Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefano Kaburu, Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology, Nottingham Trent University

Drinking more than you intended may be something that many humans do, but now research is showing that a taste for alcohol is surprisingly common among animals. In fact a new study has found that chimpanzees may ingest the equivalent of two alcoholic drinks a day from eating fermented fruit.

In the last ten years or so, there has been growing evidence that the ingestion of alcohol might be more widespread across the animal kingdom than previously thought. Fruit flies, for example, lay their eggs in alcohol-rich fermented fruits, which offer the newly hatched larvae nutrients to feed on.

In 2015, scientists observed groups of chimpanzees in west Africa drinking large amounts of raffia palm alcoholic sap harvested by the local villagers. More recently, in April 2025, a population of chimpanzees at Guinea-Bissau were recorded feasting on ripe African breadfruits which contained high concentrations of alcohol.

The published studies mark a shift because evidence of alcohol consumption in wild animals tends to rely more on anecdotal observations. In Sweden, a moose made the news in 2011 when it was found stuck in a tree, apparently drunk from eating fermented apples.

And vervet monkeys in St Kitts, whose ancestors were brought there with enslaved people from west Africa, are often spotted stealing fruity cocktails from tourists.

The new study, led by biologist Aleksey Maro of the University of California, Berkeley, offers insights into how much alcohol is in the ripe fruits favoured by two wild chimpanzee communities living in eastern and western Africa.

Having spent almost a year studying chimpanzees in the wild myself, I have always been mesmerised by how excited they get when they spot their favourite fruits. Chimpanzees go crazy for fruit. They rush over to grab them and stuff their mouths full, all while making joyful noises of appreciation.

In their research, Maro and his colleagues collected more than 200 fruits from about 20 of chimpanzees’ favourite trees. They found large variation in alcohol content with some having zero or nearly zero alcohol content. But some of the fruits most enjoyed by the chimps, such as figs and plums, tend to have a very high alcohol content.

This suggests that chimps may intentionally select fruits for their high levels of alcohol. Because of the large quantity of fruits chimpanzees can eat every day (up to 4kg), the authors worked out that both female and male chimps consume roughly 14 grams of alcohol per day. This corresponds to a standard US alcoholic drink (UK standard drinks contain eight grams of alcohol).

But it’s not fair to directly compare these numbers between humans and chimps since the effect of alcohol depends on how big an individual is. Alcohol tends to be less potent in bigger people.

With an average weight of around 40kg, chimps tend to be smaller than humans. So the amount of equivalent alcohol that chimps consume actually corresponds to two American standard drinks per day. It sounds like chimps know how to have a party.

The drunken monkey hypothesis

Twenty-five years ago, Robert Dudley, who is one of the authors of the new study, proposed the “drunken monkey hypothesis”. This suggests that alcohol consumption in humans might have an ancient history. Dudley’s idea is that ingesting alcoholic fruits might have given an evolutionary advantage to animals. The alcoholic content in fruits can, for example, indicate to animals which ones are rich in energy and sugar.

Drinking alcohol can be good for health. Fruit flies, for example, ingest alcohol to kill parasites. Even in humans, studies have shown that low levels of alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of heart disease.

Support for the drunken monkey hypothesis came from research showing that the proteins humans need to break down alcohol in their body was already present in the common ancestor we share with gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos that lived 10 million years ago.

This was a time when African forests started shrinking, and apes started coming down from the tree, adopting a more land-based lifestyle. It’s possible that these apes gained an advantage in eating ripe fermented fruits that had fallen onto the ground, avoiding the competition with other fruit-eating animals who could eat unripe fruit on trees.

Researchers also think that alcohol might make them more sociable. Chimpanzees in west Africa, for example, were observed in April 2025 eating and drinking fermented fruits together.

However, according to Dudley, in addition to having the same human protein that breaks down alcohol, chimpanzees may drink alcohol in low concentrations due to the high volume of liquid and food they ingest. So their stomach may fill up before alcohol reaches intoxicating levels.

This would explain why, in the 11 months that I spent watching chimps in Tanzania, I didn’t once see them wobbling around the forest, clutching a juicy fruit while laughing uncontrollably.

Stefano Kaburu 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. Chimpanzees ingest more than the equivalent of one alcoholic drink a day – new research – https://theconversation.com/chimpanzees-ingest-more-than-the-equivalent-of-one-alcoholic-drink-a-day-new-research-265644

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Katherine Steele, Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Crop Production, Bangor University

Many Britons enjoy a curry served with a heap of fluffy white basmati rice, its delicate aroma balancing the heat of the dish. But few stop to think about the grain’s long journey. From the paddy fields of India and Pakistan, through regional markets and rice mills, then matured for a year in silos before being shipped in bulk to the UK.

It then passes through one of the country’s 16 processing sites before reaching supermarket shelves. The UK imports around 250,000 tonnes of basmati rice every year – making it one of the world’s biggest markets.

This summer, consumers got a glimpse of what could potentially happen when that supply chain goes wrong. Four people were arrested in late July after investigators found different types of rice in bags being passed off as a well-known basmati brand.

The National Food Crime Unit uncovered the alleged fraud when tests showed the wrong type of rice inside premium-brand packets. The operation began in Leicester, where police arrested a man suspected of repackaging ordinary rice into counterfeit basmati bags. Three more arrests followed in London. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) says the investigation is ongoing and no charges have been brought.

