Royal Society

• These components have a high affinity for water, which affects the chemical reactivity of the crystals.
• Now, a research team led by Keisuke Miyazawa from the NanoLSI at Kanazawa University has developed three-dimensional (3D) microscopy technique for a detailed study of the interaction of the surfaces of these materials with water.
• The team started by looking at the surface structures and its hydration structures of sapphire and α-quartz in water.
• Oxide crystals usually have hydroxyl (OH) groups, which are the main "water-binding" molecules, closely linked with the oxides.

• The Conservative Environment Network, an independent forum for conservatives who support net zero, and others including Greenpeace, are trying to stiffen his spine.
• But Sunak appears minded to appease those on the “right” who are opposed to anything green.

The UK story

• Thanks to switching from coal to gas in the 1990s, and moving industry offshore, the UK could for a long-time boast of reducing its emissions and speak nobly of sustainable development.
• In 1997, Tony Blair said the UK would go further in cutting emissions than whatever target was set at the UN conference in Kyoto, the first agreement by rich nations to cut greenhouse gases.
• Very few Conservative MPs voted against the 2008 Climate Change Act, which set an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 and placed restrictions on the amount of greenhouse gases the UK could emit over five-year periods.
• After the Paris agreement in 2015, which the UK signed, it became clear that 80% would not be enough of a target to have the UK meet its obligations to do its part to keep global warming under 2℃.

So what’s gone wrong?

• They get the glow, without the pain of upsetting either vested interests or demanding that ordinary people change their behaviour.
• What we are seeing now, I believe, is a collision between what the promises were and what the immediate action has to be.
• But once in power, Conservative governments have tended to prioritise “free markets” over what they label as irksome or socialistic environmental regulation.

• A quick online search suggests you can take a yoga class with just about any cute animal you like.
• As an animal welfare scientist, yoga with animals rings some alarm bells for me: it often seems to be focused on human wellbeing, with animal welfare an afterthought.
• But research shows how animal-assisted activities like this can be improved, and how we can all play a role in making animal welfare a higher priority.

Ethical issues exposed

• The ethics of animal yoga have been a hot topic since a a recent investigation in the United Kingdom exposed distressing practices.
• Puppies as young as six weeks old were denied sleep and water while working in puppy yoga sessions.
• Classes took place in hot rooms for hours at a time, with no capacity for the young pups to opt out of interactions.

How can science help?

• My research centres around understanding the animal experience and using this evidence to inform good practice and policies.
• Read more:
  Here's what the science says about animal sentience

  With that understanding comes a moral obligation for us to care for animals in a way that includes their mental experiences as well as their physical needs.

Social licence pressure

• The impact of community attitudes is sometimes called “social licence pressure”.
• When communities trust and accept that an operator is acting ethically and responsibly, the industry or individual has a “social licence to operate”.
• Increasingly, the idea of social licence is becoming relevant to our interactions with animals in contexts such as racing, farming, and now animal yoga.

Animal welfare assurance

• One approach to make animal-assisted activities more ethical is through “one health” and “one welfare” initiatives, which focus on the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental wellbeing.
• For animal-reliant operations to be sustainable, they need be transparent and proactive in assuring the public that animal wellbeing is a priority.

The five domains of animal welfare

• When assessing indicators of animal welfare, scientists increasingly use the “five domains” framework.
• The first four domains are nutrition, physical environment, health, and behavioural interactions (with people, other animals and the environment).
• A young animal whose sleep is interrupted may feel worried, have reduced concentration, and be more prone to illness.

How to make change

• The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Kennel Club have condemned the yoga classes, and called on the parliamentary group that monitors animal welfare to ban the practice.
• Closer to home, we can all exert this kind of pressure through the choices we make.

• We’re only halfway through 2023, and it feels already like the year of alien contact.
• In February, President Joe Biden gave orders to shoot down three unidentified aerial phenomena – NASA’s title for UFOs.
• Most recently, an independent analysis published in June suggests that UFOs might have been collected by a clandestine agency of the U.S. government.
• Our collaborative preparations for the workshop drew from transdisciplinary research in Australia, New Zealand, Africa and across the Americas.

Who’s in charge of first contact

• The question of who is “in charge” of preparing for contact with alien life immediately comes to mind.
• The communities – and their interpretive lenses – most likely to engage in any contact scenario would be military, corporate and scientific.
• Few in the social science and humanities fields have been afforded opportunities to contribute to concepts of and preparations for contact.

Ethics of listening

• Neither Breakthough Listen nor SETI’s site features a current statement of ethics beyond a commitment to transparency.
• SETI-affiliated scholars tend to reassure critics that the intentions of those listening for technosignatures are benevolent, since “what harm could come from simply listening?” The chair emeritus of SETI Research, Jill Tarter, defended listening because any ET civilization would perceive our listening techniques as immature or elementary.
• Seen this way, isn’t listening potentially without permission just another form of surveillance?
• It seems contradictory that we begin our relations with aliens by listening in without their permission while actively working to stop other countries from listening to certain U.S. communications.

Histories of contact

• Throughout histories of Western colonization, even in those few cases when contactees were intended to be protected, contact has led to brutal violence, pandemics, enslavement and genocide.
• Cook’s actions put into motion wide-scale colonization and Indigenous dispossession across Oceania, including the violent conquests of Australia and New Zealand.
• As scholars attuned to both research ethics and histories of colonialism, we wrote about Cook in our working group statement to showcase why SETI might want to explicitly disentangle their intentions from those of corporations, the military and the government.
• David Delgado Shorter has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the University of California, and the California Community Foundation.