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Millions of UK mortgage borrowers could experience significant payment shocks this year. This is happening due to a steep rise in the Bank of England’s base rate over the past year to the highest level since 2008. This rate feeds through to many of the mortgage deals taken out by homeowners around the UK.
To attempt to alleviate some of the pain for homeowners that will see large spikes in their payments this year and next, major UK lenders agreed to provide limited help to those struggling with the mortgage repayments.
Among other measures, lenders that participate will agree to allow borrowers to switch to interest-only payment terms or to extend the duration of their mortgage. Borrowers will be able to return to their original deal within six months without any impact on their credit rating. Lenders have also been asked to sign up to a 12-month repossession break to provide a grace period to people at risk losing their homes due to arrears.
But while these measures will help some borrowers, they could cause unintended consequences and create further mortgage payment issues. First of all, the Bank of England’s base rate is already expected to rise to 6% by the end of 2023 and could go higher next year.
Interest-only borrowers’ repayments only include the interest charged on the loan and nothing towards the principal amount. So, after six months (and at the same level of income), they could face much higher payment shocks. If rates are still relatively high after 12 months, many households could still be at risk of losing their homes.
There is also the question of which lenders will participate in mortgage rescue plan – it is a voluntary scheme. According to the FCA, around 75% of lenders will join. Those borrowers with nonparticipating lenders would not be able to use the grace period or other measures.
Another overlooked issue in the rescue plan is that, according to my research, households across the various regions of the UK will be affected differently by the mortgage crisis. Payment shocks will be amplified for those in the areas with higher house prices and higher average loan amounts.
The table below shows the difference in the increase in repayments for an average loan amount across the UK, based on different types of mortgage product. These figures show what repayments would have been in June 2022 versus June 2023, when the Bank of England had increased rates from 1.25% (for June 2022) to 5.00% (for June 2023) – repayments will be even higher if it goes to 6%, as expected by financial markets.
Repayment increases by region, June 2022 vs. June 2023:
The monthly mortgage repayments of households in London on standard variable rates (SVRs – the rate borrowers tend to automatically switch to after a fixed or tracker deal period ends) increased by £1,398 and by £1,142 for those on three-year fixed rate mortgages, for example. In the East Midlands, in comparison, average SVR repayments have increased by £587 and by £429 for three-year fixed rates since last year.
Taking current base rate changes into account, borrowers making interest-only mortgage payments will be even more exposed to future payment shocks when only repaying the interest on their principal loan amount. These borrowers will not have been chipping away at the equity part of their loans, like those on repayment mortgages, keeping their loan larger than it would have been if they hadn’t taken advantage of the rescue measure.
For the average principal loan amount of £250,000, for example, monthly interest-only repayments on the average UK SVR would be £587, compared to a total interest payment of £323 for a repayment mortgage (plus an additional amount towards paying off the borrowed amount, called the equity).
This is because when repayment borrowers pay interest plus equity, the total interest charged on a mortgage falls as the remaining debt decreases. So while repayment borrowers pay less interest as their equity builds and the principal debt falls, they still have to make higher payments overall.
So, for a three-year fixed rate deal, average total interest payments would be £497 per month for the six months for interest-only borrowers, compared to a similar repayment deal for which total interest payments would be £226. This means the exposure to overpayment when choosing to pay interest-only for the six-month rescue period would be:
Three-year fixed rate 6x(£587-£323) = £1,584
SVR: 6x(£497-£226) = £1,626
That is, choosing to pay interest only for six months could add at least £1,500 to a borrower’s bill over the life of the average home loan versus what they would pay if they remained on a repayment mortgage.
Regional differences will also come into play here when considering exposure to payment shocks and excessive mortgage payments. This is because households in regions with higher house prices borrow larger loans and so repay more over the life of the loan.
So, both base rate changes, but also the negative impacts of the mortgage rescue initiative will disproportionally affect households in areas with higher houses prices, such as London or East Anglia.
There is no straightforward solution to this situation, particularly since mortgage rates operate at the national level. A light-touch intervention, such as temporary caps on lenders’ profit margins could help. For example, if lenders were not allowed to make more than 2 percentage points above the bank base rate for certain mortgage products.
But the government also needs to consider the significant differences in payment shock levels across the country, particularly as it is likely to face a general election by January 2025, if not before. This is important when evaluating the robustness of the economy to recession, which already has an uneven effect on different locations and households.
Alla Koblyakova works as the Property Investment and Finance Course Leader at the Nottingham Trent University
Tanya* is telling me just how important her Methodist Christianity is to her. We’re chatting over a video call, and I can see Tanya’s living room in the background. This also happens to be her workspace because Tanya, who is 50, is a full-time phone and cam sex worker. For Tanya, earning her living through sex work does not conflict with her religious beliefs at all. Tanya tells me that she had a client who talked to her about his enjoyment of wearing women’s clothing. He confided in her because they both shared the same religious identity.
He [the client] started talking more and more … he said I listen … he told me he goes to church every Sunday and was a church elder and he opened up. I also said to him … that I used to go to Sunday school every week and so we connected … because I am not going OMG when he told me. And he asked me if I still go to chapel now, and I said no but I still pray and believe in God, and he said that’s nice.
Tanya reassured her client that there was “no need to feel guilty”, that what they were doing wasn’t “wrong”. She even told him: “I bet there are other people in the church who do it”.
Tanya was one of 11 sex workers I spoke to who all had spiritual and religious beliefs. I wanted to discover how these two seemingly opposite life choices could interconnect and coexist. I discovered people like Tanya, who spoke to their clients about God and religion, but I also spoke to women who used religion as a kink to arouse their clients or as a tactic to earn more money or, in some cases, protect themselves when they felt threatened.
I found out that rather than being incompatible, religion and spirituality can create unique connections and meaningful experiences for both sex worker and client. Tanya’s story shows how sex work experiences are not one dimensional, and are not only about selling sex for money. They can hold multiple meanings. As the journalist Melissa Gira Grant suggests in her book, sex work is a role where social skills and empathy are regularly performed.
This article is part of Conversation Insights
The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.