Basmati is a prestigious grain, prized for its nutty flavour and popcorn-like aroma. Alongside jasmine from Thailand and Italy’s arborio, it sits at the top of the speciality rice market. When shoppers buy a packet of basmati, they expect quality. If it falls short, they may feel cheated and think twice about buying that brand again.

To prevent this, the UK operates strict rules under the basmati code of practice. The code sets out which varieties can legally be called basmati, how they may be blended and what level of non-basmati grain is tolerated.

There must not be more than 7% of another rice variety in a packet. It’s a figure reduced from 20% two decades ago, but which cannot be lowered further because of the realities of handling multiple varieties in large mills.

This code was agreed by the Rice Association and the British Retail Association, and it applies across Europe. When exporters in India and Pakistan develop new basmati varieties, samples are sent to the Rice Association in London for approval.

An important tool in enforcing these rules is DNA testing. Every grain carries a genetic fingerprint that can confirm whether it belongs to one of the approved basmati varieties.

Public analyst laboratories regularly test shipments entering the UK and EU. The FSA also runs an annual survey of basmati products bought at random from retailers.

The current DNA test for basmati authentication was developed through collaboration between my colleagues and me at Bangor University, the FSA and public analysts.

We profiled hundreds of rice varieties and continue to refine the markers used to identify basmati. Before the method was approved, our team ran blind tests of results from known spiked mixtures of grains across different laboratories to ensure reliable results.

An age-old problem with modern costs

Food fraud is nothing new. For centuries, unscrupulous traders have substituted cheaper goods or mislabelled products.

While swapping rice is less harmful than adulterating food with toxic substances, it still matters. Consumers resent being duped, brands suffer reputational damage and companies that play by the rules lose out. The stakes are high because the UK rice industry is worth close to £1 billion a year.

There are points of vulnerability every time the grains get passed from one trader to the next. It is not known whether it mainly takes place overseas. Economic pressures may be making the problem worse. As the UK experiences sluggish economic growth, opportunities for food crime may be increasing.

Counterfeiting is easier to identify using DNA testing than when known mixtures of varieties are introduced further up the food chain. It is probable that some of the less well-known brands of rice sold in the UK may contain varieties that are not listed in the basmati code of practice. These could easily slip through the DNA test because complex mixtures can be made to contain all the right molecular signatures.

Even so, food sold in the UK is among the most closely regulated in the world because of the work done by the FSA. Their National Food Crime unit leads the fight against food crime as exemplified by the recent case of the counterfeit basmati, but consumers must be vigilant because there are still fraudsters about. This can include being wary of poorly printed packaging labels, misspellings, broken seals and unusual pricing. Because if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Katherine Steele receives funding from UKRI, DEFRA and Food Standards Agency.

– ref. Why your basmati rice might not be what you think it is – https://theconversation.com/why-your-basmati-rice-might-not-be-what-you-think-it-is-264146

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick Byrne, Professor of Water Science, Liverpool John Moores University

The amount of toxic “forever chemicals” flowing into the River Mersey in north-west England has reached some of the highest levels recorded anywhere in the world.

My team’s research links much of this contamination to old landfills, waste facilities and past industrial activity. Even if these chemicals were banned tomorrow, they would continue polluting our rivers for decades, possibly centuries.

But there is a path forward. We’ve developed a new method
to track and prioritise the largest sources for clean-up, giving regulators a clearer picture of where to act first.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), more commonly known as “forever chemicals”, are a large family of human-made chemicals found in everyday products like food packaging, water-repellent clothes and fire-fighting foams. They are valued for their ability to resist very high temperatures and to repel water and oil, but these same properties make them extremely persistent.

Once released, some PFAS could take thousands of years to break down. They accumulate in the environment, build up – with different compounds accumulating at different rates – inside the bodies of wildlife and people, and have been associated with harms to health. The most studied types have been linked to cancers, hormone disruption and immune system problems.

Last year, my research team discovered that the amount of two potentially cancer-causing PFAS chemicals washing off the land and into the Mersey was among the highest in the world. In our follow-on research, we travelled upstream to try and locate where these PFAS are coming from. But with hundreds of potential PFAS sources, how do we isolate the largest ones?

The secret is measuring something called the PFAS load – the total amount of PFAS flowing through the river at a given point, rather than just the concentration in the water.

Here’s why that matters: a small stream can have high concentrations but carry only a small total amount, while a large river with lower concentrations can be transporting far more PFAS overall. If we only look at concentration, we risk missing the really heavy polluters.

By measuring PFAS loads at multiple points along the Mersey system, we could see exactly where the largest increases occurred. That told us both the location and the scale of PFAS inputs.

We detected PFAS chemicals at 97% of our sample sites, even in supposedly pristine streams draining from the Peak District national park. But the big breakthroughs came when we matched the largest PFAS load increases to specific areas.

PFBS (a type of PFAS) was coming in huge amounts from land draining old landfills in the Glaze Brook watershed near Leigh, west of Manchester. PFOA, a globally banned and cancer-causing PFAS, appeared to originate from a waste management facility on the River Roch, north of Manchester. PFOS, another banned PFAS, was entering the River Bollin, with strong evidence pointing to historic firefighting foam use at Manchester Airport.

