Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jane Entwistle, Professor of Environmental Geochemistry, Northumbria University, Newcastle

The new Netflix series Lead Children has put a spotlight on the issue of lead poisoning in 1970s Poland. The series follows a young doctor who discovers that children living near a smelting plant have been poisoned with lead.

According to the latest Global Burden of Disease study, exposure to lead remains one of the leading environmental risk factors for early death and poor health globally. Unicef estimates that one in three children worldwide have an elevated blood lead level, highlighting this modern global health failure.

Historically, lead has been used in paint, gasoline, water supply pipes and industry. This has contaminated air, water, soil, dust and foods, which is why lead is a persistent and toxic environmental problem.

While the global elimination of lead from gasoline has been hugely successful in reducing lead in air, leading to a fall in population-wide blood lead concentrations in many countries, decline is not eradication.

We still live with the consequences from leaded paint being widely used until the 1960s on domestic and workplace skirting boards, bannisters, windowsills, doorframes and radiators. Lead is also still found in uPVC and leaded windows, roof flashings, glazed kitchenware, as well as some traditional medicines and cosmetics.

This may explain why ingestion, rather than inhalation from leaded gasoline, is now the dominant source of lead exposure in high-income countries.

Health effects of lead

Lead is a cumulative toxin so there is no safe blood lead concentration. Children under the age of six are particularly vulnerable to its effects. Even low-level exposure impacts neurodevelopment – resulting in lower IQ, reduced attention span, antisocial behaviour, ADHD and hearing loss.

Lead exposure at all ages can cause cardiovascular disease, kidney impairment, infertility, increased risk of spontaneous abortion, preterm birth, depression and panic disorder. It causes permanent structural brain changes in adults (particularly males) who were exposed to lead during childhood. These include a loss of brain volume in areas responsible for executive function, behavioural regulation and fine motor control.

It’s estimated that the global cost of childhood lead exposure may be around US$3.4 trillion (£2.5 trillion) per year. These losses are estimated by accounting for the lower lifetime earnings and lower economic productivity that children exposed to lead experience due to reduced intelligence and lower educational attainment. Since it doesn’t include healthcare costs, it may even be an underestimate.

Preventing harm

Unlike several other counties (such as France, Germany and the USA) there is currently no large-scale childhood blood lead monitoring programme in the UK. This is significant, as estimates from 2020 suggest that 180,000 to 280,000 children in the UK have elevated blood lead concentrations.

In 2014 the UK established the Lead Exposure in Children Surveillance System (LEICSS) so that NHS laboratories could notify the UK Health Security Agency of children with raised blood lead concentrations, but testing is only initiated if there’s a high clinical suspicion of lead poisoning. Since low and moderate blood concentrations tend not to produce symptoms, many UK children with elevated blood lead levels are likely to go undetected. Indeed in 2024, only 247 cases were reported to LEICSS.

There are also shortcomings with current techniques used to detect lead exposure in the UK. At the moment, blood taken directly from a vein (a venous sample) remains the gold standard for determining exposure to lead.

This technique requires a nurse or other healthcare professional to collect the sample, which makes it hard to test lots of people. It also means that families must take time out of their day and travel to a clinic to be tested.
Alternative testing methods using urine, hair and saliva have been used, but are typically subject to large biological variations and less accurate than venous blood samples.

This is why my colleagues and I launched the ECLIPS study in November 2025. This is the UK’s first citizen-led childhood lead exposure study, which is being conducted in Leeds, northern England.

We chose Leeds because not only is it a typical post-industrial city, it has had the highest reporting rates of lead poisoning to LEICSS for the past ten consecutive years. It’s also the only part of the country with a targeted alert system designed to support healthcare professionals in identifying lead poisoning in children: when a healthcare worker requests a test for iron deficiency, the electronic system includes a prompt suggesting the staff member also have the sample tested for lead levels.

Our study uses finger-prick blood sampling kits that are mailed to families in Leeds. Participants are asked to collect a few drops of blood from their child’s finger onto a sampling device, which is then mailed to a central laboratory for analysis. This overcomes the main limitations of current sampling techniques. Participants are also provided with advice on ways to reduce lead exposure at home.

The results of this study are currently ongoing, but we believe it could be an opportunity to develop a large-scale programme for testing childhood blood lead in the UK. It would also pave the way to wider testing nationally and internationally.

This latest Netflix series highlights the human cost of lead contamination. It also drives home the importance of taking action early to protect children from the damaging, often lifelong, health effects of lead. Early detection can change lives and save billions in lost opportunity costs.

Jane Entwistle receives funding for ECLIPS from the Medical Research Council (MR/Z505717/1).

– ref. Lead Children: new Netflix series reminds us that lead poisoning is still a global health problem – https://theconversation.com/lead-children-new-netflix-series-reminds-us-that-lead-poisoning-is-still-a-global-health-problem-276557

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adnan Haq, Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science, University of South Wales

In the 2021 Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, elite mountaineer Nirmal Purja races up the world’s highest summits at extraordinary speed. But even he isn’t immune to altitude.

During one ascent, Purja develops symptoms of high-altitude cerebral oedema (brain swelling), a dangerous form of altitude sickness that can strike with little warning. It’s a stark reminder that when oxygen levels fall, no amount of fitness or experience guarantees protection.

Research from my colleagues and I suggests that much of the damage caused by altitude sickness begins with stress inside the brain itself. If we can reduce that stress early, we may be able to interrupt the chain reaction that leads to more serious symptoms.

Each year, thousands of trekkers and climbers develop some form of altitude illness after ascending above about 2,500 metres. The mild form, acute mountain sickness, is common and unpleasant: headaches, nausea, dizziness and fatigue. More severe conditions, including high-altitude cerebral oedema and high-altitude pulmonary oedema, (swelling in the lungs) can be fatal if not treated quickly.

