The Whitgift Review 2023

renewal humanity stability obscurity civilization miscellaneous

A year of change and hope

renewal / humanity / stability / obscurity / civilization

As I compiled last year’s edition of the W Magazine , I was profoundly impressed by the extent to which our pupils had embraced the notion of “learning for learning’s sake,” which permeates through our school community. The featured works demonstrated a growing enthusiasm for this mindset and their work went beyond what is expected within the confines of a classroom. While it is not uncommon for pupils at a top school like ours to be impressive, I deeply admired the pervasiveness of this mindset throughout the school that the pieces demonstrated, particularly in the post-lockdown world.

Upon reflecting on the past year at Whitgift and evaluating how our culture has evolved, I was struck by the collective development of our learning mindset. This realisation prompted me to include the Shakespeare quote at the beginning of this piece. Although Helena is not referring to education when she concludes Act 4, Scene 4 of All’s Well That Ends Well , her immortal words, "the end is renown," hold a resonance akin to how one's school education is often reduced to the question, "what grades did you get?" While it would be naïve of me not to acknowledge the importance of quantitative data at the end of an exam series, my objective for this year’s edition of the W Magazine was to illustrate how, at Whitgift, our "learning for learning's sake" culture has matured into one of exploration. In a way, I selected the quote to use it against its original meaning, almost as a warning not to only focus on the end outcome. Yes, the destination (or “grade” in this metaphor) is important, as it is the purpose of the journey, but it is equally important not to fixate solely on the destination, so that one does not lose sight of the invaluable knowledge and experiences gained along the way.

This very theme also formed the cornerstone message for our exceptional Celebration of Whitgift Life keynote speech by Lucy Pearson. In her address, she passionately encouraged our pupils to pause and contemplate their educational journey, imploring them to focus on the experience of learning itself, rather than fixating solely on the destination. Expertly drawing a link to Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses , she poignantly highlighted how in the poem, the protagonist became disinterested in his “destination” once he had completed his arduous journey. While I doubt Pearson foresaw the resurgence of interest in the original figure – albeit in its Greek form – Odysseus, for the British public in the weeks following her speech, her message was inspired : embrace the explorer's mindset.

On a personal level, this point deeply resonated with me as I contemplated my own educational journey, as this year marked my final year as a classroom teacher. Standing at this pivotal "destination," I wholeheartedly echo Pearson's sentiment that the journey of exploration and discovery holds greater significance than the

All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown; Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.

(Helena, Act 4, Scene 4 of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well )

destination itself. As educators, it is our privilege to guide young minds along this path, encouraging them to embrace challenges, question assumptions, and pursue knowledge for its intrinsic value. Examining the remarkable works featured in this year's W Magazine, I am filled with confidence that we are indeed achieving this goal at Whitgift.

The works chosen for this year’s W Magazine are a testament to the ways in which our entire community (staff and pupils alike) grapple with challenging subjects and discover new perspectives with a genuine sense of enjoyment in the process. Through our Academic Enrichment programme and publication, The Journal , Mr. Piggott and I have continuously sought to foster this culture. Moreover, the bespoke Ignite course for the Second Form, which I have had the privilege of shaping these past two years, instils this exploratory mindset in all our pupils within an academic setting. While many of the pieces in this publication come from those areas of our school life, I firmly believe that all of the works featured in this publication exemplify the growth and development of this mindset and culture throughout our school. This year’s W Magazine also sees work taken from timed-conditions in class, prestigious prize winners, The Junior Library Chronicle and even some insights from pupil events led by staff.

Before concluding, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the staff and pupils whose exceptional work is included in this edition of W Magazine . Additionally, I must give special thanks to four individuals who have made this publication possible. First, to Sandra Pascale in the Junior Library, whose tireless work has encouraged a curiosity within the Junior School and provided invaluable content for this edition. Secondly, my colleagues in the Learning and Innovation Team, Kate Goldberg, and James Piggott, whose visionary insights have shaped our bespoke and innovative Academic Enrichment and Ignite programmes. Finally, my deep appreciation goes to Graham Maudsley, our graphic designer, whose patience and hard work have made this edition powerfully captivating both in content and aesthetics. Without him, this publication would not have been possible.

Words / Chris Jackson, Assistant Director of Learning and Innovation, Language Awareness Co-Ordinator and teacher of Spanish and Italian Photography / Whitgift, Ricardo Rocha

The journey of exploration and discovery holds greater significance than the destination itself

Begin Afresh

Yet still the unresting castles thresh In full-grown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin: The Trees

Choosing ‘renewal’ as one of the themes of this year’s ‘W’ might seem strange for a publication which looks back on a year. But then, school years are rather oddly structured. It’s well known that our school year (in the UK, at least) maintains a rhythm which was historically built around farming, and specifically harvest time. Families needed their children to help with farm duties during the busy season, so their schooling took place in the colder months when nothing could be planted or harvested. When the Education Act of 1899 made school compulsory for all children, a long summer holiday was built in to allow children to work on the fields. All very quaint.

A more logical year, of course, might run from early Spring, as the days lengthen, ending when winter bites in December. New beginnings should come as the days lengthen, you might think, rather than shorten. Well, selfishly, I’d rather work when it’s cold and dark, and have my long holiday when I can be outside, but plenty of people over the years have bemoaned the vagaries of what we have. Still, like it or not, for schools, renewal is a September thing, not a July one.

Not that there isn’t plenty of Whitgift renewal at the moment.

The ducklings in the Andrew Quad have delighted staff and boys alike, though the startlingly vicious crows who swoop and carry off strays have shown us the dark side of Mother Nature too. As the sun comes out, so too do the boys on fields, lunch tables in outside courts, and indeed Arts Festivals in quads. We welcome new boys and new parents to start the planning for their new start.

Two years ago, the first Arts Festival post-Covid

saw a renewal of artistic activity and performance (memorably captured in the Director of Drama’s monologue, first performed by Fraser Murray at the Celebration of Whitgift Life last year, and now several times by Luke Ward at Open Events). This year’s arts calendar included Bertold Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle – and he, by the way, is also associated with a renewal in dramatic arts in pre-war Germany.

Full disclosure: I am not much of a Brecht fan normally (a bit preachy for me), but it’s worth dwelling on this production. It is a piece of ‘epic theatre’, a complex tale (or rather series of tales): a peasant woman saving an abandoned baby, a judge who takes it upon himself to stick up for the oppressed against the rich, a revolution and war, a journey into freedom. Songs are part of the text, but how they are performed is up to the director. Mr Hammond’s production involved the audience in the show, as if we were in the country at war, and introduced a live rock band and puppetry.