What’s most striking to me is that all these sources are rooted in the past – old landfills, waste sites or historic industrial use. These chemicals are no longer in production, but they are still escaping into the environment, decades later.

This is where PFAS load measurements make a real difference. Instead of chasing the highest concentrations – which might lead to cleaning up small streams that contribute little overall – we can target the sites releasing the largest total amounts of PFAS into our rivers.

It’s a simple idea with major implications. In a world where environmental regulators face tight budgets and limited monitoring capacity, knowing exactly which sites are the biggest sources is vital.

The Mersey is just one example. Around the world, PFAS contamination follows a similar pattern: numerous potential sources scattered across the landscape, many of them historical. The chemicals’ extreme persistence means they will continue cycling through rivers, soils and wildlife for generations unless active steps are taken to remove or contain them.

Our latest study shows that measuring PFAS load can help solve one of the toughest challenges in managing chemical pollution: working out where to start. By identifying and prioritising the biggest sources, regulators have a realistic chance of reducing the flow of forever chemicals into our rivers – and perhaps one day, making that nickname a little less true.

Patrick Byrne receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.

– ref. How I tracked the biggest hidden sources of forever chemical pollution in UK rivers – new study – https://theconversation.com/how-i-tracked-the-biggest-hidden-sources-of-forever-chemical-pollution-in-uk-rivers-new-study-261967

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University

Donald Trump’s first state visit to the UK, in June 2019, was an attempt by the British government to try to forestall the threat of Trumpism, a set of ideas and style of leadership that were not, in the end, embedded. The unprecedented second state visit of September 2025 has been an attempt to accommodate the second Trump administration – one already much more purposeful and consequential.

In one respect, the two visits are complementary: they feature an imperturbable president entreated by beleaguered prime ministers. Theresa May was humiliated publicly by Trump, and was gone the following month. Starmer has almost nothing in common with Trump except a quite unexpected, and largely inexplicable, personal chemistry.

Briefings on Air Force One, as it headed to the UK, would have been brief – the president is easily bored – and aimed at preparing him for what awaited: thousands of people in uniform choreographed to the inch to impress a mere dozen or so Americans, and one in particular.

There were issues of substance, some of which are very substantial indeed. A civil “nuclear partnership” almost complementing the 70-year-old military nuclear partnership. As they already do in the older partnership, the two sides will now recognise the other’s standards and safety assessments in civil nuclear projects. More was made of the vaunted “tech prosperity deal”.

These agreements are meaningful and had Lord Mandelson at their core, before his sacking. He would be justified in viewing – as he doubtless does – that the state visit was in part a posthumous monument to his ambassadorship.

State visits are a key part of national diplomacy, and particularly when royalty may be deployed. As ever, Trump tests norms to breaking point. In a constitutional monarchy such as Britain’s, the monarch acts on the advice of the government. But Trump is potentially so damaging by association for the government (and Starmer in particular) that the monarch was more central than ever.

Trump and his supporters will not admit publicly that so dominating a political actor makes people bend to their will. Faced with the most imperious president in the history of the imperial presidency, they seek to accommodate, pre-empt, cajole, appease. One exception is a king.

This state visit – and the likely return trip of Charles to the US for the 250th anniversary of US independence next year – is a card the British were suitably shameless in playing. There is a clear rapport between the two; indeed, a rapport that would have been unlikely – given their different personalities – with Elizabeth II. Charles III has proven to be an essential, rather than merely complementary, element of the special relationship.

For once, there’s a precedent for so singular a president. In November 2003 – after a million marched in London in opposition to the US-UK invasion of of Iraq – President George W. Bush scarcely left a barricaded Buckingham Palace.

Where a state visit ordinarily occasions – demands – an open-topped carriage ride along the Mall with the monarch, it is a unique irony that the leader of Britain’s closest ally had to travel by drone-shielded helicopter. No members of the public – who effectively paid for the visit – saw the president.

This time, Windsor suited much more than Buckingham Palace as the venue because, as one might hope from a castle, it is secure and can repel the unwanted.

Wednesday’s procession professing “Trump not welcome” was a relatively modest affair. The Stop Trump Coalition – an umbrella association of over 60 organisations including CND, Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Free London, Keep our NHS Public, and the National Education Union – may need to reconsider its founding imperative.

That the demonstration was significantly smaller than the one that greeted Trump in 2019 – notwithstanding the even more fevered and febrile public square – is testament to a sense of resignation occasioned by this repeat of history.

Opposites attract

Inasmuch as it’s possible with Trump, nothing was left to chance, apart from the press conference, where disagreement was minimal, though unusually clearly stated – a sign of confidence. Starmer and Trump were clearly reading from different hymn sheets on recognising Palestine and net zero. Trump’s suggestion that the UK follow his lead by sending the military out to deal with illegal immigration is more a disagreement of degree.

They were, however, news lines which were catnip to Starmer’s critics on the right, and in the weeks to come will receive repeated airings. As expected, the Mandelson/Jeffrey Epstein affair had receded in the press – if not the public mind. That Trump denied knowing Mandelson, despite their private meeting the week before, said much more about the president than it did the former ambassador.

