Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ewen Harrison, Professor of Surgery and Data Science, University of Edinburgh

Artificial intelligence can now outperform doctors at diagnosing patients in the emergency department, according to a new study in Science.

The AI was given written notes from real emergency department records from a hospital in Boston, US, and asked to weigh in at different points during the patient’s care. At the earliest stage – triage, when a patient first arrives – the AI identified the correct diagnosis, or something closely related, in 67% of cases.

The two doctors used for comparison managed 50% and 55%. That’s a meaningful gap, especially at the moment when information is scarcest and uncertainty is highest.

This study matters because the field is moving so fast. Earlier research showed that large language models – the technology behind systems like ChatGPT – could pass medical licensing exams. Interesting, but not all that illuminating. Passing an exam is not the same as being useful on a ward.

This new study goes further. It puts AI alongside doctors across several tasks, using genuine clinical text from a real emergency department. That makes it more directly relevant to medical practice than most of what’s come before. It suggests these systems are developing into something that could genuinely help doctors think through a wide range of possible diagnoses, especially in situations where missing a serious condition is the main concern.

There are good reasons, though, not to get carried away.

The AI was working entirely from written text. It never saw the patient, never noticed how breathless or frightened they looked, never examined them, spoke to their family, weighed up the chaos of a busy department, or took any responsibility for what happened next. It was not practising emergency medicine. It was offering a written opinion based on selected information.

There’s also a gap between producing a list of possible diagnoses and actually improving patient outcomes. A longer list might help a doctor think more broadly, but it could equally generate new problems: unnecessary tests, over-treatment, extra workload, or unwarranted confidence in an answer that sounds plausible but turns out to be wrong.

And some of the benchmark cases used in studies like this may have been publicly available when the AI was trained, which doesn’t undermine the emergency department findings, but is another reason to treat headline numbers with some scepticism.

The hard question

So the question isn’t really whether AI can help doctors think through difficult cases. The harder question is how this should be tested and governed in real clinical settings like the NHS.

That question is already urgent. A Royal College of Physicians snapshot found that 16% of UK doctors were using AI tools in clinical practice every day, with another 15% doing so weekly. Doctors are already using these tools in their daily work – before hospitals and health systems have properly worked out how to assess them, train staff to use them safely, spot when they’re causing harm, or decide who is responsible when something goes wrong.

It’s tempting to say that the solution is to keep a human in the loop. But that phrase does very little work on its own. We need to know which human, in which loop, and with what authority. A doctor’s ability to override an AI suggestion is not, by itself, a safety system. Someone still has to decide which tools get used, who can change how they behave, how harms are spotted, and who is responsible when the tool quietly starts failing.

This study represents genuine progress. But it doesn’t, on its own, change how medicine should be practised. The right response is neither to prohibit these systems nor to let them quietly become part of the routine before anyone has thought it through. They should be trialled in real clinical settings, used as a form of second-opinion support rather than a substitute for clinical judgment, and measured against what actually matters to patients: care that is better, safer and faster.

Ewen Harrison receives funding from a number of grant-giving bodies including UKRI, NIHR, HDRUK, and Wellcome Leap. He is a Deputy Editor with NEJM AI.

– ref. AI in the emergency department: promising, powerful but still unproven – https://theconversation.com/ai-in-the-emergency-department-promising-powerful-but-still-unproven-282029

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Katayoun Shahandeh, Lecturer in Museum Studies, SOAS, University of London

Just days before the opening of the 2026 Venice Biennale, organisers announced that Iran would no longer participate.

A short statement posted to the Venice Biennale website on May 4 said: “With regard to the National Participations in the 61st International Art Exhibition…it has been announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not participate.” No explanation was given. I believe that silence is itself revealing.

Iran’s withdrawal is less a sudden decision than the result of converging geopolitical and economic pressures that are reshaping both the global art world and Iran’s place within it.

At the most immediate level, the withdrawal reflects the material realities of crisis. With internet access restricted, international flights suspended and communication networks severely disrupted, even the basic logistics of participation – coordinating, shipping and installing artworks – probably became nearly impossible for Iran.

These conditions have been compounded by intensifying economic pressures, including the sharp devaluation of the Iranian rial, which has made international cultural engagement increasingly difficult to sustain.

Such constraints point to a fundamental condition of contemporary art: global exhibitions rely on infrastructures of mobility and communication that are easily destabilised by conflict and sanctions.

The timing is also significant. The decision comes amid renewed military tensions and escalating political rhetoric surrounding Iran’s position in the global order. In such moments, when political discourse edges toward existential threat, the stakes of cultural visibility are heightened. At the same time, sustaining cultural presence becomes more difficult.

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More revealing still was the lack of any announced artist, curatorial framework or exhibition concept for Iran’s pavilion, even days before the Biennale’s opening.

Iran’s presence at the Venice Biennale has historically been organised through state institutions, with oversight exercised by the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance since the Iranian revolution (1978-79). As with many national pavilions, this model positions art as a form of cultural diplomacy. But in Iran’s case, it has often produced a disconnect between official representation and contemporary artistic practice.

This gap is significant. The Venice Biennale, often described as the “Olympics of the art world”, remains structured around national pavilions, with each country responsible for presenting its cultural identity on a global stage. Yet, as critics have long argued, it has never been a neutral platform, but a space where art and geopolitics intersect.

