The most gripping week of the bear calendar has arrived. The Fat Bear Week is an annual online competition hosted by Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. This event, which began in 2014 as a one-day celebration, has since grown into a phenomenon among bear enthusiasts worldwide.
Bears are paired in single elimination match ups where people can read their biographies, look at their pictures and vote based on which bear “exemplifies fatness and success”, so it is not all about their size, but also about their life histories.
Why are we celebrating bear chubbiness? Because for brown bears, getting fat is a matter of survival. In just a few short months, they must bulk up to prepare for a long seasonal slumber, when they enter a deep sleep similar to hibernation (called
torpor), stopping all bodily functions, including eating, drinking, and eliminating
waste, while their body temperature, heart rate, and metabolism decrease.
This is especially remarkable when you consider that some Alaskan or Scandinavian bears might spend seven months in their dens. Even more impressive is that, during this period, pregnant female bears give birth, lactate and rear the extremely vulnerable cubs. This is a critical adaptation that allows bears to conserve energy during prolonged periods of harsh weather and food scarcity. So yes, those extra kilos are a badge of honour.
The bear’s bulking period is called hyperphagia, a time when brown bears become
obsessed with finding the fattiest, sweetest, and most protein rich foods. In Europe, they switch their diet in summer to feast on fruits (especially berries), hard mast such as acorns and nuts, and also prey on or scavenge animals. But the true champions of chubbiness are the coastal brown bears of Alaska, with some individuals tipping the scales at an astonishing 650kg – more than twice the weight of their European cousins.
These giants gorge on calorie-dense salmon, targeting the fat-rich roe and
brains, and can devour up to 40 fish a day. That’s a jaw dropping intake of 20,000 to over 100,000 calories daily. The result: coastal Alaskan brown bears can gain more than 2 kg per day.
But Fat Bear Week is not just about size. Voters (about 1.2 million in 2024) are encouraged to dive into the life histories of the contenders. Their biographies reflect the harshness of the environment and the fierce competition for resources and mating success. These bears’ lives tell us stories of loss, grave injuries, and also of determination, adaptability, and perseverance.
A matter of life and death
Female bears face enormous challenges: if they fail to accumulate enough body fat, they risk losing entire litters due to the energetic demands of cub rearing. Cubs are also vulnerable to attacks from other bears, particularly males, who may kill infants to eliminate competition and shorten the mother’s time to her next estrus cycle, increasing their own chances of fathering future offspring. Male brown bears don’t have it easier.
What happens in Fat Bear Week?
They suffer injuries or even death when fighting rivals over food, territory or mates, and must constantly adapt as they grow larger, older, and face tougher competition. In this contest, voters may find themselves rooting for an older female raising her cubs against the odds, or an older underdog bear facing off against younger, stronger challengers.
Beyond the fun of this online competition, Fat Bear Week helps raise
conservation awareness, support habitat protection, and foster public engagement
with wildlife. But the future of bear fattening and hibernation patterns might be
shaped by climate change.
Shifts in seasonal timings mean that their key food resources, such as berries and salmon, now overlap, and some bears may switch their diets. This can disrupt ecosystems and potentially lead to nutritional imbalances and behavioural changes. In Spain’s Cantabrian Mountains, warmer winters have led to brown bears remaining active during the winter, a risky time when food is scarce and cubs are vulnerable.
Conversely, some bears can be displaced to lower-quality areas, causing others that currently eat salmon to enter dens earlier and remain inside longer, missing out on critical feeding opportunities.
Fat Bear Week draws attention to the importance of preserving wild habitats like
Katmai National Park. It’s a brilliant model of how storytelling and digital media can inspire public stewardship of nature.
Antonio Uzal 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.
It’s a sunny June day in southeast England. I’m driving along a quiet, rural road that stretches through the Kent countryside. The sun flashes through breaks in the hedgerow, offering glimpses of verdant crop fields and old farmhouses.
Thick hawthorn and brambles make it difficult to see the 10ft high razor-wire fence that encloses a large grassy mound. You’d never suspect that 100ft beneath the ground, a hi-tech cloud computing facility is whirring away, guarding the most valuable commodity of our age: digital data.
This subterranean data centre is located in a former nuclear bunker that was constructed in the early 1950s as a command-and-control centre for the Royal Air Force’s radar network. You can still see the decaying concrete plinths that the radar dish once sat upon. Personnel stationed in the bunker would have closely watched their screens for signs of nuclear missile-carrying aircraft.
After the end of the cold war, the bunker was purchased by a London-based internet security firm for use as an ultra-secure data centre. Today, the site is operated by the Cyberfort Group, a cybersecurity services provider.
The Cyberfort bunker is a solid inclined mass of grass-covered concrete that emerges in the centre of the compound. Cyberfort/A.R.E. Taylor, CC BY
I’m an anthropologist visiting the Cyberfort bunker as part of my ethnographic research exploring practices of “extreme” data storage. My work focuses on anxieties of data loss and the effort we take – or often forget to take – to back-up our data.
As an object of anthropological enquiry, the bunkered data centre continues the ancient human practice of storing precious relics in underground sites, like the tumuli and burial mounds of our ancestors, where tools, silver, gold and other treasures were interred.
The Cyberfort facility is one of many bunkers around the world that have now been repurposed as cloud storage spaces. Former bomb shelters in China, derelict Soviet command-and-control centres in Kyiv and abandoned Department of Defense bunkers across the United States have all been repackaged over the last two decades as “future-proof” data storage sites.
I’ve managed to secure permission to visit some of these high-security sites as part of my fieldwork, including Pionen, a former defence shelter in Stockholm, Sweden, which has attracted considerable media interest over the last two decades because it looks like the hi-tech lair of a James Bond villain.
Many abandoned mines and mountain caverns have also been re-engineered as digital data repositories, such as the Mount10 AG complex, which brands itself as the “Swiss Fort Knox” and has buried its operations within the Swiss Alps. Cold war-era information management company Iron Mountain operates an underground data centre 10 minutes from downtown Kansas City and another in a former limestone mine in Boyers, Pennsylvania.
The National Library of Norway stores its digital databanks in mountain vaults just south of the Arctic Circle, while a Svalbard coal mine was transformed into a data storage site by the data preservation company Piql. Known as the Arctic World Archive (AWA), this subterranean data preservation facility is modelled on the nearby Global Seed Vault.
Just as the seeds preserved in the Global Seed Vault promise to help re-build biodiversity in the aftermath of future collapse, the digitised records stored in the AWA promise to help re-boot organisations after their collapse.
A diagram of the Mount 10 bunker in Switzerland. Mount10, CC BY
Bunkers are architectural reflections of cultural anxieties. If nuclear bunkers once mirrored existential fears about atomic warfare, then today’s data bunkers speak to the emergence of a new existential threat endemic to digital society: the terrifying prospect of data loss.
Data, the new gold?
After parking my car, I show my ID to a large and muscular bald-headed guard squeezed into a security booth not much larger than a pay-phone box. He’s wearing a black fleece with “Cyberfort” embroidered on the left side of the chest. He checks my name against today’s visitor list, nods, then pushes a button to retract the electric gates.
I follow an open-air corridor constructed from steel grating to the door of the reception building and press a buzzer. The door opens on to the reception area: “Welcome to Cyberfort,” receptionist Laura Harper says cheerfully, sitting behind a desk in front of a bulletproof window which faces the car park. I hand her my passport, place my bag in one of the lockers, and take a seat in the waiting area.
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Big-tech pundits have heralded data as the “new gold” – a metaphor made all the more vivid when data is stored in abandoned mines. And as the purported economic and cultural value of data continues to grow, so too does the impact of data loss.
For individuals, the loss of digital data can be a devastating experience. If a personal device should crash or be hacked or stolen with no recent back-ups having been made, it can mean the loss of valuable work or cherished memories. Most of us probably have a data-loss horror story we could tell.