Without any public presence whatsoever, the ceremonies and parades were for one person only. The risk of looking slightly desperate, however, proved one worth taking. US media coverage was minimal, meaning wider exposure was limited, and the president was clearly impressed.

The visit also demonstrated, more than ever, the value of royal diplomacy: that it can lubricate, augment, constitute a historical-cultural thread that impresses those a UK government may wish to impress. The extent to which that translates into material benefits is harder to test.

The state visit of President Trump to the UK mattered to both, but it mattered much more to one. Contrary to expectations, opposites so far have attracted. The special relationship has survived and even prospered in the face of uncertainty.

Its smooth passing may provide a locus for a natural – rather than yet another staged – reset. May’s fluffing of the 2017 general election was enough in Trump’s eyes, to condemn her, but so far Trump’s affection for Starmer has withstood the growing talk of the defenestration of a prime minister with a 22% approval rating. There remain three years to see how long that persists.

Martin Farr 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. Trump, Charles and Starmer: a successful state visit steadies an uncertain premiership – https://theconversation.com/trump-charles-and-starmer-a-successful-state-visit-steadies-an-uncertain-premiership-265597

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University

Imagine a world where dangerous conditions in unborn babies can be treated with diamonds smaller than a virus, where gold can find and destroy cancer cells with laser-like precision, and where platinum can change the genetic code of tumours. This isn’t science fiction – it’s happening in modern medicine.

For example, scientists are developing a way to treat a rare but often fatal condition in babies called congenital diaphragmatic hernia using nanodiamonds. At just five nanometres wide – about 10,000 times narrower than a human hair – the diamonds can slip through cell walls to deliver hormones to help babies’ lungs grow while they are still in the womb – giving them a better chance at survival.

So far, the treatment has only been tested on lab-grown mini-lungs.

Nanodiamonds are just the latest example of how gemstones, precious metals and rare elements are being harnessed to save lives. They are a potential answer to the problem of finding materials that the body can handle safely – ones that don’t cause immune reactions or toxicity, or break down in the body.

Gold

Gold has been used in medicine for centuries. Archaeologists have found evidence of gold treatments dating back to AD300. Today, gold is still used in surprising ways.

You might even encounter gold at your doctor’s office without realising it. Rapid tests for COVID, flu, malaria and HIV rely on tiny amounts of gold to produce the lines that show test results.

Gold nanoparticles can also help detect cancer early, when treatments work best. They can even act as tiny heat weapons for tumours. Exposed to near-infrared light, they heat up and destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

Gold is still used in dentistry, though less often as patients prefer tooth-coloured fillings. And, until a few years ago, gold-based drugs were prescribed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, though newer drugs with fewer side-effects have replaced them.

Gold in its pure form is inert in the body, meaning it doesn’t interfere with bodily processes. In fact, the average human body contains about 0.2mg of gold, mainly found in the liver, blood, brain and joints. It enters the body through the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Platinum

Platinum, which is 20 times rarer than gold, is key in cancer drugs like carboplatin, cisplatin and oxaliplatin.

These drugs enter cancer cells, and the platinum molecule attaches to the cancer cells’ DNA, stopping the cells from multiplying. In effect, the drugs rewrite the tumour’s genetic instructions. They work against cancers of the blood, breast, head and neck, stomach, testicles, ovaries and more.

The downside is that platinum can’t always tell cancer cells from healthy ones, which can cause serious side-effects. Still, for many patients, the benefits outweigh the risks.

It isn’t just cancer cells that platinum is killing; it is being used in alloys as an antimicrobial coating for prosthetics that go into the body, such as knees and hips, where it has been shown to kill germs such as Staphylococcus and E coli.

Platinum also helps the heart. The electrodes in implantable cardioverter defibrillators – devices that shock the heart back into rhythm if it falters – use platinum-iridium alloys to deliver lifesaving pulses.

Rare metals

Other rare elements are transforming medicine, too. Gadolinium is used in over a third of all MRI scans. As a contrast agent, it highlights inflammation, cancers, blood vessels and certain organs, making them stand out more clearly against surrounding tissue.

A cutting-edge approach called “theranostics” combines therapy and diagnostics. It uses the same target to both find and treat diseases, often cancer. For example, thyroid cancer can be located with technetium-99 and treated with radioactive iodine. Other metals like scandium and yttrium are being tested to detect and destroy cancer using different versions of the same element.

The future treasure hunt

As medicine becomes more precise and personalised, the demand for these rare materials will grow. This raises questions about mining, sustainability and how far we’ll go to get elements that save lives.

From ancient gold remedies to tomorrow’s designer elements, some of Earth’s rarest treasures are most valuable not in jewellery or investment, but in healing people.

Next time you see a diamond ring or gold necklace, remember: similar materials might be quietly working inside someone’s body, fighting cancer, imaging organs or saving an unborn child’s life. In medicine, real value isn’t measured in carats or cash, but in lives saved and improved.

Adam Taylor 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 diamonds, gold and platinum became medical gamechangers – https://theconversation.com/how-diamonds-gold-and-platinum-became-medical-gamechangers-264075

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Toby Doyle, Research Associate, Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter

On a North Sea oil rig several years ago, an engineer noticed a strange phenomenon. A cloud of insects would descend from the sky and land on the upper reaches of the platform.

