sell, wealth and profit. Cowrie shells were traded to China from the Indian Ocean and used as money during the Zhou dynasty.

In North America, small shell beads were used as money and circulated throughout the interior of the continent, thousands of miles from the oceans where they were collected and produced. These examples show that trade money was not restricted to metals but could develop from anything that was desirable and scarce.

The US dollar diminished

The dominance of government-issued “fiat currencies” (meaning they are not backed by physical commodities such as gold) depends on the trust, liquidity and institutional backing they provide.

International trade is currently dominated by the US dollar. However, as we move into an increasingly multipolar world – with competing centres of gravity in North America, Europe and China – we can expect to see the dollar’s role diminish.

Indeed, there is some evidence that this has already happened. The dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency (meaning it is held in large quantities by other governments and central banks to stabilise their economies) has declined from around 70% in the late 1990s to less than 60% today. This trend is likely to continue amid signs of increased US isolationism, strains in North Atlantic cooperation, and the rising economic position of China.

Political fragmentation, however, hardly means the end for international trade. History is rife with periods, from the bronze age on, when political fragmentation coexisted with bustling trade economies. And for those seeking to avoid state control in future, this may mean a growing shift in the type of money that is used.

New forms of money

There are many differences between cryptocurrency in the modern world and the commodity money of prehistory. Cryptocurrency is still rarely used or accepted in daily transactions, is highly volatile and, as with modern fiat currencies, does not have “use value” in the same way as bronze ingots or even shell beads.

Nonetheless, both are forms of “bottom-up” (non-state controlled) money that exist outside of the oversight of any single government or large financial actor.

This lack of state control is exactly what drives sanctioned states such as Iran and Russia to request payments in crypto. As US financial leverage weakens, crypto payments become harder to block and sanction, potentially reshaping how future conflicts are financed.

Cryptocurrency may be well positioned for this environment, continuing to provide one of money’s oldest functions: the ability to conduct business with strangers.

This article references a book included for editorial reasons with a link to bookshop.org. If you click on this link and go on to buy something from bookshop.org, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Mikael Fauvelle receives funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation. He is the author of Shell Money: A Comparative Study (Cambridge University Press).

– ref. How Iran cryptocurrency demands explain a key role of money throughout history – https://theconversation.com/how-iran-cryptocurrency-demands-explain-a-key-role-of-money-throughout-history-280768

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ivana Babicova, Senior Lecturer, Psychology, Birmingham City University

Loneliness is something most of us will experience at some point. It is a normal emotion, not a character flaw. But it is also something that can quietly affect how we think and remember, and researchers have long debated whether it might even raise the risk of dementia.

A new study, published in Aging and Mental Health, suggests the picture is more complicated than either side of that debate has allowed for.

First, it is worth being clear about what dementia actually is. It is not a single diagnosis but an umbrella term covering a range of conditions – the most familiar being Alzheimer’s disease – that cause memory loss, confusion, difficulties with language and a gradual loss of independence.

Cognitive decline, meaning a general slowing or weakening of mental function, is not the same thing. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they should not be: you can experience cognitive decline without ever developing dementia.

We do not fully understand what causes Alzheimer’s. We know that a healthy lifestyle lowers the risk, but it is no guarantee. Plenty of people who have done everything right still develop it. The disease is shaped by genetics, ageing and biological factors we are still working to understand.

The new study followed just over 10,000 adults aged between 65 and 94 over six years. All were in good health at the outset, fully independent and free of dementia. Researchers tracked their memory over that period and asked whether loneliness played a role in how it changed.

The answer was nuanced. Loneliness did appear to contribute to memory difficulties – but there was no evidence that it led to dementia itself. That is an important distinction. Memory problems and dementia are not the same thing, and conflating them causes unnecessary alarm. This distinction is crucial, and while the researchers did not conflate the two, this nuance is often lost in interpretation.

Not the whole story

It is also worth noting that loneliness rarely travels alone. Many participants in the study also had diabetes, high blood pressure, depression or low levels of physical activity – all of which affect the brain independently. Diabetes, for instance, can interfere with how the brain processes glucose, the fuel it runs on, which in turn affects memory. Depression has a similar effect. Unpicking loneliness from these other factors is genuinely difficult, and the study does not fully resolve that problem.

One finding that stood out was the high rate of loneliness reported in southern Europe – a region often assumed to have strong social networks. It is a reminder that loneliness is subjective. Feeling lonely is not simply about how many people surround you – it is about how connected you feel to them.

There is also a methodological limitation worth noting. The study treated loneliness as a fixed state, when in reality it shifts – sometimes day to day – across the whole of a life. A single snapshot cannot capture that.

The broader research on loneliness and cognitive decline remains genuinely mixed, and this study does not settle it. What it does suggest, usefully, is that health services might benefit from screening for loneliness alongside routine cognitive testing: treating social connection as part of preventative medicine rather than a soft concern left to one side.

And there is reason for optimism. The brain is resilient. Research suggests that memory difficulties linked to loneliness can improve once that loneliness lifts and that staying socially active may boost cognitive performance more broadly. Loneliness, on its own, is unlikely to be the deciding factor in whether someone develops dementia.