For governments, corporations and businesses, a severe data loss event – whether through theft, erasure or network failure – can have a significant impact on operations or even result in their collapse. The online services of high-profile companies like Jaguar and Marks & Spencer have recently been impacted by large-scale cyber-attacks that have left them struggling to operate, with systems shutdown and supply chains disrupted. But these companies have been comparatively lucky: a number of organisations had to permanently close down after major data loss events, such as the TravelEx ransomware attack in 2020, and the MediSecure and National Public Data breaches, both in 2024.
With the economic and societal impact of data loss growing, some businesses are turning to bunkers with the hope of avoiding a data loss doomsday scenario.
The concrete cloud
One of the first things visitors to the Cyberfort bunker encounter in the waiting area is a 3ft cylinder of concrete inside a glass display cabinet, showcasing the thickness of the data centre’s walls. The brute materiality of the bunkered data centre stands in stark contrast to the fluffy metaphor of the “cloud”, which is often used to discuss online data storage.
Data centres, sometimes known as “server farms”, are the buildings where cloud data is stored. When we transfer our data into the cloud, we are transferring it on to servers in a data centre (hence the meme “there is no cloud, just someone else’s computer”). Data centres typically take the form of windowless, warehouse-scale buildings containing hundreds of servers (pizza box-shaped computers) stored in cabinets that are arranged in aisles.
Data centres are responsible for running many of the services that underpin the systems we interact with every day. Transportation, logistics, energy, finance, national security, health systems and other lifeline services all rely on up-to-the-second data stored in and accessed through data centres. Everyday activities such as debit and credit card payments, sending emails, booking tickets, receiving text messages, using social media, search engines and AI chatbots, streaming TV, making video calls and storing digital photos all rely on data centres.
These buildings now connect such an incredible range of activities and utilities across government, business and society that any downtime can have major consequences. The UK government has officially classified data centres as forming part of the country’s critical national infrastructure – a move that also conveniently enables the government to justify building many more of these energy-guzzling facilities.
As I sit pondering the concrete reality of the cloud in Cyberfort’s waiting area, the company’s chief digital officer, Rob Arnold, emerges from a corridor. It was Arnold who arranged my visit, and we head for his office – through a security door with a biometric fingerprint lock – where he talks me through the logic of the bunkered data centre.
“The problem with most above-ground data centres is they are often constructed quickly, and not built to withstand physical threats like strong winds, car bombs or server theft from breaking and entering.” Arnold says that “most people tend to think of the cyber-side of data security – hackers, viruses and cyber-attacks – which dangerously overlooks the physical side”.
Amid increasing geopolitical tension, internet infrastructure is now a high-value target as “hybrid” or “cyber-physical” sabotage (when cyber-attacks are combined with physical attacks) becomes increasingly common.
The importance of physical internet security has been highlighted by the war in Ukraine, where drone strikes and other attacks on digital infrastructure have led to internet shutdowns. While precise details about the number of data centres destroyed in the conflict remain scant, it has been observed that Russian attacks on local data centres in Ukraine have led many organisations to migrate their data to cloud facilities located outside of the conflict zone.
Bunkers appeal to what Arnold calls “security-conscious” clients. He says: “It’s difficult to find a structure more secure than a bunker” – before adding drily: “The client might not survive the apocalypse, but their data will.”
Cyberfort specialises in serving regulated industries. Its customer base includes companies working in defence, healthcare, finance and critical infrastructure. “Our core offering focuses on providing secure, sovereign and compliant cloud and data-centre services,” Arnold explains in a well-rehearsed sales routine. “We do more for our customers than just host systems – we protect their reputations.”
Arnold’s pitch is disrupted by a knock at the door. The head of security (who I’m calling Richard Thomas here) enters – a 6ft-tall ex-royal marine wearing black cargo trousers, black combat boots and a black Cyberfort-branded polo shirt. Thomas is going to show me around the facility today.
The bunker’s external armour-plated door. Cyberfort/A.R.E. Taylor, CC BY
The entrance to the bunker is located up a short access road. Engineered to withstand the blast and radiation effects of megaton-level thermonuclear detonations, this cloud storage bunker promises its clients that their data will survive any eventuality.
At the armour-plated entrance door, Thomas taps a passcode into the electronic lock and swipes his card through the access control system. Inside, the air is cool and musty. Another security guard sits in a small room behind bulletproof plexiglass. He buzzes us through a metal mantrap and we descend into the depths of the facility via a steel staircase, our footsteps echoing in this cavernous space.
A full-height turnstile security gate (mantrap) inside the bunker. Cyberfort/A.R.E. Taylor, CC BY
The heavy blast doors and concrete walls of the bunker appear strangely at odds with the virtual “walls” we typically associate with data security: firewalls, anti-virus vaults, and spyware and spam filters. Similarly, the bunker’s military logics of enclosure and isolation seem somewhat outdated when faced with the transgressive digital “flows” of networked data.
However, to dismiss the bunkered data centre as merely an outmoded piece of security theatre is to overlook the importance of physical security – today and in the future.
We often think of the internet as an immaterial or ethereal realm that exists in an electronic non-place. Metaphors like the now retro-sounding cyberspace and, more recently, the cloud perpetuate this way of thinking.
But the cloud is a material infrastructure composed of thousands of miles of cables and rows upon rows of computing equipment. It always “touches the ground” somewhere, making it vulnerable to a range of non-cyber threats – from thieves breaking into data centres and stealing servers, to solar storms disrupting electrical supplies, and even to squirrels chewing through cables.
A blast-proof door in the Cyberfort bunker, behind which lies the server room containing the digital ‘gold’. Cyberfort/A.R.E. Taylor, CC BY
In July 2020, the 27-minute Cloudflare outage led to a 50% collapse in traffic across the globe, disrupting major platforms like Discord, Shopify, Feedly and Politico. In June 2021, the Fastly outage left some of the world’s most visited websites completely inaccessible, including Amazon, PayPal, Reddit, and the New York Times. In October 2021, Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, experienced an outage for several hours that affected millions of social media users as well as hundreds of businesses.
Perhaps the largest internet outage yet occurred in July 2024 when the CrowdStrike outage left supermarkets, doctors’ surgeries, pharmacies, airports, train providers and banks (among other critical services) unable to operate. This was described by some in the industry as “one of the largest mass outages in IT history”.
Internet architecture now relies on such a complex and fragile ecosystem of interdependencies that major outages are getting bigger and occurring more often. Downtime events can have a lasting financial and reputational impact on data centre providers. Some attempts to quantify the average cost of an unplanned data centre outage range from US$9,000 to US$17,000 (about £12,500) per minute.
The geographic location of a data centre is also hugely important for data protection regulations, Thomas explains, as we make our way down a brightly lit corridor. “Cyberfort’s facilities are all located in the UK, which gives our clients peace of mind, knowing they comply with data sovereignty laws.”
Data sovereignty regulations subject data to the legal and privacy standards of the country in which it is stored. This means businesses and organisations must be careful about where in the world their data is being relocated when they move it into the cloud. For example, if a UK business opts to store its data with a cloud provider that uses data centres based in the US, then that data will be subject to US privacy standards which do not fully comply with UK standards.
In contrast to early perceptions of the internet as transcending space, eradicating national borders and geopolitics, data sovereignty regulations endow locality with renewed significance in the cloud era.
The survival of data at all costs
Towards the end of the corridor, Thomas opens a large red blast-proof door – beyond which is a smaller air-tight door. Thomas waves his card in front of an e-reader, initiating an unlocking process: we’re about to enter one of the server rooms.
“Get ready” he says, smiling, “it’s going to be cold and loud!” The door opens, releasing a rush of cold air. The server room is configured and calibrated for the sole purpose of providing optimal conditions for data storage.
Like any computer, servers generate a huge amount of heat when they are running, and must be stored in constantly air-conditioned rooms to ensure they do not overheat. If for any reason a server should crash or fail, it can lead to the loss of a client’s valuable data. Data centre technicians work in high-pressure conditions where any unexpected server downtime could mean the end of their job.
