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Stephen Witt: "Jensen Huang re-engineered Nvidia to make it the most valuable company in the world"
Get PDFThe Thinking Machine is a deep dive into the rise of Nvidia, the company producing the microchips powering the AI “industrial revolution”, and its long-running CEO, Jensen Huang. LSE Review of Books Managing Editor Anna D’Alton spoke to the book’s author Stephen Witt about the reasons for Nvidia’s success and if its dominance is sustainable, how AI is transforming our societies and whether the massive investment in AI could create a bubble. The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip. Stephen Witt. The Bodley Head. 2025
Global, regional, and national burden of chronic respiratory diseases and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1990–2023: a Global Burden of Disease study
No full textChronic respiratory diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, pneumoconiosis, interstitial lung disease (ILD) and pulmonary sarcoidosis, are major global causes of mortality and morbidity. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced acute respiratory health, its impact on chronic respiratory conditions remains unclear. We estimated the global, regional and national burden of chronic respiratory diseases from 1990 to 2023, including risk factors, and evaluated how these burdens have shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic using the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023. In 2023, chronic respiratory diseases accounted for 569.2 million (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 508.8–639.8) cases and 4.2 million (3.6–5.1) deaths. The age-standardized death rate declined by 25.7% globally from 1990 to 2023 despite an increase in ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis. Mortality declined in younger males, especially for asthma, whereas older adults experienced a rise in ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis. Smoking was the primary risk factor for COPD, whereas high body mass index and silica exposure were key risk factors for asthma and pneumoconiosis. During the pandemic, the incidence of chronic respiratory diseases increased modestly, but the decline in mortality rates became more pronounced, highlighting the need for sustained global attention and action to address their long-term burden
Co-creating an intersectional water justice toolkit and documentary in Cape Town, South Africa
No full textWater justice is the equitable, reliable, and safe access to clean water and sanitation and meaningful community inclusion in water governance, which is constrained by multiple social inequities. Financial (housing) and social inequities such as gender inequitable norms and gender-based violence, land insecurity, racial discrimination, and sexuality diversity (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ+]) exclusion perpetuate unequal access to water and sanitation for historically marginalized populations. This highlights the need for an intersectional approach to building alliances to advance water justice across diverse social movements. In Cape Town, South Africa, legacies of colonialism and apartheid continue to shape spatial and infrastructural inequalities, especially in backyards. In response, we co-developed the “Water Justice Alliance-Building Toolkit” through a community-engaged process with activists from five intersecting movements: water justice, women’s rights, housing rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and racial justice. The participatory co-production process involved filmed walk-along interviews, focus groups, arts-based workshops, and community dialogue, culminating in modular tools designed to support intersectional education, alliance-building, and advocacy. In this article, we describe the toolkit’s development, its components, and an accompanying documentary, “Its Ebbs and Flows,” which centers lived experiences of water injustice through visuals and multilingual narration. Toolkit activities, including discussion guides, artmaking, song-making, and role-play, facilitate inclusive dialogue. We conclude with implications for practice and policy, highlighting how participatory, arts-based approaches can foster more responsive health promotion strategies. By validating community knowledge and creative expression, this toolkit expands on whose expertise counts to guide a just transition and offers replicable templates for promoting health equity in climate-vulnerable settings
Vaccine or policy attributes? Unpacking the drivers of vaccine acceptance in France
No full textObjectives: This study investigates how vaccine and policy attributes, along with individual characteristics, influence vaccination decisions in France. It focuses on respondents whose choices vary depending on vaccine or policy features, rather than those who always accept or refuse vaccination. Methods: We use data from the French subsample (N = 3,152) of the VaxPref database, which includes a discrete choice experiment (DCE) where respondents evaluated 12 hypothetical vaccination scenarios. A random effects logit model was estimated incorporating seven vaccine and policy attributes and individual-level covariates. We report average marginal effects and relative attribute importance. Heterogeneity is assessed by stratifying the sample based on general vaccine attitudes. Results: Vaccine effectiveness, protection duration, and side-effect risk substantially affect vaccine acceptance. The vaccine's origin has the strongest influence, with non-EU vaccines—especially those from China and Russia—markedly reducing acceptance. Social restrictions lower willingness to vaccinate, while work-related mandates show no significant impact. Vaccine and policy attributes together explain 11 % of decision variance, with vaccine attributes having greater weight. The remaining 89 % reflects individual characteristics, which are largely immutable but informative for targeted communication. Attribute rankings remain stable across general vaccine attitude subgroups, though their relative importance and explained variance differ. Conclusions: Vaccine acceptance is shaped by both vaccine-related and policy-related attributes, but vaccine characteristics—particularly country of origin—play a larger role in individual decision-making. In France, vaccination strategies aimed at preventing epidemic spread should therefore prioritize the production and promotion of vaccines manufactured in Europe. Communication strategies should also be tailored to audience attitudes: for individuals who already support vaccination, messages can emphasise vaccine efficacy and the risks of side effects, whereas for those with lower levels of support, message should be adapted to individual characteristics
The coming of the Spanish Civil War
