Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

Polling on public attitudes to climate change show a dip in the numbers who worry about it in many high-income countries, compared with three years ago. This declining public concern will be a worry to those governments looking to push forward with new environmental measures.

High-income countries bear most of the costs of cleaning up the problems associated with climate change. This is largely because they are responsible for more emissions than less-developed countries, in part due to their legacy of early industrialisation. They also have the resources that low-income countries lack.

Changing public attitudes to climate change are tracked in detail by non-partisan thinktank Pew Research Center as part of massive global project. Drawing on this Pew data, the chart below shows the percentage of people in the 2022 and 2025 surveys who considered climate change a major threat across 16 high-income countries.

Overall, 73% of respondents from these countries thought climate change was a major threat in 2022, but by 2025 this had dropped to 66%.

In some countries, the fall in those who think climate change is a major threat has been quite significant – down by 13 percentage points in Poland, 11 in the Netherlands and Italy, nine percentage points in the UK and six in Germany. In the US, the decline was only three percentage points but it started from a low base, with only 54% perceiving climate change to be a serious threat in 2022 and 51% in 2025.

Across all 16 high-income countries, those with the least number of people who saw it as a major threat in 2025 were Israel (41%) and the US (51%).

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll showed that in the UK, 53% of adults think the economy and immigration are among the three most important issues facing the country, while only 15% think this about the environment.

Perceptions of climate change as major threat in high-income countries, 2022 and 2025:

In contrast, perceptions of the threat from climate change have increased in a number of middle-income countries. For example, the public are increasingly worried in Brazil (up five percentage points between 2022 and 2025) and India (up eight points). And while only 40% of Turkish people saw it as a threat back in 2013, in the 2025 poll that number had risen to 70%.

Political influences

Another factor in these changes is current politics. According to the Pew analysis, people on the right politically have become less likely to call climate change a major threat since 2022.

In Poland, 40% of those on the right say this today, down from 63% in 2022. In the US, liberals are more than four times as likely as conservatives to say climate change is a major threat (84% compared to 20%). A quarter of Germans with a favourable view of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) say climate change is a major threat, compared with 78% of those who have an unfavourable view of that party.

Some demographics of attitudes to climate change in the Pew surveys appear in the chart below. The responses in the 16 high-income countries look at variations in age, sex and education, and perceptions of the threat from climate change.

Large percentages of the respondents in these countries see climate change as a major threat, something that was also evident in the first chart. Women (76%) are more likely to think it is a major threat than men (69%); people aged 56-65 are more likely to think it (75%) than young people between the ages of 18 and 25 (72%); and graduates (79%) are more likely to think it than non-graduates(71%). But the variations in attitudes across these groups are not large.

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Read more:
Climate disasters will send many countries into a debt spiral – but there’s a way out

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In some countries – for example, Australia, France, Turkey and the US – adults under 35 are more likely than those aged 50 and older to see climate change as a major threat. But the reverse is true in Argentina, Japan, South Korea and Sweden.

The relationships between demographics and attitudes to climate change are part of wide research which shows women and educated people are generally more concerned about the risks posed by climate change than men and less-educated people.

It is worth noting that an average of two-thirds of the respondents in the high-income countries feel some concern about climate change in 2025, so it is still a significant issue for many.

Perceptions of threat from climate change across different groups in high-income countries:

Why is this happening?

Problems such as the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine may have crowded out worries about climate change. In addition, there may be a sense among many people that climate change cannot be stopped. This is a type of issue fatigue where people start believing they can’t make a difference, and so are less likely to talk about it.

However, the picture facing delegates at the UN climate summit, Cop30, in Brazil is not all gloomy. Climate change policies have acquired a powerful ally over the last decade or so: the rapid fall in costs of generating electricity using renewables rather than fossil fuels, which is likely to provide countries with a financial motivation to move away from fossil fuels.

However, whether this, as well as shifting political narratives and global issues, will drive public attitudes to change again in the next three years is unclear.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

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Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

– ref. Worries about climate change are waning in many well-off nations – but growing in Turkey, Brazil and India – https://theconversation.com/worries-about-climate-change-are-waning-in-many-well-off-nations-but-growing-in-turkey-brazil-and-india-269160

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dipa Kamdar, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, Kingston University

In the ever-evolving world of beauty trends, few have sparked as much debate – and discomfort – as “menstrual masking”. This is the practice of applying menstrual blood to the skin, usually the face, as a form of DIY skincare.

Popularised on social media, hashtags such as #periodfacemask have amassed billions of views. In most videos, users apply menstrual blood for a few minutes before rinsing it off. There’s no clear agreement on how much blood to use or how long to leave it on. Some call the practice healing or empowering, describing it as a spiritual ritual that connects them to their bodies and ancestral femininity. But what does the science say?

Advocates of menstrual masking often argue that period blood contains stem cells, cytokines and proteins that could rejuvenate the skin. There is currently no clinical evidence to support using menstrual blood as a topical skincare treatment. However, its biological composition has shown potential in medical research.

A study found that plasma derived from menstrual fluid could significantly enhance wound healing. In laboratory tests, wounds treated with menstrual plasma showed 100% repair within 24 hours compared with 40% using regular blood plasma. This remarkable regeneration is thought to be linked to the unique proteins and bioactive molecules in menstrual fluid: the same substances that allow the uterus to rebuild itself every month.

Researchers are now exploring whether synthetic menstrual fluid could help treat chronic wounds.

