Lego

• It made headlines around the world when the much-hyped Barbie movie contributed to a world shortage of fluorescent pink paint.
• Think of the fad for Baby Yoda dolls after the first season of The Mandalorian in 2020.
• Toys are the most plastic-intensive consumer goods in the world, according to a 2014 United Nations Environment Program report.

The toll of the dolls

• Before the US-China trade war, half the world’s toys were manufactured in Dongguan, a city in China.
• That included one in three Barbie dolls.
• Every 182 gram doll caused about 660 grams of carbon emissions, including plastic production, manufacture and transport.
• By my calculations, emissions on average across all these types of toys are about 4.5 kilograms per kilogram of toys.

The role for toymakers and governments

• Toy manufacturers can – and should – use low carbon materials and supply chains, and focus on making toys easily dissembled.
• To their credit, some toymakers have cut back on plastic in their packaging, given packaging immediately becomes waste.
• Governments can set up effective recovery and recycling systems able to handle toys.
• While gaming produces e-waste streams, it is also a likely cause of the longer-term fall in popularity of plastic toys.

What should we do?

• For starters, we can avoid cheap and nasty toys which are likely to break very quickly.
• Look for secondhand toys.
• Read more:
  How to find the most sustainable and long-lasting children's toys

• Company inspires girls and their parents to embrace and empower playful exploration of all interests, passions and imagination to unlock girls' limitless potential with summer program
  ENFIELD, Conn., June 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the LEGO Group launched Play Unstoppable to inspire and celebrate girls' endless potential when they have opportunities to play without limits.
• From Friendship, Gaming, Art & Design, Sports, and Nature & Animals, there is a LEGO® solution, including LEGO® Friends , LEGO® Super Mario , LEGO® Minecraft , LEGO® CITY , LEGO® Creator 3-in-1 , and more.
• Play Unstoppable demonstrates the endless possibilities of the LEGO System in Play.
• All Play Unstoppable content, including an introduction to the campaign, Girls Play related articles and more will be available on LEGO.com

• On May 10, Netflix dropped its four-part docuseries, Queen Cleopatra.
• Executive produced by actress Jada Pinkett-Smith as part of her African Queens series, Queen Cleopatra focuses on Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Egypt, through testimonies and dramatic reenactments.
• The fact that Queen Cleopatra is classified a documentary over drama has further angered audiences because it lends misplaced legitimacy to the series and its depiction of Egyptian history.

What is cultural appropriation exactly?

In my work, cultural appropriation takes many forms, such as
Some can be clearer forms of appropriation than others. Mimicking symbols or names are intentional forms of appropriation (such as the case of Lego using Maōri names), compared to the easy entanglement of culture and intellectual knowledge (for example, fashion designs inspired by varied cultures).

Read more:
Why the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb would rewrite history

Why is Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra a case of cultural appropriation?

• The type of appropriation observed in the Queen Cleopatra docuseries is best described as “subject appropriation”.
• This is where outsiders make the culture or Indigenous people’s lives the subject of their story.
• Not only does it exploit Indigenous cultural knowledge, but it nullifies cultural meanings specific to Egyptian natives.

The docuseries’ questionable experts

• Besides what many people, including renowned Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, have called to be a form of cultural identity theft, the docuseries’ lack of consultation with Egyptian experts is perceived as a sign of disrespect.
• Statements that mix imagination and historical fact in a so-called documentary are the core argument of Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud Al-Semary’s legal case against Netflix.
• What is possibly the clearest example of cultural disrespect is the inclusion of Colleen Darnell as an expert.

The persistent problem of cultural appropriation

• A positive response to claims of appropriation would be for Netflix to prioritise its moral obligation of integrity and respect for other cultures over profit.
• To avoid cultural divides, it is imperative that brands consider their responsibilities if and when representing another culture.
• It begins with positive intent, and ends with respect, cultural consultation and consent.

• That’s why we decided to address the issue by building our own low-cost, easily accessible printer capable of creating human tissue samples using one of the world’s most popular toys.
• The emergence of 3D bioprinting has provided a potential solution to the difficulty in sourcing tissue samples.
• Once programmed, the bioprinter prints the cell-laden bio-ink to form 3D structures that aim to replicate the complex formation of biological tissue.
• The output would need to be precise, reliable and stable for it to be of any use in our lab.
• Our bioprinter is now being used to create layers of skin cells, working towards a full-scale skin model.

The future

• This would enable us to study how skin conditions develop and how healthy and diseased cells interact.
• It would also enable us to see how skin diseases progress and how potential treatments can be developed.
• We have provided details on how we built our Lego 3D bioprinter, giving clear instructions on how to reconstruct this device in any lab, anywhere in the world.