There were, as ever, some excellent performances. Ethan Hamilton as the manic judge and Fraser Murray as the unpleasant soldier alongside an ensemble from both school and WAVPA 1 were alternately utterly believable and self-consciously absurd; Gibran Ahmed

That is part of the unending appeal of schools. Every cycle is the same, but different

and the Sixth Form band Strange New Normal wove themselves in and out of the action performing new songs and old.

But in some ways, the best thing about this excellent play was that it wasn’t what we expected. Parts of the script had been cut or re-ordered, parts played in slightly different ways, a new approach in short.

What Mr Hammond did to Brecht is of course what many directors have done to great works down the ages: reinterpreted them to keep them fresh. When Gilbert and Sullivan wrote their satirical operettas in the 19th century, their manager and impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte, ensured, through copyright rules, that every professional production for a hundred years should follow exactly his staging. No new ‘business’ (indeed, the gestures and actions of the original cast had to be reproduced exactly); no new settings or musical arrangements. This meant that by the 1960s, all but a loyal few had lost interest.

The copyright ended in 1961. Soon after, these clever, funny works were being reinterpreted: Kevin Kline won a Tony Award for one; another was reimagined as a jazz opera. This year I went to a stunningly inventive production of another at Wilton’s Music Hall, cleverly reinterpreting the setting and adapting a few bits of the script but maintaining the mood and message (insofar as there is one). I heard a few grumblings but most of us loved it.

And why not? Fresh interpretation of a work of art – not cancelling the original version, but trying out a new spin –is rather like breeding a slightly different rose or vegetable. It comes up again fresh. If the work is good enough, it will withstand the update. I once directed a production of Much Ado About Nothing on a boat, and what is West Side Story if not Romeo and Juliet in New York?

Teaching is like that. It’s sometimes been said of actors that they are incurably sensitive: any criticism has to be carefully couched within lots of praise, and

great actors are sometimes acutely self-critical: was I really OK? The always-quotable Alan Bennett puts it like this:

‘make no mistake about it, the actor knows. He knows you didn’t like him, even if you did. He heard you not laughing. He saw you not crying. He knows, and in his heart of hearts he knows too that nothing you say will help. The only thing that will help will be doing it again tomorrow night.’ 2

So it is with many teachers. We go out to ‘perform’ five or six times a day, and if the performance has been anything less than perfect (and it almost always is) then we wonder how we can make it better. And as with acting, we get another chance, next time. Each lesson might cover material you have taught time and again, but it will be subtly or maybe unrecognisably different. Even a teacher who takes two so-called parallel sets, and prepares the same material, will have had that puzzling experience: the same material goes down a storm with one set, like a lead balloon with another.

That is part of the unending appeal of schools. Every cycle is the same, but different. Every lesson is subtly changed, by mood, the weather, a particular question or answer, the day’s other events. Each concert, play, match and assembly is different. We are never far away from the unexpected. Each apparentlysame thing is re-started, building on the mulch of previous experiences of course, but new and full of promise.

Words / The Headmaster Illustration / Vlad Tchompalov

1 Whitgift Academy of Performing Arts, which welcomes both Whitgift boys and boys and girls from other local schools

2 Alan Bennett: Writing Home

Chinese New Year Traditions

Chinese New Year is one of the most important festivals for Chinese people, and the diaspora. There are many different traditions involved with Chinese New Year, and it is a great time for those celebrating to visit their loved ones.

Out of all the Chinese New Year traditions, I personally think when the festival happens is one of the most confusing elements. The date changes every year and can land on any day from December to February. The reason for this is because the Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar; unlike the Gregorian Calendar (the one most of the rest of the world uses which measures the Earth rotating around the Sun). The lunar calendar is also called the farmers’ calendar in Chinese, because the calendar was used many years ago by farmers to know when it was the right time to do certain jobs and tasks like weeding or sowing. This calendar heavily relies on the Moon, which is the basis of the entire calendar. Normally for both calendars, a month is when the Moon orbits around Earth once. However, if we use 12 months as 1 year, we only have 354 or 355 days, which is the number used in the lunar calendar – 11 days fewer than the Gregorian Calendar. Since the western and lunar calendars have different cycles, the date alters slightly every year.

Another Chinese New Year tradition that I find interesting is the Chinese Zodiac. It is a loop of twelve different animals for a duration of twelve years, with one animal representing each year. The order of the animals in the Chinese Zodiac is usually explained by using a fictional story. In the story, all animals compete in the Great Race, in which the top twelve earn a place in the zodiac. In the end, the mouse finished first after it tricked the ox to carry it, who in turn came second. Furthermore, the mouse also tricked the cat, who was made to believe that the race was on another day, causing the cat to sleep through the race! This story is also used to explain why cats generally do not like mice.

The order of the zodiac is: the mouse, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the chicken, the dog, the pig. For Chinese people, your zodiac sign is the year you were born, typically in the lunar calendar. Most people born in 2010 (encompassing lots of the First Form), including me, have the zodiac sign of the tiger.

The zodiac sign represents certain personality traits and virtues for the person born in a particular

year. The zodiac can also be used to determine your luck for the current lunar year by analysing both your zodiac sign and the zodiac of the current year.

In China, Chinese New Year is a great opportunity to visit your relatives and people in mainland China travel long distances to visit their elderly parents and family in the countryside. However, travelling is not much of an issue for me as my family and I live in Hong Kong, which is very small, so journeys are much shorter. When we visit our relatives on Lunar New Year’s Eve, we always eat a dinner named “reunion dinner”, so called as large families do not gather often, so it is sort of a reunion when they do it and it symbolises unity.

A dish we always eat for Chinese New Year is the poon choi, or literally translated to English, big bowl or pot feast. In this dish, there are more than eight types of food, including chicken, pork, tofu and shrimp. They are put into the pot in layers. This symbolises that there are no arguments in the family, they are all different, but they all fit together. The circular bowl also symbolises union, like the reunion dinner.

One really important tradition we try to keep, is that we hang up banners called fei chun, that generally have 4 Chinese characters on them, and tell a message, which we usually say to people when we meet them during Chinese New Year. These messages include ‘Stay healthy’, ‘May your youth stay with you’ and ‘Hope you improve in your studies’. Red is the major colour in fei chun, and traditionally someone writes the messages in calligraphy.