Ivana Babicova 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. Loneliness can affect your memory – but that doesn’t mean it leads to dementia – https://theconversation.com/loneliness-can-affect-your-memory-but-that-doesnt-mean-it-leads-to-dementia-280533

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hasmik Jasmine Samvelyan, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science, Anglia Ruskin University

Around 40% of adults worldwide are affected by osteopenia: a loss of bone mineral density. This condition is extremely common particularly in postmenopausal women and elderly adults. It’s estimated that more than 500,000 fractures occur annually in the UK due to low bone density.

Osteopenia itself does not usually cause symptoms and it develops silently over time. Many people may not even be aware that they the condition until they have experienced a fracture or had a bone density test, typically recommended because of risk factors such as age and menopause. This makes osteopenia a significant but often under-recognised public health issue.

Bone is a dynamic tissue that undergoes continuous renewal through a process called bone remodelling. During this process, old bone is broken down (resorption) and new bone is formed (formation).

During early adulthood this process is balanced, so bone resorption equals bone formation. Bone mass usually peaks around a person’s mid-20s to early-30s. After this peak bone loss gradually exceeds bone formation. Over time this leads to reduced bone density.

Ageing is the main risk factor for bone loss. But several additional factors can accelerate the process.

For instance, hormonal changes, especially the decline in oestrogen after the menopause, can significantly increase bone breakdown. This is because oestrogen helps protect bones by slowing the natural process of bone breakdown. Around one in two women over 50 will experience a fragility fracture.

Lifestyle also plays an important role. Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and physical inactivity can contribute to reduced bone strength over time. Diet is equally important. Insufficient calcium intake and low vitamin D can limit the body’s ability to build and maintain strong bones.

Certain medications, particularly long-term steroid use, as well as health conditions that affect hormone levels or nutrient absorption (such as Crohn’s or coeliac disease), can further increase the risk.

Managing osteopenia

Detecting osteopenia early is crucial. This allows you and clinicians to take steps that can reduce the risk of fractures and prevent osteopenia progressing to osteoporosis, where bone loss is more advanced and the risk of fractures is significantly higher.

Bone mineral density is commonly measured using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan. This is a type of low-dose X-ray scan used to assess bone strength. Results are usually given as a T-score, which compares a patient’s bone density to that of a healthy young adult. A T-score between –1.0 and –2.5 indicates osteopenia, while a T-score below –2.5 meets the diagnostic threshold for osteoporosis.

Management of osteopenia typically focuses on slowing down or preventing further bone loss and reducing the risk of fractures. This involves making lifestyle changes (such as avoiding smoking, limiting alcohol intake or maintaining healthy body weight), nutritional support and, in some cases, prescription treatment.

Weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, dancing or jogging stimulate bone formation by placing strain on the skeleton. Resistance training can further strengthen bones and muscles.

Research shows that regular physical activity is associated with improved bone mineral density and may reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Exercise, such as Tai Chi, also improves balance and muscle strength, reducing the risk of falls that could lead to fractures.

Sufficient calcium intake supports bone structure too, while vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium efficiently. Foods such as dairy products, leafy green vegetables and fortified products are common dietary sources. Supplements may also be recommended where dietary intake is insufficient. In the UK, vitamin D deficiency is relatively common, so supplementation is often advised.

Not everyone with osteopenia requires drug treatment. Instead, clinicians often use a fracture risk assessment tool to evaluate ten-year probability of a fracture based on age, bone mineral density, steroid use and other risk factors.

If fracture risk is high or if a person has already experienced a fragility fracture, medications may be recommended. These can include antiresorptive drugs which slow bone breakdown and help maintain bone density. Such treatments are more commonly used in osteoporosis but may also benefit high-risk patients with osteopenia.

Osteopenia should not be viewed merely as a mild or early form of osteoporosis but rather as a warning sign and point of intervention. Progression from osteopenia to osteoporosis is not inevitable.

Evidence suggests that early detection and targeted lifestyle changes can maintain bone health, significantly slow bone loss and reduce risk of developing osteoporosis later in life. In some cases, bone density may even improve with appropriate treatment and lifestyle adjustments.

But prevention requires a long-term perspective. Bone health reflects the cumulative influences of our health and lifestyle across the lifespan including our diets, physical activity levels and hormonal changes we have gone through. Maintaining healthy habits over time remains the most effective strategy for protecting bone strength.

Hasmik Jasmine Samvelyan 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. Osteopenia: loss of bone mineral density affects millions of people – here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/osteopenia-loss-of-bone-mineral-density-affects-millions-of-people-heres-what-you-need-to-know-278463

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alan Shipman, Senior Lecturer in Economics, The Open University

Lord Robertson’s claim that the UK cannot defend itself with an “ever-expanding” welfare budget has resonated loudly, given his previous positions as a Nato secretary-general and UK defence secretary. Following up on the UK’s 2025 strategic defence review, which he led, Robertson warned that low investment is leaving UK security “in peril”.

The comments have instant appeal in one sense. Defence is indeed awarded a far smaller share of the pie than social protection: 6.5% of total managed expenditure for 2026/27 against 28%, according to estimates.

The UK’s budget deficit is adding to already high public debt, and the IMF has forecast that Britain will be hit harder than other countries by the economic effects of the Iran hostilities. The government is already seeking savings from other departments as it tries to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.

But the idea of a simple trade-off, with more weapons requiring less welfare, confuses two very different types of public spending.

Defence is part of “final” public expenditure, funding armed forces’ pay and the weapons and equipment they work with. This takes up money that can’t be assigned elsewhere in the budget, and consumes a share of national output when the government spends it.

