Joint Effects of Coastal and Inland Mountains on East Asian Climate During the Late Cretaceous

Understanding the climatic impacts of complex mountain configurations is a key challenge, particularly in East Asia during the Late Cretaceous, where diverse mountain landscapes existed but their interactions remain under-explored. Using the HadCM3L climate model, we simulate climate for various mountain configurations and validate results with two model-proxy comparison methods based on proxies and paleo-Köppen classification. Our findings, aligned with geological evidence, suggest the possible presence of the Coastal, Taihang, and Yanshan Mountains during the Late Cretaceous. Surface radiation energy calculations reveal that mountains influenced temperature through cloud processes and caused localized warming due to vegetation changes. Moisture budget calculations show that mountains controlled inland aridity through atmospheric circulation, and contributed to drought near the mountains through transient eddy activity. Coastal mountains dominated climate shifts related to the East Asian monsoon, with the Taihang and Yanshan Mountains amplifying these effects. These insights enhance understanding of paleo-topography and climate dynamics

Tackling gambling harm requires a public health approach

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The role of local knowledge in enhancing climate change risk assessments in rural Northern Ireland

Climate risk modelling provides valuable quantitative data on potential risks at different spatiotemporal scales, but it is essential that these models are evaluated appropriately. In some cases, it may be useful to merge quantitative datasets with qualitative data and local knowledge, to better inform and evaluate climate risk assessments. This interdisciplinary study maps climatic risks relating to health and agriculture that are facing rural Northern Ireland. A large range of quantitative national climate risk modelling results from the OpenCLIM project are scrutinised using local qualitative insights identified during workshops and interviews with farmers and rural care providers. In some cases, the qualitative local knowledge supported the quantitative modelling results, such as (1) highlighting that heat risk can be an issue for health in rural areas as well as urban centres, and (2) precipitation is changing, with increased variability posing challenges to agriculture. In other cases, the local knowledge challenged the national quantitative results. For example, models suggested that (1) potential heat stress impacts will be low, and (2) grass growing conditions will be more favourable, with higher yields as a result of future climatic conditions. In both cases, local knowledge challenged these conclusions, with discomfort and workplace heat stress reported by care staff and recent experience of variable weather having significant impacts on grass growth on farms across the country. Hence, merging even a small amount of qualitative local knowledge with quantitative national modelling projects results in a more holistic understanding of the local climate risk

Decolonising with imperial tools? The paradox of a global bioethics library

This paper presents the Global Bioethics Library (GBL), an initiative developed by Black and Brown in Bioethics in response to recurring requests for more inclusive bioethics reading lists—requests that reflect deeper, structural gaps in the field. These gaps persist in mainstream bioethics pedagogy, literature and frameworks, which remain dominated by Western paradigms and the interests of global North countries, thereby marginalising knowledge and concerns from the global South and minoritised communities in the global North. Positioned as an epistemic justice project, the GBL was envisioned as a crowd-sourced, open-access resource that decentralises knowledge production and expands what is recognised as bioethics. However, the process of developing the library revealed deep tensions and limitations: most contributions came from the global North and continued to reflect dominant frameworks, despite efforts to adopt inclusive and democratic methods. These outcomes expose a controversial paradox—namely, that the very tools and structures used to ‘decolonise’ bioethics may be shaped by the same epistemic paradigms they aim to critique. This paper argues that intention alone is insufficient to redress epistemic injustice. Methods left critically unexamined and without reconfiguration risk reproducing exclusion under the guise of inclusion. The GBL thus serves as a case study in the controversies and contradictions of doing epistemic justice work within institutions and infrastructures built on unequal foundations. We offer this reflection not as a conclusion, but as an invitation for collaboration, critique and reimagining the politics of decolonial work in global bioethics

Clinical and Behavioural Heterogeneity Among Women at Increased Risk for Gestational Diabetes:A Four-Country Analysis

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a growing global health concern due to its impact on maternal and infant health. GDM risk factors vary across populations, but international comparisons using standardised assessment tools are lacking. This study aimed to examine variations in risk factors, demographics and health behaviours among pregnant women at increased risk of GDM across four international sites and to investigate factors associated with maternal body mass index (BMI), a modifiable risk factor for GDM. This cross-sectional study included data from 804 pregnant women in Dublin (n = 213), Bristol (n = 205), Granada (n = 211) and Melbourne (n = 175) identified as having an increased risk of GDM, using the Monash GDM screening tool. Between-site differences were analysed using analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis and chi-square tests and factors associated with BMI at each site were examined using multiple linear regression. Despite standardised risk screening, significant heterogeneity was observed between sites in key GDM risk factors, including age (mean range 33.8–36.7 years), BMI (Melbourne 28.9 vs. Granada 26.9 kg/m2), physical activity (34.86–41.77 METs/week) and dietary intake (mean energy 1881–2136 kcal/day). Multiple factors were independently associated with BMI, including education level, ethnicity, health literacy and energy intake, with patterns varying by site. This study challenges the concept of a homogeneous “high-risk” GDM population by revealing substantial variations in risk factors and characteristics across different patient cohorts, highlighting the importance of developing context-sensitive approaches to GDM prevention

