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Recently, five school boards in Ontario filed a lawsuit against the major social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

Their lawsuit says that these platforms are designed to be addictive and have caused all kinds of problems for the education system. The lawsuit says social media causes children to suffer from mental health issues, and it increases distraction, social withdrawal, and cyberbullying. And it causes damage and disruption to the classroom, putting all kinds of new burdens on teachers who are already dealing with shrinking budgets and increased class sizes.

The $4.5 billion lawsuit follows over 200 lawsuits by school boards in the United States in the past year against the same companies, making similar claims.

This week, the Ontario government, which has called the Canadian lawsuit a waste of time and money, announced it was doubling down on its 2019 ban on cellphones in schools as a way to address the problem.

But is a ban the answer to the impact of technology we know is incredibly pervasive, addictive and harmful? Not to mention, often racist?

Research shows technologies are not neutral: They’re embedded with and actively reinforce structures of racism. A survey of Canadian children in grades 7 to 11 found nearly half of participants reported seeing racist or sexist content online, and youth from marginalized groups were more likely than others to encounter this type of content. So, what’s to be done?

Experts say major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok have caused young people to suffer from mental health issues.

On this week’s Don’t Call Me Resilient podcast, our guests are two scholars and former teachers who look at the intersection of race, technology and education. They say social media has become part of who we are and it’s not going anywhere.

Instead of trying to ban it and monitoring students to make sure they adhere to the ban, schools should focus on improving digital media literacy and critical thinking — for students and their teachers.

Beyhan Farhadi is Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Equity at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto and Kisha McPherson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“How can we effectively use [the cellphone] within the classroom? It could be a research tool… it could be a pedagogical tool to teach and to do different things. With the money that is put towards these surveillance measures and put towards these forms of punitive decisions…it really begs the question of whether or not we’re really concerned about students or are we just finding ways to maintain a status quo of control….” – Kisha McPherson, Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University

Resources

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (by Ruha Benjamin, 2019)

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (by Safiya Umoja Noble, 2018)

“Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EdTech Surveillance Industry is Selling” (The American Civil Liberties Union)

The Social Dilemma (Netflix/Documentary)

Children are more susceptible to the addictions of social media. This is by design.
(Shutterstock)

From the archives – in The Conversation

Read more:
School board social media lawsuits: For too long we’ve sought individual solutions to a collective problem

Read more:
Why Ontario school boards are suing social media platforms for causing an attention crisis

Read more:
Banning cellphones in classrooms is not a quick fix for student well-being

Read more:
Research on teen social media use has a racial bias – studies of white kids are widely taken to be universal

Listen and follow

You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts (transcripts available), Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes.

Join the Conversation on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and use #DontCallMeResilient. Läs mer…

Before you buy something, or visit a new restaurant, or see a new film, you may be tempted to check out the online reviews. Researching what strangers think of the things we might like has become a familiar part of the modern consumer experience.

But how can we know which reviews to trust? Which ones are written by honest customers sharing their genuine experiences, and which ones are posted with ulterior motives?

For while consumer reviews can guide us towards the best products and services, concealed within the shadows are deceptive reviews, meticulously crafted to deceive and manipulate. Fake feedback, you might call it.

A negative fake review may be submitted by a competitor for example, hoping to cast doubt on the quality of a particular product. Or a positive sounding fake review may be designed by someone with a financial interest in a service to give it a dishonest boost in the market.

All of these can have a dramatic effect on a business’s public profile.

In 2023, the popular travel website Tripadvisor experienced a staggering influx of user-generated content, with more than 30 million reviews submitted by more than 17 million members. But within this vast sea of apparent customer feedback, 1.3 million reviews were flagged as fraudulent and subsequently removed.

Additionally, 33,194 businesses faced penalties for engaging in deceptive practices. And in the UK, government research has found that between 11% to 15% of reviews in specific product categories, such as consumer electronics and home and kitchenware, were thought to be fraudulent.

Cracking the code

To combat fake reviews, companies including Amazon have started using artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent the publication of hundreds of millions of potentially fraudulent reviews, ensuring the credibility of the platform.

But research suggests that there are quite a few things consumers can do to protect themselves.

Trust your instincts: When perusing reviews, rely on your intuition. Authentic feedback tends to strike a balance, presenting both positive and negative aspects of the product or service. If a review appears excessively positive or overly critical without substantiation, exercise caution.

Read between the lines: Pay attention to the language and tone used in reviews. Genuine feedback often sounds personal, reflecting the reviewer’s unique experience. Beware of reviews that seem generic, repetitive, or excessively promotional, as they may be deceptive endorsements.

Validate the source: Scrutinise the reviewer’s credentials to ascertain their credibility. Genuine reviewers typically furnish specific details about their interaction with the product or service, such as features, delivery timelines, or customer service encounters. Approach reviews which lack specific information with scepticism.

Look for patterns: Remain vigilant for anomalous patterns in reviews, such as sudden surges of positive or negative feedback within a brief time frame. These anomalies could indicate orchestrated attempts to manipulate ratings rather than genuine consumer experiences.

Review the reviewers

So in the same way that you may protect your computer from viruses, or stay alert to attempts to get hold of your personal information, it’s important to keep yourself updated on common methods used to deceive consumers. Well-known platforms such as Amazon and Tripadvisor usually offer guidelines for spotting fake feedback, while consumer advocacy groups and online forums dedicated to consumer awareness can provide valuable insights.