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Read more:
Menstrual blood is being used to research a range of health conditions — from endometriosis to diabetes and cancer

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Stem cell research has also turned attention to menstrual blood–derived stem cells, or MenSCs. These cells grow easily and can develop into many different cell types. Studies show that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from various sources can help heal skin by boosting collagen, reducing wrinkles and releasing growth factors that repair damage caused by burns, UV exposure or wounds. Because they are versatile and appear safe, MenSCs are seen as a promising option for developing medical treatments to regenerate skin and slow photoaging: the premature aging caused by long-term sun exposure.

Not the same as a “vampire facial”

Some menstrual masking advocates liken the practice to the so-called “vampire facial”: a cosmetic procedure popularised by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. Vampire facials use platelet-rich plasma (PRP) extracted from a patient’s own blood and injected into the face.

But experts caution against comparing PRP with menstrual blood. Menstrual fluid is a complex mixture of blood, sloughed-off endometrial tissue (the uterine lining), vaginal secretions, hormones and proteins. As it passes through the vaginal canal, it can pick up bacteria and fungi, including Staphylococcus aureus, a common microbe that normally lives on the skin but can cause infections if it enters cuts or pores. There’s also a risk that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) could be transferred to the skin.

PRP, by contrast, is prepared under sterile conditions. During PRP treatment, a small amount of blood is drawn and spun in a centrifuge to separate out the platelet-rich layer, which is then injected into the skin using fine needles. Some clinicians also add filler for faster cosmetic results. The procedure can cost thousands; unlike menstrual masking, which is free and easily accessible.

“Body-based” beauty

Menstrual masking isn’t the only unconventional beauty practice involving bodily fluids. “Urine therapy,” the application of urine to the skin, has roots in Ayurvedic medicine and was once believed to detoxify the body and cure ailments. Some modern advocates even claim benefits for acne or eczema, although these claims lack scientific support.

While urine does contain urea – a compound used in some moisturisers – the urea found in urine is far less concentrated and not the same as the purified, synthetic form used in skincare products. The idea that raw urine or menstrual blood could safely replace clinical-grade cosmetic ingredients is not supported by dermatological evidence.

Menstrual masking sits at the intersection of body positivity, cultural ritual and pseudoscience. For some, it’s a celebration of the menstrual cycle and a rejection of stigma. For others, it’s an unproven and potentially risky beauty trend.

The biological richness of menstrual blood is undeniable, but its safe and effective use belongs in controlled medical research – not in DIY skincare routines. As with many viral health trends, it’s vital to distinguish between symbolism and science. Menstrual masking may feel empowering, but from a dermatological perspective, it’s a practice best left to personal belief rather than the bathroom mirror.

Dipa Kamdar 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. Would you put period blood on your face? What science says about ‘menstrual masking’ – https://theconversation.com/would-you-put-period-blood-on-your-face-what-science-says-about-menstrual-masking-266648

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jacqueline Boyd, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, Nottingham Trent University

I live with several cocker spaniels. They are smart and affectionate, but sometimes air-headed, impulsive and extremely sensitive. It’s common for friends to describe my dogs as “having ADHD” as one of my canine whirlwinds whizz past.

People are increasingly aware of neurodiversity, and diagnoses such as autism and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are becoming more common. And scientists are starting to give their attention to the idea that some of our animal cousins may also experience the world in different ways because of diversity in how their brains function. The concept is new, but this research may help deepen our bonds with our pets.

Anyone who has lived with, trained or cared for animals will be aware of how individual their differences in personality can be. But can animals really be neurodivergent? What might this mean for how we care for, train and manage them?

Neurodiversity is a variation in how people behave and how their brains function. This is the result of structural and chemical differences in the brain. But diagnosing animals with human conditions can be problematic.

Animals cannot directly tell us how they perceive the world, or answer typical diagnostic questions. We can only ever describe animal behaviour through the lens of our own understanding, for example labelling some dogs as impulsive. For those dogs, however, their outward impulsivity might be normal behaviour for their breed, in the same way that many cats are solitary.

However, research indicates that a range of species including dogs, rats, mice and non-human primates can show genetic and behavioural signs of neurodivergence. For instance, structural differences in genes known to be associated with hypersocial behaviour have been found in dogs.

Impulsive behaviour in dogs is also linked to low levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin is important for emotional stability, while dopamine helps with focus.

Imbalances and difficulty in regulating these neurotransmitters may also be associated with ADHD in people, and is often characterised by impulsivity. This also raises the interesting possibility that by breeding animals to live alongside us, we selected animals with behaviour similar to what is reported by neurodiverse people.

Modelling animal autism

Scientists have developed animal models of autism to help them understand factors linked to increased risk and to be able to explore potential therapeutic support. These models are developed from selectively bred, laboratory-housed animals and might not fully represent typical population diversity. However, they are still valuable in helping us understand the biological basis of neurodiversity.

For example, some beagle dogs have a mutation in a gene called Shank3, which is linked with autism in humans and often characterised by difficulties in social interactions. Beagles with the Shank3 mutation also exhibit low desire to interact with people. It turns out that they have reduced cell to cell signalling in regions of the brain linked with attention.

They also demonstrate less of what is known as neural coupling with people. Neural coupling is where the brain activity of two or more individuals aligns when interacting. It typically occurs when people are storytelling or teaching, but a 2024 study also found it happens when dogs and humans gaze into each other’s eyes.

The Shank3 mutation might therefore result in impaired neural processing and signalling, limiting spontaneous social interactions and bonding between dogs and people. However, multiple factors are involved in the development of brain and behaviour.