Different medications can help but are far from perfect. A diuretic medicine known as acetazolamide encourages breathing to improve oxygen levels. A steroid drug called dexamethasone can be lifesaving in high-altitude cerebral oedema, while nifedipine (a blood pressure drug) or sildenafil (better known as Viagra) can ease high altitude pulmonary oedema by reducing pressure in the lungs.

But these medications come with side-effects, some of which mimic altitude sickness itself. And the only guaranteed treatment – descending to a lower altitude – is not always possible in bad weather or on crowded mountain routes.

Supplemental oxygen works well once illness develops, but it is heavy, expensive and can interfere with natural acclimatisation. It’s an effective rescue tool, not a practical preventive one for most mountaineers.

So what if we could be proactive rather than reactive?

Why cooling the brain might help

Targeted brain cooling (or therapeutic hypothermia) has long been used in hospitals for cardiac arrest, newborn babies who need oxygen, as well as treating traumatic brain injury. The principle is simple – a cooler brain requires less oxygen and generates fewer metabolic byproducts.

The byproducts being referred to here are called “free radicals”. These highly reactive molecules increase when the body is stressed, as it is at altitude where oxygen is scarce. In excess, they cause what scientists call “oxidative stress”, damaging brain cells, weakening the blood–brain barrier and triggering inflammation.

They also interfere with nitric oxide, a chemical that helps blood vessels open properly. Together, these effects disrupt blood flow and allow fluid to leak into brain tissue, which are processes thought to underpin acute mountain sickness and high-altitude cerebral oedema.

Think of it like this: at high altitude, free radicals act like rust in your brain’s plumbing. They eat away at the seals and allow fluid to seep where it shouldn’t.

Research suggests that lowering brain temperature by just 1°C can reduce its metabolic rate – and therefore oxygen demand – by roughly 5% to 9%. With less demand comes fewer free radicals and potentially less swelling. Individually, these changes are modest. Combined, they could offer meaningful protection.

How do you cool a brain on a mountain?

Whole-body hypothermia is dangerous and impractical outdoors. So, the goal is selective brain cooling. In other words, lowering brain temperature while keeping the rest of the body warm. Several types of technology make this possible.

Cooling helmets, already used in neurocritical care, can reduce brain temperature by nearly 2°C within an hour while leaving core temperature stable. Cervical cooling collars are devices designed to be worn around the neck and upper shoulder area, and can target the major blood vessels supplying the brain. They have shown promising improvements in cerebral blood flow. Intranasal cooling systems exist too, but they are too invasive for healthy mountaineers.

So, helmets and collars are the most realistic options for expedition use. They are portable, non-invasive and are becoming lighter. But they are still far from being standard trekking gear.

There is another complication. At altitude, the brain naturally increases blood flow in an effort to deliver more oxygen. That warm blood acts like a radiator, potentially cancelling out cooling if devices are used too late. Early application, before this response kicks in, may be crucial.

Right now, we simply don’t know whether this could help prevent altitude sickness. The theory is strong, however, and evidence from other neurological conditions is encouraging. But selective brain cooling has not yet been tested in real (or simulated) high-altitude environments. We don’t know whether field-based cooling could meaningfully reduce oxidative stress, or whether mountaineers could even tolerate wearing cooling gear during long ascents.

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Read more:
Altitude sickness is typically mild but can sometimes turn very serious − a high-altitude medicine physician explains how to safely prepare

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Still, given the shortcomings of current treatments, and the growing popularity of high-altitude travel, the idea deserves serious investigation. Laboratory studies using simulated hypoxia (when there is less oxygen in the air), wearable biosensors and eventually field trials on trekking routes could help determine whether “brain chill” offers genuine protection.

For now, selective brain cooling remains an intriguing, speculative strategy. At best, it would complement rather than replace the basics of altitude safety – gradual ascent, early symptom recognition and timely descent.

Purja’s near miss in 14 Peaks shows that the mountains do not discriminate. If a simple, non-drug intervention could buy climbers more time or reduce risk, it could become a valuable addition to the mountaineer’s toolkit.

Whether cooling your head could help you keep your cool at altitude remains an open question. But it’s one worth exploring.

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

– ref. Why scientists are exploring brain cooling as a defence against altitude sickness – https://theconversation.com/why-scientists-are-exploring-brain-cooling-as-a-defence-against-altitude-sickness-275119

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Vaughan, Lecturer in International Security, University of Leeds; Sciences Po

Nuclear “non-proliferation” – preventing the spread of nuclear weapons beyond states that already have them – has been held up as the rationale for the US-Israeli war on Iran.

In his statement announcing the start of the operation on February 28, Donald Trump said: “we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”

This highlights two lessons about the problems with non-proliferation logic as an approach to dealing with nuclear weapons. First, non-proliferation can be exploited to provide political cover for otherwise unpopular military aggression. And second, non-proliferation logic risks undermining itself by driving target states to acquire nuclear weapons.

Non-proliferation is globally popular. Currently, 190 states – including Iran – are party to the 1968 non-proliferation treaty (NPT). This enshrines into international law a regime to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

All non-nuclear armed member states agree to take part in the treaty’s monitoring and verification regime. This aims to ensure they do not divert civilian nuclear technology and activity, like the production of fuel for power plants or isotopes for medical settings, to military ends.

The problem is that nuclear technology is, as US-based researcher Itty Abraham shows in his work, “ambivalent”. There is no physical boundary between civil and military uses. If a state can enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, it can do so for nuclear warheads.

Non-proliferation logic also assumes that any state with the ability to produce nuclear weapons will do so. This belief is known as “capacity determinism” and is debunked by the historical record.

If it was true, we could expect the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Argentina and Brazil to have directed their enrichment capabilities into weapons. Taiwan, Libya, Sweden and Switzerland also would not have reversed their nuclear weapons programmes, and South Africa would not have voluntarily disarmed.