More broadly, biennials are deeply embedded in political and institutional contexts, rather than existing outside them. Within this framework, they are often understood as sites of cultural soft power, where nations project influence through artistic production.

National representation in crisis

Iran’s withdrawal must also be understood in relation to the wider turmoil surrounding the 2026 biennale itself. This year’s edition has been marked by extraordinary controversy, including disputes over the involvement of Russia and Israel, calls for boycotts and the resignation of the entire international jury just days before the opening.

These events expose the fragility of the biennale’s longstanding claim to neutrality. Rather than existing outside politics, it has become a site where geopolitical tensions are actively staged and contested.

To exhibit at the biennale is never neutral: it means entering a highly visible arena shaped by competing narratives of legitimacy and power. For the Islamic Republic, this raises a deeper tension. The biennale’s national pavilion model requires countries to present a coherent cultural identity through contemporary art. Yet Iran’s artistic landscape is anything but singular. It is shaped by internal contradictions between state and independent practices, censorship and experimentation and local production and diasporic circulation.

These tensions are difficult to reconcile within a state-managed exhibition framework. The very premise of the pavilion – art as national representation – sits uneasily with a system in which artistic expression is subject to ideological and institutional control.

At the same time, the Biennale embodies forms of global circulation, cultural competition and visibility tied to international art markets that do not always align with the cultural and political ethos of the Islamic Republic. Representation therefore involves negotiating how a nation appears, to whom, and on whose terms.

The current moment makes this tension even more acute. As political rhetoric escalates and the possibility of large-scale destruction is invoked in global discourse, cultural visibility becomes more urgent. Art offers one of the few spaces through which narratives beyond conflict and diplomacy can emerge. Yet for Iranian artists, cultural presence is becoming more fragmented, shaped by diasporic networks, constrained by national borders and limited by economic and infrastructural pressures.

Iranian artists, particularly those working through independent and diasporic networks, have for decades operated beyond the frameworks of state representation, with their work circulating internationally through alternative artistic circuits. Iran’s missing pavilion, then, does not signal the disappearance of Iranian art. Rather, it reveals the precarious conditions through which that art circulates.

Iran’s absence from the Venice Biennale also highlights the limits of the national pavilion model. The system has frequently been criticised for reducing complex artistic practices to simplified national identities, even as contemporary art now operates through transnational networks that exceed the boundaries of the nation-state.

In Venice this year, the missing pavilion reflects an art world shaped as much by political crisis as by artistic production. Iranian art is not absent from the global stage. Yet the conditions under which it circulates and remains visible have become increasingly fragile.

Katayoun Shahandeh works for SOAS University of London.

– ref. What Iran’s absence from the Venice Biennale reveals about art and politics – https://theconversation.com/what-irans-absence-from-the-venice-biennale-reveals-about-art-and-politics-282416

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pedram Vousoughi, Post Doctoral Researcher in Biological Sciences, University of Limerick

The question sounds simple. The answer, once you examine the actual measurement science behind it, is more interesting than either “yes” or “no”.

The houseplant-as-air-purifier idea can be traced to a 1989 US study, conducted for Nasa as part of research into closed-loop life support systems for space stations. In sealed, controlled chambers, certain plant species reduced concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are chemicals that easily evaporate into the air at room temperature, including some toxic ones like benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde. The science was sound. The problem is the leap from a sealed Nasa chamber to a living room. This distinction matters enormously, and it underpins almost every piece of inflated coverage about houseplants’ purifying abilities that has followed.

Most studies showing that houseplants remove pollutants share a fundamental design feature: small, sealed chambers with artificially high concentrations of pollutants introduced as a single high dose. A plant is placed inside the chamber, concentrations of pollutants are measured over time and a removal rate is calculated. This design works well for comparing plants to each other. It works poorly for predicting what happens in your home.

The critical missing variable is what building scientists call the air exchange rate. This is how quickly outdoor air naturally replaces indoor air through gaps, walls and ventilation systems. In a real building, this constant dilution is already doing the heavy lifting on pollutant concentration. When a 2019 study modelled plant performance against real-world air exchange rates, it found you would need between ten and 1,000 plants per square metre to match what a building’s passive ventilation already achieves.

So the scientifically defensible answer is: houseplants can remove some pollutants, but they are not an effective standalone air-cleaning solution for homes. That does not mean the earlier studies were “wrong”. It means their results were often overextended into everyday settings where the physics of indoor air are very different.

More recent reviews distinguish between potted plants and more engineered plant-based systems. Some botanical biofilters, which force air through plant-root substrates with fans, may have useful air-cleaning potential, but that is a different technology from keeping a few decorative plants on a windowsill.

Another reason the claim is often overstated is that real indoor environments are not static. Pollutants are not usually released once and then left to decline in a sealed space, as happens in many chamber experiments. In homes, emissions may be continuous or intermittent, from cooking, cleaning, furnishings, consumer products, heating and traffic pollution wafting in from outside. Temperature, humidity, the number of people at home and ventilation also change throughout the day. All of these factors affect how pollutants are emitted, diluted or deposited indoors. This makes real exposure conditions far more complex than the controlled conditions under which many plant studies are carried out.

For these reasons, the most credible public health advice remains straightforward.

First, reduce or remove the pollution source. This may involve stopping the use of products that emit fumes, such as aerosol sprays or strong chemical cleaners, and repairing building defects such as damp or leaks that promote mould growth.

