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Category: Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: How to protect your favourite urban trees from increasing danger

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Grace, PhD Candidate, Climate Change and Literature, Nottingham Trent University

    Whether your favourite tree is in a private garden, on wasteland, in a school playground or on the street, your emotional response may be admiration, relaxation, rejuvenation or awareness of the seasons passing. But so many special trees are experiencing a combination of threats.

    According to a new report from environmental charity the Tree Council and government-funded agency Forest Research, introduced pests and diseases, pollution, extreme weather and infrastructure development are all on the increase, which could be a disaster for the UK’s trees. These affect trees’ condition, resilience and capacity to mitigate the climate and nature crises.

    Not only do trees play ecological roles in nature, such as shelter for wildlife and protection from floods, many people have long-standing connections to trees. A report from the Tree Council highlights the role of trees as an important part of the “fabric of human cultures and societies”.

    This demonstrates a move away from appreciating only the ecological benefits provided by urban trees and towards the social and cultural importance they hold for local populations.

    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.

    The ecological and biodiversity values of trees are well-documented. Trees offer homes and food for birds, insects and wildlife. They prevent rainwater reaching the ground by as much as 45%. When combined with grass, surface water flooding is reduced by 99% compared with tarmac. Urban trees reduce air pollution, quieten noise and keep cities shaded and cool.

    Thousands of people cast votes for their favourite trees in the UK and Europe. In a recent study, over half of 1,800 adults surveyed said they had a favourite tree and 74% felt that urban development is the greatest threat to our trees.

    That’s not the only threat, though. Single species planting of street trees, for example, leaves the trees vulnerable to diseases (such as Dutch elm or ash dieback). Rising temperatures and water scarcity leaves trees competing for resources.

    But what does that mean for our urban trees? Approximately 30% of tree cover in England exists outside forest and woodland. Such trees form an essential habitat in urban areas where 83% of the UK’s population live, yet more than ever before our urban trees are facing threats from a deadly combination of environmental change and human development. In Wales, for example, 7,000 mature trees in towns and cities were lost between 2006 and 2013.

    To try to address this growing crisis, woodland charity Forest Research have released a new, national free to use “trees outside woodland” map. This refers to any trees found in settings such as parks, open countryside and farmland, gardens and estates, or beside roads and paths.

    These can be on a street corner, beside a railway track or in a market square and includes very old trees like those listed on the ancient tree inventory plus otherwise unremarkable trees growing in unusual settings, such as the vandalised 200-year-old Sycamore Gap tree.

    Why we love trees

    England is dawdling behind many other countries when it comes to protecting important trees. Forest Research found that trees outside woodland share many of the social and cultural values associated with trees in woodlands, however people make specific relationships with these urban trees and they are more likely to be considered unique and irreplaceable.

    Trees in urban areas have huge social benefits too.
    Karo Martu/Shutterstock

    They can be recognised for their grace and beauty or for their associations with customs, beliefs and rituals. They can be a place to rest and play and symbols of community belonging. They can give a sense of continuity, connecting people’s lifespans with reflections about the natural world and everything beyond.

    Many countries give clear titles to their important trees. In Poland, they are called natural monuments, in Germany they are living monuments. Spain, Belgium, Greece, Mexico and Finland use the term “monumental trees”. In New Zealand, special urban trees are referred to as national living landmarks. Currently England falls behind in designating trees for protection based on their historical or aesthetic importance.

    Trees for everyone

    A common feature across many countries is the opportunity for anyone, including members of the public, to recommend a tree for protection. Tree equity is the idea that everyone should have access to the benefits of trees. It includes prioritising and deploying resources in the areas where people have least access to them.

    Tree inequity exists in most UK towns and cities. On average, the most economically and socially deprived and most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods have half the tree canopy cover compared to the least deprived and least diverse.

    Canopy cover ranges from 1–2% in parts of north-east England to 36% in Hampstead, north London. Even within London there are wide variations.

    So ensure your favourite tree can be appreciated and celebrated by your community as a living monument, make sure it is on the Trees Outside Woodland map. And check if it needs a drink.

    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.

    Lucy Grace receives funding from AHRC for her PhD through the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.

    – ref. How to protect your favourite urban trees from increasing danger – https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-your-favourite-urban-trees-from-increasing-danger-258227

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: How to protect your favourite urban trees from increasing danger

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Grace, PhD Candidate, Climate Change and Literature, Nottingham Trent University

    Whether your favourite tree is in a private garden, on wasteland, in a school playground or on the street, your emotional response may be admiration, relaxation, rejuvenation or awareness of the seasons passing. But so many special trees are experiencing a combination of threats.

    According to a new report from environmental charity the Tree Council and government-funded agency Forest Research, introduced pests and diseases, pollution, extreme weather and infrastructure development are all on the increase, which could be a disaster for the UK’s trees. These affect trees’ condition, resilience and capacity to mitigate the climate and nature crises.

    Not only do trees play ecological roles in nature, such as shelter for wildlife and protection from floods, many people have long-standing connections to trees. A report from the Tree Council highlights the role of trees as an important part of the “fabric of human cultures and societies”.

    This demonstrates a move away from appreciating only the ecological benefits provided by urban trees and towards the social and cultural importance they hold for local populations.

    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.

    The ecological and biodiversity values of trees are well-documented. Trees offer homes and food for birds, insects and wildlife. They prevent rainwater reaching the ground by as much as 45%. When combined with grass, surface water flooding is reduced by 99% compared with tarmac. Urban trees reduce air pollution, quieten noise and keep cities shaded and cool.

    Thousands of people cast votes for their favourite trees in the UK and Europe. In a recent study, over half of 1,800 adults surveyed said they had a favourite tree and 74% felt that urban development is the greatest threat to our trees.

    That’s not the only threat, though. Single species planting of street trees, for example, leaves the trees vulnerable to diseases (such as Dutch elm or ash dieback). Rising temperatures and water scarcity leaves trees competing for resources.

    But what does that mean for our urban trees? Approximately 30% of tree cover in England exists outside forest and woodland. Such trees form an essential habitat in urban areas where 83% of the UK’s population live, yet more than ever before our urban trees are facing threats from a deadly combination of environmental change and human development. In Wales, for example, 7,000 mature trees in towns and cities were lost between 2006 and 2013.

    To try to address this growing crisis, woodland charity Forest Research have released a new, national free to use “trees outside woodland” map. This refers to any trees found in settings such as parks, open countryside and farmland, gardens and estates, or beside roads and paths.

    These can be on a street corner, beside a railway track or in a market square and includes very old trees like those listed on the ancient tree inventory plus otherwise unremarkable trees growing in unusual settings, such as the vandalised 200-year-old Sycamore Gap tree.

    Why we love trees

    England is dawdling behind many other countries when it comes to protecting important trees. Forest Research found that trees outside woodland share many of the social and cultural values associated with trees in woodlands, however people make specific relationships with these urban trees and they are more likely to be considered unique and irreplaceable.

    Trees in urban areas have huge social benefits too.
    Karo Martu/Shutterstock

    They can be recognised for their grace and beauty or for their associations with customs, beliefs and rituals. They can be a place to rest and play and symbols of community belonging. They can give a sense of continuity, connecting people’s lifespans with reflections about the natural world and everything beyond.

    Many countries give clear titles to their important trees. In Poland, they are called natural monuments, in Germany they are living monuments. Spain, Belgium, Greece, Mexico and Finland use the term “monumental trees”. In New Zealand, special urban trees are referred to as national living landmarks. Currently England falls behind in designating trees for protection based on their historical or aesthetic importance.

    Trees for everyone

    A common feature across many countries is the opportunity for anyone, including members of the public, to recommend a tree for protection. Tree equity is the idea that everyone should have access to the benefits of trees. It includes prioritising and deploying resources in the areas where people have least access to them.

    Tree inequity exists in most UK towns and cities. On average, the most economically and socially deprived and most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods have half the tree canopy cover compared to the least deprived and least diverse.

    Canopy cover ranges from 1–2% in parts of north-east England to 36% in Hampstead, north London. Even within London there are wide variations.

    So ensure your favourite tree can be appreciated and celebrated by your community as a living monument, make sure it is on the Trees Outside Woodland map. And check if it needs a drink.

    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.

    Lucy Grace receives funding from AHRC for her PhD through the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.

    – ref. How to protect your favourite urban trees from increasing danger – https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-your-favourite-urban-trees-from-increasing-danger-258227

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The spectacular frenzy of 28 Years Later offers a new breed of pandemic storytelling

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucyl Harrison, PhD Candidate, School of Humanities, University of Hull

    Twenty-three years on from director Danny Boyle’s unforgettable film 28 Days Later, and five years on from COVID, horror is having a spectacular renaissance. With 28 Years Later, the franchise has returned to cinema as a mouthpiece for the unique pressures Britain is facing post-pandemic and post-Brexit.

    In 2020, speculative architect and director Liam Young said: “I’m sure the scripts for a new genre of virus fictions or ‘Vi-Fi’ are already in the works and perhaps that is the real opportunity of this present moment, to imagine the potential fictions and futures, and to prototype the new worlds that we all want to be a part of when the viral cloud lifts.” Well, here that vision is.

    In this film, Europe has contained the “rage virus” to Britain. There are French boats on quarantine patrols, Swedish soldiers mocking remaining mainlanders and St George’s flags burning.

    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.

    28 Years Later is set on Holy Island, off the coast of the UK. There, an isolated community is protected by tides which conceal and reveal a causeway through which islanders can leave to get to the mainland to forage.

    One of the film’s most adrenaline-spiking scenes comes in the form of a terrifying chase back to the island. A young boy named Spike (Alfie Williams) is hurrying back after performing his rite of passage ceremony in which he is instructed to kill infected people on the mainland. It’s sound-tracked to the transcendental tones of Wagner’s Das Rheingold prelude.

    Twenty-eight years on from the events of the first film, the infected have evolved. Boyle has re-imagined them in even more monstrous forms. Gore-lovers will enjoy the menacing new brand of infected – seven-foot “alphas” – who rip heads from the living and dangle their severed spines.

    An ode to COVID

    Talking about how the pandemic inspired 28 Years Later, Boyle told Sky News:

    Suddenly everybody’s capital city, everywhere around the world was the same. And what was incredible about it was obviously just this idea which had previously only really belonged to films, like our film, where culture is suddenly just stopped dead.

    Danny Boyle speaks about 28 Years Later.

    The film’s stars, Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor Johnson, meanwhile have both said that they drew from their real-life experiences of pandemic isolation for their roles as Spike’s Geordie parents. As Taylor explained:

    My son was 13, the same age as Alfie was when we were making this movie. I know what it was like to protect your family but also to not understand what was happening around us. And I thought it was interesting whilst reading this that an audience is going to understand that journey […] I drew upon a lot of those scenarios.

    The film ushers in a new age of “Vi-Fi” without succumbing to pulpy pandemic storytelling. Boyle gives us an antidote to cultural amnesia around the pandemic through Dr Kelson, the mad doctor played by Ralph Fiennes.

    Dr Kelson pushes against cultural erasure through his construction of a temple of bones: totems of tibias and a spire of skulls that honour the virus victims.

    The trailer for 28 Years Later.

    He touchingly explains that we are to remember death and remember love: “Every skull is a set of thoughts, these sockets saw, and these jaws swallowed.” Fiennes is adept at rendering this “crazy” loner character who has a knack for turning up at the right time; the effortlessness of his humanity is a pleasure to watch.

    Boyle explained: “The COVID memorial wall opposite parliament is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen … it sort of inspired Ralph Fiennes’ character and what he’s building as a gesture towards remembering everyone as a way of actually looking forwards, not a way of looking back.”

    After the creative inertia brought on by the COVID lockdowns, I’ve detected tectonic shifts in pandemic storytelling in my interviews with COVID authors.

    Stories like 28 Years Later that “quietly” insert the pandemic and push COVID into the background are considered the easiest to digest. These stories are part of a new, radical literary avant-garde that has emerged in contemporary literature to chronicle the COVID era.

    Pandemic fiction has become an oft-maligned genre; conversations on my podcast, Pandemic Pages, with emergency planner Professor Lucy Easthope and horror author Kylie Lee Baker confirm that literary festivals and agents have expressed reluctance to read or publish COVID fiction. Professor Easthope explained that many people just don’t feel ready to read about the pandemic.

    For Baker, it’s that many people simply find the associations too traumatic. However, judging from the reactions of cinema-goers when I saw 28 Years Later, there is an audience hungry for another serving of Boyle’s insatiable trilogy.

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

    – ref. The spectacular frenzy of 28 Years Later offers a new breed of pandemic storytelling – https://theconversation.com/the-spectacular-frenzy-of-28-years-later-offers-a-new-breed-of-pandemic-storytelling-259579

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The spectacular frenzy of 28 Years Later offers a new breed of pandemic storytelling

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucyl Harrison, PhD Candidate, School of Humanities, University of Hull

    Twenty-three years on from director Danny Boyle’s unforgettable film 28 Days Later, and five years on from COVID, horror is having a spectacular renaissance. With 28 Years Later, the franchise has returned to cinema as a mouthpiece for the unique pressures Britain is facing post-pandemic and post-Brexit.

    In 2020, speculative architect and director Liam Young said: “I’m sure the scripts for a new genre of virus fictions or ‘Vi-Fi’ are already in the works and perhaps that is the real opportunity of this present moment, to imagine the potential fictions and futures, and to prototype the new worlds that we all want to be a part of when the viral cloud lifts.” Well, here that vision is.

    In this film, Europe has contained the “rage virus” to Britain. There are French boats on quarantine patrols, Swedish soldiers mocking remaining mainlanders and St George’s flags burning.

    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.

    28 Years Later is set on Holy Island, off the coast of the UK. There, an isolated community is protected by tides which conceal and reveal a causeway through which islanders can leave to get to the mainland to forage.

    One of the film’s most adrenaline-spiking scenes comes in the form of a terrifying chase back to the island. A young boy named Spike (Alfie Williams) is hurrying back after performing his rite of passage ceremony in which he is instructed to kill infected people on the mainland. It’s sound-tracked to the transcendental tones of Wagner’s Das Rheingold prelude.

    Twenty-eight years on from the events of the first film, the infected have evolved. Boyle has re-imagined them in even more monstrous forms. Gore-lovers will enjoy the menacing new brand of infected – seven-foot “alphas” – who rip heads from the living and dangle their severed spines.

    An ode to COVID

    Talking about how the pandemic inspired 28 Years Later, Boyle told Sky News:

    Suddenly everybody’s capital city, everywhere around the world was the same. And what was incredible about it was obviously just this idea which had previously only really belonged to films, like our film, where culture is suddenly just stopped dead.

    Danny Boyle speaks about 28 Years Later.

    The film’s stars, Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor Johnson, meanwhile have both said that they drew from their real-life experiences of pandemic isolation for their roles as Spike’s Geordie parents. As Taylor explained:

    My son was 13, the same age as Alfie was when we were making this movie. I know what it was like to protect your family but also to not understand what was happening around us. And I thought it was interesting whilst reading this that an audience is going to understand that journey […] I drew upon a lot of those scenarios.

    The film ushers in a new age of “Vi-Fi” without succumbing to pulpy pandemic storytelling. Boyle gives us an antidote to cultural amnesia around the pandemic through Dr Kelson, the mad doctor played by Ralph Fiennes.

    Dr Kelson pushes against cultural erasure through his construction of a temple of bones: totems of tibias and a spire of skulls that honour the virus victims.

    The trailer for 28 Years Later.

    He touchingly explains that we are to remember death and remember love: “Every skull is a set of thoughts, these sockets saw, and these jaws swallowed.” Fiennes is adept at rendering this “crazy” loner character who has a knack for turning up at the right time; the effortlessness of his humanity is a pleasure to watch.

    Boyle explained: “The COVID memorial wall opposite parliament is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen … it sort of inspired Ralph Fiennes’ character and what he’s building as a gesture towards remembering everyone as a way of actually looking forwards, not a way of looking back.”

    After the creative inertia brought on by the COVID lockdowns, I’ve detected tectonic shifts in pandemic storytelling in my interviews with COVID authors.

    Stories like 28 Years Later that “quietly” insert the pandemic and push COVID into the background are considered the easiest to digest. These stories are part of a new, radical literary avant-garde that has emerged in contemporary literature to chronicle the COVID era.

    Pandemic fiction has become an oft-maligned genre; conversations on my podcast, Pandemic Pages, with emergency planner Professor Lucy Easthope and horror author Kylie Lee Baker confirm that literary festivals and agents have expressed reluctance to read or publish COVID fiction. Professor Easthope explained that many people just don’t feel ready to read about the pandemic.

    For Baker, it’s that many people simply find the associations too traumatic. However, judging from the reactions of cinema-goers when I saw 28 Years Later, there is an audience hungry for another serving of Boyle’s insatiable trilogy.

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

    – ref. The spectacular frenzy of 28 Years Later offers a new breed of pandemic storytelling – https://theconversation.com/the-spectacular-frenzy-of-28-years-later-offers-a-new-breed-of-pandemic-storytelling-259579

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Why it can be harder to sleep during the summer – and what you can do about it

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Timothy Hearn, Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics, Anglia Ruskin University

    The amount of daylight we get in the summer can seriously mess with our body clock. Lysenko Andrii/ Shutterstock

    As the days stretch long and the sun lingers late into the evening, most of us welcome summer with open arms. Yet for a surprising number of people, this season brings an unwelcome guest: insomnia.

    For these people, summer is a time of tossing and turning, early waking – or simply not feeling sleepy when they should. Far from just being a nuisance, this seasonal insomnia may chip away at mood, concentration and metabolic health.

    But why does insomnia spike in summer — and more importantly, what can be done about it? The answer lies in the light.

    Every tissue in the body owns a molecular “clock”. However, these clocks take their cue from a central timekeeper – the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus. This cluster of about 20,000 neurons synchronises the myriad cellular clocks to a near 24-hour cycle.

    It uses the external light detected by the eyes as a cue, driving the release of two different hormones: melatonin, which makes us sleepy and a pre-dawn surge cortisol to help us wake.

    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.

    In winter, this light cue is short and sharp. But in June and July, daylight can stretch on for 16 or 17 hours in the mid‑latitudes. That extra dose matters because evening light is the most potent signal for pushing the central timekeeper later. In summer melatonin shifts by roughly 30 minutes to an hour later, while dawn light floods bedrooms early and kills the hormone off sooner.

    This can have a big effect on the amount of sleep we get. One study monitored the sleep of 188 participants in the lab on three nights at different times of the year. The researchers found that total sleep was about an hour shorter in summer than winter.