My PhD research attempts to shine a light on the realities of the everyday lives of religious sex workers, which include positive experiences as well as distressing ones. I spoke with sex workers who were Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Norse Pagan and spiritual. All the women were over the age of 18 and were consensual sex workers.
So, what do different religions say about sex work? Research by independent scholar Benedikta Fones, suggests that in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament representations of sex workers are typically negative. That perhaps doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. The stereotypical “religious” view of sex before marriage is that it is immoral, so why should sex work be any different? Fones argues that these religious ideas, about sex work being “unacceptable”, then spread into wider culture.
Research shows that sex work is generally considered an immoral act within Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
That said, there are some religious organisations or charities that do provide essential support for some sex workers. But there are also “saviour charities”, whose existence gives further insight into the complex relationship between sex work and religion.
As the sociologist Gemma Ahearne has written, some religiously motivated groups aim to stop people working in the sex industry and aim to eradicate sex work entirely.
And it’s not just religious doctrines which find sex work to be immoral – some religious sex workers do too, as a research project in Thailand discovered in 2015. But the women I spoke with rejected that narrative of religious condemnation. For them, religion and sex work can co-exist and both were a meaningful part of their lives.
One of my first discoveries was how some sex workers use religion to earn more money. One example of this was how one sex worker had decided to capitalise on her Muslim heritage to boost her “brand”.
Zahra and Islam
Zahra is a 26-year-old British Muslim. Zahra was inspired by other women who use the hijab when sex working. From this, she created her alter ego, where she wore the hijab when she made online sexual content and when working as an escort. She said:
On Twitter … I networked with this one girl, she wears a hijab, not in her real life but using it to make more money and mix it up and she is like earning 150k, she’s up there with celebrities and stuff and so, yeah I decided I would have an alter ego, my “hoejabi”, that’s what I called it and I made content wearing a head scarf and like that and I had jobs coming through from that.
So Zahra utilised the hijab and, in her own words, “made a lot of money from it”.
However, this coexistence of identities – as sex worker and religious person – is not simple, and must be managed by a process of constant internal negotiation. Zahra spoke to me at length about the requests she has had from clients which she turned down, because to agree with them would have challenged her religious values and morals.
She added: “I have had clients go, ‘can you sit on the Qur’an and cum or can I bring a Qur’an and ride it whilst saying this and that’, and I say no. That is too extreme for me.”
So although Zahra uses her religion to earn more money by sexualising Islamic symbols like the hijab, she is still a Muslim woman. She believes in Allah in her private life. She set boundaries within her work to ensure that she doesn’t go against her own religious beliefs.
But sexualising religion in this way can come with risks. In 2015, the former porn actor Mia Khalifa starred in a porn film while she was wearing the hijab. She received death threats as a result and was strongly criticised by some people in Muslim communities. Some claimed she was letting down the Islamic faith (although Khalifa herself was raised Catholic).
But despite – or perhaps because of – the controversy around her film, Khalifa became one of the most searched-for stars on the adult movie site Porn Hub.
Being a Muslim and sex worker may be risky - but for Zahra, it was empowering and positive. And she is not alone. There is a Muslim group called Muslims for Full Decrim whose members are also current and former sex workers who support the decriminalisation of the sex industry. Clearly, religious communities like Islam are diverse and this is reflected in how people feel about their religion and sex work.
Maya, yoga and spirituality
Another sex worker I met used elements of her spiritual life to increase interest from clients. Maya, a 25-year-old British woman showed me her bedroom over a video-call. Maya, like Tanya, is a cam sex worker, so her bedroom is also her workspace. But Maya’s bedroom is also the space where she practises yoga. She told me that she performed yoga on camera for her clients:
Good spiritual link, customers have said they find it relaxing to watch. Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t mention that! I think it’s even like, called a subculture … I sent a video of myself into the site proving I can do it [yoga], you add it to your list of specialities so people can find you for specifically doing that.
For Maya, yoga can be relaxing and a way to connect with her spiritual identity. But it is also a way to make money and it shows how religion and spirituality are becoming more diverse and less bound by traditional religious rules and doctrines. Maya was managing her beliefs flexibly. This was also true for Zahra.
Maya’s and Zahra’s stories show the evident demand from some clients for religion when they are paying for sex. Zahra and Maya sexualise their religion and spirituality when sex working – meeting the desires of clients who get off on that.
Khan, a trans Norse Pagan
But there were other women I met who needed religion to help them belong. Khan, a 41-year-old transgender woman, was raised Christian but now has a Norse Pagan religious identity. She told me how she changed her religious path because she felt conflicted between her gender identity, sex work identity and, specifically, her Christian identity.
She said that being a transgender woman created challenges to being a Christian and that Christianity would not accept her occupation as an escort.
I don’t think there is a way to reconcile the sex work with Christianity.
It is these kinds of religious ideas about the immorality of sex work that meant Khan looked for and found a religion – Norse Paganism – which better suited her feelings and identities. Norse Pagan practices are diverse and people engage with the religion differently. An introduction to Norse Paganism on spiritualityheath.com states that it “is an inclusive spiritual practice, open to all who are moved toward it”.
The inclusivity offered by this religion seems to enable people with diverse and marginalised identities to feel accepted within it – in other words, it is a religious community free from judgement. For Khan, it was a welcoming religion. It helped her to overcome the challenges she had experienced as a transgender woman sex worker within the Christian faith.
Khan’s story supports the idea that religious beliefs are becoming more fluid and that people are able to tailor religion to better align with their “self”.
But, as Tanya’s story showed, there are Christian sex workers who do not feel conflicted in the way that Khan did. Religious beliefs – even those within mainstream religions like Islam and Christianity – are diverse and one size does not fit all.
Another topic I was keen to examine was whether sex workers themselves experience sexual pleasure while working. This point is seldom addressed. But according to a number of the women I interviewed, they not only enjoyed sex with some of their clients, but religion and spirituality sometimes increased that pleasure and led to more of a connection.
Amy and spiritual vibes
Take Amy, for example. Amy is a 23-year-old American porn actor who has a spiritual identity. Our interview lasted nearly three hours. She explained to me how being a sex worker and being spiritual were not at “odds with each other”. She described how they are two separate things within her life. However, she also told me that sometimes her sexual encounters (for example, when she is creating pornography) can be a spiritual experience.