The server room at Cyberfort. Cyberfort/A.R.E. Taylor, CC BY
To try and make sure the servers run optimally, data centres rely on huge amounts of water and energy, which can significantly limit the availability of these resources for the people who live in the vicinity of the buildings.
In addition, to meet expectations for “uninterruptible” service levels, data centres rely on an array of fossil fuel-based back-up infrastructure – primarily diesel generators. For this reason, the Green Web Foundation – a non-profit organisation working to decarbonise the internet – has described the internet as the world’s largest coal-powered machine. Data centres are also noisy and have become sites of protest for local residents concerned about noise pollution.
Amid hype and speculation about the rise of AI, which is leading to a boom in the construction of energy-hungry data centres, the carbon footprint of the industry is under increasing scrutiny. Keen to highlight Cyberfort’s efforts to address these issues, Thomas informs me that “environmental impact is a key consideration for Cyberfort, and we take our commitment to these issues very seriously”.
As we walk down a cold aisle of whirring servers, he explains that Cyberfort actively sources electricity from renewable energy supply chains, and uses what he calls a “closed loop” cooling infrastructure which consumes minimal fresh water.
‘Like the pyramids’
After our walk through the server room, we begin to make our way out of the bunker, heading through another heavy-duty blast door. As we walk down the corridor, Thomas promotes the durability of bunkers as a further security selling point. Patting the cold concrete wall with the palm of his hand, he says: “Bunkers are built to last, like the pyramids.”
Another heavy duty blast door. Cyberfort/A.R.E. Taylor, CC BY
Bunker scholars have long noted that these buildings are as much about time as they are about space. Bunkers are designed to preserve and transport their contents through time, from an apocalyptic present into a safe future.
Writers such as Paul Virilio, W.G. Sebald and J.G. Ballard were drawn to the decaying bunkers of the second world war and, like Thomas, compared them with enduring megastructures which have outlived the civilisations that built them. In his 1975 book Bunker Archaeology, Virilio famously compared the abandoned Nazi bunkers along the coast of France with “the Egyptian mastabas, the Etruscan tombs, the Aztec structures”.
The bunker’s durability invites us to take a long-term view of our own data storage needs, which will only increase over the course of our lives.
For technology behemoths like Apple and Google, cloud storage is a key strategic avenue for long-term revenue growth. While the phones, laptops and other digital devices they make have limited lifespans, their cloud services offer potentially lifelong data storage. Apple and Google encourage us to perpetually hoard our data rather than delete it, because this locks us into their cloud subscription services, which become increasingly expensive the more storage we need.
Apple’s marketing for its cloud storage service, iCloud, encourages users to “take all the photos you want without worrying about space on your devices”. Google has made “archive” rather than “delete” the default option on Gmail. While this reduces the likelihood of us accidentally deleting an email, it also means we are steadily consuming more of our Gmail capacity, leading some to purchase more Google Drive storage space.
Cloud hoarders
It is also increasingly difficult to operate off-cloud. Internal storage space on our digital devices is dwindling as the cloud becomes the default storage option on the majority of digital products being developed. Users must pay a premium if they want more than the basic local storage on their laptop or smartphone. Ports to enable expandable, local storage – such as CD drives or SD card slots – are also being removed by tech manufacturers.
As our personal digital archives expand, our cloud storage needs will continue to grow over our lifetimes, as will the payments for more and more cloud storage space. And while we often imagine we will one day take the time to prune our accumulations of digital photos, files, and emails, that task is often indefinitely postponed. In the meantime, it is quicker and easier to simply purchase more cloud storage.
Many consumers simply use whichever cloud storage service is already pre-installed on their devices – often these are neither the cheapest nor most secure option. But once we commit to one provider, it is very difficult to move our data to another if we want a cheaper monthly storage rate, or simply want to switch – this requires investing in enough hard drives on which to download the data from one cloud provider and upload it to another. Not everyone is tech-savvy enough to do that.
Underground: inside the Lefdal Mine Data Centers in Norway. Lefdal, CC BY-ND
In 2013, bank reforms in the UK introduced a switching service which enabled consumers to easily move their money and payments to different banks, in order to access more favourable rates. Cloud migration services are available for businesses, but until a cloud storage equivalent of the bank switching service is developed for the general public, many of us are essentially locked into whichever cloud provider we have been using. If our data really is the new gold, perhaps we should require cloud providers to offer incentives to deposit it with them.
Some providers now offer “lifetime” cloud packages with no monthly or yearly payments and no inactivity clause. However, the cloud market is volatile, defined by cycles of boom-and-bust, with providers and their data centres constantly rebranding, closing and relocating. In this landscape of mergers and acquisitions, there is no guarantee that lifetime cloud providers will be around long enough to honour these promises.
In addition, the majority of consumer cloud providers currently only offer a maximum of a few terabytes of storage. In the future, most of us will probably need a lot more than this, which could mean a lot more data centres (roughly 100 new data centres are set to be constructed in the UK alone within the next five years). We may also see more bunkers being repurposed as data centres – while some providers, such as Florida-based Data Shelter, are considering building entirely new bunker structures from scratch to house digital data.
Resurfacing
Thomas and I arrive at the steel staircase leading back up to the outside world. The guard buzzes us back through the turnstile, and Thomas unlocks and opens the door. The sunlight stings my eyes.
Back in the reception area, I thank Arnold and Thomas for my surreal trip into the depths of subterranean data storage. The Cyberfort data centre is a site of extreme contrasts, where the ethereal promise of the cloud jars with the concrete reality of the bunker.
Sitting in my car, I add to my fieldnotes that the survival of data – whether entombed in bunkers or stored in “lifetime” cloud accounts – is bound to the churn of markets, and depends upon the durability of the infrastructure and organisations behind it.
Permanence, in the digital age, is always provisional. One can’t help but imagine future archaeologists discovering this bunker and rummaging through the unreadable remains of our lost digital civilisation.
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A.R.E. 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.
When we think about the impact of climate change on the economy, images of droughts in Africa or hurricanes in the Caribbean might come to mind. But even in advanced economies such as the UK, hotter summers are being shown to carry a heavy price.
The past few summers in the UK have been among the hottest on record. In summer 2025, average temperatures across much of the country were more than 1.5°C higher than the usual seasonal average, with parts of southern England around 2°C hotter than normal. What does that mean for the economy?
The heat invites people outdoors. Beaches are packed, pub gardens overflow and families fire up the barbecue. Trade association the British Retail Consortium reported that retail sales increased by 3.1% in June compared to the same month in 2024. This was driven by a surge in sales of food, drink, and leisure products. From ice cream trips to garden makeovers and days out, sunshine typically encourages feel-good, spur-of-the-moment spending.
But warmer summers have downsides. High temperatures have a big effect on health, putting people at risk of heat stress, heat stroke and even death. Accommodation in the UK is designed to retain heat, which means that currently, 32% of homes in London and 17% of homes outside London are overheated. And the percentages of homes at risk of future overheating jump to 55% in London, and 33% in the rest of the country.
Heat also affects people while they’re at work. For those who work outside, the weather can have a serious impact on their health and wellbeing if it is not properly managed. And for indoor workers, a similar phenomenon occurs as workplaces in the UK – just like homes – are designed to retain heat.
The UK’s hotter summers have become such an issue that some unions are campaigning for a maximum temperature set by law of 30°C for non-strenuous indoor work. Currently, there is only guidance for a minimum temperature (16°C or 13°C if employees are doing physical work).
And the problems for workers can start even before they make it to work: overheated rails mean slower trains or even cancellations.
Counting the cost
Some industries are hit harder by the weather, not just through its effect on workers, but due to the heat itself. The hot summer of 2025 has made it difficult for farmers, who have seen cereal harvests shrink, grazing land dry up and animals suffer. In some areas, up to half of cereal and potato crops have been lost, with harvests arriving two to three weeks earlier than usual.
So, are hotter summers good or bad for the UK economy? Our study examined more than two decades of local economic data across the UK and matched it with seasonal temperature records. We found that a 1°C increase in summer temperatures reduces UK economic growth by about 2.4%.