Exploiting non-proliferation

This brings us to the first lesson from the Iran war. Through a non-proliferation lens, it is possible to see any state with its own nuclear programme as a threat. This is particularly true for countries already seen as badly behaved by the international community.

Non-proliferation is widely seen as an “indisputable public good” that benefits every state in the world. It is therefore easy for the US to dress up its war of aggression against Iran, which is illegal under international law, as an act of global protection. It did the same in Iraq in 2003.

There is no reason for this to be limited to the US, either. Any of China, France, Russia or the UK – the other permanent members of the UN security council who are permitted to have nuclear weapons under the NPT – could do the same.

The second lesson is that non-proliferation logic tends to undermine itself. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed by airstrikes early in the war. While he had pursued other bloodthirsty policies, Khamenei refused to authorise Iranian scientists and the military from restarting the country’s nuclear weapons programme that had stopped in 2003.

Iran was enriching uranium to somewhere around 60% purity. This is far above the 3% to 5% required to fuel nuclear power reactors, but below the 90% ideally required for a nuclear warhead – though it is close. It is also technically possible, albeit not optimal, to build a nuclear warhead with this level of enrichment.

In this way, Iran appears to have been deliberately playing with nuclear ambivalence. According to nuclear analyst Ludovica Castelli, Iran was demonstrating a range of values including “recognition, autonomy, sovereignty and political dignity” by touting its proximity to building a nuclear weapon without actually doing so.

Khamenei seems to have made a bet that achieving “nuclear threshold” status, where a state has the potential to develop nuclear weapons at short notice, would be enough to do this and to deter US or Israeli attacks. However, non-proliferation logic forces us to assume the worst.

So Iran has been punished as if it was pursuing nuclear weapons when, according to experts including Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, this does not appear to have been the case. Iran has borne all the costs of being a “proliferator”, while reaping none of the perceived security benefits of nuclear weapons.

Once the smoke clears, we should not be surprised when the regime – provided it survives – concludes that it has nothing left to lose from pursuing nuclear weapons in earnest. This war of non-proliferation risks achieving the exact opposite outcome, though this is not a foregone conclusion.

Nuclear deterrence

It is also possible that a third, dangerous lesson will be learned from this war: that nuclear weapons are valuable or even indispensable to the national security of non-superpower states. Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran have all now recently been attacked by nuclear-armed superpowers.

Other vulnerable states may well, not unreasonably, conclude that they too should obtain nuclear weapons to deter such threats. Similarly, the war has amplified calls for the UK and Europe more widely to expand their own nuclear arsenals to guarantee strategic independence from the US.

This is the wrong lesson for two reasons. First, any state embarking on a new nuclear weapons programme will make itself vulnerable to future wars of non-proliferation by adventurous superpowers before they have enough operational nuclear weapons to deter an attack.

And second, while nuclear weapons may provide a short- or medium-term mirage of “national security”, in the long-term they all but guarantee global disaster. Nuclear weapons cannot be controlled. One accident or error can spell armageddon.

The war in Iran should awaken us to this danger. It should not scare us into thinking that we must always live under the nuclear shadow. We urgently need to think about alternative security policies that do not entrench global nuclear danger and harm.

If this seems unrealistic, remember that some of the steepest historic reductions in nuclear stockpiles have been achieved straight after periods of extreme tension. The 1987 intermediate range nuclear forces treaty, signed between the US and Soviet Union towards the end of the cold war, is a good example.

Under its terms, the two states destroyed over 2,600 nuclear weapons. We have the capability to repeat and surpass these achievements: nuclear fatalism is an indefensible response.

Tom Vaughan receives funding from The Network of European Institutes of Advanced Study, under the Constructive Advanced Thinking scheme, for the project “Theories of Change and Nuclear Disarmament”. He is a Senior Research Associate of the Nuclear Knowledges research centre at CERI, Sciences Po Paris.

– ref. The Iran war has lessons to teach us about nuclear weapons – but we risk learning the wrong ones – https://theconversation.com/the-iran-war-has-lessons-to-teach-us-about-nuclear-weapons-but-we-risk-learning-the-wrong-ones-278455

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Licence, Professor of Medieval History and Consumer Culture, School of History, University of East Anglia

In 1066, England was invaded by multiple foreign powers. A northern force led by King Harald Hardrada of Norway advanced on York via the River Humber, while a southern force, led by Duke William of Normandy (later William I the Conqueror) crossed the Channel with forces from Normandy, France, Brittany and Ponthieu, and took up position at Hastings.

King Harold of England had to dash up from London to deal with the vikings, only to hurry back south again to deal with William. A distance of more than 250 miles separated his victory at Stamford Bridge (on September 25) from Battle, the site of his defeat (on October 14) at the Battle of Hastings.

His “almost miraculous” march, as one historian described it, became part of Harold’s legend. It’s now taught in schools, recreated by re-enactors and depicted in TV dramas such as the recent BBC miniseries, King and Conqueror (2025).

For some, Harold’s forced march was an incredible feat of generalship. For others, it was a fatal mistake. The conquest historian Allen Brown criticised Harold’s “reckless and impulsive haste”, while Henry Loyn accused Harold of “rashness” in undertaking a mad dash south that exhausted his men and led to his defeat at Hastings.

Researching my new biography, Harold, Warrior King, I turned to the Latin and Old English sources. And what I found surprised me.

Going back to the beginning, the forces Harold had assembled that spring to counter the threat of Norman invasion were a land army and a fleet stationed on the south coast. They remained there until September 8, by which time William’s fleet had still not appeared. The land army was then sent home, and the fleet sailed to London.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, our most reliable contemporary account, after the fleet returned, Harold learned that Harald Hardrada was invading the north.

In 1801, the historian Sharon Turner took the Chronicle’s phrase “after the fleet came home” to indicate that the ships had all returned to their various ports. The father-figure of 1066 studies Edward Augustus Freeman agreed, and subsequent historians fell in with believing that Harold had no fleet when news of the vikings came.