Then, improve ventilation and use effective filtration. Ventilation can be improved by, for example, opening windows and doors and using kitchen and bathroom exhaust fans that vent outdoors. You can also increase the supply of outdoor air through combined heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, which can be great for filtering air.

Portable air cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air (Hepa) filtration can help reduce airborne particles, while ventilation, such as opening windows or using exhaust fans, helps dilute indoor pollutants when outdoor air quality is acceptable. Air cleaners vary in quality, though. For everyday use, look for a model that is the right size for the room and clearly states that it uses a True Hepa filter, which means it is designed to capture at least 99.97% of very small particles.

It is also helpful if the unit has an AHAM Verifide label, which means its clean air delivery rate (CADR) has been independently tested. As a simple guide, the higher the CADR, the faster the cleaner can remove particles from the air, and the packaging will usually say what room size the unit is suitable for. Most air cleaners are designed mainly for particles such as dust, pollen, pet dander and smoke.

If you also want help with gases or odours, such as VOCs, look for a model that includes an activated carbon filter, because Hepa filters alone are mainly for particles. Packaging will usually indicate whether a unit is intended for particles, gases or both, but no air cleaner removes all pollutants.

It is also worth remembering that plants themselves require care. Overwatering and poorly maintained pots can contribute to moisture problems or microbial growth indoors. In that sense, even the benefits of indoor greenery depend on how they are managed.

Does that mean houseplants are useless indoors? Not at all. Even if their direct air-cleaning effect is modest in real homes, plants may still offer benefits. Scientific studies suggest they can improve perceived comfort and psychological wellbeing, and in some cases slightly influence humidity or the indoor microenvironment.

Keep houseplants because you enjoy them, because they make indoor spaces more attractive and calming. They can make homes feel more pleasant, and that is a value in itself. But they should not be presented as a practical solution to serious indoor air problems.

Pedram Vousoughi receives funding from Ireland’s Department of Climate, Energy, and the Environment for funding his current work under the FORESIGHT services contract for national agriculture and land-use modeling. He has also been granted EPS-IRC funding previously.

– ref. Can houseplants really purify the air in your home?
What the science actually says – https://theconversation.com/can-houseplants-really-purify-the-air-in-your-home-what-the-science-actually-says-279690

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Miguel G. Borda, Consultant in Geriatric Medicine, Department of Neurology, Universidad de Navarra

The use of dietary supplements has increased sharply in recent years. Vitamins, minerals and other nutritional products are often marketed as simple ways to boost energy, support immunity, protect brain health or even promote longevity. For many people, taking supplements can feel like a sensible, proactive health habit.

But this perception can be misleading. For people who already have adequate nutrition, many supplements offer little or no measurable benefit. Some are simply an unnecessary expense. Others are not risk-free: high doses of certain vitamins and minerals can cause toxicity, interfere with medications or produce unintended health effects.

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For older adults, however, the picture is more complicated. The most useful question is not simply whether supplements are “good” or “bad”, but whether someone is actually deficient, what might be causing that deficiency and whether a supplement is the safest way to address it.

Nutritional deficiencies become more common with age. Appetite may decrease, oral health can worsen, chronic illnesses become more common and many older people take medicines that affect how nutrients are absorbed, used or cleared from the body. Oral health problems, including tooth loss, gum disease and poorly fitting dentures, can also make chewing difficult and reduce dietary variety.

Later life is often surrounded by unhelpful food messages: eat less, lose weight, avoid “heavy” meals, stick to soft foods. But these messages can collide with the body’s continuing need for protein, vitamins and minerals. Over time, small meals, soups, toast and tea can become a diet that fills the stomach without meeting nutritional needs.

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Millions of older people don’t get enough nutrients – how to spot it and what to do about it

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This does not mean every older person needs supplements. It means supplementation should be targeted: based on confirmed deficiencies, clear risk factors, medication use or evidence that someone is not getting enough from food.

Vitamin B12 is one of the clearest examples. B12 deficiency becomes more common with age, partly because the stomach may produce less acid, which is needed to release B12 from food. Low B12 can cause anaemia, fatigue, nerve problems, numbness or tingling, and sometimes memory problems or confusion. Certain medicines, including metformin and proton pump inhibitors, can increase the risk further. High-dose oral B12 often works well, although some people need injections.

Folate is also important, especially for red blood cell formation and DNA production. Low folate can raise homocysteine, a blood marker that has been associated with cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline, though this does not prove that folate supplements prevent either. Folate or other B vitamins may help selected groups, such as people with low folate or B12 status, raised homocysteine or mild cognitive impairment. But B12 deficiency should be considered before folate is prescribed on its own, because folate can improve some blood signs of B12 deficiency while nerve damage continues.

Vitamin D is another common concern. Deficiency is more likely in older adults with limited sun exposure, reduced mobility, darker skin, care-home residence or diets low in vitamin D-rich foods. Supplementation may be appropriate when levels are low, sun exposure is limited, or someone has osteoporosis, recurrent falls or high fracture risk. But more is not automatically better. A large trial found that vitamin D supplementation did not significantly reduce fracture risk in generally healthy midlife and older adults who were not selected for deficiency.