Effect of 1°C rise in seasonal temperature on UK economic growth (%)
In practical terms, that means that even a modest rise in average summer heat can shave billions of pounds off the economy. But why does this happen?
Hot summers disrupt work and production. Businesses may see more staff off sick due to heat stress and related illnesses. Productivity in offices, factories and farms often drops as workers struggle in higher temperatures.
Our study shows that the agricultural sector is especially vulnerable. Hot, dry summers damage crops and livestock, and since much of the UK’s general cropping and dairy farming is concentrated in the south of the country, this area bears the brunt of economic losses.
Some of the UK’s strawberry crops couldn’t cope with heat and drought conditions over summer 2025. Maulana Noriandita/Shutterstock
Our findings also reveal that the impact of hot summers is not evenly spread across the country. Wealthier councils (those with an annual GDP higher than the national average income) are actually more vulnerable. The south of England, comprising the south-east (including London), the south-west, and the east of England, experiences the sharpest economic declines.
This is partly because the south is both hotter on average and home to many of the country’s farms. London alone, which generates more than half of the UK’s financial services output, emerges as a key “hotspot” of vulnerability.
We also found evidence that patterns of energy use matter. During hot summers, electricity consumption drops compared to during other seasons. While this might sound like a good thing, it signals reduced industrial activity, offices closing or shifts in working patterns that dampen economic growth.
The message from our research is clear – hot summers are not just uncomfortable, they are economically costly. Unless adaptation measures – better cooling infrastructure, workplace protections and support for climate-resilient farming – are introduced, the UK risks losing billions as heatwaves become more frequent.
Climate change cannot be dismissed as a distant challenge. Our research shows its economic fingerprints are already visible in Britain’s summer heat. Preparing for hotter summers is not just an environmental issue, it is an urgent economic priority.
Verónica Vienne Arancibia receives funding from The Spencer Foundation.
Jubril Animashaun and Lotanna Emediegwu do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For months, Donald Trump has badgered the US Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. When the governors of the Fed did so by 0.25 percentage points in mid-September to a target of between 4% and 4.25%, it wasn’t big or fast enough for Trump.
The next day, the president asked the US Supreme Court to rule on whether he could fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor. A federal appeals court had blocked Trump from doing so after he accused her of mortgage fraud, which she denies.
This isn’t the first time a US president has put pressure on the Fed. In the early 1970s, Fed chair Arthur Burns came under sustained pressure from Richard Nixon to lower interest rates ahead of the 1972 presidential election. The Fed did lower rates and high inflation followed, fuelled by the headwinds of high global oil prices.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Cristina Bodea, professor of political science at Michigan State University, explains how the inflation spike of the 1970s cemented the case for protecting central banks from day-to-day politics. “There’s not a lot that becomes a global norm for good economic governance,” says Bodea, “but central bank independence became one.”
From the 1990s onwards, countries around the world began to pass laws protecting the independence of their central banks. Bodea’s research measures the independence of central banks by tracking these laws. Today, she says that independence is now under sustained pressure from a generation of populist leaders, which could threaten the credibility of central banks.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood, Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing and sound design by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Cristina Bodea 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.
Source: The Conversation – in French – By Laura Elin Pigott, Senior Lecturer in Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation, Course Leader in the College of Health and Life Sciences, London South Bank University
Le cerveau des félins sécrète-t-il de l’ocytocine ?(Shutterstock)
Si les chats ont parfois la réputation d’être indépendants, des recherches récentes montrent que, grâce à la chimie du cerveau, nous avons une relation particulière avec eux.
La principale substance chimique impliquée est l’ocytocine, souvent appelée « hormone de l’amour ». C’est la même substance qui est libérée lorsque l’on berce son bébé ou que l’on enlace un ami, et qui alimente la confiance et l’affection. Des études ont révélé que l’ocytocine jouait également un rôle important dans les rapports entre chats et humains.
L’ocytocine assure un rôle central dans les liens sociaux, la confiance et la régulation du stress chez de nombreux animaux, y compris chez l’être humain. Une expérience menée en 2005 a permis de voir que l’administration d’ocytocine rendait les participants nettement plus enclins à faire confiance aux autres dans des jeux financiers.
Elle a également des effets calmants chez les humains et les animaux, car elle réprime la sécrétion de cortisol, l’hormone du stress, et active le système nerveux parasympathique (le système du repos et de la digestion) pour aider le corps à se détendre.
Les scientifiques savent depuis longtemps que les échanges amicaux déclenchent la libération d’ocytocine chez les chiens et leur maître, créant ainsi une boucle de rétroaction mutuelle qui renforce les liens affectifs. Jusqu’à récemment, cependant, on connaissait peu de choses sur son incidence sur les chats.
Les chats sont plus subtils dans leur manière d’exprimer leur affection. Pourtant, leurs propriétaires éprouvent souvent les mêmes sentiments de camaraderie et de calme que les personnes qui ont des chiens, et ces observations sont de plus en plus confirmées par des études. En 2021, des chercheurs japonais ont rapporté qu’il suffisait de brefs moments passés à flatter leur chat pour augmenter le taux d’ocytocine de nombreuses personnes.
Dans le cadre de cette étude, les chercheurs ont mesuré le taux d’hormones de femmes qui interagissait avec leur chat. Les résultats ont révélé qu’un contact amical avec un félin (le caresser, lui parler d’une voix douce) était associé à un taux plus élevé d’ocytocine dans la salive que pendant une période de détente en silence sans la présence d’un chat.
De nombreuses personnes trouvent apaisant de flatter un animal qui ronronne, et des études ont montré que ce n’est pas seulement grâce à la douceur de son pelage. Le fait de caresser un chat, mais aussi d’entendre son ronronnement, peut déclencher la libération d’ocytocine dans notre cerveau. Une étude réalisée en 2002 a révélé que cette décharge d’ocytocine engendrée par le contact avec un chat causait une diminution du cortisol, l’hormone du stress, et pouvait ainsi abaisser la tension artérielle et soulager la douleur.
Se blottir contre un chat peut aider à réduire le taux de cortisol, l’hormone du stress. Vershinin89/Shutterstock
Comment les relations avec un chat permettent-elles de libérer de l’ocytocine ?
La recherche met en évidence des moments précis qui provoquent la libération de cette hormone dans une amitié interespèces. Un contact physique doux semble être un déclencheur chez les chats.
Une étude publiée en février 2025 a révélé que lorsque des gens flattaient, berçaient ou câlinaient leur chat de manière détendue, leur taux d’ocytocine augmentait, tout comme celui de l’animal, à condition que le contact ne soit pas imposé.
Les chercheurs ont mesuré le taux d’ocytocine des chats pendant 15 minutes de jeu et de câlins avec leur maître. Chez les chats qui entretenaient un lien affectif fort avec celui-ci et qui prenaient l’initiative du contact, en s’installant par exemple sur ses genoux ou en donnant de petits coups de tête, on a remarqué une hausse du taux d’ocytocine. Plus ils passaient de temps avec leur humain, plus cette hausse était importante.
Qu’en est-il des félins moins affectueux ? La même étude a permis d’observer des réponses différentes chez les chats ayant un style d’attachement plus anxieux ou distant. Les chats évitants, qui gardaient leurs distances, ne présentaient aucun changement significatif de leur taux d’ocytocine, tandis que les chats anxieux, qui recherchaient constamment leur propriétaire, mais étaient facilement déconcertés par les manipulations, avaient un taux d’ocytocine élevé dès le départ.
On a constaté que le taux d’ocytocine de ces deux types de chats baissait après un câlin forcé. Lorsque les interactions respectent le bien-être du chat, celui-ci sécrète de l’hormone de l’attachement, mais ce n’est plus le cas s’il se sent piégé.
Les humains pourraient peut-être apprendre quelque chose de leurs amis félins en matière de réponse aux différents styles d’attachement. La clé pour développer un lien avec un chat est de comprendre comment il communique.