Sex can still be spiritual for me … And even if you don’t have, like, a connection with the person and you’re not gonna see them again or don’t care about them, or whatever, you can still enjoy … the moment.
Amy told me that sex could “turn her brain off” and “that’s kind of like a spiritual experience”. Amy’s spirituality concerns “high vibes”, which are positive qualities such as love, and “low vibes” associated with negative qualities such as hatred. So for Amy, although sex work and spirituality are separate, there was also a blurring of lines between them, and some sexual experiences when making porn gave her “high vibes”.
LRE, astrology
Another sex worker I spoke to said that the sex part of her work could become especially enjoyable when she and her client connected over a shared love of astrology and star signs.
LRE is a 22-year-old British woman who works part-time as an escort and sexual content creator. Like Amy, LRE’s spiritual identity could sometimes enhance her sexual pleasure with clients.
Oh, he was a Sagittarius [client]… we did bits and then halfway through he was like, what star sign are you? I was like, ‘you are my new favourite person ever’ … he was like laughing and smiling and I was like ‘no seriously, I love that you asked me that’ … and I thought … this is why there is such sexual chemistry.
Although the stories of Amy and LRE have some things in common, their spiritual identities were present in their sex work in different ways. In Amy’s case, her spiritual identity was not necessarily known to the fellow porn actor she had sex with. But for LRE, her spiritual identity was known and openly discussed with her client.
Despite the many empowering and sex-positive stories I heard, there was sometimes a reminder that not all sex worker experiences are positive.
Lilly, Christian Orthodox
Lilly is one such example. Lilly was a 25-year-old escort, originally from Romania. She is Christian Orthodox and lives in the UK. She told me how she prays in her head when she is with a client who makes her feel uncomfortable:
If I have a problem or think something is wrong with this guy, I start to pray in my head, and it helps me not to think because if they feel I am scared, they will take advantage. So, when I start to pray, I forget I am scared and go away from those feelings and so, he will be quiet as he doesn’t feel like this.
Safety challenges are an occupational hazard for sex workers. It is important to say, though, that for Lilly at least, feeling unsafe with a client was not a regular occurrence.
Lilly told me that sex work provides her with greater opportunities to earn more compared to other jobs available to her. I did feel concerned that Lilly, at times, was made to feel scared by her clients. But it was also clear to me that, for Lilly, these negative experiences do not outweigh the positive benefits she says she gains from being an escort.
One way to keep sex workers like Lilly safer is to decriminalise the sex industry. Those who oppose decriminalisation seem to be under the misconception that all sex workers are coerced, trafficked or exploited. Although this is true for some, it is not true for most and the misconception that all sex workers are victims is itself, as research shows, a result of stigma and lack of knowledge about the industry.
It is also important to differentiate between criminalised, legalised and decriminalised sex industries. Criminalisation of the sex industry makes all sex work-related practices illegal. Legalisation of the sex industry is where sex work is legal under specific state defined conditions.
For example, under legalisation laws within the UK (except for Northern Ireland, who have adopted the Nordic Model) sex work practices are predominantly legal. However, some engagements with sex work such as soliciting on the street and working with another sex worker within the same house (as this is considered a brothel) are criminalised.
Decriminalisation is where sex work is stripped of regulations and sex workers can operate freely. I support the decriminalisation of the sex industry globally because it is under these conditions that sex workers can best protect themselves and it is the first step in abolishing stigma. Research has also shown it is the best strategy for harm reduction.
Although it is not the belief of all sex workers, the women I spoke to argued strongly for the decriminalisation of the sex industry. Stories told to me by Khan and LRE, who are both escorts, are cases in point.
Khan lives and works in a US state where escorting is illegal. So, if she has a violent client, she will tell staff and security at the hotel where she is working that she is on a date that has gone wrong.
… God forbid, something does happen, like there’s staffed or security and I will say I was on a date and this guy went crazy …
Khan is forced to hide her sex work from staff when she is in potential danger due to fear of prosecution. LRE faces similar issues in the UK. She told me how she has to hide her income around her hotel room when she is escorting to reduce the likelihood of theft and violence.
… If you get money, put like £100 in the safe and then anything else, just stash it around the room …
All the women I spoke to informed me they do not report violence from clients or thefts to the police. This is not surprising, given evidence that women, men and transgender sex workers are all at heightened risk of police sexual misconduct in comparison to non-sex workers.
I think my interviews show that sex workers are not just sex workers – they have complex and multifaceted identities. You absolutely can be a sex worker and be religious or spiritual. But it is not necessarily easy to always get a balance. It is the result of constant and skilful identity management. The stories of women like Tanya, Maya, Zahra, LRE, Amy, Lilly and Khan underline how important it is to recognise the sheer diversity of people who work in this industry.
Although there are negative experiences in the sex industry, the women I spoke to, on the whole, felt empowered by their profession. They saw it as providing great opportunities for earning money and offering them positive experiences.
And, importantly, it didn’t get in the way of their religious and spiritual beliefs. As Zahra told me at the end of our discussion:
…I do believe in God and believe in Allah and in my private life. I believe in it.
So whether it was Tanya consoling a church elder, or Zahra finding a way to utilise her Muslim faith, these women were opening up new discussions about what it means to be a sex worker.
All names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.
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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The British architect David Chipperfield has been announced as the winner of the 2023 Pritzker Architecture Prize, arguably the highest international honour in the discipline. In its citation, the jury highlighted the elegance, restraint and permanence that have consistently characterised Chipperfield’s oeuvre, “an architecture of understated but transformative civic presence”.
Born in London in 1953, Chipperfield graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1980, after undergraduate studies at the Kingston School of Art. He started out working for seminal British architects Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, before founding his own firm in London in 1985. With additional offices now in Berlin, Shanghai, Milan and Santiago de Compostela, his output has spanned civic, cultural, academic and residential buildings, as well as urban planning throughout Asia, Europe and North America.