Calcium and magnesium matter for bone, muscle and nerve function, but where possible they should come from food. Supplements may be useful when dietary intake is insufficient or osteoporosis is present, but excessive intake should be avoided. Magnesium is often promoted for sleep, but evidence for routine use as an insomnia treatment remains limited.

Multivitamins can be useful for older adults who eat very little or have poor dietary variety, but they should not be treated as nutritional insurance for everyone. In a large study of three US cohorts, daily multivitamin use was not associated with a lower risk of death. Other research is exploring whether multivitamins may affect markers of biological ageing, but it remains unclear whether this translates into better health, independence or lifespan.

One of the most overlooked “supplements” in later life is not a vitamin at all, but protein. Many older adults eat too little protein or avoid protein-rich foods such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy, beans or lentils. Low intake can contribute to sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, increasing the risk of falls, frailty and loss of independence. Expert groups commonly recommend around 1.0 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day for healthy older adults. Higher intakes are sometimes needed during illness, frailty or recovery, unless someone has been advised to restrict protein because of kidney disease or another condition.

Unsupervised or excessive supplementation can be harmful. High doses of vitamin D or vitamin A can cause toxicity. Iron should not be taken without confirmed deficiency unless advised by a healthcare professional. Some supplements interact with medicines. And evidence reviews have found that some high-dose antioxidant supplements, particularly beta-carotene and vitamin E, may increase mortality risk in some populations.

A sensible approach begins with food, not pills. That means looking at appetite, weight change, chewing or swallowing problems, dietary variety, medical conditions, medication use and whether someone has enough support to shop, cook and eat well. Blood tests may be needed, particularly for vitamin B12, folate, iron and vitamin D.

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Older adults who follow healthy diets accumulate chronic diseases more slowly – new study

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Evidence does not support universal supplementation for all older adults. But targeted use of vitamin D, vitamin B12, folate and, in some cases, a multivitamin or protein supplement can help when deficiencies or low intake are present.

Supplements can have a role in healthy ageing, but they are not a shortcut. The foundations are still balanced nutrition, strength exercise, adequate sleep, social connection and access to good food. The best supplement is the one that answers a real need, not the one with the loudest promise on the label.

Miguel G. Borda receives funding from Nasjonalforeningen for folkehelsen (Norwegian Health Association)

George E. Barreto receives funding from Research Ireland

– ref. Why supplements aren’t a shortcut to healthy ageing – https://theconversation.com/why-supplements-arent-a-shortcut-to-healthy-ageing-277291

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

As Xi Jinping prepares to host Donald Trump for a delayed summit in Beijing on May 14-15, a lot has changed since the US president’s last visit to China in November 2017. Trump’s first trade war with China began in earnest the following year, ushering in a new era of trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump will travel to Beijing in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling in February that struck down his “Liberation Day” tariffs. The Trump administration responded by imposing a 10% universal tariff on all goods coming into the US, but it’s time limited to 150 days under US law and will expire on July 24. Since the ruling, both China and the US have also launched investigations into each other’s trade practices.

Before the Supreme Court ruling, the effective tariff rate on Chinese goods into the US was 47%. Now, researchers at Yale put the effective tariff rate at between 19-24%. The range reflects different scenarios for what might happen after July, and factors in tariffs on other goods, such as steel, aluminium and copper, not covered by the ruling.

And yet, amid all the tit-for-tat on tariffs, China reported a record trade surplus in 2025 of US$1.2 trillion. How did it manage it?

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to economist Jiao Wang at the University of Sussex, about how decisions China took over the past two decades, meant it was able to protect itself from the worst of Trump’s trade wars.

Wang explains that while the direct trade between the US and China fell sharply in 2025, “it was more than compensated by the increase in trade to other part of the world. We already observed this great reallocation in the first trade war, and then in the second trade war, the conclusion is it becomes even more prominent.”

She traces the history of this great reallocation to understand what moves China made to decouple its economy from the west, and the strategy its now pursuing on global trade.

Listen to the interview with Jiao Wang on The Conversation Weekly podcast.

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This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from APArchive, WSBTTV News, Max Media Asia, Al Jazeera English, CNA, BBCNews, CNBC Television, DW News, France 24 English, CNN, Global News and NBC News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Jiao Wang 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. China’s ability to weather Trump’s trade war was two decades in the making – https://theconversation.com/chinas-ability-to-weather-trumps-trade-war-was-two-decades-in-the-making-282199

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Beverley O’Hara, Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition, Leeds Beckett University

For many people interested in health and wellbeing, the idea of ultra-processed food, or UPF, has become more than a technical term in nutrition research. In public debate, it often serves as shorthand for wider concerns about modern, industrially produced food.

Those concerns are not baseless. A large body of research has found associations between high UPF intake and poorer health outcomes. But the evidence is not always easy to interpret. Many studies rely on self-reported diets and struggle to separate the effects of processing from nutrient quality, eating patterns and wider social factors. The evidence points to real problems, but also to the need for more careful use of the term.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture began a formal process in 2025 to develop a uniform federal definition of ultra-processed foods, arguing that no single authoritative definition exists for the US food supply. The central question is: what exactly makes a food “ultra-processed”? Is it the ingredients it contains, the way it is made, the extent to which it has been altered from its original structure, or some combination of these?

This helps explain why the topic has become so divisive. Within nutrition research, there is no consensus on how far the UPF category should guide policy or individual dietary advice. Some researchers see it as an important way of identifying harmful patterns in modern diets. Others argue that it is too broad to serve as a sound basis for dietary guidance on its own.