Puppies who have had limited or negative early experiences with people might become less social and people-oriented. It is not easy to identify if the cause of this behaviour is biological, environmental or a combination of the two.

Shank3 canine research has also provided a hint at potential supportive medical interventions for human autism. A single dose of the psychedelic drug LSD was given to dogs with the Shank3 mutation. This resulted in increased attention and enhanced neural coupling with people over five days.

Mice and humans also seem to show a greater inclination to social behaviour after LSD administration. There are obviously legal, safety and ethical issues associated with its use, but animal models can certainly help us understand the underlying differences in how the neurodivergent brain functions.

These models might also help us diagnose human neurodivergence. Typical adult diagnostic processes involve lengthy discussion and review of how someone copes with daily life, which can be difficult as neurodivergent people often have communication difficulties.

Dogs with behavioural differences are similarly evaluated using assessment scales, mostly administered by their handlers and carers. However, video analysis and machine-based learning have been trialled as a more objective way to identify dogs with ADHD-like behaviour.

For this method, dogs’ movements in a new environment and when exposed to a robot dog were analysed by machine, rather than a person. Results from a 2021 study of dogs showed 81% agreement between objective and more traditional diagnosis.

This kind of animal research may help make the case for minimising subjectivity in human diagnosis. Objective measurements have in fact also been trialled for humans, such as eye movement in ADHD assessments.

Neurodiverse behaviours

Behavioural problems in cats and dogs that harm their wellbeing are common. One 2024 paper that collected owner-reported data from over 43,000 dogs in the US reported that more than 99% of pet dogs enrolled in the study presented with at least one behavioural problem.

Again, some of the reported behavioural concerns, such as separation-related behaviours, fear, anxiety and obsessive behaviour, mimic challenges associated with some forms of neurodivergence in people. Managing pets with such behavioural problems can be distressing and may even lead to rehoming or euthanasia. Perhaps this could sometimes be avoided if owners had a better understanding of what was going on.

In short, the evidence suggests that like us, animals can experience and respond to the world differently. Some of this will be due to natural differences in personality, but it is also likely that a proportion of our pets have differences in their brain structure and chemistry.

Neurodivergent children benefit from an appreciation of their specific and sometimes complex needs. Perhaps we can also create enriching management and training approaches for our potentially neurodiverse animal companions.

In addition to her academic affiliation at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and support from the Institute for Knowledge Exchange Practice (IKEP) at NTU, Jacqueline Boyd is affiliated with The Kennel Club (UK) through membership and as advisor to the Health Advisory Group and member of the Activities Committee. Jacqueline is a full member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT #01583). She also writes, consults and coaches on canine matters on an independent basis

– ref. Autistic dogs? Neurodiversity in our pets and what it might mean for us – https://theconversation.com/autistic-dogs-neurodiversity-in-our-pets-and-what-it-might-mean-for-us-265888

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nick Kotucha, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Warwick

The financial crisis of 2008 left deep scars on the British economy. The average UK household is now estimated to be 16% poorer than it would have been had that crisis never occurred.

Given that average annual household income is around £55,200, this suggests each one is losing out to the tune of £8,800 per year.

Globally, it is estimated that around 100 million more people are living in absolute poverty as a direct result of the crisis. Meanwhile, government debt levels around the world increased by a third.

Ever since the crisis, the general consensus among politicians and economists seems to have been that tight financial regulation is necessary to ensure a similar disaster does not happen again. The Bank of England in particular has been a global leader in pushing for new types of international safeguards.

Now though, the UK government is leading calls for financial red tape to be cut. Breaking from its traditional position as an advocate for strong regulation, the Labour party has promised “the most wide-ranging package of reforms to financial services regulation in more than a decade”.

The idea is that easing up on the rules will boost growth by encouraging bank lending and attracting international finance. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, appears to believe that strict regulation has dampened activity in a sector which the UK economy relies upon. As his chancellor Rachel Reeves put it, existing regulation “has gone too far in seeking to eliminate risk”.

And it’s true that some regulation has been overly complex while producing few tangible benefits. But the changes signalled by Reeves and Starmer point to a much broader project of rolling back key safeguards that were put in place to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis.

This year, some of the regulations aimed at limiting risky mortgage lending – a key cause of the 2008 crisis – have been loosened. And Reeves has promised further sweeping changes which would, for instance, dismantle key parts of the “ringfencing” regime which separates risky investment banking from retail banking.

In doing so, she is ignoring repeated warnings by regulators (including the Bank of England) who stress that such moves will make the financial system much less stable.

The risks attached to these changes are even more worrying in an environment where Donald Trump is pushing an aggressive agenda against regulation. The US and UK are both hesitant about implementing the newest version of an international framework for banking regulation which is widely regarded as critical to continued financial stability. The future of that framework will be uncertain if two of the world’s biggest financial superpowers withdraw their support.

Risky business

Starmer clearly feels under pressure to do something to combat the UK’s sluggish economic growth. But if one lesson can be taken from the 2008 crisis, it is that a small boost to economic growth at the expense of long-term stability will ultimately result in much greater losses.

Even in the absence of a full-blown financial crisis, the Bank of England thinks that the higher level of instability and uncertainty associated with a laxer regulatory regime will cancel out any small short-term benefits. This chimes with the findings of my latest research, which shows that even these short-term gains are far from guaranteed.