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep — the sleep stage most strongly linked to emotional regulation and the consolidation of emotionally charged memories — accounted for roughly half the sleep loss in summer.

    The same team later tracked 377 patients over two consecutive years and showed that sleep length and REM sleep began a five‑month decline soon after the last freezing night of spring. Sleep length shrank by an average of 62 minutes, while REM decreased by about 24 minutes. Slow-wave sleep – the phase most critical for tissue repair, immune regulation and the consolidation of factual memories – reached its annual low around the autumn equinox.

    Both studies took place in a city bathed in artificial light – suggesting that even in modern environments our sleep remains seasonally affected.

    Big population surveys echo these findings. Among more than 30,000 middle‑aged Canadians, volunteers interviewed in midsummer said they slept eight minutes less than those interviewed in midwinter. The summer interviewees also reported greater insomnia symptoms in the fortnight after the autumn clock change – suggesting the abrupt time shift exacerbates underlying seasonal misalignment.

    One study also compared the effect of summer sleep in people living at very different latitudes – such as near the equator, where there’s little change in day length in the summer, and near the Arctic circle, where the differences are extreme. The study found that for people living in Tromsø, Norway, their self-reported insomnia and daytime fatigue rose markedly in summer. But for people living in Accra, Ghana (near the equator), these measures barely budged.

    This show just how strongly daylight – and the amount of daylight hours we experience – can affect our sleep quality. But it isn’t the only culprit of poor summertime sleep.

    The warm temperatures can also interrupt our sleep.
    antoniodiaz/ Shutterstock

    Temperature is another factor that can spoil sleep during the summer months.

    Just before we fall asleep, our core body temperature begins a steep descent of roughly 1°C to help us fall asleep. It reaches its lowest point during the first half of the night.

    On muggy summer nights this can make falling asleep difficult. Laboratory experiments show that even a rise from 26°C to about 32°C increases wakefulness and reduces both slow-wave and REM sleep.

    Different people are also more vulnerable to summer insomnia than others. This has to do with your unique “chronotype” – your natural preference to rise early or sleep late.

    Evening chronotypes – “night owls” – already lean towards later bedtimes. They may stay up even later when it stays bright past ten o’clock. Morning chronotypes, on the other hand, may find themselves waking up even earlier than they normally do because of when the sun rises in the summer.

    Mood can amplify the effect. Research found people who suffered with mental health issues were more likely to experience difficulty sleeping in summer.

    Chronic anxiety, alcohol use and certain prescription drugs — notably beta blockers, which suppress melatonin — can all make sleep more elusive in summer.

    Reclaiming summer sleep

    Happily, there are many ways of fixing the issue.

    • Get some morning sunshine. Try to step outside within an hour of waking up – even if it’s just for 15 minutes. This tells the clock that the day has begun and nudges it to finish earlier that evening.

    • Create an artificial dusk. Around two hours before bed, close the curtains, turn off the lights and reduce the intensity of your phone screen’s blue light to help your melatonin rise on time.

    • Don’t let the dawn light in. Being exposed to the dawn light too early will wake you up. Blackout curtains or a contoured eye-mask can ensure you don’t wake before you’re rested.

    • Keep things cool. Fans, breathable cotton or linen sheets or a lukewarm shower before bed all help the body to achieve that crucial one-degree drop in core temperature needed to get a good night’s sleep.

    The deeper lesson here from chronobiology is that humans remain, biologically speaking, seasonal animals. While our industrialised lives flatten the calendar, our cells still measure day length and temperature just as plants and migratory birds do.

    By adapting and aligning our habits with those light signals, we might just be able to recapture some sleep – even during the warmer months.

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

    – ref. Why it can be harder to sleep during the summer – and what you can do about it – https://theconversation.com/why-it-can-be-harder-to-sleep-during-the-summer-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-259292

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Why it can be harder to sleep during the summer – and what you can do about it

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Timothy Hearn, Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics, Anglia Ruskin University

    The amount of daylight we get in the summer can seriously mess with our body clock. Lysenko Andrii/ Shutterstock

    As the days stretch long and the sun lingers late into the evening, most of us welcome summer with open arms. Yet for a surprising number of people, this season brings an unwelcome guest: insomnia.

    For these people, summer is a time of tossing and turning, early waking – or simply not feeling sleepy when they should. Far from just being a nuisance, this seasonal insomnia may chip away at mood, concentration and metabolic health.

    But why does insomnia spike in summer — and more importantly, what can be done about it? The answer lies in the light.

    Every tissue in the body owns a molecular “clock”. However, these clocks take their cue from a central timekeeper – the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus. This cluster of about 20,000 neurons synchronises the myriad cellular clocks to a near 24-hour cycle.

    It uses the external light detected by the eyes as a cue, driving the release of two different hormones: melatonin, which makes us sleepy and a pre-dawn surge cortisol to help us wake.

    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.

    In winter, this light cue is short and sharp. But in June and July, daylight can stretch on for 16 or 17 hours in the mid‑latitudes. That extra dose matters because evening light is the most potent signal for pushing the central timekeeper later. In summer melatonin shifts by roughly 30 minutes to an hour later, while dawn light floods bedrooms early and kills the hormone off sooner.

    This can have a big effect on the amount of sleep we get. One study monitored the sleep of 188 participants in the lab on three nights at different times of the year. The researchers found that total sleep was about an hour shorter in summer than winter.

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep — the sleep stage most strongly linked to emotional regulation and the consolidation of emotionally charged memories — accounted for roughly half the sleep loss in summer.

    The same team later tracked 377 patients over two consecutive years and showed that sleep length and REM sleep began a five‑month decline soon after the last freezing night of spring. Sleep length shrank by an average of 62 minutes, while REM decreased by about 24 minutes. Slow-wave sleep – the phase most critical for tissue repair, immune regulation and the consolidation of factual memories – reached its annual low around the autumn equinox.

    Both studies took place in a city bathed in artificial light – suggesting that even in modern environments our sleep remains seasonally affected.

    Big population surveys echo these findings. Among more than 30,000 middle‑aged Canadians, volunteers interviewed in midsummer said they slept eight minutes less than those interviewed in midwinter. The summer interviewees also reported greater insomnia symptoms in the fortnight after the autumn clock change – suggesting the abrupt time shift exacerbates underlying seasonal misalignment.

    One study also compared the effect of summer sleep in people living at very different latitudes – such as near the equator, where there’s little change in day length in the summer, and near the Arctic circle, where the differences are extreme. The study found that for people living in Tromsø, Norway, their self-reported insomnia and daytime fatigue rose markedly in summer. But for people living in Accra, Ghana (near the equator), these measures barely budged.

    This show just how strongly daylight – and the amount of daylight hours we experience – can affect our sleep quality. But it isn’t the only culprit of poor summertime sleep.

    The warm temperatures can also interrupt our sleep.
    antoniodiaz/ Shutterstock

    Temperature is another factor that can spoil sleep during the summer months.

    Just before we fall asleep, our core body temperature begins a steep descent of roughly 1°C to help us fall asleep. It reaches its lowest point during the first half of the night.

    On muggy summer nights this can make falling asleep difficult. Laboratory experiments show that even a rise from 26°C to about 32°C increases wakefulness and reduces both slow-wave and REM sleep.

    Different people are also more vulnerable to summer insomnia than others. This has to do with your unique “chronotype” – your natural preference to rise early or sleep late.

    Evening chronotypes – “night owls” – already lean towards later bedtimes. They may stay up even later when it stays bright past ten o’clock. Morning chronotypes, on the other hand, may find themselves waking up even earlier than they normally do because of when the sun rises in the summer.

    Mood can amplify the effect. Research found people who suffered with mental health issues were more likely to experience difficulty sleeping in summer.

    Chronic anxiety, alcohol use and certain prescription drugs — notably beta blockers, which suppress melatonin — can all make sleep more elusive in summer.

    Reclaiming summer sleep

    Happily, there are many ways of fixing the issue.

    • Get some morning sunshine. Try to step outside within an hour of waking up – even if it’s just for 15 minutes. This tells the clock that the day has begun and nudges it to finish earlier that evening.

    • Create an artificial dusk. Around two hours before bed, close the curtains, turn off the lights and reduce the intensity of your phone screen’s blue light to help your melatonin rise on time.

    • Don’t let the dawn light in. Being exposed to the dawn light too early will wake you up. Blackout curtains or a contoured eye-mask can ensure you don’t wake before you’re rested.

    • Keep things cool. Fans, breathable cotton or linen sheets or a lukewarm shower before bed all help the body to achieve that crucial one-degree drop in core temperature needed to get a good night’s sleep.

    The deeper lesson here from chronobiology is that humans remain, biologically speaking, seasonal animals. While our industrialised lives flatten the calendar, our cells still measure day length and temperature just as plants and migratory birds do.

    By adapting and aligning our habits with those light signals, we might just be able to recapture some sleep – even during the warmer months.

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

    – ref. Why it can be harder to sleep during the summer – and what you can do about it – https://theconversation.com/why-it-can-be-harder-to-sleep-during-the-summer-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-259292

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Assisted dying: what happens now the House of Lords has the bill?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Gover, Senior Lecturer in British Politics, Queen Mary University of London

    The House of Lords will now scrutinise the bill. Flickr/House of Lords , CC BY-NC-ND

    MPs have voted to introduce assisted dying, almost seven months after this bill was first debated in the House of Commons. The proposal – a backbench private member’s bill promoted by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater – would allow terminally ill people in England and Wales to receive assistance to end their lives.

    That the bill has completed its House of Commons passage is an important milestone. Its success is perhaps also surprising given that private members’ bills face a precarious route through that chamber. Even a small number of determined opponents is often enough to derail them.

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    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    But that has not materialised in this case. MPs on all sides of the debate deserve credit for enabling the bill to be decided on its merits rather than by procedural subterfuge and political game-playing.

    Even so, the bill’s passage into law is not yet assured. It must now go through an equivalent series of legislative stages in the House of Lords. If the Lords makes any changes, these must in turn be agreed to by MPs – potentially setting off a process of compromise known as “ping-pong” – before the bill can enter the statute book.

    This has led to speculation around whether the Lords could block the legislation.

    Unlikely to block the bill outright

    Stereotypes of the Lords as a holdout of social conservatism are now largely out of date. Indeed it is the Lords that has, to a large extent, kept the issue of assisted dying on the political agenda. Prior to Leadbeater’s bill, peers proposed a series of private members’ bills on this topic – including in 2014, 2020, 2021 and 2024. None, however, made it through the chamber.

    Despite this recent history, it is difficult to predict exactly how the Lords will respond to this assisted dying bill. As an unelected and largely appointed chamber, the Lords contains many members with expertise directly relevant to the bill, including medical, legal and disability rights. For many peers, the Lords’ central constitutional purpose is to subject proposals to in-depth scrutiny – and they will surely want to do so here.

    In principle, it would be possible for the Lords to reject the assisted dying bill outright. The often-cited Salisbury convention, which states that peers should not block any proposal in the governing party’s election manifesto, would clearly not apply to this backbench measure.

    Yet such an outcome would appear unlikely. In practice, it is exceptionally rare for any bill to be rejected outright by peers. This is in large part because the chamber recognises that it should be for the elected House of Commons to set the direction of policy, with the Lords playing a supporting scrutiny role.

    Whatever the chamber’s balance of opinion on assisted dying – and some peers may well be individually willing to vote it down – the chamber as a whole seems likely to conclude that they would be playing with constitutional fire to reject such a high-profile bill that has been passed on a free vote by MPs.

    In-depth scrutiny

    What is more difficult to call is whether the bill could run out of time before it has completed its passage. The last time an assisted dying bill made significant progress in the Lords, a decade ago, it became mired in hundreds of amendments and never made it out of committee stage.

    Given the gravity of this bill, and the degree of Lords expertise, there is likely to be significant demand to conduct in-depth scrutiny and to make amendments to the legislative text. Unlike in the House of Commons – where only a small number of amendments are selected by the speaker for a decision – in the Lords, every proposed amendment can be moved and spoken to. All of this will require parliamentary time.

    It is also theoretically possible that a small number of opponents could deliberately propose large numbers of amendments purely to gum up proceedings. Most of the time, peers act with restraint – and they would probably do so here too, given the high risk of generating backlash against the chamber. But the combination of strong feelings with a “free-vote” conscience issue makes this harder to definitively rule out.

    Adding to the unpredictability is that the timetables available remain uncertain. If the Lords makes any changes to the bill these would need to return to MPs for approval before the bill can pass into law. As things stand, the last available Commons sitting Friday – by default there are only 13 each session, when private members’ bills are considered – is July 11. There is now next to no chance of this deadline being met.

    A tight timetable

    It is possible in principle for the Lords to expedite scrutiny of the bill. But House of Lords procedures recommend observing minimum periods between bill stages. This ensures there is time, for example, to consider the issues raised at one stage before deciding whether to pursue them further at the next.

    Departing from these conventions would be politically unthinkable on a bill criticised by many – largely unfairly – for inadequate parliamentary scrutiny.

    Yet it is straightforward for ministers to grant additional time in the Commons. Indeed, it would arguably break with recent practice for time to not be provided. In both cases since 2010 where a regular private member’s bill required additional Commons time for Lords amendments – in 2019 and 2023 – this was provided by the then Conservative governments.

    This means that the second key deadline is the end of the current parliamentary session, at which point most outstanding legislation automatically falls. Sessions typically last around one year, and some had expected this one to end sometime in the autumn.

    But the length of sessions is elastic – within the control of ministers – and it is not unusual for those immediately after a general election to last significantly longer.

    Nor does the Lords operate the same system of private members’ bill Fridays as the Commons, though it would be unusual to schedule substantive debates on them earlier in the week. Either way, there would surely be pressure for sufficient parliamentary time to be found.

    Ultimately, one of the stories of this bill’s passage to date has been that the constraints of an often-inadequate parliamentary process have not been allowed to prevent MPs from expressing their will. Many in the Lords will recognise the risks of any situation in which they are now seen to stand in its way.

    Daniel Gover 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. Assisted dying: what happens now the House of Lords has the bill? – https://theconversation.com/assisted-dying-what-happens-now-the-house-of-lords-has-the-bill-259572

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Global: At June’s Nato summit, just keeping Donald Trump in the room will be seen as a victory

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

    Gints Ivuskans/Shutterstock

    When Nato leaders meet for their annual summit in The Hague on Wednesday June 25, all eyes will be on Donald Trump. Not only is the 47th president of the United States less committed to the alliance than any of his predecessors in Nato’s 76-year history. But he has also just joined Israel’s war with Iran and seems to have given up his efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

    Leaders of Nato’s 32 member states should therefore have had a packed agenda. Although there are several meetings and a dinner planned for June 24, the actual summit – which has tended usually to stretch out over several days – has been reduced to a single session and a single agenda item. All of this has been done to accommodate the US president.

    A single session reduces the risk of Trump walking away from the summit early, as he did at the G7 leaders meeting in Kananaskis, Canada, on June 16.

    The single item remaining on the agenda is Nato members’ new commitment to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. This is meant to placate Trump who demanded such an increase even before his inauguration in January 2025.

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    Trump has frequently complained, and not without justification, that European members of the alliance invested too little in their defence and were over-reliant on the US. A draft summit declaration confirming the new spending target has now been approved after Spain secured an opt-out.

    Even accounting for Trump’s notorious unpredictability, this should ensure that Nato will survive the Hague summit intact. What is less clear is whether Nato’s members can rise to the unprecedented challenges that the alliance is facing.

    These challenges look different from each of the member states’ 32 capitals. But, for 31 of them, the continued survival of the alliance as an effective security provider is an existential question. Put simply, they need the US, while the US doesn’t necessarily need to be part of the alliance.

    The capability deficit that Canada and European member states have compared to the US was thrown into stark relief by Washington’s airstrikes against Iran over the weekend. This is not simply a question of increasing manpower and to equip troops to fight. European states also lack most of the so-called critical enablers, the military hardware and technology required to prevail in a potential war with Russia.

    This includes, among other things, intelligence capabilities, heavy-lift aircraft to quickly move troops and equipment and command and control structures that have traditionally been provided by US forces. These will take significant time and resources to replace.

    For now, Russia is tied down in Ukraine, which will buy time. And the 5%-commitment – even if not all member states will get there quickly or at all – is likely to go some way towards to mobilise the necessary resources for beefing up Europe’s defences. But time and resources are not limitless. And is not yet clear what the American commitment to Europe will be in the future and when and how it will be reduced.

    A new type of war

    Nor is it completely obvious what kind of war Europe should prepare for. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is both a very traditional war of attrition and a very modern technological showdown.

    A future confrontation with the Kremlin is initially likely to take the form of a “grey-zone” conflict, a state of affairs between war and peace in which acts of aggression happen but are difficult to attribute unambiguously and to respond to proportionately.

    This has arguably already started with Russian attacks on critical infrastructure. And as the example of Ukraine illustrates, grey-zone conflicts have the potential to escalate to conventional war.

    In February 2022, Russia saw an opportunity to pull Ukraine back into its zone of influence by brute force after and launched a full-scale invasion, hoping to capture Kyiv in a matter of a few days. This turned out to be a gross misjudgement on the Kremlin’s part. And three years on from that, if frequent Russian threats are to be believed, the possibility of a nuclear escalation can no longer be ruled out either.

    Key members of the alliance are unequivocal in their assessment of Russia as an existential threat to Europe. This much has been made clear in both the UK’s strategic defence review and the recent strategy paper for the German armed forces.

    Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, the former prime minister of The Netherlands, gives a press conference before the Nato summit.

    Yet, this is not a view unanimously shared. Trump’s pro-Putin leanings date back to their now infamous meeting in Helsinki when he sided with the Russian president against his own intelligence services.

    In Europe, long-term Putin supporters Victor OrbanOrbán and Robert Fico, the prime ministers of EU and Nato members Hungary and Slovakia, have just announced that they will not support additional EU sanctions against Russia.

    Hungary and Slovakia are hardly defence heavyweights, but they wield outsized institutional power. Their ability to veto decisions can disrupt nascent European efforts both within the EU and Nato to rise to dual challenge of an increasingly existential threat to Europe from Russia and American retrenchment from its 80-year commitment to securing Europe against just that threat.

    What will, and more importantly what will not, happen at the Nato summit in The Hague will probably be looked back on as another chapter in the remaking of the international order and the European security architecture. A Nato agreement on increased defence spending should be enough to give the organisation another lease of life. But the implicit inability to agree on what is the main threat the alliance needs to defend itself against is likely to put a short expiration date on that.