There were thousands of them, carpeting the superstructure and barely moving. They would sit there for a few hours, then suddenly they would all rise up into the sky and fly off again.

The engineer, whose name was Craig Hannah, was also a keen naturalist and photographer. He saw the same thing happening repeatedly and wondered if it would be of interest to insect researchers. This led him to the University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, to which we are both affiliated.

Craig diligently collected small specimen-tubes of flies at the rig, which is in the UK Britannia oil field, and they started arriving regularly on our desks. We’ve spent the past few years studying them, and the results have now been published for the first time.

The insect cloud mostly consisted of hoverflies. Hoverflies are a stripey little class of winged insects that sometimes get mistaken for wasps or hornets. They play an unsung role as nature’s pest controllers, gobbling up aphids on plants, and also have another important claim to fame: they are the second most important pollinators after bees.

Unlike bees, which are territorial creatures that generally stay in their patch, hoverflies can move over great distances. If you’re wondering why they don’t become the king pollinators as a result, it’s to do with their larvae.

Bee larvae depend on nectar and pollen, so when bees land on flowers, they are collecting for the hive. Infant hoverflies, on the other hand, eat aphids, leaving adult hoverflies to gorge on all the pollen and nectar themselves.

Long insect journeys

It has been shown before that insects can carry pollen for many miles. Painted Lady butterflies, for instance, have been shown to travel from west Africa all the way to French Guiana in South America.

The evidence about hoverflies has been more limited. There was a 2019 paper from our centre that used radar to show billions of them carrying pollen across the English Channel. But for the first time, our paper shows this happening over much greater lengths.

We focused on the marmalade hoverfly, so-called because of its distinctive orange and black stripes, which made up a large proportion of the flies landing on the rig. There were also a lot of other hoverflies, particularly the common hoverfly, as well as some blowflies and root-maggot flies. (It’s not unusual for different insect species to move together in this way; we’ve previously observed it in mountain passes in the Pyrenees, for instance).

From analysing the pollen on the bodies of the marmalade hoverflies, we showed that they were carrying it from as far as 500km away. This was only part of a much bigger journey, however.

Just like birds, some species of hoverfly migrate with the seasons. They move to southern Spain in the early autumn and then as far north as Norway in spring (the northern leg is less well understood, and seems to take place over several generations, since each fly only actually lives for a few weeks).

This migration is an incredible feat of nature: hoverflies don’t go all the way to sub-Saharan Africa in the way that, say, swallows would, but they move much more slowly so there’s perhaps an even greater effort involved overall.

We know from previous research that many insects will make these trips by burning carbohydrates and stores of body fat. Thankfully their pollen luggage is at least light, so it’s not making the journey much more arduous. That said, the flies seem exhausted when they land on the oil platforms. Craig was able to coax them into specimen tubes with a little nudge.

The pollen count

The flies’ pollen came from a much wider range of plants than might have been expected – more than 100 species in all – which demonstrates why these insects are such good pollinators. The most common types on their bodies were common nettle, black elder and meadowsweet, all of which are ubiquitous from one end of Europe to the other.

One thing that isn’t yet clear is whether by the time it has been carried long distances, this pollen is viable for pollination (it may have been degraded by UV light for instance). There weren’t ideal conditions for preserving the insects on the oil rig, meaning that the pollen was always dead by the time it reached us.

We’re aiming to remedy that in future either by finding a better way to store the flies or by collecting them ourselves on another site. We also have a PhD student looking at the physiology of hoverflies, to get a better understanding of how they are able to migrate such long distances.

Meanwhile, Craig is still sending us regular samples, and now even has a friend providing a similar service from a neighbouring rig. This is enabling us to study all the species of hoverflies that land on the rig to see if they have the same pollen preferences as their marmalade cousins. It’s a great example of how fruitful a collaboration can be between researchers and members of the public. If anyone else is encountering bugs behaving unusually, we’d love to hear from you.

Toby Doyle is affiliated with The University of Exeter.

Eva Jimenez-Guri is affiliated with The University of Exeter.

– ref. Thousands of flies keep landing on North Sea oil rigs then taking off a few hours later – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-flies-keep-landing-on-north-sea-oil-rigs-then-taking-off-a-few-hours-later-heres-why-265622

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Byrom, Associate Dean, School of Management, University of Liverpool

Across England, flags are visible like never before. They are being hoisted on lamp-posts. Hastily painted representations of the St George’s flag, typically little more than a couple of red lines painted on an available white background, are popping up on mini-roundabouts and other surfaces.

For some, this impromptu flagging of England’s streets is a celebration of patriotism. For others, it’s a far-right, borderline-racist provocation. In 2012, a survey by the thinktank British Future found that around a quarter of the English consider their flag to be racist, presumably as a result of its appropriation by rightwing groups.

To be sure, debates about what flags mean have been around for years. The association of the English flag with a particular type of politics and thinking has certainly generated heat in the past.

One notable example occurred during 2014’s Rochester and Strood by-election, when Labour MP Emily Thornberry tweeted a photo of a house with St George’s flags and a white van, captioning it “Image from Rochester”. The post was widely criticised as Thornberry supposedly being snobbish towards precisely the type of voter Labour was seen to have lost touch with. She was forced to resign from the shadow cabinet.