Reviews are a vital part of many modern businesses.
Peace-loving/Shutterstock

Websites and platforms also have a responsibility to make sure users are receiving trustworthy information. And advances in AI technology have introduced new tools that can assist in identifying and flagging potential fake reviews.

These AI-powered solutions play a critical role in preserving consumer trust and market integrity by using machine learning to analyse patterns and identify suspicious interactions in social media platforms.

Through investment in this kind of technology, companies can more effectively combat the spread of fake reviews and maintain the credibility of their review systems. They can also bolster trust and confidence in the authenticity of the reviews provided.

In a digital world, being able to differentiate between genuine feedback and deceptive endorsements is vital for making informed decisions. And if you do encounter a review you suspect to be fake, it’s always worth flagging it to the platform or website where it was posted. By alerting authorities, you’ll strengthen the integrity of online review systems – and help your fellow consumers make better decisions. Läs mer…

There is still so much we don’t understand about the origin of life on Earth.

The definition of life itself is a source of debate among scientists, but most researchers agree on the fundamental ingredients of a living cell. Water, energy, and a few essential elements are the prerequisites for cells to emerge. However, the exact details of how this happens remain a mystery.

Recent research has focused on trying to recreate in the lab the chemical reactions that constitute life as we know it, in conditions plausible for early Earth (around 4 billion years ago). Experiments have grown in complexity, thanks to technological progress and a better understanding of what early Earth conditions were like.

However, far from bringing scientists together and settling the debate, the rise of experimental work has led to many contradictory theories. Some scientists think that life emerged in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where the conditions provided the necessary energy. Others argue that hot springs on land would have provided a better setting because they are more likely to hold organic molecules from meteorites. These are just two possibilities which are being investigated.

Here are five of the most remarkable discoveries over the last five years.

Reactions in early cells

What energy source drove the chemical reactions at the origin of life? This is the mystery that a research team in Germany has sought to unravel. The team delved into the feasibility of 402 reactions known to create some of the essential components of life, such as nucleotides (a building block of DNA and RNA). They did this using some of the most common elements that could have been found on the early Earth.

These reactions, present in modern cells, are also believed to be the core metabolism of LUCA, the last universal common ancestor, a single-cell, bacterium-like organism.

For each reaction, they calculated the changes in free energy, which determines if a reaction can go forward without other external sources of energy. What is fascinating is that many of these reactions were independent of external influences like adenosine triphosphate, a universal source of energy in living cells.

The synthesis of life’s fundamental building blocks didn’t need an external energy boost: it was self-sustaining.

Volcanic glass

Life relies on molecules to store and convey information. Scientists think that RNA (ribonucleic acid) strands were precursors to DNA in fulfilling this role, since their structure is more simple.

The emergence of RNA on our planet has long confused researchers. However, some progress has been made recently. In 2022, a team of collaborators in the US generated stable RNA strands in the lab. They did it by passing nucleotides through volcanic glass. The strands they made were long enough to store and transfer information.

Volcanic glass was present on the early Earth, thanks to frequent meteorite impacts coupled with a high volcanic activity. The nucleotides used in the study are also believed to have been present at that time in Earth’s history. Volcanic rocks could have facilitated the chemical reactions that assembled nucleotides into RNA chains.

Hydrothermal vents

Carbon fixation is a process in which CO₂ gains electrons. It is necessary to build the molecules that form the basis of life.

An electron donor is necessary to drive this reaction. On the early Earth, H₂ could have been the electron donor. In 2020, a team of collaborators showed that this reaction could spontaneously occur and be fuelled by environmental conditions similar to deep-sea alkaline hydrothermal vents in the early ocean. They did this using microfluidic technology, devices that manipulate tiny volumes of liquids to perform experiments by simulating alkaline vents.

This pathway is strikingly similar to how many modern bacterial and archaeal cells (single-cell organisms without a nucleas) operate.

The Krebs Cycle

In modern cells, carbon fixation is followed by a cascade of chemical reactions that assemble or break down molecules, in intricate metabolic networks that are driven by enzymes.

But scientists are still debating how metabolic reactions unfolded before the emergence and evolution of those enzymes. In 2019, a team from the University of Strasbourg in France made a breakthrough. They showed that ferrous iron, a type of iron that was abundant in early Earth’s crust and ocean, could drive nine out of 11 steps of the Krebs Cycle. The Krebs Cycle is a biological pathway present in many living cells.

Here, ferrous iron acted as the electron donor for carbon fixation, which drove the cascade of reactions. The reactions produced all five of the universal metabolic precursors – five molecules that are fundamental across various metabolic pathways in all living organisms.

Building blocks of ancient cell membranes

Understanding the formation of life’s building blocks and their intricate reactions is a big step forward in comprehending the emergence of life.

However, whether they unfolded in hot springs on land or in the deep sea, these reactions would not have gone far without a cell membrane. Cell membranes play an active role in the biochemistry of a primitive cell and its connection with the environment.

Modern cell membranes are mostly composed of compounds called phospholipids, which contain a hydrophilic head and two hydrophobic tails. They are structured in bilayers, with the hydrophilic heads pointing outward and the hydrophobic tails pointing inward.

Research has shown that some components of phospholipids, such as the fatty acids that constitute the tails, can self-assemble into those bilayer membranes in a range of environmental conditions. But were these fatty acids present on the early Earth? Recent research from Newcastle University, UK gives an interesting answer. Researchers recreated the spontaneous formation of these molecules by combining H₂-rich fluids, likely present in ancient alkaline hydrothermal vents, with CO₂-rich water resembling the early ocean.