In contrast, the welfare budget consists mainly of “transfer payments” that shift income between households. Some transfers are made according to assessed need, others also depend on past national insurance contributions. All represent a redistribution of income without any exchange of goods or services, leaving recipients to decide what to do with the money. This allows prices to steer spending away from scarce resources, while some is used to repay debts or clawed back in tax.

Demands on the public purse

As the government’s overall budget is in deficit (to the tune of around 4.5% of national income in 2025/26), it is true that welfare payments compete with other demands on the public purse. But the boost to recipients’ income is still largely offset by taxes collected from better-off households.

In principle, a country could raise its welfare budget to 100% of its GDP, by collecting all the money generated by production as tax and then paying it out to households. It would compromise efficiency, as happened in Europe’s “state socialist” countries before 1989. But such an economy could still function.

In contrast, raising the defence budget even to 3% of GDP – the UK’s target for the next parliament – will cause political and economic strain. This is due to the trade-off against other final expenditures, including healthcare, education and policing – all equally vital for national survival and security.

The UK and other countries with large welfare systems have reformed them with the aim of adding at least as much to output as to demand. Transfer payments are increasingly designed to keep people economically active, moving into new and more productive work. This matching of extra income to extra production keeps the inflation risk low, even if the government is “printing money” to fund some of its transfer payments.

Extra defence spending carries greater inflation risks. Paying for more weapons and military training generates new income and demand for consumer products. At the same time it can divert workers and materials away from civilian production, into military hardware that is intended never to be used.

Stronger defence could boost production as much as consumption if, as many advocates claim, it stimulates investment and innovations that other industries can adopt. The Manhattan Project remains a standout example of “mission-oriented” military spending that sped the arrival of new technologies and methods of organisation.

Studies confirm a pick-up in innovation and growth after major increases in military spending. But these tend to focus on the US and trace the improvement to increased research and development (R&D). Growth might be stimulated equally well, making more weapons and more welfare an affordable option, if greater sums went into R&D without a link to war preparations.

Of course, defence can be counted as an even more productive investment if, through effective deterrence, it prevents costly wars that would devastate civil production.

But again, there is an important difference between investing in military hardware and in social protection. The welfare bill is hard to forecast, as it varies with the state of the economy and trends in income and employment. But when transfer payments enable people to recover their health or acquire new skills and return to work – or when they keep pensioners out of poverty – the government gets a rapid return on its investment and reduces longer-term costs.

Investment in more soldiers and equipment may be easier to control in the short term. But it commits the government to maintenance and upgrades over the long term, without which the fighting capacity can soon become non-operational. The UK has a history of cost overshoots and delays keeping tanks and ships out of service. That’s why a Treasury set on cost-effectiveness will always choose butter over guns.

Alan Shipman has previously received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

– ref. What ‘warfare versus welfare’ gets wrong about real-life economics – https://theconversation.com/what-warfare-versus-welfare-gets-wrong-about-real-life-economics-280747

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Smalley, Research Fellow in Environmental Psychology, University of Exeter

On a chilly yet beautifully clear evening last November, I sat on a video call with colleagues and happened to mention the live feed from the International Space Station – a real-time broadcast from onboard cameras as the station orbits earth.

Several people hadn’t heard of it, and so I dug out the link and sent it over. We then turned to Nasa’s spot the station smartphone app, which shows you the ageing satellite’s orbital track and provides a countdown to when you can next see it. Again, I found the link and shared it on the chat.

I suddenly realised the station was going to pass directly overhead – in just a few minutes. Video beamed from the station as it advanced over the Atlantic, crossed the terminator (the line that separates day from night), and hurtled towards the southwestern tip of the UK, where I live.

Running outside, I took my phone and the live feed with me. And as I looked up at the bright, impossibly fast-moving smudge traversing the sky above, the feed showed the station’s birdseye view – and perhaps the view of the astronauts aboard – looking down on me, too.

Just 25 years ago, this kind of experience would have been hard to imagine. Yet as our lives have become increasingly interwoven with technology, so too have our encounters with the world around us. And nowhere is this more true than when it comes to viewing the night sky.

Smartphone apps now help us to identify planets, catch views of satellite clusters (for better and worse), and plan how to view supermoons. These experiences could be crucial in helping to reconnect people with the night sky and preserve a darkness that is increasingly under threat.

Simulations that allow people to view the Earth from afar, via apps or computer games, could even recreate a fascinating phenomenon reported by astronauts: the overview effect. Recently referred to by the Artemis II crew, the overview effect is described as a “a profound reaction to viewing the Earth from outside its atmosphere”. It represents a powerful form of awe and wonder and digital tools might help us unlock similar feelings from Earth too.

On May 11 2024, residents marvelled at the aurora borealis (northern lights) across parts of the UK including in southern England where they are rarely seen. The sightings made headlines across Europe, an excitement that was made possible by digital technology and heightened by digital shares and updates.

Public interest began with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate satellite picking up particularly strong solar winds. This triggered an alert to users of Lancaster University’s Aurorawatch app. These stargazers started taking photos of the northern lights, which they promptly shared via social media.

The display happened close to midnight when most people in the UK were in bed – but still scrolling. And as real-time images of the aurora quickly circulated online, masses of people went outside to see it for themselves. But, as one witness reported, many people struggled to make out the display: “I could see nothing by eye, but it was there on the camera screen, and on my phone camera too.” And so images of the sky were captured through ultra-sensitive smartphones.

