Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vincent Gauci, Professorial Fellow, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham

Satellites circling the Earth have many different functions, including navigation, communications and Earth observation. About 8%-10% of all active satellites are military or “dual use” serving intelligence or reconnaissance functions as spy satellites.

But it was a climate satellite serving as both spy and “name and shame” police officer in the sky that recently caught the world’s attention when it went quiet.

MethaneSat was developed to spot emission hot spots or plumes of invisible methane pollution from space. Built by the US non-profit, the Environmental Defense Fund with Nasa’s support, it tracked methane leaks from oil and gas sites, farms and landfills across the globe.

These are among the biggest human-caused emission sources. But methane emissions are traditionally hard to spot because they come from so many relatively small point sources or plumes.

Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

This specialist observation satellite was developed and deployed because methane acts differently to other greenhouse gas emissions. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that, over 20 years, is more than 80 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Since 1750, additional human-caused methane emissions have contributed directly and indirectly, to around 60% of the global warming of carbon dioxide over that time.

Methane also has a short lifetime. Where carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for in excess of 100 years, relying on plant uptake for its removal from the atmosphere and conversion into other carbon forms, methane is broken down in the atmosphere by molecules known as hydroxyl radicals. These are nicknamed “the atmosphere’s detergent”, because they effectively remove methane from the atmosphere in less than ten years.

This combination of short lifetime and high global warming potential (a measure of the climate strength of the gas relative to carbon dioxide) makes methane both a problem and an ideal target for reduction. In fact, growth in atmospheric methane is occurring at such a rate that it is placing us dangerously off track from meeting our Paris agreement obligations to stay within 1.5°C of climate warming by 2050 and 2°C by 2100.

Eyes in the sky

But how can we achieve these reductions and what was the role of MethaneSat in seeking to meet this objective?

There are two ways atmospheric methane concentrations can be reduced. A recent and more challenging proposition is that methane is actively removed from the atmosphere.

This is difficult because it relies on technological advances that are at their earliest stages (although growing more trees can go some way to achieving this). Another more realistic approach is to reduce emissions and then to let atmospheric chemistry do the work of removing excess methane in the atmosphere.

The global methane pledge was announced in 2021 at the UN climate summit, Cop26, in Glasgow. This aimed to reduce human-caused methane emissions by 30% on 2020 levels by 2030. More than 150 countries have now signed up to this pledge. If successful, it could reduce warming by up to 0.2°C by 2050. That’s why MethaneSat was so useful.

MethaneSat is fitted with a hyperspectral sensor – which can record sunlight reflected off Earth in hundreds of narrow colour bands across the spectrum, far beyond what our eyes can see. It’s capable of picking up concentrations of methane in air at minute quantities.

This sensor allowed the satellite to spot individual plumes of methane, so it had a crucial role in identifying those problem areas. Given that these are dispersed but also individual point sources, it was invaluable in intervening in the leaks, permitting identification of those responsible so they could be held to account and so address the problem.

No one instrument can cover what MethaneSat could do with freely available data. It had high precision, high spatial resolution and, critically, global coverage and it was particularly useful at identifying plumes in nations that don’t have the resources for the sort of regional surveys using aircraft mounted systems that can fill the gap in developed regions.

Now that MethaneSat is no longer operational, there are some other tools to identify small anthropogenic emissions sources, but they tend to be regionally focused like the aircraft measurements mentioned.

Other satellites gather similar data but that data sits behind commercial paywalls, whereas MethaneSat data was freely available. Collectively, these drawbacks mean that it’s just going to be that much harder to spot the emissions MethaneSat was so good at tracking.

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 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Vincent Gauci receives funding from the NERC, Spark Climate Solutions, the JABBS Foundation and has received funding from the Royal Society, Defra and the AXA Research Fund.