Although I have relocated here to the UK, I can still celebrate Chinese New Year. My family still hangs fei chun, we still meet our relatives, although mostly online, and we still have the reunion dinner with our Chinese friends.

Words / Louie Lam, 1KBB

Photography / Yusuf Musalam, Rawan Yasser

How far has Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) come since 2021?

There are many types of SAF, for example biofuels, hydrogen, or electric fuels. Whilst SAF has progressed a lot since 2021, and many assessed flights have been completed due to safety tests, the enrolment of SAF has been delayed. Airbus logging its first fully SAF flight in early 2023 and the UK Royal Air Force flying an A330MRR on a 90 Minute flight shows how SAF has progressed recently and is proving is to be dependable and helping the environment.

The aviation industry emits 1 billion tons of CO2 emission per year and SAF drastically decreases these emissions. SAF is made from municipal solid waste such as algae, animal waste, crop residues and this can decrease emissions by 85 – 95% according to Simple Flying (Simple Flying UK, 2023). In this essay I will question what is being done to speed up the process of certifying SAF and implementing into commercial use. Firstly, I will compare sources gathered from Simple Flying UK and then discuss the main points stated by each article. My question is important as, according to Our World in Data, the aviation industry emits 2.5% of all CO2 emissions per year. Climate change is affecting all of us and the aviation industry is a large contributor to the problem. SAF will bring these emissions down while having a remarkably similar cost, and not reducing our quality of life. To illustrate this, according to Simple Flying in the United States, Jet A1 fuel costs $0.932 per litre whereas SAF is $1.10 per litre (Simple Flying UK, 2023). This shows that using SAF will not cause prices to go up and travel to become unaffordable. Moreover, it is worth noting that as SAF becomes more established the supply will increase thus the price will decrease.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

The article, “Airbus Logs its first A321Neo SAF Flight”, by Michael Doran is very informative with data relating to SAF’s emissions. In the article, Doran states that the emissions emitted were 80% lower than conventional fuel options (Doran, 2023). It is important to note that these statistics were gathered by a Dassault Aviation Jet aircraft monitoring all gases released, therefore the data is from a trusted external source (Ibid.). The core purpose of Airbus logging its first fully SAF flight was to assess how aviation could reach its goal of reaching Net-Zero by 2050. The data and analysis in Doran’s article indicates that Airbus is progressing further than most other aircraft manufactures to reach this goal. Another article from by Simple Flying UK, “The UK Royal Air Force operates an A330 MRTT on fully Sustainable Aviation Fuel” (Hendry, 2022) further illustrates the progress being made with SAF in the UK. The article focuses on a Royal Air Force flight that is considered to be the first proper SAF flight in UK airspace. This flight took approximately 90 minutes and both engines operated on 100% unblended SAF. These two articles were both written for the purpose of

illustrating how SAF could help to reduce emissions produced by the aviation industry given its role in contributing to global warming. Both articles have a formal tone and contain a lot of data and statistics, which helps make the information and analysis reliable.

In addition to the general background to SAF that the first two articles explore, my research led me to delve further into the innovative fuel’s use. My third source, “London Heathrow’s popular Sustainable Aviation Fuel incentive”, (Ahlgren, 2023), analyses the role that airports play in integrating SAF usage. The core purpose of Ahlgren’s article is to show how London Heathrow has been the most engaged airport in terms of integrating SAF fuel, this is because Heathrow (henceforth known as LHR) has stated that they are aiming to integrate 10% of SAF into the supply pipeline for aircraft refuelling (Ibid.). This goal has been slowly progressing towards this objective for 2030 and LHR has now become the world's best SAF using airport in the world ((Ibid.).

While my second and third sources were largely UK-based, in order to gain a greater overall picture, I thought it was important to assess what else is being done for SAF integration around the world. In Chris Loh’s article, “Emirates Flies a Boeing 777 on SAF in one Engine” (2023), he explores how the UAE company, Emirates, uses SAF. The article states that one of the General Electric GE90 engines was operating fully on SAF with an APU (auxiliary power unit – which allows aircraft to function without the help of ground support equipment) to start the engine also running on SAF. This test implies that full SAF fuel operations for commercial aircraft are “within arm's reach” (Ibid.). This progress can also be seen with Etihad Airlines flying the COP27 delegates on SAF fuel from Washington to Sharm El Sheik. These themes of how other commercial airlines are increasing their use of SAF were present in my final two sources. A second article from Linnea Ahlgren, “GE aerospace operates a Boeing 787-10 Engine fully on SAF”, explores the progress Virgin Atlantic is making in terms of SAF integreation. This article’s core purpose was to show how General Electric is progressing forward to reach Virgin Atlantic’s goal of flying a 787 across the Atlantic fully on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Ahlgren, 2023). My final source by Vyte Kilsauskate, goes one step further and analyses the use of other types of SAF. It states that Gulfstream and Rolls-Royce have conducted a test on a G650 aircraft using 100% SAF, using a fuel otherwise known as HEFA that is produced in California and is made from grease and vegetable oils. The other half of this fuel is SAK, which derives from waste vegetable sugars; this part was made in Wisconsin by Virent (Kilsauskate, 2022).

All of my sources came from one expert publisher, Simple Flying. While this could be a limitation given the lack of variety, it is one of the leading publications in the aviation industry. Moreover, through digging deeper on each author, we can clearly establish that

all of them are experts on the aviation industry, and most notably, on the implementation of the new phenomenon, SAF. Furthermore, while it is evident that the authors I cited are experts in the field, it is worth noting that all of the articles I used included large amounts of statistical evidence to make their points. That said, I would argue that with the influence of the aviation industry, the most dependable article is Doran’s article as it includes many aviation reporters and has statistics gathered by an external company, Dassault Aviation Jet, which provided unbiased results. A common thread among all of the articles is that they all share the same point about SAF’s progress and that it is closer to reality than ever before and is proven to be safe, dependable and eco-friendly. A limitation could be that there is not much mention of negative aspects of the increased use of SAF. Finally, it is also worth noting that these articles are intended for aviation experts and enthusiasts, therefore some of the information provided might be difficult for nonenthusiasts to digest.