Underlying the new enthusiasm for deregulation seems to be a belief that the financial system is now stable enough to withstand economic shocks, even if regulations are rolled back. But recent events clearly show that the risk of a financial crisis continues to bubble near the surface.

Just two years ago, problems at the relatively small Silicon Valley Bank led to a bank-run which had spillover effects across the US. In the UK, Liz Truss’s infamous mini-budget of 2022 led to a dramatic spike in government bond yields and caused a spate of near-collapses across the pension fund sector.

Potential economic crises which are ultimately avoided are all too easily forgotten. But these episodes should remind us that financial markets can be unpredictable, and small events can spiral out of control. Paving the way for more risk, as Reeves and Starmer are doing, is a serious gamble with unpredictable consequences.

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The Conversation and LSE’s International Inequalities Institute have teamed up for a special online event on Tuesday, November 18 from 5pm-6.30pm. Join experts from the worlds of business, taxation and government policy as they discuss the difficult choices facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her budget. Sign up for free here

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The research underlying this article has been supported by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

– ref. The UK government’s risky rollback of financial regulation threatens long-term growth – https://theconversation.com/the-uk-governments-risky-rollback-of-financial-regulation-threatens-long-term-growth-266418

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rivka Isaacson, Professor of Molecular Biophysics, King’s College London

When I first began appropriating the plots of British-Irish novelist Iris Murdoch’s novels to explain scientific concepts, I never stopped to think about whether Murdoch herself would have approved of such an endeavour.

As a professor of molecular biophysics, I find that in both scientific research and all aspects of life, there can be great advantage in thinking differently. I’ve recently given some sessions on this at the Physics of Life summer school, and the fun, ideas and feedback were beyond my wildest dreams – especially as I’d been encouraged to conceal this side of myself as a young scientist.

Back in the 1990s, I did my PhD on protein folding – a conundrum underpinning all biology which has challenged scientists for decades. I wrote about it for The Conversation when a breakthrough won the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2024.

At its heart is a question of competing energies: entropic forces, which motivate a protein and its surrounding medium to move as freely as possible, versus enthalpic, in which positive charges gravitate towards negative charges and things with oily properties congregate. Protein folding is driven by finding the best balance in a three-dimensional shape to satisfy as many of these forces as possible.

An early book by the Booker-winning author A.S. Byatt, Degrees of Freedom, examines the power structures and layers of control that drive Murdoch novels. It’s a comparable scenario to protein folding: the compromise between many clashing forces.

When Degrees of Freedom first came out in 1965, Murdoch had published nine novels. The book was reissued in 1994 with additional material, when only Murdoch’s final novel, Jackson’s Dilemma – written when Alzheimer’s disease was just beginning to invade her beautiful mind – had yet to emerge.

Reading Murdoch’s 1975 novel A Word Child in 2003, I was struck by the helix-shaped nature of the plot, with London Underground’s Circle Line platform pubs at Sloane Square and Liverpool Street acting as points of vulnerability. I immediately turned to Byatt’s book to see whether her analysis matched my own.

In finding there was no chapter on A Word Child, I trawled the internet and discovered the Iris Murdoch Society, which one could join for the princely sum of £5. Signing up at that time required emailing Anne Rowe at Kingston University, and I couldn’t resist explaining my thoughts on A Word Child and the molecular mechanisms underpinning Alzheimer’s disease. She invited me to submit an abstract to a conference – and from then on, I was hooked.

So far, I’ve used ten out of Murdoch’s 26 novels to illustrate topics as broad as alcoholism and its effect on the liver, sex hormone signalling, evolution, molecular crowding and electron microscopy. While I’m not in any immediate danger of running out of Murdoch material, the recent publication of Poems from an Attic, a collection assembled from material found in her Oxford home many years after her death, adds a glorious new angle to my exploits.

While Murdoch is obsessed with nature – wild swimming, the changing seasons, flora, fauna and the meditative effects of being outdoors – she often speculates in her poems as to why things are as they are, which is an undeniably scientific way of thinking. There are examples of this in many of the poems, whatever their topic.

The word science occurs three times in the new volume – the first in the poem To B, who brought me two candles as a present (B was Murdoch’s lover, Brigid Brophy):

What you require of me no science gives –

To make these fires constant but not consumed.

What blazes every moment when it lives

Has eaten its own substance as it bloomed.

Yet though they burn not all the evening through,

While they are burning each to each is true.

This provides a satisfying analogy to justify sustaining Murdoch’s simultaneous passions. It invokes the same fuel-based resignation as American poet Edna St Vincent Millay’s First Fig:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends

It gives a lovely light!

The other two mentions of science in the new collection appear in You by Telephone – in which Murdoch muses over the changes, both positive and negative, that the invention of the phone had on the practicalities of relationships:

For I cannot close with kisses the lips that may speak me daggers,

Nor give you a gentle answer just by taking your hand.

The poem also includes this delightful digression:

In spite of the case of Odysseus, who might have got home much sooner

If at the start he could have dialled Ithaca one.

But he might have offended Hermes, that rival tele-communer,

And science would have precluded a lot of Homer’s fun.

I am relieved Murdoch didn’t have to grapple with smart phones, social media and today’s attention spans. Years ago, I scoured her archive for thoughts on science, which were mostly touched upon in correspondence, and her entertaining annotations of The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays by Martin Heidegger, and The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra.

Murdoch was certainly interested in science, albeit with a healthy dose of scepticism, while being alarmed at its pace of development. I like to fantasise that I could have talked her down.

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This article features references to books 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.

