Category: The Conversation

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kate Cantrell, Senior Lecturer – Writing, Editing, and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland “Imagine her tenderly pressing her soft lips against yours”, writes one incel on Reddit, before concluding, “you will never get to experience this because your skeleton is too small or the bones…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kyle Morrison, PhD Candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UNSW Sydney Kazakov Maksim, Shutterstock Scientists have detected pesticides in rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide. So what are these pesticides doing to the fish? Long before pesticides reach lethal doses, they can disrupt hormones, impair brain…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jenni Cauvain, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Nottingham Trent University More than 180 plants were stolen from a well-loved public park in Nottingham called Arboretum in May 2025. This incident took place just days after volunteers had re-planted flowers and shrubs to repair damage from a previous…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michaela James, Research Officer at Medical School, Swansea University Anna Kraynova/Shutterstock The wellbeing of children is under the spotlight in the UK, after a 2025 report from Unicef ranked the UK at 21 out of 36 wealthy countries on child wellbeing. With growing concerns about mental…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Bing Han, Lecturer in Economic Crime, University of Portsmouth thanun vongsuravanich / Shutterstock At the beginning of 2025, panic about fraud and human trafficking erupted on Chinese social media. It started when a Chinese actor called Wang Xing was tricked into travelling to Thailand for an…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pinar Dinc, Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science and Researcher, Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University The historic disarmament ceremony on July 11 where members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) laid down their arms marked a pivotal moment in a…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephan Blum, Research associate, Institute for Prehistory and Early History and Medieval Archaeology, University of Tübingen Beneath the epic tales of heroes and gods, Troy’s true story is written in something far less glamorous – its rubbish. When we think of Troy, we imagine epic battles,…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock Scrolling through social media, it’s hard to miss influencers raiding the pantry for “natural” beauty fixes: baking-soda scrubs, garlic spot sticks, cayenne masks that promise to tighten pores and banish dullness. The appeal is obvious. Why pay for…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Meads, Professor of Health, Anglia Ruskin University takasu/Shutterstock More women than ever are carrying babies conceived with someone else’s egg – but few are told that this might carry greater health risks. Pregnancies involving an embryo that doesn’t share the pregnant woman’s DNA are becoming…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – UK – By Berna Akcali Gur, Lecturer in Outer Space Law, Queen Mary University of London When pop star Katy Perry and five other women made a much-publicised trip to the edge of space earlier this year, they faced sharp criticism across both social and traditional media, with sceptics…