DISCUSSION

My question of how SAF has progressed since 2021 was aimed at finding out how the aviation industry is striving towards a better future in order to improve the lives of everyone. Commercial aircraft use Jet A or Jet A1 fuel which produces 53 pounds of CO2 emissions per mile flown. This means that according to C-Level Carbon Consultancy, an offset of 7.058 tonnes per person would be needed to balance emissions for a single flight from LHR to Saint Lucia (Ahlgren, 2023). SAF is used to combat these emissions by using biofuels or hydrogen, and many airlines are striving to reach a carbon neutral industry in the near future. All of the sources used in this project identify the importance of the carbon neutral goal, and focus on the progress in SAF usage since 2021 to reach this.

One thing that interested me in the completion of this project was that it was not only aircraft manufacturers who played a role in implementing SAF in the industry. It is necessary to state the vital role that airports play in this innovation. Ahlgren’s article analysing London Heathrow’s implantation of SAF shows where progress has been made, and just how much more could easily be done (Ibid.). London Heathrow is now the largest user of SAF in the world (as of March 2023) with 10% of its fuel being blended SAF. This means that every flight departing from one of Heathrow’s two runways contains a percentage of SAF within the tanks of the aircraft (Ibid.). Although 10% does not appear to be the largest amount, it represents a massive innovation, and its integration is only rivalled by a few other world-leading airports such as Amsterdam Schiphol and San Francisco International. Globally, according to Sustainable Aviation, 14 out of the 1953 Airports in the world have started to blend SAF into their fuel.

The two other key areas that my research indicated were: non-commercial aircraft use of SAF

is important, and that there are different types of SAF being developed. For example, Gulfstream conducted a test on a G650 aircraft fully on HEFA fuel, which is made of vegetable oils and grease. This test demonstates that there are many different types of SAF that the industry should explore (Kilsauskate, 2022). Moreover, the tests conducted by the Royal Air Force using SAF show that army jet engines can be used with SAF safely and without drastic infrastructure or altercations to the combustions Engine (Hendry, 2022).

Whilst my research has indicated that the implementation of SAF has progressed a lot since 2021 in a strive for the aviation industry’s goal of being Carbon Neutral by 2050, it also highlights that much more must be done throughout the world in order to meet this target. The key areas that my research highlighted were the need for more airlines to implement SAF in their engines, and maybe more importantly, for more airports to blend SAF into their pumps.

My research did also highlight a few limitations concerning how SAF usage is progressing. Firstly, it is a new phenomenon, and as such, will require time for more companies to implement it without governmental backing. Moreover, the aviation industry has copious amounts of safety checks, which means that in order to implement SAF properly, many more tests will need to be carried out.

Following my research, further investigations should be conducted to see how SAF fuels are made, where they are coming from, and what the implications of using such fuels would mean. This would potentially bring into question the definition of SAF, and whether it should be from biofuels, hydrogen, or other alternatives. Finally, another implication of whether we can define SAF as carbon neutral is how it is transported to airports. All of these questions are important in order to innovate the industry in the most ecofriendly manner.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, through researching this essay, I have found that SAF is progressing towards commercial use every day with many tests being conducted with new aircraft logging fully integrated SAF flights, for example the A321. Since SAF is new, there are many limitations to my research, such as which type of SAF is used, whether it is HEFA, SAK or another alternative. Consequently, further research in this field of which SAF fuel the industry will use is required to arrive at a more rounded conclusion and understanding of the progress SAF usage has made.

Overall, however, it is undeniable that SAF usage has progressed since 2021, with many flights using it as part of its fuel. Moreover, the $0.168 per litre price difference with jet fuel shows how more ecofriendly flights will not cost much more than regular flights once the supply of them increases. Finally, this essay discovered the important role that airports will play in the integration of SAF. London Heathrow’s implementation of around 10% SAF is a strong start, but other airports need to follow suit for it to have a substantial impact on the aviation industry.

Words / Fred Bareggi, 2LJA Photography / Luka Slapnicar

General Electric is progressing forward to reach Virgin Atlantic’s goal of flying a 787 across the Atlantic fully on Sustainable Aviation Fuel

To what extent has fast fashion affected the rate of water pollution?

Fast fashion is the constant mass production of trendy clothes, using low-quality dyes, fabrics and other materials. As the clothes are not of high quality, they tend to wear out quickly, lose their colour and thus people throw them away. They consequently buy more clothes fitting to the latest trends and throw them away again. The cycle continues.

My question is important because fast fashion has a large negative impact on water pollution. Through this argument we need to understand what exactly we are dealing with and to possibly find effective solutions to prevent this from forming into an even greater problem. My question is interesting as it states the rate of water pollution meaning that it will provide quantifiable data about water pollution, as well as discovering how fast it is increasing, if it's decreasing, or whether it could even become a major crisis like climate change.

In order to answer this question, I will be providing and evaluating key statistics, information and sources to what liabilities countries and water sources are facing. As well as this, I will be comparing multiple sources to uncover the similarities and differences they all possess. Further on, I will review their reliability and what further research would need to be taken to boost these sources’ reliability.

The article “Fashion’s Environmental Impacts.’’ (Charpail, 2017) outlines how fast fashion is prone to heavily impacting all of our water sources, how it takes and requires a large amount of water for clothing production and how the fish in the water are affected because of this. For example, “20% of global water pollution comes from fast fashion” (Ibid.), the substances that enter our water sources include materials like, mercury, lead and even fertilizers to produce cotton. This includes the “22,000 litres of toxic waste that is being dumped into river by tanneries in Bangladesh every day!”(Ibid.). As well as this, it tells us that 9,700 litres of water is used to produce just 1kg of cotton. Additionally, fish that have been exposed to textiles and dyes have heavily suffered from cell damage in the kidneys. This discovery is emphasised with the statistic that “200,000 tons of dyes are lost to effluents every year” (Ibid.). In relation to this, it has been discovered that the textiles that we constantly use and dump are carcinogenic, cytotoxic, genotoxic and neurotoxic. Although the provider of this article is not widely recognised like the BBC, I find sustainyourstyle.

org reliable, as the website's purpose is to encourage the shift from the fast fashion industry to a more sustainable model. As well as this, they are also activists on finding suitable methods to prevent a possible crisis-to-come in the future. However, the article is somewhat limited due to potential biases to encouage greener practices, and the data is a bit outof-date, as the article was written in 2017.