– ref. MethaneSat: The climate spy satellite that went quiet – https://theconversation.com/methanesat-the-climate-spy-satellite-that-went-quiet-261022

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Neil Cocks, Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature, University of Reading

Gen V (2023-present), the recent iteration of the wildly successful superhero satire The Boys (2019), thrives on scenes of bodily outrage. One such episode concerns a young woman who is able to shrink – an ability triggered by self-induced vomiting.

Her boyfriend persuades her to use her powers during sex and we see her touching his penis, which is now taller than she is. We also understand why the boyfriend is so insistent about her transformation: relatively speaking, he has a small penis.

In Companion (2025), a film about a young man who has an abusive sexual relationship with a self-conscious robot, a small penis is also mocked. When the robot gains autonomy, and has an intelligence boost, she confronts and shames the abusive man, claiming that he is motivated in his violent and controlling behaviour by “a below average-sized penis”.

What interests me about these works, as a researcher of sexuality and film, is that they are otherwise committed to questioning reductive ideas about the body. Yes, in the universe of The Boys there is undoubted glee at all the exploding heads and superpowered, murderous buttocks, but the keynote is pathos.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

The girl who changes her shape through vomiting is arguably representing bulimic experience and there are characters whose superpowers can be understood to negotiate, for example, self-harm and dysmorphia. But when it comes to a man with a small penis, it’s a different story. His body is understood to directly influence both his actions and sense of morality.

Likewise, in Companion, which is in so many senses a meditation on the fraught relationship between mind and body, the small penis of the young man is understood to be the obvious source of his repressive actions.

In both cases, the audience is expected to laugh at the abuser because of his small penis. The small penis is framed as both a signifier and cause of abusiveness.

‘We are still so medieval about penis size’

It could be argued that in Companion and Gen V, the small penis itself is not what is being mocked. The men involved in both are young, white and heterosexual. The idea is, perhaps, that mocking those with small penises is acceptable, because in this the creators are really questioning white, heterosexual and male power structures, and that the inadequacy of that power, its mythic nature, is exposed.

One difficulty in this is that as only power held by men with small penises is mocked, the power of the well endowed, regardless of racial or sexual identity, is naturalised.

Equally, those people of colour or queer people who have small penises might implicitly be included in the mockery, with the implication that they are somehow the beneficiaries of power structures, misuse this power, and have obvious, biologically rooted motivations in so doing.

Gen V qualifies the laughter – the girl , talking later to a friend, makes clear that there is nothing wrong in having a small penis, just “don’t be a dick about it”. But the only small-penised character we see is, of course, being “a dick”.

There have been a number of television shows that focus on penis size, but each explores the pathos of having a large penis: Hung (2009), The Hard Times of RJ Berger (2010), Sex Education (2019). Imagine an equivalent concerning a character with a small – or even simply not large – penis.

As journalist Caitlin Moran wrote in a 2023 Guardian article introducing her book, What About Men:

We are still so medieval about penis size that we see male genitalia as being inimical to a man’s soul. Remember when Stormy Daniels told the world that Donald Trump’s penis was ‘smaller than average – a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart’. And we were all like: ‘Yes, it makes sense the horrible man has a small, weird mushroom penis.’ The whole world joined in on that one.

Let us instead question the relationship between biology and destiny. And let this action be taken not to frame heterosexual white men as a disadvantaged group, but for the good of us all. Our bodies are ours to negotiate, with ourselves, and with our significant others, as well as those others that find in them indifference, or more troubling affects.

As Gen V and Companion suggest, in recent science fiction stories that otherwise reimagine the body, the small penis can only be imagined as shameful. It is taken to be an obvious motivation for abusive behaviour. Such an understanding helps no one. As the science fiction genre is especially well placed to question common-sense ideas about the human and its form, it would be a good place to begin.

Neil Cocks 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. Small penises are still the butt of the joke in film and TV – https://theconversation.com/small-penises-are-still-the-butt-of-the-joke-in-film-and-tv-256748

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natasha McKeever, Lecturer in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds

Many dating app companies are enthusiastic about incorporating generative AI into their products. Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of dating app Bumble, wants gen-AI to “help create more healthy and equitable relationships”. In her vision of the near future, people will have AI dating concierges who could “date” other people’s dating concierges for them, to find out which pairings were most compatible.

Dating app Grindr is developing an AI wingman, which it hopes to be up and running by 2027. Match Group, owner of popular dating apps including Tinder, Hinge and OK Cupid, have also expressed keen interest in using gen-AI in their products, believing recent advances in AI technology “have the power to be transformational, making it more seamless and engaging for users to participate in dating apps”. One of the ways they think gen-AI can do this is by enhancing “the authenticity of human connections”.

Use of gen-AI in online dating is not just some futuristic possibility, though. It’s already here.

Want to enhance your photos or present yourself in a different style? There are plenty of online tools for that. Similarly, if you want AI to help “craft the perfect, attention-grabbing bio” for you, it can do that. AI can even help you with making conversation, by analysing your chat history and suggesting ways to reply.

Extra help

It isn’t just dating app companies who are enthusiastic about AI use in dating apps either. A recent survey carried out by Cosmopolitan magazine and Bumble of 5,000 gen-Zers and millennials found that 69% of respondents were excited about “the ways AI could make dating easier and more efficient”.

An even higher proportion (86%) “believe it could help solve pervasive dating fatigue”. A surprising 86% of men and 77% of the women surveyed would share their message history with AI to help guide their dating app conversations.

Dating today can feel like a mix of endless swipes, red flags and shifting expectations. From decoding mixed signals to balancing independence with intimacy, relationships in your 20s and 30s come with unique challenges.Love IRL is the latest series from Quarter Life that explores it all.

These research-backed articles break down the complexities of modern love to help you build meaningful connections, no matter your relationship status.

It’s not hard to see why AI is so appealing for dating app users and providers. Dating apps seem to be losing their novelty: many users are reportedly abandoning them due to so-called “dating app fatigue” – feeling bored and burnt out with dating apps.

Apps and users might be hopeful that gen-AI can make dating apps fun again, or if not fun, then at least that it will make them actually lead to dates. Some AI dating companions claim to get you ten times more dates and better dates at that. Given that men tend to get fewer matches on dating apps than women, it’s also not surprising that we’re seeing more enthusiasm from men than women about the possibilities AI could bring.

Talk of gen-AI in connection to online dating gives rise to many ethical concerns. We at the Ethical Dating Online Network, an international network of over 30 multi-disciplinary academics interested in how online dating could be more ethical, think that dating app companies need to convincingly answer these worries before rushing new products to market. Here are a few standout issues.

Pitfalls of AI dating

Technology companies correctly identify some contemporary social issues, such as loneliness, anxiety at social interactions, and concerns about dating culture, as hindering people’s dating lives.

But turning to more technology to solve these issues puts us at risk of losing the skills we need to make close relationships work. The more we can reach for gen-AI to guide our interactions, the less we might be tempted to practise on our own, or to take accountability for what we communicate. After all, an AI “wingman” is of little use when meeting in person.

Also, AI tools risk entrenching much of dating culture that people find stressful. Norms around “banter”, attractiveness or flirting can make the search for intimacy seem like a competitive battleground. The way AI works – learning from existing conversations – means that it will reproduce these less desirable aspects.

Instead of embracing those norms and ideals, and trying to equip everyone with the tools to seemingly meet impossibly high standards, dating app companies could do more to “de-escalate” dating culture: make it calmer, more ordinary and help people be vulnerable. For example, they could rethink how they charge for their products, encourage a culture of honesty, and look at alternatives to the “swiping” interfaces.

The possibility of misrepresentation is another concern. People have always massaged the truth when it comes to dating, and the internet has made this easier. But the more we are encouraged to use AI tools, and as they are embedded in dating apps, bad actors can more simply take advantage of the vulnerable.