    Read more:
    US joins Israel in attack on Iran and ushers in a new era of impunity

    Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

    – ref. At June’s Nato summit, just keeping Donald Trump in the room will be seen as a victory – https://theconversation.com/at-junes-nato-summit-just-keeping-donald-trump-in-the-room-will-be-seen-as-a-victory-259585

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Mounjaro becomes available on the NHS: what to know and what to do if you’re not eligible

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

    bigshot01/Shutterstock

    Obesity remains one of the most pressing, and preventable, health challenges of our time. The UK is one of a number of countries undoubtedly struggling with it.

    It affects nearly every organ system in the body, contributing to cardiovascular conditions like coronary heart disease; musculoskeletal issues such as osteoarthritis and gout; and even the development of certain cancers, including of the breast, uterus and colon. Its impact on mental health is also significant.

    A few years ago, injectable weight-loss drugs entered clinical use and quickly captured public attention for their ability to promote rapid fat loss. Ozempic is available on the NHS, but only for managing type 2 diabetes. Wegovy is authorised for weight loss and cardiovascular risk reduction and is also available on the NHS, though access is currently limited to specialist weight management services.

    Now, a new option has emerged: Mounjaro, which is approved for both type 2 diabetes and weight loss. This dual-purpose drug is now available on the NHS, offering another potential tool in the fight against obesity.

    Demand is expected to be high. However, access will be limited at first, with strict eligibility criteria for NHS prescriptions.

    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.

    What is Mounjaro?

    Mounjaro (tirzepatide) is a once weekly injectable medication designed to help control blood-sugar levels. It works by boosting the secretion and effects of insulin, improving glycaemic control in people with Type 2 diabetes. It also slows gastric emptying — the process by which food leaves the stomach — and enhances feelings of fullness by acting on the brain. This combined effect reduces appetite and helps support weight loss.

    Compared to similar medications like Ozempic and Wegovy (both brand names for semaglutide), clinical trials found Mounjaro more effective, with some participants losing up to 20% of their body weight over a 72-week period.



    Read more:
    The best exercises to do while taking weight loss drugs

    Who is eligible for Mounjaro on the NHS?

    The NHS has introduced specific criteria to prioritise patients most in need.

    First, patients need a BMI of 40 or more (classified as morbid obesity). People from certain ethnic backgrounds, such as South Asian communities, may be eligible at a lower BMI due to higher clinical risk of health conditions.

    Second, at least four obesity-related health conditions must be diagnosed, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), dyslipidaemia (abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels), cardiovascular disease and obstructive sleep apnoea. (Some of these conditions often occur together; for example, high blood pressure and cholesterol.)

    Patients are encouraged to check their BMI and confirm their diagnoses before contacting a GP. This helps ensure appointments are used effectively and discussions remain focused.

    While the current criteria are strict, there is optimism that eligibility will broaden in the coming years to include people with lower BMIs and fewer co-morbidities.

    Not eligible? Don’t despair

    The NHS continues to offer a comprehensive weight-loss programme, tiered according to BMI and previous attempts at weight loss. Don’t underestimate the value of group-based programmes or community referrals – when a healthcare professional refers a patient to a community-based health service for further care or support – many of which can be accessed via your GP.

    These services, such as the NHS digital weight management programme, support both individuals and families and can be highly effective for sustainable fat loss.

    GPs may also refer patients to online courses and structured exercise programmes. Lifestyle interventions, including increased physical activity and healthier eating, remain cornerstones of obesity treatment and are critical for long-term success, even when medications are used.



    Read more:
    From diet to drugs: what really works for long-term weight loss

    Higher tier interventions may be considered if lifestyle changes fail or if the patient has significant co-morbidities. This is where medications like Mounjaro, or private prescriptions, may become relevant – albeit that the cost of the latter may be a limiting factor for some.

    Other treatments include Orlistat, a medication that reduces fat absorption in the gut. This can be effective for some but often causes unpleasant side effects, such as oily stools and gastrointestinal upset

    Gastric banding or surgery may also result in significant, sustained weight loss, but they come with risks, can lead to surgical complications, and recovery can be demanding

    It’s also important to recognise that drugs like Mounjaro aren’t suitable for everyone. They can cause side effects significant enough for people to stop using them, and in some cases, they may not work at all.

    In this new era of faster, medication-assisted weight loss, we must remember that long-term change is about more than quick fixes. Sustainable success comes from consistent effort, willingness to change and methods that are both practical and lasting.

    Medications can help, sometimes dramatically, but they’re not the only answer. A return to basics, with tailored support and realistic goals, remains as relevant as ever.

    So whether you qualify for Mounjaro, are trying lifestyle changes, or are exploring other options, remember this: the journey to better health is personal, gradual and worth it.

    Dan Baumgardt 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. Mounjaro becomes available on the NHS: what to know and what to do if you’re not eligible – https://theconversation.com/mounjaro-becomes-available-on-the-nhs-what-to-know-and-what-to-do-if-youre-not-eligible-259582

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Assisted dying: 56 MPs switched their vote between rounds – here’s how religion affected their choices

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Jeffery, Senior Lecturer in British Politics, University of Liverpool

    MPs voted to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales on June 20 after the third reading of the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill. The bill has been heavily contentious, both in terms of ethics and the technical aspects of the parliamentary process, with many feeling the legislation was rushed.

    This was the final vote in the House of Commons on the bill, which now moves to the House of Lords before becoming legislation.

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    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    The bill passed with 314 votes to 291 – a majority of 23. This was a smaller margin of victory than the previous occasion MPs voted on the legislation in October 2024, when a majority of 55 supported its passage. The question, therefore, is: “who switched?”

    Excluding the speaker, the SNP MPs, who typically do not vote on issues specific to England and Wales, Sinn Fein MPs, who cannot vote because they do not take their seats, and the new Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, Sarah Pochin, who replaced former Labour MP Mike Amesbury between the second and third reading of this bill, we are left with 632 MPs to study.

    Characteristic Overall (N = 632) Yes (N = 313) No (N = 292) Abstain (N = 27)
    Female 260 (100%) 136 (52%) 110 (42%) 14 (5.4%)
    Ethnic MP 90 (100%) 26 (29%) 59 (66%) 5 (5.6%)
    LGBT 70 (100%) 50 (71%) 19 (27%) 1 (1.4%)
    Elected As
    Labour 410 (100%) 229 (56%) 165 (40%) 16 (3.9%)
    Conservative 121 (100%) 20 (17%) 94 (78%) 7 (5.8%)
    Liberal Democrat 72 (100%) 55 (76%) 14 (19%) 3 (4.2%)
    Independent 6 (100%) 0 (0%) 6 (100%) 0 (0%)
    Democratic Unionist Party 5 (100%) 0 (0%) 5 (100%) 0 (0%)
    Reform UK 5 (100%) 1 (20%) 4 (80%) 0 (0%)
    Green Party 4 (100%) 4 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
    Plaid Cymru 4 (100%) 3 (75%) 1 (25%) 0 (0%)
    Social Democratic & Labour Party 2 (100%) 1 (50%) 0 (0%) 1 (50%)
    Alliance 1 (100%) 0 (0%) 1 (100%) 0 (0%)
    Traditional Unionist Voice 1 (100%) 0 (0%) 1 (100%) 0 (0%)
    Ulster Unionist Party 1 (100%) 0 (0%) 1 (100%) 0 (0%)
    MP Religious
    Not Religious 228 (100%) 173 (76%) 48 (21%) 7 (3.1%)
    Religious 404 (100%) 140 (35%) 244 (60%) 20 (5.0%)
    MP Religion
    None 228 (100%) 173 (76%) 48 (21%) 7 (3.1%)
    Christian 313 (100%) 117 (37%) 181 (58%) 15 (4.8%)
    Catholic 34 (100%) 7 (21%) 27 (79%) 0 (0%)
    Muslim 25 (100%) 2 (8.0%) 22 (88%) 1 (4.0%)
    Jewish 13 (100%) 7 (54%) 4 (31%) 2 (15%)
    Sikh 12 (100%) 6 (50%) 4 (33%) 2 (17%)
    Hindu 6 (100%) 1 (17%) 5 (83%) 0 (0%)
    Buddhist 1 (100%) 0 (0%) 1 (100%) 0 (0%)

    In total, 56 MPs changed position between the second and third reading. The no vote was stickier than the yes vote. Of those who voted no for the second reading, 97% did so in the third reading, and just one MP went from the no to the yes camp (Jack Abbott, the Labour MP for Ipswich).

    On the other hand, 14 MPs went from yes to no, and a further 15 went from yes to abstaining. Of the MPs who abstained for the second reading, ten later voted yes and ten voted no. This was not, however, enough for the bill to be blocked.

    How religion affected the vote

    It was [already clear](https://theconversation.com/assisted-dying-bill-religious-mps-were-more-likely-to-oppose-law-change-in-first-round-of-voting-256503](https://theconversation.com/assisted-dying-bill-religious-mps-were-more-likely-to-oppose-law-change-in-first-round-of-voting-256503) that support and opposition to the bill was linked to not only political party but religious outlook. And there is some evidence that religion played a role in motivating switchers.

    Apart from Labour, which broke 56% to 40% in favour of assisted dying, most other parties leant heavily in one direction or the other. This mirrors the divide along religion, where non-religious MPs were more likely to back the bill (76% to 21%) compared to religious MPs, who were half as likely to support it (35% to 60%).

    Religious Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs were more likely to support assisted suicide than religious MPs as a whole, whereas non-religious Conservatives were less likely to support it than non-religious MPs a whole.

    If we compare religious MPs to non-religious MPs, the former were more likely to switch to no (45% of religious MPs who switched did so to no, compared to 38% of non-religious MPs) than yes (18% against 25%). In both groups, 38% abstained in the third round.

    This pattern continues across parties too – all the Conservative MPs who changed position were religious (although more than 90% of the Conservative Party are religious, so we shouldn’t read too much into this).

    Among Labour MPs, who obviously make up the bulk of any parliamentary vote, there was a striking similarity in switching between religious and non-religious MPs. Of the switchers, 29% of Labour’s religious and non-religious MPs switched to yes, whilst 38% of religious and 36% of non-religious MPs switched to no.

    The effects of religion also play out within parties. Of the 11 MPs who switched to yes, seven were Labour Christian MPs, and the other four were non-religious Labour MPs.

    Two MPs elected under Reform’s banner – Lee Anderson and the now-independent Rupert Lowe – switched from yes to no, the former being non-religious and the latter a Christian. No Liberal Democrat MP switched to a yes vote, but the four who switched to no were religious – the one non-religious switcher abstained.

    Overall, it is clear that while religion is still important in structuring how MPs voted on assisted suicide, the role of party cannot be ignored – even in a free vote like on assisted dying.

    David Jeffery 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. Assisted dying: 56 MPs switched their vote between rounds – here’s how religion affected their choices – https://theconversation.com/assisted-dying-56-mps-switched-their-vote-between-rounds-heres-how-religion-affected-their-choices-259589

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How might the US-Iran conflict escalate? Expert Q&A

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin

    On Sunday June 22, Donald Trump announced that several of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities had been “completely obliterated” and that the country’s nuclear weapons programme had been crippled. Iran denied this and vowed to retaliate. The Iranian parliament has already given approval to closing the strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil transits en route to customers all over the world.

    Initially the US government insisted that the objective was simply to halt Iran’s nuclear programme. But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said several times that he wanted to topple Iran’s theocratic regime. And the day after the US bombing raids, Donald Trump also began to talk of regime change in Iran.

    We asked Middle East expert Scott Lucas how the situation might develop.

    How might this now escalate?

    Iran’s leadership has no good military options, just as it has had limited capabilities in the nine days since Israel launched its missile strikes and targeted assassinations across the country. In theory, it could target US forces, with up to 40,000 in the region within range of missiles and drones. Iran-backed militias in Iraq could also attack US personnel on bases in the country.

    But the Biden administration showed that it would hit these back hard. When the militias in Iraq and the Assad regime’s Syria killed troops and a contractor, Washington pummelled the groups with airstrikes. Iran’s Quds Force, responsible for operations outside the Islamic Republic, told the militias to stop.

    Iran could target the US fleet in the Persian Gulf. It has also threatened to close the vital strait of Hormuz. But given that 20% of the world’s oil goes through the waterway, those operations would incur the wrath not only of Washington but of other countries. The Gulf states, whose support Tehran desperately wants and needs, would be angered.

    Iran’s allies in Yemen, the Houthi rebels, could renew their attacks on Red Sea shipping. They could fire drones and missiles, reprising their assault on Saudi oil facilities between 2019 and 2022. But the political and military cost of that retaliation would be high.

    Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

    Iranian hybrid attacks, through cyber-warfare and assassination plots, are also a possibility. But the US and other states have clamped down on those activities in recent years with toughened surveillance, enforcement and sanctions on Iran, making their achievement of results more difficult.

    So while Iran continues to launch a dwindling stock of missiles at Israel, I think that its strategy beyond that is political. Play the victim and try to encourage other states, including the Gulf countries and the Europeans, to distance themselves from the Trump administration.

    What does this tell us about the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu?

    Benjamin Netanyahu has played Trump to ensure the success of Israel’s war. It’s as simple as that. As recently as February 4, Trump came close to humiliating the Israeli prime minister when he visited Washington to ask for the administration’s support for strikes on Iran. As Netanyahu sat uncomfortably in the White House press briefing, Trump declared that the US was going to open negotiations with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

    Netanyahu told the Trump administration in mid-May that it was intending to go ahead with strikes on Iran, even without US approval. There was some manoeuvring over the next three weeks, as the US and Iran went through five sets of talks. But on June 8, Trump met his national security advisors at Camp David in Maryland, where the CIA director John Ratcliffe and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Dan Caine, briefed him on the threat from Iran.

    The next day Netanyahu told Trump over the phone that Israel was going ahead with its attacks, which it launched four days later. The US duly cancelled the sixth set of peace talks in Oman. Now Trump, with the Orwellian cry of “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”, has blown up those negotiations for the foreseeable future.



    Read more:
    Why are the US and Israel not on the same page over how to deal with Iran? Expert Q&A

    Where are Russia and China in all this?

    Both countries are watching closely and calculating their response. On May 22, Beijing condemned “a reckless escalation and a flagrant violation of international law”. But its response will largely be rhetorical, avoiding any military or even political entanglement. If the US deepens its involvement in Iran’s war, including with any further strikes, China will step up the rhetoric while seeking advantage from the instability. It will play the responsible power, pursuing peace and progress, in contrast to a destructive and unreliable Trump administration. That would be a certain diplomatic win for Beijing.

    Russia is in a trickier position because of its 40-month full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has no end in sight. Iran has been an essential part of the military campaign, providing thousands of drones for Moscow’s daily attacks on military and civilian sites. As recently as April, the two countries signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement, pledging closer cooperation in trade, defence, energy, and regional infrastructure projects. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi has flown to Moscow for “serious consultations” with Russian “friends”, including Vladimir Putin.

    But Russia’s scope for intervention could be limited. Just before the US attacks the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said he might mediate between Israel and Iran. Trump immediately slapped him down. And the Kremlin will not want to commit military resources to what might be a prolonged conflict, since it is already stretched – maybe overstretched – in Ukraine both on the battlefield and on the economic front.

    What will the Arab world be thinking?

    Perhaps the most important reaction to the strikes is coming from the Gulf states, in particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Only a few weeks ago Trump was in the Gulf signing deals on trade and arms. But Gulf leaders are rattled by what might be an expanding, destructive conflict with the prospect of a power vacuum in Tehran.

    For months, they have manoeuvred against that instability in discussions with the Islamic Republic as well as with Washington. With its open-ended war in Gaza, Israel has already shattered the economic and political prospects of “normalisation” (establishing diplomatic relations and trade partnerships). Now the Gulf states are worried how far Israel and Iran will carry out their confrontation across the Middle East.

    There had been hints that they might come off the fence between flattering Trump and pushing back against Washington, and this now appears to have happened – to an extent anyway. Without naming the US, Saudi Arabia “condemned and denounced” the violation of Iran’s sovereignty. Qatar said the US strikes would have “catastrophic repercussions”. The UAE warned all parties to avoid those “serious” repercussions, and Oman went farther by criticising the breaking of international law.

    Trump ignored his own intelligence. So who is helping him game out this situation?

    That’s a great question with no clear answer. It is clear that it’s not the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, reportedly out of favour because she dared to publicise the assessment of US intelligence agencies that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. But with other cabinet members all proclaiming that this was Donald Trump’s “brilliant” plan, it is hard to see who led in pushing him away from negotiations and into the strikes.

    The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is little more than a hyperactive cheerleader. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is balancing between promoting the strikes and urging Iran to return to negotiations. The US vice-president, J.D. Vance, was central last week in efforts to persuade Republican legislators to back the strikes, amid the split in the Trumpist bloc over attacks.

    In the end, much of the impetus for this comes from Israel. Netanyahu has been careful to lavish praise on the US president for his “bold decision”, which he said would “change history”. With encouragement from a roll call of his Republican party admirers, Trump appears to have eagerly taken this up as his “victory”, claiming to have achieved “peace through strength”.

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

    – ref. How might the US-Iran conflict escalate? Expert Q&A – https://theconversation.com/how-might-the-us-iran-conflict-escalate-expert-qanda-259514

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Here’s why the public needs to challenge the ‘good AI’ myth pushed by tech companies

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, Director of Centre for AI Futures, SOAS, University of London

    While there’s been much negative discussion about AI, including on the possibility that it will take over the world, the public is also being bombarded with positive messages about the technology, and what it can do.

    This “good AI” myth is a key tool used by tech companies to promote their products. Yet there’s evidence that consumers are wary of the presence of AI in some products. This means that positive promotion of AI may be putting unwanted pressure on people to accept the use of AI in their lives.

    AI is becoming so ubiquitous that people may be losing their ability to say no to using it. It’s in smartphones, smart TVs, smart speakers like Alexa and virtual assistants like Siri. We’re constantly told that our privacy will be protected. But with the personal nature of the data that AI has access to in these devices, can we afford to trust such assurances?

    Some politicians also propagate the “good AI” promise with immense conviction, mirroring the messages coming from tech companies.

    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.

    My current research is partly explained in a new book called the The Myth of Good AI. This research shows that the data feeding our AI systems is biased, as it often over-represents privileged sections of the population and mainstream attitudes.

    This means that any AI products that don’t include data from marginalised people, or minorities, might discriminate against them. This explains why AI systems continue to be riddled with racism, ageism and various forms of gender discrimination, for instance.