À la différence des chiens, les chats ne créent pas de liens par des contacts visuels prolongés. Ils utilisent des signaux plus subtils. Le plus connu est le lent clignement des yeux, qu’on interprète comme un sourire félin exprimant la sécurité et la confiance.
Le ronronnement joue également un rôle dans la création de liens avec les humains. Outre son potentiel guérisseur pour le chat, ce son à basse fréquence a un effet apaisant sur les humains. Écouter le ronron d’un chat peut réduire le rythme cardiaque et la pression artérielle ; c’est l’ocytocine qui est à l’origine de ces bienfaits.
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La présence d’un chat, renforcée par toutes ces petites doses d’ocytocine libérées lors des interactions quotidiennes, peut protéger contre l’anxiété et la dépression et, dans certains cas, apporter un réconfort comparable à celui du soutien social humain.
Les chats sont-ils moins aimants que les chiens ?
Il est vrai que les études montrent généralement des taux d’ocytocine plus élevés lors d’interactions entre chiens et humains. En 2016, des scientifiques ont mené une expérience qui a fait grand bruit dans laquelle ils ont mesuré les taux d’ocytocine chez des animaux de compagnie et leur propriétaire avant et après dix minutes de jeu. Les chiens ont présenté une augmentation moyenne de 57 % de leur taux d’ocytocine après avoir joué, tandis que les chats ont affiché une hausse d’environ 12 %.
Chez les êtres humains, le taux d’ocytocine augmente lors d’interactions sociales significatives. Des études ont montré que le contact avec un être cher provoquait une augmentation plus importante du taux d’ocytocine que le contact avec des étrangers. Et l’accueil joyeux d’un chien engendre une réaction semblable à celle créée par la vue de son enfant ou de son conjoint.
On pourrait dire que les chiens, qui sont des animaux de meute domestiqués pour accompagner les humains, sont programmés pour rechercher le contact visuel, les caresses et l’approbation de ces derniers, un comportement qui stimule la libération d’ocytocine chez les deux parties. Les chats, en revanche, descendent de chasseurs solitaires qui n’avaient pas besoin de gestes sociaux pour survivre. Ainsi, ils peuvent ne pas afficher un comportement alimenté par l’ocytocine aussi facilement ou régulièrement. Ils réservent plutôt ce type de comportement pour les moments où ils se sentent vraiment en sécurité.
Le chat ne donne pas automatiquement sa confiance, il faut la gagner. Mais une fois accordée, elle est renforcée par la même substance chimique qui lie les parents, les conjoints et les amis humains.
Ainsi, la prochaine fois que votre chat clignera lentement des yeux depuis l’autre bout du canapé ou se lovera sur vos genoux pour un câlin ronronnant, sachez qu’il se produit également quelque chose d’invisible : l’ocytocine augmente dans vos deux cerveaux, renforçant la confiance et apaisant le stress du quotidien. À leur manière, les chats répondent à l’éternelle biologie de l’amour.
Laura Elin Pigott ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
In a speech at the UN headquarters in New York, where world leaders are currently gathered for the organisation’s 80th anniversary, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned: “We are now living through the most destructive arms race in human history.”
The proliferation of drone technology combined with the rapid development of AI, Zelensky remarked, could create “dead zones” in the near future. He defined these as areas “stretching for dozens of kilometres where nothing moves, no vehicles, no life. People used to imagine that [scenario] only after a nuclear strike – now it’s [a] drone reality.”
AI could soon enable “swarms” of drones that operate autonomously together in a coordinated manner. So far this has only been seen in sci-fi movies but we are now starting to see the beginnings of this technology in real life, including from the Ukrainian military.
For security scholars such as Audrey Kurth Cronin of Carnegie Mellon University in the US, we are now in a time of “open tech innovation”. This is a period where people – whether terrorists or criminal groups – do not need the expertise and resources of a state to be able to orchestrate nefarious acts of disruption and destruction.
Zelensky and Kurth Cronin believe this new age of military technology requires new rules and enhanced global collaboration if the worst-case scenarios are to be avoided. “We need to restore international cooperation – real, working cooperation – for peace and for security,” said Zelensky in his UN speech. “A few years from now might already be too late.”
Days before these remarks, drone activity caused multiple airports in Denmark to close. The country’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, told a news conference that the “attack” was part of a “systematic operation”. Some reports have suggested that Russia may have been behind these acts.
One of the major concerns among security experts worldwide in recent years has been on acts of sabotage that play out below the threshold that can lead to open war. In what is known as “hybrid warfare”, states and criminal groups can orchestrate a variety of tactics to generate fear and cause disruption.
These acts may be intended for political ends – for instance, by creating discontent with political leaders. They may also be intended to test the systems of security that are important for defending against military action. The incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace in early September, for example, generated serious debate about how Nato should respond.
These recent events may signal that the world is now in a new age of military-technological insecurity that, as Zelensky warned the UN, is only going to get worse in the years ahead.
Central to defence policy and strategic thinking is deterrence. Our world is built on strategies that are intended to deter countries or regimes from pursuing certain courses of action. The possession of nuclear weapons, for example, has prevented war between the world’s leading powers for decades.
Deterrence will continue to inform decisions and strategy, even as global events become increasingly chaotic. So much of the debate around what Nato countries should do about the war in Ukraine, for instance, has been informed by questions of deterrence and escalation. Ultimately, direct Nato action has been restricted by the fear that nuclear weapons could be used in a moment of strategic chaos.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has, in a similar way, been careful not to push above the threshold with actions that might lead to a direct confrontation with Nato. Acts that are hard to attribute – such as drone use over airports or cyber-espionage – are ideal for a regime that wants to create disruption but doesn’t want to escalate.
There are three elements that can be developed to prevent escalation and war. The first is deterrence by punishment. This is where an action will result in a response that will mean the risk outweighs the cost.
The second is deterrence by denial, when you make an action too difficult to orchestrate successfully and effectively. And third is deterrence by entanglement. This is when the interconnected nature of society means that an action may be counterproductive or even self-destructive.
All of these elements of deterrence will probably come into play in this new age of drones and AI. There might be technical solutions that limit the extent to which AI-enabled drone swarms become a decisive weapon in future wars. For example, a group of drones was successfully knocked out by a new radio wave weapon in an April 2025 trial by the British Army.
There may also be limits on the exploration of the destructive possibilities of drone swarms due to the concern with keeping events below the threshold that would lead to war between global powers. While Putin may authorise the use of drones in Ukraine, he may be deterred from risking the use of swarms across London. This is due to the possibility of escalation and perhaps even the threat to Russian-owned property and citizens there.
So, as terrifying as the new age of drone swarms and AI may be, there are good reasons for thinking the dystopian possibilities of future war will be controlled and contained. We should probably expect that the world will be characterised by more frequent disruptive events in the years ahead. Yet, hopefully the disruption will be limited to the nuisance caused by delayed flights.
What is more concerning is the possibility of an accident occurring that tips disruption over the threshold into an open war. The history of war and international politics is rife with accidents and miscalculations. The question now is what accidents will be generated in this new age of AI and drone swarms.
Mark Lacy 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.
Source: The Conversation – France – By Ben Voyer, Cartier Chaired Professor of Behavioural Sciences, Full Professor, Department of Entrepreneurship, ESCP Business School
What do the luxury sector and the automotive sector have in common? Until recently, even asking the question would have seemed incongruous, given the apparent dissimilarity between brands engaged in mass production in search of economies of scale and those based on lavish spending and limited editions. The arrival of Luca de Meo (formerly of Renault) at the head of Kering signals a change for the group founded by French entrepreneur François-Henri Pinault, but also for the entire sector. Is playtime officially over?
During Kering’s general meeting earlier this month, de Meo officially took his place as head of the luxury group, the second-largest in France. The choice of the former Renault executive as the new CEO raises questions. Can luxury survive the logic of financial optimisation, such as that found in industry and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods)?