This breakthrough aligns with the hypothesis that stable fatty acid membranes could have originated in alkaline hydrothermal vents, potentially progressing into living cells. The authors speculated that similar chemical reactions might unfold in the subsurface oceans of icy moons, which are thought to have hydrothermal vents similar to terrestrial ones.

Each of these discoveries adds a new piece to the puzzle of the origin of life. Regardless of which ones are proved correct, contrasting theories are fuelling the search for answers. As Charles Darwin wrote:

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science for they often long endure: but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened. Läs mer…

A personalised mRNA vaccine to treat melanoma has now reached late-stage trials in the UK. This is just the latest step in improving the cure rate of cancer.

This form of cancer therapy harnesses the power of the body’s immune system to target and eradicate cancer cells. During the phase 2 trials, the vaccine was shown to reduce the risk of cancer returning in people who were undergoing treatment for melanoma.

The phase 3 trials the vaccine is currently entering will recruit thousands of participants in order to better understand just how effective personalised mRNA vaccines are in treating melanoma.

Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has been a formidable challenge for doctors due to its aggressive nature and tendency to spread. It’s usually caused by exposure to ultraviolet light – but in many cases we don’t fully understand why it occurs.

Early melanomas can be cut out surgically. But if the cancer is more advanced, or if it has spread to the lymph nodes or other places in the body, patients will need drug treatment too.

We’ve made massive improvements in treating melanoma, especially with drugs that enable the immune system to recognise melanoma cells and kill them (known as immunotherapy). But despite the tremendous successes here, sometimes these drugs are very toxic – causing inflammation of lung or gut tissue, for example. Other times, they fail to work, so melanomas return or spread – known as relapse.

Enter personalised messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines – a cutting-edge therapeutic approach that leverages the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, potentially with fewer side-effects than existing treatments.

Personalised vaccines

An mRNA vaccine works by introducing fragments of mRNA (messenger RNA) into the body. The main function of mRNA is to copy and carry genetic information from our DNA to other cells.

In the case of a cancer vaccine, these mRNA fragments introduce tumour-specific antigens – abnormal parts of cancer – into the body. These antigens are unique to cancer cells and serve as targets for the immune system to recognise and attack. This means that once the immune cells are primed, if any melanoma cells begin to form in future they’ll know to attack and destroy them. The immune system will also kill any residual microscopic melanoma cells that could be lurking inside patients.

One of the keys to the effectiveness of personalised mRNA vaccines lies in their customisation to each patient’s unique genetic makeup and tumour profile. By sequencing a patient’s tumour DNA, researchers can identify the specific mutations and antigens present in their cancer cells. This information is then used to design a personalised mRNA vaccine tailored to target the patient’s specific tumour antigens.

Melanoma is usually caused by UV exposure.
Nasekomoe/ Shutterstock

The patient’s mRNA sequences are then enclosed in lipid (fat) nanoparticles which act like miniature cargo carriers to deliver the the mRNA into the patient’s body via an injection. Once inside the body, the mRNA molecules instruct the cells to produce the tumor antigens, triggering an immune response that spreads throughout the body. This immune response targets and eliminates cancer cells bearing those antigens.

The immune system plays a pivotal role in cancer surveillance and elimination. This is why mRNA vaccines are increasingly being investigated as a form of cancer treatment, as they train the immune system to recognise and mount a targeted response against cancer cells bearing specific antigens, effectively enhancing the body’s ability to identify and destroy them.

But cancer cells have many techniques they use to avoid detection, allowing them to grow and spread. As such, we don’t currently know whether mRNA vaccines will work alone, or work best in conjunction with existing cancer therapies – and whether vaccines should be deployed as an early or late line of defence against cancer.

At present, the melanoma mRNA vaccine appears to work best when used alongside other cancer treatments. The initial results of the phase 2 trials showed patients who used the personalised mRNA vaccine alongside the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab had a 49% lower risk of death or melanoma recurrence three years later compared to those who only took the immunotherapy drug.

The phase 3 trials will build on this work, investigating the vaccine in a larger group of people. Hopefully the study will confirm the phase 2 findings and the drug will become available to melanoma patients in the future.

A personalised mRNA vaccine for melanoma would offer a new avenue for treatment – which may increase quality of life and the cure rate of this type of cancer. Vaccines are also being studied for other cancer types, including lung cancer. Research has also shown personalised mRNA vaccines may be effective for treating pancreatic cancer – but again we need more information from larger studies.

Personalised mRNA vaccines represent a paradigm shift in cancer therapy – offering a highly targeted and adaptable approach to treatment. By harnessing the body’s immune system to selectively target cancer cells, these vaccines hold enormous potential to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients. Läs mer…

This article contains spoilers for The Double O trilogy of James Bond books by Kim Sherwood

In the first book of Kim Sherwood’s Double O trilogy, Double or Nothing (2022), James Bond has gone missing. No one knows what’s become of him, but Moneypenny, now in charge of the Double O Section of the British Secret Intelligence Service, has not given up hope.

Enter MI6’s “new blood”, a new generation of 00 agents tasked with retrieving Britain’s greatest spy. They include agent 003, Johanna Harwood, named after the Bond film franchise’s first female scriptwriter, and 004, Joseph Dryden, the “freakish human-machine hybrid” permanently connected, via a surgical implant, to MI6. There is also the addition of scientists Aisha Asante and Ibrahim Suleiman who operate “Q”, which is now a sophisticated machine rather than the geeky human “quartermaster” responsible for the technological gadgets.

