India made a compelling case for urgent global action to protect ocean health at the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, with Union Minister of Earth Sciences Dr. Jitendra Singh unveiling ambitious strides in deep-sea exploration, marine plastic clean-up, and sustainable fisheries. Representing India at the conference, co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, Dr. Singh called for a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty, swift ratification of the BBNJ Agreement, and introduced the ‘SAHAV’ digital ocean data portal, reinforcing India’s leadership in global marine governance.
Speaking under the conference theme “Accelerating Action and Mobilizing All Actors to Conserve and Sustainably Use the Ocean,” Dr. Singh emphasized India’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. He outlined India’s multi-pronged strategy to combat ocean degradation through science, innovation, and inclusive partnerships. A centerpiece of India’s efforts is the Deep Ocean Mission’s ‘Samudrayaan’ project, set to deploy the nation’s first manned submersible by 2026 to explore ocean depths up to 6,000 meters, marking a significant leap in scientific capability.
Dr. Singh highlighted India’s progress in tackling marine pollution through the ‘Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar’ campaign, which has cleaned over 1,000 km of coastline and removed more than 50,000 tonnes of plastic waste since 2022. A draft marine litter policy is in place, and India is actively supporting negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty to establish a legally binding international framework. Additionally, India has expanded its Marine Protected Areas to cover 6.6% of its Exclusive Economic Zone, contributing to global biodiversity goals.
The minister showcased India’s Blue Economy initiatives, driven by the Sagarmala Programme and the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY). Over 600 port-led infrastructure projects worth $80 billion have been operationalized, while $2.5 billion in investments have modernized the fisheries sector, resulting in a 10% rise in fish production and the creation of over 1,000 fish farmer producer organizations since 2022. India has also restored over 10,000 hectares of mangroves and implemented shoreline management plans using nature-based solutions, integrating ocean-based climate actions into its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.
India’s leadership in global ocean governance was further demonstrated through its co-leadership in ‘Blue Talks’ with France and Costa Rica and its participation in high-level events, such as the India-Norway side session on Marine Spatial Planning. The launch of the ‘SAHAV’ portal at UNOC3 enhances India’s commitment to transparent, science-based ocean management.
Urging the adoption of a robust ‘Nice Ocean Action Plan,’ Dr. Singh called for global investment in innovation, ratification of the BBNJ Agreement, and finalization of the plastics treaty. “The ocean is our shared heritage and responsibility,” he declared, affirming India’s readiness to collaborate with governments, private sectors, civil society, and indigenous communities for a sustainable ocean future. India’s proactive stance at UNOC3 signals its transformation from a coastal nation to a global leader in shaping ocean policy.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has taken part in two major international events in Nice, France this week, focused on Pacific resilience, prosperity and security. The sixth Pacific-France Summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, took place in Nice overnight. “The Summit brought together Pacific countries for discussions with France on regional stability, economic development and climate resilience,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand welcomes this opportunity for Pacific Islands Forum members to discuss our priorities with France. “France is a long-standing partner in the Pacific, and we value its support in securing the prosperity and stability of the region during a period of heightened global complexity.” While in Nice, Mr Peters also attended the third United Nations Ocean Conference. “As a maritime state with one of the world’s largest and most biodiverse marine areas, New Zealand strongly supports a rules-based international system that secures the conservation and sustainable use of our oceans,” Mr Peters says. “This is especially important for ensuring a resilient and healthy Blue Pacific. We will continue to work with our partners in the region to advance our shared priorities.” At the conference, New Zealand re-emphasised its commitment to support Pacific partners in their efforts to enhance science-based ocean management and ensure their fisheries are sustainable and climate-resilient. While in Nice, Mr Peters also held bilateral meetings with leaders and Ministers from Chile, France, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Singapore, United Kingdom, and Viet Nam. The Foreign Minister has now travelled to Rome for high-level bilateral talks with the Italian Government, before heading to Jakarta.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City St George’s, University of London
UK chancellor Rachel Reeves faces her biggest test with the government’s departmental spending plans for the three years from next April until the general election. With nearly £600 billion a year to spend, her decisions will impact on every aspect of public life and shape the political weather for years to come.
She believes the key to reviving Labour’s fortunes as its poll ratings tumble lies in boosting economic growth.
So the government has promised that its policies will increase the UK’s anaemic growth rate and enhance productivity. Reeves is looking to capital spending on big projects that will boost the economy, such as the £14.2 billion government investment in a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell in Suffolk.
Last year she revised the government’s fiscal rules to give herself the space to borrow an extra £113 billion over three years to transform Britain’s ageing infrastructure. She has already made it clear that she wants to boost transport investment outside of London, as well as invest in research and development, including green energy.
But there are challenges ahead. In the first place, the effect of infrastructure investment takes a long time to feed through. This is partly because of the lag between planning the projects and when they come on-stream.
It will take time before the full effect will be felt on productivity, which has been growing more slowly than expected. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) suggested in March that the latest government plans for planning reform might increase productivity by just 0.2% in the longer term.
There are also some real trade-offs as to where the increased capital investment will go – and which sectors will benefit most. The chancellor has emphasised her commitment to putting more money into projects outside London and south-east England that have had less public investment in the past.
But London and the south-east is where productivity is highest and where further investment might have a bigger effect on economic growth.
It appears that there may be less funding for social housing, which may threaten the government’s ambitious target of building 1.5 million homes over the parliament. There may also be less available to repair schools and hospitals.
And the plans to boost defence spending on expensive military equipment – such as frigates and fighter planes – will also count as capital spending. As such, it could further reduce the amount available for infrastructure investment.
The departmental trade-offs
Despite the relative abundance of cash for infrastructure, the tighter fiscal rules on day-to-day spending mean that many departments are facing a squeeze on their budgets. The government plans to allow total day-to-day departmental spending on average to rise by just 1.2% per year in real terms during the next three years. This probably spells a real-terms cut for some “unprotected” departments.
This is because the money will not be distributed equally. The Department of Health and Social Care gets 40% of all departmental spending and is likely to be the big winner.
It has already received a big increase in the last spending round, with an 11% increase in capital spending is likely to get even more to realise an ambitious ten-year plan for improving services in the NHS in England.
If health spending were to go up by 2.5% (well under its historic average), this could mean very little increase for many other government departments. And if it is increased by 3.5% this will imply real-terms cuts for other areas.
The situation is made more difficult by the government’s decision to prioritise two other areas: defence and schools. For defence, it is committed to raising spending to 2.5% by 2027 and to 3% in the next parliament.
And for education, Reeves has pledged an extra £4.5 billion per year for more teachers, childcare places and free school meals. The decisions have a strong political dimension, as health and education tend to be the most popular spending priorities among the public.
The spending review, however, only covers half of total government spending. The more unpredictable part is annually managed expenditure, mainly on benefits and interest payments on government debt.
The Treasury sets an overall target (known as the spending envelope) on how much will be spent in these areas. But it now faces a crunch point over the unpopular decisions to cut disability benefits and keep the two-child benefit cap.
Reeves’ partial U-turn on the winter fuel payment, which will now be paid to 9 million pensioners, will cost an additional £1.25 billion a year but may have been a political necessity.
But a full U-turn on the two other issues will be much more expensive. Taken together, such a change might breach the fiscal rules, which give only £10 billion of “headroom” in a total government budget of more than £1.2 trillion. So while there will be some rowing back, the finances suggest any more major U-turns are unlikely.
To make matters worse, these spending plans are based on an economic forecast made by the OBR in March. This did not include the effect of US president Donald Trump’s tariff plans. Since then, both the IMF and the OECD downgraded their UK growth forecasts for both 2025 and 2026, and despite a recent small upgrade by the IMF, growth is still significantly lower than previously expected.
Even though Britain seems to have secured a deal with the US, the effect of tariffs on global growth will still damage the UK’s prospects as a trading nation.
This will make it harder for the government to meet its fiscal targets in the autumn budget while sticking to the departmental spending plans. The chancellor will then have three options. She can look for more cuts in benefits spending.
She could try to find other sources of tax revenue, for example by tweaking the rules on taxing pensions or extending the freeze on upgrading tax bands. Or, more radically, she could modify the fiscal rules to give herself more flexibility – for example by having only one economic forecast a year, as the IMF has suggested.
Ultimately Labour’s electoral prospects will depend on whether it has succeeded in boosting living standards. While the productivity drive could work, the UK economy remains at the mercy of wider global economic forces.
Steve Schifferes 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.
Former chairman Zia Yusuf has rejoined Reform after quitting days previously. Yusuf had said he no longer wanted to work to get the party into government when new MP Sarah Pochin called for a ban on burqas in the UK. However, he seems to have had a change of heart and will return, ostensibly to lead the party’s “department of government efficiency”.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s bromance, however, is on much rockier ground. There’s no sign of the world’s richest man reconciling with the US president, his former employer.
These spats, at first glance, might seem like little more than, put politely, teething problems in (relatively) new political operations. Or, a little less politely, the unedifying spectacle of people in or seeking power being completely unable to act like adults.
However, it also points to something more akin to a canary in the coalmine for radical right parties around the world. Their increasing reliance on an ultra-wealthy donor class presents an ideological puzzle that may not be solvable.
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Reform currently operates on what has been described as vibes alone. That is to say, there’s very little meaningful common ground between the people who vote for Reform and the party elite. The only continuity is their sense of anger at the current political system.
This, as we are seeing in election after election, is an incredibly powerful (and compelling) force. The problem is, of course, that you can’t oppose forever. You often end up having to actually do something. All boxers, Mike Tyson will be glad to tell you, have a plan – until they get punched in the face.
And what makes them such a powerful force at the moment, is precisely that which may cause challenges further down the line. At least for me, given it’s my bread and butter research-wise, I see this when I follow the money.
And I’m increasingly asked a lot of questions about the kind of people who are either giving money to Reform – or who Reform are courting (and at the moment it is decidedly the latter which is the case).
Then you have a Silicon Valley-reared tech-bro libertarian. This group already runs on a “move fast and break things” philosophy so the idea of an insurgent party which proclaims, on entering parliament, that “the fox is in the henhouse” naturally appeals.
There are some places where the interests of these groups align – most notably a distaste for government interference and red tape (though not necessarily a smaller state in terms spending on public services). They also share a sense that progressive politics, broadly defined, ought to be pegged back a bit (but with an emphasis on a bit).
They differ on a great deal else, to the extent that you can only really please two out of the three, but never everybody. And, unfortunately, without all three the project starts collapsing. This is what we have been seeing in the fractious relationships between Trump and Musk and Farage and Yusuf.
Two out of three ain’t bad – but it’s not enough
Yusuf (and Musk) are very much representative of the new tech-bro class. And, when Yusuf called questions about banning the burqa “dumb” he was speaking at both an ideological and organisational level.
At the ideological level it is, frankly, a bit rich for his blood, because “philosophically I am always a bit uneasy about banning things which, for example, would be unconstitutional in the United States”.
Organisationally, it pushes Reform much closer to what journalist Fraser Nelson calls “a tactic more akin to the old BNP”. Indeed, Reform started “just asking questions” about burqas at the same time as it started twisting footage to claim that Anas Sarwar, leader of Scottish Labour, wants to prioritise the needs of Pakistanis.
This kind of dog-whistle politics appeals to some, but puts off a lot more, including, I think, some of the (saner) tech-bro right.
Indeed, Ian Ward at Politico perceptively notes that if we want to explain the current Musk-Trump meltdown we should look back to Christmas 2024, when cracks first started appearing over immigration policy.
The tech-bro right are, generally speaking, much less hardline on the flow of people than the Maga-populist right (think Steve Bannon and Tommy Robinson). In fact, they are pro-high skilled immigration as it tends to benefit them and their business interests.
Tech-bros also like the idea of moving fast and breaking things in theory. But when things start moving fast and actually breaking in practice (or Tesla stocks start to plummet), they tend to get a bit freaked out.
In other words, it’s not just that they don’t like government, they don’t like governing and the inevitable compromise that comes with it. When they say move fast and break things, I get the sense what they really mean is “leave me alone so I can make billions in peace”.
This, of course, is quite appealing to traditional hedge-fund conservatives, but is also the politics that literally built the economic grievances that much of the white-working class support for the populist radical right is, in turn, built on.
Two out of three ain’t bad, but you do need all three. So, don’t be surprised if despite Farage’s seemingly genuine affection for Yusuf, it all falls apart again before long.
Ultimately, Reform will need to decide how they are going to spin these plates. The good news is that it might well be that they can, indeed, get by on vibes alone until the next general election. The bad news, unfortunately, is that winning an election is the easy bit. Just ask Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer. After all, everyone has a plan.
Sam Power receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
If you visit a zoo, you might be captivated by the animals you see — majestic lions, curious meerkats, soaring birds of prey. But this is not always the case. Some zoos don’t always give us that impression of “happy animals” where they can behave naturally and be left alone by visitors if they wish.
The UK, Scottish and Welsh governments recently released new zoo standards for Great Britain. So what does this mean for the future of zoos?
I have been working in and with zoos for over 20 years. I am a bit of a zoo-nerd but that doesn’t mean that I like them all. I am an advocate for good animal welfare in zoos and so I can recognise the ones that are good and not so good.
Britain is one of a few countries such as Belgium, South Korea and New Zealand that have specific zoo legislation. The new British standards will be enforced in 2027, giving below-par zoos two years to up their game.
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I speak here in my role as associate professor of zoo animal welfare at Nottingham Trent University, but I also sit on the UK Zoos Expert Committee and helped to write the new standards. One of the biggest changes is the replacement of the word “should” with “must”. The standards now say: “Zoos must provide appropriate accomodation”. This makes all elements of the guidance much more enforceable.
One of the most common complaints I hear when I say I work with zoos is that the animals don’t have as much space as they do in the wild. That is correct: zoos cannot provide the same amount of space for a lot of species. But good quality space can allow these animals to behave like they would in wild habitats.
One of the most controversial animals when talking about space is elephants. In 2017 the UK government issued updated requirements for them which brought in enclosure-size requirements, something that had never happened for any species in British zoos before.
Under the new standards, zoos will have until 2040 to increase their elephant provisions. Indoor space allocation for a herd of up to four females has been doubled to 600m². This then increases by 100m² for each additional elephant (compared to 80m² in the 2017 requirements).
Bull facilities – zoos that house individual male elephants – need to provide 320m² of indoor space per bull. Outdoor areas for bull and cow elephants must provide a minimum shared space of 20,000m² (or 2.8 UK sized football pitches) for up to five group-living adults. This must be increased by at least 2,500m² for each additional animal over two years old. This is over 30 times larger than the current standards.
The new standards stipulate that zoos must provide more natural habitats that better replicate how elephants live in the wild. There are also requirements for more detailed behavioural monitoring and things that help keep elephants active and engaged in their environment.
Howver, animal welfare charity the RSPCA still feels that these updates are not good enough. It believes that elephants (and some other species) are not suitable for captivity as they have complex cognitive needs and space requirements.
From my perspective, Britain has the most specific (and now) welfare-driven standards for elephants in the world. If Britain were to ban the housing of elephants, we would be shipping them to lower quality habitats, care and monitoring. Is this really what we want for the elephants in British zoos?
What else is changing
Another area where there has been much criticism in the past relates to providing animals from specific climates or environments with the correct conditions, such as reptiles, amphibians, tropical birds and primates. While a high number of animals seem to cope well in the UK’s colder climate, there is research to show that some animals need specialised environments, without which they can suffer from severe health problems, low welfare and even death.
The new standards require zoos to develop detailed environmental management plans for species that rely on artificial life-support systems such as aquariums, vivariums, tropical houses or desert habitats. Animals also cannot be removed from their enclosures for interactions or talks with the public.
These environmental management plans outline the environmental parameters required for that animal to thrive and behave naturally, and they need to be monitored to ensure that provisions do not slip.
There are also extra requirements for birds of prey. Although controversial, tethering is currently a recognised management practice for birds of prey, including owls, hawks and falcons. You don’t need to be a welfare scientist to understand how a bird might feel about being tethered to a post for long periods of time.
The 2012 standards stipulated that tethered birds should be flown at least four times per week, though there were no time restrictions on how long they could be tethered. The new standards emphasise that birds can only be tethered for a maximum of four hours in a 24 hour period and only as a management tool that benefits the bird (such as training for flight displays, transportation or veterinary treatment).
There is new emphasis on what is known as behavioural enrichment. Whether it’s puzzle feeders for primates, scent trails for big cats or novel objects for parrots, enrichment helps prevent boredom, reduce stress and promote natural behaviour.