That distinction is important. A category can be useful for tracking population diets while still being too blunt to tell an individual whether a particular product belongs in their shopping basket, especially when it tries to capture ingredients, industrial processes, product formulation, marketing, palatability and dietary patterns within one category.

There are also valid concerns about the role of large food companies in shaping diets and public health. Many highly processed products are designed to be cheap, convenient, heavily marketed and easy to overconsume. But the political and commercial problems of the food system are not identical to the scientific problem of classification.

A better approach would distinguish more clearly between products that are ultra-processed and nutritionally poor, products that are ultra-processed but may still have a useful place in the diet, and minimally processed foods that people are encouraged to eat more of. This might include some fortified foods, high-fibre breads or medical nutrition products, depending on their composition and use.

One way to balance warnings about UPFs is to give more attention to positive dietary guidance. In the EAT-UP framework, I propose the term “unrefined plant foods”, or UPs, to describe plant foods whose natural structure remains largely intact. These include whole fruits, vegetables, beans and grains that have not been heavily broken down or reconstituted.

This is not a replacement for the UPF framework. Its main value may be communicative: it balances advice about what to limit with clearer guidance on what to add. Many dietary guidelines already encourage people to eat more fruit, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Naming these foods more precisely may help make that advice clearer.

Like any food category, unrefined plant foods would need careful definition. The phrase “largely intact” is not self-explanatory, and different researchers, policymakers and consumers may draw the boundary differently. But the value of the concept lies in shifting part of the public health message from avoidance to addition.

Advice based only on avoidance can easily become confusing or punitive. Evidence that higher intakes of whole plant foods are linked with better health also has limitations, including food diaries, self-reporting, cohort studies and the difficulty of separating diet from wider lifestyle factors. Even so, fruit, vegetables, legumes and whole grains are consistently supported across dietary guidelines, public health research and long-standing evidence on diet quality.

These debates also shape how people understand food in everyday life. Dietary advice should avoid creating unnecessary fear around food. When processing is treated as inherently dangerous, the result can be confusion, guilt and anxiety rather than healthier behaviour. In some cases, highly moralised food messaging may even encourage disordered eating patterns, including an unhealthy fixation on foods perceived to be perfectly pure or healthy.

This is also why language needs care. Phrases such as “real food” are often used to mean foods that are minimally processed or close to their original form. But the phrase can also carry assumptions about what counts as proper eating and who is getting it wrong. Public health messages need to take account of differences in income, time, access and daily constraints.

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Read more:
Why stigmatising ultra-processed food could be doing more harm than good

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Improving diets requires more than labelling a broad category of foods as harmful. It requires careful consideration of evidence, behaviour and context. The challenge is to produce advice that is scientifically sound, practical to follow and responsive to the real conditions in which people make food choices.

The UPF debate has rightly placed industrial diets and food quality at the centre of public health discussion. The next step is not to abandon the framework, but to improve it: to define categories more clearly, distinguish between different kinds of processing, and combine warnings about harmful products with practical advice about the foods people can eat more of. In practice, that means combining processing-based classifications with evidence about nutrient profile, fibre content, additives, marketing and the role a food plays in the overall diet.

Beverley O’Hara 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. Ultra-processed food: why the debate needs less fear and more clarity – https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-food-why-the-debate-needs-less-fear-and-more-clarity-278060

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rebecca Scott, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Strategy, Cardiff University

Fashion has always done more than keep us warm. It’s also a social language, quietly organising ideas of status, taste and belonging.

What made the first The Devil Wears Prada (2006) so satisfying was watching main character Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) learn, often the hard way, that clothes were never just clothes. At first she could not read what clothes signalled in the room. By the end, she understood their language.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 picks up that idea and runs with it. Here, fashion speaks clearly about who we think we are and who we would like to become. Beneath the sharp one-liners lies something more revealing: clothing as a system of meaning.

Even the soundtrack reinforces this idea. The lyrics “I came to be seen” from the song Runway by Lady Gaga and Doechii, which plays during the film’s credits, underscore how visibility operates as a form of social currency.

Anthropologist Grant McCracken argued that consumer goods carry cultural meaning that moves through society in stages. First, meanings sit in a wider cultural pool, shaped by ideas such as success, taste and aspiration. Second, they are picked up and repackaged by intermediaries such as editors, influencers and tastemakers. Third, they land with consumers, who use them to construct identity.

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The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a glossy study of change, where identity is constantly renegotiated as the characters grapple with meanings associated with power, roles and friendship. In this world, gatekeepers like Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) still decide what counts as “in” before the rest of us have even chosen our socks.

According to McCracken, cultural meaning moves from the cultural world and filters down to consumer goods where individual identity is finally established. Stanley Tucci’s Nigel remarks about Andy: “Look what TJ Maxx dragged in.” This does more than insult. It assigns her a position – misplaced, off-cycle, adjacent to luxury, marking her as uninitiated in a language she no longer speaks.

By contrast, in the archives of Christian Dior, the meaning system is made explicit by Emily (Emily Blunt): “Your bag, your scarf, your umbrella, tells the world who you are.” It suggests that in this world, even the smallest detail signals position, functioning as a micro-indicator of taste, knowledge and class alignment.