Chipperfield’s driving ethos, as the Pritzker jury members emphasised, has always been to choose the tools needed for the project at hand. As opposed to the “starchitect” impulse to create something iconic and instantly recognisable – to stamp their mark on a place – architecture, for him, is a vehicle to pursue civic and public good, even if that means “almost disappearing” behind it. Here are five projects that embody that classic imperative: to achieve something that will stand the test of time in serving the people who need it.
Housing one of the first collections of modern art in Germany, founded in 1902, this museum organised a competition to extend its 1960s premises in 2007. Museums have been a consistent focus for Chipperfield. Here, he recognised the importance of working with, but not overwhelming, the museum’s history. He added six simple structures, clad in slabs of glass, and four inner courtyards, an ensemble that flows so seamlessly from the original building, it becomes almost invisible.
The jury citation put it plainly:
We do not see an instantly recognisable David Chipperfield building in different cities, but different David Chipperfield buildings designed specifically for each circumstance.
Here Chipperfield reinstated the original use of the Neues Museum Berlin, “a masterpiece of Prussian classicism”, according to German construction historian Werner Lorenz, that was partially destroyed in the second world war. His minimalist intervention included an archaeological restoration of the original building, which had been left exposed to the elements for decades, and new volumes added in pale cement and recycled brick. The result is a history lesson, the different layers of the building made visible, from 19th-century colonnades to 1940s bullet holes and scorch marks.
It is modern without being overpowering and it showcases Chipperfield’s concept of permanence. As he put it in 2013: “In this age of throwaway and the redundancy of everyday things, taking care of, valuing, and treasuring seem old-fashioned concepts.” Permanence, for him, is “a declaration of lasting priorities. The organisation of buildings and their integration in a larger whole give shape and solidity to our vague ideas of society”.
“Good architecture provides a setting,” Chipperfield has said. “It’s there and it’s not there. [It] is something which can intensify and support and help our rituals and our lives.”
In Inagawa he demonstrated the importance of learning from the past – of understanding the essence of rituals and making them relevant to contemporary contexts. Located on a steep hillside in the Hyogo prefecture, north of Osaka, he created a pink-hued concrete structure around a courtyard, with a monumental staircase leading up the hill to the shrine.
The building connects directly with the topography of the landscape. The materials used are subtle and the design is minimal. As a whole, it promotes reflection and contemplation. It is architecture that is almost not there, precisely attuned to its function.
This purpose-built gallery, located on the river Calder within the Wakefield waterfront conservation area, embodies Chipperfield’s approach to sustainability, which the Pritzker jury citation defines as striving for “pertinence”. Chipperfield eliminates the superfluous, and creates “structures able to last, physically and culturally”.
Skylights and floor-to-ceiling picture windows allow visitors to engage with the post-industrial riverside setting from subtle, luminious interiors. The pigmented concrete of the structures was mixed on the site, giving the whole a sculptural feel, in celebration of Barbara Hepworth, the Wakefield-born artist and museum’s namesake. The building uses the river for its heating and cooling system.
In recent years, Chipperfield has extended his work to support further engagement with local communities, learning about their needs and their contexts, moving away from global solutions. In 2017, he founded Fundacion Ria, a private, non-profit that sponsors research and future development in Galicia, northwestern Spain, one of the poorest regions in the country.
The foundation’s exploratory projects encompass planning (integrating the seafront into the urban fabric of the region’s small seaside towns) and sustainable land management (setting up an “ecosocial laboratory” to study how local farmland has been managed, historically). As the foundation’s website puts it:
Essentially, what we have to hope now is that the environmental crisis makes us reconsider priorities of society, that profit is not the only thing that should be motivating our decisions.
Ana Souto ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
With their long, featherless necks and stern-looking faces, vultures are an easy target for people’s fear and loathing. In books and films, they usually appear as a forewarning of bad things to come. And they are often used to describe someone who benefits from the misfortune of others.
But vultures should be celebrated, rather than dreaded. They are more than harbingers of death. They are a symbol of hope and luck in places from Ghana to Chile to Tibet, and, if we let them, they can warn of environmental change and illegal activities.
There is no denying vultures are on the lookout for death. But this is a good thing. A group of vultures can pick a carcass clean within 20 minutes, meaning that any remains of the dead animal are not left to turn into a breeding ground for pathogens. This recycling process is vital in reducing the spread of diseases, including those that can be transmitted between animals and humans.
One study in Kenya found that where vultures were absent, carcasses are often hubs of infection. In the study, carcasses were placed in areas that were either visible (in the open) or not (under tree cover) to vultures. The study found animals’ bodies decomposed three times slower where vultures did not feed on a carcass. With their keen eyesight and flying skills, vultures can spot carrion faster than land scavengers. By the time land scavengers, such as hyenas and jackals, get to a carcass, it is likely to have been exposed to pathogens for longer.
In some places in India, feral dogs have increased in numbers where vultures have declined, which has led to an increase in human cases of rabies.
Vultures act as a sentinel species, which are animals that are more susceptible to hazards in a habitat than humans. Vultures consume any toxins a carcass may have carried. If these toxins are particularly dangerous, vultures that have fed on the chemical-filled body may struggle to reproduce, become ill or die. In this way, declines in vultures could highlight pollutants in the environment that may be harmful to many other species, including humans.
For example, diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug widely used in livestock, can kill vultures even in small quantities. Diclofenac can also pose a serious threat to aquatic animals, plants and mammals. It was banned in some South Asian countries after conservationists campaigned to raise awareness that diclofenac was the main cause of collapsing vulture populations.
Harmful chemicals have been a major cause of vulture population crashes across Europe, Africa and Asia. In some Asian countries, vultures have declined by 96% in the last ten years.
The feeding behaviour of vultures may offer us another warning beacon. Vultures search for food by soaring high in the sky. The presence of large circling groups usually signals there is a recently killed animal on the ground. This circling behaviour may indicate the remains of a poached animal, such as an elephant killed for its ivory or a rhino for its horn. In fact, vultures are often killed by poachers for that very reason: so as to avoid the authorities being alerted to their presence.
Some people associate vultures with morbidity, darkness, and gluttony. But in many cultures throughout history, vultures have spiritual and symbolic value. Nekhbet, the vulture goddess, was the protector of Upper Egypt and represented protection with her large wings.