My second article, (Yourunderwear.com, 2021) outlines how the fast fashion industry actually creates water pollution. This happens when factories do not care about their water waste treatment and dump it into the water supply. Similarly to sustainyourstyle. org, the article states, “the fast fashion industry accounts for 20% of global waste water” and is done “by cheaply disposing untreated factory waste into streams and rivers” (Ibid.). As well as this, it creates the impression that dyes have more serious effects than we would like to admit. Dyes are quite controversial as textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally (Ibid.). With fast fashion, many of our clothes contain low quality dyes which also are not environmentally friendly. Although this article comes from an underwear website, I would say that it is quite reliable as it provides many other sources including sustainyourstyle, to back up its points. In comparison to the previous article, the purpose of this article is actually to promote the brand’s underwear as they use organic dyes and other materials to minimise how they affect water in production. I believe that this report is quite effective and convincing as it utilises a vast amount of wellresearched statistics.

Overall, I would say that both articles are trustworthy and transparent as they have explained how the fast fashion industry heavily impacts water pollution as well as providing solutions to slow down the rapid rate at which it is increasing. Both articles contain a lot of quantative data, which helps illustrate the points they make with accuracy. Sustainyourstyle recorded that only 15% of clothes are donated or recycled, and emphasises the importance of doing so as it can take up to 200 years for synthetics to decompose. 69% of our clothes have synthetic fiber in them (Charpail, 2017). They have a “what can we do about it?” section which provides many solutions; for instance buying natural clothes, or clothes with great quality and endurance, and then recycling them when they wear out. If we carry out this cycle, it could really make an impact on the amount of polymers and synthetic fibers that are being dumped into our water.

Similarly, Yourunderwear.com highlighted that their underwear is mainly made up of natural resources and cotton and because of this, they saved 618,518 litres of water in 2021 (Yourunderwear.com, 2021)

The data from the sources used for this project indicate that fast fashion has had and is having a negative effect on our water sources. The information confirms that through the production of clothes, many materials and minerals like mercury, low quality dyes and microfibres pose a huge threat to the future of our water quality. It has been recorded that lakes have changed colours, hundreds of thousand of litres of water is being soaked up by the dumped clothes and the health of almost all of the aquatic life living within the vicinity of the toxic waste has declined.

Initially, I hypothesised that fast fashion did have an impact on water pollution but I did not anticipate it to have an impact anywhere close to how much it currently does. Contrary to what I hypothesised, the sources I used clearly highlighted that fast fashion is having a negative effect on water bodies, their pureness, how aquatic health has been impacted by the toxic wastewater, including dyes that enter the water and the mass amount of water consumption that takes place every year in their creation. The link between fast fashion and water pollution has expanded into multiple branches that I did not think were connected, for example, water pollution and cotton production. The information that this data provides heavily contradicts my hypothesis that fast fashion did not have a huge impact on water pollution.

From my research, in addition to discovering the connection between water pollution and the fast fashion industry, my project also uncovered a new relationship between the fast fashion industry and water scarcity. My evidence to support this is that it has been recorded that through the fashion industry, 5 trillion litres of water are used each year and after use, the water sources are filled with contaminated, toxic wastewater (Youunderwear.com, 2021). In addition to this, other statistics show that 785 million people in the world do not have access to drinking water and 2.6% of global fresh water is used to produce cotton. There is a correlation between these two statistics as it demonsrates that the fast fashion industry contributes to poor, polluted water bodies as well as taking away access to fresh water. For example, this source has stated that “100 million people in India do not have access to drinking water,” (Ibid.). Going forward, I would like to research what measures could be done to limit the impact of the fast fashion industry, and whether we can do much on an individual level, or whether we need to encourage our governments to tackle the problem.

/ Kruiz Morris, 2PSC

Words

Photography / Clem Onojeghuo This essay was originally written as part of the Ignite course in Second Form.

How and why is fast fashion different between different countries?

Fast fashion is where large companies make massive quantities of cheap, low-quality clothes that fit the latest and greatest trends. The consumers can afford to keep up with the trends by buying these low-quality clothes, but there is an enormous impact due to the wastefulness of fast fashion, and the number of clothes thrown away.

This question is particularly important, because climate change is a huge problem, as it can greatly affect the planet negatively if we do not do anything about it. We need to make sure that we can keep our ways sustainable, by limiting fast fashion as much as possible and making more sustainable clothing. My question tries to compare different countries spread around the world to see which countries are tackling this problem the best and worst.

In order to answer this question, I will first analyse some sources for their credibility, and their content, and then compare them to see the similarities and differences. I will then discuss and reach an answer to the question in the discussion, and finish with a conclusion with some suggestions for further research.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

Source 1

The article ‘What Is Fast Fashion-and Why Is It a Problem?’ (TreeHugger, 2022) explains what fast fashion is, and gives some statistics about how an average American uses their clothes and where they come from. For example, the average American throws away 31kg of clothing every year and only 2% of clothes sold in the US are made there, whereas the rest come from places like China (Ibid.). It also includes information about bad working conditions and lists some alternatives to fast fashion. This article goes into detail explaining how the fast fashion industry works, and how cheap clothing is produced so fast. It has a very formal tone, explaining with quotes, detail, and accuracy. It comes from a not-so-well-known website, but they seem to be reliable from their informative tone. Its purpose is to inform, and to help convince people that stopping fast fashion is better for the environment and for human rights.

Source 2

The next article, ‘New Shocking Facts About The Impact of Fast Fashion and Our Climate’ (Oxfam, 2019), focuses more on the UK, and again, starts with some facts and statistics, such as 10% of CO2 emissions, 20% of wastewater and 20-35% of microplastics in the marine environment are all due to the textile industry. It then mentions Greta Thunberg and explains how bad the climate crisis is, and how using clothes for longer and stopping fast fashion will make things much better. Then, it has a short explanation on how fast fashion impacts workers. This article has a slightly less formal tone, but it is from a reputable charity who work against this kind of problem, although it comes from 2019, so it might be slightly outdated. The article’s purpose is to convince people that fast fashion has a major impact on our environment, as does the title.

Source 3

Finally, my third source, “EU Gets Tough On Fast Fashion - New Laws 30 March [2022] Charge Brands To Boost Sustainable Clothing” (ZeroWasteEurope, 2022) starts with a quick explanation on what fast fashion is and jumps straight into the solutions. It does include one statistic, that globally, roughly one truckload of fashion waste is burned every second. It says that the EU should introduce a fee that fashion retailers should pay for every new item of clothing made. This would encourage retailers to make their clothing reusable and more durable. It then includes many quotes to back this up. This article is also less formal than the first, and comes from a slightly less well-known organisation, but is more recent than the second, and seems reliable from the language used. This article’s purpose is to inform people of the new measures that the EU is bringing in.