Rivka Isaacson receives funding from the UK Research and Innovation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

– ref. How I found an unexpected connection to science in the works of Iris Murdoch – by a molecular biophysicist – https://theconversation.com/how-i-found-an-unexpected-connection-to-science-in-the-works-of-iris-murdoch-by-a-molecular-biophysicist-269580

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Bridget Storrie, Teaching Fellow, Institute for Global Prosperity, UCL

The increasing number of injectable cosmetic treatments and fillers carried out around the world is driven by a seemingly universal need to look younger than we are. Most are administered to women, but a growing number of men are having them too.

This beauty-is-youth belief has a geological cost. Over 14 million stainless steel hypodermic needles are used and discarded annually for cosmetic treatments around the world. The metals used to create them are considered critical.

Stainless steel is an iron and chromium alloy with nickel added to most of it. The iron in a needle might have come from the Pilbara in Western Australia. It was born over a billion years ago when oxygen from the photosynthesis of early bacteria combined with iron in the ancient oceans and settled on the sea floor.

The chromium could have come from the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, an igneous intrusion created when magma found its way to the Earth’s crust through vertical cracks, then cooled, allowing the chromite to differentiate itself, crystallising in distinct layers.

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Read more:
The importance of critical minerals should not condone their extraction at all costs

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And then there’s the nickel. Like chromite, it began its life in the upwelling and cooling of magma associated with the formation of the continents as we know them now, and through the weathering of igneous rocks. It’s likely to have come from Indonesia, where deposits of nickel are close to the surface and economical to extract.

A critical mineral is one that is considered essential for a state’s economy, national security and clean energy technologies, and has a supply chain vulnerable to disruption by war, tariffs and scarcity. Critical minerals cannot easily be replaced by something else.

The critical list

What is on a particular country’s critical minerals list says something about the geopolitics of the places where commodities are mined, the characteristics of the commodity itself and the priorities of the country compiling the list.

Chromium is considered critical by the US, Canada and Australia because it is essential for stainless steel production and other high-performance alloys. Demand for chromium is expected to grow by 75 times between 2020 and 2040 due, in part, to the clean energy transition. Reserves are concentrated, with South Africa producing over 40% of supply in 2023, followed by Kazakhstan, Turkey, India and Finland.

Nickel was added to the UK’s critical mineral list in 2024. Described as the “Swiss army knife” of energy transition minerals, it is used to increase energy density in lithium batteries, allowing for their miniaturisation and increasing the range in electric cars. Indonesia holds 42% of the world’s reserves.

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Read more:
The global race is on to secure critical minerals. Why do they matter so much?

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Even iron ore is on the list. High-quality iron ore was put on Canada’s critical minerals list in 2024 because of its importance for “green steel” production and decarbonisation goals.

The rapidly increasing demand for stainless steel for cosmetic purposes is tangled up with urgent demands from other sectors. It is essential for construction, transportation, food production and storage, medicine and the manufacture of consumer goods.

It is vital for defence. Stainless steel is used in aircraft and vehicle components, naval vessels, missile parts and ballistics.

Needles used in cosmetic procedures are also entangled with other resource-related issues that have no easy answer: mining-related conflict, concerns about the environmental and social impact of mining and controversy over new mining frontiers, like the deep seabed and the Moon.

Then there is the carbon footprint of the multiple processes required to turn rocks into needles and disposing of them safely. Each one has to be mined, shipped, smelted, manufactured, trucked, used, put in a sharps bin and then incinerated.

Do we have to choose between cosmetic procedures or the green transition? Cosmetic procedures or defence? No. Our increasing demand for injectable cosmetic procedures isn’t responsible for making chromium, nickel and iron ore critical. But it’s part of that story and it comes with a cost.

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Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

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 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

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Bridget Storrie is a director of Storrie Consulting, a mining and minerals consultancy

– ref. The hidden environmental cost of anti-wrinkle injections – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-environmental-cost-of-anti-wrinkle-injections-266926

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will Cook, Reader in Policy Evaluation, Manchester Metropolitan University

As she carefully prepares the UK’s reaction to her second budget the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has now hinted that she may be ready to scrap the two-child benefits cap.

This controversial policy prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children (this is different to child benefit payments which are not limited by family size). According to the government’s own figures, the cap affects the households of 1.7 million children, and ditching it would cost upwards of £3.6 billion a year.

Introduced in 2017 as part of measures intended to cut public expenditure on welfare, the policy was designed to ensure that households on means-tested benefits “face the same financial choices about having children as those supporting themselves solely through work”.

However, when it was brought in, the then Conservative government’s impact assessment offered limited detail on the expected costs and benefits. A more comprehensive economic analysis of scrapping the policy would need to consider both the direct fiscal implications and the broader social and economic effects.

The direct fiscal cost is perhaps the most straightforward part of the calculation. Scrapping the cap would require the government to resume payments for families with more than two children, and the £3.6 billion annual cost is considerable at a time when the UK treasury doesn’t have a lot of money to spend.

So what about the potential economic benefits? These fall into two broad areas.

The first concerns the direct impact on children. For example, there is good evidence that additional household income during childhood improves future educational attainment and health. Increasing the money available to poorer households could therefore bring long-term social benefits.

However, the evidence to date on the specific effect of the two-child limit is limited. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently examined the impact of the two-child limit on early years development (up to the age of five) and found no measurable effect on school readiness.

This finding may have come as a surprise to campaigners who argue that the policy harms child development. But it is consistent with evidence from the US which found that giving extra money to poorer families had no impact on early child development.