Condors, a type of vulture found in the Americas, have been depicted in artwork across the Andean region of South America since 2500BC. They have long been associated with power, strength and wisdom. Today, condors are still viewed as the spirit of the Andes by indigenous peoples, and are the national bird of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador.
In Tibetan culture, vultures are viewed as sacred and holy. Dead community members are often taken to high altitudes so their corpses can be consumed by the birds. Tibetans believe the vultures take the remains of the body to the heavens, allowing the soul to be reincarnated.
In many cultures, vultures are a totem (an animal that acts as an emblem of a family or clan). For example, the totem of a clan in the Akan traditional area in Ghana is a vulture, symbolising calmness and patience.
Wildlife is declining at alarming rates globally and, as a wildlife conservationist, it is easy to feel despondent. But one vulture species provides a powerful reminder that conservation efforts can change the fate of species on the brink of extinction.
In the 1980s, only 22 California condors remained in the wild. These last vultures were captured and taken into captivity, and by 1987 the species was declared extinct in the wild. But intensive conservation programmes have led to the reintroduction of California condors in California, Arizona and Baja California, Mexico. There are now at least 200 adults in the wild. This incredible bird is still taking scientists by surprise. In 2021, researchers found California condors can have been known to reproduce without mating.
While this species is not out of the woods yet, the California condor offers a symbol of hope for so many others.
For UK residents, vulture conservation may be an issue closer to home than people realise. There have been recent sightings of vultures in the UK, such as the bearded vulture in 2020 and Egyptian vulture in 2021, causing huge excitement among birdwatchers.
Esther Kettel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When we think of what makes athletes great, few of us would think that sleep might play an important role. But many of the world’s best athletes say sleep is an essential part of their training routine and key in helping them to perform well.
Serena Williams, for example, strives to get eight hours of sleep each night. NBA star LeBron James aims for eight to ten hours per night, while NFL legend Tom Brady says he goes to bed early and gets at least nine hours of sleep.
It’s no wonder, since sleep plays a key role in metabolism, the growth and repair of tissues (such as our muscles), and ensures memory, reaction time and decision making are all working optimally. All these processes impact sporting performance.
But it isn’t just athletes whose athletic performance can benefit from proper sleep. Even amateur gym-goers can maximise the benefits of exercise for their fitness and health by getting enough good sleep each night.
Here are just some of the ways sleep benefits your fitness:
Exercise is great for improving aerobic fitness. It improves both aerobic capacity (being able to run or cycle faster with a heavier load) and efficiency (meaning your body requires less oxygen to run or cycle at the same pace).
One contributing factor to improved aerobic fitness is the function of the body’s mitochondria. Mitochondria are small structures within the cells of the muscles that are responsible for creating the energy the muscle requires during exercise.
Research shows that poor sleep (getting only four hours a night for five nights) can reduce the function of mitochondria in healthy participants. High-intensity interval training was shown to alleviate these impairments in the short-term (over a five-day period). But, it’s currently unclear how these impairments would influence adaptations to exercise in the longer term, so it’s best to get a good night’s sleep if improving aerobic fitness is one of your goals.
Sleep is also important if you’re looking to build strength or muscle.
Muscle growth occurs when new proteins are added to the muscle structure – a process known as “muscle protein synthesis”. This process is stimulated by exercise and food (specifically protein) intake, and can last at least 24 hours after a workout.
Research shows that even just a few nights of insufficient sleep reduces the muscle protein synthesis response to nutrient intake. This suggests that poor sleep may make it harder for the body to build muscle.
Hormones act as chemical messengers that contribute to a range of functions throughout the body, such growth and development of tissues. Hormones which are involved with these building processes can be termed “anabolic” hormones.
Two anabolic hormones – testosterone and growth hormone, which are released during sleep – may also be important for recovery from and adaptation to exercise. These hormones have multiple roles in the body, and are linked to improved body composition (lower body fat and higher muscle mass). A higher amount of muscle mass and lower body fat can be beneficial for exercise and health.
When sleep is restricted to only five hours per night (similar to the amount of sleep many working adults get), testosterone levels are reduced in healthy young men. Sleep restriction of a similar duration also alters the release of growth hormone during sleep. While more research is needed, there’s a potential that these hormones may play a role in mediating the relationship between sleep and fitness, due to their link to improved body composition.
Exercise often uses glucose (sugar) as a fuel source. Muscles store glucose from the foods we eat in the form of glycogen to meet the demands of exercise. Replenishing glycogen stores after exercise is a key part of the recovery process. It can take up to 24 hours to fully replenish stores, with the correct nutrient intake. The hormone insulin can be needed for muscles to absorb glucose in order to make glycogen.
Numerous studies show that insufficient sleep reduces the effectiveness of insulin. This could impact on the body’s ability to replace glycogen stores, with one study revealing reduced muscle glycogen stores after a night of sleep deprivation.
Depleted glycogen stores can impair subsequent exercise performance in the short and long term, so it is important to ensure glycogen stores are replenished after exercise.
Sleep is clearly important for your fitness, so here are some ways to ensure you get proper sleep each night:
If you are trying to improve your fitness make sure you’re getting enough good quality sleep – aim for at least seven to nine hours of sleep each night.
Emma Sweeney has previously received funding from the Waterloo Foundation.
Ian Walshe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
With recent reports suggesting there has been an increase in fatal dog attacks in the UK, it’s clear the status quo isn’t working. Records indicate that in an average year there would be three dog fatalities. But in 2022 there were nine.
The reasons why records show an increase are complex but already in 2023 there have been two tragic incidents, one a dog walker who died from bites to the neck. The other attack, which is still being investigated, involved the death of a four-year-old girl.
In 1987, the UK government discontinued its dog licensing system as politicians felt the old licence scheme cost too much for the limited benefits it gave. It was replaced by dog controls in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. But people told my research team that most dog bites are preventable, meaning the system is letting down both dogs and humans.
One idea researchers have discussed is that when an owner has a problem with an out-of-control dog they should have to take training, similar to the kind of “speed awareness” courses for drivers in the UK.