Enrichment can be resource intensive and therefore difficult to implement, but the new standards make it a core requirement. Enrichment activities must aim to replicate natural behaviour such as foraging, climbing or problem solving. Zoos are required to document and evaluate these activities, track how animals respond and adjust strategies accordingly.
These updates reflect a deeper understanding of what animals need to thrive, not just survive. As a zoo welfare scientist, I feel there is always more that can be done to improve the welfare of animals in zoos (such as banning touch pools and tethering altogether).
But it is important that zoos and aquariums evaluate the costs (to the animals) and benefits (to the visitors) to make ethical and welfare-based decisions themselves.
These new standards will improve the conditions for animals in zoos, as well as help zoos to make the right decisions about the animals they house and care for.
Samantha Ward is the welfare specialist on the Zoo Experts Committee, part of DEFRA, who helped write the new zoo standards.
The UK government will soon face a momentous decision over whether to approve production in the Rosebank oilfield off the coast of Shetland.
Rosebank is the UK’s biggest undeveloped field. Its proponents – the largest of which is Norwegian state-owned petroleum company, Equinor – estimate that it will produce the equivalent of up to 500 million barrels of oil between 2026 and 2051. When burned, this oil will generate up to 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is more than the combined annual emissions of 28 low-income countries.
Thanks to recent courtcases, the climate effects of those “combustion emissions” will need to be taken into account by the government when it decides whether to approve production at Rosebank. In a new report, two colleagues and I reviewed the evidence concerning the implications of new oil and gas fields in the UK.
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There is a rapidly dwindling global carbon budget for holding temperature increases to below 1.5°C of warming (the more conservative end of the Paris agreement’s temperature goal).
Globally, the emissions from burning the fossil fuels in oil and gas fields and coalmines that are already operating or under development far exceed that budget. In this context, Rosebank’s combustion emissions are highly significant, as they add considerably to that excess.
We also found that the projected production from existing fields is sufficient to meet or exceed global oil and gas demand in modelled economic scenarios in which climate warming is restrained to within 1.5°C. This is further evidence that new fields are not consistent with achieving globally agreed temperature goals.
However, it is often asserted by supporters of new fields that keeping UK oil in the ground won’t reduce global emissions, because another producer will supply the demand and reap the benefits. This is a gross and dangerous oversimplification which, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, “defies basic economics of supply and demand”.
Allowing a new field like Rosebank would increase the supply of oil globally, resulting in a fall in its price which, though small, would cause more oil to be consumed. As UK government advisers at the Climate Change Committee have acknowledged, new petroleum projects “support a larger global market overall” for petroleum. Stopping Rosebank would have the opposite effect, and lead to less oil consumed.
Rosebank is found about 80 miles west of Shetland and its puffins. Philippe Clement / shutterstock
The oil industry likes to trumpet the UK’s relatively low upstream emissions – that is, from the process of extracting oil – compared with those of competitors overseas. But this is a distraction from the bigger issue: the additional greenhouse gases emitted from consuming the extra oil that new fields produce.
A recent peer-reviewed study by economists and experts in the emissions-intensity of oil and gas production concluded that limiting oil supply will almost always lead to lower overall emissions, regardless of the intensity of upstream emissions from different fields. It is highly likely that leaving Rosebank’s oil in the ground will result in lower global greenhouse gases than would occur if the field were developed.
However, this focus on Rosebank’s aggregate emissions ignores two further reasons the field’s development consent should be refused on climate grounds.
A litmus test of climate leadership
First, exploiting new sources of oil supply like Rosebank locks in future oil and gas production, ultimately making it economically, politically and legally harder to wind the industry down.
Second, as the Climate Change Committee also stated, decisions by the UK government concerning petroleum production have an important “signalling effect” internationally and at home.
Internationally, the UK government has rightly acknowledged that climate action “must be accelerated drastically” to keep the average global temperature rise “below 1.5°C”.
The UK has a proud reputation for climate leadership. It was the first country to enact a legally binding framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it rapidly phased out coal-fired power generation, and in 2019 it became the first country to adopt a net zero emissions target.
Building on this legacy, the foreign secretary David Lammy has vowed to “push for the ambition needed to keep 1.5 degrees alive”. But approving Rosebank would signal to the world that the UK government is not sincere about keeping the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C goal “alive”, after all.
Some might think that aspirations to climate leadership are futile given the Trump administration’s “drill, baby, drill” approach to fossil fuels. But Trump’s recklessness at a critical time for global climate efforts makes UK climate leadership more important than ever.
The UK already chairs a suite of international energy transition alliances focused on the international phase-out of coal-fired power, the scale-up of renewables, and the financing of these transitions. It could plug a gap in its influence by rejecting Rosebank and joining the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance, a “club” of (currently) 25 national and sub-national governments that are working to phase-out oil and gas production and persuade other countries to follow suit.
And it could deepen cooperation with the EU to drive down oil and gas demand and scale up clean energy throughout the region, yielding benefits that will outlive the Trump administration.
Domestically, rejecting Rosebank would send a powerful signal to investors about the sincerity of the government’s commitment to achieve economic growth by becoming a “clean energy superpower”, as the governing Labour party pledged to do at the last election.
But the benefits of clean prosperity must extend to the people and communities caught up in the transition, too. The UK’s North Sea oil and gas reserves, along with the jobs their production supports, are in terminal decline.
Oil and gas workers and the communities in which they are based already face a volatile future. New fields like Rosebank would create some additional jobs in this declining industry. But they cannot arrest its long-term decline.
The government recognises that this transition is already taking place and will continue. With targeted regional and industrial investment, support for workers and their families, and careful planning that meaningfully involves affected communities, the UK has an opportunity to demonstrate to the world how to achieve a just transition away from oil and gas.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Fergus Green has received consulting fees from and provided expert evidence on behalf of an environmental nongovernmental organisation engaged in climate-related litigation against a fossil fuel company. He informally consults with a number of environmental nongovernmental organisations in relation to fossil fuel production issues in the UK and elsewhere. He is a member of the Just Transition Expert Group of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (the role is unremunerated).
Farmed Atlantic salmon has become one of the most highly traded food commodities in the world, enjoyed for its versatility as much as for its health benefits. It has long been known that eating oily fish such as salmon is the best way to consume long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. These are essential for brain development, mental health and cognition.
In salmon, omega-3 fatty acids must come from the fish’s diet. For farmed fish, this means fishmeal and fish oil – so–called “marine ingredients” made from ground-up wild fish such as anchovy and fish by-products.
But the global supply of omega-3s is severely limited, whether from farmed or wild seafood. Many of the key fisheries supplying marine ingredients reached full exploitation in the mid-1990s. Since the growth of salmon aquaculture, increasing volumes of the limited marine ingredients supply have been taken up by fish farming.
This has raised concerns over sustainability and inflated the cost of these ingredients. The result has been a steady decline in the proportion of fish oil in farmed salmon diets, which has been replaced by plant oils. But these oils do not contain long-chain omega-3s.
In turn, the amount of omega-3s in a portion of salmon halved between 2006 and 2015. However, the salmon industry increasingly uses omega-3 as a key selling point for its product – two portions of farmed Scottish salmon per week would meet the recommended intake for an adult at current levels.
If the salmon industry is to continue to grow and maintain the omega-3 targets, it must be more efficient. And the seafood industry as a whole must do more to prevent omega-3 losses through its value chains. Part of the efficiency journey has been to produce more fish oil.
This can be done by harnessing the value of fishery and aquaculture byproducts such as trimmings, skins and heads, so that more omega-3s are kept in the food (and feed) system.
There is a growing incentive to use the whole fish – consequently there has been good progress in improving the use of byproducts. It is now estimated that around half of global fish oil supply is sourced from fishery, and particularly aquaculture, processing sources. However, there is still a lot of waste and logistical difficulties in storing and transporting seafood byproducts.
Much of the industry incentive to use byproducts has been economic, as the global shortage of fish oil pushed prices above US$8,000 (£5,900) per tonne in 2024. Evidence from the past 20 years suggests that overall use of wild fish in the European salmon industry has dropped (replaced by plant ingredients), while production has grown several-fold.
Despite improvements and reductions in the use of marine ingredients, the industry still comes under huge pressure from NGOs and conservation groups. They are concerned about the use of fish as feed, which may damage public perceptions of the aquaculture industry.
To assess the use of fish as feed in aquaculture, the “fish in fish out” (Fifo) ratio was conceived, which measures the ratio of fish biomass included in fish feeds to the biomass of fish ultimately produced for consumption. The goal is for more fish to be produced for human consumption than is used as feed, and this would result in a Fifo of less than 1.
New measure for nutrients
Certification bodies such as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Best Aquaculture Practices have adopted different forms of the Fifo metric. However, until now, Fifo has not addressed one of the fundamental reasons for including marine ingredients in aquafeeds – providing omega-3s to consumers. It has neither considered the omega-3 content within feed fish, nor in the final product.
Similarly, studies examining nutrient retention in salmon have only looked at that from feed to the farmed fish. The omega-3 lost in the process of turning the fish raw material in feed is not currently measured. By introducing our new measure, the nutrient Fifo (nFifo), nutrients can be followed from wild fish capture, its separation into meal and oil, and through to the final product sold to consumers.
Certification bodies like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council could adopt the new metric for nutrition. T. Schneider/Shutterstock
The method used in nFifo favours the use of byproduct resources over virgin raw materials, so that diets containing byproducts receive a lower nFifo. In theory, this should promote circular economy initiatives.
This is crucial in the marine ingredients industry. Seafood is highly perishable and the byproducts especially so. But they are also some of the richest sources of omega-3s, such as from herring or mackerel.
However, the cost of retaining, stabilising, storing and transporting byproducts is often prohibitive. This is especially true on board fishing boats, where space is at a premium and byproducts are often dumped at sea.
Introducing metrics that prevent bioresources being wasted is essential for sustainable food production. Current salmon feed contains around 20% to 25% marine ingredients, but only around 5% is from byproducts. This results in a nFIFO of 2.17.
Incorporating only marine ingredients sourced from byproducts reduces that nFifo to below 0.5. Crucially, this still provides the same level of omega-3s to the consumer.
If the seafood industry is serious about sustainable production, it needs to become much more efficient with resources. The nFifo metric links the use of wild fish to omega-3s consumed in farmed salmon for the first time – but it could also be applied to other species and nutrients.
The methodology is similar to that used for environmental impact indicators for climate change, land or water use. It makes it possible to assess the trade-offs of including and substituting marine ingredients in fish diets at different points of production.
For example, while marine ingredients may raise concerns around their impact on fisheries, they have comparatively low carbon footprints and almost no land or water footprints compared to plant ingredients. This could potentially lead to more balanced and sustainable approaches to seafood production.
It is hoped that the nFifo metric and an accessible tool for calculating it (there is one provided on the Blue Food Performance website) will be adopted by certifiers. It could also lead to more complex sustainability indicators becoming mainstream, letting consumers make informed choices about the nutritional and environmental credentials of the products they buy.
Richard Newton is the Chair of the Climate Action Committe for Best Aquaculture Practice and the Stakeholder Advisory Group for Seafood Watch. He has previously received funding in 2019 and 2013 from the International Fishmeal Fishoil Organisation to map supplies of underutilised by-product resources.
Dave Little has received funding from various organisations supporting sustainable aquaculture development and has been affiliated to various organisations working to to improve farmed seafood assurance
Beards have long attracted suspicion, sometimes seen as stylish, sometimes as unsanitary. But how dirty are they, really?
Human skin is home to billions of microorganisms – mainly bacteria, but also fungi and viruses – and facial hair provides a unique environment for them to thrive. Research shows that beards, in particular, support a dense and diverse microbial population, which has fuelled a persistent belief that they are inherently unhygienic. The Washington Post recently reported that some toilets contain fewer germs than the average beard.
But are beards truly a hygiene risk? A closer look at the evidence reveals a nuanced picture.
The microbial population on skin varies by location and is influenced by factors such as temperature, pH, humidity and nutrient availability. Beards create a warm, often moist environment where food debris and oils can accumulate – ideal conditions for microbial growth.
These microbes thrive not just because of the warm, moist conditions beards provide, but also because of constant exposure to new contaminants and microbes, especially from hands that frequently touch surfaces and the face.
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Concerns among scientists about beard hygiene date back over 50 years. Early studies showed that facial hair could retain bacteria and bacterial toxins even after washing. This led to the enduring idea that beards act as bacterial reservoirs and could pose an infection risk to others.
For healthcare workers, this has made beards a point of controversy, especially in hospitals where pathogen transmission is a concern. However, hospital-based research has shown mixed results. One study found that bearded healthcare workers had higher bacterial loads on their faces than clean-shaven colleagues.
Another investigation, looking at whether it would be hygienic to evaluate dogs and humans in the same MRI scanner, found that most men’s beards contained significantly more microbes than dog fur, including a greater presence of harmful bacteria. The researchers concluded: “Dogs are no risk to humans if they use the same MRI.”
However, other studies have challenged the idea that beards increase infection risk. For example, one investigation found no significant difference in bacterial colonisation between bearded and clean-shaven healthcare workers.
The same study also reported that bearded doctors were less likely to carry Staphylococcus aureus, a major cause of hospital infections, and that there was no increase in infection rates among patients treated by bearded surgeons wearing surgical masks.
Beards can sometimes spread skin infections, such as impetigo — a contagious rash often caused by S aureus, which is commonly found in facial hair.
In rare cases, parasites like pubic lice – which usually live in the groin area – can also show up in beards, eyebrows or eyelashes, particularly in cases of poor hygiene or close contact with an infected person.
The case for good beard hygiene
Neglected beards can foster irritation, inflammation and infection. The skin beneath a beard – rich in blood vessels, nerve endings and immune cells – is highly sensitive to microbial and environmental stressors. When sebum, dead skin, food debris and pollutants accumulate, they can irritate the skin and provide fuel for fungal and bacterial growth.
Experts strongly recommend washing your beard and face every day. Doing so removes dirt, oils, allergens and dead skin, helping prevent microbial buildup.
Dermatologists also advise moisturising to prevent dryness, using a beard comb to clear debris, and trimming to control loose hairs and reduce shedding. These steps help maintain not only hygiene but also beard health and appearance.
So, are beards dirty? Like most things, it depends on how well you care for them. With daily hygiene and proper grooming, beards pose little risk and may even be healthier than we once thought.
Primrose Freestone 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.
As climate change and disrupted weather patterns impact countries around the world, leaders must act to mitigate the negative effects on public health.
Leaders from six western countries and Japan will soon gather in Kananaskis, Alta., for the Group of Seven (G7) meeting from June 15 to 17, 2025. In the lead-up to this meeting, the Royal Society of Canada hosted the Science 7 (S7). This is an engagement meeting of the leading academies of the G7 member countries.
Following discussion and deliberation, three statements aimed at advancing science for society were published, entitled Advanced Technologies and Data Security, Sustainable Migration and Climate Action and Health Resilience.
One of us (Sharon Straus) oversaw the S7 statement on Climate Action and Health Resilience. This statement draws attention to the health impacts of climate change and recommends several mitigation strategies.
Wide-ranging health impacts
Experts on health and climate change have outlined the growing impact of delayed climate action. The data are clear. Extreme weather events such as heat, floods, droughts and wildfires are having wide-ranging health impacts.
In the 10 years between 2014-2023, there was a 167 per cent increase in heat-related deaths in those aged 65 years and older compared with the 10 years between 1990-99. Extreme weather events also directly impact food and water security, as well as infectious diseases and chronic diseases.
The health consequences of climate change are not only the result of environmental factors. Of equal importance are recent decisions eliminating funding for programs that mitigate the risks of climate change.
Consider for example, the multiple threats to recent progress in eliminating malaria. The World Malaria Report published in December 2024 by the World Health Organization estimated that 2.2 billion malaria cases and 12.7 million malaria deaths were averted between 2000 and 2023.
Now, many countries anticipate a malaria resurgence. Antimalarial drug resistance, mosquito resistance to insecticides, changes in temperature and humidity affecting mosquito survival and the emergence of new mosquito species linked to climate change — combined with the recent abrupt funding freeze from the United States — are leading to a perfect storm.
Economic impact of climate change
The economic burden of climate change, which includes more health-care use, lost productivity, adaptation and mitigation expenses — to say nothing of the costs of rebuilding — is massive.
Much of that burden is borne by those who live in low- and middle-income countries (80 per cent of the world’s population) and who are the lowest contributors to carbon dioxide emissions.
To put this in perspective, in 2021, the United Nations Environment Program estimated the costs of annual adaptation for vulnerable countries at US$70 billion and predicted this would increase to US$140-300 billion by 2030.
In addition to the costs of adaptation aimed at reducing vulnerability to climate change, there are the costs associated with losses resulting from climate change. The 2024 Lancet Countdown estimated that the average annual economic losses due to extreme weather-related events reached US$227 billion between 2019-2023. This value exceeds the gross domestic product of approximately 60 per cent of the world’s economies.
What about Canada?
In Canada, warming is happening at twice the global rate with resulting heat, wildfires and floods. There is also evidence of significant impacts on mental health and chronic diseases, leading to an increased need for health care.
Indigenous communities, older adults and those who have experienced homelessness are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Indigenous Peoples, especially those living in remote and northern areas, are particularly vulnerable.
Currently there are 37 long-term and 40 short-term drinking water advisories in First Nations communities across Canada. The lack of safe, clean drinking water can exacerbate climate-related food and water insecurity and lead to infectious disease transmission.
Climate change costs health-care systems more each year. The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices recently estimated that health-related hospitalizations will increase by 21 per cent by mid-century. Our health systems are not prepared for this.
In addition, the costs of death and reduced quality of life from heat-related climate change is estimated to rise between $3 billion and $3.9 billion by the middle of this century. Factoring in other impacts such as those from air pollution, flooding and wildfires, the total estimated costs are in the tens to hundreds of billions.
S7’s recommendations
The S7 statement on Climate Action and Health Resilience includes seven recommendations. Addressing the disproportionate impact of climate change on populations who are particularly vulnerable and investing in innovative solutions are among them. Particularly critical are societal and political innovations that involve affected communities, including Indigenous communities.
The S7’s climate and health resilience recommendations include:
Developing and optimizing climate change mitigation strategies to transform health and social services (such as early warning infectious disease systems and biomonitoring).
Developing new regulations nationally and internationally to transform health, public health and social services, increasing their readiness and safeguarding health from climate change impact.
Providing economic and regulatory incentives to foster adaptation and resiliency of health systems.
Investing in innovative solutions (including vaccine development for emerging diseases, wastewater surveillance) to mitigate climate change and its health risks.
The G7 summit is an opportunity to centre climate change discussions and act on the S7 recommendations. Bold investment in innovations that address the health challenges resulting from climate change will benefit us all and drive new economic activity and resilience.
Climate change is a health issue, a social justice issue and an economic issue, and the time to act is now. Scientists, policymakers, clinicians and the public must work together.
Sharon E. Straus receives research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Françoise Baylis is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Directorate General Market Infrastructure and Payments oversees and coordinates the operation and development of payment systems and market infrastructure
It also leads the digital euro project
Mr Vlassopoulos will replace Ulrich Bindseil, who is leaving the ECB
The Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) has appointed Thomas Vlassopoulos as Director General Market Infrastructure and Payments. Mr Vlassopoulos will replace Ulrich Bindseil, who is leaving the ECB.
Thomas Vlassopoulos is currently Deputy Director General Market Operations, a post he has held since May 2021. He previously headed the Monetary Analysis Division and was also Deputy Head of the Financial Stability Surveillance Division. Mr Vlassopoulos joined the ECB’s Directorate General Economics in 2008, from the Bank of Greece. Mr Vlassopoulos holds a master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The Directorate General Market Infrastructure and Payments (DG-MIP) coordinates and supports the operation and development of Eurosystem market infrastructures (TARGET Services), conducts oversight of payment, clearing and settlement systems, and acts as a catalyst for innovation in retail payments as well as exploringnew technologies for wholesale central bank money settlement. It is also leading the digital euro project. Mr Vlassopoulos will be responsible for the strategic direction and management of DG-MIP, steering innovation, project workstreams and operational activities for TARGET Services, the digital euro project as well as retail and wholesale payments. He will chair a range of committees and high-level fora, maintaining working relationships with market participants and other stakeholders.
Delegation will Represent Colorado at the Americas Summit Agriculture, Workforce, and Clean Tech Innovation, Convene Governors and Education Leaders
DENVER – To encourage and spur more international cooperation, boost our state’s thriving economy, and discuss best practices in agriculture, workforce, and clean tech innovation, Governor Polis and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) are attending the Americas Summit in Vancouver, Canada. As Chair of the National Governors Association (NGA), Governor Polis will also convene governors and education leaders for the latest in a series of bipartisan events in support of the NGA Chair’s Initiative, Let’s Get Ready: Educating All Americans for Success.
“Colorado is a global economic leader, and our strong international relationships with partners like Canada create good-paying jobs for Coloradans, strengthen international markets for made and grown in Colorado products, and boost investment in our state. While Washington pushes our allies away, Colorado will continue to bolster international trade and cooperation that benefits Coloradans, businesses, and our whole economy. The Biennial of the Americas Summit plays an invaluable role in building and strengthening Colorado’s ties with countries throughout the Western Hemisphere, and this Summit is an opportunity for us to show our allies that Colorado is stepping up as a steady partner,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
The Americas Summit brings together influential leaders from across the Americas to explore critical topics such as sustainability, technological advancement, economic growth and cultural exchange.
“Canada is a top partner for Colorado in both trade and tourism, accounting for 16% of our state’s exports and bringing more than 176,000 visitors. Now more than ever, we must strengthen this important international relationship to help both of our regions thrive and support the Colorado businesses that depend on these international connections,” said OEDIT’s Executive Director, Eve Lieberman.
In addition to attending the Americas Summit, Gov. Polis and OEDIT’s Global Business Development division are hosting additional events to showcase Colorado’s leadership in the advanced industries, the state’s commitment to strong international partnerships, and highlight Colorado’s business strengths:
A roundtable hosted in partnership with the Colorado-headquartered National Science Foundation (NSF) ASCEND Engine to convene stakeholders in the clean energy/climate tech sector and adjacent technology areas that support decarbonization efforts and community resiliency.
A convening of Canadian business leaders and Colorado stakeholders to highlight the state’s business advantages, including a nation-leading workforce, central location for global market access and a stable and collaborative ecosystem.
A roundtable with leaders of British Columbia to explore the impacts of recent trade policy changes between the U.S. and Canada, and explore opportunities for cross-border collaboration at the state and provincial levels.
“International missions ensure that Colorado remains at the forefront with our global partners. The relationships made and strengthened at the Americas Summit enhance our state’s reputation as a global leader in innovation and the advanced industries while identifying new opportunities for cross-border collaboration at the state and provincial levels,” said Michelle Hadwiger, Director of Global Business Development for OEDIT.
OEDIT staff includes representation from the Colorado Tourism Office, the Colorado Creative Industries Office, and the Outdoor Recreation Industry Office. Leadership from the Colorado Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor and Employment will also be in attendance at the summit.
While in Vancouver, Governor Polis will also lead a convening of the National Governors Association to discuss how states can ensure students are prepared with the skills needed to succeed and highlight his chairman’s initiative, “Let’s Get Ready! Educating All Americans For Success”.
“Funding education that gives students the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the classroom and grow in the workforce is the largest and most important investment Colorado makes each year. This convening provides the opportunity for state and education leaders to share innovative solutions to strengthen student success and achievement,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
The NGA convening includes a visit to Language Nest, for kids ages 0 to three, and Capilano Little Ones Elementary School, where students learn primarily in Squamish, immersing young students in the language and culture at a young age. During the convening, Governor Polis will also moderate panels with Dr. Oon Seng Tan, the Director of the Singapore Center for Character and Citizenship Education, Dr. Timothy Knowels, the President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Dr. Vicki Phillips the CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy.
About OEDIT’s Global Business Development Division
Global Business Development (GBD) is a division of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. GBD supports Colorado businesses and communities by using a data-driven approach to recruit, support, and retain businesses that contribute to a robust and diversified economy. We align our portfolio of programs, services, and incentives with industries that benefit Colorado companies and elevate the state’s national and international competitiveness. GBD also hosts foreign delegations and participates in trade and investment missions around the world to strengthen global awareness of Colorado. With a highly educated and motivated workforce, a thriving innovation economy, and nation-leading entrepreneurial spirit, Colorado is a top market for business development.
About Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade
The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) works to empower all to thrive in Colorado’s economy. Under the leadership of the Governor and in collaboration with economic development partners across the state, we foster a thriving business environment through funding and financial programs, training, consulting and informational resources across industries and regions. We promote economic growth and long-term job creation by recruiting, retaining, and expanding Colorado businesses and providing programs that support entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes at every stage of growth. Our goal is to protect what makes our state a great place to live, work, start a business, raise a family, visit and retire—and make it accessible to everyone. Learn more about OEDIT.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09)
House the bill is being co-led by Representatives Jake Auchincloss, Adriano Espaillat, Valerie Foushee and Dina Titus
WASHINGTON — Representative Steve Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today reintroduced theComplete Streets Act, which would transform America’s public roads. The bill would require states to direct a portion of their federal highway funding toward the creation of a Complete Streets Program. A “Complete Street” provides safe and accessible transportation options for children, seniors, and people with disabilities by prioritizing infrastructure for pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit users. The bill would also require that future construction projects on public roads are designed for the safety of all its road users.
“In recent years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of pedestrians killed by vehicles, especially in Memphis. Our country is seeing a national safety crisis on our roads. We need streets that can accommodate all means of transportation, from foot traffic and strollers to bicycles, scooters, cars, light trucks and 18-wheelers. TheComplete Streets Act will transform communities and make it safer for everyone to make ‘complete’ use of our roadways and adjacent infrastructure,” said Congressman Cohen.
“The skyrocketing number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths in our country is a crisis. This moment calls for us to ensure our roads are designed with safety – not speed – as our top priority,” said Senator Markey.“I am grateful for Representative Cohen’s partnership to ensure we prioritize roadway safety and accessibility over a reliance on fast, fossil-fueled vehicles. Let’s build complete streets and complete communities and accelerate into a safer, more accessible future for all.”
TheComplete Streets Act, is being co-led by Representatives Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Valerie Foushee of North Carolina, and Dina Titus of Nevada. It is being cosponsored by Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.
Representative Auchincloss made the following statement:
“Cities should be built for humans, not cars. Walkable streets are safer, better for business, and more enjoyable for children and families. Promoting walkability should be a bipartisan priority for the next infrastructure bill.”
Representative Titus made the following statement:
“Tragically, 2024 was the deadliest year on Clark County roads with almost 300 traffic fatalities. As we work to connect communities through investments in transportation projects, we must also create safe roadways for all motorists and pedestrians. The Complete Streets Act promotes safety, accessibility, and climate-friendly infrastructure while helping communities build safe streets through projects like protected bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks, and more accessible roadway.”
Representative Foushee made the following statement:
“Whether by car, bus, bike, or on foot, every person deserves to feel safe while traveling on our roadways. I’m proud to join my colleagues in introducing the Complete Streets Act, which will help build safer, more inclusive streets that serve all road users. By investing in our transportation infrastructure, we can give our cities and towns the tools they need to prevent traffic-related injuries and fatalities, reduce emissions, and improve the quality of life for all within our communities.”
Representative Espaillat made the following statement:
“Traffic violence is a public health crisis, and we remain committed to ensuring the highest standards for New Yorkers,” said Rep. Espaillat. “Street safety is critical to the overall health and wellness of our families and communities as we continue to build on the progress made thus far to ensure pedestrians, bicyclists, public transit users, and drivers are safe during their everyday travels. The Complete Streets Act bolsters our efforts to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of residents during the planning and development phases of routes throughout our communities.”
Under theComplete Streets Act, eligible local and regional entities can use funds from their state’s Complete Streets Program for technical assistance and capital funding to build safe street projects such as sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, and bus stops. The legislation would also phase in a requirement for states to incorporate Complete Streets elements into all new construction and reconstruction.
The legislation is endorsed by the National Complete Streets Coalition, Transportation for America, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, GreenLatinos, People for Bikes and the League of American Bicyclists.
Senator Markey and Representative Cohen first introduced theComplete Streets Actin 2019. Elements of theComplete Streets Act were incorporated into theInfrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which was signed into law in 2021.
HENDERSON, Nev., June 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Nika Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB:NIKA), based in Colorado, focused on cures for life-threatening diseases, today announced that Dimitar Savov, CEO, will present live at the Life Sciences Virtual Investor Frum hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com, on June 11th, 2025
DATE: June 11th TIME: 1:00 PM ET LINK:REGISTER HERE Available for 1×1 meetings: June 12th-17th between 09:00am ET and 11:30am ET
This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.
It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.
On May 19, 2025, NIKA published a market analysis for the countries of Ukraine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, UAE, where NIKA has exclusive distribution agreements and has estimated a total of around €656 million in potential revenue.
NIKA’s partner company, Nika Europe, has made the second $195,554 payment for the vial production line and is currently finalizing the details of the clean rooms design in order to start construction. The production facility is expected to be completed in H2, 2025.
On April 11, 2025, Nika Pharmaceuticals, Inc. published a report on the therapeutic effect and potential economic impact of ITV-1, which can be found here.
On July 11, 2024 Nika Pharmaceuticals, Inc. signed an exclusive distribution agreement for the Republic of Nigeria. Under the terms, NIKA will receive €1,980 per each set of ITV-1 with two sets necessary for each treatment, which could result in €7.9 billion revenue.
About Nika Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Nika Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NIKA) is a pharmaceutical company, specializing in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and C, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cancer, Diabetes, and all diseases, for which strengthened cell immunity is of vital importance. NIKA’s intellectual property includes six drugs in injection form – two of which have successfully undergone clinical trials with good treatment results – four drugs in tablet form, and eleven dietary supplements. NIKA’s goal is to not only achieve corporate profits, but to provide better and easier access to life-saving medicinal drugs and useful dietary supplements. Find more on www.nikapharmaceuticals.com.
Forward-looking Statement:
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Certain statements, other than purely historical information, including estimates, projections, statements relating to our business plans, objectives, and expected operating results, and the assumptions upon which those statements are based, are “forward- looking statements.” These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,”” estimates,” “intends,” “strategy,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Our ability to predict results or the actual effect of future plans or strategies is inherently uncertain.
About Virtual Investor Conferences® Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors.
Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors.
CONTACTS: Nika Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Name Clifford P. Redekop Title Corporate Secretary Phone (702) 326-3615 Email cliffredekop@gmail.com
Virtual Investor Conferences John M. Viglotti SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access OTC Markets Group (212) 220-2221 johnv@otcmarkets.com
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Eric Y Tenkorang, Professor of Sociology,, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Intimate partner violence is controlling behaviour that results in harm to victims. This can be physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, economic or spiritual harm. Women are overwhelmingly the victims and survivors of intimate partner violence.
Globally, about one third of women have experienced some type of intimate partner violence. In Ghana too, one third of women have experienced physical and sexual abuse.
Research has linked women’s experiences of intimate partner violence to their socio-economic marginalisation, although it can happen to wealthy women too. Beyond the socio-economic reasons, some also make cultural arguments.
One such factor is lineage: lines of ancestry. Lineage is a major source of wealth, privileges and responsibilities in Ghana and more broadly in sub-Saharan Africa.
Some people trace their ancestry through maternal kin members. Women in these matrilineal societies wield socio-economic and cultural power because inheritance goes through the female line. As carriers of the lineage, women have some cultural value.
In a patrilineage, people trace their ancestry through men. Inheritance goes through the male line. Women cannot source wealth from the lineage. There is noticeable gender ordering and hierarchies in patrilineal societies. Male children are considered the carriers of the lineage.
Despite these two predominant lineage systems, there is also bilateral descent. In bilateral systems, kinship is traced to both maternal and paternal sides of the family.
Recent studies have suggested a link exists between lineage and intimate partner violence. But there is limited evidence as to why this might be the case.
One of my research interests is violence against women in African cultures and I have published extensively on this subject. For a recent study, my team collected survey data, including in-depth interviews, from the three ecological areas of Ghana – coastal, middle and northern. These reflect differences in ecology, culture and modernity.
About 1,700 women responded to our survey questions on lineage and intimate partner violence. Of these, about 30 women were followed up for an in-depth interview.
We found differences in experiences of violence between women depending on the lineage system they were part of. Awareness of this pattern could inform efforts to prevent violence and empower women.
What we found
A major finding was that women in matrilineal communities experienced lower levels of intimate partner violence than women in patrilineal communities or bilateral ones. Part of the reason is women’s access to resources.
We also found that bride price payments elevated patrilineal women’s risks of experiencing intimate partner violence. Bride price payment is an exchange of resources from the groom to the family of the bride. This is in acknowledgement that marriage has taken place. Women in patrilineal systems were more likely to experience physical, sexual and emotional violence when bride price was fully paid than when it was partially paid.
Unlike patrilineal women, matrilineal and bilateral women only experienced emotional and physical violence when bride price was fully paid.
The backdrop
Ghana passed its landmark Domestic Violence Act in 2007. It criminalises acts that are likely to result in intimate partner violence. This opened the door to the establishment of a Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit to prosecute perpetrators. Structures are also in place to provide support for victims of abuse.
But criminalising intimate partner violence offers only a partial remedy to the problem. This is particularly true when behaviours that lead to such acts of violence are deeply rooted in inequality, culture and patriarchy.
Despite recent efforts to bridge gender inequality, Ghana continues to lag behind other societies in this area. Ghanaian women are discriminated against socially and culturally. They are excluded from participating in major decisions related to their households and communities. They are also marginalised economically, creating less opportunity for upward mobility.
The patriarchal nature of Ghanaian society has not helped. It has worked in tandem with existing social arrangements to deepen inequality and further render women powerless.
In my view, part of matrilineal women’s reduced risk of experiencing intimate partner violence may be explained by access to maternal resources, where they benefit more than their patrilineal and bilateral counterparts.
This background also helps explain why bride price arrangements make a difference. Contemporary feminist analysis of the payment of bride price suggests it may be interpreted as “wife ownership and purchase”. This can be a tool for oppressing and controlling women.
These findings support the argument that bride price payment may have negative consequences for Ghanaian women. This is especially so for those in patrilineal cultures where the norms and expectations associated with these payments are stronger.
A path to safety
Establishing cultural reasons why some women are at greater risk than others of experiencing intimate partner violence is important for policy in Ghana and has implications for sub-Saharan Africa.
Our research findings point to the need to empower women by providing them with the resources they need to flourish and fight abuse. It shows lineage can be a conduit for resource exchange and distribution.
Also, public education can help correct narratives of ownership and purchase which are linked to intimate partner violence. Bride price payments should have symbolic, not commercial, significance.
– Violence against women in Ghana is deeply rooted in culture and family ties – study – https://theconversation.com/violence-against-women-in-ghana-is-deeply-rooted-in-culture-and-family-ties-study-257947
Intimate partner violence is controlling behaviour that results in harm to victims. This can be physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, economic or spiritual harm. Women are overwhelmingly the victims and survivors of intimate partner violence.
Globally, about one third of women have experienced some type of intimate partner violence. In Ghana too, one third of women have experienced physical and sexual abuse.
Research has linked women’s experiences of intimate partner violence to their socio-economic marginalisation, although it can happen to wealthy women too. Beyond the socio-economic reasons, some also make cultural arguments.
One such factor is lineage: lines of ancestry. Lineage is a major source of wealth, privileges and responsibilities in Ghana and more broadly in sub-Saharan Africa.
Some people trace their ancestry through maternal kin members. Women in these matrilineal societies wield socio-economic and cultural power because inheritance goes through the female line. As carriers of the lineage, women have some cultural value.
In a patrilineage, people trace their ancestry through men. Inheritance goes through the male line. Women cannot source wealth from the lineage. There is noticeable gender ordering and hierarchies in patrilineal societies. Male children are considered the carriers of the lineage.
Despite these two predominant lineage systems, there is also bilateral descent. In bilateral systems, kinship is traced to both maternal and paternal sides of the family.
Recent studies have suggested a link exists between lineage and intimate partner violence. But there is limited evidence as to why this might be the case.
One of my research interests is violence against women in African cultures and I have published extensively on this subject. For a recent study, my team collected survey data, including in-depth interviews, from the three ecological areas of Ghana – coastal, middle and northern. These reflect differences in ecology, culture and modernity.
About 1,700 women responded to our survey questions on lineage and intimate partner violence. Of these, about 30 women were followed up for an in-depth interview.
We found differences in experiences of violence between women depending on the lineage system they were part of. Awareness of this pattern could inform efforts to prevent violence and empower women.
What we found
A major finding was that women in matrilineal communities experienced lower levels of intimate partner violence than women in patrilineal communities or bilateral ones. Part of the reason is women’s access to resources.
We also found that bride price payments elevated patrilineal women’s risks of experiencing intimate partner violence. Bride price payment is an exchange of resources from the groom to the family of the bride. This is in acknowledgement that marriage has taken place. Women in patrilineal systems were more likely to experience physical, sexual and emotional violence when bride price was fully paid than when it was partially paid.
Unlike patrilineal women, matrilineal and bilateral women only experienced emotional and physical violence when bride price was fully paid.
The backdrop
Ghana passed its landmark Domestic Violence Act in 2007. It criminalises acts that are likely to result in intimate partner violence. This opened the door to the establishment of a Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit to prosecute perpetrators. Structures are also in place to provide support for victims of abuse.
But criminalising intimate partner violence offers only a partial remedy to the problem. This is particularly true when behaviours that lead to such acts of violence are deeply rooted in inequality, culture and patriarchy.
Despite recent efforts to bridge gender inequality, Ghana continues to lag behind other societies in this area. Ghanaian women are discriminated against socially and culturally. They are excluded from participating in major decisions related to their households and communities. They are also marginalised economically, creating less opportunity for upward mobility.
The patriarchal nature of Ghanaian society has not helped. It has worked in tandem with existing social arrangements to deepen inequality and further render women powerless.
In my view, part of matrilineal women’s reduced risk of experiencing intimate partner violence may be explained by access to maternal resources, where they benefit more than their patrilineal and bilateral counterparts.
This background also helps explain why bride price arrangements make a difference. Contemporary feminist analysis of the payment of bride price suggests it may be interpreted as “wife ownership and purchase”. This can be a tool for oppressing and controlling women.
These findings support the argument that bride price payment may have negative consequences for Ghanaian women. This is especially so for those in patrilineal cultures where the norms and expectations associated with these payments are stronger.
A path to safety
Establishing cultural reasons why some women are at greater risk than others of experiencing intimate partner violence is important for policy in Ghana and has implications for sub-Saharan Africa.
Our research findings point to the need to empower women by providing them with the resources they need to flourish and fight abuse. It shows lineage can be a conduit for resource exchange and distribution.
Also, public education can help correct narratives of ownership and purchase which are linked to intimate partner violence. Bride price payments should have symbolic, not commercial, significance.
Eric Y Tenkorang received funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
Coverage of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns on girls in Malawi emphasised the risks they faced as a result of not attending school. In particular, concerns about pregnancy garnered significant media attention.
The United Nations Children’s Fund, for example, published an article in March 2021 entitled “Schoolgirl shakes off COVID-19 regret: Lucy’s return to school”. Under a glossy photograph of a smiling girl, readers learn about 16-year-old Lucy, one of 13,000 Malawian students who became pregnant during COVID-19 school closures. The story went on to detail the dire consequences of sexual activity to Lucy’s well-being, and the redemptive power of an eventual return to school.
The Unicef piece echoed thousands of similar publications circulated after March 2020 that analysed COVID-19’s unique risk for girls in the global south and lamented lost returns to girls’ education.
Yet, our research has demonstrated that international development organisations and media outlets focused mostly on narrow, sexualised framings of risk to African girls and women rather than on the many intersecting and ongoing barriers to their well-being and school retention. These challenges both predate and extend beyond COVID-19.
As scholars of international development education who have conducted research in Malawi for over a decade, we decided to join Malawian educational activist and collaborator Stella Makhuva to research how girls themselves narrated their experiences of the COVID-19 years. What did they consider a risk to their schooling?
Together, we designed a longitudinal study from 2020 to 2023 that included multiple rounds of interviews and participatory journalling methods with 22 upper primary and secondary school girls in southern Malawi.
We found that for girls in our study, COVID-19 was less a rupture – an unusual event that threatened their education in unprecedented ways – than an added variable in the already complex calculations girls and their families made about whether and how to remain in school.
We argue that it was not pregnancy itself, but escalating resource constraints, that kept girls from school. And that interventions must do something about the real problem: inequitable systems.
The stories told by the girls illustrate this. (All the names are pseudonyms.)
Their stories
When Faith joined our study in 2020, she was attending a peri-urban
primary school near her home. She lived in a mud and grass-thatched house with her parents, both subsistence farmers who supported Faith’s and her siblings’ education. During school closures, she studied with friends to keep up with academic content when she was not helping with her parents’ farm.
Yet school costs threatened Faith’s return to school upon reopening. Despite primary school being officially “free” by government mandate, students at her school were required to contribute 800 Malawi kwacha (close to US$1 at the time) per term to a school fund for infrastructure projects and upkeep. Not paying into the fund resulted in exclusion from classes.
When Faith eventually passed the Primary School Leaving Certificate Exam and enrolled in secondary school, the costs to schooling rose from 5,000 kwacha (about US$6.50 in early 2021) to 20,000 kwacha (about US$19 in late 2022). Faith worried about whether her parents, whose maize and tomato yields suffered from poor rains, would be able to pay.
On top of this, Faith paid other costs, from exam fees and bicycle rental fees to supplemental lessons in which she learned material never covered during school hours. She said she and her family often sacrificed eating sufficiently to save money.
Still, Faith was repeatedly pushed out of school until her fee balance was met. Before, during, and after COVID-19 school closures, girls like her were pushed out of school for a lack of regular fee payments.
Like Faith, all of the girls in our study worked to supplement their schooling with part time lessons, holiday classes, or by repeating grades given educational quality concerns. Based in under-resourced schools with low exam pass rates, girls knew that they were provided an incomplete education.
According to Brightness,
We do not learn fully what we are supposed to cover, and some teachers tend to be absent during their lessons. This makes us lag behind … As a result during exams they ask some questions which some of us … did not learn.
Empirical evidence has shown how teacher engagement has long been influenced by the region’s high disease burden, especially due to HIV/Aids. This has left teachers both ill and caring for ill relatives.
While teacher disengagement, therefore, reflected factors such as competing care responsibilities, professional dissatisfaction and stress, girls were deeply frustrated by what felt like abandonment.
Prior to the pandemic, sexuality and school-going already overlapped for many girls in Malawi, where adolescent pregnancy rates were threefold the global average. Still, girls in our study countered the idea that schooling and sex were incompatible. They also challenged the idea that school was inherently safe and that it was pregnancy that kept them from school.
If girls’ choices, particularly around sexuality, do not represent the greatest or only source of risk for girls’ schooling, interventions must respond to this reality. They should support well-being and address the broader conditions in which girls live and learn. The problem is inequity, not pregnant girls.
Rachel Silver has received funding from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Alyssa Morley 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.
Israel’s interception of a ship launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) — a grassroots group that campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian people — in international waters approximately 185 kilometres from Gaza has raised serious questions about the legality of its actions.
The Madleen — a small, British-flagged civilian vessel named for Gaza’s first fisherwoman — was carrying 11 activists, one journalist and a small cargo of humanitarian aid, including flour, baby formula and children’s prostheses. Israeli forces detained all passengers, including well-known Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French European Parliamentarian Rima Hassan.
The FFC uses non-violent direct action to attempt to break the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007, and to raise awareness about the “ongoing brutality inflicted upon civilians in Gaza.”
At approximately 3 a.m. local time on June 9, Israeli forces rammed and boarded the Madleen. Shortly before that, military drones hovered above it and the activists took video of Israeli forces of spraying a white substance on board that “caused burning eyes and general discomfort.”
In 2010, a group of six vessels called the Gaza Aid Flotilla sailed to Gaza to breach the Israeli blockade. The largest of the ships, the Mavi Marmara, was carrying more than 500 passengers when it was raided by Israeli forces in international waters, killing 10 people and wounding 56.
Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara triggered international legal scrutiny and condemnation. The United Nations secretary-general immediately established an inquiry that determined the Israeli attack had resulted in “unacceptable” death, injury and mistreatment of detainees.
The Union of the Comoros, where the vessel was registered, referred the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity. A chamber of the court found there was evidence Israeli soldiers committed “systematic abuse” of detained passengers.
In the end, the case did not proceed because the prosecutor decided the incident was of “insufficient gravity,” in part because they could not identify a plan or policy on the part of Israel to carry out war crimes on a large scale.
Israel’s ongoing crimes in Gaza
It would be difficult to make the same conclusion regarding the situation in Gaza today.
Israel is downplaying the severity of its attack on the Madleen, casting it as a sort of rescue mission as the Israeli foreign ministry posted a photo of activists being offered sandwiches. But Israel’s actions must be evaluated within the context of legal findings that have already been made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the ICC.
In January 2024, the ICJ found there was a “real and imminent risk” that Israel would commit genocide in Gaza. Two months later, it ordered Israel not to impede the provision of humanitarian assistance.
In separate proceedings in July 2024, the ICJ found that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, including Gaza and its surrounding waters, was unlawful and must come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
Against this backdrop, the interception of the flotilla could be seen as furthering Israel’s unlawful blockade, occupation and attack against the civilian population of Gaza, in addition to constituting unlawful targeting of the civilians on board. Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, has accused Israel of once again flouting “its legal obligations towards civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip” with the interception of the boat.
This detention and its circumstances may constitute violations of the protection against arbitrary deprivation of liberty under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Israel is a signatory.
Israel cannot legally block aid
Israel is not permitted to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ has ordered Israel to “ensure the unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed humanitarian assistance” and not do anything that would constitute a violation of the Genocide Convention “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery” of aid.
The Geneva Convention also outlaws collective punishment of civilian populations and requires free passage of aid.
Israel seemingly anticipated these arguments. Israeli officials mocked the Madleen, calling it a “selfie yacht” carrying a “tiny amount of aid” and proclaiming that “the show is over.” These statements could serve to cast the FFC as a disingenuous humanitarian mission.
Israel also claims that the aid on board will be distributed through “real humanitarian channels.” This is likely an attempt by Israel to signal it’s not violating international humanitarian law by blocking assistance.
These arguments, however, fail to acknowledge that the size of a humanitarian mission is irrelevant to the protection accorded to civilians and the requirement to allow delivery of aid.
The Madleen’s mission was to force the world to acknowledge, in real time, Israel’s disregard for international law. In this aim, it succeeded. Israel’s interception of the Madleen could end up being prosecuted in the domestic courts of the passengers’ home countries, in the United Kingdom — where the boat was registered — or at the ICC.
Humanitarians have vowed to continue to try to breach Israel’s blockade on Gaza. The Madleen’s voyage is a precursor to the March on Gaza scheduled for June 15, where thousands of activists will attempt to reach the Rafah crossing. The world will be watching.
Heidi Matthews receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is an advisor to the Legal Centre for Palestine.
Priya Gupta 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.
Headline: ICC joins Business Call to Action to accelerate global cooperation for our oceans
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As the largest business association in the world, the International Chamber of Commerce is proud to be a convener of this important call to action, bringing the voice of the global business community to the United Nations Ocean Conference.
The call is convened by an unprecedented coalition of business networks, supported by signatories, including 80 businesses with a combined turnover of over €$600 billion and 2 million employees. In anticipation of the upcoming 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France,the call builds on the experience of leading businesses and organisations already advancing a sustainable blue economy. It emphasises the intrinsic connection between land and sea, highlighting the contribution and interdependencies between coastal and marine environment and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
This call is directed at all economic actors, whether directly or indirectly connected to the ocean, and includes:
A call to action for businesses to expedite maintaining ocean health through business actions, such as contributions to ocean science, monitoring and reducing environmental impacts, incorporating ocean considerations into their climate and nature roadmaps and investing in blue solutions.
A call to action for policy makers to pursue ambitious science-driven policies and measures that stimulate sustainable business action and to jointly address land and ocean for enhanced global resilience
With this Business Call to Action, companies and business networks urge policymakers to:
Agree to adopt and implement international agreements: champion strong, sustainable outcomes for existing and upcoming ocean-related agreements,
Invest in ocean science and support strong science-policy interfaces,
Acknowledge and embed into policies the links between ocean, nature and climate,
Help all actors to collectively adapt to sea-level rise,
Develop robust and innovative finance mechanisms,
Raise awareness to encourage all actors to care for the ocean, even those based on land.
This business declaration is still open to new signatories. For information on signing this declaration please contact
The Business Call to Action is convened by global and leading business networks including International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), World Economic Forum (WEF), We Mean Business Coalition (WMB), Business for Nature (BfN), Mouvement des Entreprises de France (MEDEF), UN Global Compact Network France and Association française des Entreprises pour l’Environnement (EpE).
In the face of US President Donald Trump’s wavering commitments and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inscrutable ambitions, the talk in European capitals is all about rearmament.
To that end, the European Commission has put forward an €800 billion spending scheme designed to “quickly and significantly increase expenditures in defence capabilities”, in the words of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
But funding is only the first of many challenges involved when pursuing military innovation. Ramping up capabilities “quickly and significantly” will prove difficult for a sector that must keep pace with rapid technological change.
Of course, defence firms don’t have to do it alone: they can select from a wide variety of potential collaborators, ranging from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to agile start-ups. Innovative partnerships, however, require trust and a willingness to share vital information, qualities that appear incompatible with the need for military secrecy.
That is why rearming Europe requires a new approach to secrecy.
A paper I co-authored with Jonathan Langlois of HEC and Romaric Servajean-Hilst of KEDGE Business School examines the strategies used by one leading defence firm (which we, for our own secrecy-related reasons, renamed “Globaldef”) to balance open innovation with information security. The 43 professionals we interviewed – including R&D managers, start-up CEOs and innovation managers – were not consciously working from a common playbook. However, their nuanced and dynamic approaches could serve as a cohesive role model for Europe’s defence sector as it races to adapt to a changing world.
How flexible secrecy enables innovation
Our research took place between 2018 and 2020. At the time, defence firms looked toward open innovation to compensate for the withdrawal of key support. There was a marked decrease in government spending on military R&D across the OECD countries. However, even though the current situation involves more funding, the need for external innovation remains prevalent to speed up access to knowledge.
When collaborating to innovate, firms face what open innovation scholars have termed “the paradox of openness”, wherein the value to be gained by collaborating must be weighed against the possible costs of information sharing. In the defence sector – unlike, say, in consumer products – being too liberal with information could not only lead to business losses but to grave security risks for entire nations, and even prosecution for the executives involved.
Although secrecy was a constant concern, Globaldef’s managers often found themselves in what one of our interviewees called a “blurred zone” where some material could be interpreted as secret, but sharing it was not strictly off-limits. In cases like these, opting for the standard mode in the defence industry – erring on the side of caution and remaining tight-lipped – would make open innovation impossible.
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Practices that make collaboration work
Studying transcripts of more than 40 interviews along with a rich pool of complementary data (emails, PowerPoint presentations, crowdsourcing activity, etc.), we discerned that players at Globaldef had developed fine-grained practices for maintaining and modulating secrecy, even while actively collaborating with civilian companies.
Our research identifies these practices as either cognitive or relational. Cognitive practices acted as strategic screens, masking the most sensitive aspects of Globaldef’s knowledge without throttling information flow to the point of preventing collaboration.
Depending on the type of project, cognitive practices might consist of one or more of the following:
Encryption: relabelling knowledge components to hide their nature and purpose.
Obfuscation: selectively blurring project specifics to preserve secrecy while recruiting partners.
Simplification: blurring project parameters to test the suitability of a partner without revealing true constraints.
Transposition: transferring the context of a problem from a military to a civilian one.
Relational practices involved reframing the partnership itself, by selectively controlling the width of the aperture through which external parties could view Globaldef’s aims and project characteristics. These practices might include redirecting the focus of a collaboration away from core technologies, or introducing confidentiality agreements to expand information-sharing within the partnership while prohibiting communication to third parties.
When to shift strategy in defence projects
Using both cognitive and relational practices enabled Globaldef to skirt the pitfalls of its paradox. For example, in the early stages of open innovation, when the firm was scouting and testing potential partners, managers could widen the aperture (relational) while imposing strict limits on knowledge-sharing (cognitive). They could thereby freely engage with the crowd without violating Globaldef’s internal rules regarding secrecy.
As partnerships ripened and trust grew, Globaldef could gradually lift cognitive protections, giving partners access to more detailed and specific data. This could be counterbalanced by a tightening on the relational side, eg requiring paperwork and protocols designed to plug potential leaks.
As we retraced the firm’s careful steps through six real-life open innovation partnerships, we saw that the key to this approach was in knowing when to transition from one mode to the other. Each project had its own rhythm.
For one crowdsourcing project, the shift from low to high cognitive depth, and high to low relational width, was quite sudden, occurring as soon as the partnership was formalised. This was due to the fact that Globaldef’s partner needed accurate details and project parameters in order to solve the problem in question. Therefore, near-total openness and concomitant confidentiality had to be established at the outset.
In another case, Globaldef retained the cognitive blinders throughout the early phase of a partnership with a start-up. To test the start-up’s technological capacities, the firm presented its partner with a cognitively reframed problem. Only after the partner passed its initial trial was collaboration initiated on a fully transparent footing, driven by the need for the start-up to obtain defence clearance prior to co-developing technology with Globaldef.
How firms can lead with adaptive secrecy
Since we completed and published our research, much has changed geopolitically. But the high-stakes paradox of openness is still a pressing issue inside Europe’s defence firms. Managers and executives are no doubt grappling with the evident necessity for open innovation on the one hand and secrecy on the other.
Our research suggests that, like Globaldef, other actors in Europe’s defence sector can deftly navigate this paradox. Doing so, however, will require employing a more subtle, flexible and dynamic definition of secrecy rather than the absolutist, static one that normally prevails in the industry. The defence sector’s conception of secrecy must also progress from a primarily legal to a largely strategic framework.
Sihem BenMahmoud-Jouini ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump at the G20 Summit on July 7, 2017, in Hamburg, Germany. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
On June 5, U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It marked the first direct conversation between the two leaders since Trump began his second term — and the first since tensions sharply escalated in 2025’s U.S.-China trade war.
After the call, Trump was quick to frame it as a success for his administration, posting on social media that it led to “a very positive conclusion for both Countries.” He later told reporters that Xi had agreed to resume exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the U.S. — allaying the fears of the auto industry, which had previously warned that parts suppliers were facing severe and immediate risks to production.
The presidential phone call also yielded an invitation for Trump and first lady Melania to visit China, an invitation that Trump reciprocated.
But aside from the easing of some trade tension and surface-level niceties, the call conveyed subtle messages about an imbalance in the bilateral dispute. As an expert on U.S.-China relations, I believe these subtleties point to Xi having the upper hand in U.S.-China talks and also using Trump as a foil to burnish his own image as a strong leader at home and abroad.
A rare earths ace
The Trump-Xi call should not distract from the fragile state of China-U.S. relations — and the willingness of Beijing to play its “rare earth materials card.”
Although China and U.S. delegations reached a 90-day tariff truce in Geneva on May 12, negotiations between the two countries remain ongoing. As many observers have noted, deep-rooted and structural differences — such as disputes over currency manipulation, export subsidies and other nontariff barriers — continue to cast a long shadow over the prospects of U.S-China trade talks.
Beijing, in turn, accuses the U.S. of breaking the Geneva agreement first and blames Washington for rolling out a wave of discriminatory measures against China after the talks, including new export controls on artificial intelligence chips, a ban on selling electronic design automation software to Chinese companies, and plans to revoke visas for Chinese students.
Trump’s order banning American companies from using AI chips by China-based Huawei — issued just one day after the Geneva agreement on May 12 — was seen by many in Beijing as directly countering the spirit of the agreement. Indeed, it may well have prompted Beijing to delay the resumption of rare earth exports to the U.S. in the first place.
Aside from the actual effect of the resumption of rare earth exports, Trump’s apparent priority given to the issue signals to Beijing just how reliant the U.S. is on China in this regard — something that would not have gone unnoticed by Xi.
Xi never came calling
Just one day before the June 5 call, Trump wrote on social media: “I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!”
His conversation with the Chinese leader would have further reinforced Xi’s tough image — not just for a Chinese audience, but for international observers as well.
This was certainly encouraged by how China described the call. According to China’s official statement, Xi “took a phone call from U.S. President Donald J. Trump” – the subtle implication being that it was Trump who initiated the call.
This framing promotes the idea that Xi holds the upper hand. The Chinese statement also highlighted that the Geneva talks were “at the suggestion of the U.S. side,” implying that China did not back down in the face of Trump’s trade pressure — and that it was Trump who ultimately blinked first.
China’s message is particularly significant given that, as the U.S.-China trade war intensified in April, Washington believed it could gain “escalation dominance” by imposing tariffs on Chinese goods — perhaps underestimating China’s ability to retaliate effectively and assuming Beijing would be eager to negotiate.
Throughout the trade standoff, Xi refrained from initiating contact with Trump, and in the end, it was Trump who reached out.
This undoubtedly enhanced Xi’s image back home — and potentially undermined Trump’s negotiating posture.
The official Chinese statement following the talks noted: “The Chinese side is sincere about this, and at the same time has its principles. The Chinese always honor and deliver what has been promised. Both sides should make good on the agreement reached in Geneva.”
Those words appear aimed at signaling to the international community that it is the U.S. — not China — that failed to uphold its end of the Geneva agreement.
The second-to-last paragraph of the Chinese statement on the phone call noted: “President Trump said that he has great respect for President Xi, and the U.S.-China relationship is very important. The U.S. wants the Chinese economy to do very well. The U.S. and China working together can get a lot of great things done. The U.S. will honor the one-China policy. The meeting in Geneva was very successful, and produced a good deal. The U.S. will work with China to execute the deal. The U.S. loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America.”
While much of this language may be standard diplomatic rhetoric, it clearly aims to box in Trump as the supplicant in the current dispute and implies that he is moving closer to China’s positions, including key nontrade issues like U.S. visas for Chinese students.
A game of telephone?
Aside from the optics or broader question of who is “winning” the dispute, the Trump-Xi call has certainly eased some tensions on both sides — at least temporarily.
For the U.S., concerns over rare earth supplies were alleviated. Since the call, it has been reported that China has issued temporary export licenses to companies that supply rare earth materials to America’s three largest automakers.
For China, Trump’s remarks seemingly helped reduce anxiety over issues such as Taiwan and student visa restrictions.
But given the deep and fundamental differences between the two countries on trade and economic matters — and recalling how trade negotiations repeatedly stalled and restarted during Trump’s first term — there is good reason to believe that future talks could face similar setbacks.
But what is clear now, especially compared with the trade war during Trump’s first administration, is that Beijing appears better prepared and more skilled at leveraging its rare earth exports as a bargaining chip.
In many ways, Trump faces the greater pressure in his handling of Xi. Should talks collapse, any resulting supply chain disruptions could lead to rising inflation, market volatility and economic woe for the U.S. — with the associated risks of political fallout ahead of the midterm elections. Xi will know this and, in rare earth materials, has an ace up his sleeve to pull out when needed.
Indeed, Trump may find himself needing to reach out to Xi again in the future in an effort to revive troubled trade negotiations. But doing so would only reinforce Xi’s image as the tougher and more dominant figure.
Linggong Kong 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.
Ice baths are everywhere in modern fitness culture. From professional athletes to weekend warriors, many swear by the post-workout plunge, hoping the icy shock will ease soreness, calm inflammation and help their bodies bounce back faster. But recent research from the Netherlands reveals a surprising downside: those freezing dips might actually slow muscle growth.
When you expose your body to cold, like during an ice bath, your blood vessels constrict. This can reduce swelling, flush out waste products from your workout and ease the muscle soreness that occurs a day or two after intense exercise. That post-workout ache is a sign that your muscles are repairing. So when it fades, it feels like you’re ready to hit the gym again, which helps explain why ice baths are so popular.
But there’s a twist. The very inflammation that causes soreness is also part of how your muscles heal and grow. Shut it down too soon and you might be holding back your progress.
In the recent study, researchers at Maastricht University tested how cold temperatures affect nutrient delivery and muscle-building signals. Twelve healthy young men each did a strength workout using just one leg. Immediately afterwards, each immersed that leg in 8°C water for 20 minutes, while the other leg sat in 30°C water (the “control”). The scientists then measured blood flow and tracked how the muscles used protein to see how the cold affected recovery and muscle-building processes.
The results were clear: right after the ice bath, blood flow in the cold-exposed leg dropped by about 60% compared with the warm-water leg.
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Even three hours after the workout, blood flow to the muscle that had been cooled was still noticeably lower. Since muscles rely on blood to deliver nutrients, such as amino acids and oxygen, this meant they were getting less of what they needed to grow. In fact, the researchers found about 30% less of the building blocks of protein being used by the muscle.
After strength training, blood flow to your muscles normally increases – a response known as hyperemia. This rush of blood brings important nutrients like amino acids, oxygen and insulin, all of which help to trigger the muscle-building process.
But when you expose your muscles to cold right after a workout, the blood vessels tighten – a reaction called vasoconstriction – which limits how much of those nutrients get through. That means your muscles may miss out during an important window for growth and recovery.
After a workout, a bit of inflammation is actually a good thing – it signals your body to start the repair process. Immune cells release special proteins called cytokines – chemical messengers that help spark muscle repair.
But cooling the muscles too soon, like with an ice bath, can reduce this natural response. It dampens the signals and slows the activation of those repair cells, which may lead to slower progress and less muscle growth over time.
Not all ice baths are equal
Most athletes who use ice baths jump in within minutes after a workout, usually soaking in water between 8°C and 15°C for ten to 20 minutes. This is the standard protocol, although coaches and athletes often adjust the timing and temperature, depending on their goals.
Waiting at least an hour before taking an ice bath might be a smart move as it gives the body time to initiate important muscle-building signals and absorb nutrients without interference. Also, using milder cold water (around 15°C) is gentler on blood flow compared with very cold water. That means it can still help ease soreness without slowing muscle growth as much as colder temperatures might.
How often you use ice baths makes a difference too. In the Maastricht study and others like it, participants used cold plunges after every workout, which led to less muscle growth over time. But if you save ice baths for especially tough days, like during competitions or intense training weeks, athletes can avoid some of those negative effects while still getting recovery benefits when they need them most.
If the goal is to stay sharp and recover quickly – rather than building maximum muscle – then a slight drop in muscle growth might be a fair trade-off for feeling fresher and bouncing back faster.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about ice baths and muscle growth. Most studies so far have focused on young men, so it’s unclear if women, older adults or people with muscle loss due to health conditions respond the same way. More research is needed to understand how cold therapy affects different groups of people.
Most research so far has focused on soaking just one arm or leg, but full-body ice baths might cause different reactions in the body, such as changes in hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, that could affect how muscles adapt. Bigger studies are needed to figure out the best timing, temperature and how different people respond to cold therapy.
The allure of ice baths is understandable: who doesn’t want to feel less sore after a gruelling training session? But current data should serve as a cautionary tale – muscles need blood, nutrients and even inflammation to grow. By plunging immediately into icy water, athletes risk dampening the very signals that drive muscle growth.
For people who want to maximise muscle size and strength, it might be best to skip the ice bath or delay it by at least an hour. But for athletes facing tough competition schedules who need to recover quickly, carefully timed ice baths can be a helpful tool. Ultimately, each athlete must weigh the benefits of feeling less sore against the possibility of slower muscle growth and adjust how they use cold therapy based on their personal goals and training demands.
Michelle Spear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Newman, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Sustainability Assessment at the Grantham Centre, University of Sheffield
Tomatoes could be grown at an industrial scale using heat generated from burning household waste in Essex, UK. Jenoche/Shutterstock
A new project in Bradwell, Essex, aims to change how we grow food and how we deal with our rubbish. Slated to begin operations in 2027, the Rivenhall greenhouse project could become Europe’s largest low-carbon horticulture facility.
The idea is to close two loops at once. By processing most of Essex’s household waste, the region’s reliance on landfill can be reduced – this cuts the amount of biodegradable waste decomposing to release methane (a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide). Also, by diverting the energy from that waste to grow food locally, less produce will need to be imported from regions increasingly vulnerable to climate-related stresses like drought and water scarcity.
The giant greenhouse will sit next to the Rivenhall integrated waste management facility, operated by waste company Indaver. Household waste will be incinerated on site, producing steam. Some of that steam will drive turbines to generate electricity and power the greenhouse. The rest of the steam will heat the greenhouse at a constant temperature all year round.
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To further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a carbon capture system (separates CO₂ from other gases in exhaust streams) will extract around 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually from the incinerator’s flue gases. Rather than releasing this into the atmosphere, the captured carbon dioxide will be piped into the greenhouse to enhance plant growth.
Still, the scale of carbon capture is modest and not a quick fix. The 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide expected to be captured annually represents less than 10% of typical emissions from similar-scale waste facilities.
The facility will include 13 hectares of artificially lit greenhouse space for winter growing and a vertical farm (growing crops in stacked layers) converted from a former RAF hangar to grow leafy greens. In theory, this creates a resilient, year-round food production system largely decoupled from fossil fuels and climate-sensitive imports.
Burning waste to grow tomatoes might sound counterintuitive. Incinerators still release emissions after all. As a method of electricity generation, incineration of waste has a higher carbon footprint than burning coal. But in the context of current waste management and food import practices, it may make sense.
According to the UK government’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, around 30.8% of England’s household waste went to landfill in 2023 (around 8 million tonnes). Landfill emissions (primarily methane) are not just large – they’re long-lived and hard to capture.
Rivenhall’s model claims to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 20% compared to landfill. When electricity, heat, and food outputs are factored in, and carbon capture included, emissions per kilogram of tomato could be substantially lower than those from conventional imports or fossil-powered greenhouses.
But low-carbon status is not a badge that companies claim, it’s a result that needs to be verified. In lifecycle assessment (a method for measuring the environmental impacts of a product, service, or system, and the focus of my research), low-carbon status only applies if net emissions per kilogram of tomato are demonstrably lower than those from the realistic baseline.
That baseline, be it landfill, composting, anaerobic digestion, or recycling, must be clearly defined. If incinerated waste includes material better suited to recycling, the claimed benefits narrow or vanish.
The success of this particular project hinges not just on technical integration, but on accurate emissions accounting and efficient performance of carbon capture systems.
According to the waste hierarchy, the most sustainable strategy for reducing waste-related emissions is not incineration, but waste prevention and reduction. Energy recovery is better than landfill, but less preferable than eliminating waste altogether.
The bigger picture
In the Netherlands, greenhouses often run on combined heat and power systems. In Canada, some horticultural operations use industrial waste heat. But Rivenhall’s scale and its tight integration with waste management infrastructure makes it unusual. If it works, it could serve as a blueprint for how regions can simultaneously tackle food security and waste while keeping the environmental cost of consumption closer to home.
Beyond greenhouse gas emissions, there are other environmental considerations. Even modern incinerators produce air-polluting nitrogen oxides and particulates, which must be rigorously controlled to avoid human health problems such as lung disease. To comply with the UK’s biodiversity net gain rules, natural habitats and wildlife populations around this site must be enhanced, not degraded.
While delivering on its technical promises, Rivenhall must also prove that its low-carbon credentials are more than just hot air. Even so, projects like this are no substitute for upstream solutions like waste prevention, reduced consumption and circular design.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Alex Newman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Francesco Grillo, Academic Fellow, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University
Shutterstock/Coffeemil
I believe we Europeans feel far too safe. Europe’s political and economic leadership in the world, which was still unchallenged at the beginning of the century, has long since ceased to exist. Will the dominant cultural influence of Europe be maintained? I think not, unless we defend it and adjust ourselves to new conditions; history has shown that civilisations are all too perishable.
It is astonishing how much these words used in 1956 by Konrad Adenauer, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, still sound valid today. They perfectly define the current state of the union. Europeans are still struggling to adjust to new conditions – and the conditions to which they need to adjust also continue to change dramatically.
The battle for technological leadership is the current version of this struggle. Success in this domain could transform Europe, yet the continent remains complacent about its decline into backwardness. The European commission itself calculates that of the 19 digital platforms that have more than 45 million EU users, only one (Zalando) is from the EU.
Information is (economic and political) power and losing control means to gradually lose both market share and the ability to protect European democracies. Brussels has produced a mass of regulation on digital services, yet American digital platforms are getting away with what European leaders themselves call the manipulation of democratic elections, with very little repercussions. Elon Musk’s X, was banned in Brazil for less – refusing to ban accounts accused of spreading misinformation.
This decline, however, has been slow enough to lull European leaders into complacency about the future.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has a point when he laments that the European Union has been slow to engage in the negotiations he imposed on trade. Indeed, even on trade – one of the very few areas in which the European Union has a mandate from the member states to deal directly with third parties – progress is generally stuttering. The commissioner in charge has to constantly find a common denominator with the agendas of 27 member states, each of which has a different industrial agenda.
Europe’s decision-making processes are sub-optimal. Indeed, they were built for a different age. There is no shared voice on foreign policy – the EU has been able to say far less on Gaza than individual countries like Spain or the UK, for example. This may have the practical consequence of eroding the “moral leadership” that should still be Europe’s soft advantage.
Crisis of confidence
Europe’s failure to respond to real-world changes is due to sub-optimal institutional settings. However the current paralysis in the face of clear need for action may be due to an even more fundamental question of trust in its own capabilities.
On one hand, there still seems room for complacency. As Stanley Pignal, the Charlemagne columnist for The Economist, recently put it, Europe can take a moderate amount of satisfaction from its continued status as a place where people are free to pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Yet, it is evident that the institutions needed to concretely achieve those objectives are crumbling: healthcare systems and welfare; robust and independent media; energy and military autonomy in a world without order.
On the other hand, Europe is increasingly resigned. A global poll taken by Gallup International shows that when responding to the question “do you think that your children will live better than you?” seven of the most pessimistic countries of the world are from the EU. Only 16% of Italians and 24% of French respondents answered “yes” to this question.
According to Ipsos, less than half of young Europeans feel prepared to enter the job market. And they blame the education system for that. The picture may well be even worse now – this survey was taken in 2019, before the pandemic, war in Europe and, more importantly, AI made the picture even more uncertain.
Europe has no alternative, as even far-right and far-left parties seem to acknowledge. Note that France’s Rassemblement National and Italy’s Lega no longer talk about exiting the EU but about changing it from the inside. Individual nation states simply do not have the minimum scale to even try to take leadership in a world looking for a new order.
In a world abandoned by the US, Europe stands a real chance. However, it urgently needs to be creative enough to imagine new mechanisms through which EU institutions take decisions and EU citizens have their say. This in turn requires an entire society to somehow recover the reasonable hope that decline is not inevitable (although we also must be aware that it may even nastily accelerate).
Finally, young people are absolutely crucial in the process. The rhetoric of “listening to them” must now be replaced by a call for them to govern. They are today what Karl Marx would have probably defined as a class – with very specific demographic, cultural, economic and linguistic characteristics. These must be turned into a political agenda and a new vision of what Europe of the future could look like.
The challenges ahead for the European Union will be the subject of the forthcoming conference on the Europe of the future in Siena, Italy. This will feed into a seven-point paper that will be discussed with EU institutions.
Francesco Grillo is associated to VISION think tank.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stewart Edie, Research Geologist and Curator of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution
Even bivalves looked different during the time of the dinosaurs, as these fossils of an ultra-fortified oyster, left, and armored cockle show.Smithsonian Institution
The fallout was immediate and severe. Evidence shows that about 70% of species went extinct in a geological instant, and not just those famous dinosaurs that once stalked the land. Masters of the Mesozoic oceans were also wiped out, from mosasaurs – a group of aquatic reptiles topping the food chain – to exquisitely shelled squid relatives known as ammonites.
But bubbling away on the seafloor was a stolid group of animals that has left a fantastic fossil record and continues to thrive today: bivalves – clams, cockles, mussels, oysters and more.
What happened to these creatures during the extinction event and how they rebounded tells an important story, both about the past and the future of biodiversity.
Surprising discoveries on the seafloor
Marine bivalves lost around three-quarters of their species during this mass extinction, which marked the end of the Cretaceous Period. My colleagues and I – each of us paleobiologists studying biodiversity – expected that losing so many species would have severely cut down the variety of roles that bivalves play within their environments, what we call their “modes of life.”
But, as we explain in a study published in the journal Sciences Advances, that wasn’t the case. In assessing the fossils of thousands of bivalve species, we found that at least one species from nearly all their modes of life, no matter how rare or specialized, squeaked through the extinction event.
Statistically, that shouldn’t have happened. Kill 70% of bivalve species, even at random, and some modes of life should disappear.
Most bivalves happily burrow into the sand and mud, feeding on phytoplankton they strain from the water. But others have adopted chemosymbionts and photosymbionts – bacteria and algae that produce nutrients for the bivalves from chemicals or sunlight in exchange for housing. A few have even become carnivorous. Some groups, including the oysters, can lay down a tough cement that hardens underwater, and mussels hold onto rocks by spinning silken threads.
We thought surely these more specialized modes of life would have been snuffed out by the effects of the asteroid’s impact, including dust and debris likely blocking sunlight and disrupting a huge part of the bivalves’ food chain: photosynthetic algae and bacteria. Instead, most persisted, although biodiversity was forever scrambled as a new ecological landscape emerged. Species that were once dominant struggled, while evolutionary newcomers rose in their place.
The reasons some species survived and others didn’t leave many questions to explore. Those that filtered phytoplankton from the water column suffered some of the highest species losses, but so did species that fed on organic scraps and didn’t rely as much on the Sun’s energy. Narrow geographic distributions and different metabolisms may have contributed to these extinction patterns.
Biodiversity bounces back
Life rebounded from each of the Big Five mass extinctions throughout Earth’s history, eventually punching through past diversity highs. The rich fossil record and spectacular ecological diversity of bivalves gives us a terrific opportunity to study these rebounds to understand how ecosystems and global biodiversity rebuild in the wake of extinctions.
The extinction caused by the asteroid strike knocked down some thriving modes of life and opened the door for others to dominate the new landscape.
The rebound from the extinction wasn’t so straightforward. Some modes of life lost nearly all their species, never to recover their past diversity. Others rose to take the top ranks. Genera is the plural of genus. Adapted from Edie et al. 2025, Science Advances
While many people lament the loss of the dinosaurs, we malacologists miss the rudists.
These bizarrely shaped bivalves resembled giant ice cream cones, sometimes reaching more than 3 feet (1 meter) in size, and they dominated the shallow, tropical Mesozoic seas as massive aggregations of contorted individuals, similar to today’s coral reefs. At least a few harbored photosymbiotic algae, which provided them with nutrients and spurred their growth, much like modern corals.
An ancient fossil of a rudist from before the last mass extinction. These bivalves could grow to a meter high. Smithsonian Institution
Today, giant clams (Tridacna) and their relatives fill parts of these unique photosymbiotic lifestyles once occupied by the rudists, but they lack the rudists’ astonishing species diversity.
Mass extinctions clearly upend the status quo. Now, our ocean floors are dominated by clams burrowed into sand and mud, the quahogs, cockles and their relatives – a scene far different from that of the seafloor 66 million years ago.
New winners in a scrambled ecosystem
Ecological traits alone didn’t fully predict extinction patterns, nor do they entirely explain the rebound. We also see that simply surviving a mass extinction didn’t necessarily provide a leg up as species diversified within their old and sometimes new modes of life – and few of those new modes dominate the ecological landscape today.
Like the rudists, trigoniid bivalves had lots of different species prior to the extinction event. These highly ornamented clams built parts of their shells with a super strong biomaterial called nacre – think iridescent pearls – and had fractally interlocking hinges holding their two valves together.
An ancient fossil of a pearly but tough trigoniid bivalve from the last mass extinction. The two matching shells show their elaborate hinge. Smithsonian Institution
But despite surviving the extinction, which should have placed them in a prime position to accumulate species again, their diversification sputtered. Other types of bivalves that made a living in the same way proliferated instead, relegating this once mighty and global group to a handful of species now found only off the coast of Australia.
Lessons for today’s oceans
These unexpected patterns of extinction and survival may offer lessons for the future.
The fossil record shows us that biodiversity has definite breaking points, usually during a perfect storm of climatic and environmental upheaval. It’s not just that species are lost, but the ecological landscape is overturned.
Many scientists believe the current biodiversity crisis may cascade into a sixth mass extinction, this one driven by human activities that are changing ecosystems and the global climate. Corals, whose reefs are home to nearly a quarter of known marine species, have faced mass bleaching events as warming ocean water puts their future at risk. Acidification as the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide can also weaken the shells of organisms crucial to the ocean food web.
Findings like ours suggest that, in the future, the rebound from extinction events will likely result in very different mixes of species and their modes of life in the oceans. And the result may not align with human needs if species providing the bulk of ecosystem services are driven genetically or functionally extinct.
The global oceans and their inhabitants are complex, and, as our team’s latest research shows, it is difficult to predict the trajectory of biodiversity as it rebounds – even when extinction pressures are reduced.
Billions of people depend on the ocean for food. As the history recorded by the world’s bivalves shows, the upending of the pecking order – the number of species in each mode of life – won’t necessarily settle into an arrangement that can feed as many people the next time around.
Stewart Edie receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution.
The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.
The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.
As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.
However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.
Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.
In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.
Wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy side by side near Palm Springs, Calif. Mario Tama/Getty Images
Efficiency and electric cars
Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.
For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.
For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.
The House-passed bill would protect government subsidies for existing nuclear power plants, like the one in the background, while limiting support for wind turbines. Scott Olson/Getty Images
The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called “hydrogen hubs” that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.
The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.
As Congress deliberates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nation’s energy agenda is one of many issues being hotly debated. Kevin Carter/Getty Images
Summing it up
The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bill’s provisions were not enacted. If the bill’s provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel-burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.
No one expected former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.
Daniel Cohan receives funding from the Carbon Hub at Rice University.
When LGBTQ+ patients are unsure if they can be open about their identity and related health needs, it becomes more difficult for them to access high-quality health care.
In our recently published research, my colleagues and I found that how LGBTQ+ people are treated at the doctor’s office has a measurable effect on whether they stay up to date with lifesaving preventive care like flu shots, colorectal cancer screenings and HIV testing.
Results of affirming care
We examined how LGBTQ+ adults rated their health care provider across three areas: LGBTQ+ cultural competency, such as if providers used inclusive language on forms and in person; LGBTQ+ clinical competency, such as their doctor’s knowledge on all aspects of their health; and experiences of discrimination, such as being told to seek care elsewhere.
After analyzing survey data on the experiences of more than 950 LGBTQ+ adults from across the U.S., we saw that three clear patterns emerged.
First, 34% of participants reported having positive health care experiences – meaning their providers were culturally and clinically competent about LGBTQ+ health needs, and did not discriminate against them. These patients were more likely to be up to date on at least one preventive service recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, compared to those receiving neutral or discriminatory care.
Second, 60% of participants reported having neutral experiences, when their providers were clinically competent about LGBTQ+ health needs and didn’t discriminate against them, but were not culturally competent. These patients were 43% less likely to get an HIV test compared to patients reporting affirming care.
Third, 6% of participants reported experiencing discrimination, when their providers were neither culturally nor clinically competent on LGBTQ+ health. These patients were 24% less likely to get a colorectal cancer screening compared to patients reporting affirming care.
Most LGBTQ+ adults in our study reported neutral or even discriminatory care, which leads to avoidable health risks and higher costs for the health system. This provides additional evidence that being supportive of LGBTQ+ patients has measurable improvements for health outcomes.
Fear of discrimination can lead to delayed and missed diagnoses.
Why preventive care matters
Preventive care saves lives and saves money. When diseases like colorectal cancer or HIV are caught early, treatments are often simpler, more effective and less expensive.
When LGBTQ+ patients are made to feel unwelcome or unsafe, we found that they are less likely to get routine preventive care, ultimately driving up long-term costs across the health system. States like North Carolina and Georgia that have more health systems participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s Healthcare Equality Index, which evaluates policies and practices around LGBTQ+ care, had higher rates of LGBTQ+ patients reporting positive care experiences compared to states with few participating health systems, such as Tennessee and Alabama.
Our team has continued the work independently to ensure that the over 1,250 participants who already shared their experiences and data would not have this information sit idly.
Our findings reinforce what many LGBTQ+ patients already know – nonjudgmental and competent care is not a luxury, but a public health necessity.
Nathaniel M. Tran received funding from the National Institute on Aging and Vanderbilt University.
Published in 1915, and already widely accepted worldwide by physicists and mathematicians, the theory assumed the universe was static – unchanging, unmoving and immutable. In short, Einstein believed the size and shape of the universe today was, more or less, the same size and shape it had always been.
But when astronomers looked into the night sky at faraway galaxies with powerful telescopes, they saw hints the universe was anything but that. These new observations suggested the opposite – that it was, instead, expanding.
Scientists soon realized Einstein’s theory didn’t actually say the universe had to be static; the theory could support an expanding universe as well. Indeed, by using the same mathematical tools provided by Einstein’s theory, scientists created new models that showed the universe was, in fact, dynamic and evolving.
I’ve spent decades trying to understand general relativity, including in my current job as a physics professor teaching courses on the subject. I know wrapping your head around the idea of an ever-expanding universe can feel daunting – and part of the challenge is overriding your natural intuition about how things work. For instance, it’s hard to imagine something as big as the universe not having a center at all, but physics says that’s the reality.
The universe gets bigger every day.
The space between galaxies
First, let’s define what’s meant by “expansion.” On Earth, “expanding” means something is getting bigger. And in regard to the universe, that’s true, sort of. Expansion might also mean “everything is getting farther from us,” which is also true with regard to the universe. Point a telescope at distant galaxies and they all do appear to be moving away from us.
What’s more, the farther away they are, the faster they appear to be moving. Those galaxies also seem to be moving away from each other. So it’s more accurate to say that everything in the universe is getting farther away from everything else, all at once.
This idea is subtle but critical. It’s easy to think about the creation of the universe like exploding fireworks: Start with a big bang, and then all the galaxies in the universe fly out in all directions from some central point.
But that analogy isn’t correct. Not only does it falsely imply that the expansion of the universe started from a single spot, which it didn’t, but it also suggests that the galaxies are the things that are moving, which isn’t entirely accurate.
It’s not so much the galaxies that are moving away from each other – it’s the space between galaxies, the fabric of the universe itself, that’s ever-expanding as time goes on. In other words, it’s not really the galaxies themselves that are moving through the universe; it’s more that the universe itself is carrying them farther away as it expands.
A common analogy is to imagine sticking some dots on the surface of a balloon. As you blow air into the balloon, it expands. Because the dots are stuck on the surface of the balloon, they get farther apart. Though they may appear to move, the dots actually stay exactly where you put them, and the distance between them gets bigger simply by virtue of the balloon’s expansion.
Now think of the dots as galaxies and the balloon as the fabric of the universe, and you begin to get the picture.
Unfortunately, while this analogy is a good start, it doesn’t get the details quite right either.
The 4th dimension
Important to any analogy is an understanding of its limitations. Some flaws are obvious: A balloon is small enough to fit in your hand – not so the universe. Another flaw is more subtle. The balloon has two parts: its latex surface and its air-filled interior.
These two parts of the balloon are described differently in the language of mathematics. The balloon’s surface is two-dimensional. If you were walking around on it, you could move forward, backward, left, or right, but you couldn’t move up or down without leaving the surface.
Now it might sound like we’re naming four directions here – forward, backward, left and right – but those are just movements along two basic paths: side to side and front to back. That’s what makes the surface two-dimensional – length and width.
The inside of the balloon, on the other hand, is three-dimensional, so you’d be able to move freely in any direction, including up or down – length, width and height.
This is where the confusion lies. The thing we think of as the “center” of the balloon is a point somewhere in its interior, in the air-filled space beneath the surface.
But in this analogy, the universe is more like the latex surface of the balloon. The balloon’s air-filled interior has no counterpart in our universe, so we can’t use that part of the analogy – only the surface matters.
So asking, “Where’s the center of the universe?” is somewhat like asking, “Where’s the center of the balloon’s surface?” There simply isn’t one. You could travel along the surface of the balloon in any direction, for as long as you like, and you’d never once reach a place you could call its center because you’d never actually leave the surface.
In the same way, you could travel in any direction in the universe and would never find its center because, much like the surface of the balloon, it simply doesn’t have one.
Part of the reason this can be so challenging to comprehend is because of the way the universe is described in the language of mathematics. The surface of the balloon has two dimensions, and the balloon’s interior has three, but the universe exists in four dimensions. Because it’s not just about how things move in space, but how they move in time.
Our brains are wired to think about space and time separately. But in the universe, they’re interwoven into a single fabric, called “space-time.” That unification changes the way the universe works relative to what our intuition expects.
And this explanation doesn’t even begin to answer the question of how something can be expanding indefinitely – scientists are still trying to puzzle out what powers this expansion.
So in asking about the center of the universe, we’re confronting the limits of our intuition. The answer we find – everything, expanding everywhere, all at once – is a glimpse of just how strange and beautiful our universe is.
Rob Coyne receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF).
Older adults have large digital archives that can be hard to access after their deaths.picture alliance/Getty Images
From family photos in the cloud to email archives and social media accounts, the digital lives of Americans are extensive and growing.
According to recent studies by the password management companies NordPass and Dashlane, the average internet user maintains more than 150 online accounts. Individuals produce hundreds of gigabytes of data each year. But few people have plans for what happens to that digital legacy after they die.
Unlike physical possessions, online assets often don’t pass smoothly from one generation to the next. Loved ones struggle to access important accounts or recover treasured photos. Many families face these challenges while already overwhelmed with grief.
Most tech companies haven’t kept up with this reality. Fewer than 15% of popular online platforms have clear systems for handling a user’s death, and customer support is often limited, according to our new study. As people’s “digital footprints” expand, the lack of planning has become both a practical and emotional burden for families. This is especially true for older adults who may not be aware of the steps required to manage their digital estate.
We realized there was no organization or comprehensive website to help people navigate the technical, privacy or practical challenges they were facing. In response, we launched what we believe is a first-of-its-kind solution: the Digital Legacy Clinic.
Our clinic opened in late 2024. The free clinic offers support both to people planning for the end of their digital lives and to those managing the digital estates of loved ones who have died.
Led by students and housed in the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Information Science department, the clinic operates much like a pro bono law clinic. Community members in the Denver and Boulder areas, as well as from across the country, can contact the clinic for help.
First, a person interested in getting support fills out a simple form. Then, a member of the clinic will send a follow-up email to clarify and offer preliminary advice. Since every case is different, often clinic workers will then meet via Zoom with a client to create a personalized plan for them and their family.
How the clinic helps
The clinic offers guidance on a wide range of digital estate concerns, including setting up digital legacy tools such as trusted contacts on Google and Apple or legacy contacts on Facebook – someone you choose to manage your main profile after you’ve died. People can also get guidance on how to memorialize or delete social media or other online accounts after a loved one has died.
For example, Facebook allows you to either memorialize an account or request its removal. To memorialize it, you’ll need to submit a form with the person’s name, date of death, proof of passing, such as an obituary, and verify your relationship to the deceased. Including these steps can help your loved ones manage a digital legacy with clarity and care.
The clinic also helps people recover and preserve digital assets. That includes photos, videos, emails and other important documents, such as legal documents stored on a Google Drive.
For those who are planning for after they die, the clinic can guide them in creating a digital estate plan. That plan might include inventorying online accounts, documenting login credentials and leaving instructions for account closure, or determining steps to email the documents to your lawyer.
Students supporting their community
The ongoing work of the clinic is run entirely by undergraduate and graduate students, who build and maintain the clinic’s website, manage the client intake process and research solutions tailored to each case.
For the students, it’s a hands-on learning opportunity that connects academic work to real-world needs. The experience is also professionally valuable. Students learn how to communicate complex tech topics with empathy, navigate privacy laws and manage sensitive data responsibly.
A resource for older adults
While the Digital Legacy Clinic is available to people across the country, its location in Boulder makes it especially accessible to older adults in the Boulder and Denver areas who may prefer or benefit from in-person support.
For older adults, the Digital Legacy Clinic can help them organize their digital lives and make passing their digital archives on to their families easier. Robert Alexander/Getty Images
For older adults, the clinic can play a crucial role in helping them organize their digital lives while they’re still alive. This can reduce confusion for loved ones later and even help prevent issues such as identity theft or account misuse. Many older adults now maintain extensive online presences, but they may not have the tools or knowledge to ensure their accounts are secure and accessible to people they trust.
Jed Brubaker currently receives research funding from the National Science Foundation and Google. In the past he has recieved research funding from Facebook and Mozilla. During 2014-2020 he worked as a research for the Legacy Contact and Memorialized Profile features at Facebook.
Dylan Thomas Doyle 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.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Scientists comment on news that the UK government is investing in a nuclear plant at the Sizewell C site and a small modular reactor programme.
Prof Patrick Regan, Professor of Nuclear Metrology, University of Surrey, said:
“The announcement that the UK government has committed £14.2bn of investment to build European Pressurized Reactors (EPRs) at the Sizewell C site will contribute to the UK tackling the delicate balance between ever-increasing secure energy requirements and our commitment to achieving net-zero. The EPRs planned at Sizewell C represent Generation 3+ technology and build on more than 70 years of operational reactor experience worldwide to provide the cleanest, safest and most efficient form of nuclear power yet.
“This large investment, however, brings with it the obvious need to produce and maintain a highly skilled, expert workforce related to all phases of the Sizewell C project. Science and Engineering Apprentice, Graduate and Post-Graduate training in areas such as chemical engineering, material science, nuclear physics & radiochemistry, environmental monitoring, radiation measurement and health physics will be key in enabling ‘life-long’ UK-based careers in this industry, in line with such a far horizon project. This is a long-term investment in the UK’s national infrastructure, and it needs a skilled workforce to ensure its ultimate success.”
Dr Phil Johnstone, Principal Research Fellow, University of Sussex Science Policy Research Unit, Patron of Nuclear Information Service, Member of Sussex Energy Group, and Member of Nuclear Consultation Group:
Is this a good move?
“The decision on Sizewell C is a bad move. It will likely lead to increasing costs for UK electricity consumers and represents a significantly slower means of combatting climate change than alternative options. The announcement comes alongside the decision to select submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce as the winning bidder to develop Small Modular Reactors. These are part of the same underlying goal: to sustain the UK military nuclear industrial base via subsidies from civil nuclear power, with democratic scrutiny of this strategy almost entirely absent.”
Prof Andy Stirling, professor of science and technology policy at the University of Sussex Science Policy Research Unit:
Is this a good move (or not) when it comes to energy and fossil fuels?
“It is well acknowledged behind the scenes (but denied in public), that this move is more intended to support the kind of nuclear industrial base needed for military than for climate reasons. Nuclear power stations like Sizewell C are so slow and expensive compared to renewables and storage strategies, that they erode rather than enhance climate action.”
What does this mean for UK energy production? Is there overspeculation?
“This will make UK energy production needlessly more expensive, less secure and less effective in climate terms, than if the same money had been spent on renewables and energy storage.”
What does the science say?
“On this as on many other policy issues, what counts as ‘the science’ is more uncertain and context-dependent than any side typically implies. If either nuclear advocates or critics claim their arguments to be uniquely or unequivocally science-based then that is a sign that they are seeking to mislead.”
Dr Sarah Darby, Emerita Research Fellow, Energy Programme, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, said:
“The argument that building Sizewell C will be markedly cheaper and quicker than Hinkley C is weak. Hinkley C is ‘first of a kind’ in the UK but has the same design as Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France. These two have been, respectively, over 10 years late and almost four times over budget [1] and over 12 years late and over four times over budget in real terms [2,3]. Neither is yet working reliably [4,5].
“The unfinished Hinkley C was reported by EdF last year as already 90% over budget and 7 years late – and EdF do not expect it to be finished before 2029-31.
“In the light of these figures from three power plants of the same design as SZC, Ed Miliband’s forecast of a 10-year build time looks wildly optimistic. Where cost and complexity are concerned, there is the additional concern about the SZC site being on a flood-prone and eroding coastline, with sea levels on the rise.
“EdF are now wholly owned by the French government, following their extreme financial difficulties, and it is unclear whether they will take any stake at all in SZC. This is hardly a vote of confidence in the prospects of their own design.
“The argument that nuclear build helps with climate goals is similarly weak. New nuclear would arrive too late to assist – renewables already supply over half of UK generation [6] – and are on the rise. The massive sums involved are money not spent on quicker and more effective moves towards energy transition. Bloomberg NEF’s latest assessment of energy transition investment trends* refers to renewables, energy storage, electric vehicles, and power grids as ‘proven, commercially scalable [and with] established business models’, yet categorises nuclear power as an ‘emerging’ technology, with investment held back by lack of affordability and technology maturity [7].
“Nuclear is being presented by the Government as complementary to renewables, for ‘when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow’. But what we need for these times – and for times of abundant renewable supply – is flexibility from storage and demand-side response, not large-scale inflexible power plants that cannot easily be turned down or up and that can be shut down at a moment’s notice [5,8].
“As so often, the debate is focused on supply rather than demand – what we use energy for. The government are citing figures of a doubling of demand by 2050 that are certainly not set in stone and likely to be exaggerated. AI demands are the new kid on the block but, as DeepSeek has shown, they need not be nearly as high as is often made out. There is still plenty of scope to improve energy security through energy efficiency, allied with storage and demand-side response, without compromising quality of life [9].
“Successive governments have already sunk £6.4bn of taxpayers’ money into Sizewell C, but this is no reason to compound the error. A further £14.2bn is substantial but falls a long way short of the £40bn ‘overnight’ cost estimated by the FT [10]. Further, this £40bn estimate does not take into account the costs of capital, decommissioning and disposal of waste. The last of these is itself a topic of major concern to the Public Accounts Committee [11].
“It is not too late to avoid a FID for Sizewell C and to steer funding in more productive directions, including modernisation of the electricity grid, energy efficient buildings and transport systems, and storage. Such investment could create jobs and improve living conditions around the country.”
Stephanie Baxter, Head of Policy, Institution of Engineering and Technology, said:
“The £14.2 billion of funding announced today for the development of Sizewell C, alongside selecting Rolls-Royce SMR as the preferred bidder to develop the UK’s first small modular reactors, marks an important step forward towards nuclear playing a significant role in the UK’s energy mix.
“Nuclear infrastructure, both large and small, will be needed in our energy system if the UK is to have a secure, affordable and sustainable energy system for 2030 and beyond. However, the Government must also take a whole system view of the wider energy system to ensure new nuclear infrastructure compliments other energy generation and distribution resources currently deployed and being developed.
“Significant infrastructure projects such as these rely on long-term stability – in the supply chain, regulations and the skills pipeline. That is why today’s announcements must be backed up by clear plans for delivery, including engagement with local communities.
“These ambitions will also not be met without the skilled engineering and technician workforce that will be critical to delivering and maintaining new nuclear infrastructure.
“Great British Energy must work closely with Skills England to ensure that these plans are backed by a long-term workforce strategy to deliver skilled job opportunities across the country – both by training up new workers in schools and colleges, and upskilling/reskilling the existing workforce through flexible funding in the Growth and Skills Levy.”
Will Davis, Nuclear Expert and a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Sustainability and Net Zero Policy Centre, said:
“Today’s announcements are a clear demonstration of the government’s long-term commitment to low-carbon energy security, extending beyond the 2030 clean power target and taking concrete steps toward achieving net zero by 2050.
“To meet our net zero ambitions, we must significantly scale up electricity generation – by two to three times current levels – and this will only be possible through large-scale projects like Sizewell C and the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) programme.
“While these developments are both welcome and necessary, the UK nuclear industry must address its ongoing credibility challenges around delivering projects on time and within budget. Unlike the UK’s Hinkley Point C, nuclear projects in countries like China and the UAE have avoided major delays. Learning from these international examples is essential if we are to attract private investment and reduce reliance on gas-fired power stations.
“The selection of a preferred bidder for the SMR fleet is a long-awaited milestone – over a decade in the making – and we’re pleased to see it finally progressing.
“The clarification of roles between Great British Energy and Great British Energy – Nuclear, with NESO overseeing the critical upgrades to our national electricity infrastructure is welcomed. These upgrades are vital and must be properly funded, not treated as an afterthought.
“With the announcements on Sizewell C and SMRs, we urge the government to clarify its position on future gigawatt-scale nuclear projects, such as the previously proposed development at Wylfa.
“New nuclear power stations require a high-tech supply chain and a highly skilled workforce. Investment in key manufacturers like Sheffield Forgemasters is encouraging, but broader supply chain investment hinges on project certainty – contracts must be signed.
“The IET continues to support the sector through initiatives like the Nuclear Skills Taskforce. We’re also pleased to see continued investment in STEP, the UK’s prototype fusion power plant. A £2.5 billion commitment is significant and deserves more visibility.
“However, we note the absence of updates on advanced nuclear technologies, which could play a crucial role in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors such as steelmaking and hydrogen production. We hope to see further clarity on this soon.”