From webcams in bird boxes to big-budget nature documentaries, these digital connections have come to define modern interactions with the natural world. They are now interwoven into everyday routines.

Ten million people watched the first episode of BBC’s Planet Earth III in 2023 – the same number who visit the Peak District in a year. Nature-based “relaxation” videos have achieved viral status on YouTube, amassing hundreds of millions of views each. Spotify, Audible and Netflix have made nature content a core offering to their combined half a billion subscribers. Instagram is home to pictures of 346 million sunsets – and counting.

Online relationships

Being online can also have serious consequences for mental health, but when it comes to the natural world, digital connections could also provide exciting opportunities to bolster wellbeing. Growing research has shown that engaging with digital forms of nature can lead to improvements in emotion regulation, stress reduction and attention restoration – a pathway that is already being explored by apps hoping to boost wellbeing for people who spend large amounts of time online.

These digital encounters also have the potential to affect how people behave towards the environment.

Some academics are worried that these trends might be degrading our relationship with nature, but there is substantial nuance to be found here. The real value in these experiences may lie not in their ability to simulate natural worlds, but in their capacity to stimulate interest in nature.

Harnessing technology to “rewild” our digital lives could be especially relevant when it comes to an emerging generation of young people. Take for example, the perspectives of generation alpha, the first wave of which are entering their late teens, and who, after gen Z, represent the second cohort of digital natives – hyper-connected visual learners who have never known a world without smartphones, social media, instant access to information, and for some, artificial intelligence.

Perhaps, as some have suggested, modern and digital tools could even mean that young people’s opportunities to connect with nature are unprecedented.

And so, as with some other innovations, these technological connections might enhance human experience, understanding and capability.

It could be time to recognise and embrace digital tools as part of the dynamic, evolving, and exciting way we interact with the natural world – approaches that might bring us closer to nature at a time when its future hangs in the balance.

Alex Smalley is scientific advisor to Portal Labs Ltd. He has received funding from the Wellcome Trust via the Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health.

– ref. From sunsets to the night sky: how technology can help you to notice nature in new ways – https://theconversation.com/from-sunsets-to-the-night-sky-how-technology-can-help-you-to-notice-nature-in-new-ways-279506

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Neal, Personal Chair of International Security, University of Edinburgh

Lord Robertson, former UK defence secretary and Nato chief, has said that the UK’s national security is “in peril”. He is right. There is no secret about what the threats are. In addition to the woeful news from the Middle East and Ukraine every day, stories of sabotage, hacking, Russian reconnaissance of undersea cables and the testing of the UK’s defensive reactions keep coming.

The country’s leaders need to spell out what these threats mean for the UK. They must also be honest about our minimal defensive capabilities.

Russia arguably does not have the capacity or intent to launch a ground invasion of the UK. Yet if tensions were to escalate, Russia certainly has the capacity to attack the UK by air and sea. Its long-range bombers routinely test the limits of UK airspace and perform targeting runs for air-launched cruise missiles.

The UK has little in the way of land-based anti-aircraft and anti-missile defences. Most of what we have is ship and aircraft based. This has the advantage of mobility, but as we saw with the recent Hezbollah drone strike on an RAF Cyprus base and the slow deployment of UK destroyer HMS Dragon in response, it is spread thin.

The surface combatant fleet currently stands at 17 (six destroyers and 11 frigates). This is a quarter of its size in 1990, and below the target of 19, which itself is below what internal Ministry of Defence assessments reportedly claim is the “bare minimum”.

The UK remains almost defenceless against drone strikes. Ukraine and Iran have shown that cheap drones get through defences by sheer numbers. Missile defences like Patriot – deployed by many US allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, but not the UK – have a limited number of expensive shots which are quickly depleted. The Royal Navy’s ship-based Sea Viper system is designed to defend fleets, not cities. Ukraine has developed sophisticated and cost-effective defences based on acoustic listening devices, multiple perimeters, anti-drone drones and mobile gun emplacements. The UK needs similar resources in reserve.

Britain’s nuclear deterrent remains an important insurance policy against nuclear attack, not only for the UK but perhaps also for Europe, though its dependence on the US may be problematic in the long term. However, below the level of escalation to full-scale nuclear war, it serves no functional role in our defence and security. The UK is not going to threaten a nuclear strike, and therefore suicide, in response to cable sabotage or drone strikes on British bases. The threshold for nuclear use is exceptionally high, even for our enemies, and this is a good thing.

The current state of unpreparedness has been years in the making. Defence spending, understandably, fell from 5% of GDP after the cold war. During the 1990s and 2000s it stayed at around 2.4% of GDP, although still steadily declining as a proportion of public spending. Austerity from 2010 onwards saw real cuts in percentage of GDP, leading to a loss of personnel and capability.

Ukraine defence start-ups can design, produce, test and deploy in weeks, with needs communicated directly from the battlefield. The UK’s sclerotic procurement systems and big defence companies would take years to produce the same results. The vested interests around them – a mix of defence nationalism, pork barrel politics, trade unions and a revolving door with government and the military – need to be pushed aside.

The UK has a nascent defence startup culture promising to bring new products to market rapidly. It needs investment and regulatory support. They were expecting this after the publication of the strategic defence review, but are still waiting. Meanwhile, Europe is already building new arms production facilities.

The recent air and naval operation to end a month-long loiter by Russian vessels shows that Russia is interested in vulnerabilities in the UK’s undersea data and energy connections. While questions remain about what exactly Russia may have done, or left behind, the threat is clear: as a highly connected island country, it would be simple for Russia to disrupt the economy. Repair would be slow and difficult.