Veterinary experts in the Netherlands already do something like this. They have researched aggression in dogs and found training can help prevent it, especially training of both the owner and the dog. Training can help owners recognise potential behaviour issues and reduce it through proper socialisation, which training can help with too.
In some other countries, including Spain, where potentially dangerous dogs must be licensed before you can become a dog owner, you have to show that you are a “fit and proper person” to do so. Our previous research didn’t specifically call for dog licences. But it did find knowledge of dog behaviour before and during ownership of a dog was desirable. So too was compulsory dog training following a dog attack.
The problem with the old licence scheme was that it was almost impossible to enforce. The UK government estimated only around 50% of dog owners complied with the old scheme and registered their dogs.
You still need a licence to own a dog in Northern Ireland, where a licence costs £12.50 and lasts for 12 months. But it is thought that less than 40% of owners register their dogs.
UK law makes microchipping of dogs mandatory. Although government figures suggest 95% of dogs are chipped, it is doubtful every dog owner has done this.
In the UK there are laws that deal with dog fouling, stray dogs and dogs that are dangerously out of control, whether in public or private. But dog attacks continue.
We don’t know exactly how many dog attacks there are each year in the UK. A figure often used by the media is that over 7,000 people go to hospital each year for dog bite treatment.
But research suggests this figure may be too low. One study of a community in Cheshire, England, found only a third of dog bites needed medical treatment and just 0.6% resulted in a hospital admission.
After dog attacks the people affected often call for more action to deal with dangerous dogs or say dog licences should be brought back. By itself, dog licensing would not solve everything.
For our 2021 research paper on dangerous dogs and responsible dog ownership we spoke to charities, local authorities, police and dog experts. We found the main issue was people could get a dog without knowing how to train or look after it.
Even with new measures like Lucy’s Law to tackle puppy farms and the 2019 licensing for breeders, dogs are still sold to people without checks on whether they can properly care for their new pet.
If an owner is trained to spot the early signs of problem behaviour or situations that might trigger an incident, simple things like keeping dogs on a lead or using a muzzle in busy public places could prevent attacks or make them less serious.
If we are serious about addressing dog control problems we should think about how to deal with the fact dogs often end up in the hands of people who are unable to care for them and deal with behaviour issues.
We aren’t the only ones who think this. Many members of the public understand the importance of prevention: a petition launched in 2022 to change dog laws to focus on early intervention attracted over 100,000 signatures.
No scheme or law will eliminate all dog control or attack issues. But the old style of paper dog licence was really just a tax on dog owners. Instead, it may be time for a form of registration or certificate that requires knowledge of dogs before a person can have one and that imposes ownership conditions, such as a suitable home, understanding of the duty of animal welfare that already exists in law, and a requirement for training when something goes wrong.
Registration should accompany sale and also be linked to the existing microchipping requirements. A new registration scheme would need resources to properly enforce, a big ask in a time of rising living costs and government austerity measures. But even if we can’t afford a new enforcement scheme, encouraging dog owners to develop the skills they need would be a good start.
Angus Nurse has previously received funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for research into dangerous dogs and responsible dog ownership. That funded research is referred to in this article.
The sometimes astonishing sex lives of animals are well known, especially the huge range in penis structures, evolved to increase the number of offspring that males father. For example, ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises, and echidnas (also known as spiny anteaters) have a four-headed penis. But what about female genitalia?
For hundreds of years, scientists assumed most animals didn’t have a clitoris. But new discoveries are revealing how female sex organs are just as interesting and varied as male ones.
The female reproductive tracts often mirror those of the males – genital tracts of female ducks are also corkscrew-shaped – and co-evolve to promote successful sperm transfer. But it turns out that scientists often overlook or miss the clitoris altogether.
Although the clitoris has been documented in some lizard species including geckos and monitor lizards, it had never been studied before in snakes, so many scientists assumed there wasn’t one.
Read more: The clitoris – a brief history
However, research published in December 2022 revealed snakes have not one but two, located under the tail. Mistaken as scent glands for many years, the clitoris does exist in snakes, and is made up of two connected parts.
Once scientists looked for it, the clitoris (known as a hemiclitore in snakes and lizards) was actually found in nine species of snake, from four different families, including the cantil viper, death adder and carpet python. It is made up of erectile tissue and bundles of nerves, which indicates it is more than just an underdeveloped penis and probably has a reproductive function.
Science used to be dominated by men, who weren’t as interested in the female anatomy as they were in the male anatomy. And a penis is more obvious than a clitoris, making it easier to study.
Until recently, it was not socially acceptable to talk about the clitoris at all. Witch hunting guides from the middle ages referred to it as the “devil’s teat” and claimed only witches had one.
The taboo is largely because the clitoris is a sexual organ, known to give pleasure in humans. In fact, French 17th-century literature referred to the clitoris as the “gaude mihi”, which roughly translates as “please me”.
The clitoris is a region with thousands of nerve cell endings, making it highly sensitive. It is formed from the same tissue as the penis, so when it is aroused, it becomes engorged and swells in size. When a penis or clitoris is stimulated, it causes muscle contractions. These can result in ejaculation in males, but what about females?
There is evidence having an orgasm is linked to higher fertility. For example, artificial insemination studies in cattle have found stimulation of the clitoris can help increase pregnancy. As stimulation results in contractions of the reproductive tract, it is likely that sperm is then drawn further in to the uterus, increasing fertilisation success.
The clitoris is more noticeable in several species than others, such as crocodiles and non-human primates like capuchins, and tends to be positioned in a way as that creates stimulation during copulation (again, probably to increase reproductive success). Actually, in species such as rabbits and camels, where ovulation needs to be induced by copulation, it is possible that stimulation of the clitoris could cause ovulation.
Several studies have noted that female primates, such as macaques, experience orgasms, both during copulation and through self-stimulation or homosexual encounters. This is also true of bonobos who indulge in homosexual and heterosexual encounters for pleasure, to maintain pair bonds or to resolve aggressive encounters.
In these species, as well as dolphins, the clitoris is relatively large compared to other animals which makes homosexual stimulation easier. In a few species, including the spider monkey, the clitoris is so enlarged that it can resemble a penis.
However, the most notable clitoris is that of the spotted hyaena. The females urinate and give birth through their huge penis-like clitoris, and even signal dominance with erections.