    The speed with which this technology is impinging on our everyday life, makes it very hard to properly assess the consequences. And an approach to AI that is more critical of how it works does not make for good marketing for the tech companies.

    Power structures

    Positive ideas about AI and its abilities are currently dominating all aspects of AI innovation. This is partly determined by state interests and by the profit margins of the tech companies.

    These are tied into the power structures held up by tech multi-billionaires, and, in some places, their influence on governments. The relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, despite its recent souring, is a vivid manifestation of this.

    And so, the public is at the receiving end of a distinctly hierarchical top-down system, from the big tech companies and their governmental enablers to users. In this way, we are made to consume, with little to no influence over how the technology is used. This positive AI ideology is therefore primarily about money and power.

    As it stands, there is no global movement with a unifying manifesto that would bring together societies to leverage AI for the benefit of communities of people, or to safeguard our right to privacy. This “right to be left alone”, codified in the US constitution and international human rights law, is a central pillar of my argument. It is also something that is almost entirely absent from the assurances about AI made by the big tech companies.

    Yet, some of the risks of the technology are already evident. A database compiling cases in which lawyers around the world used AI, identified 157 cases in which false AI-generated information – so called hallucinations – skewed legal rulings.

    Some forms of AI can also be manipulated to blackmail and extort, or create blueprints for murder and terrorism.

    Tech companies need to programme the algorithms with data that represents everyone, not just the privileged, in order to reduce discrimination. In this way, the public are not forced to give into the consensus that AI will solve many of our problems, without proper supervision by society. This distinction between the ability to think creatively, ethically and intuitively may be the most fundamental faultline between human and machine.

    It’s up to ordinary people to question the good AI myth. A critical approach to AI should contribute to the creation of more socially relevant and responsible technology, a technology that is already trialled in torture scenarios, as the book discusses, too.

    The point at which AI systems would outdo us in every task is expected to be a decade or so away. In the meantime there needs to be resistance to this attack on our right to privacy, and more awareness of just how AI works.

    Arshin Adib-Moghaddam 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. Here’s why the public needs to challenge the ‘good AI’ myth pushed by tech companies – https://theconversation.com/heres-why-the-public-needs-to-challenge-the-good-ai-myth-pushed-by-tech-companies-259200

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: AI is consuming more power than the grid can handle — nuclear might be the answer

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Goran Calic, Associate Profesor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Leadership Chair, McMaster University

    New partnerships are forming between tech companies and power operators — ones that could reshape decades of misconceptions about nuclear energy.

    Last year, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) put out a call for nuclear proposals, Google agreed to buy new nuclear reactors from Kairos Power, Amazon partnered with Energy Northwest and Dominion Energy to develop nuclear energy and Microsoft committed to a 20-year deal to restart Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.

    At the centre of these partnerships is artificial intelligence’s voracious appetite for electricity. One Google search uses about as much electricity as turning on a household light for 17 seconds. Asking a Generative AI model like ChatGPT a single question is equivalent to leaving that light on for 20 minutes.



    Read more:
    AI is bad for the environment, and the problem is bigger than energy consumption

    Having GenAI generate an image can draw about 6,250 times more electricity, roughly the energy of fully charging a smartphone, or enough to keep the same light bulb on for 87 consecutive days.

    The hundreds of millions of people now using AI have effectively added the equivalent of millions of new homes to the power grid. And demand is only growing. The challenge for tech companies is that few sources of electricity are well-suited to AI.

    The grid wasn’t ready for AI

    AI requires vast amounts of computational power running around the clock, often housed in energy-intensive data centres.

    Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind provide intermittent energy, meaning they don’t guarantee the constant power supply these data centres require. These centres must be online 24/7, even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

    Fossil fuels can run continuously, but they carry their own risks. They have significant environmental impacts. Fuel prices can be unpredictable, as exemplified by the gas price spikes due to the war in Ukraine, and the long-term availability of fossil fuels is uncertain.

    Major tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft say they are committed to eliminating CO2 emissions, making fossil fuels a poor long-term fit for them.

    This has pushed nuclear energy back into the conversation. Nuclear energy is a good fit because it provides electricity around the clock, maximizing the use of expensive data centres. It’s also clean, allowing tech companies to meet their low CO2 commitments. Lastly, nuclear energy has very low fuel costs, which allows tech companies to plan their costs far into the future.

    However, nuclear energy has its own set of problems that have historically been hard to solve — problems that tech companies may now be uniquely positioned to overcome.

    Is nuclear energy making a comeback?

    Nuclear power has long been considered too costly and too slow to build. The estimated cost of a 1.1 gigawatt nuclear power facility is about US$7.77 billion, but can run higher. The recently completed Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, for example, cost US$36.8 billion combined.

    Historically, nuclear energy projects have been hard to justify because of their high upfront costs. Like solar and wind power, nuclear energy has relatively low operating costs once a plant is up and running. The key difference is scale: unlike solar panels, which can be installed on individual rooftops, the kind of nuclear reactors tech companies require can’t be built small.

    Yet this cost is now more palatable when compared to the expense of AI data centres, which are both more costly and entirely useless without electricity. The first phase of OpenAI and SoftBank’s Stargate AI project will cost US$100 billion and could be entirely powered by a single nuclear plant.

    Nuclear power plants also take a long time to build. A 1.1 gigawatt reactor takes, on average, 7.5 years in the U.S. and 6.3 years globally. Projects with such long timelines require confidence in long-term electricity demand, something traditional utilities struggle to predict.

    To solve the problem of long-range forecasting, tech companies are incentivizing power providers by guaranteeing they’ll purchase electricity far into the future.

    These companies are also literally and financially moving closer to nuclear power, either by acquiring nuclear energy companies or locating their data centres next to nuclear power plants.

    Destigmatizing nuclear energy

    One of the biggest challenges facing nuclear energy is the perception that it’s dangerous and dirty. Per gigawatt-hour of electricity, nuclear produces only six tonnes of CO2. In comparison, coal produces 970, natural gas 720 and hydropower 24. Nuclear even has lower emissions than wind and solar, which produce 11 and 53 tonnes of CO2, respectively.

    Nuclear energy is also among the safest energy sources. Per gigawatt-hour, it causes 820 times fewer deaths than coal, 43 times fewer than hydropower and roughly the same as wind and solar.

    Still, nuclear energy remains stigmatized, largely because of persistent misconceptions and outdated beliefs about nuclear waste and disasters. For instance, while many public concerns remain about nuclear waste, existing storage solutions have been used safely for decades and are supported by a strong track record and scientific consensus.

    Similarly, while the Fukushima disaster in Japan displaced thousands of people and was extremely costly (total costs of the disaster are expected at about US$188 billion), not a single person died of radiation exposure after the accident, a United Nations Scientific Committee of 80 international experts found.



    Read more:
    With nuclear power on the rise, reducing conspiracies and increasing public education is key

    For decades, there was little effort to correct public perceptions about nuclear fears because it wasn’t seen as necessary or profitable. Coal, gas and renewables were sufficient to meet the demand required of them. But that’s now changing.

    With AI’s energy needs soaring, Big Tech has classified nuclear energy as green and the World Bank has agreed to lift its longstanding ban on financing nuclear projects.

    Big Tech’s billion-dollar bet on nuclear

    The world has long lived with two nuclear dilemmas. The first is that, despite being one the safest and cleanest form of energy, nuclear was perceived as one the most dangerous and dirtiest.

    The second is that upgrading the power grid requires large-scale investments, yet money had been funnelled into small, distributed sources like solar and wind, or dirty ones like coal and natural gas.

    Now tech companies are making hundred-billion-dollar strategic bets that they can solve both nuclear dilemmas. They are betting that nuclear can offer the kind of steady, clean power their AI ambitions require.

    This could be an unexpected positive consequence of AI: the revitalization of one of the safest and cleanest energy sources available to humankind.

    Michael Tadrous, an undergraduate student and research assistant at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, co-authored this article.

    Goran Calic 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. AI is consuming more power than the grid can handle — nuclear might be the answer – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-consuming-more-power-than-the-grid-can-handle-nuclear-might-be-the-answer-258677

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Which African countries are flourishing? Scientists have a new way of measuring well-being

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Victor Counted, Associate Professor of Psychology, Regent University

    What does it mean to live a good life? Psychologists and social scientists have been focusing on a new idea called flourishing – a sense of well-being that goes beyond just happiness or success. It’s about your whole life being good, including how you interact with other people and your community. So then, how do Africans fare when it comes to flourishing?

    Victor Counted is a psychological scientist whose research across 40 African countries offers a data-rich rethinking of flourishing on the continent. His findings challenge the dominant narrative that Africa is “lagging behind” in development by showing a more nuanced picture of what it means to live a good life. We asked him more.

    What is flourishing?

    Flourishing is more than economic growth or individual happiness. It’s a multidimensional state of being that reflects how people feel about their lives and how well their lives are actually going. So it also measures people’s values within their community.

    The idea of well-being often carries a Eurocentric emphasis on the individual – personal satisfaction, autonomy, achievement. Flourishing accounts for how whole a person is in relation to their environment.

    It includes the social, spiritual and ecological contexts in which one lives. So, it’s not just about how one feels, but how one lives – fully, meaningfully and in a satisfying relationship with the world around us.

    What’s the Global Flourishing Study?

    The Global Flourishing Study tries to measure global patterns of human flourishing. It’s an ongoing five-year longitudinal study in over 200,000 participants across 22 countries.

    I was one of the team of global scholars brought together to examine the trends on what it means to live well across cultures and life circumstances.



    Read more:
    What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for global patterns and local differences

    The study identifies six key dimensions of flourishing:

    • Happiness and life satisfaction
    • Mental and physical health
    • Meaning and purpose
    • Character and virtue
    • Close social relationships
    • Financial and material stability

    Participants rate how they’re doing in each of these areas on a scale from 0 to 10. Further questions capture experiences related to trust, loneliness, hope, resilience, and other related well-being variables.


    CC BY-ND

    Of the 22 nations, five were African: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Egypt.

    While these countries didn’t top the global rankings (Indonesia and Mexico did), Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt all reported relatively high flourishing scores, especially when well-being was considered apart from financial status.

    Nigeria, for example, ranked 5th globally in flourishing scores that excluded financial indicators – ahead of many wealthier nations. Nigerians indicated strengths in social relationships, character and virtues (like forgiveness or helping others). But potential areas of growth included financial well-being, housing, ethnic discrimination and education.

    Overall, this suggests that while material resources matter, they’re not the only thing that determines well-being. Kenya ranked 7th, Egypt 10th, Tanzania 11th and South Africa 13th. Each showed unique strengths in areas like meaning, social connection or mental health.

    You did a separate study on flourishing in Africa. What did you find?

    In a 2024 study we analysed data from the Gallup World Poll (2020–2022) to explore 38 indicators of well-being across 40 African countries.

    This study offered a more detailed and culture-sensitive picture of how Africans experience and prioritise flourishing. The dimensions explored were derived from both local and universal sources, allowing for regionally relevant insights.

    We found that African populations often score high in meaning, character and social relationships – despite economic hardship. This offers an important corrective to western assumptions about well-being.

    Some of our key findings were:

    ● There is significant diversity between and within African countries. Mauritius consistently ranked highest in life evaluations (overall satisfaction with their lives), while countries like Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe scored lowest.

    ● East African countries such as Rwanda and Ethiopia showed strong performance in social well-being indicators (like feeling respected or learning new things daily) even when economic indicators were low.

    ● Countries in West Africa, such as Senegal and Ghana, scored high in emotional well-being, with many people reporting positive daily emotions like enjoyment and laughter.

    ● Southern African nations, despite challenges like income inequality, displayed resilience through strong community ties and cultural practices rooted in the philosophy of ubuntu.

    The results reinforced that flourishing in Africa cannot only be reduced to gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (a measure of the average economic output per person in a country) – nor to western norms of success.

    What can African countries focus on to flourish?

    In my view, the path to greater flourishing lies in embracing local knowledge and investing in culturally relevant development priorities. Instead of following western pathways – centred on individual advancement – Africa can model alternative flourishing pathways that reflect what matters most to African people.

    1. Prioritise local knowledge systems

    African ideas about a connected society – like ubuntu (southern Africa), ujamaa (east Africa), teranga or wazobia (west Africa), and al-musawat wal tarahum (north Africa) teach people to care for each other and live in peace. These values help people live meaningful lives and can inform leadership and legislation.

    2. Redefine development metrics

    Western development models focus on individual achievement, economic output and material consumption. GDP per capita fails to capture the everyday realities and aspirations of African communities. We should also measure things like how happy people are, how hopeful they feel about the future, how strong and resilient their communities are, and how clean, safe and dignifying their living environments are.

    This is not a new idea – for years development scholars have called for a shift away from narrow economic indicators toward a focus on human dignity, agency, and the real opportunities people have to pursue the lives they value. What’s new is the growing availability of data and the momentum to take these alternative metrics seriously in shaping national policies and priorities.

    3. Invest in education for character development

    Quality education is essential to unlocking the continent’s potential to flourish. But Africa needs more than just academic skills and workforce readiness – it needs a strategy for intentional development of values and habits that shape how a person thinks, feels, and acts with integrity.

    Part of the problem lies in how the humanities – fields like history, literature, philosophy, and religious studies – are often undervalued or underfunded in education systems. But it is precisely these disciplines that nurture moral imagination, critical reflection, and civic responsibility. We need educational models that form not just workers, but whole persons – people who can think ethically, act responsibly, and lead with character in their communities.



    Read more:
    What makes a person seem wise? Global study finds that cultures do differ – but not as much as you’d think

    What does Africa offer the world in terms of flourishing?

    Africa is not waiting to be saved. Across the continent, people are building communities of care, cultivating joy amid hardship, and passing on values of unity, faith, and compassion. This is what development looks like when rooted in human dignity.

    Africa flourishing goals offer an alternative vision for development – one that starts with what Africa already has, not what it lacks. These are locally emic aspirations for well-being. They are shaped by Africa’s indigenous knowledge systems, cultural values, and religious/spiritual traditions. Pursuing these goals means prioritising wholeness over wealth, community over consumption, and resilience over rescue.

    The continent has so much to offer the world: wisdom, strong community values, and ways of staying resilient and living fully even in hard times. But many of these local insights are missing in the global science of well-being.

    Victor Counted consults for Africa Flourishing Initiative

    – ref. Which African countries are flourishing? Scientists have a new way of measuring well-being – https://theconversation.com/which-african-countries-are-flourishing-scientists-have-a-new-way-of-measuring-well-being-257458

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Iran is considering closing the strait of Hormuz – why this would be a major escalation

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Basil Germond, Professor of International Security, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University

    Faced with the prospect of continuing Israeli airstrikes and further American involvement, Iran’s parliament has reportedly approved plans to close the strait of Hormuz.

    This is potentially a very dangerous moment. The strait of Hormuz is an important shipping lane through which 20% of the world’s oil transits – about 20 million barrels each day.

    The waterway connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Iran can either disrupt maritime traffic or attempt to “close” the strait altogether. These are distinctly different approaches with different risks and outcomes.

    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.

    The first option is to try and disrupt maritime traffic like Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been doing in the Red Sea since winter 2024. This can be done by attacking passing ships with rockets and drones.

    There are already reports that Iran has started to jam GPS signals in the strait, which has the potential to severely interfere with passing ships, according to US-based maritime analyst Windward.

    Disruption of this kind is likely to deter shipping companies from using this route for fear of casualties and loss of cargo. Shipping companies that want to avoid the Red Sea can always use alternative shipping lanes, such as the Cape of Good Hope route. As inconvenient as that is, there is no such option in the case of the Gulf.

    As we’ve seen with Houthis’ attacks, such disruptions have impacts on oil price, but also ripple effects on stock markets and inflation. Although the US and its western allies can absorb these economic effects – certainly for a while – disrupting the strait would still demonstrate that Tehran has some leverage.

    The credibility factor

    The second option – “closing” the strait would involve interdicting all maritime traffic. This is akin to a blockade. And for it to work, as we have seen in the Black Sea with Russia’s failed attempt at blockading Ukraine, a blockade must be credible enough to deter all traffic.

    Iran has a number of ways to block the strait. It could deploy mines in the waters around the choke point and sink vessels to create obstacles. Iran would also likely use its navy, including submarines, to engage those attempting to break the blockade; use electronic and cyber attacks to disrupt navigation; and threaten civilian traffic and regional ports and oil infrastructure with drones and rockets.

    It’s worth noting that Iran still has plenty of short-range rockets. Israel claims to have destroyed much of its longer range ballistic-missile capability, but it is understood that the country still has a stockpile of short-range missiles that could be effective in targeting ships and infrastructure in the Gulf as well as US bases in the region.

    Recent events have shown up Iran as a bit of a paper tiger. It has made bold claims about its plan to retaliate and the military strength it has to do so. Yet with almost no air power capabilities (apart from drones and missiles) and limited naval power – and with its proxies either defeated or on the back foot – Iran is no longer in a position to project power in the region.

    Iran’s response to the current Israeli attacks have not managed to inflict any major damage or achieve any strategic or political objectives. It’s hard to see a change on the battlefield as things stand.

    Vital waterway: 20% of the world’s oil transts through the Strait of Hormuz.
    w:en:Kleptosquirrel/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    For this reason, Tehran’s best option is to target the strait of Hormuz, which has the potential to cause a significant spike in oil prices, leading to a major disruption of the global economy.

    Short of being able to rival the US or Israel on the battlefield, Iran might decide to use asymmetrical means of disruption (in particular missile and drone attacks on civilian shipping) to affect the global economy. Closing or disrupting the strait would be an effective way of doing that.

    A blockade, even a partial one, would offer Tehran some options on the diplomatic scene. For instance, it has been reported that the US asked China to convince Iran not to close the strait. This demonstrates that Tehran can use the threat of a blockade to its advantage on the diplomatic front. But for this to work, the blockade needs to be effective and thus sustained.

    What would be the effect of a blocking the Strait?

    Disrupting traffic in the strait could drag Gulf states – Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar – into the conflict, since their interests will be directly affected. It’s important to consider how they might respond and whether this will drive them closer to the US – and even Israel, as was already happening with the Abraham Accords and the tentative, but shaky, rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.



    Read more:
    US joins Israel in attack on Iran and ushers in a new era of impunity

    These are all things Iran would have factored into its calculations a year ago when Israel was targeting its proxies, including Hezollah, Hamas and the various Shia militias it funds in Iraq and elsewhere. But now, given that it has suffered an enormous military setback, which has hurt the regime’s prestige and credibility – including, importantly, at home – Tehran is more likely to downplay these risks. I would expect it to proceed with its blockade plans.