It seems then that the short-term effects of lifting the two-child benefit cap may not be significant. But longer-term influences, particularly on educational attainment, health and lifetime earnings could still emerge.

The second area of potential economic benefit relates to encouraging people to have more children. The logic here is that reinstating benefits payments for more than two children would lead to higher fertility rates (the average number of children a woman has over her lifetime).

This is particularly relevant given that birth rates in the UK have declined significantly in recent years from 812,970 births in 2012 to 694,685 in 2021.

As the population ages and lives longer, there is a risk that a shrinking working-age population will threaten economic prosperity. This is partly through a reduction in the number of workers supporting those who are not working, but also through a reduction in innovation, the key driver of economic growth.

Yet evidence that the two-child limit has significantly deterred parents from having more children is weak. Research suggests only a small decline in birth rates among low-income households likely to be affected by the policy.

Child poverty

Another important consideration is the policy’s effect on the labour market. Evidence indicates that the introduction of the two-child limit led to small increases in hours worked, and an increased likelihood of mothers of three children entering the workforce. This implies that the two-child limit incentivised some people to work more.

If scrapping the cap reverses these effects, the fiscal cost could be even higher because of reduced tax revenue and lower economic output.

That said, this reduction in employment could also be framed as a benefit. Stricter benefit rules that increase employment may also lead to negative mental health outcomes, which also carry social and fiscal costs.

From an efficiency standpoint then, the case for scrapping the two-child limit is ambiguous. The evidence on its impact on fertility and childhood outcomes is mixed, and there may be a effects on the labour market whose net benefit is uncertain.

But from an equity perspective, the case is much stronger. It is easy to argue that reducing poverty is a desirable policy goal in its own right, regardless of whether it leads to other measurable social benefits.

Scrapping the cap is one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing child poverty. The Resolution Foundation thinktank estimates that abolishing the two-child limit would lift around 500,000 children out of poverty and is the single most effective policy lever available to government. It may now be a lever that Reeves intends to pull.

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The Conversation and LSE’s International Inequalities Institute have teamed up for a special online event on Tuesday, November 18 from 5pm-6.30pm. Join experts from the worlds of business, taxation and government policy as they discuss the difficult choices facing the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her budget. Sign up for free here

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William Cook receives funding from UKRI, the Education Endowment Fund and the Youth Endowment Fund.

– ref. Is there a strong economic case for dropping the two-child benefits cap? This is what the evidence tells us – https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-strong-economic-case-for-dropping-the-two-child-benefits-cap-this-is-what-the-evidence-tells-us-267057

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pablo Uchoa, PhD Candidate in the Institute of the Americas, UCL

The arrival of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, in the Caribbean basin on November 11 has intensified fears of a large-scale conflict in the region. The carrier has been deployed as part of US president Donald Trump’s campaign against boats in the Caribbean and Pacific allegedly transporting drugs bound for the US.

But some experts suspect that the real objective is to support a possible US military strike aimed at toppling the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Trump has long accused the Venezuelan government of being a criminal organisation, offering US$50 million (£38 million) earlier in 2025 for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.

Trump recently authorised the CIA to conduct covert lethal operations inside Venezuela, adding that his administration was now considering operations on land. The deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, which has 4,000 sailors and dozens of aircraft on board, further raises the stakes.

However, US military action in Venezuela would carry immense risks. The Venezuelan government has long been preparing for an asymmetric conflict with the US, eccentric as this may have sounded in the past.

Venezuela’s military doctrine

In 2002, the Venezuelan government was subject to a US-backed coup attempt. This prompted Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s leader at the time, to promote an overhaul of national military thinking to deal with a possible US invasion.

His strategy incorporated principles of “people’s war”, a Maoist tactic used extensively by Vietnamese military commander Vo Nguyen Giap in the Vietnam war. This tactic accepts ceding territory to an invading force initially, in favour of engaging the enemy in guerilla-style warfare until the conflict becomes impossible to sustain.

A key part of the tactic is that it blurs the boundaries between society and the battlefield, relying on the support and participation of the population. Reflecting on so-called people’s wars in the first half of the 19th century, Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz observed that the strongest wars are those driven by the determination of the people.

The concept of people’s war and asymmetric warfare has been codified in anti-imperialist doctrines throughout the 20th century. This is especially true for the Vietnamese guerrilla leaders. But it was also adopted more loosely by insurgencies such as the Taliban, which fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The Iraqi resistance against US forces in the early 2000s featured highly in Chávez’s mind. Venezuela’s then-president had thousands of copies of Spanish political scientist Jorge Verstrynge’s 2005 book, Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam, distributed within the Venezuelan army. The book draws on the experience of jihadist groups to emphasise the power of smaller, irregular formations in deciding asymmetric conflicts.

The Bolivarian Militia, a special branch of the Venezuelan armed forces created in 2008, embodies the doctrine of people’s war by incorporating civilians into national security mobilisation. Membership of the militia grew from 1.6 million in 2018 to 5 million by 2024, according to official figures. Under Maduro, the Venezuelan government has said it wants to expand membership to 8.5 million people.

The goal of the militia is not to duplicate conventional Venezuelan armed forces, but to extend their presence across the country. Venezuela’s territorial defence system is based on military deployments at regional, state and municipal levels, with personnel and missions assigned according to local geography and population.

Under Chávez, this system was broken down into much smaller units, covering specific municipal areas and communities. This level of capillarity is possible because it relies on civilian soldiers from the Bolivarian Militia and their profound knowledge of local areas.