The majority of birds lack a penis or a clitoris. Instead they have a single orifice called a cloaca that is used for defecation as well as reproduction in both males and females. However, some male bird species such as the ostrich have a penis. Interestingly, the female ostrich has a clitoris to complement the male penis.
So, it is likely that wherever there is a penis, there is also a clitoris.
Louise Gentle works for Nottingham Trent University.
Most people who contract COVID recover within a few weeks. But for some people, symptoms can develop later, or persist for a long time after the initial infection. A recent review of the evidence on long COVID suggests the condition affects at least 65 million people around the world, occurring after at least 10% of COVID infections, and affecting all age groups.
Common long COVID symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulties with memory and concentration (“brain fog”). Symptoms can worsen with physical or mental exertion. We’re still learning about long COVID, and treatment options are very limited.
Recently, some people, for example on social media, have been talking about a variety of diets as ways to manage long COVID symptoms. But what are these diets, and what does the evidence say?
This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
You may be interested in:
What’s it like being a young person with long COVID? You might feel like a failure (but you’re not)
Smartwatches could help detect and track COVID – here’s what the research shows
The process by which the immune system protects us from harmful pathogens is called inflammation. But too much inflammation can be a bad thing. Scientists believe that many of the symptoms associated with long COVID arise from chronic inflammation.
We know that some foods can promote inflammation, while studies have shown that components of certain foods may have anti-inflammatory effects.
So an anti-inflammatory diet involves avoiding foods that elicit inflammation, such as fried foods, refined carbohydrates, sugar, red and processed meats, and lard.
Instead it focuses on foods that reduce inflammation, such as tomatoes, olive oil, green leafy vegetables, nuts, fatty fish and fruits such as strawberries and blueberries. These foods are high in antioxidants and compounds which help protect against inflammation.
If you’re looking for a diet that closely follows the tenets of anti-inflammatory eating, consider the Mediterranean diet. Following a Mediterranean diet means eating lots of fruit, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, fish and healthy oils. This diet is rich in vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre, and has an anti-inflammatory effect in the gut.
Researchers have suggested the Mediterranean diet may have benefits in reducing the severity of a COVID infection in the short term, as well as in addressing longer-term symptoms.
Histamine is a compound released by cells, often in response to an injury or an allergic reaction. If we have hay fever or are stung by a bee, we might take an antihistamine.
Histamine can lead to inflammation and can be a problem when we can’t break it down properly, and levels get too high. Symptoms when this happens can include headaches, diarrhoea, wheezing and fatigue.
Many of these symptoms are similar to those reported with long COVID. Some scientists have proposed that the increased inflammatory responses seen with long COVID could be caused by increased histamine release by dysfunctional immune cells, which we’ve seen before with other conditions.
A low histamine diet involves restricting the intake of food and drinks considered high in histamine for several weeks, before gradually reintroducing them to test tolerance. These include alcohol, fermented foods, dairy products, shellfish, processed meats and aged cheese, as well as wheat germ and a range of fruit and vegetables.
However, there appears to be lack of consensus on which foods are truly high in histamine. And as the foods are wide ranging, this can be a tricky diet to implement without potentially causing nutritional deficiencies.
Although some people have reported an improvement in their symptoms by following a low histamine diet, there have been no studies published in this area. Given the lack of evidence and the associated challenges, elimination of dietary histamine is not currently recommended for long COVID.
Plant-based eating refers to diets where the majority of energy is derived from plant foods, such as vegan and vegetarian diets. Plant-based diets are beneficial to markers of inflammation and may favourably alter immune function.
More specifically, a well-balanced plant-based diet is high in fibre, antioxidants, good fatty acids and a range of vitamins and minerals, which positively affect several types of cells implicated in immune function and may exhibit direct antiviral properties.
For example, compounds called polyphenols found in fruits and vegetables may improve the functionality and activity of natural killer cells, an immune cell that patrols the body recognising abnormal cells.
Though some long COVID sufferers have touted the benefits of a plant-based diet, its usefulness to alleviate long COVID symptoms has not yet been examined in clinical trials.
Nevertheless, evidence from studies done before the pandemic suggests a plant-based diet may benefit some conditions that can also affect people with long COVID – including fatigue, headaches, anxiety, depression and muscle pain.
Read more: COVID and your gut: how a healthy microbiome can reduce the severity of infection – and vice versa
Some diets, such as a low histamine diet, are not currently backed up by enough data when it comes to the management of long COVID.
But a varied Mediterranean diet or well managed plant-based diet can provide certain nutrients which have positive effects on immune function and may protect against chronic inflammation. That said, more research is still needed as to how these diets may affect long COVID.
If you’re considering changing your diet to manage long COVID symptoms, it’s best to consult your GP first to ensure you can do so safely.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Children’s learning progress has slowed substantially during the pandemic, roughly equating to a loss of around 35% of the typical learning in a school year, according to a new study.
The analysis drew on 42 studies published between March 2020 and August 2022 from 15 different high- and middle-income countries (although most of the data was from the US, the UK and the Netherlands).
The researchers found that the learning deficits were higher in maths than in reading. They appeared early in the pandemic and remained stable, neither worsening over time (as some had feared) nor significantly improving.
So it appears that initiatives aimed at limiting the negative effects of school closures, such as online learning resources for home schooling, were successful in stabilising the initial impact of disruption to children’s formal education.
At the same time, it would seem that we haven’t yet found ways to support children to reach the levels of achievement we might have expected in normal circumstances. And this is particularly true for children from lower-income families.
This study confirms concerns expressed earlier in the pandemic by charities like the Sutton Trust that socioeconomic inequalities in learning progress would increase. For example, the shift to online learning during school closures created additional barriers for some children, where the availability of computers and internet access was not straightforward, or even impossible.
An analysis by the Education Policy Institute in 2017 found that at that time it would take the UK 50 years to close the attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their wealthier peers.
The National Foundation for Educational Research, a charity that conducts research into education and children’s services, estimated that the effect of poverty on children’s learning before the pandemic was at least twice as great as the impact of COVID’s disruption to education.