James Bond is still missing at the start of A Spy Like Me (2024) so the team are back in this book to find. The story unfolds, as typical of Bond stories, across the world, encompassing exotic glamour (Oman, Venice, Dubai), dangerous hotspots (Afghanistan, Iran, Russia) and the thrill of adventure (Crete, Australia, Mongolia).

The action kicks off with a terrorist attack on the BBC’s headquarters in central London, a blow to the heart of a British institution and, by extension, the nation. While the episode is one in a series of seemingly unrelated events that have recently shaken up global security, the time pattern identified by Q’s analysis – each six days after a large financial transaction – connects this attack with a recent sale at Sotheby’s auction house.

Time is ticking for the multiple agents – including new agent 000 – involved in parallel missions to link a network of international smugglers known as Janus to Rattenfänger, the paramilitary organisation suspected of holding James Bond hostage.

Women and the dark side of globalisation

An engrossing thriller, A Spy Like Me gifts its readers a diverse range of complex female characters, an important enhancement Sherwood delivers to the Bond canon.

Many smart, brave and dangerous women operate at the centre and on the peripheries of the story. Rachel Wolff is a nimble thief and safe cracker who becomes MI6’s latest recruit. Lisle Baum, who started off in Ian Fleming’s short story Risico as “mistress to criminals who dealt in everything from drugs to women”, is back as a more empowered “jewellery empress”.

It is, however, Moneypenny’s fiercely cold intelligence that pulls the strings of this complex counter-terrorist operation, which, in its disregard of protocol, bears the trademark maverick style of the missing James Bond.

Hemlock Press

The team fight to identify the transnational smuggling top figures, named after the double-faced Roman god Janus. Rather than branding them as quintessential villains, their duplicity gestures to the dubious “00” itself, a licence to kill that conveniently turns the victim of murder into “collateral damage”.

Moral dilemmas keep haunting Harwood, who is intensely aware of “what it means to be a spy like her – her own double heart, her own double life, in grief and the waking world, in love with two men, an untaken path as a doctor and a half-life as a spy.”

Readers will remain tantalised by the oscillating needles in the agents’ moral compasses: “It’s the people we trust, without compromise, that compromise us”, Moneypenny inevitably admits at the end.

A spy like Kim

Sherwood’s captivating story is self-consciously festooned with literary references to Fleming’s most memorable characters and stories. Among others, Bond’s father-in-law, Marc-Ange Draco (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1963), and Tiger Tanaka, chief of the Japanese Secret Services (You Only Live Twice, 1964), both come to Dryden’s assistance.

The novel’s literary playfulness does not stop at cross-references to the Bond literary and cinematic canons. It unapologetically erodes the boundaries of genre, smashing the wall that, even according to Fleming, sets thrillers apart from “literature”. In fact, it does more than that.

Though not as concise as Fleming’s, Sherwood’s prose is evocative in its own distinctive ways. In a scene describing a villain’s sinister hospitality (a formula made popular by the film adaptation of Dr No), dinner becomes “a silent affair, stretched over a polished steel table as long as a limousine … like eating on a mortician’s slab”.

Elsewhere, Sherwood goes, arguably, even further than Fleming in deploying forensic detail to expose the fragile geology of the human body and identify the fault lines of an unknown story: “One’s experiences are imprinted on the brain and the heart, and the gut and the joints, just like eras imprinted on ice,” Harwood notes when confronted with the corpse of someone she used to know.

The novel’s wealth of detail is a credit to Sherwood’s efforts both as a researcher invested in learning the facts behind her labyrinthine plot, and as a writer whose ears always perk up to the intriguing stories around her.

Writing is, in fact, not too dissimilar from spywork. At one point in the story, seeking to link the financial transactions and photographs of trafficked women stored in a villain’s laptop, “Harwood gazes at the wall, not seeing the sheer concrete, but instead, seeing a story.” In this epiphany, the code is cracked, the plot is found, the story is revealed. The spy is the writer. The writer is the spy. Läs mer…

All the parts of our bodies share an inherent connectivity. This goes much further than “the foot bone’s connected to the … leg bone”. For instance, both hands and feet are connected to a constantly flowing bloodstream, and a nerve network that makes their muscles kick.

So what about the connection recently proposed by some news outlets regarding a simple test involving your palm and thumb? Could it really help diagnose a silent, yet potentially serious problem?

An aneurysm is what we’re referring to here. This is a ballooned segment of an artery – the vessels that supply oxygenated blood to your body tissues. Aneurysms may cause no problems, but if they grow larger, they can weaken, burst and bleed. This is bad enough in most arteries, but imagine if the artery involved were the biggest in your body?

The vessel in question is the aorta. Aortic aneurysms can develop slowly and insidiously, without yielding any knowledge that they are evolving, since they may not trigger any symptoms.

Indeed, they may not become identifiable until they’re starting to leak. By this stage, the threat to life from arterial rupture is severe.

Any test that can pick up an aneurysm before it gets to this danger point has great implications. Namely, so the defect can be closely monitored and repaired if needed.

So, is there a clinical basis for this proposed test? And what does it involve?

The thumb-palm test

The original paper regarding the problem dates to 2021. A research group in the US recognised that some people with aortic aneurysms demonstrated a sign in their hands when asked to cross their thumb across a flattened palm. A positive test was seen when the thumb extended all the way across the palm, protruding to the other side.