But it’s not only in England where we see debates over flags and their political meanings. In the US, the Confederate flag is viewed by some as a racist symbol connected with slavery and the oppression of black Americans, while for others it remains a source of pride in the historical defiance of the southern states.

The territorial marking of communities through the flying of flags, or the painting of constituent colours on kerbs, has long been recognised as a visual manifestation of political divisions in Northern Ireland. And in Scotland, the Saltire – which, after the 2014 referendum, had come to be associated by many with the independence movement – has assumed new meanings as the country’s flag has proliferated in urban settings, mirroring events south of the border.

In a 2019 paper focusing on the social and spatial dimensions of flags and flag performances, my co-authors and I showed that we need to recognise that flags are complex signs open to multiple interpretations and meanings. In turn, these interpretations are affected by how, why and where a flag is being displayed. It also matters who or what organisation or movement is displaying the flag.

Of equal importance is the intended audience. Different people will interpret the same flag in various ways, according to their socio-political beliefs and perspectives. Any such interpretation can be influenced not only by the facts people have about a particular display but also by their assumptions, correct or otherwise.

There may be more than one interpretation of how a flag relates to the space around it – characterised by what is known as semiotic “slippage”.

A St George’s flag flying on an Anglican church tower, for example, projects a different meaning to one flown on an English municipal building in an area with a Reform-led council. Similarly, a flag painted on the face of an England football fan at an international fixture is attached to a different kind of emotion than one held by a Britain First supporter at a protest rally.

What’s more, an inability to recognise this semiotic nuance can inflame debate and entrench societal divisions. When we assume we all see the flag in the same way, we find it harder to tolerate different perspectives. This is evident in the current flag debate.

Certainly, it is not always possible to know the exact motivations of those hoisting flags. It’s also difficult to prosecute a convincing case to police their activities.

But what is clear is that no one benefits from a national moral panic about flags, other than those who wish to sow political and social division. Instead, it might be best to let people hang their flags, whatever their motivations, and have their moment of semiotic free speech.

In any case, as with many other contemporary concerns, the issue may soon fade into the background and be left, like the flags themselves, to hang in the breeze.

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

– ref. The nuance of flags – why one symbol can have many meanings – https://theconversation.com/the-nuance-of-flags-why-one-symbol-can-have-many-meanings-265253

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Whittle, University Fellow in AI and Human Decision Making, University of Salford

The much-lauded UK-US tech deal landed to coincide with President Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK. It has been dubbed the “tech prosperity deal”, but who, exactly, is set to prosper? After all, the deal will make the UK more reliant on US tech and may hasten the embedding of US artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the UK economy.

Having said all that, it is a significant investment by a variety of US firms in the UK. Headline announcements include a £10 billion commitment from private equity firm Blackstone supporting an AI growth zone in the north-east of England; Palantir to invest up to £1.5 billion to help make the UK a defence innovation leader, a £22 billion commitment from Microsoft (with half of this for capital expenditure for AI and cloud services); and an £11 billion injection into the UK economy from chip maker Nvidia.

Further announcements include CoreWeave (a data centre company) investing £1.5 billion in UK data centre sites, software firm Salesforce investing £1.4 billion in the UK; Google’s parent company Alphabet investing £5 billion in AI; and further investment from Nvidia in UK AI startups.

A record-breaking £150 billion of investment has been announced in total. All of this is also expected to bring forward billions of pounds of investment into nuclear energy to power this tech explosion.

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Read more:
Can the UK fast-track nuclear power without cutting corners on safety?

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It’s impressive stuff – investment at the size and scale to make a difference. It is clear that the UK government sees AI as a way to bring jobs, productivity and economic growth. From the government’s perspective, AI is a panacea for the UK’s economic woes.

This deal signals confidence in the UK’s tech sector. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has predicted that the country will become an “AI superpower”, noting that the UK has the expertise and research facilities to excel. But he added that what is currently missing from the UK is the infrastructure. This deal could build that.

It could be that the puzzle pieces are slotting into place. The UK’s world-leading research and expertise, long hamstrung by the lack of infrastructure is finally getting the boost it needs. AI is boom and bust in nature, but these long-term strategic investments should outlast an AI hype cycle.

Money in people’s pockets?

However, a thriving AI tech sector does not automatically translate to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s promise to put more money in people’s pockets and spread the economic and employment benefits across the UK. Even those high up in the industry concede that capturing the upside of the AI boom is not guaranteed.

Many of the announcements are of investment that the AI firms need to make. They could invest in other countries – these firms need data centres and are building them globally – and so capturing the investment for the UK is an achievement. There is a sense that Trump’s state visit has allowed the firms to garner US political capital by promising UK investment at the same time.

The UK’s technology secretary Liz Kendall has said the deal did not include guarantees on scrapping a tax for big tech or on copyright for AI companies. But on the other hand, is this the same as guaranteeing the tax won’t be scrapped or watered down?

The Trump administration has argued that the UK’s new Online Safety Act (which obliges tech companies to protect users from harmful content) and its digital services tax erode free speech rights and unfairly target American tech giants.

And the UK’s former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, also a former executive at Facebook parent company Meta, has argued that the deal will simply make the UK more reliant on US technology. The UK, he has argued, will be “defanged” as it is not building its own AI capacity.