    Even if China voices concerns, like it did regarding the Houthis’ attacks, this is unlikely to change the decision. The regime is cornered. If the leaders believe they could be toppled, they are likely to consider the risks worth taking, particularly if they feel it could give them diplomatic leverage.

    The US has enough naval and air power to disrupt such a blockade. It can preemptively destroy Iran’s mine-laying forces. It can also target missile launch sites inland and respond to threats as and when they arise.

    This is likely to prevent Iran from completely closing the strait. But it won’t prevent the Islamic republic from disrupting maritime trade enough to have serious effects on the world economy. This might well be one of the last cards the regime has to play, both on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena.

    Basil Germond 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. Iran is considering closing the strait of Hormuz – why this would be a major escalation – https://theconversation.com/iran-is-considering-closing-the-strait-of-hormuz-why-this-would-be-a-major-escalation-259562

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ Greens call on state to condemn US over ‘dangerous’ attack on Iran

    Asia Pacific Report

    New Zealand’s opposition Green Party has called on the government to condemn the United States for its illegal bombing of Iran and inflaming tensions across the Middle East.

    “The actions of the United States pose a fundamental threat to world peace,” said Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson in a statement.

    “The rest of the world — including New Zealand– must take a stand and make it clear that this dangerous escalation is unacceptable.

    “We are calling on the New Zealand government to condemn the United States for its attack on Iran. This attack is a blatant breach of international law and yet another unjustified assault on the Middle East from the US.”

    Davidson said the country had seen this with the US war on Iraq in 2003, and it was happening again with Sunday’s attack on Iran.

    “We are at risk of a violent history repeating itself,” she said.

    “[Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon needs to condemn this escalation from the US and rule out any participation in this conflict, or any of the elements of the AUKUS pact.

    Independent foreign policy
    “New Zealand must maintain its independent foreign policy position and keep its distance from countries that are actively fanning the flames of war.”

    Davidson said New Zealand had a long and proud history of standing up for human rights on the world stage.

    “When we stand strong and with other countries in calling for peace, we can make a difference. We cannot afford to be a bystander to the atrocities unfolding in front of our eyes.”

    It was time for the New Zealand government to step up.

    “It has failed to sanction Israel for its illegal and violent occupation of Palestine, and we risk burning all international credibility by failing to speak out against what the United States has just done.”

    Meanwhile, Prime Minister Luxon said New Zealand wanted to see a peaceful stable and secure Middle East, but more military action was not the answer, reports RNZ News.

    The UN Security Council met in emergency session today to discuss the US attack on the three key nuclear facilities.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the US bombing marked a “perilous turn” in a region already reeling.

    Iran called on the 15-member body to condemn what it called a “blatant and unlawful act of aggression”.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ Greens call on state to condemn US over ‘dangerous’ attack on Iran

    Asia Pacific Report

    New Zealand’s opposition Green Party has called on the government to condemn the United States for its illegal bombing of Iran and inflaming tensions across the Middle East.

    “The actions of the United States pose a fundamental threat to world peace,” said Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson in a statement.

    “The rest of the world — including New Zealand– must take a stand and make it clear that this dangerous escalation is unacceptable.

    “We are calling on the New Zealand government to condemn the United States for its attack on Iran. This attack is a blatant breach of international law and yet another unjustified assault on the Middle East from the US.”

    Davidson said the country had seen this with the US war on Iraq in 2003, and it was happening again with Sunday’s attack on Iran.

    “We are at risk of a violent history repeating itself,” she said.

    “[Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon needs to condemn this escalation from the US and rule out any participation in this conflict, or any of the elements of the AUKUS pact.

    Independent foreign policy
    “New Zealand must maintain its independent foreign policy position and keep its distance from countries that are actively fanning the flames of war.”

    Davidson said New Zealand had a long and proud history of standing up for human rights on the world stage.

    “When we stand strong and with other countries in calling for peace, we can make a difference. We cannot afford to be a bystander to the atrocities unfolding in front of our eyes.”

    It was time for the New Zealand government to step up.

    “It has failed to sanction Israel for its illegal and violent occupation of Palestine, and we risk burning all international credibility by failing to speak out against what the United States has just done.”

    Meanwhile, Prime Minister Luxon said New Zealand wanted to see a peaceful stable and secure Middle East, but more military action was not the answer, reports RNZ News.

    The UN Security Council met in emergency session today to discuss the US attack on the three key nuclear facilities.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the US bombing marked a “perilous turn” in a region already reeling.

    Iran called on the 15-member body to condemn what it called a “blatant and unlawful act of aggression”.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Embarrassed? Why this feeling might actually be good for you

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Elin Pigott, Senior Lecturer in Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation, Course Leader in the College of Health and Life Sciences, London South Bank University

    Embarrassment is generated by a network of different brain regions working together. Kues/ Shutterstock

    Picture this: it’s your first day at a new job. You’re about to introduce yourself to a large group of people you’ll be working with – and promptly fall flat on your face. Not exactly the entrance you had in mind.

    We’ve all cringed at moments like these — whether they happen to us or to others. That instant, full-body wince, and the shared, silent relief that it didn’t happen to you.

    Embarrassment is a universal, visceral and oddly contagious emotion. It’s what psychologists call a self-conscious emotion. This means it hinges on our awareness of ourselves through others’ eyes.

    Unlike shame or guilt, embarrassment isn’t usually moral — it’s about looking awkward or inept. Context matters too. We feel more embarrassed in front of people whose opinions we value or who hold power.

    Yet while embarrassment may feel uncomfortable, it actually has surprising social and psychological benefits.

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    Empathy and social connection

    Evolutionary psychologists believe embarrassment developed as a social corrective – a way to acknowledge mistakes, signal remorse and reduce conflict within groups.
    This instinct probably helped our ancestors stay in the group, which was critical for survival. People who showed embarrassment were seen as more trustworthy and cooperative.

    In this way, embarrassment can invite empathy and forgiveness, strengthening relationships. It signals that we care what others think, promoting approachability and emotional closeness. So, while it’s uncomfortable in the moment, embarrassment probably evolved to keep communities cohesive.

    Embarrassment is also contagious. Most of us have cringed on someone else’s behalf. This shows how deeply tuned our social brains are. We empathise with others’ awkwardness, often rushing to reassure them. This empathy helps preserve harmony and can also help us build connection with others.

    Embarrassment signals remorse and can invite empathy from others.
    fizkes/Shutterstock

    Trust and virtue

    Visible signs of embarrassment – such as blushing or stumbling over words – are often seen as signs of honesty and generosity. One study found that people who show embarrassment are judged to be more trustworthy and sociable.

    Blushing may have evolved on purpose to be a visible, honest signal of humility that others instinctively trust. Experiments even show we’re more likely to forgive someone who looks embarrassed than someone who acts indifferent.

    Learning social norms

    Forgetting you’re not on mute in a Zoom meeting, sending a message to the wrong group chat or realising your shirt’s inside out after an important meeting. These moments may be minor, but our brains still process them as social threats – albeit small ones.

    In this way, embarrassment helps us adhere to social norms and expectations – many of which are unwritten and only discovered once we’ve flubbed them by mistake. Embarrassment acts as an internal guide, helping us remember social missteps and encouraging us to conform to shared expectations – not out of shame, but because it feels right. It also nudges us whenever we stray near the edges of what’s socially comfortable, helping us course-correct swiftly.

    The way we react to an embarrassing situation is also important in helping us learn from our experiences. Many of us laugh nervously when embarrassed. This effectively reframes the incident from threatening to harmlessly amusing in our minds.

    Humility and authenticity

    Embarrassment keeps egos in check, signals emotional intelligence and makes us more relatable. In a curated world, an awkward moment can humanise us and build credibility.

    However, while moderate embarrassment is healthy and constructive, excessive fear of it can become harmful – crossing into social anxiety.

    Your brain on embarrassment

    Embarrassment isn’t generated by a single “embarrassment centre” in the brain. Rather, it’s generated by a network of different brain regions working together.

    The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is a region in the front of the brain that’s active during self-reflection and when thinking about how others perceive us. It’s also involved in storing social memories – which is why an embarrassing memory, even from years ago, can still make you cringe when it pops into your head.

    The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the reason you blush, your heart pounds and you feel sweaty when you’re deeply embarrassed. The ACC activates your “fight or flight” reaction. When the ACC fires up, it also helps us adjust our behaviour – aiding in impulse control and helping us learn from the mistake so we don’t do it again.

    The amygdala is the brain’s emotional alarm bell. When we get embarrassed, the amygdala registers the emotional intensity of the situation – especially the fear of being seen negatively.

    People with social anxiety show an imbalance between the mPFC and amygdala. Their mPFC is underactive (so they’re less able to rationalise others’ perspectives), while their amygdala is overactive (causing excessive fear signals). This combination makes it hard for them to accurately gauge social situations, often interpreting them as more threatening and embarrassing than they really are.

    Finally, the insula, a region located deep in the brain, helps us tune into our emotions and bodily states. This creates that gut-level discomfort we feel during embarrassing moments. All these regions work in concert during an embarrassing moment.

    Embarrassment is uncomfortable, yes – but it’s also a reminder that we care about others and want to belong. It’s part of what makes us human. So the next time you experience an embarrassing moment, try to laugh it off and remember that the moment is helping us to learn and connect.

    Laura Elin Pigott 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. Embarrassed? Why this feeling might actually be good for you – https://theconversation.com/embarrassed-why-this-feeling-might-actually-be-good-for-you-259094

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why social media injury recovery videos could do more harm than help

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Craig Gwynne, Senior Lecturer in Podiatry, Cardiff Metropolitan University

    Studio Romantic/Shutterstock

    When Kim Kardashian glided into the launch party of her NYC SKIMS boutique on a knee scooter, a mobility aid for people with lower leg injuries – stiletto on one foot, designer cast on the other – she wasn’t just managing an injury. She was creating content.

    And she’s far from alone.

    In 2024, rapper Kid Cudi turned his own broken foot into a viral storyline, posting updates of himself on crutches and in a surgical boot after a mishap at the Coachella festival in California. These high profile injuries don’t just invite sympathy; they generate style points, followers and millions of views.

    But as injury recovery morphs into online entertainment, it raises an important question: is this trend helping people heal or encouraging risky behaviour that can delay recovery?

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    Open any social media feed and you’ll likely stumble across videos of people hobbling through supermarkets, dancing on crutches, or sweating through workouts in a medical boot. Hashtags like #BrokenFootClub and #InjuryRecovery have spawned thriving online communities where users share advice, frustrations and recovery milestones. For many, rehab has become a public performance, complete with triumphant comeback narratives.

    And it’s not just celebrities. All sorts of people are turning their injuries, from hiking sprains to post-surgery recoveries, into digital diaries. Some offer helpful tips or emotional support, while others focus on fast-tracked progress, sometimes glossing over the slower, necessary steps that true healing demands.

    A broken foot used to mean rest. Now it can mean millions of views.

    Watching others navigate recovery can be deeply reassuring. Seeing someone joke about wobbling to the bathroom or demonstrate how to climb stairs with crutches can ease the loneliness that often comes with injury.

    And some creators are genuinely getting it right. Increasing numbers of healthcare professionals, from orthopaedic surgeons to physiotherapists and podiatrists, now use social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to share safe exercises, realistic timelines and expert tips on navigating recovery. For people who struggle to access in-person care, this clinically sound content can be a lifeline.

    But not all content is created equal – and some can do more harm than good.

    When rest gets rebranded

    But on social media, rest isn’t always part of the narrative. The most viewed recovery videos often aren’t posted by healthcare professionals but by influencers eager to showcase rapid progress. Some discard crutches too soon, hop unaided, or attempt high-impact exercises while their bodies are still vulnerable – all for the sake of engagement.

    What’s often missing is the unglamorous reality: swelling, setbacks, rest and the slow, sometimes frustrating, pace of real healing. Bones, tendons and ligaments aren’t impressed by likes or follower counts. Healing requires time and carefully structured loading: a gradual, deliberate increase in weight bearing and movement to rebuild strength without risking re-injury.

    Ignoring this process can lead to delayed healing, chronic pain, re-injury, or even long term joint and muscle complications that can affect the knees, hips, or back.

    And this isn’t just speculation. A 2025 study examining TikTok content on acute knee injuries found that most videos were produced by non-experts and often contained incomplete or inaccurate information. Researchers warned that this misinformation may not only distort patient expectations but also lead to decisions that hinder proper recovery. Similar trends were found in anterior cruciate ligament knee injury videos, where dangerous, non-evidence based practices were widely promoted to millions of viewers.

    Healthcare professionals are now seeing the ripple effects firsthand. Many physiotherapists and podiatrists report a growing number of patients arriving with unrealistic expectations shaped by social media, rather than medical advice. Some patients feel frustrated when their recovery doesn’t match the rapid progress they see online. Others attempt risky exercises before their bodies are ready, setting themselves back.

    A 2025 study examining TikTok content on acute knee injuries found that most videos were produced by non-experts and often contained incomplete or inaccurate information. Researchers warned that this misinformation may not only distort patient expectations but also lead to decisions that hinder proper recovery.

    The World Health Organization has also flagged the dangers of online health misinformation. When social media shortcuts replace professional care, patients risk not only slower recovery but potentially more complex medical problems, while clinicians are left managing the aftermath.

    Recovery isn’t a race

    While supportive online communities can be a valuable source of comfort, the pressure to “bounce back” quickly can be dangerous. Viral videos and celebrity recoveries can create a toxic sense of comparison, tempting people to rush their own healing process.

    Research shows that the psychological drive to return to activity, particularly among younger adults, can reduce rehab compliance and sharply increase the risk of re-injury. True recovery isn’t governed by trending hashtags; it follows a personal, biologically determined timeline that requires patience, rest, and carefully structured rehabilitation.

    Seeing stars like Kim Kardashian with a designer cast might make injury look fashionable. But for most people, a broken foot is not glamorous; it’s weeks of awkward movement, discomfort, adaptation and quiet, steady healing.

    Mobility content can inspire, motivate, and connect – but it’s not a road map for your own recovery. If you’re injured, approach online content with curiosity, not comparison. Learn from others, but listen to your body. Healing is personal. Your recovery won’t be dictated by views, likes, or viral trends – it will unfold on your body’s own timetable.

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

    – ref. Why social media injury recovery videos could do more harm than help – https://theconversation.com/why-social-media-injury-recovery-videos-could-do-more-harm-than-help-258533

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Where did the wonder go – and can AI help us find it?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Gill-Simmen, Vice Dean for Education & Student Experience, Royal Holloway University of London

    French philosopher René Descartes crowned human reason in 1637 as the foundation of existence: Cogito, ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. For centuries, our capacity to doubt, question and think has been both our compass and our identity. But what does that mean in an age where machines can “think”, generate ideas, write novels, compose symphonies and, increasingly, make decisions?

    Artificial intelligence (AI) has brought a new kind of certainty, one that is quick, data-driven and at times frighteningly precise, at times alarmingly wrong. From Google’s Gemini to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, we live in a world where answers can arrive before the question is even finished. AI has the potential to change not just how we work, but how we think. As our digital tools become more capable, we may well be justified in asking: where did the wonder go?

    We have become increasingly accustomed to optimisation. From using apps to schedule our days to improving how companies hire staff through AI-powered recruitment tools, technology has delivered on its promise of speed and efficiency.

    This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

    In education, students increasingly use AI to summarise readings and generate essay outlines; in healthcare, diagnostic models match human doctors in detecting disease.

    But in our pursuit of optimisation, we may have left something essential behind. In her book The Power of Wonder (2023), author Monica Parker describes wonder as a journey, a destination, a verb and a noun, a process and an outcome.

    Lamenting how “modern life is conditioning wonder-proneness out of us”, the author suggests we have “traded wonder for the pale facsimile of electronic novelty-seeking”. And there’s the paradox: AI gives us knowledge at scale, but may rob us of the humility and openness that spark genuine curiosity.

    AI as the antidote?

    But what if AI isn’t the killer of wonder, but its catalyst? The same technologies that predict our shopping habits or generate marketing content can also create surreal art, compose jazz music and tell stories in different ways.

    Tools like DALL·E, Udio.ai, and Runway don’t just mimic human creativity, they expand our creative capacity by translating abstract ideas into visual or audio outputs instantly. They don’t just mimic creativity, they open it up to anyone, enabling new forms of self-expression and speculative thinking.

    The same power that enables AI to open imaginative possibilities can also blur the line between fact and fiction, which is especially risky in education where critical thinking and truth-seeking are paramount. That’s why it’s essential that we teach students not just to use these tools, but to question them. Teaching people to wonder isn’t about uncritical amazement – it’s about cultivating curiosity alongside discernment.

    Educators experimenting with AI in the classroom are starting to see this potential, as my recent work in the area has shown. Rather than using AI merely to automate learning, we are using it to provoke questions and to promote creativity.

    When students ask ChatGPT to write a poem in the voice of Virginia Woolf about climate change, they learn how to combine literary style with contemporary issues. They explore how AI mimics voice and meaning, then reflect on what works and what doesn’t.

    When they use AI tools to build brand storytelling campaigns, they practise turning ideas into images, sounds and messages and learn how to shape stories that connect with audiences. Students are not just using AI, they’re learning to think critically and creatively with it.

    This aligns with Brazilian philosopher Paulo Friere’s “banking” concept of education, where rather than depositing facts, educators are required to spark critical reflection. AI, when used creatively, can act as a dialogue partner, one that reflects back our assumptions, challenges our ideas and invites deeper inquiry.

    The research is mixed, and much depends on how AI is used. Left unchecked, tools like ChatGPT can encourage shortcut thinking. When used purposely as a dialogue partner, prompting reflection, testing ideas and supporting creative inquiry, studies show it can foster deeper engagement and critical thinking. The challenge is designing learning experiences that make the most of this potential.

    A new kind of curiosity

    Wonder isn’t driven by novelty alone, it’s about questioning the familiar. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum describes wonder as “taking us out of ourselves and toward the other”. In this way, AI’s outputs have the potential to jolt people out of cognitive ruts and into new realms of thought, causing them to experience wonder.

    It could be argued that AI becomes both mirror and muse. It holds up a reflection of our culture, biases and blind spots while nudging us toward the imaginative unknown at the same time. Much like the ancient role of the fool in King Lear’s court, it disrupts and delights, offering insights precisely because it doesn’t think like humans do.