A link could be made between this finding and the presence of a connective tissue disorder, where joints and ligaments are lax and loose, and might lead to a positive test. Some connective tissue disorders, including Marfan syndrome, are known to be associated with developing aneurysms, so this observation made sense.

The findings were that a positive test was associated with a high likelihood of an aneurysm being present in the ascending portion of the aorta as it leaves the heart.

However, it’s important to note that the landmark paper examining the relationship looked at 305 patients. Of these, ten showed the positive sign, so the sample size could have affected the results.

That’s not to say that this test lacks credibility, but it needs to be tested on more patients first.

And it’s not the only example of a test used in medical practice that is not perfect.

What makes a good test?

In medicine, we ideally want to use tests that accurately spot diseases without missing them. We also want those that don’t misdiagnose patients, and are specific to certain conditions. We call these important parameters the sensitivity and specificity. Ideally, both should be as high as possible for a test to be considered a gold standard.

In reality, there are many tests we use that lack sensitivity or specificity. Take prostate-specific antigen (PSA) for instance – a simple blood screening test available to screen for prostate cancer. If the PSA comes back raised (and this is variable according to age) one of the underlying diagnoses might be prostate cancer.

But it also might be an enlarged or inflamed prostate, or a urinary tract infection. Or recent sexual intercourse. Or indeed, (but more speculatively) cycling before the test.

Many factors aside from cancer can cause a raised PSA, making the test lack specificity. PSA can also sometimes be normal in patients with prostate cancer, which means it lacks sensitivity.

This is why doctors have to use test results alongside other clues, such as examining the prostate to see if it is enlarged and craggy to the touch – altogether more suggestive of cancer.

Like PSA, what is known about the thumb-palm test shows it has to be interpreted correctly. Those with positive tests do not always have an aortic aneurysm. And having a negative test doesn’t automatically exclude one. It also needs to be performed correctly: the palm must be flat, not folded, to prevent a false positive test.

But what does this all mean for detecting aortic aneurysms while more research is carried out? Perhaps we should be considering what is known about them.

We know that this condition is associated with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking – so identifying and treating risk factors is important.

Equally important is scanning the aorta of those at-risk groups; those with certain connective tissue disorders or with a family history of aortic aneurysms.

The thumb-palm test has yet to be incorporated into clinical practice, but further research looking at larger patient populations might allow it some more credence. In the meantime, we must rely on what we do know, to detect them as early as possible, and monitor them lest they become dangerous. Läs mer…

Roman dodecahedra are something of an enigma: there is no known mention of these 12-sided, hollow objects in ancient Roman texts or images. First discovered in the 18th century, around 130 dodecahedra have been found across the Roman Empire, although it is interesting that the majority have been found in northern Europe and Britain, and none have been found in Italy.

Dodecahedra are quite intricate, featuring a number of round holes, with knobs framing the holes. It would have taken a very skilled craftsman to make them. They are made out of a copper alloy and would have been quite expensive, due to the amount of time and metal that was used to create them, which adds to their intrigue.

I am part of the local archaeology group behind the recent discovery of a Roman dodecahedron in Norton Disney, near Lincoln. It has been quite a whirlwind for our group, from the shock on the day of finding the object, where everyone on site was buzzing with excitement and disbelief, to dealing with all the attention both nationally and internationally. It has been wonderful to witness the interest in our find and the history of Norton Disney.

There have been numerous suggestions by archaeologists and the public as to what dodecahedra could have been. Some theorise that they were religious objects, knitting tools, measuring instruments or stress toys. Due to the high level of skill involved, some have suggested that they were a way for a master craftsman to demonstrate their expert abilities.

There is no uniformity in the size or shape of the dodecahedra found so far, nor in their metal composition or even in the level of craftsmanship. If they were important objects, we would expect to also discover contextual evidence in the archaeological record, such as depictions in paintings or mosaics. It does feel that this object will remain a mystery for some time – which might be why so many people are fascinated by it.

The Norton Disney dodecahedron

In June 2023, the Norton Disney Archaeology Group (NDAG) (of which I am the treasurer) carried out a local community dig in a field close to the village of Norton Disney, Lincolnshire.

Richard Watts, who found the dodecahedron.
Norton Disney Archaeology Group

Four trenches were opened, and it was in trench four – in what appeared to be a large pit – that a perfectly crafted dodecahedron was found. It’s the 33rd to be found in England and the first to be found in the Midlands.

There are a few things that make this find particularly special. First is its size, as it is thought to be one of the largest examples in Britain. Second is the high level of preservation of the object. As Richard Parker, the secretary for the NDAG, explained: “Ours is in absolutely fantastic condition. It is completely undamaged and there is no evidence of any wear at all.”

The dodecahedron has undergone some initial analysis in order to try to provide some more clues about it. A handheld XRF (X-Ray flourescence) analysis, a technique used to analyse element composition, was carried out by archaeometallurgist Gerry McDonnell, an expert in the past use and production of metals by humans. It revealed that the composition of the object was mostly a mix of copper alloy (75%), with tin (7%) and lead (18%).

The Norton Disney dodecahedron measures around 8cm across and weighs 245 grams. It has also been scanned using a 3D scanner in collaboration with the University of Lincoln, and later this year it will be sent to Newcastle University for some further scientific analysis.

The Norton Disney Archaeology Group excavating trench four.
Norton Disney Archaeology Group

The site of the find itself is interesting. Pottery shards from a number of the trenches ranged in date from the Iron Age up to the Roman period, showing a long, continued use of the land.