Loud signals and quiet codes

The sequel contrasts different strategies of self-presentation. Emily treats fashion as spectacle. Her outfits do not enter a room, but announce themselves to the room. Her black leather harness dress at a funeral is not a misstep, but a bold reminder that even in mourning, style can still speak with conviction.

By contrast, Nigel embodies what has come to be known as “quiet luxury”. His wardrobe is precise, restrained and almost invisible unless you know exactly what to look for. Meaning does not shout. It whispers. This reflects a broader shift in consumer culture.

People have long used possessions to communicate identity, but the codes evolve. In a world saturated with visibility, subtlety has become its own form of distinction. Knowing not to show off is, in itself, a way of showing off. The film captures this tension with a knowing wink. One character dresses to be seen while another dresses to be understood. Both are playing the same game.

At its core, the film is less about fashion than meaning. Clothing becomes a way of signalling trajectory: who is rising, who is stalling, who is quietly consolidating power. This is seen in Andy’s gradual shift from ill-fitting outsider to someone increasingly fluent in the visual language of the industry.

Consumer research suggests that we do not buy things just for what they are, but for what they mean. Clothing bridges the gap between who we are and who we hope to be. Getting dressed, in this sense, is a daily act of storytelling, sometimes optimistic, sometimes aspirational, occasionally delusional. The Devil Wears Prada 2 explains this through humour and self-awareness. The audience laughs at the excess, but not entirely from a distance.

From culture to closet and back again

By the time these meanings reach everyday life, the final step in McCracken’s model, they are no longer controlled by Miranda or the fashion elite. They are taken up, adapted and sometimes resisted by individual consumers. This is where meaning becomes personal.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 may be a comedy, but it makes a sharper point. Getting dressed is never just about clothes. It is about navigating a world of symbols and deciding how, or whether, to play along. The real question is not whether fashion matters, but whether we understand the meanings stitched into what we wear, and the quiet ways they shape our sense of who we are and who we might yet become.

In a more tender scene, Andy’s love interest takes in her blue sequin dress and says: “It’s a lot. But I like a lot.” The moment points to a broader insight: when fashion aligns with a sense of self, it shifts from excess to expression, becoming a quiet way of being seen not for what we display, but for who we are.

Rebecca Scott 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. How The Devil Wears Prada 2 speaks the hidden language of fashion – https://theconversation.com/how-the-devil-wears-prada-2-speaks-the-hidden-language-of-fashion-281790

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alan Cummings, Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies, SOAS, University of London

Kokuho is a colourful, lengthy epic, spanning five decades and running almost three hours, set in the world of kabuki – Japan’s most popular traditional performing art. It has been a huge hit in Japan, becoming the country’s highest ever grossing live-action film.

The film’s title translates as “national treasure”. But it does not refer to tangible treasures like Buddhist temples, tea bowls, or imperial calligraphy. Instead, it refers to ningen kokuho – “living national treasures”. It’s the popular term for people recognised by the Japanese state as embodying a traditional art or craft.

Honourees run the gamut from potters, dyers and swordsmiths to lacquerware makers. But it is the kokuho from the traditional theatrical genres, especially kabuki, that most strongly capture the public’s imagination. Only a handful of kabuki actors in each generation ever make it to this rarefied height of official recognition. In Japan today there are just six of them.

The film traces the career of Kikuo (played as an adult by Ryo Yoshizawa), the orphaned son of a Hiroshima gangster. We follow Kikuo as he first enters the world of kabuki in the late 1940s, trains as an onnagata (a male actor who specialises in female roles) under the uncompromising guidance of a famous Osaka actor Hanjiro (Ken Watanabe), wins then loses the friendship of Hanjiro’s son Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama) and finally ascends to the rank of kokuho in the 1980s.

Professional kabuki is a tight-knit and all-male world of family connections. Actors pass down their hereditary stage names to their sons (the professional world has been male-only since the early 1600s) and successful outsiders are vanishingly rare. So Kokuho’s central question is far more culturally specific than other A Star is Born-esque narratives. Namely, what makes a star kabuki actor – hard work or blood?

Where the film truly shines is in its understanding and rich evocation of kabuki’s offstage and backstage life.

Training is strict and fearsome. This is captured convincingly in scenes of the teenage Kikuo and Shunsuke stripped to the waist, sweating buckets in the summer practice room. They repeat sequences of dance movements over and over until they can internalise them to Hanjiro’s satisfaction.

Real kabuki actors are trained by their families and appear on stage regularly from five or six years of age, slowly moving up through minor to starring roles. They truly grow up on stage, under the initially tolerant then later increasingly expectant eyes of audiences who grow old with them.

Kabuki has survived as a commercial theatre for over 400 years and its impresarios remain in constant need of handsome actors whose image can be fanned and manipulated to attract a new generation of fans into the theatres. Kabuki, therefore, frequently forces promising young actors into roles and new hereditary names before they are quite ready for them. It’s a reality that Kokuho neatly captures. Shunsuke finds Kikuo backstage, about to play a starring female dramatic role for the first time and trembling with anxiety, unable to do his own makeup. Kikuo begs Shunsuke for a cup of his blood to drink, terrified that his years of hard training may not be enough.

The film does an excellent job of convincing us that Kikuo has indeed become a great actor. The onstage scenes, shot in a variety of lights by Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani (Blue is the Warmest Colour, Timbuktu) look ravishing, drawing upon the vibrant colours of costume and set that are kabuki’s trademarks.