On a geopolitical scale, European security has depended on the US for decades through Nato. US commitment is now seriously in doubt. Even if it does not formally pull out of the alliance, the credibility of its deterrent effect is shot. Is the US going to defend Europe if attacked by Russia? Even having to ask the question shows that the damage is done.

Rebuilding capacity

The government has offered, in its strategic defence review, a serious plan to close vulnerabilities and build up UK defence capacity. The Treasury and electoral concerns appear to be holding up its implementation.

The UK has some capable systems, but they would be quickly depleted in conflict. Estimates vary widely, but Russia may be producing 30,000 attack drones a year, and Iran anywhere between 5,000 and 12,000 a month. Meanwhile, the UK military has adopted a number of small-scale systems with units in the tens.

Our army and navy are the smallest they’ve been for centuries. Previous strategic reviews assumed that technology would substitute for personnel. We are witnessing a new revolution in military affairs in which even our newest military assets are too few, too fragile and too slow to arrive. Ukrainian start-ups can build in a week what would take us ten years. Ukraine still needs us, but we need them to share their expertise and model of innovation.

War may come whether we like it or not, and to be unprepared would be reckless. Credible defences have a deterrent effect, reducing the chance of war. While the possibility of a wider war in Europe remains small, it is no longer unthinkable.

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

– ref. The UK is alarmingly unprepared for the threats it faces – security expert explains why – https://theconversation.com/the-uk-is-alarmingly-unprepared-for-the-threats-it-faces-security-expert-explains-why-280621

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aris Politopoulos, Assistant Professor in Archaeology and Cultural Politics, Leiden University

Humans have always been playful. But for much of our history, play has left little trace. Unlike tools or bones, games rarely preserve and the fleeting pleasures they produce are even harder to recover.

The recent discovery of 12,000-year-old dice, published in American Antiquity, however, sheds new light on the playfulness of human societies in the deep past.

Archaeologist Richard J. Madden identified 565 dice from sites across North America including Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. They dated from the 19th century all the way back to 12,000 years ago. The recognition of these artefacts as dice pushes back the material evidence for human play by thousands of years, which Madden interprets as evidence of games of chance and gambling. He believes that his study shows that Native Americans were gambling with dice 6,000 years earlier than anyone else.

To identify these objects as dice, Madden gathered data on comparable objects from archaeological publications and databases of remains, building on an earlier, comprehensive study of Native American play objects.

These objects do not resemble the six-sided dice we use today. Instead, they are binary: flat, round, or rectangular pieces marked on one side and blank on the other. If you are a Dungeons and Dragons geek like us, you might call such a casting device a d2. In effect, you can compare throwing one of these ancient dice to a coin toss – although this discovery also underscores that dice are much older than coins.

When evaluating groundbreaking research of this kind it is crucial to think about the nature of the archaeological record in this very deep past. We are dependent on a very limited range of objects, since many do not survive in the ground. Many times when we play, even in the present, we don’t use any material objects at all. Think of a game of tag or hide and seek. Now consider a similar game taking place 12,000 years ago. Could an archaeologist ever find evidence for that?

Even when play requires materials, such as in board games, the evidence is often not preserved. Indeed, ethnographic studies have shown that people frequently play board games in ways that archaeologists would almost never detect. For many games people scoop out holes and draw lines in the ground as boards and use stones, seeds, shells and even dried animal droppings as pawns.

Natural objects also work: two-sided sticks and cowry shells can be used as binary dice. This is not only a thing of the past or of foreign places. Around the world, play takes place every day that makes creative use of all sorts of objects – bottle caps, tin cans, twine, sticks and stones and other titbits – that are not easily identifiable as playthings. That is why to us, archaeologists who study play, dice are particularly special finds, because they are unambiguously playthings.

Ancient dice

Archaeologists find dice more often than you may think, in all sorts of interesting forms. One of the most famous examples are astragalus bones, the ankle bones of hooved animals (mostly sheep and goat). They have four distinct sides and have been commonly used as dice.

One of the oldest games in human history, the game of 20 squares (a later version of the Royal Game of Ur), is known to have used such dice because astragalus bones have been found in the drawers of game boxes. In many cases, rather than harvesting these bones from butchered animals, people replicated them in other materials such as stone, glass or metal. Ivory examples were found with the games in the Egyptian tomb of Tutankhamun. This suggests that people began making dice-like objects only after they had already been using naturally occurring objects suited to the same purpose.

In his study, Madden argues that dice are a continuous evolution of the type of economic transactions that underpin gambling. We would like to take the argument in a different direction. Play exists outside of gambling and the contextual analysis required to truly identify gambling in the past is absent from this study. Moreover, this study positions play exclusively in functionalist terms, particularly evolutionary and economic frameworks.

We have argued elsewhere that studies like these rarely consider a fundamental point: that play frequently exists for play’s sake. Sometimes you flip the coin to win it, but often you flip it just for fun.

Though we are not convinced these ancient Native American people were running prehistoric gambling rings, this is an exciting find. What these and other dice in archaeological contexts worldwide point to is the fascinating beauty of play, now and in the past. So the next time you roll some dice, realise you are taking part in the same sense of play – the suspense, the joy, the sting of a bad throw – that people also felt 12,000 years ago.