Indeed, these considerable investments show US companies harnessing the latent potential (and ownership) of UK artificial intelligence. For example the announcements also include Huang’s £500 million equity stake in NScale – a UK cloud computing company – which he predicts will have revenues of up to £50 billion over the next six years.

Of course those who invest and take the risk should get their returns. But if AI is seen as the technology to revitalise the UK economy, and if the prime minister’s AI Opportunities Action Plan talks of sovereign AI, should this investment not come from the UK itself?

The same could be said for much of the capital investment that has been announced. Data centres may have significant environmental costs – certainly questions are being asked about their water usage and burden on the grid.

US ownership of these facilities could leave the UK dealing with the negatives and not receiving maximum benefits from the returns. And will they create long-term employment for the regions that may suffer the impacts? The evidence is mixed. Data centres certainly create jobs in their construction (some are very large indeed and they are generally getting bigger). But once they are operational they need far fewer staff.

The US-UK tech deal may take the UK a step closer to achieving its tech ambitions. But even if it does become an AI superpower, the country will need to do more if it really wants to feel the widespread benefits.

Richard Whittle receives funding from numerous sources including Research England, UKRI and local government. It is unlikely any organisation would benefit from the content of this article.

– ref. The tech prosperity deal is huge. But will the UK reap the benefits? – https://theconversation.com/the-tech-prosperity-deal-is-huge-but-will-the-uk-reap-the-benefits-265621

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick Byrne, Professor of Water Science, Liverpool John Moores University

The amount of toxic “forever chemicals” flowing into the River Mersey in north-west England has reached some of the highest levels recorded anywhere in the world.

My team’s research links much of this contamination to old landfills, waste facilities and past industrial activity. Even if these chemicals were banned tomorrow, they would continue polluting our rivers for decades, possibly centuries.

But there is a path forward. We’ve developed a new method
to track and prioritise the largest sources for clean-up, giving regulators a clearer picture of where to act first.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), more commonly known as “forever chemicals”, are a large family of human-made chemicals found in everyday products like food packaging, water-repellent clothes and fire-fighting foams. They are valued for their ability to resist very high temperatures and to repel water and oil, but these same properties make them extremely persistent.

Once released, some PFAS could take thousands of years to break down. They accumulate in the environment, build up – with different compounds accumulating at different rates – inside the bodies of wildlife and people, and have been associated with harms to health. The most studied types have been linked to cancers, hormone disruption and immune system problems.

Last year, my research team discovered that the amount of two potentially cancer-causing PFAS chemicals washing off the land and into the Mersey was among the highest in the world. In our follow-on research, we travelled upstream to try and locate where these PFAS are coming from. But with hundreds of potential PFAS sources, how do we isolate the largest ones?

The secret is measuring something called the PFAS load – the total amount of PFAS flowing through the river at a given point, rather than just the concentration in the water.

Here’s why that matters: a small stream can have high concentrations but carry only a small total amount, while a large river with lower concentrations can be transporting far more PFAS overall. If we only look at concentration, we risk missing the really heavy polluters.

By measuring PFAS loads at multiple points along the Mersey system, we could see exactly where the largest increases occurred. That told us both the location and the scale of PFAS inputs.

We detected PFAS chemicals at 97% of our sample sites, even in supposedly pristine streams draining from the Peak District national park. But the big breakthroughs came when we matched the largest PFAS load increases to specific areas.

PFBS (a type of PFAS) was coming in huge amounts from land draining old landfills in the Glaze Brook watershed near Leigh, west of Manchester. PFOA, a globally banned and cancer-causing PFAS, appeared to originate from a waste management facility on the River Roch, north of Manchester. PFOS, another banned PFAS, was entering the River Bollin, with strong evidence pointing to historic firefighting foam use at Manchester Airport.

What’s most striking to me is that all these sources are rooted in the past – old landfills, waste sites or historic industrial use. These chemicals are no longer in production, but they are still escaping into the environment, decades later.

This is where PFAS load measurements make a real difference. Instead of chasing the highest concentrations – which might lead to cleaning up small streams that contribute little overall – we can target the sites releasing the largest total amounts of PFAS into our rivers.

It’s a simple idea with major implications. In a world where environmental regulators face tight budgets and limited monitoring capacity, knowing exactly which sites are the biggest sources is vital.

The Mersey is just one example. Around the world, PFAS contamination follows a similar pattern: numerous potential sources scattered across the landscape, many of them historical. The chemicals’ extreme persistence means they will continue cycling through rivers, soils and wildlife for generations unless active steps are taken to remove or contain them.

Our latest study shows that measuring PFAS load can help solve one of the toughest challenges in managing chemical pollution: working out where to start. By identifying and prioritising the biggest sources, regulators have a realistic chance of reducing the flow of forever chemicals into our rivers – and perhaps one day, making that nickname a little less true.

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Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

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Patrick Byrne receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.

– ref. How I tracked the biggest hidden sources of forever chemical pollution in our rivers – new study – https://theconversation.com/how-i-tracked-the-biggest-hidden-sources-of-forever-chemical-pollution-in-our-rivers-new-study-261967

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Rebellato, Professor of Contemporary Theatre in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance Creative Writing and Practice-based Research, Royal Holloway University of London

Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century play about a woman caught between a stormy past and respectable present has been reimagined for the 21st century in a new production at the Bridge Theatre, London.