The plays chosen for these scenes have been carefully selected from the historical repertoire. With one notable exception of a love suicide play, they are spectacular dance pieces that permit an emphasis on kabuki’s vivid visual and aural palettes, and the stunning onstage hikinuki costume changes where the threads on an outer kimono are cut and it is suddenly whipped away by stage assistants to reveal a contrasting garment beneath. These choices also allow for lots of rapid cuts that go a long way to disguise the fact that Yoshizawa had only 18 months of kabuki training, instead of 25 years, before filming began.

The film’s attempt to answer its central question of blood or art is nuanced. Interestingly, for a film about an onnagata, it steers coyly clear of any problematic questions about sexual or gender identity. The only hint of that comes in the brief but memorably scenes with the older onnagata, Mangiku (played by butoh dancer Min Tanaka).

Tanaka brings an acidic taste of threat to his role, speaking directly to the “fearsome, negative narcissism” that Yukio Mishima saw in Utaemon Nakamura VI, the greatest onnagata of the mid 20th century. What we are given instead is the deeply ambivalent sense of self that Yoshizawa brings to Kikuo, untouched by lost loves, abandoned children, ailing friends and even the bloody death of his yakuza father.

The conclusion we are guided to is that his traumatised blankness is the true source of his art. This suggestion reaches its culmination in the film’s final dance sequence, where the spirit of a heron, embodied first as a young then later an older woman, whirls alone at night amid thickly falling theatrical paper snow. For Kikuo, the creation of identity through a concentrated evocation of beauty in performance is abundantly clear. Quite what message Japan’s film-goers have taken from it is much harder to parse.

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, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Alan Cummings 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. Kokuho is Japan’s highest ever grossing live-action film – a lavish kabuki epic about talent, lineage and sacrifice – https://theconversation.com/kokuho-is-japans-highest-ever-grossing-live-action-film-a-lavish-kabuki-epic-about-talent-lineage-and-sacrifice-282285

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rhys Dafydd Jones, Senior Lecturer, Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University

Immigration is receiving much attention in the run-up to the Welsh election. This might seem odd at first because the Welsh parliament (the Senedd) has no power over immigration. It can’t make laws on who enters the country, how asylum claims are handled or who gets citizenship. All of that is controlled by the UK government in Westminster.

But since 2019, Wales has considered itself a “nation of sanctuary”. This means the Welsh government can support refugees and asylum seekers through the services it controls, such as health, education and housing.

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Read more:
Voters in Wales face Senedd election amid confusion over who holds power over what

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A YouGov poll from April 2026 shows that immigration is a priority for 25% of Welsh voters, tied with the economy. Health (46%) and the cost of living (51%) are ranked higher. Among intended Reform UK voters, immigration is ranked as the highest priority (55%).

In December 2025, there were 3,353 asylum seekers in Wales, most of whom were in Cardiff. Of the £64 million spent on the nation of sanctuary since 2019, 91% has been to support refugees from Ukraine.

Data from the Welsh Election Study shows that 53.8% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “people from different backgrounds get on together” in their local area, compared with 14.4% who disagree or strongly disagree. Only a small minority feel that there are tensions in their areas.

Yet, Wales has not been exempt from the wider tensions around immigration in the UK. There have been several protests against housing asylum seekers in Penally in 2020, Llanelli in 2023 and Mold in 2025.

It is, therefore, unsurprising that some political parties have highlighted this as an electoral issue. Reform UK and the Welsh Conservatives have pledged in their manifestos to scrap the nation of sanctuary policies.

The nation of sanctuary policy is a vision that connects the Welsh government with global issues. Academics have described it as an example of “moral” or “progressive” nationalism.

It was introduced largely in response to the UK government’s “hostile environment” approach on immigration. The hostile environment was a series of policies put in place by Theresa May during her time as home secretary to make life harder for people who overstayed their visa to continue working and accessing public services, such as the NHS. For example, it required employers, landlords and service workers to check immigration status.

Alongside putting clear water between Cardiff and Whitehall, the nation of sanctuary also took inspiration from Holyrood’s New Scots strategy in creating a more welcoming environment for immigrants in Scotland.

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Read more:
How immigration is playing a role in the Scottish election, even though policy is set in Westminster

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The UK government is responsible for who is granted asylum and the housing of asylum seekers. The Welsh government can – and does – make policy in devolved fields such as health and education, for all residents in Wales, including people seeking sanctuary.

The nation of sanctuary built on existing Welsh policies. For example, giving rejected asylum seekers access to specialised medical care, and creating routes for refugees to work as doctors and dentists in the UK.

However, Wales is not exempt from UK-wide immigration policies. Welsh employers and landlords must continue to verify their employees’ and tenants’ immigration status, and Cardiff airport can be used for deportation flights. Nor does it mean that people seeking sanctuary are diverted to Wales from elsewhere in the UK. In this sense, Wales is less of a sanctuary than many north American cities, which can pass ordinances prohibiting deportations or inquiries about immigration status.

Nation without sanctuary

What could happen should the next Welsh government decide to revoke its nation of sanctuary vision?

Election polls have constantly shown Plaid Cymru and Reform UK in the lead. Plaid Cymru have committed to protecting the nation of sanctuary, and called for the devolution of some immigration powers to Wales. Reform UK has committed to scrapping it, and changing planning regulations to limit hotels being used to house asylum seekers. However, given Wales’ new electoral system, any party would probably need support from another to govern.