Aris Politopoulos receives funding from the Starting grant Archaeological Futures and the Ammodo Science Award for Groundbreaking Research for the Past♥Play project. Aria is a board member of Stichting VALUE.

Angus Mol receives funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under the NWO-VIDI Playful Time Machines grant and the Ammodo Science Award for Groundbreaking Research for the Past♥Play project. He is a board member of Stichting VALUE.

Walter Crist receives funding from European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) for GameTable: Computational Techniques for Tabletop Games Heritage, and from Game-in-Lab for the project Play and the City: Investigating the Cultural Heritage of Games of the City of Rome. He is on the board of trustees of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI).

– ref. Archaeologists have discovered 12,000-year-old dice – here’s what they reveal about the history of play – https://theconversation.com/archaeologists-have-discovered-12-000-year-old-dice-heres-what-they-reveal-about-the-history-of-play-280545

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tony Milligan, Teaching Associate in Philosophy, School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, University of Sheffield

The classic 1988 anime Akira returns to cinema screens on April 17. Set in a dystopian neo-Tokyo, it is one of the few pieces of cyberpunk manga which has translated well onto the screen. Its ultimate message is disturbing: we are no better or worse than the elites who are using technology to dominate us. All of us are just part of a bigger game. A game involving power and our limited ability to wield it.

Directed by the original manga creator, Katsuhiro Otomo, the hand-drawn animation is incredible, the storyline complex and the violence relentless. Along with Blade Runner (1982) and William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer (1984), Akira is considered one of the big-three classics of cyberpunk – a genre defined by high tech and low life. They’re all centered around rogue loners who investigate mysteries, only to be accidentally drawn into conflict with powerful elites. And they’re each set in an imagined near future where bodies are replicated, modified and occasionally rendered monstrous.

Akira goes for the monstrous option, driven by a relentless pursuit of power which is simultaneously natural to humans and destructive of our humanity. Otomo’s anti-hero, Kaneda, is a biker drawn from the subculture of real tribal bōzōzuku biker gangs which had tens of thousands of members in early 1980s Japan.

Otomo’s tale shows a deep familiarity with Japanese sub-cultures and societal unease about the legacy of the atomic bomb and aversion to mutation.

In the film, Kaneda tries to rescue his friend Tetsuo but stumbles into a conflict between hardened idealistic terrorists and a top-secret military project. The latter is trying to accelerate the drug-induced development of telepathic powers that are wielded by a group of captive children. Tetsuo has become part of the program and shows incredible power, but he cannot contain it within his body.

The emphasis on power is welcome. Tetsuo has always been relegated to second place in the biker gang to Kaneda and cannot bear it. The other effects are less welcome. As with the faltering Japanese economy, artificially accelerated development spirals out of control, eventually forcing military forces and terrorists to collaborate to contain Tetsuo and the mysterious Akira. Much of neo-Tokyo is destroyed in the process. Once again, the narrative strongly echoes the legacy of the atomic bomb.

Akira and cyberpunk

Akira is a good watch and, if you have the patience, a good read. Patience is certainly a important virtue for Akira fans. They have been waiting decades to see a live action version. The latest collapse of attempts to bring it to the screen in 2025 helped to prompt this year’s return of the anime.

But how accurately does cyberpunk’s vision of the future align with the real history that unfolded after the genre’s golden age in film and literature? Though it got plenty wrong, cyberpunk did anticipate some defining features of contemporary life – most notably anti-elite populism and political protest. Cyberpunk, including Akira, is broadly anti-authoritarian, yet it is often set in worlds where no viable alternative appears to exist. As a result, dissent in cyberpunk tends to be more expressive than goal-oriented, with violence frequently emerging as one of its most potent forms of articulation.

This is, arguably, a reasonable anticipation of a long-term trend within political dissent. Particularly where (as in cyberpunk) an association is drawn between technology and elite control. It is worth noting that driverless Waymo taxis were a popular target for protesters during the 2025 riots in Los Angeles.

So there is a similarity up to a point. But cyberpunks like Kaneda and Tetsuo, and their counterparts in the other genre classics, faced off against power more than wealth. Today’s left and left-right crossover dissent focuses upon bankers and it trades upon an idea of finance capital in which banking dominates industry. Cyberpunk was anti-authority, but had a better idea of who was actually in charge – elites for whom wealth was primarily corporate and only a means to advancing power.

In our world – the actual world of advancing technology – nobody really knows how much is owned by the wealthiest corporate tech figures such as Elon Musk (Tesla and Space-X), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon). But we do know that none of them are bankers. Their wealth underpins their power, and as in cyberpunk they seek broader forms of social and political influence.

Unlike cyberpunk elites, they face limits to their ability to wield such influence. The brief Musk team-up with Donald Trump was a marriage made in the divorce courts, with little prospect of lasting the course. In Akira, elites are far less constrained, particularly in the military.

Akira focuses upon power, as opposed to mere wealth, by using a secretive military program as the driver of the plot. But it does so with moral ambiguity. There are no monsters in charge. The military is under the command of The Colonel, who is not a particularly bad or unsympathetic character. He just happens to be someone on a different side from Kaneda and the terrorist underground that Kaneda has fallen in with for reasons more to do with assertive sexual attraction rather than politics.

Ultimately, Tetsuo and Kaneda cannot come up against The Colonel as good guys versus the bad guy, or as friends to the many set against the enemy elite. Kaneda wields power ruthlessly within his biker gang and Tetsuo desperately wants power. Both are constrained only by their attraction to the (secondary) female characters. The desire for power is represented as natural and, by the end, as a cosmic urge which is slowly making its way into consciousness through humans. Albeit at the expense of our small and vulnerable bodies.