No full textPaul Preston's The Coming of the Spanish Civil War is widely regarded as a classic account of the collapse of democracy in Spain and the and outbreak of the civil war. In a narrative that paints a picture of picture of a deeply divided country, he coherently and excitingly outlines the social and economic background to the conflict. Explaining Spain's predicament as a predominantly poor, agricultural country riven by economic inequality, Preston deftly shows how the Republican-Socialist coalition's attempts to reform Spain in the early 1930s were continually undermined and thwarted by right-wing parties and factions. The incompatible interests represented by these two mass parliamentary parties — those of the landless labourers and big landlords, of industrialists and workers — spilled over into conflict which could not be contained within the parliamentary arena, leading ultimately to the outbreak of conflict in 1936. Drawing on archives, diaries and letters of major protagonists, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War remains the definitive account of a conflict whose legacy is still being confronted in Spain today. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Preface by the author, in which he reflects on how the book came to be written
Navigating sacred soundscape in the post-secular age: a critical analysis of the (re)production and consumption of digital non-traditional religious music among Chinese youth
Get PDFThis research explores how Chinese youth, most of whom lack formal religious beliefs or affiliations, engage with digital non-traditional religious music, such as electronic adaptations of the Great Compassion Mantra chant, on platforms such as Bilibili. A total of 15 interviews and one year of digital ethnography were conducted to examine how various music mediators, such as music, technology, the environment, and the cultural context, shape youth’s affective states, namely their states of tranquility, trance, and transcendence. This study reinserts musicality into the social and cultural studies of religious music and identifies more fluid, contingent, and processual forms of associations and articulations between different mediators, along with the more emergent and ambient affective states brought about by such mediators, their networks, and related mediation processes. In addition, this study reveals Chinese youth’s hybridized and idiosyncratic practices that combine alternative spiritual elements with secular experiences, highlighting the context-specific ways in which Chinese youth navigate spirituality in the post-secular age
Early childhood investments and women’s work outcomes across the life course
Get PDFThis study investigates variability in women’s experiences balancing work and family, focusing on the association between early childhood investments and work trajectories. Using longitudinal data and event study models, we examine work participation from two years before to 10 years after first birth across different early childhood investment levels. Although sustained intensive investment is associated with the largest reduction in paid work, the relationship between child investment and work outcomes does not follow a simple “more investment, less work” pattern. Instead, investment intensity and duration both shape work trajectories. Women with more intensive short-term practices or moderate longer-term ones work at similar levels as women making lower investments. Patterns also differ by work outcome: not working is most differentiated by sustained intensive child investment, whereas hours worked are similar across a range of investment levels. Finally, women with constrained family resources consistently work more than those married to college-educated spouses
Human and financial consequences of herding in oncology drug development: clinical trials of TIGIT inhibitors
Get PDFObjectives: To illustrate and quantitate how herding in oncology drug development (five or more biopharmaceutical companies competing to develop modulators of an identical target) amplifies the number of patients enrolled in clinical trials of experimental drugs, and to estimate the cost of trials. Methods and analysis: In the setting of globally based clinical trials in oncology drug development, two public databases (ClinicalTrials.gov and International Clinical Trials Registry Platform), registering clinical trials, were interrogated to determine patient enrolment numbers and clinical trial details for the development of inhibitors of the immune checkpoint protein TIGIT (T-cell immunoreceptor with Ig and immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif domains). Estimates were made of the costs of trials to biopharmaceutical companies and of the numbers of anonymous patients enrolled in clinical trials. Results: 21 companies are or were seeking to have 30 TIGIT inhibitors approved for clinical use in a case of herding. Nearly 49 000 patients were enrolled in 220 clinical trials of TIGIT inhibitors between May 2016 and September 2025 at an estimated cost of between US3.6 billion. Development of 8 of 30 (27%) TIGIT inhibitors in oncology has been terminated to date (November 2025) due to their failure to demonstrate significant clinical activity or for strategic reasons. Nearly 15 000 patients were enrolled in these terminated trials. None of the TIGIT inhibitors had received marketing authorisation as of November 2025. Conclusions: Because of the high attrition rate (95%) in the development of drugs for oncology, herding amplifies the loss of human and financial resources incurred during drug development, with large number of patients enrolled in clinical trials of experimental drugs that are unlikely to receive approval for clinical use. Herding concentrates resources at the expense of investment in a broader portfolio of drug development programmes with a spread of risk against attrition
‘There is no fixed time’ epidemic preparedness and relational time among Acholi refugees in Uganda
No full textBeyond Va Pensiero and the Prison Notebooks: Fernanda Gallo explains why modern Italian political thought can be best understood through the reception of Hegel
Get PDFThe review considers Fernanda Gallo's Hegel and Italian Political Thought against the background of common conceptions of Italian political thought. It reconstructs how Hegelian philosophy shaped three generations of Italian thinkers during Italy's unification and modernization (1832-1900). Challenging Anglophone historiography's focus on Mazzini and Gramsci, Gallo demonstrates how diverse political actors–from Southern revolutionaries to Northern liberals, from Marxists to fascists–drew upon Hegel's ideas to articulate competing visions of Italian nationhood. Beginning with the surprising Russian origins of Italian Hegelianism through figures like Ottavio Colecchi, the book centers on Naples as the hub of Hegelian thought, examining key mediators including Bertrando Spaventa and Marianna Florenzi Waddington. As I argue, Gallo shows compellingly how Hegel's philosophy informed not just theoretical debates but practical governance, including Silvio Spaventa's anti-Camorra policies. By tracing intellectual practices across prisons, parliaments, and private schools, this study reveals the Hegelian foundations underlying modern Italian political traditions–liberal, Marxist, and fascist–and their continued relevance