    This repositions AI not as a rival to human intelligence, but as a co-creator of wonder, a thought partner in the truest sense.

    Descartes saw doubt as the path to certainty. Today, however, we crave certainty and often avoid doubt. In a world overwhelmed by information and polarisation, there is comfort in clean answers and predictive models. But perhaps what we need most is the courage to ask questions, to really wonder about things.

    The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke once advised: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”

    AI can generate perspectives, juxtapositions and “what if” scenarios that challenge students’ habitual ways of thinking. The point isn’t to replace critical thinking, but to spark it in new directions. When artists co-create with algorithms, what new aesthetics emerge that we’ve yet to imagine?

    And when policymakers engage with AI trained on other perspectives from around the world, how might their understanding and decisions be transformed? As AI reshapes how we access, interpret and generate knowledge, this encourages rethinking not just what we learn, but why and how we value knowledge at all.

    Educational philosophers such as John Dewey and Maxine Greene championed education that cultivates imagination, wonder and critical consciousness. Greene spoke of “wide-awakeness”, a state of being in the world.

    Deployed thoughtfully, AI can be a tool for wide-awakeness. In practical terms, it means designing learning experiences where AI prompts curiosity, not shortcuts; where it’s used to question assumptions, explore alternatives, and deepen understanding.

    When used in this way, I believe it can help students tell better stories, explore alternate futures and think across disciplines. This demands not only ethical design and critical digital literacy, bit also an openness to the unknown. It also demands that we, as humans, reclaim our appetite for awe.

    In the end, the most human thing about AI might be the questions it forces us to ask. Not “What’s the answer?” but “What if …?” and in that space, somewhere in between certainty and curiosity, wonder returns. The machines we built to do our thinking for us might just help us rediscover it.

    Lucy Gill-Simmen 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. Where did the wonder go – and can AI help us find it? – https://theconversation.com/where-did-the-wonder-go-and-can-ai-help-us-find-it-258490

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Society needs a systems update to cope with climate crisis – my new film explains why

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Dyke, Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter

    The climate and ecological crisis is one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. If the world fails to address it, and over the rest of this century we continue to burn fossil fuels and pump even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we’ll face catastrophe. On this much, almost all governments agree (with some notable exceptions such as the US).

    Even the world’s largest oil and gas companies now acknowledge that their products are behind the alarming increase in global temperatures and that we will have to transition to alternative fuels. Eventually.

    In some oil and gas firms’ net zero policies you will often see the word “eventually” or its equivalent used. Yes, they accept that the age of fossil fuels will be over, but they don’t give any end date. In fact, with continued expansion of new oil and gas fields they appear to give every indication of continuing to be fossil fuel companies for the foreseeable future.

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    Will such firms actually phase out coal, oil and gas at the rate required to avoid dangerous climate change? How quickly does that now have to happen? Immediately.

    At current rates of emissions, the window to have a 50:50 chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C will close in as little as six years. Given that global emissions are not stabilising but in fact going up, we are in the process of overshooting 1.5°C and heading deep into dangerous climate change territory.

    Does that mean it’s game over, that the climate catastrophes we fear will come to pass? Thinking about these sorts of systemic risks form the basis of much of my current research. This includes some pretty alarming analysis on how societies can react to challenges such as climate change in ways that can make the situation much worse.

    But herein lies a potentially powerful source of hope for the future because what we do as individuals and members of communities and countries will make all the difference. That’s what was on my mind when I started working on a new climate change documentary with filmmaker Paul Maple.

    Radical reductions

    Our new film System Update: Rebooting Our Future argues that, while we may have run out of time to avoid dangerous climate change, we are now only beginning to see how we can not just avoid further environmental damage but make a much better world for all of humanity. To do that, we must go beyond the incremental and timid policies of today. We need to be radical and dig into the drivers of climate change.

    Take economic growth, for example. You will not find a political party in power in any industrialised nation that does not have continued economic growth as one of its core objectives. Economic performance is often the main way politicians are judged. That’s why threats of a recession lead news reports.

    In System Update, I ask what is this economic growth for, if it continues to drive expanded energy and material consumption and drive us further towards climate and ecological collapse?

    If our economic and political systems cannot deliver radical emissions reductions in a sustainable and fair way, then they need to be rebooted. Rather than policies being orientated towards maximising economic growth, we can instead question how the current goods and services an economy produces are used.

    How can local communities be empowered to make themselves more resilient to climate change while reducing their emissions? Where can citizen assemblies strengthen our democracies and help foster the wider support for ambitious climate action? These assemblies work by recruiting a representative cross section of society who hear from a range of climate experts, and then work together to provide policy recommendations.

    I put such questions to an amazing group of activists, academics and policymakers. We quickly discovered from economic anthropologist Jason Hickel that there is no end of new thinking about economics.

    Lawyer and key architect of the Paris agreement Farhana Yamin recounted the epic battle that she and others have been waging with politicians to get them to understand and act on some of the fundamental truths of climate change. Researcher and strategist Laurie Laybourn spoke of the need for leaders to understand how this gathering storm of climate change demands new mindsets.

    Climate change adaptation expert Kathryn Brown made the case for a rapid increase in efforts to protect communities from environmental change, while climate historian Alice Bell put today’s debates into the wider context. Climate campaigner Max Wakefield and climate justice activist Dylan Hamilton connected the big picture elements of the climate crisis to both everyday actions like what you buy and how to you travel, to deeper engagement with politics.

    It’s easy to feel overwhelmed about the scale of climate change. There is a constant stream of bad news about rising temperatures and extreme weather. What I hope System Update shows is that there is no end of ideas for how such an outcome could be averted, and how you could put them into practice.

    We will win. The age of fossil fuels is ending. The question now is, how fast do you want to make that happen?

    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.

    James Dyke 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. Society needs a systems update to cope with climate crisis – my new film explains why – https://theconversation.com/society-needs-a-systems-update-to-cope-with-climate-crisis-my-new-film-explains-why-257503

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Appeals court ruling grants Donald Trump broad powers to deploy troops to American cities

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jack L. Rozdilsky, Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, Canada

    Residents of Los Angeles will need to get used to federally controlled National Guard troops operating on their streets. Due to a ruling from an appeals court on June 19, United States President Donald Trump now has broad authority to deploy military forces in American cities.

    This is a troubling development. All presidents have held in their grasp extraordinary powers to deploy military troops domestically. But Trump stands apart with his apparent keen interest in manufacturing false emergencies to exploit extraordinary power.

    An 1878 law called the Posse Comitatus Act restricts using the military for domestic law enforcement. The broader principle being challenged by Trump’s actions in L.A. is the norm of the military not being allowed to interfere in the affairs of civilian governance.

    Injunctions and appeals

    Five months into Trump’s presidency, L.A. has been targeted for aggressive immigration enforcement. In their pluralistic city where dozens of languages and nationalities peacefully co-exist, some Angelenos believe the city is experiencing an attack on its most essential social fabric.

    On June 7, Trump acted under United States Code Title 10 provisions to take over command and control of California’s National Guard. Federalized military forces were deployed.

    The objective was to counter what Trump argued was a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States. In fact, these “rebellions” were largely peaceful protests in downtown L.A.

    On June 9, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted an injunction restraining the president’s use of military force in L.A. The court order supported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s contention that Trump overstepped his authority.

    On June 19, a decision from a panel of judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the injunction.

    What this means at the moment is that Trump does not have to return control of the troops to Newsom. California has options to continue litigation by asking the Federal Appeals Court to rehear the matter, or perhaps directly asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

    Moving toward authoritarianism

    Trump’s June 7 memorandum facilitating his move to overrule Newsom’s authority and seize control of 2,000 National Guard troops was based on the president defining his own so-called emergency.

    He claimed incidents of violence and disorder following aggressive immigration enforcement amounted to a form of rebellion against the U.S.

    As Trump flexes his emergency power might, his second term has been called the 911 presidency. He has used extraordinary emergency powers at a pace well beyond his predecessors, pressing the limits to address his administration’s supposed sense of serious perils overtaking the nation.

    Issues arise when the level of actual danger locally is not at all representative of what the president suggests is a full-scale national emergency. For example, demonstrations over immigration raids occupied only a tiny parcel of real estate in L.A.’s huge metropolitan area. A Los Angeles-based rebellion against the U.S. was not occurring.

    As dissent over aggressive immigration enforcement actions grew, localized clashes with law enforcement did occur. Mutual aid surged into Los Angeles, where neighbouring California law enforcement agencies acted to assist one another. The law enforcement challenges never rose to the level of the governor of California requesting additional federal support.

    Shortly after the federal government took over the California National Guard, Newsom said the move was purposefully inflammatory.

    In addition to declaring dubious emergencies to amass power, stoking violence is a characteristic of authoritarian rulers. Creating fear, division and feelings of insecurity can lead to community crises. Trump did not need to wait for a crisis; it seems he simply invented one.

    No guardrails

    The expression “out of kilter” comes to mind as Trump inches closer to invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. If so, the situation will look quite similar in practice to what is happening now in Los Angeles.

    Five years ago, Trump flirted with invoking the Insurrection Act during Black Lives Matter unrest in Washington, D.C., in and around Lafayette Park.

    As recent L.A. protests intensified, Trump stated: “We’re going to have troops everywhere.”

    Currently, there are few guardrails in place to prevent a rogue president from misusing the military in domestic civilian affairs. Trump has been coy about whether he would tap into the greater powers available to him under the Insurrection Act.

    Real emergencies presenting existential threats to America do persist. Nuclear proliferation, climate change and pandemics need serious leaders. But politically exploiting last-resort emergency laws designed to provide options to deal with genuine existential threats — not to weaponize them against protesters demonstrating against public policy — is absurd.

    Jack L. Rozdilsky receives support for research communication and public scholarship from York University. He also has received research support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

    – ref. Appeals court ruling grants Donald Trump broad powers to deploy troops to American cities – https://theconversation.com/appeals-court-ruling-grants-donald-trump-broad-powers-to-deploy-troops-to-american-cities-258894

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: To spur the construction of affordable, resilient homes, the future is concrete

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Pablo Moyano Fernández, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis

    A modular, precast system of concrete ‘rings’ can be connected in different ways to build a range of models of energy-efficient homes. Pablo Moyano Fernández, CC BY-SA

    Wood is, by far, the most common material used in the U.S. for single-family home construction.

    But wood construction isn’t engineered for long-term durability, and it often underperforms, particularly in the face of increasingly common extreme weather events.

    In response to these challenges, I believe mass-produced concrete homes can offer affordable, resilient housing in the U.S. By leveraging the latest innovations of the precast concrete industry, this type of homebuilding can meet the needs of a changing world.

    Wood’s rise to power

    Over 90% of the new homes built in the U.S. rely on wood framing.

    Wood has deep historical roots as a building material in the U.S., dating back to the earliest European settlers who constructed shelters using the abundant native timber. One of the most recognizable typologies was the log cabin, built from large tree trunks notched at the corners for structural stability.

    Log cabins were popular in the U.S. during the 18th and 19th centuries.
    Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images

    In the 1830s, wood construction underwent a significant shift with the introduction of balloon framing. This system used standardized, sawed lumber and mass-produced nails, allowing much smaller wood components to replace the earlier heavy timber frames. It could be assembled by unskilled labor using simple tools, making it both accessible and economical.

    In the early 20th century, balloon framing evolved into platform framing, which became the dominant method. By using shorter lumber lengths, platform framing allowed each floor to be built as a separate working platform, simplifying construction and improving its efficiency.

    The proliferation and evolution of wood construction helped shape the architectural and cultural identity of the nation. For centuries, wood-framed houses have defined the American idea of home – so much so that, even today, when Americans imagine a house, they typically envision one built of wood.

    A suburban housing development from the 1950s being built with platform framing.
    H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock via Getty Images

    Today, light-frame wood construction dominates the U.S. residential market.

    Wood is relatively affordable and readily available, offering a cost-effective solution for homebuilding. Contractors are familiar with wood construction techniques. In addition, building codes and regulations have long been tailored to wood-frame systems, further reinforcing their prevalence in the housing industry.

    Despite its advantages, wood light-frame construction presents several important limitations. Wood is vulnerable to fire. And in hurricane- and tornado-prone regions, wood-framed homes can be damaged or destroyed.

    Wood is also highly susceptible to water-related issues, such as swelling, warping and structural deterioration caused by leaks or flooding. Vulnerability to termites, mold, rot and mildew further compromise the longevity and safety of wood-framed structures, especially in humid or poorly ventilated environments.

    The case for concrete

    Meanwhile, concrete has revolutionized architecture and engineering over the past century. In my academic work, I’ve studied, written and taught about the material’s many advantages.

    The material offers unmatched strength and durability, while also allowing design flexibility and versatility. It’s low-cost and low-maintenance, and it has high thermal mass properties, which refers to the material’s ability to absorb and store heat during the day, and slowly release it during the cooler nights. This can lower heating and cooling costs.

    Properly designed concrete enclosures offer exceptional performance against a wide range of hazards. Concrete can withstand fire, flooding, mold, insect infestation, earthquakes, hail, hurricanes and tornadoes.

    It’s commonly used for home construction in many parts of the world, such as Europe, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, as well as India and other parts of Southeast Asia.

    However, despite their multiple benefits, concrete single-family homes are rare in the U.S.

    That’s because most concrete structures are built using a process called cast-in-place. In this technique, the concrete is formed and poured directly at the construction site. The method relies on built-in-place molds. After the concrete is cast and cured over several days, the formwork is removed.

    This process is labor-intensive and time-consuming, and it often produces considerable waste. This is particularly an issue in the U.S., where labor is more expensive than in other parts of the world. The material and labor cost can be as high as 35% to 60% of the total construction cost.

    Portland cement, the binding agent in concrete, requires significant energy to produce, resulting in considerable carbon dioxide emissions. However, this environmental cost is often offset by concrete’s durability and long service life.

    Concrete’s design flexibility and structural integrity make it particularly effective for large-scale structures. So in the U.S., you’ll see it used for large commercial buildings, skyscrapers and most highways, bridges, dams and other critical infrastructure projects.

    But when it comes to single-family homes, cast-in-place concrete poses challenges to contractors. There are the higher initial construction costs, along with a lack of subcontractor expertise. For these reasons, most builders and contractors stick with what they know: the wood frame.

    A new model for home construction

    Precast concrete, however, offers a promising alternative.

    Unlike cast-in-place concrete, precast systems allow for off-site manufacturing under controlled conditions. This improves the quality of the structure, while also reducing waste and labor.

    The CRETE House, a prototype I worked on in 2017 alongside a team at Washington University in St. Louis, showed the advantages of a precast home construction.

    To build the precast concrete home, we used ultra-high-performance concrete, one of the latest advances in the concrete industry. Compared with conventional concrete, it’s about six times stronger, virtually impermeable and more resistant to freeze-thaw cycles. Ultra-high-performance concrete can last several hundred years.

    The strength of the CRETE House was tested by shooting a piece of wood at 120 mph (193 kph) to simulate flying debris from an F5 tornado. It was unable to breach the wall, which was only 2 inches (5.1 centimeters) thick.

    The wall of the CRETE House was able to withstand a piece of wood fired at 120 mph (193 kph).

    Building on the success of the CRETE House, I designed the Compact House as a solution for affordable, resilient housing. The house consists of a modular, precast concrete system of “rings” that can be connected to form the entire structure – floors, walls and roofs – creating airtight, energy-efficient homes. A series of different rings can be chosen from a catalog to deliver different models that can range in size from 270 to 990 square feet (25 to 84 square meters).

    The precast rings can be transported on flatbed trailers and assembled into a unit in a single day, drastically reducing on-site labor, time and cost.

    Since they’re built using durable concrete forms, the house can be easily mass-produced. When precast concrete homes are mass-produced, the cost can be competitive with traditional wood-framed homes. Furthermore, the homes are designed to last far beyond 100 years – much longer than typical wood structures – while significantly lowering utility bills, maintenance expenses and insurance premiums.

    The project is also envisioned as an open-source design. This means that the molds – which are expensive – are available for any precast producer to use and modify.

    The Compact House is made using ultra-high-performance concrete.
    Pablo Moyano Fernández, CC BY-SA

    Leveraging a network that’s already in place

    Two key limitations of precast concrete construction are the size and weight of the components and the distance to the project site.

    Precast elements must comply with standard transportation regulations, which impose restrictions on both size and weight in order to pass under bridges and prevent road damage. As a result, components are typically limited to dimensions that can be safely and legally transported by truck. Each of the Compact House’s pieces are small enough to be transported in standard trailers.

    Additionally, transportation costs become a major factor beyond a certain range. In general, the practical delivery radius from a precast plant to a construction site is 500 miles (805 kilometers). Anything beyond that becomes economically unfeasible.

    However, the infrastructure to build precast concrete homes is already largely in place. Since precast concrete is often used for office buildings, schools, parking complexes and large apartments buildings, there’s already an extensive national network of manufacturing plants capable of producing and delivering components within that 500-mile radius.

    There are other approaches to build homes with concrete: Homes can use concrete masonry units, which are similar to cinder blocks. This is a common technique around the world. Insulated concrete forms involve rigid foam blocks that are stacked like Lego bricks and are then filled with poured concrete, creating a structure with built-in insulation. And there’s even 3D-printed concrete, a rapidly evolving technology that is in its early stages of development.

    However, none of these use precast concrete modules – the rings in my prototypes – and therefore require substantially longer on-site time and labor.

    To me, precast concrete homes offer a compelling vision for the future of affordable housing. They signal a generational shift away from short-term construction and toward long-term value – redefining what it means to build for resilience, efficiency and equity in housing.

    An image of North St. Louis, taken from Google Earth, showing how vacant land can be repurposed using precast concrete homes.
    Pablo Moyano Fernández, CC BY-SA

    This article is part of a series centered on envisioning ways to deal with the housing crisis.

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

    – ref. To spur the construction of affordable, resilient homes, the future is concrete – https://theconversation.com/to-spur-the-construction-of-affordable-resilient-homes-the-future-is-concrete-254561

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: No country for old business owners: Economic shifts create a growing challenge for America’s aging entrepreneurs

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nancy Forster-Holt, Clinical Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Rhode Island

    Americans love small businesses. We dedicate a week each year to applauding them, and spend Small Business Saturday shopping locally. Yet hiding in plain sight is an enormous challenge facing small business owners as they age: retiring with dignity and foresight. The current economic climate is making this even more difficult.

