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[Perspective] A Climate BioStress Sentinel System: Identifying climate impacts from the genome to the urbanized biosphere
No full textThe impacts of climate change are pervasive across the biosphere, stressing virtually all biotic kingdoms and supporting habitats. Contemporary lifeforms respond to climate stress and are early sentinels of how the biosphere could evolve over the longer term. Our capacity to detect biostress has improved markedly with new genetic, biochemical, and biogeochemical techniques; model organisms; ubiquitous in situ and remote sensors; simulations; artificial intelligence tools; socio-environmental perspectives; and global-scale data analytics. Based on these advancements, we present a conceptual climate biostress model, together with an integrative Climate BioStress Sentinel System (CBS3). The sentinel system represents a vehicle for uncovering synergistic and cumulative climate effects in urban settings and their biological, built, and social infrastructures. Developing an integrated CBS3 constitutes a pan-scientific grand challenge requiring integration across traditional disciplinary perspectives spanning at least 12 orders of magnitude each in space and time. By providing operational tracking of the success or failure of commitments to long-term climate and environmental action, CBS3 can provide insights into necessary policy investments and adjustments.</p
We will always think, ‘is this the right decision?’ Norwegian child welfare workers navigating the uncertain project of reunification
No full textFamily reunification following out-of-home placement is an increasing priority for the Norwegian Child Welfare Service (CWS) following European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgements highlighting a right to family life and inadequate supports and visitation for parents to promote reunification. In response to these judgements, Norwegian policy has been strengthened to emphasise reunification as a preferred outcome. However, little is known about how, and to what extent, these policy shifts have influenced CWS professional practice, including enhanced reunification support and visitation for parents. This qualitative study, based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with eight CWS professionals from across offices in Norway, explores CWS professional perceptions of these policy shifts and its impact on professional practice. Findings suggest these political and legislative changes impact CWS professional attitudes and professionals’ positioning as they adjust to new reunification practices and uncertainties in reunification work. The Ecological model of Professional Identities (EPI model) is used to explore CWS professionals positioning at an individual, theoretical and systemic level and the intersecting dilemmas associated with reunification efforts. This study highlights the challenges and possibilities experienced by CWS professionals as they respond to rights-based policy shifts that address wider CWS system inequalities, offering new insight into the complexities and opportunities associated with transitioning to more equal and inclusive CWS systems. Implications for effective policy implementation and reunification practices are discussed.</p
Making gender on the shop floor: literary labor in <i>Stone Butch Blues</i>
No full textThis article reads Leslie Feinberg’s now canonical 1993 novel *Stone Butch Blues* for its engagement with various forms of literary and print labor. I argue that literary labor is central to the novel’s narration of late twentieth century trans and queer life, showing how Feinberg draws out dynamic relations between gender, sexuality, and literary labor in three phases: addressing the physical production of printed material; writing, circulation and reading; and finally typesetting as part of an integrated print ecology. First-person narrator and protagonist Jess’s development as a character hinges on her movement through and across these phases, culminating in her work as a waged phototypesetter and union organizer. The essays argues that queer and trans writing is conditioned by and reflective of the dynamic gendering of post-industrial labor relations, and that this approach is needed for understanding what queer and trans literature have been and might become.</p
Statement of Consensus, November 2025
No full textWe, the undersigned, as practitioners and researchers working in UK migration and asylum law, collectively observe the following issues with the UK Government’s asylum policy announcements which were presented to the House of Commons on 17th November 2025, and published with the title “Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy”. We are worried about the evidential foundations of the proposed policies and the effects that they will have on the UK’s compliance with its international law obligations and with domestic constitutional norms, as well as the values of justice, decency and fairness. The plans will also harm the ability of UK administrative bodies such as the Home Office to provide prompt and effective services.