Luxury in transformation
Since the 1990s, the rise of conglomerates like LVMH and Kering has fundamentally changed the luxury sector, creating an industrial rather than brand-driven logic. These conglomerates took advantage of the high profit margins in luxury and used financial leverage to expand rapidly and acquire brands. They benefitted from economies of scale, ranging from real estate to marketing budgets (which allowed them to negotiate with major media), and from bargaining power with subcontractors on production costs.
Today, however, this strategy is being called into question. Luxury brands are struggling with saturation, declining perceived quality, and loss of exclusivity, even as they continue pursuing growth through volume. A widening gap exists between consumers’ perception of luxury prices and product quality. Many brands are perceived – rightly or wrongly – as having cut corners on craftsmanship and materials while significantly increasing prices, relying mainly on marketing to justify costs. The industry is at a turning point, with many brands stating they will focus on “value rather than volume” in the future. Yet, it remains to be seen whether they can truly return to the fundamentals of luxury, namely craftsmanship and genuine (not orchestrated) rarity.
The new role of the CEO in luxury
Traditionally, luxury brands were family businesses, with leadership passed down from generation to generation. This preserved the brand’s heritage and artisanal dimension. Decisions were made with a long-term vision, in contrast to the dictates of the stock market and financial logic, which require regular reporting. Hermès still follows this model, with its CEO Axel Dumas belonging to the sixth generation of the Hermès-Dumas family.
A second model later emerged: hiring CEOs from within the luxury industry, aligned with the unique aspects of managing luxury brands. This vision dominated during the massive expansion of luxury brands, which went from being regional champions of European excellence and craftsmanship to global leaders in high-value-added premium goods. Today, for example, Nicolas Bos, the new CEO of Richemont – the Swiss luxury conglomerate – previously led Van Cleef & Arpels.
More recently, a new model seems to be emerging, where luxury brands are recruiting CEOs from other industries, especially consumer goods (FMCG) or industries that produce on a large scale. Such was the case with Leena Nair at Chanel, poached from Unilever, and now with de Meo at Kering. This brings new management approaches but also creates tensions with the sector’s traditional values.
Industrial production
Indeed, the FMCG approach has introduced stricter financial management, optimised segmentation and marketing, a growth strategy based on brand extensions, and large-scale production in luxury. However, this also undermines the focus on creativity, craftsmanship and exclusivity in the sector.
These appointments can certainly provide a fresh perspective: Nair’s appointment at Chanel, for example, brings human resources expertise into a sector where talent is scarce. Still, questions remain, especially concerning how excellence in service and customer experience, where luxury practices are far beyond those of consumer goods, can be integrated.
Kering faces specific challenges
There are many challenges for Kering and its new CEO. Gucci – the group’s flagship brand – has seen a 25% drop in sales, while other brands in its portfolio are underperforming. De Meo will need to tackle these issues.
The company expanded rapidly by using financial leverage, but this strategy may have reached its limits given Kering’s current debt. Many concerns remain about the dilution of the group’s brands and the loss of exclusivity.
The traditional luxury group strategy of acquiring trendy or declining brands and reviving them through marketing – boosting desirability and perceived value – and retail (via customer experience) may no longer be as effective in today’s market.
The appointment of a former Renault executive – accustomed to working in a mature industry where platform creation and margin preservation are key – signals that the luxury industry itself is reaching maturity. This strategy focuses marketing efforts on high-value-added flagship products, such as leather goods, beauty and accessories (eg sunglasses). For these products, a platform logic can be applied, where synergies between brands allow cheaper production and distribution, even at the cost of sacrificing brand individuality.
‘Platformisation’ of luxury
The new CEO will need to balance financial performance with preserving the brand’s capital and exclusivity. This may require tough decisions, such as scaling back certain operations or selling underperforming brands. A strategy of returning to exclusivity – by reducing the number of boutiques and focusing on high-value-added items – was successfully implemented by Chanel in the 1980s.
The new leader of Gucci, Balenciaga, and Bottega Veneta will have much to prove to show that a CEO coming from outside the luxury industry can successfully take on these challenges and restore Kering’s growth trajectory while maintaining its luxury positioning.
These difficulties reflect the broader challenges of a business model that has adopted mass‑market tactics, treating emotional and creative products as commodities. This “FMCG for the wealthy” approach poses a real risk of eroding the very essence of luxury.
Conflicting pressures
Luxury brands face conflicting pressures – maintaining exclusivity and craftsmanship while delivering the growth and profits expected by financial markets and conglomerate owners. The industry may have reached the limits of its expansion strategy. This is evidenced by the opening of stores in second‑ and third‑tier cities around the world and the constant launch of new product categories, which dilute brand equity.
Moreover, there is a growing tension between creative, artistic leadership and financial, operational management within luxury houses. The traditional “magic duo” of the creative director and the business leader is being disrupted. The aura of a luxury brand is built above all around a charismatic figure – at once creative and visionary – who is also committed to a brand over the long term.
Finally, there are increasing concerns about the long‑term sustainability of today’s luxury business models, particularly their reliance on marketing rather than genuine quality and authentic exclusivity to justify high prices.
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Ben Voyer received funding from the ESCP HEC Paris Cartier Turning Points Research Chair.
Perrine Desmichel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Aux États-Unis, les NIH sont l’un des nœuds du système interconnecté, qui produit des avancées dans les domaines de la santé et de la médecine.Anchalee Phanmaha/Moment/Getty Images
Aux États-Unis, les National Institutes of Health sont sous la menace d’une coupe drastique de leur budget. Les conséquences de ces économies de court terme voulues par l’administration Trump pourraient s’étendre bien au-delà du secteur public et, au final, coûter cher à l’ensemble du système de santé.
L’étude des archives du budget des NIH nous apprend qu’une telle coupe à deux chiffres n’a été mise en œuvre qu’à une seule autre reprise depuis le début des enregistrements, en 1938. Une diminution de 12 % avait en effet été prononcée en 1952.
L’idée de réduire les ressources des NIH n’est pas nouvelle, et de telles propositions refont régulièrement surface. Le débat actuel suscite cependant des incertitudes quant à la stabilité du secteur de la recherche dans son ensemble, et au sein des milieux scientifiques, les inquiétudes vont bon train.
Chercheurs nous-mêmes, nous étudions les complexes systèmes de politiques de santé mis en place. Nous nous intéressons plus précisément à la politique du financement de la recherche scientifique. À ce titre, nous considérons que les NIH sont l’un des maillons d’un système interconnecté destiné à favoriser la découverte de nouvelles connaissances, à former le personnel biomédical et à accomplir des avancées en matière de médecine et de santé publique, à l’échelle nationale.
Nos travaux démontrent que si la réduction des financements des NIH peut sembler générer des économies à court terme, elle déclenche une cascade d’effets qui, à long terme, augmentent les coûts des soins de santé et ralentissent le développement de nouveaux traitements et la mise en place de solutions aux problèmes de santé publique.
Privilégier la vision d’ensemble
Le financement des NIH ne permet pas seulement de soutenir les travaux de chercheurs ou de laboratoires. Il constitue aussi le socle sur lequel reposent le secteur de la recherche médicale et biomédicale des États-Unis, ainsi que le système de santé. En effet, c’est grâce à ce budget que sont formés les scientifiques, qu’est financée la recherche en prévention et que sont produites les connaissances qui seront ensuite utilisées par les entreprises pour mettre au point de nouveaux produits de santé.
Afin de comprendre comment de telles coupes budgétaires peuvent affecter ces différents domaines, nous avons entrepris de passer en revue les données existantes. Nous avons analysé les études (et les ensembles de données) qui ont porté sur les liens entre le financement des NIH (ou de la recherche biomédicale en général) et l’innovation, la main-d’œuvre et l’état de la santé publique.
Dans une étude publiée en juillet 2025, nous avons élaboré un cadre d’analyse simple, destiné à illustrer comment des changements effectués dans une partie du système – ici, les subventions à la recherche – peuvent produire des effets à d’autres niveaux, en grevant par exemple les opportunités de formation ou en ralentissant le développement de nouvelles thérapies.