    As a professor who studies aging and business, I’ve long viewed small business owners’ retirement challenges as a looming crisis. The issue is now front and center for millions of entrepreneurs approaching retirement. Small enterprises make up more than half of all privately held U.S. companies, and for many of their owners, the business is their retirement plan.

    But while owners often hope to finance their golden years by selling their companies, only 20% of small businesses are ready for sale even in good times, according to the Exit Planning Institute. And right now, conditions are far from ideal. An economic stew of inflation, supply chain instability and high borrowing costs means that interest from potential buyers is cooling.

    For many business owners, retirement isn’t a distant concern. In the U.S., baby boomers – who are currently 61 to 79 years old – own about 2.3 million businesses. Altogether, they generate about US$5 billion in revenue and employ almost 25 million people. These entrepreneurs have spent decades building businesses that often are deeply rooted in their communities. They don’t have time to ride out economic chaos, and their optimism is at a 50-year low.

    New policies, new challenges

    You can’t blame them for being gloomy. Recent policy shifts have only made life harder for business owners nearing retirement. Trade instability, whipsawing tariff announcements and disrupted supply chains have eroded already thin margins. Some businesses – generally larger ones with more negotiating power – are absorbing extra costs rather than passing them on to shoppers. Others have no choice but to raise prices, to customers’ dismay. Inflation has further squeezed profits.

    At the same time, with a few notable exceptions, buyers and capital have grown scarce. Acquirers and liquidity have dried up across many sectors. The secondary market – a barometer of broader investor appetite – now sees more sellers than buyers. These are textbook symptoms of a “flight to safety,” a market shift that drags out sale timelines and depresses valuations – all while Main Street business owners age out. These entrepreneurs typically have one shot at retirement – if any.

    Adding to these woes, many small businesses are part of what economists call regional “clusters,” providing services to nearby universities, hospitals and local governments. When those anchor institutions face budget cuts – as is happening now – small business vendors are often the first to feel the impact.

    Research shows that many aging owners actually double down in weak economic times, sinking increasing amounts of time and money in a psychological pattern known as “escalating commitment.” The result is a troubling phenomenon scholars refer to as “benign entrapment.” Aging entrepreneurs can remain attached to their businesses not because they want to, but because they see no viable exit.

    This growing crisis isn’t about bad personal planning — it’s a systemic failure.

    Rewriting the playbook on small business policy

    A key mistake that policymakers make is to lump all small business owners together into one group. That causes them to overlook important differences. After all, a 68-year-old carpenter trying to retire doesn’t have much in common with a 28-year-old tech founder pitching a startup. Policymakers may cheer for high-growth “unicorns,” but they often overlook the “cows and horses” that keep local economies running.

    Even among older business owners, circumstances vary based on local conditions. Two retiring carpenters in different towns may face vastly different prospects based on the strength of their local economies. No business, and no business owner, exists in a vacuum.

    A small business owner in Rochester, Vt., discusses the challenges of retirement in a news segment from WCAX-TV.

    Relatedly, when small businesses fail to transition, it can have consequences for the local economy. Without a buyer, many enterprises will simply shut down. And while closures can be long-planned and thoughtful, when a business closes suddenly, it’s not just the owner who loses. Employees are left scrambling for work. Suppliers lose contracts. Communities lose essential services.

    Four ways to help aging entrepreneurs

    That’s why I think policymakers should reimagine how they support small businesses, especially owners nearing the end of their careers.

    First, small business policy should be tailored to age. A retirement-ready business shouldn’t be judged solely by its growth potential. Rather, policies should recognize stability and community value as markers of success. The U.S. Small Business Administration and regional agencies can provide resources specifically for retirement planning that starts early in a business’s life, to include how to increase the value of the business and a plan to attract acquirers in later stages.

    Second, exit infrastructure should be built into local entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurial ecosystems are built to support business entry – think incubators and accelerators – but not for exit. In other words, just like there are accelerators for launching businesses, there should be programs to support winding them down. These could include confidential peer forums, retirement-readiness clinics, succession matchmaking platforms and flexible financing options for acquisition.

    Third, chaos isn’t good for anybody. Fluctuations in capital gains taxes, estate tax thresholds and tariffs make planning difficult and reduce business value in the eyes of potential buyers. Stability encourages confidence on both sides of a transaction.

    And finally, policymakers should include ripple-effect analysis in budget decisions. When universities, hospitals or governments cut spending, small business vendors often absorb much of the shock. Policymakers should account for these downstream impacts when shaping local and federal budgets.

    If we want to truly support small businesses and their owners, it’s important to honor the lifetime arc of entrepreneurship – not just the launch and growth, but the retirement, too.

    Nancy Forster-Holt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. No country for old business owners: Economic shifts create a growing challenge for America’s aging entrepreneurs – https://theconversation.com/no-country-for-old-business-owners-economic-shifts-create-a-growing-challenge-for-americas-aging-entrepreneurs-254537

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the end of carbon capture could spark a new industrial revolution

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andres Clarens, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Virginia

    Steelmaking uses a lot of energy, making it one of the highest greenhouse gas-emitting industries.
     David McNew/Getty Images

    The U.S. Department of Energy’s decision to claw back US$3.7 billion in grants from industrial demonstration projects may create an unexpected opening for American manufacturing.

    Many of the grant recipients were deploying carbon capture and storage – technologies that are designed to prevent industrial carbon pollution from entering the atmosphere by capturing it and injecting it deep underground. The approach has long been considered critical for reducing the contributions chemicals, cement production and other heavy industries make to climate change.

    However, the U.S. policy reversal could paradoxically accelerate emissions cuts from the industrial sector.

    An emissions reality check

    Heavy industry is widely viewed as the toughest part of the economy to clean up.

    The U.S. power sector has made progress, cutting emissions 35% since 2005 as coal-fired power plants were replaced with cheaper natural gas, solar and wind energy. More than 93% of new grid capacity installed in the U.S. in 2025 was forecast to be solar, wind and batteries. In transportation, electric vehicles are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. automotive market and will lead to meaningful reductions in pollution.

    But U.S. industrial emissions have been mostly unchanged, in part because of the massive amount of coal, gas and oil required to make steel, concrete, aluminum, glass and chemicals. Together these materials account for about 22% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

    The global industrial landscape is changing, though, and U.S. industries cannot, in isolation, expect that yesterday’s means of production will be able to compete in a global marketplace.

    Even without domestic mandates to reduce their emissions, U.S. industries face powerful economic pressures. The EU’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism imposes a tax on the emissions associated with imported steel, chemicals, cement and aluminum entering European markets. Similar policies are being considered by Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the United Kingdom, and were even floated in the United States.

    The false promise of carbon capture

    The appeal of carbon capture and storage, in theory, was that it could be bolted on to an existing factory with minimal changes to the core process and the carbon pollution would go away.

    Government incentives for carbon capture allow producers to keep using polluting technologies and prop up gas-powered chemical production or coal-powered concrete production.

    The Trump administration’s pullback of carbon capture and storage grants now removes some of these artificial supports.

    Without the expectation that carbon capture will help them meet regulations, this may create space to focus on materials breakthroughs that could revolutionize manufacturing while solving industries’ emissions problems.

    The materials innovation opportunity

    So, what might emissions-lowering innovation look like for industries such as cement, steel and chemicals? As a civil and environmental engineer who has worked on federal industrial policy, I study the ways these industries intersect with U.S. economic competitiveness and our built environment.

    There are many examples of U.S. innovation to be excited about. Consider just a few industries:

    Cement: Cement is one of the most widely used materials on Earth, but the technology has changed little over the past 150 years. Today, its production generates roughly 8% of total global carbon pollution. If cement production were a country, it would rank third globally after China and the United States.

    Researchers are looking at ways to make concrete that can shed heat or be lighter in weight to significantly reduce the cost of building and cooling a home. Sublime Systems developed a way to produce cement with electricity instead of coal or gas. The company lost its IDP grant in May 2025, but it has a new agreement with Microsoft.

    Making concrete do more could accelerate the transition. Researchers at Stanford and separately at MIT are developing concrete that can act as a capacitor and store over 10 kilowatt-hours of energy per cubic meter. Such materials could potentially store electricity from your solar roof or allow for roadways that can charge cars in motion.

    How concrete could be used as a capacitor. MIT.

    Technologies like these could give U.S. companies a competitive advantage while lowering emissions. Heat-shedding concrete cuts air conditioning demand, lighter formulations require less material per structure, and energy-storing concrete could potentially replace carbon-intensive battery manufacturing.

    Steel and iron: Steel and iron production generate about 7% of global emissions with centuries-old blast furnace processes that use intense heat to melt iron ore and burn off impurities. A hydrogen-based steelmaking alternative exists today that emits only water vapor, but it requires new supply chains, infrastructure and production techniques.

    U.S. Steel has been developing techniques to create stronger microstructures within steel for constructing structures with 50% less material and more strength than conventional designs. When a skyscraper needs that much less steel to achieve the same structural integrity, that eliminates millions of tons of iron ore mining, coal-fired blast furnace operations and transportation emissions.

    Chemicals: Chemical manufacturing has created simultaneous crises over the past 50 years: PFAS “forever chemicals” and microplastics have been showing up in human blood and across ecosystems, and the industry generates a large share of U.S. industrial emissions.

    Companies are developing ways to produce chemicals using engineered enzymes instead of traditional petrochemical processes, achieving 90% lower emissions in a way that could reduce production costs. These bio-based chemicals can naturally biodegrade, and the chemical processes operate at room temperature instead of requiring high heat that uses a lot of energy.

    Is there a silver bullet without carbon capture?

    While carbon capture and storage might not be the silver bullet for reducing emissions that many people thought it would be, new technologies for managing industrial heat might turn out to be the closest thing to one.

    Most industrial processes require temperatures between 300 and 1830 degrees Fahrenheit (150 and 1000 degrees Celsisus for everything from food processing to steel production. Currently, industries burn fossil fuels directly to generate this heat, creating emissions that electric alternatives cannot easily replace. Heat batteries may offer a breakthrough solution by storing renewable electricity as thermal energy, then releasing that heat on demand for industrial processes.

    How thermal batteries work. CNBC.

    Companies such as Rondo Energy are developing systems that store wind and solar power in bricklike materials heated to extreme temperatures. Essentially, they convert electricity into heat during times when electricity is abundant, usually at night. A manufacturing facility can later use that heat, which allows it to reduce energy costs and improve grid reliability by not drawing power at the busiest times. The Trump administration cut funding for projects working with Rondo’s technology, but the company’s products are being tested in other countries.

    Industrial heat pumps provide another pathway by amplifying waste heat to reach the high temperatures manufacturing requires, without using as much fossil fuel.

    The path forward

    The Department of Energy’s decision forces industrial America into a defining moment. One path leads backward toward pollution-intensive business as usual propping up obsolete processes. The other path drives forward through innovation.

    Carbon capture offered an expensive Band-Aid on old technology. Investing in materials innovation and new techniques for making them promises fundamental transformation for the future.

    Andres Clarens receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation.

    – ref. How the end of carbon capture could spark a new industrial revolution – https://theconversation.com/how-the-end-of-carbon-capture-could-spark-a-new-industrial-revolution-257894

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: I’m an expert in crafting public health messages: Here are 3 marketing strategies I use to make Philadelphia healthier

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sarah Bauerle Bass, Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Temple University

    A comic book produced for Black transgender women in Philadelphia explains the benefits of using PrEP to prevent HIV infection. Wriply Bennet for the Risk Communication Laboratory, Temple University

    In Philadelphia, the leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer and unintentional drug overdose. While some of these deaths are caused by things out of our control – like genetics – many are largely preventable.

    Preventable deaths are the result of a series of decisions. Whether a person decides to smoke, eat lots of fried foods or be a couch potato, their decisions – sometimes unconsciously – can affect their health.

    I’m a health communication expert and public health researcher at Temple University in North Philadelphia. I began working in public health in the late 1980s at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and before that I worked in marketing and public relations. I have spent my career thinking about how health decisions are like many of the decisions consumers make each day around which products to buy.

    One key difference with health decisions is the inherent risks involved. There isn’t much risk in trying a new brand of cereal, but there is risk in riding a motorcycle without a helmet.

    Many people have a “that won’t happen to me” attitude when making a decision that involves risk. This element of “risk perception” has guided my interest in health decisions and how to use commercial marketing techniques – the same ones companies use to sell products – to encourage people to get vaccinated, get a colonoscopy or get treated for a medical condition.

    Temple students involved in the RapidVax project talk to Kensington residents about COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic.
    Temple University College of Public Health

    Breaking demographics into psychographics

    One strategy I use is segmentation analysis.

    Segmentation analysis is the process of looking at groups of people who may look like they are all similar on the surface – such as Black women from North Philadelphia – and then breaking them into smaller groups based on differences in their attitudes, beliefs or behaviors.

    Looking at these “psychographics” instead of demographics like age or sex can help public health communication researchers better understand how to communicate effectively.

    For example, I led a study in 2021 that looked at how connected transgender women living in Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area felt to other members of the trans community. We wanted to see if messaging about PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, the medication used to prevent HIV infection, would need to be different depending on how connected they felt.

    We found that participants who were more engaged with the trans community were not only more knowledgeable about PrEP, but they were also more likely to see the benefits of using it compared with those who were less engaged.

    This indicates that strategies to reach those not as connected may need to include, for example, providing more basic information about what PrEP is and how it works.

    An example of perceptual mapping that shows different attitudes and beliefs around the HIV prevention medication PrEP.
    Temple University College of Public Health

    Mathematical models and 3D maps

    Another powerful marketing tool that I use is a process known as perceptual mapping and vector message modeling.

    Using simple survey answers, we can mathematically model how people are thinking about a health decision and present it in a three-dimensional map.

    Similar to how someone might think about the relationship between where cities or countries are in relation to each other – such as where Philadelphia is in relation to New York or Chicago – we can take answers from a survey and convert them into distances. We ask people to agree or disagree to statements about the benefits or barriers to a decision and enter their responses into a computer program to create the map.

    We can then do vector message modeling, which shows how to move the group toward the desired decision.

    Think back to high school physics when you may have learned about the amount of force, or pushing and pulling, needed to move one object toward another. Vector message modeling helps us figure out which beliefs to push or pull against to get the group to move toward a particular decision, and it helps us create the most persuasive messages for that group.

    When we use vector modeling along with segmentation analysis, we can also compare how messaging may need to be similar or different for different groups.

    For example, I used segmentation analysis and then perceptual mapping and vector message modeling to understand how medical mistrust might affect the decision to get vaccinated for COVID-19 among a group of Philadelphians who had not yet been vaccinated.

    Education materials created after using commercial marketing techniques to identify persuasive messages about COVID-19 booster shots.
    Temple University College of Public Health

    Our team then looked at perceptual maps and vector message modeling by levels of mistrust. The vectors showed that those with high levels of medical mistrust would be more likely to respond to messages that addressed concerns about the pandemic being a hoax, or the worry that minorities wouldn’t get the same treatment as others.

    This allowed us to think about how to build in messages around those issues in public media campaigns or other communication strategies that encourage vaccination.

    Decision-making tools

    I have used these methods to create and test a number of different communication strategies to influence health decisions.

    For example, I’ve developed web-based tools that have been used in hospitals and clinics in Philadelphia to encourage methadone patients with hepatitis C to receive antiviral treatment for their infection, Black cancer patients to take part in a clinical trial or to get genetic testing, and patients with low literacy and higher risk of colorectal cancer to have a colonoscopy.

    Staff members from the Risk Communication Laboratory organize materials to educate North Philadelphia residents about COVID-19 booster shots.
    Temple University College of Public Health

    My colleagues and I have also developed posters, booklets and social media posts that encourage low-income and vaccine-hesitant Philadelphians in Kensington to get COVID-19 booster shots; educational slides for low-literacy Philadelphia adults on dirty bombs and how the radioactive weapons might be used in a terror attack; and a comic book for trans women to learn about the benefits of PrEP use.

    Getting people to make better decisions about their health can be an uphill battle. We all have our reasons for not doing things that are good for us. For example, what did you eat for lunch today? Was it healthy? If not, why did you eat it?

    My job is to figure out what makes people do what they do, and then help them make decisions that keep them healthy.

    Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

    Sarah Bauerle Bass has received funding from a number of organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Departments of Health, and independent pharma research grants from Gilead and Merck.

    – ref. I’m an expert in crafting public health messages: Here are 3 marketing strategies I use to make Philadelphia healthier – https://theconversation.com/im-an-expert-in-crafting-public-health-messages-here-are-3-marketing-strategies-i-use-to-make-philadelphia-healthier-254905

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 3 years after abortion rights were overturned, contraception access is at risk

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Cynthia H. Chuang, Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences, Penn State

    Women living in states that ban or severely restrict abortion may be especially motivated to avoid unintended pregnancy. Viktoriya Skorikova/Moment via Getty Images

    On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated a nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the states.

    The Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, has vastly reshaped the national abortion landscape. Three years on, many states have severely restricted access to abortion care. But the decision has also had a less well-recognized outcome: It is increasingly jeopardizing access to contraception.

    We are a physician scientist and a sociologist and health services researcher studying women’s health care and policy, including access to contraception. We see a worrisome situation emerging.

    Even while the growing limits on abortion in the U.S. heighten the need for effective contraception, family planning providers are less available in many states, and health insurance coverage of some of the most effective types of contraception is at risk.

    A growing demand for contraception

    Abortion restrictions have proliferated around the country since the Dobbs decision. As of June 2025, 12 states have near-total abortion bans and 10 states ban abortion before 23 or 24 weeks of gestation, which is when a fetus is generally deemed viable. Of the remaining states, 19 restrict abortion after viability and nine states and Washington have no gestational limits.

    It’s no surprise that women living in states that ban or severely restrict abortion may be especially motivated to avoid unintended pregnancy. Even planned pregnancies have grown riskier, with health care providers fearing legal repercussions for treating pregnancy-related medical emergencies such as miscarriages. Such concerns may in part explain emerging research that suggests the use of long-acting contraception such as intrauterine devices, or IUDs, and permanent contraception – namely, sterilization – are on the rise.

    A national survey conducted in 2024 asked women ages 18 to 49 if they have changed their contraception practices “as a result of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.” It found that close to 1 in 5 women began using contraception for the first time, switched to a more effective contraceptive method, received a sterilization procedure or purchased emergency contraception to keep on hand.

    The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs reshaped the landscape of abortion access across the U.S.

    A study in Ohio hospitals found a nearly 16% increase in women choosing long-acting contraception methods or sterilization in the six months after the Dobbs decision, and a 33% jump in men receiving vasectomies. Another study, which looked at both female and male sterilization in academic medical centers across the country, also reported an uptick in sterilization procedures for young adults ages 18 to 30 after the Dobbs decision, through 2023.