There is also a Roman Villa close to the site that was excavated in 1935. Skeletal remains found at the villa suggest that it was occupied in the late Roman period, and that the villa site was later reused as a burial ground. In 1989, a metal detectorist discovered a Romano-British horseman deity figurine in the vicinity of the Roman villa, which is currently housed at the British Museum.

There is still so much to learn about the site and the dodecahedron itself. The trench where it was found was not fully excavated in 2023 due to time and financial constraints (the NDAG is solely reliant on donations), as it was found on the penultimate day of the dig.

But the NDAG will be returning to the site this June to reopen a couple of trenches and fully excavate the pit where the dodecahedron was found. This will hopefully provide a better picture of exactly what the site was used for and why the mysterious dodecahedron was placed there. Läs mer…

Would you rather find yourself alone in the woods with a bear or a man? This is the question currently dividing social media. Based on the responses online, it looks like most women answering the question say they would choose the bear, a decision that is shocking many men.

The reactions show some men don’t understand women’s experiences. The assertion that women would prefer to encounter a bear is based on evidence about the rate of male violence against women, and on a lifetime of learning to fear and anticipate this violence. This is especially true of sexual violence, something which would not be associated with encountering a bear.

According to the World Health Organization, one in three women – around 736 million globally – will have experienced sexual or physical violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner in their lifetime. This figure has largely remained unchanged over the past decade.

Being attacked by a bear is much less common, with only 664 attacks worldwide over 15 years, and very few fatal attacks. And bears tend to avoid humans, attacking only when provoked or protecting their young.

This is not about generalising or fearing all men. Women know that not all men are dangerous. But women don’t know which men they should fear, only that male violence and male entitlement to women’s bodies is something that they have to be on guard for.

Women are commonly victims of sexualised violence, and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators (including against other men). There are enough men who have hurt or are capable of hurting women, and women have no way of knowing which ones these are. While much violence against women comes from men they know, the risk of danger from men they don’t know is something that informs their day-to-day lives.

For example, research shows that women change their behaviour – making certain decisions about the routes they take or what they wear – to avoid harassment or abuse from men in public. Scholars such as Fiona Vera-Gray refer to this as safety work.

Read more:
Have you ever wondered how much energy you put in to avoid being assaulted? It may shock you

Women’s view of men is also coloured by their non-violent actions that harm women. Clearly, bears also do not contribute to or uphold systemic sexism and misogyny, but most men do.

My research on misogynistic online groups has explored how men engage in acts against women that reinforce gender inequality.

Writer Emma Pitman has described this phenomenon using the analogy of a human pyramid. The choices of some men to stay silent about abuse is the base of the pyramid, holding up other men who engage in misogynistic jokes or commit violence.

The overall effect, whether deliberate or via ignorance or indifference, is to normalise and support the actions of male sexual predators and domestic abuse perpetrators.

This culture props up the men who are silent bystanders, observing sexism, harassment or abuse but doing nothing, the men who make or laugh along with the sexist or rape jokes, those who are rape apologists and blame women for their sexual victimisation, those who become aggressive when women turn them down, those who stalk, control and abuse women, and those who are rapists, sexual harassers and murderers. This continuum of misogyny is women’s everyday reality – and at no point do bears feature.

The pyramid of misogyny is upheld by men staying silent about abuse and harm.
StillFX/Shutterstock

Men on the defensive

Men are generally surprised, defensive even, when the subject of male violence against women is discussed. This is often where people invoke the response “not all men”.

When women took to social media to express their anger and devastation following the murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer in 2021, #NotAllMen trended online. Meanwhile, police advised women not to walk alone at night, placing the burden of avoiding violence on women.

This conversation is about privilege, and not recognising it. Many men are able to move through their daily lives not being worried that they are going to be attacked or raped, can walk alone late at night without taking any safety precautions or even not having such thoughts cross their minds, and do not feel their hearts beat faster if they hear footsteps behind them. It may not be all men, but it is all women, who live smaller lives because of the threat of some men’s violence.

These discussions are an opportunity for men to understand women’s genuine fears and to be part of the solution rather than the problem. Läs mer…

In the diplomatic manoeuvrings surrounding the conflict in Gaza, things are beginning to gather pace. Israel’s western allies are pressing the Israeli prime minister to accept the latest plan brokered by Egypt and Qatar, while the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, are similarly exerting pressure on Hamas to soften its position. But Russia and China are hosting talks in Beijing between Hamas and Fatah which could destabilise everything. We talked with John Strawson, Middle East expert at the University of East London, who has been researching and publishing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for several decades, who believes the crisis has reached a critical moment.

Egypt has brokered a new deal which the Hamas leadership has said it will consider. The UK foreign minister says it’s a “very generous offer”. What’s new about this and what are the push and pull factors that might persuade Hamas to accept the terms?

The proposals that have been made in Cairo and guaranteed by Egypt, Qatar and the US are significantly new. The most remarkable feature is that over the course of a 40-day cessation of hostilities, Israel will; in phased manner, suspend military operations, withdraw its forces, and allow civilians to return to their homes. It also provides for talks to lead to a prolonged ceasefire and rebuilding of Gaza.

Under the plan Hamas will initially release 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. In the longer term it envisages the return of all hostages and the continued release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Hamas, it is reported, wants to add a requirement that Israel commit to never returning to Gaza. But the Israelis would not agree to that under current conditions.

However, it’s difficult to know how serious Hamas is given it has already achieved many of its demands, particularly on the return of civilians to their, albeit shattered, homes and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from many parts of Gaza.