A reference to a fleet (lið) which Harold then arrayed on the River Wharfe, south of York, when advancing on the vikings, was taken to refer to some hastily gathered force.

Assertions in two early Latin accounts of the battle that Harold had sent a fleet against William at Hastings appear to have confused many historians, who had come to believe that Harold had disbanded the fleet.

It was this apparent lack of a fleet that led Freeman to surmise Harold had marched up and down the country. But Freeman was not the first to suggest this; John Milton had written of the king marching to London “in great haste” in his book History of England in 1670.

The thing scholars appear not to have recognised is that where the chronicle speaks of the fleet “coming home”, it means coming home to London. In its entry for the year 1052, the same chronicle refers to the fleet journeying “homeward to London” in this way.

Thus, the statement that has long misled scholars into thinking Harold’s fleet was disbanded actually indicates he retained it all along.

A centuries-old error

Once I had spotted what appears to be a 200-year-old error, I was able to join the dots. The presence of a fleet on the River Wharfe now made sense, for this was the same fleet which Harold had sent up from London, having used it, we may assume, to transport troops.

And those early references to Harold sending hundreds of ships against William’s camp at Hastings indicate that he sent the ships back down to London subsequently, after the battle of Stamford Bridge.

Furthermore, the king may have enlarged his fleet with captured viking vessels, since the chronicle states that 300 viking ships sailed into the Humber, but only 24 returned to Norway.

What, then, of the march? When I looked into the Latin and Old English texts, I was unable to find any reference to it. There are references to Harold hurrying south very quickly and to Harold “moving” his army south, but the march is missing.

Some scholars were so wedded to the idea of a forced march, however, that the translators of the Norman account Deeds of Duke William (circa 1071) translated the Latin phrase “returning speedily to attack you” (festinus redit in te) as “advancing against you by forced marches”.

Freeman called the march “almost miraculous”. And such a march would be. Sailing, however, would have taken a few days and allowed the English army a chance to rest. Since the sources track the movements of the fleet but nowhere mention a march, it would appear that Harold used ships for all his operations.

If Harold used ships, of course, he cannot be accused of “reckless and impulsive haste”, and the cause of his defeat at the Battle of Hastings must be sought elsewhere.

No longer that desperate, land-locked defender as traditionally depicted, assaulted on all sides from the sea, this research shows that Harold was a seaborne commander equal to his foreign foes – and no less sophisticated in combining warfare on sea and land in England’s defence.

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.

Tom Licence works for the University of East Anglia. He receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust

– ref. Is the biggest march in English history a myth? My research shows King Harold sailed down to the battle of Hastings – https://theconversation.com/is-the-biggest-march-in-english-history-a-myth-my-research-shows-king-harold-sailed-down-to-the-battle-of-hastings-278566

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lorna Stevens, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Strategic Marketing, University of Bath

The 2026 Oscars saw Jessie Buckley win best actress for her searing portrayal of a mother’s grief in Hamnet. But the film is also a story about a “green witch”, for Agnes Hathaway is no ordinary woman. She is a herbalist, healer and daughter of a “forest witch”.

In Maggie O’Farrell’s prize-winning novel of the same name, we first meet Agnes in her “witch garden” as her stepmother disparagingly calls it. We learn of her love of nature and that she has the gift of second sight, tuning into nature’s signs. There are other hints too: she has a “familiar”, a kestrel, which represents Agnes’s wild nature.

When her future husband Will Shakespeare first meets her he is struck by her direct gaze, her almost masculine energy. Her searching fingers grip the flesh between his thumb and forefinger to glean his essence. Agnes is independent, unruly, a creature of the forest. In the film’s opening scene she is curled up asleep among the tangled roots of a huge tree which serves as an arresting motif in the film.

The powerful story of Agnes the healer and forest witch highlights an aspect of witchcraft often overlooked in more sensationalised and darker versions of witchcraft, such as in the TV series Mayfair Witches. It also points to a growing form of modern witchcraft today, known as “green witchcraft”.

This form has its roots in “natural magic” – the practice of using plants, herbs and the natural world for benevolent purposes. Doreen Valiente, who wrote the book Natural Magic in 1975, refers to “green magic” in her text, foreshadowing what was to become a popular form of witchcraft 40 years later.

Green witchcraft also has close links with goddess spirituality, which celebrates the divine feminine as a counterbalance to the divine masculine dominance of traditional religions.

As the name suggests, green witchcraft draws on environmental concerns and often has an eco-feminist emphasis – women caring for the earth and all living entities on it, and opposing the exploitation of nature for human ends.

Green witchcraft has become so popularised that my colleague Pauline Maclaran and I devote a chapter to it in our forthcoming book, Bewitching Consumer Culture: Witchcraft, Feminism and Markets.

Historically in Britain, the witch figure inspired fear, fascination and suspicion. The brutal witch-hunts and widespread persecution of women that occurred from the mid-16th to the mid-18th centuries have made the witch a powerful figure for feminism. Our book explores the growing interest in witchcraft in the marketplace, revealing how the witch has evolved into a feminist heroine for our times.

Growing interest

Interest in the subject has burgeoned in recent years. When working on our book, a google search on “green witchcraft” resulted in 675 million hits, and “green witch” had 705 million hits. An Amazon search returned over 2,000 publications, mostly published in the last five years. There is now a plethora of books on the topic, and numerous podcasts, blogs and YouTube videos devoted to the subject.

Many green witches have huge followings, and share their practices on social media sites such as TikTok (aka WitchTok), YouTube and Instagram. These visual mediums enable them to share potions, spells, tips and advice on their practice of walking the green path. They also display their green witch aesthetic in terms of lifestyle, home décor, and especially green altars or shrines dedicated to nature. Posts often take the form of inspirational quotes, invocations or affirmations.