    A loss of contraception providers

    Ironically, banning or severely restricting abortion statewide may also diminish capacity to provide contraception.

    To date, there is no compelling evidence that OB-GYN doctors are leaving states with strict abortion laws in significant numbers. One study found that states with severe abortion restrictions saw a 4.2% decrease in such practitioners compared with states without abortion restrictions.

    However, the Association of American Medical Colleges reports declining applications to residency training programs located in states that have abortion bans – not just for OB-GYN training programs, but for residency training of all specialties. This drop suggests that doctors may be overall less likely to train in states that restrict medical practice. And given that physicians often stay on to practice in the states where they do their training, it may point to a long-term decline in physicians in those states.

    But the most significant drop in contraceptive services likely comes from the closure of abortion clinics in states with the most restrictive abortion policies. That’s because such clinics generally provide a wide range of reproductive services, including contraception. The 12 states with near-total abortion bans had 57 abortion clinics in 2020, all of which were closed as of March 2024. One study reported a 4.1% decline in oral contraceptives dispensed in those states.

    Contraception under threat

    The Dobbs decision has also encouraged ongoing efforts to incorrectly redefine some of the most effective contraceptives as medications that cause abortion. These efforts target emergency contraceptive pills, known as Plan B over-the-counter and Ella by prescription, as well as certain IUDs. Emergency contraceptive pills are up to 98% effective at preventing pregnancy after unprotected sex, and IUDs are 99% effective.

    Neither method terminates a pregnancy, which by definition begins when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus. Instead, emergency contraceptive pills prevent an egg from being released from the ovaries, while IUDs, depending on the type, prevent sperm from fertilizing an egg or prevent an egg from implanting in the uterus.

    Conflating contraception and abortion spreads misinformation and causes confusion. People who believe that certain types of contraception cause abortions may be dissuaded from using those methods and rely on less effective methods. What’s more, it may affect health insurance coverage.

    Medicaid, which provides health insurance for low-income children and adults, has been required to cover family planning services at no cost to patients since 1972. Since 2012, the Affordable Care Act has required private health insurers to cover certain women’s health preventive services at no cost to patients, including the full-range of contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

    According to our research, the insurance coverage required by the Affordable Care Act has increased use of IUDs, which can be prohibitively expensive when paid out of pocket. But if IUDs and emergency contraceptive pills were reclassified as interventions that induce abortion, they likely would not be covered by Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act, since neither type of health insurance requires coverage for abortion care. Thus, access to some of the most effective contraceptive methods could be jeopardized at a time when the right to terminate an unintended or nonviable pregnancy has been rolled back in much of the country.

    Indeed, Project 2025, the conservative policy agenda that the Trump administration appears to be following, specifically calls for removing Ella from the Affordable Care Act contraception coverage mandate because it is a “potential abortifacient.” And politicians in multiple states have expressed support for the idea of restricting these contraceptive methods, as well as contraception more broadly.

    On the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision, it is clear that its ripple effects include threats to contraception. Considering that contraception use is almost universal among women in their reproductive years, in our view these threats should be taken seriously.

    Cynthia H. Chuang receives funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

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

    – ref. 3 years after abortion rights were overturned, contraception access is at risk – https://theconversation.com/3-years-after-abortion-rights-were-overturned-contraception-access-is-at-risk-258458

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The sleeper Supreme Court decision that could have profound impacts on the Trump administration agenda – and restore faith in the high court

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ray Brescia, Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, Albany Law School

    The Trump administration has tried to punish or suppress speech and opposition to administration policies. Baac3nes/Getty Images

    The American public’s trust in the Supreme Court has fallen precipitously over the past decade. Many across the political spectrum see the court as too political.

    This view is only strengthened when Americans see most of the justices of the court dividing along ideological lines on decisions related to some of the most hot-button issues the court handles. Those include reproductive rights, voting rights, corporate power, environmental protection, student loan policy, worker rights and LGBTQ+ rights.

    But there is one recent decision where the court was unanimous in its ruling, perhaps because its holding should not be controversial: National Rifle Association v. Vullo. In that 2024 case, the court said that it’s a clear violation of the First Amendment’s free speech provisions for government to force people to speak and act in ways that are aligned with its policies.

    The second Trump administration has tried to wield executive branch power in ways that appear to punish or suppress speech and opposition to administration policy priorities. Many of those attempts have been legally challenged and will likely make their way to the Supreme Court.

    The somewhat under-the-radar – yet incredibly important – decision in National Rifle Association v. Vullo is likely to figure prominently in Supreme Court rulings in a slew of those cases in the coming months and years, including those involving law firms, universities and the Public Broadcasting Service.

    That’s because, in my view as a legal scholar, they are all First Amendment cases.

    Will the Supreme Court continue to protect free speech rights, as it did unanimously in 2024?
    Geoff Livingston/Getty Images

    Why the NRA sued a New York state official

    In May 2024, in an opinion written by reliably liberal Sonia Sotomayor, a unanimous court ruled that the efforts of New York state government officials to punish companies doing business with the NRA constituted clear violations of the First Amendment.

    Following its own precedent from the 1960s, Bantam Books v. Sullivan, the court found that government officials “cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”

    Many of the current targets of the Trump administration’s actions have claimed similar suppression of their First Amendment rights by the government. They have fought back, filing lawsuits that often cite the National Rifle Association v. Vullo decision in their efforts.

    To date, the most egregious examples of actions that violate the principles announced by the court – the executive orders against law firms – have largely been halted in the lower courts, with those decisions often citing what’s now known as the Vullo decision.

    While these cases may still be working their way through the lower courts, it is likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately consider legal challenges to the Trump administration’s efforts in a range of areas.

    These would include the executive orders against law firms, attempts to cut government grants and research funding from universities, potential moves to strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status, and regulatory actions punishing media companies for what the White House believes to be unfavorable coverage.

    The court could also hear disputes over the government terminating contracts with a family of companies that provides satellite and communications support to the U.S. government generally and the military in particular.

    Despite the variety of organizations and government actions involved in these lawsuits, they all can be seen as struggles over free speech and expression, like Vullo.

    Whether it is private law firms, multinational corporations, universities or members of the media, all have one thing in common: They have all been targeted by the Trump administration for the same reason – they are engaged in actions or speech that is disfavored by President Donald Trump.

    Protecting speech, regardless of politics

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, front, took leave to help prosecute war criminals at the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II.
    Bettman/Getty Images

    The NRA, an often-controversial gun-rights advocacy organization, was the plaintiff in the Vullo decision.

    But just because the groups that have been targeted by the Trump administration are across the political divide from the NRA does not mean the outcome in decisions relying on the court’s opinion will be different. In fact, these groups can rely on the same arguments advanced by the NRA, and are, I believe, likely to win.

    Vullo isn’t the only decision on which the court can rely when considering challenges to the Trump administration’s efforts targeting these groups.

    In the wake of World War II, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson took a leave from the court and served as a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders. Prosecuting them for their atrocities, Jackson saw how the Nuremberg defendants wielded government authority to punish enemies who resisted their rise and later opposed their rule.

    Once he returned to the court, Jackson wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, where the court found that students who refused to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school could not be expelled.

    Jackson’s opinion is a forceful rejection of government attempts to control what people say: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

    If some of the cases testing the state’s power to force fidelity to the executive branch reach the Supreme Court, the cases could offer the justices the opportunity to, once again, speak with one voice as they did in NRA v. Vullo, to demonstrate it can be evenhanded and will not play politics with the First Amendment.

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

    – ref. The sleeper Supreme Court decision that could have profound impacts on the Trump administration agenda – and restore faith in the high court – https://theconversation.com/the-sleeper-supreme-court-decision-that-could-have-profound-impacts-on-the-trump-administration-agenda-and-restore-faith-in-the-high-court-258216

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How do atoms form? A physicist explains where the atoms that make up everything around come from

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen L. Levy, Associate Professor of Physics and Applied Physics and Astronomy, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    Many heavy atoms form from a supernova explosion, the remnants of which are shown in this image. NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

    Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

    How do atoms form? – Joshua, age 7, Shoreview, Minnesota

    Richard Feynman, a famous theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize, said that if he could pass on only one piece of scientific information to future generations, it would be that all things are made of atoms.

    Understanding how atoms form is a fundamental and important question, since they make up everything with mass.

    The question of where atoms comes from requires a lot of physics to be answered completely – and even then, physicists like me only have good guesses to explain how some atoms are formed.

    What is an atom?

    An atom consists of a heavy center, called the nucleus, made of particles called protons and neutrons. An atom has lighter particles called electrons that you can think of as orbiting around the nucleus.

    The electrons each carry one unit of negative charge, the protons each carry one unit of positive charge, and the neutrons have no charge. An atom has the same number of protons as electrons, so it is neutral − it has no overall charge.

    An atom consists of positively charged protons, neutrally charged neutrons and negatively charged electrons.
    AG Caesar/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    Now, most of the atoms in the universe are the two simplest kinds: hydrogen, which has one proton, zero neutrons and one electron; and helium, which has two protons, two neutrons and two electrons. Of course, on Earth there are lots of atoms besides these that are just as common, such as carbon and oxygen, but I’ll talk about those soon.

    An element is what scientists call a group of atoms that are all the same, because they all have the same number of protons.

    When did the first atoms form?

    Most of the universe’s hydrogen and helium atoms formed around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, which is the name for when scientists think the universe began, about 14 billion years ago.

    Why did they form at that time? Astronomers know from observing distant exploding stars that the size of the universe has been getting bigger since the Big Bang. When the hydrogen and helium atoms first formed, the universe was about 1,000 times smaller than it is now.

    And based on their understanding of physics, scientists believe that the universe was much hotter when it was smaller.

    Before this time, the electrons had too much energy to settle into orbits around the hydrogen and helium nuclei. So, the hydrogen and helium atoms could form only once the universe cooled down to something like 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). For historical reasons, this process is misleadingly called recombination − combination would be more descriptive.

    The helium and deuterium − a heavier form of hydrogen − nuclei formed even earlier, just a few minutes after the Big Bang, when the temperature was above 1 billion F (556 million C). Protons and neutrons can collide and form nuclei like these only at very high temperatures.

    Scientists believe that almost all the ordinary matter in the universe is made of about 90% hydrogen atoms and 8% helium atoms.

    How do more massive atoms form?

    So, the hydrogen and helium atoms formed during recombination, when the cooler temperature allowed electrons to fall into orbits. But you, I and almost everything on Earth is made of many more massive atoms than just hydrogen and helium. How were these atoms made?

    The surprising answer is that more massive atoms are made in stars. To make atoms with several protons and neutrons stuck together in the nucleus requires the type of high-energy collisions that occur in very hot places. The energy needed to form a heavier nucleus needs to be large enough to overcome the repulsive electric force that positive charges, like two protons, feel with each other.

    The immense heat and pressure in stars can form atoms through a process called fusion.
    NASA/SDO

    Protons and neutrons also have another property – kind of like a different type of charge – that is strong enough to bind them together once they are able to get very close together. This property is called the strong force, and the process that sticks these particles together is called fusion.

    Scientists believe that most of the elements from carbon up to iron are fused in stars heavier than our Sun, where the temperature can exceed 1 billion F (556 million C) – the same temperature that the universe was when it was just a few minutes old.

    This periodic table shows which astronomical processes scientists believe are responsible for forming each of the elements.
    Cmglee/Wikimedia Commons (image) and Jennifer Johnson/OSU (data), CC BY-SA

    But even in hot stars, elements heavier than iron and nickel won’t form. These require extra energy, because the heavier elements can more easily break into pieces.

    In a dramatic event called a supernova, the inner core of a heavy star suddenly collapses after it runs out of fuel to burn. During the powerful explosion this collapse triggers, elements that are heavier than iron can form and get ejected out into the universe.

    Astronomers are still figuring out the details of other fantastic stellar events that form larger atoms. For example, colliding neutron stars can release enormous amounts of energy – and elements such as gold – on their way to forming black holes.

    Understanding how atoms are made just requires learning a little general relativity, plus some nuclear, particle and atomic physics. But to complicate matters, there is other stuff in the universe that doesn’t appear to be made from normal atoms at all, called dark matter. Scientists are investigating what dark matter is and how it might form.

    Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

    And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

    Stephen L. Levy receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He is affiliated with CyteQuest, Inc.

    – ref. How do atoms form? A physicist explains where the atoms that make up everything around come from – https://theconversation.com/how-do-atoms-form-a-physicist-explains-where-the-atoms-that-make-up-everything-around-come-from-256172

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Astronomy has a major data problem – simulating realistic images of the sky can help train algorithms

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Peterson, Assoc. Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University

    A simulation of a set of synthetic galaxies. Photons are sampled from these galaxies and have been simulated through the Earth’s atmosphere, a telescope and a sensor using a code called PhoSim. John Peterson/Purdue

    Professional astronomers don’t make discoveries by looking through an eyepiece like you might with a backyard telescope. Instead, they collect digital images in massive cameras attached to large telescopes.

    Just as you might have an endless library of digital photos stored in your cellphone, many astronomers collect more photos than they would ever have the time to look at. Instead, astronomers like me look at some of the images, then build algorithms and later use computers to combine and analyze the rest.

    But how can we know that the algorithms we write will work, when we don’t even have time to look at all the images? We can practice on some of the images, but one new way to build the best algorithms is to simulate some fake images as accurately as possible.

    With fake images, we can customize the exact properties of the objects in the image. That way, we can see if the algorithms we’re training can uncover those properties correctly.

    My research group and collaborators have found that the best way to create fake but realistic astronomical images is to painstakingly simulate light and its interaction with everything it encounters. Light is composed of particles called photons, and we can simulate each photon. We wrote a publicly available code to do this called the photon simulator, or PhoSim.

    The goal of the PhoSim project is to create realistic fake images that help us understand where distortions in images from real telescopes come from. The fake images help us train programs that sort through images from real telescopes. And the results from studies using PhoSim can also help astronomers correct distortions and defects in their real telescope images.

    The data deluge

    But first, why is there so much astronomy data in the first place? This is primarily due to the rise of dedicated survey telescopes. A survey telescope maps out a region on the sky rather than just pointing at specific objects.

    These observatories all have a large collecting area, a large field of view and a dedicated survey mode to collect as much light over a period of time as possible. Major surveys from the past two decades include the SDSS, Kepler, Blanco-DECam, Subaru HSC, TESS, ZTF and Euclid.

    The Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile has recently finished construction and will soon join those. Its survey begins soon after its official “first look” event on June 23, 2025. It will have a particularly strong set of survey capabilities.

    The Rubin observatory can look at a region of the sky all at once that is several times larger than the full Moon, and it can survey the entire southern celestial hemisphere every few nights.

    The Vera Rubin Observatory will take in lots of light to construct maps of the sky.
    Rubin Observatory/NSF/AURA/B. Quint, CC BY-SA

    A survey can shed light on practically every topic in astronomy.

    Some of the ambitious research questions include: making measurements about dark matter and dark energy, mapping the Milky Way’s distribution of stars, finding asteroids in the solar system, building a three-dimensional map of galaxies in the universe, finding new planets outside the solar system and tracking millions of objects that change over time, including supernovas.

    All of these surveys create a massive data deluge. They generate tens of terabytes every night – that’s millions to billions of pixels collected in seconds. In the extreme case of the Rubin observatory, if you spent all day long looking at images equivalent to the size of a 4K television screen for about one second each, you’d be looking at them 25 times too slow and you’d never keep up.

    At this rate, no individual human could ever look at all the images. But automated programs can process the data.

    Astronomers don’t just survey an astronomical object like a planet, galaxy or supernova once, either. Often we measure the same object’s size, shape, brightness and position in many different ways under many different conditions.

    But more measurements do come with more complications. For example, measurements taken under certain weather conditions or on one part of the camera may disagree with others at different locations or under different conditions. Astronomers can correct these errors – called systematics – with careful calibration or algorithms, but only if we understand the reason for the inconsistency between different measurements. That’s where PhoSim comes in. Once corrected, we can use all the images and make more detailed measurements.

    Simulations: One photon at a time

    To understand the origin of these systematics, we built PhoSim, which can simulate the propagation of light particles – photons – through the Earth’s atmosphere and then into the telescope and camera.

    A simulation of photons traveling from a single star to the Vera Rubin Observatory, made using PhoSim. The layers of turbulence in the atmosphere move according to wind patterns (top middle), and the mirrors deform (top right) depending on the temperature and forces exerted on them. The photons with different wavelengths (colors) are sampled from a star, refract through the atmosphere and then interact with the telescope’s mirrors, filter and lenses. Finally, the photons eject electrons in the sensor (bottom middle) that are counted in pixels to make an image (bottom right). John Peterson/Purdue

    PhoSim simulates the atmosphere, including air turbulence, as well as distortions from the shape of the telescope’s mirrors and the electrical properties of the sensors. The photons are propagated using a variety of physics that predict what photons do when they encounter the air and the telescope’s mirrors and lenses.

    The simulation ends by collecting electrons that have been ejected by photons into a grid of pixels, to make an image.

    Representing the light as trillions of photons is computationally efficient and an application of the Monte Carlo method, which uses random sampling. Researchers used PhoSim to verify some aspects of the Rubin observatory’s design and estimate how its images would look.

    A simulations of a series of exposures of stars, galaxies and background light through the Rubin observatory using PhoSim. Photons are sampled from the objects and then interact with the Earth’s atmosphere and Rubin’s telescope and camera.
    John Peterson/Purdue

    The results are complex, but so far we’ve connected the variation in temperature across telescope mirrors directly to astigmatism – angular blurring – in the images. We’ve also studied how high-altitude turbulence in the atmosphere that can disturb light on its way to the telescope shifts the positions of stars and galaxies in the image and causes blurring patterns that correlate with the wind. We’ve demonstrated how the electric fields in telescope sensors – which are intended to be vertical – can get distorted and warp the images.

    Researchers can use these new results to correct their measurements and better take advantage of all the data that telescopes collect.

    Traditionally, astronomical analyses haven’t worried about this level of detail, but the meticulous measurements with the current and future surveys will have to. Astronomers can make the most out of this deluge of data by using simulations to achieve a deeper level of understanding.

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

    – ref. Astronomy has a major data problem – simulating realistic images of the sky can help train algorithms – https://theconversation.com/astronomy-has-a-major-data-problem-simulating-realistic-images-of-the-sky-can-help-train-algorithms-258786

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –