tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/university-of-dundee-955/articlesThe University of Dundee2024-03-21T12:40:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2262432024-03-21T12:40:04Z2024-03-21T12:40:04ZGaza war: if there’s a lesson from the Berlin airlift it’s that political will is required to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe<p>The crisis in Gaza transcends mere statistics to reveal a deep human tragedy that continues to escalate. According to the latest figures from <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/3/8/israels-war-on-gaza-live-60000-pregnant-women-face-malnutrition-in-gaza">the Gaza health ministry</a>, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 30,000 individuals, including 12,300 children and 8,400 women. Additionally, 60,000 pregnant women are struggling with malnutrition. </p>
<p>The United Nations has indicated that Gaza, which it now decribes as having <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20415675">“simply become uninhabitable”</a>, requires at least <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/aid-trucks-entering-gaza-must-double-meet-basic-needs-wfp-says-2024-03-06/">300 aid trucks daily</a> to meet the urgent needs of its population. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Israel’s allies in the west grapple ineffectually with their shattered image as protectors of human rights. They supply arms to Israel while simultaneously sending air drops of food that are but a drop in the ocean to the humanitarian needs on the ground. </p>
<p>The Red Cross estimates that the entire 2.2 million population is <a href="https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/disasters-and-emergencies/world/whats-happening-in-gaza-humanitarian-crisis-grows">experiencing food insecurity</a> at crisis levels or above, with some families reportedly sharing just “one can of food every 48 hours”. At the moment the delivery of vital aid supplies, such as food, water, medication and shelter, is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/19/middle-east-crisis-live-marwan-issa-key-hamas-organiser-behind-7-october-attacks-killed-says-us?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-65f916688f089639eee195d2">reportedly being hindered</a> at checkpoints by Israeli officials – although Israel has denied this. </p>
<p>Humanitarianism is flourishing. It has developed into an industry by employing hundreds of thousands of individuals. But whether this has translated into a more effective aid system is questionable.</p>
<p>In 2018, the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/state-humanitarian-system-2018-edition">Active Learning Network for Accountability and Partnership (ALNAP)</a> – a group of more than 100 government and non-government humanitarian organisations operating globally – estimated that there were 570,000 field personnel involved in humanitarian missions. This figure doesn’t include those employed at headquarters or directly by donors.</p>
<p>This expansive network is part of a sector where operational budgets have grown exponentially. For example, the funding for the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) has <a href="https://executiveboard.wfp.org/document_download/WFP-0000148942#:%7E:text=In%202022%2C%20WFP%20reported%20record,December%202022%20needs%2Dbased%20plan">escalated dramatically</a> from US$1.2 billion (£945 million) in 1997 to more than US$14 billion in 2022. Yet despite this, the people of Gaza face what most observers now agree is an imminent chance of famine. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most apt historical parallel is that of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/berlin-blockade-75-years-on-how-russian-occupation-tactics-in-ukraine-echo-soviet-actions-in-east-germany-207875">Berlin airlift in 1948</a>, when a concerted effort by Allied forces – principally the US and Great Britain – were able to feed and supply 2 million west Berliners for a year.</p>
<h2>Feeding west Berlin in 1948</h2>
<p>The Soviet <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jat156">blockade of west Berlin</a> by the Soviet Union emerged as a defining moment in the early cold war period. Soviet forces attempted to coerce west Berlin by cutting off all land and water routes into the sectors of Berlin being administrated by the allied powers France, Britain and the US. </p>
<p>This aggressive move was designed to force the withdrawal of the newly introduced Deutsche mark and to challenge the allies’ resolve to maintain their presence in Berlin.</p>
<p>In response, the Allies initiated a massive airlift of goods into west Berlin. It was a monumental logistical operation. The operation, <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-berlin-airlift">codenamed “Operation Vittles”</a>, involved the use of air corridors over the Soviet occupation zone to deliver essential supplies such as food, fuel and medicine to the people living in the western part of the city. </p>
<p>At its peak, the airlift saw planes landing in west Berlin <a href="https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/berlin-airlift/">every 30 seconds</a>, a testament to the allies’ dedication to the mission and a clear rebuke to the Soviet blockade.</p>
<p>The airlift was not just a military and logistical achievement; it was a significant humanitarian effort. </p>
<p>Over more than a year, the allies’ air forces conducted over 278,000 flights, delivering nearly <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/Blog/article/2062719/the-berlin-airlift-what-it-was-its-importance-in-the-cold-war/">2.3 million tonnes of provisions</a>, including food, fuel, and other essential supplies. Initially perceived as an overwhelming challenge due to Berlin’s vast area and its people’s significant needs, the operation swiftly transformed into a symbol of hope for the people of west Berlin.</p>
<p>The airlift’s success extended beyond just aiding Berlin’s people. It helped ease cold war tensions, showcasing the west’s capacity for a coordinated, global response to Soviet hostility. This operation underscored the power of global cooperation with a humanitarian focus, setting a model for managing similar situations in the future with compassion and collective effort.</p>
<h2>Lessons for Gaza</h2>
<p>Applying lessons from Berlin to the current context of Gaza requires a sophisticated, multifaceted approach that goes beyond the logistical challenges associated with aid delivery. This approach must also tackle the political barriers that exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. </p>
<p>The particular circumstances of Gaza, indicate that humanitarian airdrops are <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/2/us-airdrops-food-to-gaza-in-move-criticised-by-aid-organisations">ineffective and costly</a>. They would be unnecessary if the options for ground access were not being restricted by Israeli forces. </p>
<p>Ensuring that blockades and starvation are not used as <a href="https://theconversation.com/gaza-weaponisation-of-food-has-been-used-in-conflicts-for-centuries-but-it-hasnt-always-resulted-in-victory-221476">methods of warfare</a> will require a robust international response. Israel’s allies must ensure accountability and check that international humanitarian law is being observed and upheld at all times. It is far from clear this is the case in Gaza.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gaza-weaponisation-of-food-has-been-used-in-conflicts-for-centuries-but-it-hasnt-always-resulted-in-victory-221476">Gaza: weaponisation of food has been used in conflicts for centuries – but it hasn't always resulted in victory</a>
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<p>The desperate plight of the population of Gaza suggests that in this conflict humanitarian aid has become politicised. In 1948, when there was a clear-cut political consensus in the west that the people of Berlin must be helped in their hour of need, it was possible to mount and sustain such an enormous operation. </p>
<p>To do so again with the people of Gaza will take the same political will. It’s not entirely clear, at least not yet, from the leaders of Israel’s western allies, that this political will exists. This is where a lesson can be drawn from Berlin, and it is a scandal that it is taking so long for this to happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A repeat of the Berlin airlifts of 1948 and 1949 would require a unity of political will that doesn’t exist in the west – at least, not yet.Claudia Milena Adler, Lecturer in Humanitarianism and Deputy programme director of MSc in International Humanitarian Affairs, University of YorkAbdullah Yusuf, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2065192023-05-31T02:23:52Z2023-05-31T02:23:52ZApa penyebab fenomena ‘aurora borealis’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529050/original/file-20230530-17-mij25j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pemandangan yang sangat menakjubkan.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/8LCiq0PuPBI">Joshua Harvey/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p><strong>Apa yang menyebabkan fenomena <em>aurora borealis</em>? – Ffion, umur hampir 7 tahun, Pembrokeshire, Inggris.</strong></p>
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<p>Saya pertama kali melihat fenomena <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/northern-lights-14791"><em>aurora borealis</em> (cahaya kutub utara)</a> ini tiga tahun yang lalu, ketika sedang berkendara pulang ke rumah pada suatu malam. Cahaya tersebut sangat indah, saya harus menghentikan mobil dan keluar untuk melihat dengan jelas, meskipun saat itu cuaca sedang dingin. Meskipun cahaya utara terlihat seperti sihir, namun sebenarnya cahaya ini dapat dijelaskan oleh sains - dengan sedikit bantuan dari matahari, burung, dan minuman bersoda. </p>
<p>Energi yang menghasilkan cahaya utara ini berasal dari matahari. Matahari menciptakan sesuatu yang disebut “angin matahari”. Ini berbeda dengan cahaya yang kita dapatkan dari matahari yang membuat kita tetap hangat dan membantu kita melihat di siang hari.</p>
<p>Angin matahari ini bergerak menjauhi matahari melalui ruang angkasa, membawa partikel-partikel kecil yang disebut proton dan elektron. Proton dan elektron adalah blok bangunan kecil yang membentuk sebagian besar benda-benda di alam semesta seperti tanaman, cokelat, aku ,dan kamu.</p>
<p>Bayangkan balok-balok lego terkecil yang ada di dalam kotak mainanmu yang bisa disatukan untuk membuat sesuatu yang lebih besar - itulah proton dan elektron (dan juga neutron) di alam semesta. Partikel-partikel ini membawa banyak energi dari matahari dalam perjalanannya melintasi ruang angkasa.</p>
<h2>Angin matahari</h2>
<p>Terkadang angin matahari kuat dan bisa juga terkadang lemah. Kita hanya bisa melihat cahaya utara pada saat angin matahari cukup kuat.</p>
<p>Ketika angin matahari mencapai planet Bumi, sesuatu yang sangat menarik terjadi: angin matahari menabrak medan magnet Bumi. Medan magnet mendorong angin matahari menjauh dan membuatnya berputar mengelilingi Bumi.</p>
<p>Medan magnet inilah yang membuat jarum kompas menunjuk ke arah utara, dan merupakan cara burung-burung mengetahui ke mana harus pergi saat mereka bermigrasi - ini juga yang menyebabkan kita memiliki kutub utara dan selatan. </p>
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<p>Medan magnet berinteraksi dengan angin matahari dan memandu proton dan elektron menuju Bumi di sepanjang medan magnet menjauh dari tengah planet dan menuju kutub utara dan selatan.</p>
<p>Karena itu, kita mendapatkan cahaya kutub utara dan <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/southern-lights-15736">cahaya kutub selatan</a> - yang juga dikenal sebagai <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/aurora-borealis-14790"><em>aurora borealis</em></a> dan <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/aurora-australis-15735"><em>aurora australis</em></a>. </p>
<h2>Kenapa warna aurora borealis hijau?</h2>
<p>Ketika angin matahari melewati medan magnet dan bergerak menuju Bumi, angin tersebut masuk ke atmosfer. Atmosfer seperti selimut gas besar yang mengelilingi planet kita yang mengandung banyak partikel berbeda yang membentuk udara yang kita hirup dan membantu melindungi kita dari radiasi berbahaya dari matahari. </p>
<p>Ketika proton dan elektron dari angin matahari menabrak partikel-partikel di atmosfer Bumi, mereka melepaskan energi - dan inilah yang menyebabkan terjadinya cahaya utara. </p>
<p>Begini prosesnya: bayangkan kamu memiliki sebotol minuman bersoda, dan kamu mengocoknya. Hal ini akan memasukkan banyak energi ke dalam botol dan ketika kamu membukanya, energi ini akan dilepaskan dalam bentuk gelembung-gelembung bersoda. </p>
<p>Dengan cara yang sama, proton dan elektron dari matahari “mengguncang” partikel-partikel di atmosfer. Kemudian, partikel-partikel tersebut melepaskan semua energi itu dalam bentuk cahaya (bukan gelembung). </p>
<p>Jenis partikel yang berbeda di atmosfer menghasilkan warna yang berbeda setelah diguncang - oksigen menghasilkan cahaya merah dan hijau kemudian nitrogen menghasilkan cahaya biru. Mata kita melihat warna hijau paling baik dari semua warna, jadi kita melihat warna hijau paling terang saat melihat cahaya utara.</p>
<p>Paling mudah untuk melihat cahaya utara di musim dingin ketika sangat gelap di malam hari, dan juga di luar kota dan jauh dari lampu jalan. Kamu juga akan lebih mudah melihatnya jika kamu berada lebih jauh ke utara. Lihatlah situs web yang bagus <a href="https://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/">ini</a> dari Universitas Lancaster di Inggris - mungkin bisa membantu kamu menemukannya! </p>
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<p><em>Demetrius Adyatma Pangestu dari Universitas Bina Nusantara menerjemahkan artikel ini dari bahasa Inggris</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul O'Mahoney tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>‘Aurora borealis’ (cahaya kutub utara) mungkin terlihat seperti sihir. Sebenarnya, aurora bisa dijelaskan oleh sains – dan begini penjelasannya.Paul O'Mahoney, Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in Photobiology, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1969602023-01-05T06:18:02Z2023-01-05T06:18:02ZWhy happy rather than sad music soothes newborns – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502374/original/file-20221221-11-btvlsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C31%2C3431%2C2317&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/create/editor/CiQ3YWViMDAxNS1kMDMzLTQyZjktODJjOC00ZDBkNzYzZDMzZWI">OLHA TOLSTA/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music is the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12426066/">language of emotions</a>, arousing and regulating our feelings. For example, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18837617/">research has shown</a> that college students listen to music 37% of the time, and it fills them with happiness, elation or nostalgia during 64% of these sessions. </p>
<p>Children might have even greater exposure to music than adults do. Survey data shows that 54% of teachers in South Korea <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1554648/1/pecera_v11n2_05.pdf">use background music in schools</a>. We also know music is played as often as 6.5 times per hour <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03004430802396530">to help children’s learning</a> in US classrooms. </p>
<p>But how early do children develop a real appreciation for and understanding of music? Our recent study, <a href="https://rdcu.be/cZZx6">published in Psychological Studies</a>, suggests newborns may be rather musical, finding happy music soothing in particular.</p>
<p>This could be seen as surprising because, ultimately, culture plays a major role in when and how we understand music – it’s something we learn. Preschoolers, for example, are often unable to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735603031001325">pair pictures of happy or sad faces</a> with happy or sad music. Such ability usually develops later in childhood.</p>
<p>It has long been unclear whether newborns and young children feel emotions in music. But we know that newborns respond to aspects of music, such as its <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0809035106">beat</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8447246/">structure</a> as well as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842045/">consonance and dissonance</a>. </p>
<p>Young infants also love “motherese”, a very musical, melodic and slow type of speech that adults often adopt when talking to babies. Even those babies who can hear but were born to deaf parents (who don’t speak to them in this way) <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10442868/">pay attention to such speech</a> or maternal-style singing. </p>
<p>Some research suggests even foetuses seem to <a href="https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202007.0345/v1">respond to music</a>. One study has shown that when pregnant women at the 28th week of gestation <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4930451/">listen to their favourite songs</a>, their foetuses‘ heartbeats increase, even though the mothers show no change in their heart rates. </p>
<p>Other studies, however, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16171479/">have failed to find any such reaction</a> in foetuses. Music is often trialled to help prematurely born babies in neonatal intensive care units. But of the ten most rigorous studies with newborns in intensive care units, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29363098/">only half found any behavioural response</a> to music, such as reduced crying, stress or pain. And only half of the studies found any effect on heart rates or blood pressure. </p>
<p>That said, very few studies have looked at how healthy, full-term newborns react to music. And no studies have examined how they respond to emotions in music. </p>
<h2>Happy is calming</h2>
<p>Our team looked at how music affected healthy newborns, who were carried to term. First, we wanted to select a music piece that was really happy, and another that was really sad. </p>
<p>Two experimenters collected and listened to hundreds of lullabies and children’s songs and selected 25 of these that sounded happy or sad. Only six of these were sung in English (Simple Simon, Humpty Dumpty, Hey Diddle Diddle, Little Miss Muffet, Ding Dong Bell, Little Bo Beep) while the others were in various other languages. </p>
<p>A total of 16 adult participants helped to rate the 25 songs for their emotional content. A French lullaby entitled Fais Dodo (by Alexandra Montano and Ruth Cunningham) was found to be the saddest, while a German song, Das singende Känguru (by Volker Rosin), was ranked the happiest.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Saddest song in study.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Happiest song in study.</span></figcaption>
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<p>We played these two songs in random order – along with a silent control period – to 32 babies in a first experiment. We also analysed how 20 behaviours, such as crying, yawning, sucking, sleeping and limb movements changed millisecond by millisecond during the music pieces and the silence, respectively.</p>
<p>In a second experiment, we recorded the heart rates of 66 newborn infants while they were listening to these two songs or silence. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most striking results was that babies started to downshift to sleep during happy music, but not to sad music or when there was no music. Also, they showed a decrease in their heart rates during happy music but not during sad music or silent periods, suggesting they were getting calmer.</p>
<p>In response to both happy and sad music, babies also moved their eyes less frequently and and there were longer pauses between their movements compared with the silence period. This might mean that both types of music had some calming effect on the babies compared with no music, but happy music was the best.</p>
<p>Our results suggests that newborns thus do react to emotions in music, and that responses to music are present at birth. Earlier, we worked with foetuses and found that second and third trimester foetuses <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33831801/">respond when their mum is talking</a>. So listening to talking, singing and music may pre-shape babies’ responses to music in the womb. </p>
<p>Traditionally, lullabies are sung by the caretakers, usually the mothers. Such singing is very personal and emotional. Mothers who come to our lab, often tell us that long forgotten lullabies they heard from their own mothers and grandmothers, suddenly come to their memory when singing to their own babies. </p>
<p>The mothers’ emotions when singing likely shapes their babies‘ responses to music.
Even with healthy babies, there is always a need for a soothing intervention as they cry on average for about two hours a day in the first weeks of life.</p>
<p>Soothing by music, played or sung, is widespread throughout the world and across times for a reason. Babies are born with an innate musicality and sensitively respond to music. And now we know that it is happy, animated and fast music that particularly resonates with their psychological and physical rhythms – enabling soothing, calming and sleeping.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emese Nagy received funding from the Leverhulme Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the British Academy and the Nuffield Foundation. </span></em></p>Newborns are more musical than previously thought.Emese Nagy, Reader of Psychology, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1721912021-12-16T12:06:54Z2021-12-16T12:06:54ZHere’s why we need climate protests: even if some think they’re annoying<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436949/original/file-20211210-188518-70utf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3489%2C2326&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestors march in Glasgow during the UN climate conference COP26.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/theleft_eu/51658441637">TheLeft_EU/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The last few years have seen a surge in climate protests. From <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2019/10/24/legacy-of-gezi-protests-in-turkey-pub-80142">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2019/10/20/737787659/activists-occupy-an-ancient-forest-in-germany-to-save-it">Germany</a> to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/north-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-protests-explainer">US</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/world/australia/surfers-drilling-bight.html">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/542052316/hundreds-protest-against-total-across-africa">countries across Africa</a>, local activists have fought corporate actions that threaten to destroy precious green space and accelerate global warming. </p>
<p>Consider the <a href="https://www.glasgowworld.com/news/people/cop26-global-day-of-action-protest-march-in-pictures-3447961">protest march</a> that took place in Glasgow on 6 November 2021, during the UN climate conference COP26. As a huge range of different groups marched together to demand action on global warming, they waved banners drawing attention to issues such as greenwashing, housing crises and trade unions.</p>
<p>Through taking part in this march, <a href="https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5125">protesters</a> may have begun to see themselves as belonging to a wider, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430220936759#">shared identity</a> – one that specifically stood in opposition to climate destruction. This identity was reinforced by songs and chants, such as the words “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYS9sNlj1bQ&ab_channel=clarissal">power to the people</a> because the people have the power”, that rippled out across groups along the march route.</p>
<p>This inclusive identity, based on fighting inequality, could also be seen in the solidarity between climate protesters at COP26 and <a href="https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/19690670.extinction-rebellion-stand-glasgow-binmen-third-day-cop26-strikes/">binmen</a> striking for better pay.</p>
<h2>Long-term benefits</h2>
<p>People who reduce their plastic use, use low-carbon transport like bicycles and eat a plant-based diet are often called “environmentalists” as a result of their behaviour. Interestingly, this relationship could also run in reverse.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People at a climate protest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protests can help people develop valuable social skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TAG_Climate_Protest_Future.jpg">Thomas Good/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perceiving yourself as part of the “environmentalist” <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-98657-000">social category</a> – by identifying the environmentally friendly beliefs you share with that group – could help drive sustainable behaviour, crucial in the face of climate change. </p>
<p>However, for these behaviours to really have any influence, our research suggests they need to <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjso.12270">endure over time</a>. For that to happen, it’s important to have the opportunity to express your new shared identity in different social contexts. </p>
<p>This can be achieved by forming relationships with others who consider themselves part of an environmental community, increasing the prominence of environmental issues in your life and therefore the chance that your sustainable behaviour will continue behind closed doors.</p>
<p>Based on ours and others’ research on psychological change and collective action, it seems that what benefits protesters also benefits society. When protesters encourage reducing consumption and becoming more climate-conscious, we all – along with the environment – <a href="https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5125">profit</a> from it.</p>
<h2>Taking action</h2>
<p>Some have suggested that protests can <a href="https://www.independent.ie/news/environment/greta-made-me-cry-but-climate-change-protests-risk-alienating-public-mary-robinson-38618785.html">alienate people</a> through, for example, actions which disrupt daily life (creating traffic jams receives particular criticism). And politicians have called protests <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband-blasts-counterproductive-insulate-25207626">counterproductive</a>, while emphasising that “real work” on climate happens within conferences and boardrooms. </p>
<p>But we’d argue that protests are an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023120925949">effective tool</a>, even when they’re disruptive. Seeing others take action increases our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328716301422?via%3Dihub">hope for the future</a> as well as offering an opportunity for <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12786">vicarious empowerment</a> – motivating people in other places to take similar action, even when they haven’t physically participated in the original protests.</p>
<p>By seeing protests, directly or through media, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00004/full">bystanders</a> can come to identify with protesters, possibly increasing their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494421001006?via%3Dihub">belief</a> in their own power to cause social change. </p>
<p>This can create a positive feedback loop. Researchers have found that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/socf.12422">emissions decrease</a> in US states with large numbers of environmental protests. Polling from <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/11/09/concern-environment-reaches-record-high-yougov-top">YouGov</a> also reported a significant rise in the number of British people concerned about climate following Extinction Rebellion’s early 2019 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/07/extinction-rebellion-protesters-block-road-outside-downing-street">protests</a> in London.</p>
<p>Protests can also help achieve <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/128/4/1633/1849540">policy change</a> if the policy being protested is already under public discussion – and if protesters have <a href="https://meridian.allenpress.com/mobilization/article-abstract/12/1/53/82105/Useless-Protest-A-Time-Series-Analysis-of-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext">support from politicians</a>. And in countries where politicians are elected based on public opinion, protests that increase environmental awareness can <a href="https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wcc.683">encourage change</a> through altering people’s voting habits. </p>
<p>For example, it’s likely that climate <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58681515">protests</a> across Germany helped in part to double the number of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-global-warming-changing-just-climate-s-changing-politics-rcna3571">voters</a> for the climate-conscious <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20210922-from-radical-to-mainstream-a-closer-look-at-germany-s-greens">Green Party</a> from 2017 to 2021. </p>
<p>Protests have even managed to change court decisions. Forest occupations in <a href="https://svenskbotanik.se/hur-ojnareskogen-raddades-och-bastetrask-blir-nationalpark/">Sweden</a> and <a href="https://energytransition.org/2018/10/in-a-win-for-the-environment-hambach-forest-stands-for-now/">Germany</a> resulted in courts saving the forests from destruction (for now). The value of protests should not be disregarded: they could have a larger effect than events behind closed doors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Finnerty is affiliated with Extinction Rebellion - XR Scientists. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Vestergren and Yasemin Gülsüm Acar do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joining a protest doesn’t just help attract others to supporting important causes - it comes with personal and psychological benefits too.Sara Vestergren, Lecturer in Psychology, Keele UniversitySamuel Finnerty, PhD Student in Social Psychology, Lancaster UniversityYasemin Gülsüm Acar, Lecturer in Psychology, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1723132021-11-24T14:39:36Z2021-11-24T14:39:36ZNigeria’s food inflation: losers, winners and a possible solution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433182/original/file-20211122-27-1y3svoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The World Bank says Nigeria's surging inflation had pushed an estimated seven million citizens below poverty line in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent inflation numbers from Nigeria are creating serious concern over the <a href="https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/factsheets/factsheet-whats-behind-nigerias-rising-cost-living">rising cost</a> of food items in the country. But this is not Nigerians’ first encounter with food prices running hot, as the spikes <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-16/rising-food-costs-add-to-misery-of-nigeria-s-high-unemployment">date back</a> roughly two decades.</p>
<p>Between January 2003 and August 2021, the food inflation rate has raced to three major peaks. The first and highest was about <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15140326.2020.1743103">38%</a> in August 2005, more than 16 years ago. </p>
<p>The second, about <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718574.001.0001/acprof-9780198718574-chapter-13">21%</a>, was in July 2008. The third – the second-highest in 20 years – was about <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/04/22/nigerians-lament-rising-cost-of-living-as-food-prices-soar-inflation-at-4-year-high//">23%</a> in March 2021. </p>
<p>Many Nigerians believe that either the rising dollar or middlemen, or both, are to blame.</p>
<p>But there is another factor at the root of the problem: the average cost of transporting food from the comparatively more productive Northern states to least-producing Southern states within the country. Efficient transport infrastructure and local refining of fuel are key to solving the problem. </p>
<h2>Crunching the numbers</h2>
<p>I obtained and used <a href="https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/elibrary/read/1241097">monthly data</a> for the period from January 2017 to August 2021 from the National Bureau of Statistics. </p>
<p>The data relates to prices of 43 frequently consumed food items in Nigeria, including gari (cassava flour), rice, maize, beans, red oil, vegetable oil, meat, chicken, eggs, potatoes, yam and fish. It covers the 36 states in the country, including the federal capital.</p>
<p>I observed that all the states with the lowest food prices are in the north (Kano, Katsina, Gombe, Kebbi, Niger) and all the states with the highest food prices are in the south (Imo, Anambra, Rivers, Enugu, Bayelsa).</p>
<p>It’s clear that the north ‘feeds’ the south. But the north is not able to feed itself equally well. More than 25 million people (22% of the population) in the north are unable to spend roughly N200 (US$0.48) per day on food, compared to just 4 million (4% of the population) in the south. </p>
<p>I based my calculations on household-level welfare information collected by the national bureau of statistics between September 2018 and October 2019, and an annual food poverty line of N81,767 (US$198). </p>
<p>In doing so, I considered owned-food production, that is food not bought from the market but farmed and consumed by the poor. This is in order to account for food items farmers may cultivate directly for their consumption. </p>
<p>Farmers in the north are not benefiting (or seeing their incomes rise) as a result of rising food prices. Inflation is not transferring wealth from states that don’t produce food to states that do. Other factors such as the cost of imported petroleum products is mopping up the rise in prices.</p>
<h2>Winners and losers</h2>
<p>Rising average diesel prices in cheap-food states are linked to rising food prices in expensive-food states. Within the study period, diesel prices have risen by a national average of 67%. </p>
<p>Regionally, food items are usually transported on diesel-powered vehicles rather than petrol-powered vehicles. Since vehicles transporting food items from the north to the south will usually fill their fuel tanks in the north, it is plausible to compare diesel prices in the north with food prices in the south.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433087/original/file-20211122-25-qs7b2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author using data from the National Bureau of Statitstics, Nigeria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The recent sharp, steady spike in food prices started in August 2019. Nationally, between this period and August 2021, average food prices rose by roughly 18%, but lower in the north (8%) and highest in the south: 25%. </p>
<p>Apparently, the south is driving the rise in national food prices. It contributes 78% to the overall increase. </p>
<p>This fact, along with the diesel price connection, shows that the cost of transport is the culprit. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433088/original/file-20211122-15-5mklti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author using data from the National Bureau of Statitstics, Nigeria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The chart above shows the relationship between the average fuel prices in five Nigerian states with the lowest food prices and the cost of food items in five Nigerian states with the highest average food prices. </p>
<p>It indicates a strong positive link between the two variables. For instance, an additional one Naira in the price of diesel in the north is expected to result in an additional five Naira in average food prices in the south.</p>
<p>Consumers of food items transported from the north to the south are paying a substantial part of the food inflation burden. They are the ‘losers’. But that doesn’t mean the northern farmers are winners. </p>
<p>Food prices in the south are higher than food prices in the north by an amount almost equivalent to the cost of transporting the food items from the north to the south. </p>
<p>Therefore, the likely winners may be living outside Nigeria: the oil marketers and those supplying refined petroleum products to Nigeria. About <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/07/18/a-look-at-fuel-importation-with-pib/">80%</a> of the country’s diesel is imported. </p>
<h2>Rise of the dollar</h2>
<p>Many Nigerians have the view that the depreciating value of their local currency is responsible for food inflation. </p>
<p>There is some truth in this claim. Based on a <a href="https://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/nada/index.php/catalog/68">2019 survey</a> by the national bureau of statistics, 32% of Nigerian households reported buying imported rice. The price of imported rice will rise with the rising value of the dollar. </p>
<p>Based on my own calculations using data from the national bureau of statistics, I found that locally cultivated food items are responsible for 85% of the surge in food prices between August 2019 and September 2021. Imported food items are not driving up the food inflation rate, as foreign rice accounts for just about 2% of the food inflation.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>There are two ways to address food inflation in Nigeria. First, close the inter-regional price differences by setting up a more efficient transport system that connects the two major regions of the country. </p>
<p>One of the ongoing railroads projects in the country, linking Nigeria’s two commercial capitals – Lagos in the south and Kano in the north – is a welcome development. </p>
<p>Second, since Nigeria imports over <a href="https://www.pwc.com/ng/en/assets/pdf/nigerias-refining-revolution.pdf">80%</a> of its petroleum products, local pump prices must be divorced from changes in international oil prices if they are to be kept stable.</p>
<p>One way to do this is for the country to refine its fuel needs locally. This brings to fore the forthcoming <a href="https://www.esi-africa.com/regional-news/west-africa/worlds-largest-oil-refinery-project-to-help-meet-nigerias-oil-demands/">Dangote refinery</a>, which is expected to be the largest in the world. If it succeeds, it will play a key role in revamping Africa’s largest economy. It will <a href="https://thenationonlineng.net/the-nigerian-economy-to-rise-from-the-ashes-by-2030/">raise</a> Nigeria’s external reserves by replacing imports of refined petroleum products that cost about $7-$10 billion annually.</p>
<p>However, there are two vital questions that Dangote, the federal government of Nigeria and their deal makers must answer. First, the refinery is expected to pump and refine <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/06/06/news/economy/nigeria-dangote-energy-oil-refinery/index.html">650,000 barrels</a> of crude oil per day. Will it pay for the oil in dollars? Otherwise, the refinery will cut Nigeria’s flow of foreign exchange by over $60 billion annually. This is based on my estimate using data on oil prices and oil production.</p>
<p>Second, how will the pump price be set? If the government steps back from its refining business and therefore stops setting the pump price as it is currently doing, Mr Dangote could possibly rule the Nigerian oil market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zuhumnan Dapel 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.</span></em></p>Food inflation figures in Nigeria give cause for concern. Accusing fingers are pointed at rising dollars, farmers and middlemen, but this expert says the can may have been placed on the wrong heads.Zuhumnan Dapel, Fellow at the Center for Global Development at the Scottish Institute for Research in Economics, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1640032021-07-19T22:04:15Z2021-07-19T22:04:15ZTenir un journal : un moyen de mieux apprendre une langue étrangère ?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411855/original/file-20210719-21-e192i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C68%2C1911%2C1207&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Avec la tenue d'un journal, l'apprentissage des règles de grammaire prend plus de sens aux yeux des étudiants.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/fr-fr/photo/femme-creatif-cahier-stylo-4350173/">Ketut Subiyantot/ Pexels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nous sommes nombreux à éprouver des difficultés à apprendre une langue étrangère. Assimiler le vocabulaire et les règles de grammaire exige des compétences précises ; il faut, en outre, être capable de converser couramment avec un locuteur natif. Alors, comment apprend-on réellement une autre langue ? Quelle est la meilleure méthode ? Et comment les enseignants peuvent-ils aider leurs élèves à en mémoriser les aspects les plus complexes ?</p>
<p>Les adultes ont besoin de s’appuyer sur des <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-teach-children-a-second-language-new-research-produces-surprising-results-122059">bases explicites</a> pour apprendre : il leur faut des explications claires sur les points qui leur posent problème, et lever les incertitudes. Ils analysent les éléments de la nouvelle langue et établissent des liens à partir de leurs propres connaissances linguistiques. Nous avons tous recours à ces <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Metalinguistic-Awareness-and-Second-Language-Acquisition-1st-Edition/Roehr-Brackin/p/book/9781138958876">processus d’apprentissage explicite hautement développés</a>, souvent acquis au prix de beaucoup de temps et d’effort.</p>
<p>Néanmoins, les étudiants ont besoin de techniques à même de les aider à surmonter les défis d’apprentissage, y compris ceux engendrés par la pandémie de <a href="https://www.all-languages.org.uk/guidance-on-the-covid-aware-languages-classroom/">Covid-19</a>, qui a mis fin à l’enseignement en classe.</p>
<p>Lors de nos <a href="https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/el-uso-de-diarios-como-herramienta-pedag%C3%B3gic-para-explorar-la-co-2">recherches</a>, nous avons constaté que la tenue d’un journal transformait une bonne méthode pédagogique en expérience plus concrète, plus immédiate, en permettant aux élèves de revoir les étapes d’apprentissage au fil de leurs écrits.</p>
<h2>Une boîte à outils pédagogique</h2>
<p>Dans le cadre de notre enquête, nous nous sommes intéressées à un groupe d’étudiants inscrits à des cours du soir d’espagnol dans une université écossaise. L’objectif visait à déterminer la façon dont ils appréhendaient la langue en cours d’acquisition en se basant sur leur langue source (l’anglais).</p>
<p>Sur quoi se concentraient-ils dans l’apprentissage de l’espagnol ? Quels aspects de la langue avaient-ils attiré leur attention ? Comment expliquaient-ils les notions apprises, pour eux-mêmes ou entre eux, et quels liens établissaient-ils avec leur langue maternelle ?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1392384548269215749"}"></div></p>
<p>Nous avons introduit le journal pédagogique comme exercice de fin de session, au sein de trois classes de 38 élèves. Les étudiants devaient répondre à deux questions : qu’ont-ils appris durant la leçon ? Quelles différences et similarités ont-ils remarquées entre leur langue maternelle et l’espagnol ?</p>
<p>Les questions étaient toujours les mêmes. Les étudiants étaient libres de commenter, d’analyser, de réfléchir sur le contenu des leçons. Il leur revenait de choisir le sujet de discussion abordé dans leur journal, l’enseignant n’essayant pas de les orienter vers des éléments spécifiques de linguistique ou de culture.</p>
<p>À la fin de la période d’expérimentation fixée pour ce journal pédagogique, nous avons organisé un groupe de discussion pour cerner impact de l’outil. Nous cherchions surtout à savoir si, aux yeux des étudiants, le journal avait influencé leur performance et amélioré leur confiance en eux dans la pratique de cette nouvelle langue.</p>
<h2>Paroles d’étudiants</h2>
<p>Les journaux pédagogiques ont illustré leur capacité d’analyse linguistique des étudiants. Ceux-ci ont identifié les fautes de langue courantes que les anglophones (principalement) commettent en espagnol, décrit le fonctionnement de la langue étrangère, comme celui de leur langue maternelle, et transcrit les règles de grammaire qui s’appliquent dans les deux langues, ainsi que ce qui les différencie l’une de l’autre :</p>
<blockquote>
<p>« En espagnol, “me gusta/n” signifie “ça me plaît” ou “Ils/elles me plaisent” ou, littéralement, “À moi ça plaît”, le “ça” représentant l’objet de la phrase. C’est un concept plutôt difficile à appréhender. »</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Les étudiants ont semblé prendre plaisir à décrire ce qu’ils avaient compris et assimilé ; ils ont trouvé agréable d’apprendre par comparaison avec leur langue maternelle. À en croire leurs textes, ces connexions les ont aidés à mémoriser leurs leçons. Les journaux ont par ailleurs permis d’initier des débats en classe et de discuter de leurs méthodes d’apprentissage :</p>
<blockquote>
<p>« Le journal […] m’a aidé à retenir les couleurs. Je trouvais plus facilement la réponse en espagnol quand je me répétais (en boucle) la question “C’est quoi, cette couleur ?” »</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nous avons toutefois eu la surprise de constater que les étudiants n’abordaient aucun sujet culturel dans leur journal. Les leçons contenaient à dessein des éléments de culture issus du monde hispanophone dans son ensemble, du <a href="https://dayofthedead.holiday/">Jour des Morts</a> mexicain aux célébrations de Pâques, à Madrid.</p>
<p>Leurs réflexions se sont, semble-t-il, cantonnées au spectre linguistique en se concentrant sur les différences entre les langues, comme le concept du genre en espagnol et la façon de déterminer le genre d’un mot. Il apparaît que les journaux ont surtout servi d’outil de consolidation dans leur apprentissage de la langue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411856/original/file-20210719-23-y3n9xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Les journaux renforcent la capacité d’analyse linguistique des étudiants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/fr-fr/photo/gens-art-hommes-femmes-6895808/">cottonbro/Pexels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Les réponses à la première question (relative à ce qu’ils avaient retenu de la leçon du jour) se recoupaient très peu entre les trois groupes, un élément plutôt inattendu puisque chaque leçon disposait d’objectifs pédagogiques spécifiques, énoncés en début de cours comme il se doit en matière de bonne pratique d’enseignement.</p>
<p>Ce résultat en lui-même nous a amenés à réfléchir sur l’évolution de l’enseignement personnalisé des langues à mesure que les étudiants progressent. Les élèves ont visiblement retenu toute une variété d’informations, qui ne sont tout bonnement pas prévisibles.</p>
<p>Ces découvertes, basées sur la façon dont les étudiants analysent la langue, pourraient aider à façonner l’enseignement et l’apprentissage de demain. Nous avons constaté en particulier que les journaux pédagogiques permettaient aux étudiants de cerner plus précisément leurs points d’intérêt et de mettre en lumière leur capacité de réflexion sur leurs propres connaissances afin d’affiner leur apprentissage.</p>
<p>À la fin de l’expérience, les étudiants ont souhaité maintenir cet exercice. Ils y ont trouvé un réel bénéfice dans la compréhension de la langue et de ses mécanismes, ainsi que dans l’assimilation du vocabulaire espagnol au fil de leur progression. Pour les enseignants impliqués, les journaux ont fourni un excellent initiateur de débats et offert un outil pratique pour l’enseignement des langues.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Traduit de l’anglais par Mathilde Montier pour <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr">Fast ForWord</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Comment ne pas se contenter de répéter des listes de vocabulaire mais devenir vraiment acteur de ses apprentissages ? Présentation d’une méthode testée en temps de pandémie.Argyro Kanaki, Lecturer in Education, University of DundeeSusana Carvajal, Lecturer in Language, School of Humanities, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1626352021-06-29T12:55:41Z2021-06-29T12:55:41ZClimate change: as mountain regions warm, hydroelectric power plants may be vulnerable<p>Around 27 million cubic metres of rock and glacier ice collapsed from Ronti Peak in the northern Indian Himalayas on February 7 2021, falling 1,800 metres into the valley below. The glacier ice melted as it cascaded down the mountain, mixing with rock and sediment to generate an <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/09/science.abh4455">extraordinary flow of debris</a> that destroyed roads, bridges and two hydroelectric power stations. Tragically, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-chamoli-disaster-mystery-solved-avalanche-glacier-flood-2021-6?r=US&IR=T">more than 200 people</a> are believed to have lost their lives, many of them construction workers at the Tapovan hydropower plant. </p>
<p>Though it’s always difficult to attribute any single event to climate change, rising global temperatures may have played a part in this event, known as the Chamoli disaster. And if climate change helped cause this landslide, it could threaten hydropower infrastructure globally.</p>
<p>Mountain regions like the Himalayas are sensitive to change. These environments tend to have steep, unstable valley walls, and earthquakes are relatively common. But climate change can tip the scales towards more frequent and higher magnitude events. </p>
<p>For example, we might expect more landslides where valley slopes are left without support, as adjacent glaciers thin and recede. Where permafrost thaws, it removes the icy cement that binds mountain rock and sediment together. Rising temperatures can prompt the sudden release of meltwater from growing <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolivias-fast-melting-glaciers-are-leaving-behind-lakes-that-could-cause-catastrophic-floods-67396">glacial lakes</a>, and the <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/1751/2021/">collapse of entire glaciers</a> as they warm up. </p>
<p>So should we be nervous about developing hydropower in mountain regions if these landscapes are becoming more unstable? Well, it’s complicated. Hydropower can help reduce dependence on burning fossil fuels, and it is particularly important in the world’s high-altitude regions. Peru, for example, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610216310335?via%3Dihub">generates around half</a> of its electricity from hydropower, and it <a href="https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/peru">continues to invest</a> in new infrastructure. </p>
<p>While disasters inevitably provoke difficult questions, it’s important to keep some perspective on the sustainability of hydropower.</p>
<h2>Hydropower in a warming world</h2>
<p>As one of my colleagues <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57446224">put it</a>: “Sometimes bedrock slopes just fail; there’s no specific trigger.” There are well-documented incidents where hydropower dams have been damaged or destroyed without any link to climate change. An infamous example is the <a href="https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2008/12/11/the-vaiont-vajont-landslide-of-1963/">1963 Vajont disaster</a> in northern Italy, where a valley wall slid into a reservoir and generated a mega-tsunami that engulfed the impounding dam, killing more than 2,500 people downstream. </p>
<p>The precise causes have been debated since, but it is thought that as the reservoir was being filled with water, clay-rich layers in the valley side were saturated. This wet clay would have served as a naturally weak plane along which the landslide could move. </p>
<p>Other energy sources and their infrastructure carry their own inherent risks – think the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, or the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig. Many of the world’s power stations are vulnerable to climate change because of their proximity to the coast, with many <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-energy-isnt-a-safe-bet-in-a-warming-world-heres-why-163371">threatened by rising sea levels</a>.</p>
<p>It may never have been wise to develop hydropower at the site of the Chamoli disaster. This same valley had experienced large ice avalanches in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/09/science.abh4455">2000 and 2016</a> and has seen several major floods in recent years. It is of course extremely difficult to predict if, when and where these sorts of events might occur, but this is evidently an unstable landscape. </p>
<p>Scientists have developed a <a href="https://www.gaphaz.org/files/Assessment_Glacier_Permafrost_Hazards_Mountain_Regions.pdf">number of ways</a> to monitor how landscapes are changing, particularly using satellite images. We have the tools to spot warning signs and develop hydropower as safely as can be reasonably expected. Tragically though, these tools are not always used, or the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/3/19/hydropower-projects-are-wrecking-havoc-in-the-himalayas">warnings are ignored</a>, as seems to have been the case at Chamoli.</p>
<p>There is a cruel irony that hydropower can help countries reduce carbon emissions at the same time as dams are becoming increasingly vulnerable in a climate warming as a result of those emissions. We can develop this energy source safely, but it requires careful decision making, informed by research, and with continued monitoring of changing landscapes and the climate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Cook receives funding from the Newton-Paulet Fund. </span></em></p>Dams built in an earlier age are suddenly vulnerable as the climate shifts.Simon Cook, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Change, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1630352021-06-29T12:42:48Z2021-06-29T12:42:48ZMany of us feel ‘empty’ – understanding what it means is important for improving our mental health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408839/original/file-20210629-17-71tye3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C4937%2C3276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many of us may have described feeling 'empty' before.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/thoughtful-girl-sitting-on-sill-embracing-793940824">fizkes/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s likely you have felt “empty” at some point in your life – or perhaps you’ve heard someone else describe themselves in that way. But while this might be a relatively common feeling, it’s often not spoken about as a symptom of mental health difficulties. Typically, “feelings of emptiness” are only considered as a symptom of borderline personality disorder – a mental health condition characterised by challenges with emotions, relationships to others, and feelings of chronic emptiness.</p>
<p>But, after coming across many people who reported “feeling empty” when accessing mental health services in Scotland, our research team wanted to know more about the feeling, which was rarely mentioned in mental health research. We began asking the people we interviewed whether they had ever felt this way.</p>
<p>This began a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09638237.2021.1922645">four-year project</a> which involved listening to the perspectives of more than 400 people. We wanted to shed light on how common it is for people to feel empty, and why it’s important for researchers and clinicians to start paying attention to this feeling. Our research has allowed us to provide the first ever definition of emptiness based on the descriptions of people who experienced it first hand. This has not only shown the importance of this feeling, but also makes future research possible.</p>
<h2>‘A bottomless jug’</h2>
<p>We spoke to more than 400 people aged 18 to 80 who had reported feeling empty at some point in their lives – some rarely, some all the time. We asked them to complete an online survey where they described what it was like to feel this way.</p>
<p>This resulted in hundreds of emotive, first-hand accounts. Some described feeling empty as being “a kind of bottomless jug that can never be filled” and “a feeling of othering and separation from society” that “sucks all of the life and energy out of you”.</p>
<p>As one participant told us, emptiness is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you feel like everything you do is pointless and you’re just going through the motions. Just trying to fill in the time until you die. Sometimes you have fun or something good happens which can distract you for a while, but ultimately there is a hollowness inside which never goes away. It’s as if you’re transparent and anything positive like love or joy just passes right through you without sticking and afterwards it feels like it was never there at all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others spoke of motivation levels “at complete zero”, and another said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It felt as though I wasn’t fully part of the world, I couldn’t feel anything and nothing I did made an impact on events or other people, I ‘existed’ but I wasn’t ‘alive’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interestingly, half of participants had never struggled with a mental health difficulty – showing us that emptiness is not only experienced by people who have received a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but that it can be experienced by people with and without mental health problems.</p>
<p>We also identified a strong link between feeling empty often and suicidal thoughts and behaviours, with those who felt empty all of the time more likely to have thought about or attempted suicide. </p>
<p>And, despite never having been given a definition of what was meant by emptiness – and instead asked to speak from their own perspective – hundreds of participants described the same feeling. We found that emptiness was characterised by a sense of inner void, coupled with lack of purpose in life and a sense of disconnection to the people in their lives and the world around them. This left people feeling that they were “going through the motions”, and not able to contribute to the world and their lives as they would like. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Elderly man sitting at a table, looking tired and depressed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408840/original/file-20210629-20-dbswyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Having a definition for emptiness will make it easier to help those with this feeling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-age-man-feel-lonely-depressed-253039792">Photographee.eu/ Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This research has now resulted in the first definition of emptiness based on people’s personal accounts which has been published in a scientific journal. Our hope is that this will make it easier for clinicians to ask people about emptiness, and for researchers to start investigating this feeling which has previously been neglected in our conversations about mental health.</p>
<h2>Widespread feeling</h2>
<p>Our findings lead us to believe emptiness is far more widespread than previously recognised. Feelings of emptiness can be experienced by anyone, regardless of their mental health history – and for some it can be chronic and life threatening. This experience is clearly complex, impacting every aspect of a person’s life and relationships. </p>
<p>Until now, emptiness has received little attention from mental health researchers. But our research has now given a new definition to this feeling, and has highlighted the seriousness of this experience for the people who are effected. Our research also suggests that it might be time to change the way we think about mental health, distress and the support offered – as many people struggle with emptiness, regardless of whether they’ve been diagnosed with a mental health condition or not.</p>
<p>But there’s still lots we don’t know. For example, why do people feel empty – and why do some feel more empty than others? What can we do about it? Answering these questions is likely to have a big impact for many people. By understanding what emptiness is, how it develops, and how to support people who feel this way, lives may be made more meaningful and deaths by suicide prevented.</p>
<p>The next step of this research will involve developing a way of accurately measuring peoples’ experiences of emptiness, which help us in studying it, and may ultimately help reduce the suffering caused by this complex feeling. </p>
<p><em>If you’ve been affected by anything in this article there are free helplines available to support you:</em></p>
<p><em>In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting <a href="https://www.mind.org.uk/">mind.org.uk</a></em></p>
<p><em>In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fabio Sani previously received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) for a number of projects broadly concerning social identity, group processes, and health. He is currently receiving funding from the Scottish Government for a project on the psychosocial determinants of non-fatal overdose among people who use drugs. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shona Joyce Herron 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.</span></em></p>Newly published research provides the first ever definition of what it means to feel ‘empty’ — a common struggle rarely recognised by health professionals.Shona Joyce Herron, Trainee Clinical Psychologist, UCLFabio Sani, Professor of Psychology, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1626382021-06-21T16:09:29Z2021-06-21T16:09:29ZWalter Scott at 250: so much more than a great historical novelist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407465/original/file-20210621-35700-qh5u0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3964%2C2616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/edinburgh-scotland-statue-sir-walter-scott-549525193">Ulmus Media/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wander through Edinburgh and you will find glimpses of Scotland’s most famous novelist, Walter Scott, everywhere: pubs named after characters or places in his books, his walking cane and slippers in The Writers’ Museum, and snippets of his work adorning the walkways of Waverley train station – named after his first and most famous novel. And just outside, towering over Princes Street Gardens, his statue stands beneath an elaborate monument affectionately dubbed the “Gothic Rocket”.</p>
<p>Built in 1840, eight years after his death at the age of 61, the <a href="https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/venue/scott-monument">Scott Monument</a> captures the immense regard in which Scotland held this international bestselling writer and son of Edinburgh. Scott’s adventurous historical stories, set against a dramatic backdrop of brooding mountains, dark lochs and lush glens, brought a vision of Scotland to the world that captured the popular imagination. The gripping tale of the Scottish outlaw Rob Roy has never been out of print since it was published in 1817.</p>
<p>As his friendly rival Jane Austen once quipped, Scott had two careers in literature. He quickly became Europe’s most famous poet in 1805 with the immediate success of his first narrative poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the tale of two lovers on opposite sides of a clad feud.</p>
<p>A 1810 book-length versification of King James V’s struggles with the powerful clan Douglas, <a href="http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/poetry/lady.html">The Lady of the Lake</a> would have secured his legacy on its own. Selling 25,000 copies in eight months, it broke records for poetry sales and brought its setting, the picturesque Loch Katrine and <a href="https://trossachs.co.uk/history/">the Trossachs</a>, to the attention of a fledgling tourism industry. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Stunning winter view of Loch Katrine in the Trossachs from the summit of Ben A'an" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407442/original/file-20210621-22-13xsjek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scott’s most famous poem Lady of the Lake is set around Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, and drew people to the area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/loch-katrine-ben-trossachs-scottish-highlands-737845405">Maybelmaleo/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big fat novels</h2>
<p>Scott also wrote songs and collected ballads for posterity, but after the success of his poetry, he turned to novel writing in his 40s. For nearly 20 years he produced a <a href="http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/index.html">series of fat novels</a>, which spread his reputation around the globe further still. Although dabbling in the <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/gothic-literature-2207825">gothic</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/picaresque-novel">picaresque</a> styles popular at the time, Scott favoured historical themes, not only set in Scotland but also England, France, Syria and elsewhere, as far back as the 11th century.</p>
<p>Nobody before Scott had devoted so much space to Scottish characters and interests, on such a massive scale – not even 18th-century novelist and poet <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tobias-Smollett">Tobias Smollett</a>. Scott traversed the Scotland of 14th-century Perthshire and the Highlands of 1745, and gave a voice to the lairds and rustics alike.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Picture of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh under a bright blue winter's sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407446/original/file-20210621-35232-3ui0j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edinburgh’s Scott Monument.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/scott-monument-edinburgh-scotland-561156250">PrakichTreetasayuth/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>These days, Scott’s writing has fallen out of fashion thanks in part to the sheer length of the novels. Arguably his best, The Heart of Midlothian still packs an emotional punch: Jeanie Deans walks from Edinburgh to London to obtain a royal pardon for her sister awaiting execution for the alleged murder of her baby. But, in keeping with the drawn-out journey, the story does suffer from slow pacing.</p>
<p>Waverley, Scott’s exploration of the <a href="https://www.visitscotland.com/about/history/jacobites/">Jacobite uprising of 1745</a>, lends itself to political as much as literary analysis. And while it delivers stunning set pieces, some of them featuring Bonnie Prince Charlie himself, its first few chapters drag a little. But Scott rewards loyal readers with rich historical detail and sublime settings.</p>
<h2>Master of the short story</h2>
<p>Fortunately for the casual reader, Scott was more than a novelist. He was also a master of the short story, and wrote 17 or so shorter fictions, many of which have been all but ignored by scholars who prioritise the major novels. Five of his best short pieces can now be read for free <a href="https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/walter-scott-ifive-short-storiesi-the-dundee-edition">online</a>.</p>
<p>Scott contributed at least two stories to Blackwood’s Magazine, the leading literary periodical in Edinburgh: The Alarming Increase of Depravity Among Animals and Phantasmagoria. The first is a sort of true-crime animal fable in which animals are complicit in wrongdoing; the second, a bizarre Gothic pastiche in which the narrator (a sentient shadow) is far more interesting than the benign story it offers.</p>
<p>Another, Wandering Willie’s Tale, is delivered by a blind piper, revolving around the grisly death of a despotic laird and some missing money. A hellish underworld, a demonic monkey, a blatantly biased narrator: such things make the story wildly unpredictable – and far removed from the grand jousts and royal intrigues found in his historical novels. </p>
<p>The Tapestried Chamber is an ingenious ghost story in which the ghost barely features, but it still sends shivers down the spine, such is Scott’s gift for building atmosphere through dialogue. Where novels seek closure, typically with happy endings, short stories can leave plotlines unresolved. Novels comfort us, short stories can confront.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IV7D3ZlG6oU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Although Scott is rarely thought of as a short story writer today, in 1827 he did produce a collection of short fiction, Chronicles of the Canongate, in which two standout pieces merit a wide audience: The Two Drovers and The Highland Widow. Here, Scott is perhaps at his most political, in the real sense: focused not on battles and courts but on everyday life.</p>
<p>The first follows a Highlander and a Yorkshireman on their journey south into an increasingly hostile environment. Initially their cultural differences are countered by a mutual love of music. But, tired of the casual xenophobia thrown at him, the Highlander kills his colleague. The suddenness of the act startles the reader, especially those used to the slower pacing of the novels.</p>
<p>The Highland Widow captures the conflicted mood of a young lad who, seeking better fortune, enlists in the Black Watch to the fury of his staunchly Gaelic mother. Drugging her son so he misses his appointment, she dooms him to military execution, and herself to a hermit-like existence. Although written in a sentimental style popular at the time, the story finds much to say about national tensions, military occupation, and cultural conflict in the lives of post-Union Scots.</p>
<p>For the modern reader Scott’s short stories are far bleaker than you might imagine, and they are all the more riveting for it. Gothic rocket indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Cook has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. </span></em></p>Best known for his big historical novels, Scott was also a bestselling poet and a fine short-story writer who brought a vivid portrayal of Scots and Scotland to the world.Daniel Cook, Reader in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1545972021-06-10T13:08:12Z2021-06-10T13:08:12ZHow keeping a diary can help adults learn a foreign language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405672/original/file-20210610-19-4alrvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4500%2C2984&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Using a diary in a language setting helps make learning concrete and more immediate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-blank-diary-pen-on-concrete-363708536">Danny/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most of us assume that learning another language is very difficult. You need special skills to remember both vocabulary and grammar rules and, at the same time, must be able to converse fluently with a native speaker. So how do we actually learn a language? What is the best way? And how can teachers help learners to remember the sometimes complex elements and characteristics of another language?</p>
<p>Adults <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-teach-children-a-second-language-new-research-produces-surprising-results-122059">learn explicitly</a>. That means they want clear explanations, and they also need to clarify things they are uncertain about. Adult learners analyse elements of a new language and make links using their own existing language knowledge. Everyone has, and uses, these highly developed <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Metalinguistic-Awareness-and-Second-Language-Acquisition-1st-Edition/Roehr-Brackin/p/book/9781138958876">explicit learning processes</a> which have often taken a lot of time and effort to develop.</p>
<p>But students need techniques to overcome learning challenges, including those presented by <a href="https://www.all-languages.org.uk/guidance-on-the-covid-aware-languages-classroom/">COVID</a>, which ended face-to-face teaching, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/03/brexit-putting-pupils-off-modern-foreign-languages">Brexit</a> which has made trips abroad and training placements much more difficult.</p>
<p>Through our <a href="https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/el-uso-de-diarios-como-herramienta-pedag%C3%B3gic-para-explorar-la-co-2">research</a>, we found that keeping a diary turns good teaching and learning practice into something more concrete and immediate by allowing students to replay their learning steps in their written entries.</p>
<h2>A teaching toolkit</h2>
<p>Our study examined a group of language learners studying Spanish as a foreign language in evening classes at a Scottish university. We wanted to find out how they explained and clarified the new language they were learning using their existing language (English). What did they focus on as they were learning Spanish? What language characteristics drew their attention? How did they explain what they were learning to themselves and others, and what links did they make with their mother tongue? </p>
<p>Working with three classes made up of 38 learners, we introduced learning diaries to the classroom as a task for the end of each language lesson. Students had to answer two questions: what they had learned in the lesson, and what differences and similarities had they noticed between their mother tongue and Spanish.</p>
<p>The questions remained the same for all their entries. Students were free to comment, analyse and reflect on the substance of the lessons. It was up to them to choose what to discuss in their diary – there was no effort on the part of the teacher to draw attention to specific linguistic or cultural elements of the language.</p>
<p>After using the learning diaries for a set period, a focus group interview was arranged to quiz students about the impact of these diaries. Chiefly we were interested in whether they felt using the diary had altered their performance and improved their confidence in speaking the new language.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of adults in a classroom setting, smiling at the teacher who is out of the frame." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405685/original/file-20210610-23-fbq31v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Using a diary after each lesson helped students consolidate what they had learned in class and reflect on the new language connections they had made.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/corporate-seminar-conference-team-collaboration-concept-394746307">rawpixel.coml/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How was it for you?</h2>
<p>Students’ learning diaries revealed how they used their analytic language ability. They identified common language errors that (mainly) English speakers make in Spanish. They described how the language worked in Spanish, as well as in English. They also noted and translated grammatical rules that apply in both languages, and also how things differed between the two:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Spanish ‘me gusta/n’ means ‘it is pleasing to me/they are pleasing to me’. Or literally, ‘to me it is pleasing’, the it/them being the object of the sentence. This is quite a difficult concept to understand. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Students seemed keen on writing a diary about their learning and understanding; they enjoyed learning by making connections with their mother tongue. According to their accounts, these connections helped them memorise what they were learning. The content of their diary entries was good for sparking discussions in the classroom and talking about how they learned things: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The diary … helped me memorise colours in Spanish and improved my chances of getting a Spanish reply when I [repeatedly] asked myself, ‘what colour is that?’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But we were surprised to find that students did not reflect on cultural matters in their diaries. Lessons had purposefully contained cultural elements from all over the Spanish speaking world, from the Mexican <a href="https://dayofthedead.holiday/">Day of the Dead</a> to Easter celebrations in Madrid.</p>
<p>The students’ reflections seemed to cover only the linguistic spectrum, focusing on distinctions between languages, such as the existence of genders in Spanish, and how you could guess the correct gender of a word. It appeared that the diaries were used specifically as a simple tool for tightening the nuts and bolts of language learning.</p>
<p>Their answers to the first question (about what they had learned in that day’s lesson) revealed very few similar answers across the three groups, which we were not expecting because each lesson had specific learning objectives. These were shared at the beginning of each session as a matter of good teaching practice. This result alone made us think about how personalised language learning becomes as students progress. Learners, it seems, take away a range of different elements from each lesson, which are simply not predictable. </p>
<p>Using these findings about how students analysed and reflected on language could help shape teaching and learning in future. Specifically, we can see that learning diaries allowed students to explore their own analytic skills, become aware of what particularly drew their interest, and illuminate how they reflected on their own knowledge to advance their comprehension and learning.</p>
<p>By the end, the students were keen to continue keeping a diary. They found it a really helpful way to make sense of language connections and memorise new Spanish words as they progressed. For the teachers involved, the diaries provided an excellent starting point for class discussions, and offered a practical toolkit for language teaching.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A post-lesson diary is a promising teaching tool which helps students reflect on language connections and replay their learning steps.Argyro Kanaki, Lecturer in Education, University of DundeeSusana Carvajal, Lecturer in Language, School of Humanities, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1612472021-05-21T14:11:54Z2021-05-21T14:11:54ZIEA report: world’s leading energy adviser was founded to protect oil supplies – now it wants to ban new fossil fuels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402116/original/file-20210521-23-1ntjlnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8500%2C5662&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/oil-field-site-evening-pumps-running-1330760627">Zhengzaishuru/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Established in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) was created to maintain the stability of the international oil supply. As an independent adviser to many governments on energy policy, the IEA has the authority to make member states release reserve oil stocks to stabilise prices. The agency has used that power on three occasions, most recently in response to the disruption to oil production in the US gulf caused by Hurricane Katrina.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050">recent report</a>, the IEA modelled how governments, energy companies and banks could meet the Paris agreement’s goal of halting global warming at 1.5°C. By sketching a road map of policy recommendations, the agency also revealed how energy generation globally could reach net zero emissions by 2050. </p>
<p>The IEA is no one’s idea of a radical voice on climate change. In fact, its ideas on reforming energy policy to meet this challenge have often erred on the side of caution and <a href="https://www.iea.org/topics/world-energy-outlook">favoured incremental change</a>. So it came as a surprise when the recent report called for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/no-new-investment-in-fossil-fuels-demands-top-energy-economist">an immediate ban</a> on new oil, coal and gas development. </p>
<p>With relatively conservative institutions like the IEA now calling time on new fossil fuel exploration, it’s safe to assume something big is underway in energy policy worldwide.</p>
<h2>Net zero emissions</h2>
<p>In the report’s most ambitious scenario for the transformation of energy, which details an overhaul of supply and demand and an unprecedented level of international cooperation, coal would be phased out completely by 2050. Demand for oil would reduce to 72 million barrels a day by 2030 – well below the nadir reached during the lockdowns of 2020. </p>
<p>Since the report claimed that “no new oil and gas fields are required”, oil majors like ExxonMobil can no longer refer to <a href="https://click.newsletters.ft.com/f/a/x87cin5rIjAOoGBjN5j9iw%7E%7E/AAAAAQA%7E/RgRiiMZCP0SDaHR0cHM6Ly9jb3Jwb3JhdGUuZXh4b25tb2JpbC5jb20vRW5lcmd5LWFuZC1pbm5vdmF0aW9uL091dGxvb2stZm9yLUVuZXJneS9PdXRsb29rLWZvci1FbmVyZ3ktQS1wZXJzcGVjdGl2ZS10by0yMDQwI1RoZUR1YWxDaGFsbGVuZ2VXCGZpbnRpbWVzQgpgpUVBpmBLU4oHUhR2cm9lYmVuQGR1bmRlZS5hYy51a1gEAAAAAA%7E%7E">the IEA</a> to project demand. It also spells the end for a “<a href="https://click.newsletters.ft.com/f/a/ikNaR1qADZRZk-3Z-pOIYQ%7E%7E/AAAAAQA%7E/RgRiiMZCP0RcaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaWVhLm9yZy9uZXdzL2llYS1zcGVjaWFsLXJlcG9ydC1leHBsb3Jlcy1wb3RlbnRpYWwtZm9yLWdvbGRlbi1hZ2Utb2YtbmF0dXJhbC1nYXNXCGZpbnRpbWVzQgpgpUVBpmBLU4oHUhR2cm9lYmVuQGR1bmRlZS5hYy51a1gEAAAAAA%7E%7E">golden age of gas</a>” which the IEA had enthused about only a decade ago. Oil prices would be expected to fall steeply, from US$35 (£25) a barrel in 2035 to US$24 in 2050. Per capita income in already vulnerable producer economies <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/outlook-for-producer-economies">such as Nigeria</a> could <a href="https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ad0d4830-bd7e-47b6-838c-40d115733c13/NetZeroby2050-ARoadmapfortheGlobalEnergySector.pdf">plunge by as much as 75%</a>. </p>
<p>To compensate, the report says that huge international investment will be needed to add 1,020 gigawatts of solar and wind power a year by 2030 – four times the 261 gigawatts <a href="https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Apr/IRENA_-RE_Capacity_Highlights_2021.pdf?la=en&hash=1E133689564BC40C2392E85026F71A0D7A9C0B91#:%7E:text=Renewable%20generation%20capacity%20increased%20by,energy%20increased%20by%20164%20MW">installed in 2020</a>. The battery capacity installed in electric vehicles would need to rise to 6,600 gigawatt hours in 2030, up from around 160 gigawatt hours today. Newly added nuclear energy capacity would hit 17 gigawatts a year up to 2030, and afterwards, 24 gigawatts a year – far more than even the World Nuclear Association – an international advocate for the industry – <a href="https://click.newsletters.ft.com/f/a/Uv-gOQy6WgEYPxelKNbb6g%7E%7E/AAAAAQA%7E/RgRiiMZCP0R1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud29ybGQtbnVjbGVhci5vcmcvaW5mb3JtYXRpb24tbGlicmFyeS9jdXJyZW50LWFuZC1mdXR1cmUtZ2VuZXJhdGlvbi9wbGFucy1mb3ItbmV3LXJlYWN0b3JzLXdvcmxkd2lkZS5hc3B4VwhmaW50aW1lc0IKYKVFQaZgS1OKB1IUdnJvZWJlbkBkdW5kZWUuYWMudWtYBAAAAAA%7E">expects</a>.</p>
<p>All this depends on rapid innovation to create technologies “not yet available on the market to be demonstrated very quickly at scale”, according to the IEA report. More than half of the emissions reductions the report foresees will depend on behavioural changes among the general public, including support for new cycle lanes and high-speed rail.</p>
<h2>A global energy transition</h2>
<p>The report indicates that the world is on the cusp of unprecedented change in national and international energy policy. This would represent much more than each state doing its duty under the Paris agreement to submit increasingly more ambitious emissions reductions pledges. </p>
<p>The IEA was conceived for the hydrocarbon age when energy was primarily subject to sovereignty. This has made the energy sector, more than many others, resistant to any centralising tendency. But if the agency’s founding mission was to coordinate government responses to oil supply instability, its conclusion that new oil and gas fields are surplus to requirement suggests the economists advising world leaders on the transition to sustainable energy may have found a new appetite for cooperation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A row of ground-mounted solar panels with a pylon in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402121/original/file-20210521-23-e5220t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The days of centralised energy reserves may be over.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/solar-panel-against-high-voltage-towers-160923935">C12/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While fossil fuels exist in highly centralised reserves, renewable generation, like wind and solar, is everywhere. Exploiting these sources globally will depend on countries developing and sharing green technology, operating electricity grids across borders and coordinating transnational energy markets. With this <a href="https://click.newsletters.ft.com/f/a/-W0BCl0-2vZZ5XuwwohcYg%7E%7E/AAAAAQA%7E/RgRiiMZCP0QsaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaWVhLm9yZy9yZXBvcnRzL25ldC16ZXJvLWJ5LTIwNTBXCGZpbnRpbWVzQgpgpUVBpmBLU4oHUhR2cm9lYmVuQGR1bmRlZS5hYy51a1gEAAAAAA%7E%7E">model</a>, the IEA is redefining itself as a clean energy hub, capable of governing the process. </p>
<p>Some countries have already <a href="https://click.newsletters.ft.com/f/a/-2BFE3_4gKsT5pwyWRVh4Q%7E%7E/AAAAAQA%7E/RgRiiMZCP0RpaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmV1dGVycy5jb20vYnVzaW5lc3MvZW5lcmd5L2FzaWEtc251YnMtaWVhcy1jYWxsLXN0b3AtbmV3LWZvc3NpbC1mdWVsLWludmVzdG1lbnRzLTIwMjEtMDUtMTkvVwhmaW50aW1lc0IKYKVFQaZgS1OKB1IUdnJvZWJlbkBkdW5kZWUuYWMudWtYBAAAAAA%7E">pushed back</a> against the IEA’s analysis and its call for cooperation. But each has its own obligations under international law to meet the 2015 Paris agreement’s demands. The report merely spells out a feasible pathway for all states to comply with them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Volker Roeben has received funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund.</span></em></p>The seismic changes to energy supply and demand during the pandemic could be just the beginning.Volker Roeben, Professor of Energy Law and Global Regulation, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1567772021-03-23T15:20:51Z2021-03-23T15:20:51ZRegrowing a tropical forest – is it better to plant trees or leave it to nature?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390123/original/file-20210317-17-1i4c0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7360%2C4263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thammanoon Khamchalee / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The destruction of tropical forest is a major contributor to biodiversity loss and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-tracked-300-000-trees-only-to-find-that-rainforests-are-losing-their-power-to-help-humanity-133122">climate crisis</a>. In response, conservationists and scientists like us are debating how to best catalyse recovery of these forests. How do you take a patch of earth littered with tree stumps, or even a grassy pasture or palm oil plantation, and turn it back into a thriving forest filled with its original species?</p>
<p>Foresters have traditionally relied on planting trees, which seems obvious enough. Yet this approach has attracted criticism from some <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01026-8">restoration ecologists</a>, who argue that planting and caring for young trees is expensive and an inefficient use of scarce resources. They also point out that the carbon locked up in growing trees is quickly released into the atmosphere if plantations are harvested and used for short-lived wood products such as paper or cardboard.</p>
<p>There are even some well-documented case studies where tree planting has had negative outcomes. For instance, when forest cover was expanded on the Loess Plateau in China, soil erosion increased and there was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618215002700">less water available for people and agriculture</a>. In Chile, subsidies for tree planting created a perverse incentive to plant trees instead of conserving natural forests. In the period between 2006 and 2011, the policy triggered a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0547-0">loss of natural forest cover</a> and no net change in the amount of carbon stored in trees across the country.</p>
<h2>Leave it to nature?</h2>
<p>The alternative approach is referred to as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2686-x?proof=t">natural regeneration</a>. This generally means protecting the area you want to regrow, perhaps with fences or new legislation, and then letting the forest recover spontaneously through dormant seeds lying buried in soil or with seeds dispersed by wind or animals.</p>
<p>Natural regeneration has many advantages: it requires limited infrastructure or technical know-how and is often cheap to implement. There is also widespread evidence that natural regeneration has been effective at catalysing the recovery of <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12709">forest biomass</a> and <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/5/e1501639">biodiversity</a>. It is tempting to view natural regeneration as a win-win solution for economic development and the environment.</p>
<p>But socio-ecological realities complicate this positive message. The critical first step is to secure the gains from any interventions, as both naturally regenerating and actively restored forest may continue to be degraded through over-harvesting if they are not protected. This requires the close participation of local communities and landowners in decision making, to ensure that the benefits and costs of forest restoration are distributed appropriately.</p>
<p>Natural regeneration often relies on animals to disperse the seeds. But in many tropical forests these animals, especially the larger birds and mammals that disperse the largest seeds, have been severely depleted by hunting. In the <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/11/e1501105.full">Atlantic forests of Brazil</a>, trees with larger seeds have more dense wood, and loss of large seed-dispersing mammals and birds such as tapirs and toucans may result in recovering forests becoming dominated by light-wooded trees which store less carbon. In south-east Asian rainforests, the dominant trees have winged seeds that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.1469">spin in the air over short distances</a>, and therefore can’t recolonise sites more than a few tens of metres away from a seed source</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A colourful bird sits on branch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390140/original/file-20210317-21-uify67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toucans use their big beaks to disperse seeds around Brazil’s Atlantic forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rafael Martos Martins / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tropical forests often regenerate naturally on abandoned lands distant from the original, untouched forests. Yet if limitations on seed dispersal mean they lack the tree species that were originally dominant, then these young forests will store carbon less quickly and become home to fewer animal species.</p>
<h2>A 20-year study</h2>
<p>So how does natural regeneration match up against a more active approach? We recently published the results of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/838.abstract">a 20-year study</a> that tried to address this question. After a tropical forest in Malaysia had been logged back in the 1980s and 1990s, our international team first measured how much carbon it still stored in its remaining trees. We then tracked carbon storage across two decades in areas that had been left to regenerate naturally, and adjacent patches that had been actively restored by tree planting and cutting back competitive weeds and climbers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390706/original/file-20210320-17-tgbska.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research assistant Ridly Mansau records tree trunk diameters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonny Royal / SEARRP</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When we compared the two, we found that the actively restored forest was storing carbon 50% faster than the forest left to regenerate naturally. This finding was supported by measuring the size and number of trees on the ground and by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320717310790">laser scanning the forest from an aeroplane</a>. </p>
<p>We don’t yet know how that increase was achieved. One possibility is that the planted trees filled the large gaps between the few large trees left by loggers, whereas equivalent patches in naturally regenerating forest were out of reach of natural seed dispersal. Greater spacing of young trees, combined with weeding out the competing vines and careful species selection, may have allowed them to grow faster and accumulate more carbon through time.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="plants grow in beds under a shady canopy" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389650/original/file-20210315-21-gvbgk5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rainforest tree seedlings are grown in a nursery before being planted in the restored forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonny Royal / SEARRP</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The restoration treatment was expensive, costing about US$1,500 (£1,080) per hectare of treated forest over the lifetime of the project. Some of this cost could be recovered through selling carbon credits (where polluters would pay for forest restoration to “offset” their own emissions), but covering the whole cost is unrealistic at current prices.</p>
<p>The high cost will inevitably limit the use of active restoration to the most disconnected or degraded sites where it is least likely that forests would regenerate naturally. Though we’ll have to rely on animals and wind to spread seeds in many settings, in other settings planting trees will be an ecological necessity we can’t afford to reject.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Burslem received funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council that contributed to this research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Philipson now works for the tropical forest protection developer Permian Global <a href="https://permianglobal.com">https://permianglobal.com</a>
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Cutler received funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. The authors worked with the South East Asian Rainforest Research Programme on the project in Malaysia.</span></em></p>Scientists in Malaysia monitored a forest for 20 years after deforestation.David Burslem, Professor of Forest Ecology and Diversity, University of AberdeenChristopher Philipson, Senior Researcher, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ZurichMark Cutler, Professor of Physical Geography, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1560022021-03-03T15:38:48Z2021-03-03T15:38:48ZHow 18th-century weather diaries shed light on the effects of an Icelandic volcanic eruption on Scotland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387478/original/file-20210303-15-slkdek.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C12%2C4255%2C3196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holuhraun#/media/File:Fissure_eruption_in_Holurhraun_(Iceland),_13._September_2014.JPG">Joschenbacher/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 15 1783, Dr John Purcell went outside his house in Edinburgh, looked up at the clouds and wrote in his diary how dark and gloomy the sky was. The dark skies, he reported, continued for seven days followed by two or three days of fine weather. Then, on June 25 he began to describe the presence of a choking sulphurous haze that lingered over Edinburgh for the rest of the summer.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="The book cover of the 18th-century farming diary of Janet Burnet showing sheep in the snow." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387531/original/file-20210303-21-lf3kvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Across Scotland, others were describing similar patterns of weather. At Gordon Castle in Morayshire, similar descriptions appear in an estate diary. In Aberdeenshire, Janet Burnet was recording in her farming diary how the leaves of her crops were withering and turning yellow, while on the estate of Henry, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch near Edinburgh, daily weather conditions were being measured with a thermometer, barometer and rain gauge.</p>
<p>What these people didn’t know was that on June 8, there had been a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8624791.stm">huge volcanic eruption</a> at Laki in Iceland. As the world learned later, it was probably one of the largest outpourings of lava in the past 1,000 years, spewing out <a href="https://www.icelandtravel.is/attractions/laki-lakagigar/#:%7E:text=Although%20Laki%20is%20dormant%2C%20it,billion%20tons%20of%20basalt%20lava.">42 billion tonnes</a> of molten rock.</p>
<p>It not only released large volumes of volcanic ash into the atmosphere but also enormous amounts of <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Aerosols.html">sulphur dioxide aerosols</a> – over 120 megatons according to <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2001JD002042">some estimates</a>. For comparison, the eruptions of 1783 were ten times the size of Iceland’s <a href="https://ncas.ac.uk/eyjafjallajokull-2010-how-an-icelandic-volcano-eruption-closed-european-skies/">2010 volcanic eruption</a> of Eyjafjallajokull, which resulted in an aviation shutdown across Europe.</p>
<p>News did not reach Scotland for several weeks, when the first brief account was published in the July issue of The Scots Magazine. Later, 1783 came to be known in Gaelic as <em>Bliadhne nan Sneachda Bhuidhe</em> or “the year of the yellow snow”. Famines recorded as far away as <a href="https://www.geoexpro.com/articles/2014/09/lakagigar-catastrophe-climate-change">Egypt and Japan</a> have been attributed to Laki, while it has even been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/15/iceland-volcano-weather-french-revolution">claimed</a> that crop failures in Europe contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution.</p>
<p>By the middle of July the choking haze had enveloped most of Europe. Throughout the summer, reports were widespread from many countries of thousands of people dying from respiratory illnesses. </p>
<p>What was always puzzling was that there was virtually no information known for Scotland during this time. Until now, apart from the Scots Magazine report a month after the eruption, the only published report was a brief reference from nearly a century ago of volcanic ash having fallen across parts of Caithness in 1783.</p>
<p>In our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683620988052">research</a> we unearthed several undiscovered diaries and daily weather records for Scotland to reconstruct the patterns of weather and climate change that took place both before, during and following the eruption of the Laki volcano.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An entry from the estate diary of Gordon Castle in November 1783 describing the weather six months after the Laaki eruption in Iceland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387480/original/file-20210303-21-gd2os9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The weather noted in the estate diary of Gordon Castle in November 1783, six months after the Laki eruption in Iceland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alastair Dawson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impact on weather</h2>
<p>The Laki eruption threw columns of smoke and ash between nine and 13 kilometres into the atmosphere, with individual eruptions of flood lava taking place along a very large fissure in the Earth’s crust and continuing for almost nine months.</p>
<p>The sulphur that was released into the Earth’s atmosphere reacted with moisture in the air to produce sulphate aerosols. These gas compounds were then transported by prevailing winds across northern and central Europe. In effect, a very dilute form of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/sulfuric-acid">sulphuric acid</a> was circulating across the lower part of the Earth’s atmosphere during the summer of 1783 and it proved very difficult to shift.</p>
<p>Climate scientists have long known that major volcanic eruptions often emit enormous volumes of volcanic ash into the atmosphere and have the effect of blocking the Sun’s radiation and cooling the Earth’s climate. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mount-Tambora">eruption of Mt Tambora</a> in Indonesia during April 1815 is a famous example, often referred to as “the year without a summer”.</p>
<p>From the perspective of past climate in Scotland, scientists have long debated whether the succession of cold winters that followed were a direct result of the Laki volcanic eruptions. Certainly, the snowy winters of 1783-84 and 1784-85 were two of the coldest Scottish winters of recent centuries. Historians have speculated that the severity of these two cold winters and the crop failures and livestock losses that accompanied them, only helped <a href="https://www.eh-resources.org/volcanic-eruptions-and-european-history/">accelerate the pace of emigration</a> to North America at this time.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/57hUhLdyYyg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Choking haze</h2>
<p>Our analysis of these rare weather records from Scotland for this period paints a slightly different picture in the sense that we cannot demonstrate, as many have argued in the past, that the Laki eruptions by themselves caused immediate climate cooling across Europe. Instead, our studies suggest that the exceptionally cold winters were more likely to be the result of natural climatic variability.</p>
<p>The most important consequence of the Laki eruptions was by far the choking sulphuric haze in the atmosphere and the respiratory hazard that this presented. Thanks to the diaries, we now know that the haze blanketed eastern and northern Scotland during the summer and autumn of 1783 and certainly affected an area stretching from Inverness in the north to Edinburgh in the south. Most likely the haze was even more widespread.</p>
<p>No study of Scottish mortality has ever been conducted in respect of deaths caused by the sulphurous haze. Although Laki is now dormant, the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 and <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/event/84283/holuhraun-eruption">Holuhraun in 2014</a>, and now news that Mt Keilir, just a few miles south of Reykjavik is showing signs of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/03/scientists-in-iceland-say-strong-signs-volcanic-eruption-is-imminent">near-constant seismic activity</a>”, demonstrates just how much volcanic eruption is an ever-present threat in Iceland. Were another eruption of Laki’s magnitude to occur, Scotland and the other countries of the British Isles could face a serious respiratory crisis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dramatic image of the snow-covered volcano Mt Keilir just south of Reykjavik in Iceland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387618/original/file-20210303-13-1ja7r6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mt Keilir, a volcano just south of Reykjavik is showing signs of imminent eruption.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keilir_(mountain)">Soffía Snæland/Flickr/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have shown that the weather conditions in the summer of 1783 represented almost a worst-case scenario of sustained high atmospheric pressure and the presence of an air mass capable of bringing the poisonous aerosols into contact with the Scottish population. </p>
<p>This raises the question of how to address a poorly known natural hazard that takes place relatively infrequently but which poses a potentially serious environmental threat. Clearly, this risk needs to be considered very carefully in health and safety planning. Thanks to Laki, the summer of 1783 can remind us of the significant impact that major volcanic eruptions can have on weather, climate and public health.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Kirkbride receives funding from UK Research Councils, learned societies, and charitable organisations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Dawson 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.</span></em></p>New research challenges the idea that Laki caused years of extreme weather in Scotland and has implications for how we deal with sudden, forced climate change today.Alastair Dawson, Professor of Geography and Environmental Science, University of DundeeMartin Kirkbride, Reader Geography and Environmental Science, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1555342021-02-19T15:49:34Z2021-02-19T15:49:34ZJames Hogg at 250: the farmhand who became one of Scotland’s greatest storytellers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385269/original/file-20210219-15-phs9tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C7%2C1692%2C1177&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hogg#/media/File:Sir_John_Watson_Gordon_-_James_Hogg,_1770_-_1835._Poet;_'The_Ettrick_Shepherd'_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Sir George Watson Gordon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>James Hogg defied categorisation. A prolific poet, songwriter, playwright, novelist, short story writer and parodist, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/29mbnSxdmTg99TpfkcHpRtm/james-hogg">he wrote</a> with equal skill in Scots and English. Labelled as the Ettrick Shepherd, the former Borders farmhand, whose life spanned the 18th and 19th centuries, befriended many of the great writers of his day, including <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Sir-Walter-Scott/">Walter Scott</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/5JLBCh6wZNTM4RF9cWtMwyt/john-galt">John Galt</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allan-Cunningham-Scottish-poet">Allan Cunningham</a>.</p>
<p>Even though he was celebrated off and on in his own lifetime, some details of the author’s life remain unclear. Records place his baptism on December 9, 1770. But Hogg long believed he was born in 1772, on January 25 – Burns’ Night no less. This complicates attempts to commemorate his 250th birthday, unless we embrace his fantastical worldview. Fiction mattered to him more than fact. Besides, Hogg’s sestercentennial will inevitably be overshadowed by Scott’s own such celebration on August 15, 2021.</p>
<p>Despite lacking in formal education, Hogg never lacked in confidence. <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL937917W/The_poetic_mirror">The Poetic Mirror, or The Living Bards of Britain</a> (1816) purports to be a collection of the leading poets of the age (Hogg included). But actually Hogg, the editor, fabricated the works under the guise of big-name writers. There are moody romances after Byron, mystical musings in the style of Coleridge and ponderous poems for Wordsworth.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Cover of Canongate's imprint of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg feature two silhoutted heads in top hats." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385284/original/file-20210219-19-1ni3blt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Best work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/74-the-private-memoirs-and-confessions-of-a-justified-sinner/">Canongate</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aside from mimicking medleys, Hogg’s own body of work is made up of mountains of bits and pieces – and must be enjoyed on those terms. Seeking conclusions or definitive statements will only frustrate. Tales can drift off into fragments of poetry both familiar and new. Within stories he flips perspectives with little warning.</p>
<p>Presented as a found document, Hogg’s best work, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/james-hogg-the-private-memoirs-and-confessions-of-a-justified-sinner">The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner</a> (1824) is deliberately left with holes. Dark, humorous, violent, sweet, light, weird, wild, celebratory and cruel, the book has many tones, often all at once. </p>
<p>Hogg was 53 years old when he created his finest and most unsettling work. Drawing on a large box of tricks carefully cultivated over a long if chequered career, he infused Calvinist doctrine with a brooding gothic mood. A mysterious shapeshifting figure, Gil-Martin, goads the fanatical Robert Wringhim into taking extreme measures against the local sinners. Is Gil-Martin a manifestation of madness or the devil himself? Where does evil come from? Denounced by hostile critics at the time as anti-religious, nowhere in literature is the divided self so tantalisingly imagined.</p>
<p>It’s not enough to call Hogg an experimental writer ahead of his time or a genre hopper who challenged the conventions of his day. And he was much more than a born storyteller. Hogg favoured word for this type of art was “intermixing”. He was Scotland’s great intermixer. In hindsight, the Borders bard seemed destined for the make-believe world of literature.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oup_OT3_u8U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Fairytales and family</h2>
<p>Hogg’s mother, Margaret Laidlaw, was an important collector of Scottish ballads and a canny taleteller. His maternal grandfather, known as Will o’ Phawhope, was said to have been the last man in Selkirkshire to speak with fairies. Fairytale figures certainly fill Hogg’s most imaginative stories, most notably in his first collection of prose fiction, <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL937927W/The_brownie_of_Bodsbeck?edition=brownieofbodsbec0000hogg">The Brownie of Bodsbeck and Other Tales</a> (1818).</p>
<p>Burns was an early influence on Hogg, who considered himself to be the rightful heir to the Bard of Ayrshire and published his own collection less than four years after his idol’s death. Long before then, the locals dubbed him Jamie the Poeter, and he wrote countless songs for local girls to sing.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Portrait of Scots bard Robert Burns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385275/original/file-20210219-21-1hurbpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Burns inspired James Hogg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/robert-burns-17591796-national-poet-scotland-239399143">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After writing a popular patriotic song, “Donald Macdonald”, in 1803, Hogg was recruited to collect ballads for Scott’s <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL863785W/Minstrelsy_of_the_Scottish_border?edition=minstrelsyscotti03scotiala">Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border</a>. He also undertook extensive tours of the Highlands with a view to securing his own farm, but became more interested in the songs he heard along the way.</p>
<p>By 1819, he was recognised as a leading expert on Scottish ballads when the Highland Society of London commissioned him to produce the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_Relics#:%7E:text=Jacobite%20Relics%20is%20a%20two,and%20a%20minority%20are%20Whig.">Jacobite Relics of Scotland</a>, which became the benchmark of Scottish anthologies for many more decades.</p>
<p>He endured many failures on the way. In 1810, at the age of 40, Hogg moved to Edinburgh to settle into the life of a full-time writer. Within a year of starting it, his magazine The Spy folded. Readers weren’t ready for a publication that covered shocking themes such as extramarital sex.</p>
<p>Hogg spent the next few years scribbling more poetry and prose, and in 1817 he helped William Blackwood establish Scotland’s most influential literary periodical, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Blackwoods-Edinburgh-Magazine">Edinburgh Monthly Magazine</a> (later, Blackwood’s Magazine). In time, displaced by punchy younger contributors, Hogg eventually became a figure of fun in the same periodical. But he kept writing and writing. Winter Evening Tales (1820), produced in the middle period of his life, is especially rewarding. </p>
<h2>Hogg’s literary afterlife</h2>
<p>A collected edition of works was published shortly after Hogg’s death in 1835, but the publishers pruned the more indelicate (and inventive) passages, and even entire texts. The great forgetting of Hogg set in.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson in black and white." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385276/original/file-20210219-23-1q1pnba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hogg’s most famous work preempted Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Jekyll and Hyde.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/king-kalakaua-hawaii-writer-robert-louis-252142069">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This only began to change in the mid-20th century, when the French writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andre-Gide">André Gide</a> championed Justified Sinner in an enthusiastic introduction to a 1947 edition, describing himself as being “voluptuously tormented” by the book.</p>
<p>Only in 1995, when the colossal <a href="https://www.jameshogg.stir.ac.uk/projects/stirlingsouth-carolina-research-edition/">Stirling–South Carolina Research Edition</a> of the collected works began to appear, would the wider body of Hogg’s works be publicly available in the form they deserved. In recent years, Scottish novelists such as Irvine Welsh and the playwright Marty Ross have proclaimed the importance of Hogg’s fantastical imagination for their own thinking. Before that, Justified Sinner also pre-empted that other great Scottish gothic masterpiece of the divided self, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by <a href="http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/life/">Robert Louis Stevenson</a>.</p>
<p>The University of Dundee recently produced a <a href="https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/the-private-memoirs-and-confessions-of-a-justified-sinner-the-dun">free online edition</a> of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which includes explanatory notes and copies of the earliest reviews. Scotland’s great intermixer awaits new readers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Cook has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.</span></em></p>Despite little formal education, Hogg wrote one of the finest novels in Scottish literature, a disturbing tale of the divided self that still resonates.Daniel Cook, Reader in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1555452021-02-18T13:51:23Z2021-02-18T13:51:23ZWhy creating art with your children is important<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384997/original/file-20210218-28-fx0bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=139%2C1216%2C5658%2C2650&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/top-view-hands-mother-child-draw-1122737381">Alexander Gorban/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of us may be looking to art activities to keep children busy while at home. If you are, I want you to know that you are doing something positive for your children. From improving communication and motor skills to helping them develop a sense of self, there are many reasons why art making is valuable to children. That’s why it’s important to encourage such creativity from infancy and to include art alongside home learning and as an extension of their play.</p>
<p>When young children make art together with their caregivers, they share a new experience which can reinforce bonding. Creativity is an extension of babies’ natural desire to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-childs-curriculum-9780198747109?cc=gb&lang=en&">share and communicate</a>. My research, in <a href="https://www.dca.org.uk/stories/article/art-at-the-start">collaboration</a> with Dundee Contemporary Arts, found that in art therapy the art making process encouraged behaviours that build strong relationships, such as eye contact, pleasant touch, shared goals, responsiveness. You may notice during art making that there is lots of <a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/documents/Oxford/Moll_Perspective-taking_Perception-causation-and-objectivity_2011_1567319.pdf">joint attention</a> – where you both look at the same thing together. This helps babies learn social skills, such as language and perspective taking, and feel connected to others.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1219&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384991/original/file-20210218-22-1e1726d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1219&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Letting babies get creative helps them learn social skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are further developmental benefits from experiencing new sensations and practising <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-Physical-Development-in-the-Early-Years-Linking-bodies-and/OConnor-Daly/p/book/9780415722483">motor skills</a>. Young children also see how they can make choices and communicate these to the grown ups around them. Even something as simple as choosing a colour or making a mark lets them see the physical outcome of their choices. This builds their feeling of agency and their <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-children-develop-a-sense-of-self-56118">sense of self</a>.</p>
<h2>Art making for children</h2>
<p>These benefits continue through childhood. Art helps children to think in new ways, and to explore ideas – as the art and education academic, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Art_of_Childhood_and_Adolescence.html?id=kmjLKN1ConQC">John Matthews</a> tells us, scribbles are a process of investigation, not just random marks.</p>
<p>When you make art together with your children you add additional relational benefits, as they share feelings and ideas. <a href="https://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Born-Creative.pdf">Art is communication</a> without the need to be verbal, which may allow them to express themselves more honestly than through speech. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384992/original/file-20210218-20-1gzcx5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Engaging in art can improve a child’s wellbeing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dca.org.uk">Dundee Creative Arts</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I advocate joining in the art making together with your child wherever possible. So, where to begin? The best creative activities are those which invite children to play and explore without set outcomes. Your role is to create the right conditions for them to engage and then to follow their lead. You may be surprised by their ideas. An invitation can be as simple as offering an interesting material and suggesting that they see what it feels like.</p>
<p>If you have small babies you can start with just a couple of blobs of paint on a large sheet of paper on the floor for them to explore on their tummy. Try <a href="https://www.dca.org.uk/assets/general/Art_at_the_Start_Homemade_Paint.pdf">home-made edible paints</a>. Keep it short and have a nice bath ready!</p>
<p>Here are more ideas for creative invitations for all ages that use simple materials.</p>
<h2>Printing</h2>
<p>Printing transfers an image from one surface to another. Younger children can spread paint across the back of a <a href="https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/artatthestart/printing-with-baking-trays-and-cake-tins/">baking tray</a>, mixing to their fancy, then press a sheet of paper on top, making a print. Try the back of cupcake tins to get nice circular images. </p>
<p>Offer older children tools like cotton buds or a blunt pencil to draw into the paint on the baking tray, then print to transfer the design. Or they could add paper shapes or <a href="https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/artatthestart/leaf-printing/">leaves</a> on top of the paint before printing, like a stencil. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384993/original/file-20210218-12-1vgoeov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Use interesting objects from around the house to create stamps.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dca.org.uk">Dundee Creative Arts</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stamping</h2>
<p>Stamping uses an object to transfer paint to paper. Dundee Contemporary Arts have a nice <a href="https://www.dca.org.uk/stories/article/stamp-it">video</a> for children to create their own stamps from scrap card or sponges. For smaller children why not try using things from around the house as stamps? Anything which can be dipped in paint will work – potato mashers, <a href="https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/artatthestart/circle-paintings/">cardboard tubes</a>, spatulas, <a href="https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/artatthestart/footprints-and-tyre-tracks/">toy animals or cars</a>.</p>
<h2>Light and shadows</h2>
<p>If you want some non-messy creativity try <a href="https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/artatthestart/lights-and-shadows/">drawing with shadows</a>. Spread a sheet between chairs, shine a light and let children experiment with their hands or holding up objects to see the shadow they cast. Older children may like to cut out figures or animals, tape them to cutlery or a pencil and use them to create an animation.</p>
<p>Remember, it’s not about producing perfection but allowing children to enjoy the process and sharing that with them. And, importantly, having fun.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicky Armstrong 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.</span></em></p>Taking part in creative activities with little ones can help bolster their communication, build their sense of self and even improve their health and wellbeing.Vicky Armstrong, Postgraduate researcher in Psychology and Art Therapist, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1547702021-02-16T20:11:32Z2021-02-16T20:11:32ZMyanmar: despite appearances the country’s military might is waning<p>A fortnight after Myanmar’s military coup and the momentum of protest is growing. On February 1 2021, Myanmar’s armed forces, officially known as the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/the-tatmadaws-role-in-myanmars-new-politics/">Tatmadaw</a>, announced on the military-run TV channel that it had taken control of the country, declaring a year-long state of emergency. Earlier that day, several <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55882489">elected officials were detained</a>, including Myanmar’s <em>de facto</em> civilian leader <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977">Aung San Suu Kyi</a> and Myanmar’s president, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-43564954">Win Myint</a>. </p>
<p>In a statement, Aung San Suu Kyi <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/01/further-army-clampdown-feared-in-myanmar-after-aung-san-suu-kyi-detained">denounced the coup</a> as an attempt to “put the country back under a dictatorship”, urging people “not to accept this, to respond and wholeheartedly to protest against the coup by the military”.</p>
<p>This sudden escalation marked the culmination of weeks of tension between the military and the civilian government over <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics-reconstruction-insig/rude-and-insolent-fraught-talks-preceded-myanmars-army-seizing-power-idUSKBN2A9225?edition-redirect=uk">allegations of fraud</a> in November 2020’s elections, in which Suu Kyi’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-League-for-Democracy">National League for Democracy</a> (NLD) beat the army-backed <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Union-Solidarity-and-Development-Party">Union Solidarity and Development Party</a>.</p>
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<p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-conversation-weekly/id1550643487"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321534/original/file-20200319-22606-q84y3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/14O3EsEGWQ4mK3XpKzsncP"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321535/original/file-20200319-22606-1l4copl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="268" height="70"></a> </p>
<p>When, after decades of military rule, the NLD was swept to power in 2015, it looked as if Myanmar was witnessing peace and democracy – at least, as a work in progress. But this was not really the case. The 2008 constitution passed by the military reserved 25% of parliamentary seats for the military and three key portfolios – home affairs, defence and border affairs – to be held by their representatives. So, despite it being a civilian government in name, in practice the Tatmadaw still held <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-24/how-military-controls-myanmar-not-aung-san-suu-kyi/8978042">considerable power</a> in Myanmar.</p>
<p>But now it has once again taken full control, arguing its power grab was justified by the lack of action taken by the current government over fraudulent election claims. Pledging that new elections would be held in 12 months’ time, military commander-in-chief <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/02/myanmar-coup-who-are-the-military-figures-running-the-country">Min Aung Hlaing</a> was installed as the new leader of Myanmar.</p>
<p>In the days since the coup, thousands have taken to the streets to protest the incarceration of their civilian leader and their president and the installing of a military leader, as well as China’s perceived support for the takeover. </p>
<h2>Blow to a fragile democracy</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/01/myanmar-military-coup-kills-fragile-democracy">Human Rights Watch</a>, along with many other international organisations and countries, condemned the coup as “a serious blow to democracy”. Importantly, US president Joe Biden’s administration has already <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/02/politics/myanmar-state-department-coup-determination/index.html">called the military takeover in Myanmar a “coup”</a>, a designation that requires the US to cut its foreign assistance to the country.</p>
<p>On February 3, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met in an emergency session to discuss the coup. Given China and Russia’s right to veto UNSC resolutions and their long history of backing Myanmar’s junta, it is unlikely the UNSC will be able to pass a resolution allowing it to act against the coup to preserve peace and security. Also, any international sanctions imposed are <a href="https://theconversation.com/myanmars-rohingyas-victims-of-a-democracy-still-under-military-sway-84234">likely to fail</a> as China’s burgeoning economic power enables Beijing to resist any external pressures – as it has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55913947">demonstrated in the past</a>.</p>
<p>With the Tatmadaw’s ability to reassert its control freely without concern about external pressures from the likes of the UN, the question is why has the military orchestrated this coup now?</p>
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<p>The reasons appear linked to the perceived erosion of the military’s indirect rule. This erosion has been prompted by several events, such as the banning in 2018 of military commander Min Aung Hlaing and 18 other officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/facebook-blocks-accounts-of-myanmars-top-general-other-military-leaders/2018/08/27/da1ff440-a9f6-11e8-9a7d-cd30504ff902_story.html">from using social media</a> after they incited ethnic and religious hatred against minority groups such as the Rohingya. </p>
<p>This was followed by a UN investigation that confirmed Min Aung Hlaing would be <a href="https://english.newsnationtv.com/world/news/facebook-bans-myanmar-army-chief-min-aung-hlaing-19-after-un-report-on-rohingya-article-201517.html">investigated and prosecuted for genocide</a> over a crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. </p>
<p>These factors, as well as <a href="https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/aung-san-suu-kyi-nld-win-second-landslide-election-myanmar">the NLD’s landslide win</a> and the fact that Min Aung Hlaing will this year reach <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/senior-general-min-aung-hlaings-secret-motive-behind-burma-coup-tb32gxtxb">retirement age</a>, put him in a vulnerable position. Given his lack of public support at home and his lack of popularity abroad (the US <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190717-usa-bans-myanmar-army-chief-over-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing">banned him</a> in 2019), and with no guarantee of immunity from prosecution once he retires, this coup would appear to be the last desperate act of his dying career.</p>
<p>At a time when the country needs unity, peace and stability in the face of a pandemic, the military has instead sown mistrust, fear and chaos. Even at the height of its power – and with the support of the people – it proved incapable of bringing stability or prosperity to Myanmar during its 50-year rule, eventually leading to the popular uprisings of <a href="https://theconversation.com/myanmars-election-the-rohingya-crisis-and-the-road-to-democracy-143161">1988 and 2008</a>. So it is unlikely that the military will prove any better equipped to provide for the country’s needs in its current form.</p>
<h2>Decline of military might</h2>
<p>Given Aung San Suu Kyi’s <a href="https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/aung-san-suu-kyi-nld-win-second-landslide-election-myanmar">proven support</a>, evidenced by the overwhelming mandate she received in the most recent two elections, the military might be unable to contain mass protests and maintain control.</p>
<p>At the moment the people’s ability to mobilise is affected by restricted access to internet, telephones and television. But, despite the Tatmadaw’s violent history of protest crackdown, it doesn’t seem to have deterred protest. Thousands have taken to the streets, to be greeted by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56005909">water cannon, rubber bullets and live rounds</a>, leaving one young woman critically injured with a bullet in her head.</p>
<p>The military’s support appears to be waning. In the past its powers survived because the rank and file within the Tatmadaw didn’t rebel. But this is a new dynamic. A popular leader who won two consecutive elections by overwhelming majority has been thrown into jail. Meanwhile the country’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-myanmar-coup/coronavirus-testing-collapses-in-myanmar-after-coup-idUSKBN2A90CK">coronavirus response is dwindling</a>, and civil disobedience and mass protests are brewing.</p>
<p>If this prompts defection of the Tatmadaw’s rank and file then the world may witness a profound tectonic shift in Myanmar’s political landscape, opening the door to the prospect of long-term freedoms, justice and democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Contributing author: Roberta Dumitriu, MSc International Relations, University of Dundee.</span></em></p>The military coup may mark the end of Myanmar’s short-lived and fragile democracy, but it is galvanising growing protest.Abdullah Yusuf, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1528432021-01-08T16:09:51Z2021-01-08T16:09:51ZThe US Capitol has been stormed before – when British troops burned Washington in 1814<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377607/original/file-20210107-22-iplr8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C1024%2C812&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The taking of the city of Washington in America.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As rioters forced their way into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pro-trump-rioters-storm-u-s-capitol-as-his-election-tantrum-leads-to-violence-149142">US Capitol Building on January 6</a>, astounded CNN presenters noted that this was the first time something like this had happened for more than 200 years. And that on the occasion it was the British, an enemy power, which was responsible. </p>
<p>This was in August 1814 when British troops led by General Robert Ross occupied Washington DC for two days and set about methodically destroying the city’s public buildings, including the Capitol and the White House.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pro-trump-rioters-storm-u-s-capitol-as-his-election-tantrum-leads-to-violence-149142">Pro-Trump rioters storm U.S. Capitol as his election tantrum leads to violence</a>
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<p>The War of 1812 had been underway for two years. It was a war the British had not sought. For the British its roots lay in debates over maritime rights, which had been conceded on the eve of the conflict, but news of these concessions only arrived across the Atlantic after the United States had declared war. </p>
<p>American politicians expected to win quickly, and many hoped that they could also conquer British Canada. The Americans burned several Canadian towns including the upper Canadian capital of York, now Toronto, but the war remained a stalemate. </p>
<p>By the spring of 1814, the Napoleonic Wars in Europe had ended. On March 30, the Russians had entered Paris and Napoleon had gone into exile. At last, the British felt that they could turn their attention to the war with the United States. </p>
<p>It would take time to send troops from Europe, but in the summer of 1814 the British possessed naval superiority. They used this to devastating effect in the Chesapeake Bay, raiding tobacco plantations and encouraging the enslaved population to join the struggle. So great was the fear of a potential slave uprising that many of the militia who might have been protecting the capital were posted nearer their homes. </p>
<p>In August 1814, a British naval force commanded by <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/george-cockburn.htm">Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cockburn</a> sailed up the Patuxent River in the northern Chesapeake Bay and landed 4,500 men near the village of Benedict in Maryland. </p>
<p>It was not initially clear where the British intended to attack. Washington was only 30 miles away, but it was not strategically important, and little had been done to erect defences. American forces made a dismal attempt to halt the advance at Bladensburg, where the British had to cross the eastern branch of the Potomac River. So many American militiamen fled the field of battle that British troops called the affair the <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3862200">Bladensburg Races</a>, and from that point they met only scattered resistance.</p>
<p>There was now widespread panic in Washington. The president’s wife, Dolly Madison, hastily organised the evacuation of the most important items in the President’s House, not yet called the White House. So hasty was the evacuation that when British troops arrived, they found dinner waiting.</p>
<h2>Terrible spectacle</h2>
<p>As British troops advanced into Capitol Square, they met scattered sniper fire. Firing several rounds into the Capitol building to discourage the snipers, they forced their way inside with little difficulty. The men were impressed by the grandeur of the interior. It was not what they expected but was of imposing proportions with high ceilings and classical columns, Americanised with carvings of ears of corn decorating the capitals, while the well-proportioned rooms were filled with fine furnishings.</p>
<p>It also proved more difficult to burn than they expected – the roof was iron and the floors and walls were stone. The troops busied themselves piling up all the furniture, books and papers and eventually started a blaze which lit the night sky over the city. </p>
<p>Upon seeing the flames, the French minister to the US, <a href="http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu/iscotus/day-supreme-court-history-august-24-1814/">Louis Sérurier observed</a>: “I have never beheld a spectacle more terrible and at the same time more magnificent.” Most of the interior was completely gutted. The heat was so intense that in places the stone columns and floor were turned to lime, and the roof collapsed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="19th-century painting of the US Capitol building after being burned by British troops." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377728/original/file-20210108-19-1q4b967.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US Capitol following British attempts to burn the building in 1814.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Munger/US Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not content with destroying the Capitol, the British burned the President’s House. (Despite the legend it is not called the White House because it was painted white to <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/questions/why-is-the-white-house-white">hide the scorch marks</a>.) </p>
<p>The most infamous act was probably the destruction of the Library of Congress and all of its papers and books. British commanders ordered their men to target only public buildings and spare private buildings and the US Patent Office and many Washington residents later commended their restraint. </p>
<p>But at the printing office of the National Intelligencer newspaper, in an episode not dissimilar from turning off a Twitter account, Admiral Cockburn ordered his men to <a href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_BHC2619">destroy all the letter C’s</a> so the newspaper could no longer print what he saw as their lies about him.</p>
<h2>Pyrrhic victory</h2>
<p>After two days, the British force withdrew. The burning of Washington was symbolic rather than strategic for it had a population of only 8,000 and the long-term disruption to the government was minimal. Perhaps the most significant strategic loss for the United States was the <a href="https://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/2014/08/22/you-are-there-burning-of-the-washington-navy-yard/">destruction of the Washington Navy Yard</a> and several ships under construction. This was not done by British troops, however, but by American forces on the Navy secretary’s orders to prevent the enemy from capturing important supplies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="19th-century painting of burning buildings seen from across a rvier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377737/original/file-20210108-17-1i9a6bh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Painting of the burning of the Washington Navy Yard, 1814, view from the Anacostia River, Washington, DC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">William Thornton/Library of Congress</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In many ways, the burning of Washington backfired on the British as it created much sympathy for the American cause in Europe. The burning of the public buildings also achieved little in the long-term. </p>