COMPARISON

My sources are all based in different areas: the US, the UK, and the EU. This means that they inherently have different perspectives on fast fashion in different countries. The first source is based in the US, the second in the UK, and the third in the EU. However, they all explain the problems with fast fashion, and then describe some solutions to it. They also include some statistics, although the first two include many more than the third, which could be considered to

have a purpose to persuade in addition to inform. All these articles seem fairly reliable, and two of them are very recent, but one is slightly out-dated.

DISCUSSION

My sources are all based in different areas: US, UK, and Europe. This means I can see the effects of fast fashion in different places of the world. My findings indicate that the EU have done much more to stop fast fashion quickly than the UK and the US. The results of this data do agree with what I initially thought before I started researching, because the EU have generally been seen as a proactive regulatory organisation.

My research has told me that the EU have already put through regulations to combat fast fashion, by heavily taxing the clothing industry for every garment they produce. The US and the UK, however, have not done anything notable yet to incentivise reusable clothing as opposed to fast fashion. The research has also told me just how much difference wearing clothes for longer can make. For example, if everyone used their clothes for double the amount of time, by repairing them as much as possible before throwing them away, the greenhouse gas emissions would be 44% lower than they are now. Fast fashion is also responsible for over 10% of global CO2 emissions. I also did not know that the average UK individual has the highest number of items of clothing bought throughout the entirety of Europe. This shows that the EU has enforced sustainability in clothing much, much better than the UK ever has. My research has also showed me that fast fashion contributes heavily to questionable human labour conditions and pay. For example, a Bangladeshi worker would need to be paid 4.5x the minimum wage to have a decent living standard and over 9x to support a family. Garment production is also the second highest at-risk industry for modern slavery.

In line with my hypothesis, fast fashion is causing a lot of problems with human rights, and climate change. I knew before my research that the impact of fast fashion on climate change was significant, but I did not know that it was greater than international aviation and shipping combined. These results shocked me, as at this stage in the climate crisis, just a little bit of CO2 can have a huge effect on the temperature of the planet. In my opinion, fast fashion should be stopped as soon as possible, by taxing the companies for every item of clothing they produce, to make them produce the longest lasting clothes possible. This will mean lower carbon emissions from producing clothing, and disposing of clothing, because fewer clothes

will be made to replace the cheap ones that have disintegrated. In my view, countries like China should also put in much more effort to make production more sustainable, and conditions in factories better, as fast fashion also contributes to human rights and unsafe labour conditions. This is because fast fashion companies need a lot of workers to make so many items of clothing and cannot afford to pay them decent wages or maintain safe working conditions.

CONCLUSION

Whilst writing this research project, I have discovered many things about how fast fashion affects the planet, and how different countries deal with it differently. I have learned about why the fast fashion industry is so successful, and its effects on human rights. However, I have not been able to identify the full picture of fast fashion, and how different governments deal with it, as this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. Therefore, much more research must be done to ensure that we understand the problem entirely and

can therefore address it in the best way. The next step after that is to go to organisations and try to make a difference and try to ensure that all clothing is made in the most sustainable way, and lasts for as long as possible, whilst still being readily available.

Words / Magnus Tibbalds, 2LMN Photography / Fernand de Canne

human rights?

Food trends happen when there are sudden sharp increases in what the world's population wants to consume compared to previous periods. Common examples of this include the avocado on toast episode in 2010 and the recent quinoa trend. Factory farming is all about mass producing food for the world, no matter the impact it has on human rights and the environment surrounding it.

My question is important because of the sheer quantities of human rights that are violated due to the world's food preferences, and the need to grow food in order to sustain a healthy population. This can go all the way from giving low pay to farmers, to making the population surrounding the farms live in poor conditions, due to theft of water. My question is also very interesting because of how common this occurrence is, as even well-known supermarkets do this. In order to answer this question, I will analyse four sources and compare them before giving my own thoughts on their content then I shall provide a conclusion which includes any future issues this phenomenon could cause.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

The source 'What Does Farming Have To Do With Human Rights,' (Fairtrade International, 2019) examines how employers treat their workers in large, mass-produced farms. This includes poor pay for farmers, discrimination against women, discouraging any attempts to unionise and not providing education for the farmers' children. In the article, Fairtrade International mention how they become involved in farming practices and what their process is, such as providing fair pay for the farmers and equality for women. Fairtrade International also explain how they help farmers make money themselves by changing

previously cheap and unfair prices to prices that would support a farmer’s family.

Fairtrade International have worked on improving the situation for workers for over 30 years, and have found very interesting global patterns. For example, the most comparatively poorly paid workers are found in farms in South America or Southern Asia. The source, however, mainly focuses on what human rights have been violated and what workers are entitled to. The most important of these, according to the organisation, is the right to earn a decent livelihood. The information in the article is likely to be reliable as Fairtrade International is a respected NGO. The aim of this article is to inform people in the richer countries which workers' rights are being violated every day in the food production industry. However, a limitation of the source is that it is written by the organisation itself to highlight its own work, rather than being written by an external person with a more objectively analytical eye.

The source 'Why Human Rights Must Be At The Heart of The Food Industry,' (Askew, 2021) is an article that explores how supermarkets and governments take advantage of food farmers. According to Askew, examples of the ways in which farmers are taken advantage of include poor pay and poor living conditions. The article also highlights that retailers take far more money from a sale than the workers, sometimes getting 30 percent more than their worker counterparts. In the article, Askew analysed that the recent increase of population has led to a sudden demand for more food, which in turn has led to workers being exploited to keep up with the need for more food. The article is reliable as it contains expert information from Doctor Humbert, who is an orthopaedist in Florida who has been in the practice for 20 years. In addition to the aforementioned issues, Doctor Humbert also

To what extent do food trends and factory farming negatively impact

adds the fact that workers are exposed to harmful pesticides, which are used to increase the speed of fruit and vegetables grown. The workers are given no protection. Similarly to the Fairtrade International article, the aim of this article is to inform the people in richer countries what workers, largely in lowerincome countries, are exposed to on a daily basis and how they are exploited.