Samuel Beckett and Medicine

Samuel Beckett and Medicine offers the first sustained analysis of the author’s abiding interest in medicine and medical discourses, advancing insights into the representation of illness, neurodiversity, disability, ageing, and dying in his work. It analyses Beckett’s representation of the production of language, offering new ways of understanding the often perplexing formal and stylistic experimentation of his work. The book addresses the many automatic and habitual functions staged in his writing and considers the impact of nerve theory, reflexes, affect, and the viscera on his work. It advances new readings of Beckett’s poetry, prose, and television and stage plays, drawing on his reading notes on medicine and psychology, and on his correspondence and critical writings. Through its refusal to aestheticize embodied experience or to yield to the metaphysical consolations of literature, Beckett’s work challenges us to confront the intricacies of embodied being and to encounter the question of finitude

Clinical Guidelines for Management of Infants Born before 25 Weeks of Gestation:How Representative Is the Current Evidence?

Objective:To determine whether management guidelines for infants born extremely preterm are representative for those infants <25 weeks of gestation.Study design:Three guidelines were reviewed: the 2022 European Consensus Guidelines on the Management of Respiratory Distress Syndrome, the 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines for Perinatal Care, and the 2020/2021 International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation guidelines. All referenced studies for overlapping recommendations were reviewed. Data extracted included the total number and proportion of infants <25 weeks of gestation in the original articles referred in the guidelines. Where the exact number of infants <25 weeks of gestation was unobtainable, this was conservatively estimated by statistical deduction.Results:Eight recommendations were included in 2 or more guidelines: (1) antenatal corticosteroids, (2) antenatal magnesium sulfate, (3) delayed cord clamping, (4) thermoregulation at birth, (5) initial oxygen concentration at birth, (6) continuous positive airway pressure, (7) surfactant, and (8) parenteral nutrition. In total, 519 studies (n = 409 986) informed these 8 recommendations, of which 335 (64.5%) were randomized controlled trials (n = 78 325). Across all studies, an estimated 59 360 (14.5%) infants were <25 weeks of gestation. Within randomized controlled trials alone, an estimated 5873 (7.5%) infants were <25 weeks of gestation. A total of 196 (37.8%) studies did not include any infants <25 weeks of gestation.Conclusions:Infants born <25 weeks of gestation are not well-represented in the evidence used to develop major clinical guidelines for infants born extremely preterm. Future studies should provide evidence for this population as a distinct cohort

Inoculation reduces social media engagement with affectively polarized content in the UK and US

The generation and distribution of hyper-partisan content on social media has gained millions of exposure across platforms, often allowing malevolent actors to influence and disrupt democracies. The spread of this content is facilitated by real users’ engaging with it on platforms. The current study tests the efficacy of an ‘inoculation’ intervention via six online survey-based experiments in the UK and US. Experiments 1-3 (total N = 3,276) found that the inoculation significantly reduced self-reported engagement with polarising stimuli. However, Experiments 4-6 (total N = 1,878) found no effects on participants’ self-produced written text discussing the topic. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of the literature on polarisation and previous interventions to reduce engagement with disinformation

'The Right Type of Woman...at the Policy Making Level':The International Women's Year and representational struggles in Ghana

Accounts of the United Nations International Women’s Year (IWY) have often depicted a tripartite division in which the West, East, and Third World advanced divergent definitions of the problems of women and disagreed bitterly over solutions and priorities. The World Conference of the IWY, held in Mexico City in June 1975, has thus been recounted in terms of a “showdown” between “western feminists” and “Third World women.” This article examines the IWY from the vantage point of Ghana—a former British colony that was firmly aligned with the Third World bloc in 1975. We locate Ghanaians’ engagements with the IWY in a longer trajectory of historically contingent and competing claims to know, organize, and represent women. We argue that these representational struggles can be best understood via an interscalar analysis, which identifies how conflicts across global blocs were closely connected to and shaped by in-country contestation, and vice versa