For a large proportion of militia men and women, especially older members, their main task would not involve weapons. They would probably be tasked with carrying out what the government calls “popular intelligence” – in other words, surveillance.

This has already been reinforced with a recently launched mobile phone app which allows Venezuelans to report “everything they see and hear” in their neighbourhood that they consider suspicious.

Political and economic quagmire

A powerful US invading force would probably be allowed to march into Venezuela relatively easily. The problem would be the ensuing political and military quagmire that Venezuela’s military doctrine has been designed to create.

There are many uncertainties surrounding this scenario. On the Venezuelan side, civil-military coordination in wartime would be highly complex. Large-scale exercises have seen hundreds of thousands of regular troops, militia members and police simulating possible wartime scenarios. But their logistics have never been tested in real life.

Another uncertainty concerns the cohesion of combatants. Trump’s hardline posture towards Venezuela could trigger a “rally round the flag” effect, reinforcing loyalty to the government in the early stages of war. But the ideological commitment of militia members in a protracted scenario is another question.

On the US side, Trump’s plan for Venezuela remains unclear. Assuming Washington’s aim is to install an opposition government, it’s not obvious how such an administration could survive in the days and weeks after taking power. A conflict could also trigger another wave of Venezuelan emigration, adding to the 8 million-strong diaspora living mostly in Latin American countries.

The Bolivarian doctrine hopes that the prospect of “another Iraq” in Latin America serves as a deterrent against US intervention in Venezuela. But it is unclear whether Trump is taking this prospect seriously.

The US president reportedly considers Venezuela “unfinished business” from his first term in office. At that time, he imposed harsh sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, saying in 2023: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would’ve taken it over, and would’ve gotten all that oil.”

Yet a military solution now would still risk leaving this business unfinished for the foreseeable future.

Pablo Uchoa has received UKRI funding for his research on the transformation of Venezuala’s military under Hugo Chávez.

– ref. Trump’s Latin America strategy risks creating a military quagmire – https://theconversation.com/trumps-latin-america-strategy-risks-creating-a-military-quagmire-269680

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robin Kramer, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of Lincoln

Some people are so good with faces that there’s a name for them – super-recognisers. And a new study using eye-tracking technology has given us some insights into how they do it.

Although most of us perform reasonably well when tasked with learning a new person’s face or recognising someone we already know, there are people whose abilities are at the extremes. Those who struggle with faces (even of close friends and family) are known as prosopagnosic or face blind. Some people are born with this difficulty, while others may develop it later in life as a result of a stroke or injury.

In contrast, super-recognisers naturally excel at recognising faces. Studies also show they may be better than most of us when deciding whether images of unfamiliar people depict the same individual (like comparing a stranger to their ID photo), and that this ability may even extend to voices.

The new study suggests the direction of super-recognisers’ gaze when learning a face is important in explaining why they perform so well.

What do super-recognisers do differently?

Since super-recognisers are outstanding at recognising faces, it is interesting and potentially useful to discover what they do differently to the rest of us.

Previous research has shown these people look at faces in a different way when learning them. They make more fixations (stop and focus on more points) while spending less time on the eye region, compared with the average viewer. Their attention is spread more broadly, sampling more information across the face as a whole.

Also, their style of responding differs from those who are highly trained (over many years) in matching face images, tending to place more confidence in their decisions (both when correct and incorrect) and responding faster.

Evidence suggests super-recognisers’ face recognition skills are likely to have a strong genetic basis, perhaps explaining why attempts to improve average people’s abilities through short periods of training have generally failed.

What eye-tracking data reveals

Since we know super-recognisers look at faces differently to the average person, researchers in Australia decided to investigate whether this might explain their superior performance levels.

They used eye-tracking data collected in 2022 for a previous study from 37 super-recognisers (identified based on their scores across several face perception tests) and 68 typical viewers, to reconstruct exactly what these participants were looking at when learning new faces.

They viewed the faces through a simulated “spotlight” (see it here) which moved with their gaze as they explored the face. This meant the researchers could be sure of what information the participant could see during viewing.

Next, all of the regions a participant viewed were combined to create a composite image. This composite was then compared with a full, original image of either the same person (but showing a different facial expression) or a different person (with similar demographic characteristics). High similarity to images of the same person, and low similarity to different people, would mean the composite contained useful identity information.

The researchers’ analyses showed that super-recognisers accessed more valuable information, which resulted in better discrimination between “same person” and “different people” image pairs when compared with typical participants.

After accounting for the fact that super-recognisers simply took in more information than typical viewers, the results showed that the quality of their information was still higher.

More extensive exploration of faces

The researchers suggest that more extensive exploration of faces during learning could help super-recognisers in discovering the most useful features for identification. This may lead to better-formed internal representations of each learned face.

Since super-recognisers look at faces differently to the rest of us from the very earliest stages of viewing, it’s very difficult to train people to match their natural ability. However, forensic facial examiners (professionals whose job involves face comparisons) show it is possible.

They have been found to perform just as well as super-recognisers when comparing pairs of unfamiliar images, presumably due to the extensive and lengthy training and mentoring that they receive – in particular focusing on useful features in the images like the ears and any facial marks.

So there may actually be two types of face experts: those with natural ability (super-recognisers) and those with extensive training (facial examiners). But examiners might choose to pursue this particular career because of an innate ability, so further investigation is needed.