Ce sont par exemple les recherches financées par les NIH dans les années 1950 qui ont mené à l’identification du cholestérol et à établir son rôle dans les maladies cardiovasculaires, ce qui a ouvert la voie à la découverte ultérieure des statines. Ces molécules sont aujourd’hui prescrites à des millions de personnes dans le monde pour contrôler leur taux de cholestérol.
Dans les années 1960, les recherches en biologie du cancer ont conduit à la découverte du cisplatine. Utilisée en chimiothérapie, cette molécule est à l’heure actuelle administrée à 10 à 20 % des patients atteints de cancer.
Le cisplatine, largement utilisé en chimiothérapie, a été mis au point grâce aux recherches fondamentales menées pour comprendre la biologie du cancer, lesquelles ont été financées par les NIH. FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images
Sans ce type d’investissement public financé par les contribuables, nombre de projets fondateurs ne verraient jamais le jour, les entreprises privées hésitant à s’engager dans des travaux aux horizons lointains ou aux profits incertains. Notre étude n’a pas chiffré ces effets, mais les données montrent que lorsque la recherche publique ralentit, l’innovation en aval et les bénéfices économiques sont également retardés. Cela peut se traduire par une diminution du nombre de nouveaux traitements, un déploiement plus lent de technologies permettant de réduire les coûts et une croissance moindre des industries qui dépendent des avancées scientifiques.
Une réduction de la main-d’œuvre scientifique
En octroyant des subventions pour financer les étudiants, les chercheurs postdoctoraux et les jeunes scientifiques, ainsi que les laboratoires et infrastructures où ils sont formés, les NIH jouent également un rôle central dans la préparation de la « relève » scientifique.
Lorsque les budgets diminuent, le nombre de postes disponibles se réduit et certains laboratoires sont contraints de fermer. Cette situation peut décourager les jeunes chercheurs d’entrer dans un domaine ou d’y rester. Ces conséquences dépassent le seul cadre académique. En effet, certains scientifiques formés par les NIH poursuivent ensuite leur carrière dans le secteur des biotechnologies, de l’industrie des dispositifs médicaux ou de la science des données. Un système de formation affaibli aujourd’hui signifie donc moins de professionnels hautement qualifiés dans l’ensemble de l’économie demain.
L’innovation se déplace vers des marchés plus limités
Les investissements publics et privés remplissent des fonctions différentes. Le financement des NIH réduit souvent le risque scientifique en menant les projets à un stade où les entreprises peuvent investir avec davantage de confiance. Des exemples passés incluent le soutien à la physique de l’imagerie ayant conduit à l’imagerie par résonance magnétique (IRM) et à la tomographie par émission de positons (TEP), ainsi que des recherches en science des matériaux qui ont permis la mise au point des prothèses modernes.
Nos recherches mettent en évidence le fait que lorsque l’investissement public recule, les entreprises tendent à se concentrer sur des produits présentant des retours financiers plus immédiats. L’innovation s’oriente alors vers des médicaments ou des technologies aux prix de lancement très élevés, délaissant des améliorations qui pouvant répondre à des besoins plus larges (optimisation de thérapies existantes ou développement de diagnostics largement accessibles). Or, lorsque le financement public se réduit et que les entreprises privilégient des produits onéreux plutôt que des améliorations accessibles à moindre coût, la dépense globale de santé peut croître.
Les technologies d’imagerie, telles que l’IRM, ont été développées grâce au financement public de la recherche fondamentale par les NIH. Tunvarat Pruksachat/Moment via Getty Images
Certains médicaments anticancéreux, par exemple, reposent fortement sur des découvertes fondamentales issues de la biologie cellulaire et de la méthodologie des essais cliniques, découlant de recherches financées par les NIH. Des études indépendantes révèlent que sans ce socle initial de recherche publique, les délais de développement s’allongent et les coûts augmentent – des effets qui se traduisent par des prix plus élevés pour les patients et les systèmes de santé.
Ce qui apparaît comme une économie budgétaire à court terme peut donc produire l’effet inverse, les programmes publics tels que Medicare (système d’assurance-santé destiné aux plus de 65 ans et aux personnes répondant à certains critères, ndlr) et Medicaid, qui procure une assurance maladie aux personnes à faibles ressources, devant finalement absorber des coûts supérieurs.
La prévention et la santé publique reléguées au second plan
Les NIH financent également une part importante de la recherche consacrée à la promotion de la santé et à la prévention des maladies. On peut par exemple citer les études sur la nutrition, les maladies chroniques, la santé maternelle ou encore les expositions environnementales telles que la pollution au plomb ou la pollution atmosphérique.
Ces projets contribuent souvent à améliorer la santé des individus avant que la maladie ne s’aggrave. Ils attirent cependant rarement des investissements privés, car leurs bénéfices, qui apparaissent progressivement, ne se traduisent pas en profits directs.
Repousser à plus tard ou annuler la recherche en prévention peut conduire à des coûts ultérieurs plus élevés, en raison de l’augmentation du nombre de patients dont l’état se sera dégradé et nécessitera des traitements lourds afin de soigner des affections qui auraient pu être évitées ou mieux prises en charge en amont.
Des décennies d’observation dans le cadre de la Framingham Heart Study (une étude épidémiologique au long cours, dont l’objet initial était l’étude des maladies cardiovasculaires, et qui se poursuit encore aujourd’hui) ont façonné les recommandations thérapeutiques sur des facteurs de risque tels que l’hypertension artérielle et les troubles du rythme cardiaque.
Au-delà de ces domaines précis, la véritable question est de savoir comment les États-Unis choisiront à l’avenir de soutenir la recherche scientifique et médicale. Pendant des décennies, l’investissement public a permis aux chercheurs de s’attaquer à des problématiques difficiles et de mener des études s’étalant sur plusieurs décennies.
Si le soutien du gouvernement s’affaiblit, la recherche médicale et la recherche en santé publique pourraient devenir plus dépendantes des marchés et de la philanthropie. Cette situation risquerait de réduire l’éventail des problématiques étudiées et de limiter la capacité de réaction face à des urgences telles que l’émergence de nouvelles infections ou la gestion des risques sanitaires liés au climat.
Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nils Mallock, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science; King’s College London
There has been a recent rush of countries to formally recognise the state of Palestine. Affirming Palestinian sovereignty marks a historic diplomatic milestone, yet the exact layout of its territory, a central requirement under international law, remains fiercely contested from every hilltop in the West Bank to the ruins of Gaza.
To grasp what this moment means, we need to trace how borders have evolved – or dissolved – over Palestine’s tumultuous political history. The 1947 UN partition plan had envisioned two semi-contiguous territories for Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem as an international city.
But that vision quickly collapsed into the war that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. Palestinians found themselves confined to the West Bank and Gaza Strip as fully separated territories, demarcated by the “green line” and placed under Jordanian and Egyptian control.
These initial contours remain the internationally recognised basis for Palestinian statehood until today – and are referred to as the “pre-1967 borders”. That year, the six-day war saw Israel effectively tripling its territory. It occupied all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and annexed East Jerusalem.
Israeli settlements immediately began fragmenting Palestine’s geography, especially in the West Bank. These settlements are illegal under international law, and in many cases lacked even the government’s authorisation.
Yet they faced limited government pushback – and were often directly supported by Israeli authorities. The Oslo accords later carved the territory into Areas A, B, and C with varying degrees of Palestinian governance.
Following suicide bombings during the second intifada (2000-05), Israel built a separation barrier cutting deep inside the 1967 borders. Six decades on, the West bank resembles a fragmented archipelago more than a cohesive state territory.
Building insecurity
In a recent study, my colleagues and I used satellite imagery to show, for the first time, what exactly this does to the West Bank. We tracked all 360 settlements and outposts that existed in 2014 across the following decade.
During this time alone, the average settlement expanded by two-thirds in size. Collectively, they now occupy 151 sq km of built-up area – compared to 88 sq km ten years ago – a 72% increase. Adding to this are hundreds of new settlements, especially with a wave of approvals following October 7 2023.