The article "Factory Farming: A Violation of Human Rights," (Ybarra, 2019) is written with a focus on how we must change our ways of factory farming and move to more advanced ways of growing our foods. Lauren Ybarra begins her argument by explaining that human rights have been violated in factory farming. Although she includes analytical language and examples of the issues caused by factory farming, at times she employs emotional language to help persuade her audience. An example of this is when she says that each person should treat another like they were family, no matter if they are neighbours or people you have only just met (Ibid.). According to Ybarra, factory farming actively breaks human rights every day, and often picks on the most vulnerable in a society. Although the article includes some reliable references, its main purpose is to inform its audience about the horrors of factory farming so that society puts pressure on supermarkets to move on from the practice.

The article "Latin America's Water Crisis Is Not About Millennials' Avocado Habit, But The Human and Environmental Impact of Food Production," (Booth, 2018) is all about how the food trends of Western countries, such as the avocado trend, have impacted many people who live around the farms, and how their water sources are impacted in order to keep up with the farming demand. Amy Booth also mentions that the volume of demand for many different vegetables has caused many new farms to pop up, especially in South America. In order to keep up with the consumer’s demand, these farms require huge amounts of water, and consequently, they take the water from local sources. However, this leads to many of the people who live locally not having enough to do simple tasks, such as cooking and cleaning. This phenomenon often causes them to have to rely on contaminated water shipped in from trucks. According to the article, the main crop that has caused this issue is the avocado. However, this is not the only crop that is to blame. Booth makes a deliberate point to identify that asparagus in Peru and sugar cane in India have also caused water shortages for their local populations. The article’s purpose is to inform the population of the issues caused by our farming and consumption practices, while focusing on a popular news story: “millennials and their avocado addiction”.

While many of these sources argue for the same thing, all of them are structured in a different way, from arguing the overall human rights of farmers and locals, to water and basic living conditions. Booth’s article on farming’s link to the water crisis in South America (Booth, 2018) mainly focuses on how temporary factory farming is taking water needed

for simple living conditions from the locals of poorer countries. However, it does not cover the aspects of pay and mistreatment, which is present in the other sources. Ybarra’s article about farming’s violation of human rights (Ybarra, 2019), is not a piece of news per-se, but rather, it’s an analysis of studies from scholarly works, thus rendering it very reliable. It identifies each human right that has been violated and analyses each one in detail. Similarly, Fairtrade International’s article (2019) discusses the workers and their low pay, and treatment of different races and sexes. The final source, 'Why Human Rights Must Be At The Heart of The Food Industry,' (Askew, 2021) criticises how governments and well-known food industries will discourage interacting with other workers and to continue taking advantage of the unfair pay awarded to the workers.

DISCUSSION

The question I explored is all about what human rights are being violated by the farming industry and how. When I first started researching this, I was already aware of how huge factory farms were abusing workers from lesser-developed countries and making them live in unfavourable conditions. From the sources I used, I found evidence to largely back up my suspicions. However, contrary to my prior thoughts, following my research, it became clear that through our general demand for food, we all inadvertently contribute to factory farming and its poor practices. Our general preference for mass produced food causes farms like these to establish themselves in poorer countries to take advantage of the people there.

While my research was all about factory farms and the human rights they impact, none of my sources told me what governments and businesses are doing to stop this activity. The Fairtrade International source focused on how Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are trying to help the situation, but their impact is limited, especially if the demands in the global West continue to follow their current patterns. My research also did not discover whether farms and supermarkets who were aware that they were using the technique were moving away from this or whether they were carrying on in what they are doing. In my opinion, it is vitally important that we put pressure on these institutions so that their practice is as fair as possible. In doing so, while there could be an immediate direct economic impact, the workers who are being exploited would be emboldened to demand fair pay for their labour.

In addition to the human rights that are directly affected by factory farming, I was quite shocked to discover that the practice had detrimental effects on the environment, such as the over-usage of water. Given the ongoing environmental challenges we face on Earth, additional “unnecessary” strains on our ecosystem are likely to have profound impacts that we are yet to fully discover or understand.

Finally, an interesting outcome of my research was that there is a direct correlation between the unemployment rate of a country and the existence of

factory farms. These types of farms pretty much do not exist in countries like the UK, where we have an unemployment rate of around 4% (UK Parliament, 2023). However, in contrast, Colombia has an unemployment rate of 14%, in addition to an ideal climate to grow food. This has led to an increased presence of factory farms in the country (Ybarra, 2021), and the trend appears to be continuing in that direction.

CONCLUSION

During this research project, I have discovered many new and interesting things about the factory farming industry, and about how it infringes on human rights. In conducting this research, I also stumbled upon how factory farming affects the environment, which is intrinsically linked to human rights.

The key points that I found were what human rights have been violated in factory farming, such as the right to fair pay, and how consumer demand, such as food trends, have influenced production.

Despite this, a limitation of my research was how, other than through Fairtrade International, I was unable to find much about what people are doing to stop the impacts of factory farming, and if we are starting to move away from it. Going forward, more research is needed on this subject to see what we can do in order to provide people with safe and fair employment, while also sustainably feeding the Earth’s population – even in the face of food trends. However, the question remains whether individual customers can do anything, or whether intervention is only impactful at a governmental level. AAs such, in the future I would like to research how we can stop factory farming for good.

Words / Luca Brindle, 2KLF Photography / Dirk Ribbler

More research is needed on this subject to see what we can do in order to provide people with safe and fair employment, while also sustainably feeding the Earth’s population

How does climate change affect Galapagos Penguins and Emperor Penguins?

First of all, it is important to quickly define climate change, as the process by which greenhouse gases go into the atmosphere, make it thicker, and consequently trap more sunlight, which in turn prevents it from leaving the atmosphere and thus leads to heating the Earth.

My question is important because it raises awareness about how climate change is affecting animals such as penguins and how it could lead to their extinction. As such, I hope my question sheds more light on the fact that we need to act on climate change to prevent the planet from becoming any hotter. My question is also intriguing as it shows that different species of penguins live in different conditions.

To answer this question, firstly I will evaluate and compare the sources that I have used for evidence. Then I will discuss different themes of the question finding similarities and differences. Finally, I will write a conclusion talking about what I learnt and what to do going forward.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

I had four primary sources that informed my project. They can be easily divided into categories: two sources focused on Emperor penguins, and two focused on Galapagos penguins. The first source which I used was CNN (Strickland, 2022), its focus is largely based around what will happen to Emperor penguins if we do not help stop climate change. It is matter-of-fact in its tone, which is abundantly clear when it states that Emperor penguins rely on the “sea ice to form their breeding colonies, avoid predators in the ocean and forage for food” (Strickland, 2022). This language, coupled with the scientific analysis, is effective as it is not emotional, but rather factual. Similarly, my source from the British Antarctic Survey (2021) also backs up the statement that if the glaciers melt, the Emperor penguins will die because they rely on the glaciers to breed and feed. A difference between the two sources focused on the Emperor penguins is that the BAS source points out that if we do not reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, Emperor penguins will be extinct by the end of the century, despite not being currently classified as “endangered”.