Although the existence of people with exceptional face abilities has been known for nearly two decades, researchers are still trying to understand what makes them excel. As this new study demonstrates, the way super-recognisers (and the rest of us) look at faces as we learn them could play a crucial role in how good – or bad – we are at recognising people in our daily lives.

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

– ref. Why are super-recognisers so good at learning and remembering faces? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-super-recognisers-so-good-at-learning-and-remembering-faces-269296

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Trafford, Lecturer in Medieval History, School of Advanced Study, University of London

A group of friends sit around a table sharing stories and sipping mead. The men sport beards and the women sip from drinking horns – but these aren’t Vikings, they’re modern-day hipsters.

The 21st century has seen a revival of mead, a fermented alcoholic drink made from water and honey. In the past 20 years or so, hundreds of new meaderies have sprung up around the world.

These meaderies often draw on Viking imagery in their branding. Their wares are called things like Odin’s Mead or Viking Blod and their logos include longships, axes, ravens and drinking horns. A few even have their own themed Viking drinking halls. This is part of what might be called the “Viking turn”, the renewed pop culture vogue for the Vikings in the past 20 years, which has made them the stars of a rash of films, TV shows, video games and memes.

Since the rowdy banquet scene in the 1958 film The Vikings, wild, boozy feasting has been a staple of the hyper-masculine pop culture Viking. This theme continues in the 21st century, from the History Channel’s Vikings TV series (2013-present) to games like Skyrim (2011) and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (2020).

But while modern media suggest that Vikings drank mead as often as water, history tells a slightly different story.

Three stories are foundational for the Viking association with mead. The first is the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, which survives in a single manuscript written in Old English and now in the British Library.

The story it tells is set in southern Sweden and Denmark in the early 6th century, so the warrior culture and lifestyle that Beowulf idealises are actually of a period considerably earlier than the Viking age (usually dated from the later 8th century onward). It does share a great deal of its substance with later Viking notions of the good life and so, for good or ill, they have tended to be conflated.

Most of Beowulf’s action plays out around mead-halls – the power centres of lords such as the Danish king Hrothgar, where the leader would entertain his followers with feasts and drinking in return for their support and military service. This relationship, based upon the consumption of food and drink, but inextricably bound up with honour and loyalty, is the basis of the heroic warrior society that is celebrated by the poet. Not surprisingly, therefore, episodes in which mead is drunk are frequent and clearly emotionally loaded.

A second high-profile appearance of mead comes in Norse mythology. At the god Odin’s great hall, Valhöll, the Einherjar – the most heroic and honoured warriors slain in battle – feast and drink. They consume the unending mead that flows from the udders of a goat named Heiðrún who lives on the roof. Norse myth, it should be noted, is sometimes quite odd.

Lastly, another important myth tells of Odin’s theft of the “mead of poetry”. This substance was created by two dwarves from honey and the blood of a being named Kvasir, whom they had murdered. The mead bestows gifts of wisdom and poetic skill upon those who drink it.

The whole myth is long and complicated, but it culminates with Odin swallowing the mead and escaping in the form of an eagle, only to excrete some of it backwards when he is especially hotly pursued.

These are striking and impressive episodes that clearly demonstrate the symbolic and cultural significance of mead in mythology and stories about heroes of the Viking age. But that is far from proof that it was actually consumed on a significant scale in England or Scandinavia.

As far back as the 1970s, the philologist Christine Fell noted that Old English medu, (mead), and compound words derived from it appear far more frequently in strongly emotive and poetic contexts such as Beowulf than in practical ones such as laws or charters.

This contrasts strongly with the pattern of usage of other words for alcohol such as ealu (ale), beor (counter intuitively probably “cider”) or win (wine), which are far more frequently used in a functional and practical way. This led Fell to believe that the concentration on mead in the likes of Beowulf was a “nostalgic fiction”. Mead, she concluded, was a fundamental part of an idealised and backwards-looking imagined heroic world rather than something customarily drunk in the course of everyday life.

In 2007, a PhD candidate at the University of York demonstrated the same point in the Scandinavian sources: mjǫðr (“mead”) is far more common in the corpus of Eddic and skaldic poetry than it is in the saga stories of everyday life. Equally, both the word mjǫðr and compound words derived from it are used far less frequently in the sort of practical and purposeful contexts in which ǫl and mungát (the Old Norse words for ale) are plentiful.

The strong impression in both England and Scandinavia is that, by the time sources like Beowulf were written from the 10th century onward, the plentiful drinking of mead by a lord’s retinue was largely symbolic. It represented the contractual bonds of honour in an idealised warrior society.

This was more a poetic image than a reflection of frequent real-life practice. The standard drink at feasts, let alone at normal everyday household meals, was far more likely to be ale.

Mead was once a highly prized drink – probably the most desirable beverage well before the Viking age, as its honoured place in Valhöll and Hrothgar’s hall suggests. However, honey’s scarcity made mead expensive and hard to source in northern Europe. By the Viking age, exotic Mediterranean wine, mentioned as Odin’s drink in the Grímnismál, may have begun to replace mead as the elite’s preferred choice.

So what, then, for modern mead-drinking Viking enthusiasts? The point is not, of course, that Vikings or any other early medieval people never drank mead – some clearly did, if not perhaps quite so often as is sometimes alleged – but rather that it served more as a symbol of a story-filled heroic neverland. But that is arguably exactly how many of today’s mead-drinkers also use it.

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Simon Trafford 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 truth about Vikings and mead might disappoint modern enthusiasts – https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-vikings-and-mead-might-disappoint-modern-enthusiasts-267902