However, it now seems clear that the gap has widened further, and is likely to take even longer to close.
Read more: COVID school recovery: is England's £1.4 billion catch-up plan a good idea?
But is this the right way to think about the challenges faced by schoolchildren and their teachers? The focus on “lost learning” and the benchmarking of children’s attainment to levels of pre-pandemic performance neglects an uncomfortable truth.
Many children have been fundamentally affected by the pandemic in other ways that will influence their ability to successfully learn, and which are not necessarily being addressed by the emphasis on “catch up” learning.
For example, in November 2022 we published a white paper on the effects the pandemic has had on positivity, motivation to learn, resilience, and self-efficacy among children in key stage 2 (years 3–6).
Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief that they’re capable of being successful in tasks or goals that they set for themselves. There is substantial evidence linking self-efficacy with academic achievement.
We found that while all four of these areas were negatively affected to some extent, it was children’s sense of self-efficacy that was most strongly impacted. And although all areas have shown small signs of recovery, self-efficacy remains particularly low.
For the children in our research, self-efficacy referred to the belief that they could be successful not just with learning tasks, but also in terms of managing their emotions at school and their relationships with others in the classroom. The reduction in self-efficacy at school was apparent regardless of socioeconomic status.
So why might students’ self-efficacy have suffered as a result of the pandemic? According to psychologist Albert Bandura, there are various ways in which we build our sense of self-efficacy. One is through direct experience of success in an environment that can facilitate this. This is what schools can do – they manage learning tasks to give children the experience of being successful.
A second way self-efficacy is built is via social comparison; by watching others like us being successful. This increases our sense that we can also succeed. The social isolation that children faced during lockdowns limited their ability to see other children like them engaging in learning and relate to their achievements.
Finally, an important avenue to self-efficacy is being with others who can reframe any negative reactions we might have to learning, such as failure or anxiety (for example, seeing nerves as a positive, and feeling excited about a new challenge rather than fear). Contact with teachers is important in helping children to reframe their feelings in these ways.
While it’s important to recognise and document the academic toll that the pandemic has taken on children’s learning, part of the reason our attempts to rectify things have been unsuccessful may be because we are failing to take into account the wider psychological effects that our children have experienced.
If we want to see children achieve, instead of discussions about “learning loss” and “falling behind”, we need to focus some of our efforts on teaching them that they can have confidence in their abilities.
Teachers, and parents too, can do a lot to rebuild children’s wellbeing and motivation to learn by addressing their basic psychological needs. This might include allowing them some control over what they do (autonomy), establishing a nurturing environment that the child feels connected to (relatedness), and enabling them to experience being successful (competence), perhaps by diversifying assessment methods.
Clare Wood receives grant funding from the Nuffield Foundation. She acts as a consultant with Rising Stars and is co-investigator on a grant with RS Assessment which considers the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on UK children's attainment and wellbeing. She is a Trustee of the National Literacy Trust.
Lightning may look beautiful but every year it kills thousands of people, does huge amounts of damage to buildings and infrastructure, and causes power outages.
The only protection we have is lightning rods, which were invented 300 years ago and only protect a small area.
The cost of damage from lightning strikes to buildings is hard to determine globally, but insurance company payouts to cover repairs to homes and businesses were roughly US$2 billion (£1.6 billion) in 2020 in the US. Insurance data from the UK suggests the costs of covering lightning strikes are increasing.
The problem is only likely to get worse as the climate crisis is driving a surge in wildfires worldwide, which increase lightning strikes. A study from 2014 suggested the number of strikes increases by 12% for every degree (celsius) of global warming.
Lighting rods have their uses, but scientists have been looking for a better way to control where lightning strikes, and lasers may be the solution, according to a new study.
This latest experiment was performed near a telecommunications tower on the Säntis mountain in Switzerland that is frequently struck by lightning - roughly 100 times a year, although the tower itself is protected by a lightning rod.
The results from the study found the lightning flowed almost in a straight line near the laser pulses, but the lightning strikes were more randomly distributed when the laser was off.
While this study is not the first attempt to direct lightning paths it is the first to show it can be done. The scientists have attributed this to the high power laser they used, and the high altitude. At high altitudes air is less dense. This makes it easier for current to pass through, meaning that future experiments at sea level would require a more powerful laser.
To understand how the scientists used light to change the path of electricity you need to understand what lightning actually is: a flow of charged particles from one location to another. Particles in clouds are mostly electrically neutral when they form but build up both positive and negative charge. The cloud wants to become neutral by exchanging charge with the ground.
The type of lighting most people are familiar with is the jagged strikes of bright light seen between the ground and the clouds, but there are other types. Lightning can travel between clouds. It can also move from clouds upwards towards the upper atmosphere. This can even produce strings of red airglow where the thinner atmosphere warms. This heat energy is then released as light.
As the charge in the cloud builds up it reaches incredibly high voltages (roughly equivalent to 8 million car batteries hooked up together) which rips a path through the air. The electrical current required to split the components of air apart generally is about 300 million volts per square metre.
The pushing force of this enormous voltage in electrically charged (ionised) air allows the charge from the cloud to flow down and discharge into the ground or nearby buildings. This current flow will follow the most electrically conductive path.
This is why lightning rods are sometimes used to protect buildings from lightning. Metal is more electrically conductive than air so if you place a large rod in the ground lightning will have an easier path than going through the air. It can only protect a small area, though.
Many researchers think some lightning storms could be caused by cosmic rays (highly energetic particles from outside the solar system). These particles pass through the atmosphere and interact with air to create an ionised path through their direction of travel. This is a theory that has researchers split on whether it affects the number of total lightning strikes around the world.
The scientists used a powerful laser to try and create ionised paths in a similar way to the cosmic ray theory. Firing rapid (1,000 times a second) energetic pulses with a laser heats the air and ionises it, briefly becoming conductive. The lightning strike will have less resistance along this path and so will be more inclined to flow that way.
If this technology is perfected, it might one day help protect infrastructure such as airports and nuclear power plants. It could even be used in a more advanced form to protect houses using a laser a safe distance away. However, it is unlikely to be rolled out near you anytime soon, if for no other reason than the power costs.
Ian Whittaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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