Should a future Welsh government decide to abandon the nation of sanctuary, this alone is unlikely to lead to significant changes in practice. The activism and networks that support it would continue, as would the housing of asylum seekers in Wales. These are matters for the UK government. Other policies around health and education that existed before the Nation of Sanctuary was declared would also continue.

Other specific issues relating to refugee status are subject to international agreements, such as the 1951 refugee convention. So, while immigration is a priority for some voters, no election result is likely to see immediate radical policy changes in Wales.

However, it could have a radical impact on the lives of migrants and others already affected by harsh immigration policies and rhetoric. It should be remembered that hate crimes increased during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign and its aftermath, leading to many people feeling that they no longer belonged in the UK.

The current heated political discourse dehumanises migrants, whose experiences of fleeing conflict and persecution are largely missing from discussions. Election coverage and campaigns would benefit from bringing calm, nuance and sensitivity into its approach on immigration.

Rhys Dafydd Jones receieves and has received funding from The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. Welsh election: why immigration is important to voters in the ‘Nation of Sanctuary’ – https://theconversation.com/welsh-election-why-immigration-is-important-to-voters-in-the-nation-of-sanctuary-281385

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Thomas Timberlake, Senior Research Associate in Pollination Ecology, University of Bristol

In Nepal’s remote mountain district of Jumla, preparation for a family meal begins long before food reaches the cooking pot. It starts in terraced fields of beans, buckwheat, apples and pumpkins that must be ploughed, planted, tended and harvested before a family can eat.

But other workers often go unseen: the pollinating insects. By moving pollen between flowers, pollinators ensure that crops bear healthy, nutritious fruit to eat and sell.

Most people don’t think about insects when they eat. But in farming systems like this one, the link is direct and stark. If pollinators decline, crop harvests decline. That can mean less food on the plate, fewer nutrients in people’s diets, and less income for the household.

In our new study, published in the journal Nature, we set out to trace that chain of connections directly: from pollinating insects to crops to human diets and livelihoods.

Working in ten smallholder farming villages in Jumla, our team recorded the diets of 776 women, men and children over a full year. We measured where key nutrients came from, and how this changed through the seasons. At the same time, we surveyed the insects visiting crops and analysed the pollen they carried, to identify which species were helping produce the foods people rely on.

The first thing that stood out was just how local these diets were. More than 80% of people’s intake of many key micronutrients – including vitamin A, folate, vitamin C, calcium and vitamin B12 – came from foods grown or raised in nearby villages. This shows just how closely people’s health is tied to their surrounding landscape.

Most people’s diets were dominated by staple cereals like rice and wheat, which do not depend on insect pollination. But pollinator-dependent crops – including fruits, vegetables and beans – punched far above their weight nutritionally and economically. These foods provided more than 60% of people’s vitamin A, folate and vitamin E intake, and up to 90% of farming income.

In places like Jumla, pollinators are not simply supporting production – they are helping keep families fed and providing crucial cash to meet basic needs. Given the high levels of poverty and malnutrition that already exist, families simply cannot afford to lose them.

When pollinators decline

Pollinator decline is no longer a distant threat. Local beekeepers in Jumla have reported sharp drops in honey production in recent years, with some hives dying out completely. They point to changing weather, fewer wildflowers due to heavy grazing, and increasing pesticide use as the problems. Wild pollinators such as bumblebees, butterflies and hoverflies are likely to be under similar pressure.

If current trends continue, farming income could fall by around 15% by 2030, with vitamin A and folate intake dropping by almost 10%. And if local pollinators disappeared entirely, families could lose nearly half of their farming income and more than 20% of their vitamin A and folate intake.

The risks to health are clear. Vitamin A deficiency can damage eyesight and weaken the immune system. Low folate intake increases the risk of serious complications in pregnancy, including birth defects in babies. In communities already facing high levels of malnutrition, pollinator decline would add yet another strain.

The situation in Jumla is not unique. Smallholder farms make up 84% of all farms worldwide and feed 2 billion people. These farms are highly exposed to environmental change and the families that depend on them already struggle with poor diets and poverty. Even when our food comes from supermarkets and long supply chains, much of it still begins with pollination by insects. The link between biodiversity and human health is still there – it is just less visible.

However, there are signs that this pollinator-nutrition link can be strengthened. In Jumla, farmers are already testing pollinator-friendly practices such as planting flowers around fields, protecting nesting habitats, reducing pesticide use and keeping native honeybees. Our results show promising signs of change. When pollinator numbers increase, so does the production of nutritious food to eat and sell.

The lesson from Jumla is clear. Biodiversity loss is not just an environmental issue, it is a growing threat to human health. At a time when governments like the UK are warning that biodiversity loss poses serious risks to national security, the story in Jumla helps explain what that means in practical, human terms. But it also shows that by supporting the ecosystems around us, we can help secure healthier diets and more resilient livelihoods for the future.

This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) coordinated through the Belmont Forum

Jane Memmott receives funding from NERC, BBSRC & The Belmont Forum.

– ref. Protecting pollinating insects could improve diets and livelihoods worldwide – new study – https://theconversation.com/protecting-pollinating-insects-could-improve-diets-and-livelihoods-worldwide-new-study-280390