An AI-generated photo, or conversation, can lead to exchanges of bank details, grooming and sexual exploitation.

Stopping short of fraud, however, is the looming intimate authenticity crisis. Online dating awash with AI generated material risks becoming a murky experience. A sincere user might struggle to identify like-minded matches on apps where use of AI is common.

This interpretive burden is annoying for anyone, but it will exacerbate the existing frustrations women, more so than men, experience on dating apps as they navigate spaces full of with timewasting, abuse, harassment and unwanted sexualisation.

Indeed, women might worry that AI will turbo-charge the ability of some men to prove a nuisance online. Bots, automation, conversation-generating tools, can help some men to lay claim to the attention of many women simultaneously.

AI tools may seem like harmless fun, or a useful timesaver. Some people may even wholeheartedly accept that AI generated content is not “authentic” and love it anyway.

Without clear guardrails in place, however, and more effort by app companies to provide informed choices based on transparency about how their apps work, any potential benefits of AI will be obscured by the negative impact it has to intimacy online.

The authors 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.

– ref. AI can be your wingman when online dating – but should you let it? – https://theconversation.com/ai-can-be-your-wingman-when-online-dating-but-should-you-let-it-254666

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mariko Visserman, Assistant Professor in Psychology, University of Sussex

When you’re looking for a relationship, chances are you’ll start off with a wishlist for your ideal partner. Maybe someone who is attractive or wealthy, someone who likes the same movies and the outdoors. Seems like a solid starting point, right? The problem is that in the real world, these wishlists are rarely helpful. And how realistic is the idea that one person can fulfil all our needs in the first place?

In 2017, researchers conducted a large speed-dating study. They wanted to see how well the preferences people indicated for a potential partner predicted who they wanted to see again after the event.

The researchers were left with nothing: people’s wishlists did not predict who they actually liked. Instead, they suggested that the best predictor of whether you like someone is seeing how they make you feel when you interact with them. Do you feel comfortable in their presence? Do they make you laugh?

The scientific evidence suggests that you have to meet people in the flesh if you want to find your match.

Dating today can feel like a mix of endless swipes, red flags and shifting expectations. From decoding mixed signals to balancing independence with intimacy, relationships in your 20s and 30s come with unique challenges. Love IRL is the latest series from The Conversation’s Quarter Life that explores it all.

These research-backed articles break down the complexities of modern love to help you build meaningful connections, no matter your relationship status.

People used to find their romantic partner by tapping into their social networks – through friends, family, or the people they met in their daily lives. Nowadays, we often look for a romantic partner using online dating platforms, which allow us to access a larger network of potential romantic partners than ever before.

This apparent abundance may encourage a critical comparison with your wishlist and you may spend a lot of time swiping through profiles of potential partners, without initiating meeting them.

Research suggests that doing so can leave you feeling paralysed by an overload of choice and less optimistic about your chances. Research also shows that people tend to have fewer matches as the number of profiles on offer increases.

The researchers of this paradox suggest that you may be wise to put yourself on a dating diet: only looking at a limited number of profiles each day and exploring them with a curious mind. Then, when contact is established and you feel positive about the initial interaction, the real experiment begins.

When you spend a long time interacting online you may construct an idealised version of your potential partner and what you hope they’re like. That leaves you all the more likely to be disappointed when meeting them in person, as it’s easy for them to fall short of your expectations.

A better strategy would be to meet them in the flesh with a curious mind, before becoming overly invested in an online persona that is not a fair representation of what the other person may be like.

Taking it offline

Whether you will go on to have a satisfying relationship in the long run depends more than anything on your relationship expectations and behaviour.

Being kind and attentive to each other’s goals and needs ensures each partner’s happiness and will help weather any challenge, small or large, that couples inevitably face. But here too, technology may disrupt your mindful awareness of others – for example being on your phone in the presence of your partner – posing a risk to enjoying relationships.