Dr Lewis Blackburn, Lecturer in Nuclear Materials, University of Sheffield, said:
“Today the UK government demonstrated a clear and renewed commitment to nuclear fission as a means to achieve Net Zero, a key goal that was outlined in the 2024 White Paper “Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050”. This comes in the form of an approximately £14B commitment to the Sizewell C project, comprising two EPR (European Pressurised Reactors) delivering a total of 3.2 GWe. The project is forecast to support 70k jobs and produce enough energy to power 6M UK homes. Today’s news also comes alongside an announcement that Rolls-Royce have been identified as the preferred bidder to construct the UK’s first Small Modular Reactors (SMR) – a fleet of smaller fission reactors designed to be built ‘modular’ on a production line, prior to shipping and assembly on-site.
“The UK faces a potential skills challenge in the field of nuclear engineering and projects like Sizewell C and Rolls-Royce SMR offer an exciting opportunity to build a skills pipeline, increasing the number and diversity of people entering the nuclear workforce, and bolstering the supply chain.
“In order for the UK to maintain its international reputation as a leader in civil nuclear, it must continue to invest heavily in new infrastructure, the wider industrial supply chain and R&D. Thus, producing the next generation of nuclear expertise in both the industrial and academic sectors, equipping them with the skills required for the UK to continue to utilise nuclear fission, safely, for generations to come.
“An important aspect of this is ensuring that highly radioactive waste, generated as a by-product of nuclear fission, is not passed onto future generations and is permanently disposed of. In this area, the UK is in the process of siting a geological disposal facility – a dedicated site wherein intermediate and high-level radioactive waste will be isolated from the wider environment permanently. The international consensus in the wider scientific and technical community is that this is the only feasible way to safely manage such wastes, ensuring passive safety. This is the focus of significant R&D in both the technical and academic space.”
Dr Mark Foreman, Associate professor of Nuclear Chemistry / Industrial Materials Recycling, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, said:
“Building a new power plant based on light water reactors at Sizewell is a good idea, it will provide a reliable supply of electric power which will help society reduce its dependency on fossil fuels. I hold the view that it will be a safe means of providing for the energy needs of society. Many critics of nuclear power use the example of the Chornobyl accident to argue that all nuclear power plants are unsafe. This is unreasonable, operating the Chornobyl reactor in the same way as it was just before the accident can be thought of as like roller blading along the M1. While running modern (or even a 1980s era) light water reactor is like calmly driving a Volvo equipped with all the latest safety features along the M1.”
Prof Robin Grimes FRS FREng, Professor of materials physics, Imperial College London, said:
“Large plants such as Hinckley, currently under construction and this announced plant at Sizewell are very good at providing constant base load electricity capacity. They are also good for supporting grid stability and providing inertia. Of course they offer generation diversity and energy security. They will offer these benefits for many decades. As we turn to more electricity use to reduce carbon emissions we will need more nuclear electrify. However, large plant are less good at helping with the inherent intermittency of renewables. For this we need the greater flexibility as provided by small modular reactors or the higher temperatures of advanced modular reactors which offer access to more technology options for decarbonisation. I therefore see this announcement as part of the systems approach by which we progress to greater energy security and decarbonisation.”
Prof David Armstrong, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering (Department of Materials), University of Oxford, said:
“This is excellent news for the UK energy landscape. As the UKs aging AGR fleet retires new baseload energy is required. Sizewell C will sit alongside Hinkley Point B to provide sustainable emission free baseload energy complementing the growing wind and solar power and making a significant contribution to UK energy security.”
Dr Iain Staffell, Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said:
“Today’s decision is an important one, but even with Hinkley C and Sizewell C, the UK’s nuclear capacity in the 2030s will still be below its 1990s peak.
“After a decade of dithering, Sizewell C is a litmus test of the UK’s ability to deliver complex infrastructure on schedule.
“This deal lives or dies on its delivery. Sizewell C must be built on time and on budget, learning from the (many) mistakes from Hinkley Point C and other UK mega-projects.
“Nuclear power offers a strong energy security hedge. Fuel and key parts can be stockpiled, insulating consumers from foreign instability and gas price spikes.
“Sizewell C won’t start generating for nearly a decade if it is built on time, so it only just contributes towards the Government’s 2035 clean-power goal. But, it is building for the long-term, and will deliver carbon-free electricity well into the 2080s.
“People are rightly concerned by the environmental impacts and emissions from the enormous construction project, but compared to the scale of energy production over the next six decades, nuclear remains one of the cleanest power sources we have.
“The upfront cost is undoubtedly high. £14 billion could fund around 10 GW of offshore wind versus just 3.2 GW of nuclear. But, these reactors will run day and night, especially valuable when the wind is not blowing.”
Louis Barson, the Institute of Physics Director of Science, Innovation and Skills said:
“It is good to see this decision made about developing Sizewell C. New nuclear will play a vital role in bringing reliable, secure and affordable power to new markets, decarbonising industry and helping countries meet their net zero commitments – as part of our future low-carbon energy mix.
“But we need to make sure we also pay attention to the desperate need for hundreds of thousands of skilled workers to support both this project and the development of smaller, modular, nuclear reactors.
“Signing off on Sizewell C is only half the picture, we need the nuclear-ready scientific workforce to make it a reality: that means more physics teachers, well-funded physics departments in universities and a healthy pipeline of physics talent.”
Tom Greatrex, Chief Executive, Nuclear Industry Association, said:
On Sizewell C Given Go-Ahead from Government
“This is a momentous day for Sizewell C and for the British nuclear programme. Sizewell C is one of Britain’s most important clean power projects, and will give the country the jobs, the economic growth and the energy security we need to ensure a secure and reliable power supply for the future. This record investment confirms the government is serious about building new nuclear and all the economic benefits that come with it, and will be welcomed in communities the length and breadth of Britain.”
On Rolls-Royce SMR Winning the UK SMR Competition
“This is a hugely significant moment for Rolls-Royce SMR and for the British nuclear programme. These SMRs will provide essential energy security and clean power alongside large scale reactors, all the while creating thousands of well-paid, skilled jobs, opportunities for growth right across the country and significant export potential. We look forward to working with Rolls-Royce SMR and all other potential SMR vendors, including those not successful today, on making Britain the best place to build new nuclear anywhere in the world.”
Prof Mark Wenman, Professor in Nuclear Materials, Imperial College London, said:
“This is a big step forward. Since the 1990s the amount of nuclear energy the UK produces has been steadily declining from around 12 to 4.5 GWe today. Sizewell C will help reverse this trend and further provide the UK with energy security. It will help balance the grid with the increase of renewables, replace fossil fuel plants and protect us against potential blackouts, as recently seen in Spain. Whilst the costs may seem high initially, this needs to be balanced against the fact that these reactors will produce low carbon electricity for 80 or possibly 100 years, 24/7, providing around a tenth of the current UK electricity needs. Once paid for, nuclear reactors produce the cheapest electricity of any kind, so this investment should be seen as future proofing the UK electricity system.”
Prof Adrian Bull,Chair in Nuclear Energy and Society, Dalton Nuclear Institute, University of Manchester, said:
“It’s very welcome news to see the announcements today of Government support for a new wave of nuclear power in this country. We’ve known for decades that reliance on imported gas could ruin the environment – but recent years showed us that it can ruin the economy too. Nuclear gives much-needed resilience against global fossil fuel prices, without emitting the gases that cause climate change, so it’s excellent news that we are going to see new plants – both large and small – built.
“I’m especially pleased that we have finally got over our national phobia of replicating a previous project. We’ve never done that in our UK nuclear fleet before, but the rest of the world learned ages ago that series construction is the route to certainty over the time and budget for such projects. Doing the same things at Sizewell which we have already done at Hinkley Point is much easier than starting from scratch to build a massively complex plant for the first time.
“The announcement of Rolls Royce as the winner of the SMR competition is a welcome sign of progress, but it’s disappointing to see only one winner selected, when we had all anticipated more. Government has long been supporting the Rolls Royce SMR project – with over £200m of public funds provided already – so it was inconceivable they would not be on the podium at the end of the race. Seeing them there alone makes the two years spent by Great British Nuclear on running a competition look like time and effort that could have been better spent.
“Overall though, these nuclear plants – whilst not cheap – will produce reliable, low carbon electricity around the clock and will most likely do so for the best part of a century. This is an investment in our grandchildren’s future as well as helping towards our 2050 climate goal.”
Prof Dame Sue Ion GBE FREng FRS, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said:
“It’s really good news that the Government is finally taking steps to ensure that nuclear energy plays the vital role it should in achieving significant quantities of stable low carbon electricity. Perhaps as importantly, if not more so, is the news that Rolls Royce’s Small Modular Reactor has been selected as the technology of choice to progress the opportunity presented by SMRs. These systems are designed from the outset to be modular, with modern construction techniques using much more factory fabrication, so they will be faster and easier to build.”
Prof Tom Scott, Professor in Materials, University of Bristol, said:
“This is an extremely important strategic step for the UK towards achieving net zero carbon emissions. Nuclear energy is a safe, secure and reliable form of electricity generation. With the lessons learnt from the Hinkley Point C project, and with the experienced workforce and supply chain that has been established because of it, my expectations are high for the delivery of Sizewell C at a much lower cost and shorter timescale.
“The announcement about Government investment in Sizewell C and more excitingly, about the investment in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), really shows the Government’s understanding and commitment towards nuclear as a key part of the solution towards achieving zero carbon emissions in the UK.
“SMRs offer the potential for providing new nuclear power stations much faster and more cheaply than conventional large-scale light water reactors like Hinkley Point C. Ultimately, the roll-out of SMRs delivered by British companies like Rolls-Royce will help to keep our electricity prices low whilst also generating high-value jobs across the U.K. This is a smart investment for the UK.”
Dr Mark Foreman, Associate professor of Nuclear Chemistry / Industrial Materials Recycling, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, said:
“Building a new power plant based on light water reactors at Sizewell is a good idea, it will provide a reliable supply of electric power which will help society reduce its dependency on fossil fuels. I hold the view that it will be a safe means of providing for the energy needs of society. Many critics of nuclear power use the example of the Chornobyl accident to argue that all nuclear power plants are unsafe. This is unreasonable, operating the Chornobyl reactor in the same way as it was just before the accident can be thought of as like roller blading along the M1. While running modern (or even a 1980s era) light water reactor is like calmly driving a Volvo equipped with all the latest safety features along the M1.”
Prof Adrian Bull: “I am a (paid) part time Professor at the Dalton Nuclear Institute, part of the University of Manchester; I am a (paid) consultant for US nuclear communications consultancy Full On Communications; I am an (unpaid) Board member of the Northern Nuclear Alliance; I am an (unpaid) Trustee of the Nuclear Institute; and am also the President-Elect, taking over in Jan 2026.”
Prof Dame Sue Ion: “Sue is Honorary President of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear.” “Sue is also a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Task Force.”
Prof Tom Scott: “In terms of interests, I am Director of the Spur West Nuclear Hub and Professor of Nuclear Materials at the University of Bristol sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
The nuclear hub is a consortium of academic, industrial and governmental partners coalescing around the requirement for research, skills and innovation in the UK nuclear sector.”
Dr Mark Foreman: “I have worked on advanced nuclear reprocessing for years and have also have worked on nuclear reactor safety issues. I have done and supervised research on the chemistry of nuclear accidents.”
Prof Mark Wenman “I have previously received funding for research from EDF Energy, Rolls-Royce, the UK National Nuclear Lab”
Tom Greatrex “The NIA is funded by its 320 member companies from across the civil nuclear industry.”
Dr Iain Staffell “I receive industry funding from a several companies in the UK and European energy sector, I try to keep this balanced so as not to over-represent any one technology or organization. Recent funding sources include: Drax, Octopus, SSE, HM Government, NESO (National Grid), EWE, Aurora, Baringa, Shell, Uniper, SLB, and the World Bank.”
Prof David Armstrong “I’ve had funding from UKAEA, Rolls Royce and EdF for research and students over the last 20 years.”
Prof Robin Grimes “I am a non-executive director of UKAEA and receive research funding from the UK national nuclear laboratory.”
Dr Mark Foreman “I do not currently get any money from the nuclear industry, I do not stand to make any money from the sales of nuclear products / technology. I have not been employed by the nuclear industry. I think that in terms of conflicts of interest I have none.”
Dr Lewis Blackburn“He receives funding from industry via Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, National Nuclear Laboratory, and Nuclear Waste Services”
Stephanie Baxter “No conflicts of interest.”
Will Davis “No conflicts of interest.”
Prof Andy Stirling “no conflicts of interest to declare.”
Dr Phil Johnstone “no conflicts of interest to declare.”
Dr Sarah Darby “I have no conflicts of interest to declare.”
For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.
Professor of anthropology Dimitris Xygalatas is a scientist and self-declared rational thinker. But he’s also a lifelong soccer fan, and he fully admits that when his Greek home team finally won their league in 2019, he cried tears of joy.
“Not what you might call a rational organism’s behavior,” he jokes.
But his reaction is in keeping with his latest study, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which shows that the intense feelings of joy, unity, and excitement fans experience surrounding sports can be less about the game and more about the ritual of coming together.
“Rituals are the kinds of things that, at first glance, don’t make any sense in terms of human behavior, but are deeply meaningful to people,” says Xygalatas.
With the cooperation of a die-hard Brazilian soccer (actually, it’s “football,” Xygalatas grudgingly reminds us Americans) fan club, Xygalatas and his team tracked the physiological arousal of fans before, during, and after a state championship final in Minas Gerais between local rival teams.
Using wearable heart monitors, they measured the emotional reactions of fans during the ritual of Rua de Fogo (Street of Fire), where crowds gather near the stadium to welcome the team’s bus. As it arrives, fans light flares, smoke bombs, and fireworks, wave flags, and chant to boost team morale and unify supporters.
The scientists outfitted participants with EKG monitors hidden beneath their clothing. The devices measured heart rate fluctuations, which is a proxy for emotional arousal, as fans participated in the pre-game celebration, entered the stadium, and watched the match unfold.
What they found was striking: The levels of shared excitement, or what the scientists call “collective effervescence,” peaked not during the game, but during the pre-game fan rituals.
Only when the home team scored a goal did those physiological markers exceed the emotional high of the pre-match gathering.
“What we see is that, in fact, the pre-game ritual generates more emotional synchrony than the game itself,” Xygalatas says. “There’s a single moment in the entire game when they have more collective emotional synchrony than the pre-game ritual, and that’s when they scored a goal.”
The findings underscore Xygalatas’ broader work to understand how ritual shapes human behavior and identity.
Xygalatas’ past research has taken him to remote firewalking ceremonies and intense religious festivals. But soccer, he says, offers a unique laboratory: It’s a global obsession that’s rich in ritual and pageantry, but largely free from political or religious ideology.
“People attribute a lot of meaning to sports,” Xygalatas says. “Sports generate billions and billions of dollars globally, and they take up so much of people’s attention. And the reason they do that is not just because of what’s happening on the pitch. It’s because of these ritualized interactions that occur among the fans.”
The implications, the paper argues, extend beyond sports. Ritualized group behaviors like concerts, religious ceremonies, or political rallies, may powerfully shape people’s emotions and even their beliefs.
“By going to these events, we’re actually shaping our beliefs,” he says. “So, sports is not just an excuse for people to get together. It’s a driver of identity.”
Xygalatas speaks from experience. As a young man growing up in Thessaloniki, Greece, he was a member of a soccer fan club. One day, while wearing his team’s scarf in the wrong neighborhood, he was ambushed by four men and brutally attacked, an incident that echoes the fatal beating of a 19-year-old in his hometown years later, also over team allegiance.
“I felt a blow to my head from behind, and next thing I knew, there were four men beating me, kicking me on the head, everywhere,” remembers Xygalatas. “The reason I was able to escape is that another group of men was turning the corner, wearing my insignia, so they chased them away.”
Football, he says, is the only sport that regularly leads to deadly violence, a fact that leagues and governing bodies like FIFA should take seriously.
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He says it’s in soccer clubs’ best interest to strike a balance between building loyalty, which Europeans and South Americans are excellent at doing, and making it safe for people to participate in.
Still, Xygalatas is clear that he’s not advocating for less passion. He hopes his work helps people understand why they care so deeply in the first place.
“If we look at what makes us human, we realize that it’s our ability and our need to derive meaning from things that seem meaningless,” he says.
Xygalatas’ co-authors on this paper are Mohammadamin Saraei, graduate student in the Department of Psychological Sciences; Vitor Leandro da Silva Profeta, professor in the Departamento de Educação Física at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; and Gabriela Baranowski-Pinto, professor in the Department of Human Movement Sciences at the Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais.