Green witchcraft particularly attracts young women concerned about climate change and living sustainably. This might include organic gardening, growing plants and foraging, appealing to those seeking alternative, nature-based spiritual paths. Its emphasis on balance, wellbeing and mindfulness is another important part of its appeal.

It speaks to a feminist perspective too, as it advocates a feminine ethic of care and respect for nature and living in harmony with the earth, as well as offering a means for empowerment, self-determination and self-growth.

Central to green witchcraft practices is the creation of ritual altars dedicated to nature. These shrines may be inside on a windowsill or outdoors in a corner of the garden. The altar faces the direction of the element the green witch most identifies with (north for air, south for water, east for fire and west for earth).

Ritual artefacts used by green witches include white-handled knives (bolines) for cutting herbs, cauldrons, chalices, wands, candles, crystals, smudge sticks for cleansing energy (using white sage, juniper, lavender or cedar), and divination tools such as oracle cards and witches’ runes. These are a set of symbols, such as the sun, moon or other elemental designs that each have their own meaning. The symbols are inscribed on things like candles or stones and are then “cast” to answer a question asked.

Some practices, when shared, also enable green witches to inspire others in the community to follow the green path. Common to other forms of contemporary witchcraft, green witchcraft has its grounding and centring practices, setting intentions, manifesting, affirmations and of course “spellcasting”.

In many ways green witchcraft reinforces the age-old association of women as nature’s guardians. Importantly, it also recasts the witch figure as a caring, benign force for good. The green witch plants, tends and respects nature. She is nature’s healer, close to nature’s secrets and respectful of its power, much like Agnes in Hamnet.

In their solitary practices and through their online and offline communities, green witches can be seen as powerful counter-cultural influencers. They encourage young women in particular to feel empowered to harness the healing power of the feminine aspect through a spiritual practice rooted in respect for nature and its cycles.

Across a variety of social media platforms, ever-growing numbers of green witches inspire others to follow the nurturing, soulful and environmentally kind green path. The sympathetic and moving portrayal of Agnes in the 16th-century setting of Hamnet will probably be an additional source of inspiration.

Lorna Stevens 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. Hamnet’s forest witch: how Agnes Hathaway chimes with the growing interest in ‘green witchcraft’ – https://theconversation.com/hamnets-forest-witch-how-agnes-hathaway-chimes-with-the-growing-interest-in-green-witchcraft-278634

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Abigail Marks, Professor of the Future of Work, Newcastle University

Worries about the British economy have long been dominated by one persistent concern – weak productivity. Since the financial crisis of 2008, growth has stagnated, leaving the UK trailing well behind the US, France and Germany across that whole period.

One familiar response to this problem is to suggest that if the British workforce could somehow produce more in less time, prosperity would follow and all would be well. New technology, particularly AI, is often presented as the solution.

The UK government certainly seems to like the idea, placing AI and technological innovation at the centre of plans to boost economic performance. At a speech to business leaders on March 17, chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves promised £2.5 billion of investment in AI and quantum computing to get things moving.

But what if productivity is not the problem we should be solving?

Increasing the country’s “output per hour” – the unit by which productivity is measured – does not necessarily make work more secure, more fairly rewarded or more socially useful. And nor does it make the UK more economically resilient.

In fact, it can do the opposite. Prioritising efficiency to boost productivity – by cutting costs and relying on tightly configured supply chains – can make economic systems extremely fragile.

Productivity problem

The problem with focusing too much on productivity is most obvious in some of the sectors that are central to our day-to-day lives. The effectiveness of care work, healthcare and education, for example, all depend on human interaction.

But teaching a class, caring for an elderly person or treating a patient require time, attention and professional judgment, making it difficult to increase “output” in the same way as in more automated sectors. There are limits to how much faster a nurse or teacher can work without undermining the quality of what they do.

Economists have long recognised that services which depend on human interaction – referred to as being “labour intensive” – face limits to productivity growth, because many of the tasks involved cannot be significantly sped up or automated without affecting quality.

This dynamic is referred to as “Baumol’s cost disease” – an economic theory which shows that costs will inevitably rise over time in labour-intensive sectors, despite little or no productivity growth.

Yet these sectors are essential to long-term social wellbeing and economic stability. They sustain everyone’s health, skills and security.

Another issue with increasing productivity comes down to the fact that for quite some time, the UK economy has been heavily weighted towards areas like finance, education and the creative industries. Manufacturing plays a much smaller role.

But in manufacturing, technological improvements can translate more directly into higher output per worker. This is what happens when industrial robots automate assembly-line tasks, allowing a single worker to oversee machines producing far more units than manual labour alone could achieve.

In contrast, much of the work undertaken in the UK, from management to care, depends on interaction, judgment and time. Its value is real but not easily measured.

The UK is therefore trying to solve a productivity problem in sectors where productivity is inherently difficult to define and improve.

Alternatives to output

This in turn points to a broader issue. The future of work is not just about how much we produce, but about how work is organised, how its rewards are shared, and how it fits into the rest of life.

None of this means productivity should be ignored – but it is a narrow measure. When treated as the primary goal of economic policy, it can produce an economy that appears efficient on paper yet fragile in practice, with rising output alongside stagnant living standards.

This was evident in the UK after the global financial crisis, when employment and GDP recovered while real wages stagnated for much of the 2010s. Productivity growth alone does not guarantee broadly shared prosperity.

The UK’s productivity slowdown is often framed as a failure to generate enough output per worker. A more uncomfortable possibility is that it reflects a mismatch between what the economy measures and what society needs.

Technology like AI may increase what workers can produce in an hour. But if the problem lies in how work is organised and valued, greater efficiency alone will not be enough.

Questions about the future of work should not begin with productivity statistics alone. They should begin with a simpler inquiry: what do we want the work we do to achieve in the first place?

Abigail Marks received funding from UKRI Rapid response COVID funding

– ref. Yes, AI could boost productivity, but work is about more than maximising output – https://theconversation.com/yes-ai-could-boost-productivity-but-work-is-about-more-than-maximising-output-278121

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Cambridge

Chronic pain has long been known to be associated with depression.

Among adults with chronic pain, around 40% exhibit clinical symptoms of depression. But why is it that only some people with chronic pain develop depression?

Researchers have long been wondering why this happens – and what goes on in the brain. If we can answer this question, we may be able to prevent depression from developing.

Our recent article, published in Science, suggests the answer to this question does indeed lie in the brain.

To conduct our study, we analysed neuroimaging brain scans from 14,462 participants from the UK Biobank cohort. We compared the following groups of participants: people with chronic pain for at least seven years who did not have symptoms of depression, and people with chronic pain who also developed depressive symptoms.

For the latter, the depressive symptoms were present either for the entire seven-year period, or they developed after two years or four years. This enabled an analysis of the development of depression associated with chronic pain, using brain imaging.

These neuroimaging analyses revealed something surprising was taking place in the brain – specifically in a structure called the hippocampus. The hippocampus has important functions in learning and memory.

In the participants who reported chronic pain without depressive symptoms, they showed modest increases in hippocampal volume and improved memory performance. This is consistent with the brain attempting to cope with the stress of the pain.

In contrast, people experiencing both chronic pain and depression exhibited reduced hippocampal volume and impaired cognitive performance. Further analyses of these scans suggested these changes developed progressively over time. This indicates that the hippocampus may initially adapt to persistent pain, but it gradually becomes vulnerable when pain continues over long periods.

Importantly, similar patterns were observed across multiple categories of chronic pain – including back, stomach, knee and hip pain, as well as headaches. This suggests that the findings were not specific to a single type of chronic pain condition.

We then studied how these brain changes unfolded in people with chronic pain by using rodent animal models. This research found that in animals there was a similar sequence of changes in the volume of the hippocampus, accompanied by increased neural activity. Moderate improvements in cognitive functioning occurred initially, but this was then followed by anxiety-like behaviour, which later transitioned to depressive-like symptoms and poorer memory.

The hippocampus has long been known to be involved in emotional memories and is highly susceptible to chronic stress. The hippocampus’s plasticity (the ability to form new nerve cells) is known to be involved in coping with chronic stress.

Chronic stress has also been implicated in exacerbating apoptosis (nerve cell death) and suppressing adult neurogenesis – the process of producing new nerve cells in the hippocampus.

We found that a region of the hippocampus known as the dentate gyrus – one of the few areas where new brain cells continue to form in adulthood – emerged as the critical regulatory hub and the pivot for the transition from chronic pain to depression.

Early in the pain process, newly generated neurons in the dentate gyrus showed increased activity – suggesting the brain initially mounts a protective response to persistent pain. Over time, however, immune cells, known as microglia, became abnormally activated and disrupted normal neural signalling in the hippocampus.

This abnormal microglial activation appeared to mark the tipping point at which the brain’s initially protective response to pain began to fail.

Importantly, an antibiotic treatment, minocycline, suppressed abnormal microglial activation and reduced depression-like behaviour in the animal models. This treatment also preserved the structure of the hippocampus and cognitive function.

Treating pain and depression

Our findings suggest that a treatment such as minocycline could help prevent depression in people living with persistent pain — particularly if treatment is introduced early.

Of course, other psychosocial, socio-economic and genetic factors play a role in the perception of pain. Therefore, it’s likely that in some people these factors will exacerbate chronic stress and the experience of pain.

However, there are other evidence-based ways to reduce the risk of depression. In another collaborative study between Fudan University and the University of Cambridge, it was shown that seven healthy lifestyle factors, including good sleep, exercise and diet, could reduce the risk of depression by 57%. Importantly, these lifestyle factors were also associated with increased hippocampal volume, consistent with our new study.

Mindfulness training may be another strategy. This focuses on being present in the moment and minimising distraction from competing thoughts and memories. The practice is shown to improve working memory and increase hippocampal density.

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Read more:
How mindfulness therapy could help those left behind by depression treatment

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A recent review showed that mindfulness meditation experts have increased brain grey matter, including the hippocampus. Mindfulness meditation training was also shown to lead to increased hippocampal volume.

Mindfulness practice has also been found to be beneficial for improving quality of life – not only when coping with chronic pain – and for reducing symptoms of stress and depression.

Our discovery has answered an important question that has long puzzled researchers. We showed the key role the brain’s hippocampus plays in why some chronic pain sufferers develop depression. This discovery also points to potential treatments that may prevent depression in people with chronic pain.

The brain’s coping mechanisms that we discovered may also apply more generally to other conditions where the brain has to cope with chronic stress – such as in psychological trauma.

Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian receives funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Lundbeck Foundation. Her research work is conducted within the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Mental Health and Neurodegeneration Themes. She receives Royalties from Cambridge University Press for Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life.

Jianfeng Feng receives funding from nsfc

Trevor Robbins he is a consultant for Cambridge Cognition, and Blandaris.

Xiao Xiao receives funding from 2030 China Brain Project.

– ref. Why does chronic pain often lead to depression? Our research shows the answer is in the brain – https://theconversation.com/why-does-chronic-pain-often-lead-to-depression-our-research-shows-the-answer-is-in-the-brain-278697

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heather Heap, Phd Candidate, Department of Psychology, Aberystwyth University

For many older people, humour can be a lifeline. It’s not easy to discuss the challenges of ageing – from loneliness and the loss of a loved one to dealing with chronic pain. But laughter can be an invaluable way of opening up about how hard life sometimes feels.

“I struggle to get round at times, but I have to,” a 72-year-old man told me during my research with colleagues into older people’s experiences of humour. “If I didn’t laugh at myself, I’d cry.”

Past research has suggested that cognitive decline can reduce older people’s ability to be funny. But our study offers an alternative explanation for the reduced amount of humour in their lives. It’s not so much about older people losing their sense of humour, as about changes in their opportunities to use and enjoy it.

We interviewed 20 people aged 60 and over about the role of humour in their lives, having already asked them to rate their wellbeing. What emerged was a complex picture: humour can be a key part of life for some older people, but a source of distress and discomfort for others.

Many participants living alone explained they simply had fewer opportunities to share humour. Without partners or regular companions, it diminishes not due to inability but isolation.

“Now I live by myself, it’s a bit more awkward,” said a 75-year-old male interviewee. “But as soon as I’m meeting anybody, that’s when the humour surfaces with other people. Not when I’m by myself.”

Fears of causing offence

Many older people highlighted shifting social attitudes about the humour they wanted to use and find funny. They felt that while younger generations could use profanity and edgy humour freely, their preferred humour was increasingly seen as unacceptable.

Many said they self-censor around unfamiliar people for fear of causing offence, resulting in a decline in their overall use of humour. A 62-year-old male told us:

If it’s somebody you don’t know, you could use [humour] to break the ice – but there’s the social barriers. You don’t know them, so you don’t really want to use too much. You don’t want to use humour which they might not find acceptable.

When pressed on what kind of humour was no longer considered acceptable, our older interviewees were often wary in their replies. One 71-year-old man suggested that ageist humour was no longer possible among elderly people: “I think it’s a subject people are a little bit wary of making jokes about these days … Just as anti-Jewish or anti-Irish humour has gone out of fashion, I think possibly the same thing about elderly people.”

Equally, some interviewees complained about stereotypes that portray older adults as “coffin dodgers” or “old grannies”. Research shows these can negatively affect psychological wellbeing when older people internalise such stereotypes.

Reactions in our study were mixed: some found these jokes offensive and harmful, mainly women. Others, particularly men, argued that jokes should be accepted in good spirit and that negative effects stem from misunderstanding, rather than the joke itself.

Familiarity played a role too: while ageist jokes from friends felt relatable and funny, the same jokes from strangers were more often seen as offensive.

Our interviewees said they enjoyed a wide variety of humour, from political comedies and dry wit to slapstick comedy (many referenced Monty Python). However, many found it easier to pinpoint what they disliked: profanity, and humour where someone becomes the “butt” of the joke.

Comedians like Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais were frequently mentioned as examples of humour they didn’t enjoy, with one explaining: “I like laughing at situations, not at people.”

The darker side of humour

Humour serves important social functions, helping people of all ages to navigate difficult conversations, reduce tension and maintain connections. Our study found that older people who said they frequently used humour as a social tool also tended to rate themselves higher in terms of their wellbeing.

This concurs with many studies showing humour has a positive affect on mental health and enhances wellbeing.

In contrast, those declaring lower wellbeing were more likely to admit using humour in a defensive way. As one woman aged 62 put it: “I think I’m aware that I use humour to deflect things. I use humour as a mask.” Relying on humour to deflect emotional needs can in turn restrict the depth of a person’s connections.

Whether it is the freedom to joke without fear of causing offence or the ability to laugh together at the challenges associated with ageing, our interviewees repeatedly stressed that most humour surfaces in the company of others. When you’re on your own, it’s much harder to keep on laughing.

Heather Heap 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 humour means to older people – and why some find it hard to keep on laughing – https://theconversation.com/what-humour-means-to-older-people-and-why-some-find-it-hard-to-keep-on-laughing-278038

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nikhil Datta, Assistant Professor, Economics, University of Warwick

The US-Israel strikes on Iran in late February caused an immediate spike in oil prices, and volatility has only increased since then. It quickly led to fears among motorists of “price-gouging” – petrol retailers raising their prices to take advantage of consumer panic.

In the UK, Chancellor Rachel Reeves asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to remain on “high alert” for profiteering by petrol retailers. Trade body the Petrol Retailers Association quickly hit back, saying her language was “incorrect and inflammatory”.

But what does the economic evidence suggest about retailers’ behaviour at times when oil prices are fluctuating wildly? As part of our yet-to-be-published research into UK petrol retailers and large oil price shocks, we examined Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The invasion led to a large and sudden increase in global oil prices, providing a valuable context in which to determine how shocks to crude oil supply filter through to prices at the pump.

The first striking pattern we found was that wholesale unleaded and diesel price changes closely tracked crude oil price changes. When oil prices rose, wholesale fuel prices increased almost immediately. Our estimates suggest that roughly 80% of changes in oil prices are reflected in wholesale fuel prices within a few days.

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What oil, stocks and bonds are telling us about the Iran conflict and how long it might last

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Retail prices, however, react quite differently. Prices at the pump adjusted more slowly and were considerably smoother than wholesale prices. In periods where wholesale prices increased sharply, retail prices typically rose by less and with a delay.

At the immediate peak of the shock in the weeks following the invasion, wholesale diesel prices rose by about 39 pence per litre, while pump prices increased by only about 16 pence per litre.

The implication is that retailer margins compressed during price spikes as the gap between retail and wholesale prices narrowed temporarily. In other words, although consumers experienced higher petrol prices, the evidence does not suggest that retailers increased their markups during these periods.

But why would retailers reduce their margins when prices spike? One explanation is that consumers become more aware of petrol prices at these times. Using data from price comparison site PetrolPrices.com, we found that when average petrol prices rose above £1.50 per litre during 2022, search activity increased dramatically. The growing number of daily searches indicated that consumers were actively seeking out cheaper filling stations when prices increased.

The crossing of the £1.50 threshold also attracted media attention, increasing people’s awareness and encouraging consumers to compare prices. By using geographically granular data on search activity, combined with daily petrol price data from nearly all petrol stations in the UK, we can causally link this increase in consumer attention with intensifying price competition.

As prices began to stabilise, we found that search intensity on the price comparison site dropped. Search activity itself did not return to pre-shock levels, but instead dropped and plateaued at a higher level than before, consistent with predictions from well-established economic models.

Correspondingly, price impacts narrow over time. At the peak of increased search activity following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a 10 percentage point increase in search activity was associated with roughly a 2% reduction in local area petrol prices. We then found that this was driven primarily by stations that already had higher prices in January 2022. These higher-priced petrol stations cut their prices the most as consumers became more price-sensitive.

The research suggests that when oil prices increase and there is lots of media attention, consumers make more effort to search for better prices. Competition then increases and this puts downward pressure on retail prices. So retailers may actually experience falling margins when oil prices spike.

Rockets and feathers

It seems that it is not the level of prices that drives consumer attention, but whether those prices are rising rapidly. As price increases slow or reverse, consumers search price-comparison sites less intensively, reducing the sense of competition between petrol stations.

But then a clear asymmetry emerges: retail prices rise more quickly following cost increases than they fall following cost decreases. This pattern is known as the “rockets and feathers” effect: prices rise like rockets but fall like feathers.

In our study, we examined the transmission from wholesale to retail prices over a period of more than ten years. As expected, when wholesale costs fell, pump prices dropped more slowly. This temporarily increased the gap between wholesale and retail prices – meaning retailers’ profits grew.

This pattern means if wholesale prices go up by ten pence per litre and then come back down, over the entire adjustment time motorists end up paying about a penny more per litre than they would if prices adjusted evenly.

But this varied across petrol stations. For some, there was very little additional cost to consumers. For others, it was up to five times larger, meaning that the same increase and subsequent decrease would cost consumers up to five pence per litre more.

Taken together, our findings point to a clear conclusion. Petrol retailers do not appear to profiteer during periods when oil prices are rising rapidly. If anything, their margins tend to be squeezed. If concerns about excess profits are warranted, the evidence suggests that it is more likely to occur when oil prices are falling than when they’re spiking.

Nikhil Datta receives funding from ESRC, Nuffield Foundation, Research England the and British Academy.

Johannes Brinkmann 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. Do petrol retailers really ‘price-gouge’ during oil price spikes? – https://theconversation.com/do-petrol-retailers-really-price-gouge-during-oil-price-spikes-278843

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Philippe Cullet, Professor of International and Environmental Law, SOAS, University of London

World Water Day on March 22 is intended to be a celebration. Yet, for many in the UK, it brings up images of rivers and beaches contaminated with raw sewage, with 450,000 discharges recorded in England in 2024. It’s become a major political scandal, and is now the subject of a bleak Channel 4 docudrama.

But what if rivers themselves could take legal action against this pollution?

A growing movement of campaigners and researchers say rivers should be granted their own rights, independent of their value to humans. In this framework, rivers are not just resources to be used, but entities with the legal right to flow and to remain unpolluted. Crucially, those rights could be enforced in court by designated human guardians. Advocates of these “rights of nature” say it could give rivers a powerful new way to challenge pollution.

The problem of raw sewage dumping is directly linked to the privatisation of water companies in 1989. In theory, an independent regulator would protect rivers and the environment and ensure that monopoly companies, such as Thames Water, would not abuse their powers. But in practice, the system has struggled to prevent widespread pollution or hold companies to account – leaving rivers with no direct legal voice of their own.

The push for privatisation came alongside the relatively new idea that water should be treated as an economic good. For water companies, water is a commodity like oil or coal. They make money by charging for it, while pollution control is a cost they seek to minimise. When oversight is weak, dumping sewage in rivers becomes a cost-cutting or profit-making part of their business model.

Failings like these are why, since the beginning of the century, many people have started thinking about legal rights as an alternative to privatisation and ineffective protection.

There are valid questions about how it would work in practice. The guardian, for instance, is still a human voice but their mandate would be specifically to protect the rights of the river, including the ability to take cases to court.

This would change how sewage dumping is handled. At present, discharges are treated as a regulatory breach and are managed through permits and fines. If rivers had legal rights, repeated pollution could instead be challenged as a violation of those rights – and of the river’s “personhood”. A rights-based framework mandates that the person (in this case, the river) must be restored to their previous position, before their rights were violated. This could mean polluters being forced to restore the river and its ecosystems to their previous state, or to pay compensation to the river itself (rather than a fine that disappears into an overall government budget).

This sounded like wishful thinking only a few years ago, but in some places it is already becoming a reality. In 2025, Lewes District Council in East Sussex, England, backed the Rights of River Ouse Charter, which acknowledges the right of the river to exist, its right to flow and to be free from pollution – the equivalent of the right to life for human beings.

However, a single local council cannot create rights that would replicate the rights you or I might have. That would require major national legal changes. For now, the charter is a statement of intent and a guide for local policy, and the River Ouse has some way to go before its new status can be enforced.

A case from the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia shows how hard it is to enshrine such changes. After the Loyalty Islands Province adopted a legislative amendment to recognise the rights of sharks and marine turtles, the measure was challenged and the Conseil d’Etat – France’s highest court of appeal – determined that the province lacked the power to grant legal personhood to natural entities.

But in New Zealand, the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River) really does have full “legal personhood”. In 2017, national legislation – the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act – gave the river full legal rights and duties, to recognise the local Māori tribe’s spiritual connection to what some describe as a living ancestor.

Back in the UK, the recognition of river rights may help avoid a repeat of the catastrophic regulatory failures that the Channel 4 docudrama illustrates. As long as rivers are treated as assets to be managed, pollution remains negotiable – and ultimately acceptable. Recognising their rights would shift the priority from managing pollution to preventing it, and would make environmental protection a legal obligation, not a policy or business choice.

Philippe Cullet receives funding from UKRI.

The WATCON project (watcon.org) was assessed by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It has received funding from UKRI under the UKRI Frontier Research grants scheme.

– ref. If rivers had legal rights, sewage scandals would be much harder to ignore – https://theconversation.com/if-rivers-had-legal-rights-sewage-scandals-would-be-much-harder-to-ignore-278819