This new adaptation arrives bristling with contemporary relevance. Writer and director Simon Stone has included references to Beyoncé and Just Stop Oil activism. It also features a millennial protagonist wrestling with climate anxiety.

Ellida is married to Edward, a doctor, who has two daughters, Asa and Hilda, from a first marriage that ended in their mother’s suicide. But Ellida has secrets, and they’re starting to come out. The first is a history of teenage climate activism. The second is an older man, Finn (Brendan Cowell), someone who was both guru and predator to her in her youth. When he returns, Ellida has a decision to make.

Simon Stone has a distinctive method when working on classics, transplanting the action to different places and times, and working with the actors to find contemporary equivalents to the original language, characters and story.

This play has been transplanted from Norway to England and from the 19th century to the 21st. This works well (even if the Yorkshire coast is hardly the Norwegian fjords). The family is, if anything, wealthier than in Ibsen’s original, though this gives them all a fragile sense of entitlement that makes the family’s disruption all the more potent.

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The production is set in the round, with the stage in the middle of the audience. This choice places the vivid action under intense scrutiny, but it raises a problem: where is the sea?

The sea is an insistent presence in the play, a source of danger and seduction, luring Ellida back from her settled life. Lizzie Clachan’s design offers some elegant solutions – particularly the interval transformation from white to black, suggesting watery depths beneath shiny surfaces – but the format loses a sense of the ocean, when the ocean is nowhere to be seen. This Ellida feels less like a woman haunted by the sea’s mysteries than an advocate of wild swimming.

Alicia Vikander brings a touching vulnerability to Ellida, her awkwardness cutting through this family’s banter. I might have liked to see a less contained performance; we hear about her inner strength without quite seeing it, so we never feel the pull of the sea and the force of her decision.

Andrew Lincoln is a fine Edward – charming, intelligent, confident bordering on complacent, dangerously slow to recognise the disintegration of his world. The triangle of Ellida, Edward, and Finn feels genuinely dangerous, capable of tilting this world off its axis.

The daughters, exuberantly played by Gracie Oddie-Jones and Isobel Akuwudike, embody a cracklingly funny gen Z self-righteousness and bring a sense of generational change and discontent that broadens the political landscape of the production. The archly knowing dialogue is performed with pleasing, overlapping off-handedness by the ensemble cast.

The production’s relationship with Ibsen is rich and interesting, extending beyond this single play. Ibsen brought back one of the characters from The Lady from the Sea four years later in The Master Builder, an otherwise quite separate play. Stone has clearly sensed Ibsen’s breaking of boundaries between his plays in this decision, which allowed us to glimpse an expanded Ibsen universe.

Running with this shared universe idea, in 2017, Stone created the play Ibsen House for Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, a collage of Ibsen narratives in a three-dimensional glass-sided house. He’s at it again here, nicking bits of other plays to enrich this one.

Ellida’s confrontation with Finn (the climate activist with whom she had a sexual relationship aged 15) borrows from a similar confrontation in The Master Builder (1893). In the character of her family friend Heath (Joe Alwyn), Stone combines the terminal illness of Dr Rank from A Doll’s House (1879) with the sculptural ambitions of Rubek from When We Dead Awaken (1900).

But this adaptation shies away from the alien strangeness that makes Ibsen genuinely radical. Ibsen’s plays wrestle uncompromisingly with themselves. Many of his mature plays seem transformed by the forces unleashed by their stories, such that works like A Doll’s House, An Enemy of the People (1882), Hedda Gabler (1891), or John Gabriel Borkman (1897) start as one kind of play and end as quite another.

The Lady from the Sea is the same, beginning as a bucolic family play and ending somewhere mythological and elemental. But Stone’s version, for all its contemporary references, remains a family drama. The last scene, in which everyone explains their feelings at length is the kind of neat and tidy playwriting that Ibsen worked hard to abolish.

There are choices here that echo those made when A Doll’s House first reached Britain in 1884. Then, its title was changed to Breaking a Butterfly and its protagonists, Nora and Torvald Helmer, were domesticated as Flossy and Humphrey Goddard. The original’s radical ending of Nora’s shattering departure was replaced with Humphrey rescuing his wife and burning an incriminating document. He does this while mansplaining that: “Flossy was a child yesterday: today she is a woman.”

Stone’s adaptation isn’t so egregious, but does share a bit of that impulse. The production makes Ibsen relatable, but Ibsen’s plays are always strange, always challenging audiences to confront compelling difference. By translating Ibsen’s environmental and psychological radicalism into familiar contemporary anxieties, Stone is leaving some of the challenge behind.

Perhaps we think we know Ibsen so well and he needs updating. But, as with this year’s Ghosts (Lyric Hammersmith) and My Master Builder (West End), the updating sometimes lightens and tames their dark strangeness. I worry that a generation will only ever see smart versions of Ibsen but will never get a chance to know the originals.

This is a fierce, powerful evening of theatre. But should we not sometimes, like Ellida, meet the challenge of the alien stranger from across the sea?

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

– ref. The Lady from the Sea: a fierce play that shies from the wonderful unknowability of Henrik Ibsen’s original – https://theconversation.com/the-lady-from-the-sea-a-fierce-play-that-shies-from-the-wonderful-unknowability-of-henrik-ibsens-original-265515