Within this narrative there is a longing for power inside all of humanity. A longing which is both constructive and destructive. To renounce it would be to renounce our humanity. To imagine that we can wield it indefinitely is the great illusion. Eventually the temple bell rings and it is over. This makes power-wielding elites no better or worse than the rest of us. The distinction between the experimenters and those of us experimented upon ceases to matter.

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.

Tony Milligan 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. Akira returns to cinemas – why the legendary anime demands a rewatch – https://theconversation.com/akira-returns-to-cinemas-why-the-legendary-anime-demands-a-rewatch-279830

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Massimo D’Angelo, Research Associate in the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs, Loughborough University

“I am not a politician; I speak of the Gospel.” Pope Leo XIV’s recent remarks, made during his apostolic journey to Africa, immediately suggest that his clash with Donald Trump operates on a different level to the US president’s usual political spats.

This is not the classic kind of confrontation that Trump has often had with foreign heads of state and government in the past, such as in recent months with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, whose refusal to fully back the US and Israel in their war against Iran attracted Trump’s ire. Rather, it is a clash rooted in fundamentally different moral and political visions: between a president who treats power in transactional terms and a pope who frames war, migration and human dignity as matters of moral principle.

When Cardinal Robert Prevost was named as Pope Leo in May 2025, Trump and his administration initially appeared to welcome the new pontiff warmly. In fact, in a post to his Truth Social platform the US president appeared to take credit for his election as pope, writing that Prevost “was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump”.

But the war in the Middle East launched by the US and Israel has made the differences between their positions clearer – further heightening tensions between them. On Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, it became clear that Leo had decided to take a firm line against the war in Iran, saying that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’”.

His Easter message was equally clear: “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them.”

Day’s later the pope denounced the US president’s apparent threat to destroy the whole of the Iranian civilisation as “truly unacceptable” in comments which roundly criticised the war and called for a “return to dialogue, negotiations”.

Trump responded in harsh terms, describing the pope in a Truth Social post as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy”. He went on to say that he did not want a pope “who thinks it is OK for Iran to have nuclear weapons”, adding that “Leo should use common sense, stop doing the bidding of the radical left, and focus on being a great pope rather than a politician”.

Returning to Washington from Florida, Trump also told reporters: “I don’t think he’s doing a good job. I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.” The pope replied on Monday by saying that he was not afraid of the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war.

Trump did not stop there. He went so far as to publish an image portraying himself as Jesus Christ, a move that appeared to go too far even for many of his conservative supporters. The reaction was strong enough to force him to delete the post and backtrack.

This could hurt the US president

Trump has clashed with the Vatican before, but this confrontation unfolds in a very different setting. Pope Francis, the first Argentine pope and the first pontiff from the global south, was often openly critical of Trump, particularly on migration. In 2016, he famously suggested that a leader who thinks only of building walls rather than bridges is “not Christian”, crystallising the tension between them.

The key difference was that Francis was also a divisive figure within sections of the American Catholic Church. He was frequently targeted by conservative Catholic commentators and church networks in the US, and in 2019 he remarked that “it’s an honour that the Americans attack me”.

Leo, by contrast, is the first US pope – and that changes the political equation. His voice is likely to carry different authority among Catholic voters, who are an important part of Trump’s electoral base.

In the last presidential election, 55% of Catholic voters supported Trump, including 62% of white Catholics. Senior Catholics also occupy prominent positions in his administration, including Vance and Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio.

That is why Leo’s criticism may prove more politically consequential. It does not come from an external moral voice alone, as was often the case with Francis, but from an American pontiff speaking into a church and an electorate that Trump cannot afford to ignore.

Early reactions suggest that many Catholic voices in the US have rallied behind Leo, making this not only a diplomatic clash, but a potentially significant domestic one too. (This could also really hurt J.D. Vance. As the likely contender to succeed Trump on the Repulican ticket, he is deeply invested in his Catholic faith and is about to publish a book devoted to his conversion.)

From an international perspective, the break with the pope has also had visible repercussions. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, long regarded as Trump’s closest ally in Europe, went publicly in defence of Pope Leo, the bishop of Rome, drawing criticism from Trump himself, who defined the Italian prime minister’s behaviour as “unacceptable”.

To conclude, this is not a political confrontation like the many others the world has become used to with this US president. The stakes are higher at home and on the world stage. At home, it risks alienating many Catholic voters whose support will matter not only in the midterm elections but also in the next presidential race. Internationally, it may complicate Trump’s relationship with European conservative parties, many of which have long sought close association with the Vatican.

The pope, as the leader of a vast global community, cannot be treated as though he were just another political opponent.

Massimo D’Angelo 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. ‘I’m not a politician’: why the clash with Pope Leo could prove dangerous for Donald Trump – https://theconversation.com/im-not-a-politician-why-the-clash-with-pope-leo-could-prove-dangerous-for-donald-trump-280742

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Benedict Morrison, Senior lecturer in Film, Television, Literature, and Queer Studies, University of Exeter

In her 1998 essay What’s a Good Gay Film?, film critic B. Ruby Rich considered what queer audiences were looking for.

She wrote that queer cinema-goers were seeking “films of validation and a culture of affirmation: work that can reinforce identity, visualise respectability, combat injustice and bolster social status”. They were tired, she argued, of stereotypes of queer suffering and trauma. Instead, they required “nothing downbeat or too revelatory; and happy endings, of course”.