Each of these settlements comes with extensive Israeli military presence and infrastructure. This has created a complicated system of roads and checkpoints that typically exclude Palestinians, severely restricting movement and economic activity.
What’s worse, violent attacks and harassment by extremist settlers are well documented in some locations. To say that building an independent state under these conditions is challenging would be a massive understatement.
A recently approved development project on the West Bank exemplifies this. On paper, the E1 project it will be yet another settlement. But if constructed, E1 – short for “East One” – will choke off the main road running north to south outside Jerusalem, effectively cutting the West Bank in half.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, celebrated the move as “erasing” the idea of a Palestinian state while bolstering national security – the government’s official justification for settlement expansion.
In reality, the settlements have the exact opposite effect. Our research, involving four months of fieldwork and surveying over 8,000 Palestinians, found an alarming dynamic. Living within a few kilometres of settlements almost doubled the likelihood of engagement in high-risk and violent action (more than 82%), while moderate protest dropped by 30-36%. Similarly, support collapsed for diplomatic initiatives, and surged for violent attacks.
Critically, this isn’t simply a reaction to settler violence. Beyond the effects of such exposure, settlement presence alone intensified collective moral outrage, a cognitive state known to drive violent conflict.
Studies demonstrate how this state primes people to think in terms of threat and punishment rather than the risks of taking action – particularly dangerous in the West Bank. And this factor is likely to persist: the settler community today counts upwards of half a million people, many of them armed, violence prone, and radically opposed to leaving.
What this implies for Israeli-Palestinian relations is that, as settlements expand, so will political violence and retaliation, fuelling further cycles of conflict. The recent attack in Jerusalem, in which Palestinian gunmen shot six people just weeks after E1’s approval, tragically shows this reality already.
Looking for leaders
Any viable Palestinian state must include a vision for Gaza’s reconstruction and integration once the horrific suffering and famine caused by Israel’s brutal attacks ends. Yet as I’ve reported based on data collected in January, Gaza’s largest political constituency (32%) now consists of those who feel represented by nobody.
Hamas is militarily decimated and has lost almost all remaining support among the public. The UK and other countries have also proscribed the terrorist group. Yet no viable alternative has emerged to represent Gazans’ interests.
Over in the West Bank, a Palestinian Authority (PA) dominated by elderly men offers little better. Three decades since its establishment as part of the Oslo peace process, it is widely seen as illegitimate, corrupt and incapable, as polls consistently show.
The most realistic governance scenario involves a restructured PA administering both territories. It’s likely this will still be dominated by Fatah but with fundamentally reformed structures and leaders.
If elections were held today, the 89-year-old president, Mahmoud Abbas, would almost certainly lose. One candidate with more prospects is the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti, complicating succession planning.
Whoever eventually leads a unified Palestine will inherit decades of failed self-governance, deep public scepticism, and Israel undoubtedly attempting to intervene in this process.
Making recognition matter
Despite massive challenges, building a functioning Palestinian state is not impossible. So recognition can be more than a symbolic act. Already, it’s reshaping in tangible ways how major powers engage with Palestinian representatives while applying meaningful pressure on Israel’s leaders.
But as nations line up to recognise Palestine, they must confront what they’re actually recognising. Given the vicious cycles of settlement expansion and violence that our research shows, recognition risks becoming an empty gesture unless this issue is addressed diplomatically head on. Without creating genuine conditions for statehood that uphold the interests of all parties, neither goal will be achieved.
The choice is no longer between one-state and two-state solutions. It’s between recognising borders that have long been rendered meaningless – or committing to build something viable. Both the future of Palestinian statehood and Israeli security may depend on that choice.
Nils Mallock receives funding from UK International Development, in the UK government, as part of his affiliation with the XCEPT research program at King’s College London. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies. The author declares no conflict of interest.
Could tattoos be the secret weapon in the fight against skin cancer? It might sound incredibly unlikely at first, but new research suggests there’s more to tattoo ink than meets the eye, especially when it comes to melanoma risk.
For years, people worried about the possiblehealthdangers of tattoos. But new research suggests something surprising: people with multiple tattoos appear to have less melanoma, not more. However, before anyone rushes to the tattoo parlour for cancer prevention, it’s crucial to take a closer look at the fine print because every study has its flaws, and this one is no exception.
Researchers in Utah – the US state with the highest melanoma rates – studied over 1,000 people. They compared melanoma patients with healthy people to see if tattoos, especially extensive ones, affect cancer risk.
The results suggested that people who’d had multiple tattoo sessions or possessed several large tattoos actually experienced a reduced risk of melanoma. In fact, the risk was more than halved.
This was a striking finding, especially given the longstanding concerns about tattoo inks, which contain chemicals that – in other settings – can be harmful or even carcinogenic. Scientists have previously worried that introducing foreign substances into the skin could promote cancer development.
Extensive recent research has in fact linked tattoos to a type of cancer called lymphoma. But this broad population-based study did not support these fears for melanoma.
Why the results might be misleading
Yet the evidence comes with a number of critical caveats. The first and perhaps most significant issue was the lack of data about key melanoma risk factors, which is essential for drawing reliable cause-and-effect conclusions.
Important risk factors such as sun exposure history, tanning bed use, how easily people sunburn, skin type and family history of melanoma were only recorded for people with cancer – not for the healthy people in the study. Without this information, it’s impossible to tease apart whether the observed lower risk in tattooed people actually stems from the tattoos themselves, or whether it’s merely a byproduct of other lifestyle differences.
Another issue lies in something called behavioural bias. Tattooed participants were more likely to report riskier sun habits, such as indoor tanning and sunburns, although here the apparent “protection” of multiple tattoos remained even after adjusting for smoking, physical activity and some other variables.
However, data on key risk factors for melanoma, such as sun protection behaviour and the use of sunscreen, weren’t available across both groups. This raises the possibility that the supposedly protective effect might actually be a result of unmeasured differences – perhaps those with many tattoos are more likely to use sunscreen or avoid sun exposure to protect their body art.
Adding further complexity, the response rate among melanoma cases was only about 41%, meaning that most people with melanoma didn’t answer questions about it, which is relatively low, though typical for studies using surveys like this. This could create what’s called selection bias. If people who answered the survey were different from those who didn’t, the results might not apply to everyone.
No information was collected on where the tattoos were located, so we don’t know if they were on sun-exposed or covered areas of the body – an important distinction since ultraviolet light is a major risk factor for skin cancer. In fact, recent research suggests air pollution may protect from melanoma and it does this by filtering out harmful UV rays.
Interestingly, the study did not show that melanomas occurred any more frequently within tattooed skin than in un-tattooed areas. This suggests that tattoo ink itself is unlikely to be directly carcinogenic, though some research suggests that it mightbe.
However, the researchers urge caution. This is one of the first major studies on tattoos and melanoma, so the results suggest new ideas to test rather than prove that tattoos are protective.
Comparisons with previous research, conducted in other countries, also reveal inconsistent findings. Some studies have shown skin cancers – including melanoma – in tattooed populations or areas of the body. However, these studies have also been hampered by small sample sizes, lack of information on other key risk factors, and diverse sun-bathing habits around the world.
What does this all mean in practical terms? The findings are far from a green light to seek out tattoos as a shield against melanoma. Crucially, the absence of detailed behavioural and biological data means that the observed effects could just as easily reflect differences in lifestyle or unrecorded habits in tattooed populations.
For now, the fundamental advice for melanoma prevention is unchanged: limit sun exposure, wear sunscreen, and check your skin regularly, regardless of ink status.
For those who already have multiple tattoos, the study does, however, provide some reassuring news: there is currently no evidence that tattooing increases the risk of melanoma, and any association with reduced risk may simply reflect other factors.
The broader message, though, is one of scientific caution. Interesting signals like these warrant further investigation in larger, more carefully controlled studies, that can fully account for all the complexities of cancer risk and human behaviour. Until then, tattoos may remain a personal choice, but definitely not a medically endorsed strategy for staving off skin cancer.
Justin Stebbing 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.