The signals are that Hamas, having wrung concessions from the Israelis, will drag out the talks hoping for more. Palestinian civilians must be hoping that it accepts the arrangements so they can begin to pick up their lives again.

Israel has sent a delegation to Cairo and is under great domestic pressure to agree any deal that leads to the hostages returning home. We could be tantalisingly near to the end of the war. However, that will depend ultimately on how Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, respond.

Meanwhile the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has been in Saudi Arabia this week talking with Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, as well as representatives of five other Gulf countries. While Gaza is clearly at the centre of their discussions, is there a bigger picture involved here?

US president Joe Biden and his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, have been working assiduously on creating a new security architecture for the Middle East for some time. Ironically the Iranian attack on Israel on April 13 has given the administration the opportunity to take this forward.

The coordination between the US, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states in resisting the Iranians showcased the benefits of such an alliance. Saudi Arabia is now key in the US plan for a post-Gaza war Middle East. The Saudis have made it clear over the past week that recognition of Israel is now only a matter of timing. The conditions must include Israeli steps towards Palestinian statehood. If Netanyahu resists this, the Saudis are likely to press the US for a technology and security deal in any event.

Talks: US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, with German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in Riyadh with Saudi foreign minister, Prince Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo

Blinken and the Saudis are actively discussing an Arab-led peacekeeping force to replace the Israelis in Gaza. That would offer a move in the direction of statehood. Netanyahu desperately wants Saudi recognition, and it may be the leverage that might bring this about.

The US has made it very clear to Netanyahu, that Israel’s plan to launch an assault on Gaza is not acceptable. Short of sanctioning the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and cutting arms sales, which Washington has said it will not do, what other pressure can be brought to bear on the Israeli war cabinet?

Netanyahu has been talking about the Rafah operation for months but only now have the IDF assembled the troops needed for the assault. It may also be that the concession to Hamas on civilians returning to their homes is in part an attempt to see a movement of civilians from Rafah to make an operation easier.

The far right in the Israeli cabinet insists on the Rafah operation for their continued support for Netanyahu. The US are trying to counter that, and I suspect that Blinken will be bringing great political pressure on the Israeli prime minister to stay his hand.

He will also know that the war cabinet is divided over the priority that the Rafah operation has compared to the necessity of returning the hostages. Blinken will be trying to use that divide to at least delay any operation so that the current ceasefire negotiations can be successful.

At this stage I suspect the US will be using these political pressures rather than the threat of halting arms sales.

Netanyahu clearly has problems of his own, with the right-wing of his fractious coalition refusing to countenance a ceasefire deal with Hamas. If he needed to, could he cobble together enough support in the Knesset to do without them? Are there signs that he is talking to other parties and factions?

Netanyahu is more known for his political cunning than his political courage. But it’s not just a question of the far right holding Netanyahu to ransom. That’s because some of his own Likud party, both in the government and the Knesset, hold similar views – such as the diaspora minister, Amichai Chickli.

Netanyahu would fear that any search for new coalition partners would destabilise his position and increase pressure for new elections.

The big question is whether the opposition members of the war cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, from the National Unity party will remain in the cabinet if the ceasefire agreement is rejected will be critical to whether it can continue to operate. Eisenkot, who attends the war cabinet member as an observer, has publicly denounced the far-right’s attempt to derail it.

Pressure: US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, meeting the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
EPA-EFE/Haim Tzach/GPO handout

If Hamas does eventually agree to the deal, Netanyahu will have to make a decision that will have fateful consequences for the lives of Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians. Many fear, however that his calculations could focus more on his own political future than anything else.

That said, Netanyahu may feel that with the US moves on regional security and the prospect of Saudi recognition it could be the smart thing to do.

Any lasting peace will depend on both sides recognising the other’s right to exist, so that a two-state solution with security guarantees on both sides can eventually be achieved. Is there a sense that we are any closer to this?

The challenges to the two-state solution were on display when the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, spoke at the Riyadh security conference on April 27. Abbas talked about an Israeli occupation for 75 years and called for the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Abbas’s position seems curious given that he has previously said that the Arab rejection of the 1947 partition plan for a two-state solution has been a “mistake”. But it could be that the reference to 75 years of occupation was a gesture towards Hamas, given the current talks in Beijing, sponsored by Russia and China, to reconcile the differences between Fatah and Hamas and create a unified national movement.

Abbas, like Netanyahu, is thus looking over his shoulder at his extremists. The inclusion of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority would destroy any moves by Israel towards a two-state solution. Since October 7 there is a clear political consensus in Israel that Hamas can have no role in Palestinian politics.

But there have been many attempts to bring the PLO and Hamas together in the past and they have all failed and the likelihood of success now is slim.

Saudi moves towards recognition of Israel will also have an impact on Abbas. Saudi leaders will not be impressed with a rapprochement with Hamas, given its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation banned in the kingdom.

Blinken’s current mission to the region is based on trying to reshape the Middle East by creating the basis for political, economic and security cooperation between Israel and the main Sunni Arab states. Ending the Gaza war in a way that advances this aim is the challenge. In that context the current ceasefire negotiations are crucial. However, while Blinken offers a glimpse of a new Middle East, Netanyahu and Sinwar are far too comfortable in the old one. Läs mer…

Speculation continues over Rishi Sunak’s position as prime minister and Tory leader. The Conservatives’ leadership rules stipulate that Sunak would face a confidence vote among his MPs if 15% of them (52 MPs), wrote to Graham Brady, chairman of the Tories’ backbench 1922 Committee, calling for a ballot.