But if a straightforward happy ending is what you are after, Departures is not the film for you. This miraculously self-financed and stylish debut feature is not purely affirmative. At times, the screen shimmers with sadness. And yet, wryly and playfully, the film also resists becoming gloomy. Tonally sophisticated, it combines the bleak with the whimsical, ultimately sidestepping the crude dichotomy of happy or unhappy endings altogether.

The film opens with a love-scarred Benji (played by the film’s writer and co-director Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) recalling a recent relationship. In flashback, he remembers meeting handsome Jake (David Tag) in the airport as they both wait for a flight to Amsterdam. Jake bewilders Benji: his flirtation is suggestive but always deniable, never quite declaring itself. Charismatic and assertive, Jake engineers it so that they sit together on the flight, telling the air steward that he is Benji’s carer – a description which quickly becomes grimly ironic.

Later, Jake rejects the suggestion that he is gay but demands that Benji give him a blowjob regardless. Monthly trips to Amsterdam follow and the two men develop a form of intimacy, but one which affords the softer, more pliable Benji little power.

In such a brief synopsis, the scenario risks sounding cliched. Familiar narrative devices pile up: the physically asymmetrical gay relationship in which the self-consciousness of one man makes them susceptible to the coercive manipulations of the more assured partner in a whirlwind of sex and drugs and emotional control. A comparable dynamic played out in another recent queer film, Pillion.

Benji, longing for this to be more than a once-monthly dose of overseas sex, withstands put-downs and disappointments. His quiet, emotional expressions of desire (played movingly by Eyre-Morgan) contrast with Jake’s struggle to accept his attraction to men. Tag is excellent and his portrayal of Jake is sometimes harsh and defensive, but also shows vulnerability, which prevents him from becoming a one-dimensional monster. Because of these tensions, the relationship’s unhappy ending feels like a dead cert.

Lessons from Heartstopper

Departures takes familiar cliches and gives them new life, turning them into something unexpectedly revealing. Its understated story recalls many films about gay suffering – from A Single Man to All of Us Strangers – but it refuses to stay within that familiar emotional frame.

Instead, the film disrupts expectations through bold, stylised touches that feel borrowed, perhaps improbably, from the Heartstopper playbook. The result is a work that plays with recognisable influences while twisting them into something more strange, lively and original.

Heartstopper, the popular Netflix queer teen drama, deliberately avoids the more difficult or painful stories often told about queer life. Instead, it offers the kind of wish-fulfilling, happy endings that Rich suggested many queer viewers have long desired. Every glance, touch and kiss between its characters is punctuated with playful on-screen doodles — bursts of electricity, fluttering butterflies and swirling text that insist we are watching Love with a capital L.

Departures borrows these same twee, saccharine stylistic gestures, but uses them in a very different context. Applied to a darker, sometimes even sordid story about control and sadness, they take on a mischievous, unsettling edge.

---

Read more:
Heartstopper: how this joyous teen show contrasts with my bitter memories of school life under homophobic law Section 28

---

As Benji’s voiceover details his suffering, scratchy lettering and illustrations dance around the screen. When he first sees Jake and his weary voiceover acknowledges the pain to come, doodled hearts burst around the handsome stranger to the music of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. As Benji submissively performs oral sex for Jake, the Hallelujah Chorus plays and animated fireworks fill the screen. And as Jake prepares to get into a fight with Benji’s friends, the needle of a Toxic Masculinity Meter shoots up to maximum. Here is a version of Heartstopper for an audience which knows that happy endings are often only the stuff of comic books.

In Departures, the collision of the sombre, unsettling narrative with the comic stylings of those twitching onscreen graphics suggests a more complex emotional situation in which neither cynicism nor romanticism is left unchecked. Instead, they synthesise in a complex portrait of Benji, who can neither maintain nor give up his romantic belief that Jake might love him.

Colliding styles

One of the film’s most striking ways of expressing this tension comes in a series of non-narrative sequences. Here, the characters dance – or perhaps merely convulse – under harsh strobe lights, their bodies flickering in and out of view, shifting into new poses and even seeming to become different selves between flashes.

It’s a simple but powerful device, inspired by the club scenes the men encounter on their trips to Amsterdam. Yet it opens up something more unsettling: brief glimpses of gay men caught between pleasure and pain, ecstasy and distress, moving to the uncertain rhythm of a contemporary queer world where nothing quite feels stable or fixed.

In the 1990s, Rich rejected the idea of easy affirmation, describing herself instead as an “old-time outlaw girl” who craved films “that push the edge, upset convention, defy expectation, speak the unspeakable, grab me by the throat and surprise me with something I’ve never seen before”.

Departures may work with familiar characters and a recognisable story, but its force lies in how it collides styles and tones in unexpected ways. It’s the kind of film that, in Rich’s terms, grabs you by the throat. What stays with me most is its sardonic yet romantic energy and the strangely undefeated presence of Benji at its centre.

This film deserves to find an audience who want more than easy viewing. It deserves viewers who will dance along to its tonal shifts and cherish the funny, sad, ironic almost-happy ending it serves up in its closing credits.

Benedict Morrison 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. Departures: this stylish gay love story deftly balances darkness and whimsy – https://theconversation.com/departures-this-stylish-gay-love-story-deftly-balances-darkness-and-whimsy-280497