Couples today also seem to have historically high expectations for their partner to help them fulfil all their goals and needs. You may want a partner to be a passionate lover, your best friend, your motivational coach and help you achieve personal growth.

In other words, people’s wishlists people carry into relationships too, as we long for a partner to fulfil all our needs.

Demanding all of this from one partner can place too much pressure on the relationships, rather than satisfying your needs. You may be left with a dissatisfying relationship that falls short of your expectations.

In some ways, we may all benefit from adopting lower expectations when looking for a partner and when being with them long term. This may help us appreciate them instead of taking their support and kind acts for granted.

It’s also a good idea to diversify your relationships. Having other important close (and even less close) relationships can help fulfil some needs your partner may not be best suited to meet, such as friends who like the same movies you do or who like to explore the outdoors together.

Research has shown that a greater diversity of relationships benefits happiness, as different relationships can serve different roles in fulfilling your needs, which may take some pressure off “the one” fulfilling all your needs.

Putting some brakes on your expectations for a romantic partner, when looking for a partner and when sharing your life with them, may help you to see more clearly who they are and appreciate what they contribute to your life.

Mariko Visserman 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. Looking for meaningful romantic relationships? Start by diversifying your friendships and forgetting your wishlist – https://theconversation.com/looking-for-meaningful-romantic-relationships-start-by-diversifying-your-friendships-and-forgetting-your-wishlist-254022

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor

None of the cultural love stories of the 2000s started with a swipe. Friends taught us that your social circle could double as a dating pool. The Office proved that love could blossom by the water cooler, and in High School Musical the perfect match could be the new girl at school.

But in the years since, apps have changed the way we date. The old-fashioned meet-cute was replaced by swipes, and slow-burn feelings were forgotten in favour of instant digital chemistry. It came with some benefits. Gone were the days when your romantic options were limited to bad set-ups, overly flirty colleagues, or trying to catch the eye of the hottie reading on the train. And introverts could pursue connections without the anxiety of approaching someone in a noisy bar or making the first move with a friend. But there were losses too.

While the convenience of dating apps expanded our horizons, they also stripped away some of the spontaneity and authenticity of in-person connections. The rush of emotions tied to real-life interactions – the spark of chemistry when eyes meet across a room or the thrill of an unexpected conversation – has become less frequent. Swiping left and right creates a kind of detachment, where it’s easier to dismiss someone with a flick of the thumb than to take a moment to truly get to know them. What we gained in options, we lost in meaningful connections.

Now another love revolution is on the horizon as algorithms and AI start to play an ever-growing role in how we form and navigate our relationships. Whether you’re single, dating, married or somewhere in between, our love lives are increasingly mediated by technology.

This is especially true for those of us in our 20s and 30s, who grew up with the promise of finding romance in real life but came of age as the dating app revolution began in earnest. Which is where Love IRL, a new Quarter Life series from The Conversation, comes in. These research-backed articles break down the complexities of modern love, from decoding mixed signals to balancing independence with intimacy. Along the way we’ll help you navigate the ghosts, love-bombers, breadcrumbers and catfishers and strive for more meaningful connections – offline and on.

Some of the topics you’ll read about include how ditching the wishlists can help you find meaningful romantic relationships, how AI wingmen are influencing online dating, and how rising living costs are changing the way we date, live and love.

Thoughts? Relationship woes? Get in touch at quarterlife@theconversation.com

Dating today can feel like a mix of endless swipes, red flags and shifting expectations. From decoding mixed signals to balancing independence with intimacy, relationships in your 20s and 30s come with unique challenges. Love IRL is the latest series from Quarter Life that explores it all.

These research-backed articles break down the complexities of modern love to help you build meaningful connections, no matter your relationship status.

– ref. Love IRL: a new Quarter Life series on modern dating from The Conversation – https://theconversation.com/love-irl-a-new-quarter-life-series-on-modern-dating-from-the-conversation-259474