<p>The Capitol survived. Its design was extremely resilient, and the structure remained intact. After only <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Capitol_in_Ruins.htm">five years of reconstruction</a>, Congress was again able to hold its meetings there.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Ward 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.</span></em></p>When supporters of Donald Trump stormed into the US Capitol in Washington, it wasn’t the first time this had happened. The last time was during a British invasion in 1814.Matthew Ward, Senior Lecturer in History, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1513082020-12-03T14:45:59Z2020-12-03T14:45:59ZHow a tiny worm is helping to find a cure for an extremely rare form of cancer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372823/original/file-20201203-17-1h4vco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C1294%2C504&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists have recreated the mutant gene that causes a rare cancer called phaeochromocytoma in a millimetre-sized worm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Dundee</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Williamson family from Dundee <a href="https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/833499/tayside-dad-who-tragically-lost-his-wife-to-cancer-features-in-new-tv-campaign/">lost their mother Sue to a rare cancer</a> named <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/phaeochromocytoma/">phaeochromocytoma</a> in 2003, they didn’t realise that further devastation was to follow.</p>
<p>Of her four children, twins Jennie and James discovered that they also have the faulty gene that cut short their mother’s life. Both twins are affected with inoperable tumours wrapped around vital blood vessels and nerves in their necks. Father Jo decided to appear in a Cancer Research pledge video (below) in memory of his wife and to raise awareness of the important work that cancer researchers do for people like his children.</p>
<p>We have been working closely with the family to understand more about the gene mutation that causes this cancer. Along with a consortium of researchers from universities in Hungary and India, we have, for the first time, been able to recreate the Williamson defect in a tiny worm, just one millimetre long. This progress is vital to better understand the mutation, and it helps point to possible treatments for the cancer.</p>
<p>The cancer is called a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PhaeoPara/">phaeo</a>. It pulses excessive adrenaline-like hormones into the circulation. Phaeo is hard to diagnose because it mimics conditions such as high blood pressure and can kill patients receiving routine anaesthesia.</p>
<p>When symptoms occur in the young, phaeo may be picked up on imaging (such as ultrasound and MRI/CAT scans) with a high chance of phaeo-causing genes in their DNA. This is the case in the Williamson family, where mum Sue was the index case, but died of malignant-phaeo, despite the removal of a tumour in her twenties.</p>
<p>And even though two of her children carry this defective gene, the first modicum of hope is now on the horizon in familial phaeo after the family decided to find an alternative approach to their DNA mutation. The new hope fuses science, serendipity and a minuscule worm that has been around for hundreds of millions of years.</p>
<h2>The Williamson worm</h2>
<p>The defective gene in the Williamson family altered the structure of a protein called <a href="https://dmm.biologists.org/content/13/10/dmm044925">SDHB</a>. SDHB has a very unusual function that needs an introductory explanation from science fiction. In the <a href="https://www.backtothefuture.com/movies/backtothefuture1">Back to the Future</a> films, Doc Brown’s time-travelling DeLorean sports car is powered by a water-fuelled “flux-capacitor” that can generate vast power. Now imagine that human life itself depends on the biological equivalent of such a device that fuels our internal power generation system. In biology, SDHB is like a flux capacitor that splits apart the sugar we eat into its constituent hydrogen and electricity.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A poster of the original Back To The Future film showing the star Michael J Fox." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372820/original/file-20201203-17-y7r183.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human biology requires a similar kind of power-generating ‘flux capacitator’ that we see in Back To The Future.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future">Universal Pictures</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So in the Williamsons, the puzzle lay in finding out how a tiny malfunction in one DNA instruction (mutant SDHB) could cause recurrent cancer in the family. In the past attempts by researchers to make a mouse phaeo model failed to yield insight because the mice looked healthy.</p>
<p>A new approach was needed. By genetic manipulation of DNA, our international group created a worm model of SDHB malfunction that has yielded some new data. We chose to model phaeo using worms because the worm equivalent of SDHB has remained substantially unchanged over hundreds of thousands of years.</p>
<p>So, despite the vast gulf of time that separates worms from modern humans, nature had not changed the DNA blueprint for this essential “flux-capacitor” that permits the energy generation needed for life. This power generator was perfected over 400 million years ago and still works unchanged in animal cells today.</p>
<h2>The results</h2>
<p>The results are revealing because it was immediately obvious that the Williamson mutant worms are sick, sterile, small and sickle shaped. Importantly, the changed appearance can be further investigated by mating them with other mutant worms with other cancer-causing genetic defects. This is underway. In the meantime, a few conclusions can be drawn.</p>
<p>First, the Williamson family mutation does not delete the whole SDHB gene in the affected DNA. This family has a differently folded three-dimensional “origami” structure to their SDHB protein driven by the wrong instructions from their mutant SDHB gene. The Williamson SDHB protein is misshapen, exactly where fuel metabolism occurs. These worms also make so much less of this mutant misshapen SDHB protein. So Williamson worms have contributed something new to nature.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rl7_4mBv30s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Second, Williamson worm power stations – or <a href="http://www.mrc-mbu.cam.ac.uk/what-are-mitochondria">mitochondria</a>, the part of the cell that transforms what we eat (proteins, sugars, fats) into energy – use a very different fuel mix. Normal SDHB runs like a car that can seamlessly switch fuel sources when one fuel runs low. Williamson worms cannot do this and they can only partially burn fuels to release <a href="https://www.livescience.com/lactic-acid.html">lactic acid</a> as a “frustrated” end product of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/glucose-metabolism">glucose metabolism</a>.</p>
<p>So when pushed to perform at their collective personal best, and despite plentiful oxygen trapped inside a tiny molecular cage or cavity made of iron and protein found inside all mitochondria, the Williamson mitochondria cannot effectively maximise their energy output.</p>
<p>Third, and rather excitingly, it is possible to kill Williamson worms with drugs that leave normal worms unscathed. This is where new hope arises because at the moment there is no cure for the Williamson cancer. The search is now on for useful drugs to test in animals, and the findings of this research mean they could now be developed.</p>
<p>Finally, SDHB has just been found to be abnormally controlled across a wide variety of common cancers which adds to the potential of this worm research. Which means that rare and common may well be different manifestations of the cancer process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151308/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anil Mehta has acted as a scientific advisor to the governments of Ireland and Finland, and to the Phaeo and Para charity. In the past he has received research support from many sources including the Wellcome Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Stewart has received grant funding form the Wellcome Trust and other charitable organisations. </span></em></p>A new discovery fuses science, serendipity and a millimetre-sized worm that is hundreds of millions of years old to help develop a treatment for phaeochromocytoma.Anil Mehta, Honorary Reader in Experimental Medicine, University of DundeeGordon Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Experimental Medicine, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1508582020-11-25T14:36:36Z2020-11-25T14:36:36ZPasha 88: Lockdown and young people living on the streets of Harare, Zimbabwe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371262/original/file-20201125-14-dajp7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>For many young people living on the streets, lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic has made their situation worse. The city of Harare in Zimbabwe was no exception. Lockdown made it difficult for young people to find food and make money in the informal economy. Researchers set up a story map – a map with text, images and multimedia content – to hear their voices and understand their experiences.</p>
<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fa4f51db8f164c938407e058270e245f" width="100%" height="500px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="geolocation"></iframe>
<p>It’s part of a three-year project called <a href="https://www.dundee.ac.uk/projects/growing-streets">Growing up on the Streets</a>, which worked with young people living on the streets in three African cities (Accra, Bukavu and Harare) alongside NGO partner <a href="https://www.streetinvest.org/resources/growing-streets">StreetInvest</a>. With the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, life on the streets became a lot harder, as young people recount in the story map.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-people-living-on-harares-streets-provide-glimpses-into-life-under-covid-19-lockdown-144684">Young people living on Harare’s streets provide glimpses into life under COVID-19 lockdown</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Today’s episode of Pasha has Janine Hunter and Lorraine van Blerk, both at the University of Dundee, discussing the project. With them is the NGO’s Shaibu Chitsiku, with insights from the ground. </p>
<p><strong>Photo:</strong>
A group of children look with curiosity at a team of police deployed in Mbare township July 31 2020. Photo by Jekesai Njikizana/AFP <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/group-of-children-looks-with-curiousity-at-a-team-of-police-news-photo/1227851043?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“Interludium II”, by Spin Day found on <a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Spin_Day/Spin_Day_and_the_Emotional_Godfather/Spin_Day_-_Spin_Day_And_The_Emotional_Godfather_-_05_Interludium_II">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Attribution License.</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A story map shows how Harare's young people coped with lockdown in Zimbabwe.Ozayr Patel, Digital EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1492162020-11-17T17:15:43Z2020-11-17T17:15:43ZBatmen and unicorns: inside the original moon hoax<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369806/original/file-20201117-21-zgc2p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C2%2C782%2C553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Phantasmogoria: how the New York Times portrayed the moon and its inhabitants.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Dundee</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 16th-century Britain a common saying to describe <a href="https://www.bookbrowse.com/expressions/detail/index.cfm/expression_number/361/the-moon-is-made-of-green-cheese">hoaxing someone</a> was “to make one believe the Moon is made of green cheese”. Absurd, of course. So perhaps people were more credulous by the middle of the 19th century, when a newspaper editor perpetrated what became known as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAEKPOdMDrc">Great Moon Hoax</a>, persuading gullible readers that on the Moon you could find unicorns and other fantastic beasts. </p>
<p>The Great Moon Hoax refers to six articles in the New York Sun headlined “Great Astronomical Discoveries” and allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Journal of Science. Beginning on August 25 1835, they revealed a lunar ecology and civilisation. The hoax tested the parameters of media credibility and “fake news” in the pre-telegraphic age. The stories circulated to other papers around the world. </p>
<p>The newspaper published these supposed reports from observations by astronomer royal, <a href="https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Herschel/">John Herschel</a>, using the most powerful telescope yet invented. According to the reports, this telescope was connected to an “oxy-hydrogen” projector which enabled it to screen moving pictures. They visualised forests, seas and vast deposits of precious minerals, teeming with life forms, including unicorns, intelligent beavers and “man-bats” (<em>Vespertilio-homo</em>). These flew around naked and worshipped in triangular temples. </p>
<p>The wonders of the moon were revealed ever more sensationally, until the telescope apparently caught fire – its enormous lens exposed to South African sunlight acting as a “burning glass”.</p>
<p>New York Sun reporter Richard Adams Locke (1800–1871) later admitted writing the articles, satirising speculations by the Rev Thomas Dick (1774-1857), the most widely read popular astronomer on both sides of the Atlantic at the time, who kept to what he saw as a literal interpretation of the Bible’s account of creation. This despite geological finds dating back into “deep time” and Charles Darwin’s observations about evolution offering evidence to the contrary. So Dick’s descriptions of the planets – and even the Sun – included details about populations of “unfallen” beings that God had put there – as the Bible told the story, it was only Earth that had been corrupted by “original sin”. The hoax was Locke’s way of satirising what he called Dick’s naïve “science fiction”.</p>
<p>The Moon Hoax is a significant event in Dundee’s cultural history – but also science fiction in general. It’s a springboard for issues still topical today: clashes between cosmic views of faith and science as well as the growth and power of modern media and their relationship with public trust, facts and imagination. </p>
<p>Googling “moon hoax” immediately directs you to internet conspiracy theory sites dismissing NASA’s 1969 landing as simulated, ironically inverting debates sparked in 1835 by dismissing documented facts as mere fictions.</p>
<h2>Science and religion</h2>
<p>Dick’s <a href="https://books.google.li/books?id=2xE-AAAAcAAJ&hl=de&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=4">The Christian Philosopher, or the Connexion of Science and Philosophy with Religion (1823)</a> predicted that signs of “lunarian” life would soon be detected once telescopes could observe them in sufficiently close-up detail. He devoted himself to scientific, philosophical and religious works, acquiring widespread popularity and influence among politicians, writers and thinkers, particularly in the evangelical United States.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Left to right: NYTimes editor Richard Adams Locke, astronomer Sir John Herschel and theologian Revd Thomas Dick" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369815/original/file-20201117-23-1mbsjl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The main players: Richard Adams Locke, Sir John Herschel and the Rev Thomas Dick.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Dundee</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dick promoted the “plurality of worlds” – the theory that every planet must be inhabited because the divine plan would never create without purpose. His magnum opus <a href="https://archive.org/details/celestialscenery00dick">Celestial Scenery or The Wonders of the Planetary System Displayed</a> (1838) showcased this, calculating our solar system contained more than 21 trillion inhabitants. He based this calculation on planetary surface areas multiplied by English population density. Hence the Moon might contain “beings far more numerous, and perhaps more elevated in the scale of intellect, than the inhabitants of our globe”.</p>
<p>Ironically, Celestial Scenery also rebuked the Hoax author’s disregard for facts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The “Law of Truth” ought never for a moment to be sported with … It is to be hoped that the author of the deception to which I have adverted, as he advances in years and wisdom, will perceive the folly and immorality of such conduct.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Locke responded with an open broadside: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>So far from feeling that I deserve the coarse reproaches of Dr Dick, I think it quite laudable in any man to satirise … that school of crude speculation and cant of which he is so eminent a professor. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>New genre</h2>
<p>Locke’s lunar paradise hoodwinked a global readership because of expectations raised in the popular imagination by Dick’s “outrage upon science”, which prepared them “to swallow any thing however absurd … recommended by this peculiar stamp”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="19th-century newspaper illustration purporting to show astronomer John Herschel's new telescope." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369816/original/file-20201117-17-1qzrvot.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A German lithograph purporting to show Herschel’s apparatus and its method of projection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Dundee</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though not destroying Dick’s reputation, the hoax challenged his prioritisation of belief over evidence, foreshadowing the fundamental intellectual crises of the mid-Victorian age. Nevertheless, Dick continued to popularise science and democratise access to astronomy. Dundee’s unique <a href="https://medium.com/the-dundonian/the-fascinating-story-behind-dundees-mills-observatory-f79e094f56bd">public observatory</a> is a bequest from one of Dick’s devotees, John Mills.</p>
<p>Whether or not Dick’s speculations constituted science fiction, they inadvertently midwifed the modern genre through Locke’s parodies. The editor and owner of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, credited Locke with inventing what he called “A New Species of Writing” – “the scientific novel”. </p>
<p>The Dundee Moon Hoax certainly inspired the “lost Scottish father” of American sci-fi, <a href="http://theconversation.com/remembering-the-lost-father-of-american-science-fiction-and-his-scottish-roots-78968#comment_1315129">Robert Duncan Milne</a> who grew up in nearby Cupar in the 1840s. His own tales of astronomical discovery bear many similarities to Locke’s lunar utopia. It provided a rich context which shaped Milne’s imagination, driven by creative tensions between scientific secularism, fantastic new technologies and orthodox beliefs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Williams 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.</span></em></p>How a series of spoof newspaper reports from America became the cradle of science fiction.Keith Williams, Reader in English, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.