The purpose of this statement of consensus is to highlight our concerns regarding these proposals in the hope that the government might return to valuing evidence-based policy and, accordingly, abandon the proposed Policy Paper which will exacerbate, rather than address, the current challenges facing the UK asylum system.</p
Setting the stage for statistical learning? Sensitivity to environmental statistics in early sensory processing
No full textOur brains make sense of the world on a moment-by-moment basis despite its enormous complexity, largely because its overall statistical structure can be detected, learned, and generalized across experiences. Exposure to specific regularities (e.g., in speech) results in an unsupervised, incidental, form of learning, commonly known as statistical learning (SL). SL is well-established from a cognitive perspective and often assumed to require high-level cortical or hippocampal processing. However, accumulating evidence suggests that SL emerges much earlier in ascending sensory pathways. Despite this, our understanding of the forms it might take in subcortical sensory centres is relatively limited. Here, we review neuronal sensitivity to statistics in early sensory regions and ask how this sensitivity relates to SL. We feature examples of adaptive responses elicited by stimulus repetitions, omissions, changes in stimulus distribution, and more complex patterning, highlighting the interplay between adaptive coding and SL as manifestations of sensitivity to environmental statistics.</p
Political, cultural, or religious: how do people construe religious identity in post-conflict societies?
No full textThis study investigates the understudied aspect of the multi-faceted nature of religious identity and its implications for intergroup outcomes vital to (post-)conflict settings. Three studies were conducted in Northern Ireland to address this gap using a mixed-method approach. Study 1 involved 519 Catholic and Protestant participants who provided open-ended responses regarding religious identity construals as religious, cultural, or political. Qualitative content analysis yielded 17 items related to Catholic/Protestant identity construals. Study 2 included 276 participants who rated these 17 items, and factor analyses identified a subset of 14 items representing the three identity construals. Finally, Study 3 (N = 300) validated the newly-developed scale and examined how different combinations of religious, cultural, and political identities related to forgiveness, collective action, and allyship. The results indicate the reliable measurement of religious identity construals across the three dimensions and contribute to understanding religious identity and its implications for conflict and peace.</p
Specificity database for bacterial pesticidal proteins against invertebrate targets
No full textBacteria produce a number of proteins with specific biocidal activity against invertebrate pests. These proteins have been employed successfully in biocontrol for decades, by use of microbial sprays and bioengineered crops. While traditionally associated with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) and other well-characterised bacteria, the protein repertoire has recently been expanded to include novel structural classes and sources. Here we present a database comprising, at the time of writing, 3963 entries drawn from 466 research articles and 174 patents, documenting activity against 253 invertebrate species across 25 taxonomic orders. This resource includes toxicity and non-toxicity data encompassing both single-component and multi-component protein activities, assay methods, and bibliographic references. The dataset reveals a trend in testing priorities, with a focus on pests of agricultural and medical importance from the orders Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Diptera. This focus, however, highlights important gaps for future research: while primarily tested against Lepidoptera, pesticidal proteins increasingly show activity against other orders, including Hemiptera. This database, integrated with recent nomenclature updates, provides a dynamic resource for researchers and regulators, facilitating advancements in understanding bacterial pesticidal proteins and their application for sustainable pest management.</p
Realism
No full textRealism is commonly understood in International Relations (IR) as a theory that focuses on the state and considers the international as a conflictual and competitive realm of self-help. Consequently, concepts like power, security, anarchy, and tragedy feature prominently in realist thought. However, despite sharing many of these axioms and concepts, realism is not to be conceived of as a single, unified theory. Rather, the label realism has been applied to positions across theoretical and political spectrums from conservative, even reactionary outlooks on the world to more critical and progressive perspectives. Dispositions as diverse as promoting belligerent state-centrism, providing critiques of the socio-political changes of (post-)modernity, and imagining philosophical frameworks of world community all claim to have found inspiration in realism. Consequently, realism is best understood as a constellation of theories, as recent literature also highlighted by characterising realism for example as spectrum of ideas, philosophical tradition, or simply as a point of intellectual departure.</p
[Evidence submission] Civil legal aid: towards a sustainable future
No full textResponse to the consultation on increasing legal aid fees for immigration and housing in England and Wales</p
[Systematic Review] Brain Fog Unveiled: A Systematic Review of Neurocognitive Impairments in Long COVID in UK-Based Studies
No full textThis systematic review focuses on the cognitive dysfunction associated with Long COVID. The primary cognitive domains of interest include memory, attention, executive function, and processing speed. The healthcare condition under investigation is Long COVID, defined as the persistence of symptoms beyond 12 weeks post-infection with SARS-CoV-2, particularly in relation to cognitive decline and its impact on daily functioning.</p