Conservative confidence votes are restricted to MPs, but if Sunak were forced out, his successor would be chosen by the party’s 170,000 members. Sunak lost such a contest to Liz Truss in 2022, but she lasted only six weeks before resigning. Perhaps with Truss in mind, Brady suggested that, while it is fine for party members to choose leaders in opposition, it is less appropriate in government.

Prime ministers must command the confidence of the House of Commons. First and foremost, that requires the confidence of their own party’s MPs. If party members choose leaders, they might be swayed by candidates’ ideological purity or media profiles, rather than who is able to unite their MPs into a cohesive parliamentary force. According to this logic, only MPs can be trusted to choose the best leader.

But this is not necessarily the case. Leadership contests are carefully structured events. My research on leadership elections identifies four criteria for evaluating how these systems are working.

First, the system must produce a leader with legitimacy. This is the justification of authority and the obligation of others to obey it. In leadership selection, this is usually rooted in democratic procedures. Second, it must deliver a leader with parliamentary acceptability – because leaders must be acceptable to their MPs.
This is a practical requirement in a parliamentary system, where leaders must unite (and discipline) their legislative parties. Third, the system must make it possible for leaders who overstay their welcome to be removed. Fourth, contests must be timely – the party should be able to run them quickly or draw them out, as circumstances dictate.

The debate over whether MPs or members should choose leaders relates mainly to the first and particularly the second criteria. It was argued that Truss, and Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour party, were imposed on the party by members but unacceptable to the MPs.

It is obvious how parliamentary ballots, which both main parties once used to select their leaders, score highly on parliamentary acceptability. The winner is guaranteed to secure majority (or strong plurality) support from MPs. But even with the shift to member votes, both Labour and the Conservatives use parliamentary controls to screen out unacceptable candidates. Parliamentary nomination thresholds are a common method. Labour leadership candidates currently need 20% of their MPs to nominate them publicly, making it hard for the radical left to run candidates.

The Conservatives’ nomination rules fluctuate from one contest to another because the executive of the 1922 Committee and the party board can modify them according to circumstances.

In the first Tory contest of 2022, candidates needed nominations from 20 MPs but in the second contest, it was increased to 100 MPs. In the latter, Sunak was the only candidate to gather sufficient nominations. The Tories also use a system of preliminary parliamentary ballots to whittle down the number of candidates to two before giving the members a vote. These rules ensure that any candidate must enjoy considerable backing from Conservative MPs.

Liz Truss meets members ahead of her election.
Alamy/Jane Barlow

So, it’s not necessarily the case that in leadership contests, members are pitted against MPs. They are two parts of the same system. Corbyn was undoubtedly unacceptable to Labour MPs, yet they had only themselves to blame for his victory in 2015.

At the time, the parliamentary nomination threshold was 15% and Corbyn was well short of that until he was “loaned” nominations from MPs who did not support him but wanted to “broaden the debate”. They expected him to lose but he swept all before him in the member ballot. The parliamentary controls existed to stop his candidacy, but MPs chose to deactivate them.

The case of Truss is different. She was not a parliamentary outsider like Corbyn, but a senior cabinet minister. In the preliminary parliamentary ballots of 2022, she saw off several other candidates to become the candidate of the Tory right. In the final parliamentary ballot, Truss (with 113 MPs) pipped Penny Mordaunt (with 105) for second place to Sunak (137), before she triumphed in the member ballot. Yet Sunak was hardly the overwhelming choice of MPs, attracting less than 40% as supporters.

One-member-one-vote systems are capable of delivering leaders who are acceptable to MPs, provided that controls are in place and operated. British parties switched to member ballots because of the belief inside those parties that leaders required a wider base of legitimacy than that provided by MPs. Any attempt to revert to parliamentary ballots would stir significant internal dissent.

Supporters of member ballots argue that members are people with a special commitment to their parties and expect a say in leadership selection in return for their activism and support. Moreover, academic research indicates that party members are not, on the whole, ideologically “extreme”, and certainly not much more than MPs themselves.

A greater problem for the Conservatives is the way the two parts of their current system interact. The parliamentary ballots are intended solely to produce a shortlist of two candidates for the member ballot but they are widely interpreted as indicators of parliamentary support.

This becomes a problem if majorities of MPs and members prefer different candidates, producing competing legitimacies. Alternatively, splits within the parliamentary party can lead to three evenly matched candidates in the final round of voting.

That means that whoever wins the member ballot appears lacking in parliamentary support – as with Truss in 2022 (but it would also have applied to Sunak had he won). Barring a return to parliamentary selection, this problem could be addressed by following Labour in moving to pure member voting on any number of candidates that get enough support from the parliamentary party, but with high nomination thresholds.

The Conservatives’ eviction rules also arguably make it too easy to trigger a confidence vote in the leader. The 15% threshold is very low, especially as MPs writing letters retain their anonymity. Theresa May (2018) and Boris Johnson (2022) faced confidence votes and although each won their respective ballot, their authority was damaged. Both resigned not long after. Any vote triggered against Sunak risks leaving him in place as a lame duck in election year.

Party members are sometimes unfairly maligned. It was Tory MPs who chose May and Sunak (neither faced a member ballot). May botched Brexit while Sunak is plumbing the depths of unpopularity. And the various scandals that have engulfed the Conservative Party concern the conduct of its MPs, not its members. Watering down the members’ rights is unlikely to resolve divisions and deter misbehaviour in the parliamentary party. Läs mer…