In addition to my sources focused on Emperor penguins, in order to answer my question, I also used two primary sources focused on the Galapagos penguins (the most northerly penguins in the world). In her article on TreeHugger, Gallagher states that unlike Emperor penguins, Galapagos penguins are classified as “endangered” due to climate change (Gallagher, 2022). It also states that seas are becoming warmer due to climate change and that the Galapagos penguins cannot find enough food for themselves or their offspring because the fish have gone to cooler seas. This strain on their food source can also cause them to stop breeding altogether. Similarly, the Galapagos Conservation Trust states that the warmer seas are having an impact on the number of fish (2023). However, it goes beyond and also states that if the seas become any warmer, the lack of fish will result in the Galapagos penguins abandoning their offspring if they do breed. It

also outlines the affect that it has on the entirety of the Galapagos Islands (Ibid.). Both articles discuss how artificial nests can help Galapagos penguins in this current climate crisis. The GCT article explains that “a quarter of all Galapagos penguin breeding activity observed has taken place in the constructed nests” (Ibid.). It also explains that some years it has accounted for 43% of breeding for Galapagos penguins (Ibid.).

Through analysing my sources, I believe they are reliable for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the CNN source is reliable, not just because it is a well-regarded news company, but because it provides a lot of statistics, which are consistent with my other sources. Furthermore, it is also reliable as it was written in 2022, so its data is recent. Although the TreeHugger source might be considered to have a bias given its focus on environmental issues, its data and information is very reliable as it was all factchecked by Elizabeth MacLennan, who is a respected fact-checker and expert in climate change, therefore everything written has gone through a rigorous fact-checking process. Finally, it was also written in July 2022 which again is quite recent. I think the British Antarctic Survey is very reliable because it is a primary source, full of unmanipulated data and lots of quotes from different scientists. Moreover, it is the official website for the UK scientific missions in Antarctica, and it assesses what Britain is going to do about climate change affecting Antarctica. On the other hand, it was written in 2021 so some of the data and facts might not be fully up-to-date. Finally, the Galapagos Conservation Trust source is pretty reliable as it is the official website about the Galapagos islands, and therefore has little reason to be biased, as its purpose is to inform on the biodiversity of the islands instead of persuading people to do something.

DISCUSSION

In the Discussion section of my essay, I will discuss how both Galapagos penguins and Emperor penguins are affected by climate change. I will also discuss what we can do to help them. I have divided the Discussion into four equal sections: the link between Emperor penguin survival and melting glaciers; the impact of the warming of the seas on Galapagos penguins; how we can help Emperor penguins in the face of climate change; how we can help Galapagos penguins in the face of climate change. In order to discuss these themes, I have used the four sources evaluated in the previous section of this essay.

My first theme is the link between Emperor penguin survival and the melting of glaciers. The experts from my sources state that Emperor penguins will not survive if glaciers melt because they will not be able to reproduce in the water and they will have a hard time escaping from predators. This is especially evident in the influential British Antarctic Survey, where it stated the species’ survival is linked to the glaciers “given the species’ reliance upon sea ice for breeding, moulting and feeding” (2021). This

in order to maintain a balance for the Earth’s wildlife, we need a collaborated global effort to stop climate change

shows that they need ice to breed and is supporting evidence for penguins using glaciers as protection against predators. This analysis is also stressed by CNN, who state that Emperor penguins are also “prey for leopard seals and killer whales” (Strickland, 2022). This emphasises that Emperor penguins would struggle to adapt to survive without sea ice. Some scientists argue that some numbers of Emperor penguins could survive if glaciers melt because they could move to a slightly warmer climate on land so that they can breed and are safe from their predators. However, in order to live in warmer climates, they would need to adapt by having fewer feathers, and change their way of living. This shows that Emperor penguins could survive if the glaciers melt because they could adapt, but not all would be able to do so, and therefore, the impact of the melting glaciers is somewhat existential.

My second theme is that since the seas are becoming warmer Galapagos penguins will die because they cannot find enough food for themselves and their offspring. Some of the analysis was focused on the fact that Galapagos penguins would die out due to the reduction of food linked to the rise in sea temperatures. Other analysis was centred around the notion that this reduction of food would lead to parent Galapagos penguins leaving their offspring to find enough food to feed themselves. It is possible to analyse that as a result of the work from the Galapagos Conservation Trust, the Galapagos penguins will not die out as the organisation has intervened to protect the species. To back this up, the Galapagos Conservation Trust states that they will “reduce the destructive impact of climate change on the Islands’ unique and vulnerable species whilst supporting sustainable livelihoods in Galapagos” (2023). This shows that with the human intervention, it is unlikely that the Galapagos penguins will die due to warmer seas as they are being protected. However, it is unusual, and sometimes considered immoral for such human intervention in the protection of a species.

The third theme that stood out when conducting my project was how we can help Emperor penguins through climate change. First and foremost, from my sources, it became very clear that in order to protect Emperor penguins, we can help them by classifying them as “endangered” as this will increase awareness of their situation, and might lead to some human intervention. Secondly, it is really important that we succeed in our aim of keeping the global temperature increase under 2 degrees. To back up these points, the CNN article states: “Listing emperor penguins as a threatened species is an important step for raising awareness about the impact of climate change”. This will help as it will make people put in more effort to find solutions to help Emperor penguins (Strickland, 2022). Conversely, some scientists argue that even if we classified the Emperor penguin as “endangered”, their numbers might not go back up to a sustainable number. This analysis stems from the example

of polar bears, which are no longer classified as “endangered”, but whose numbers are still low, and “remain vulnerable as the climate crisis continues”.

The fourth and final theme that came out when researching my project is how can we help the Galapagos penguins in the face of climate change. Some scientists argue that we can help Galapagos penguins by creating artificial nests that will “monitor and evaluate the status of the penguin populations and their reproductive success” (Gallagher, 2022). This technique is a good starting point, as it will help scientists realise what we can do next to help them. This is a technique that the Galapagos National Park Service is using, as they have some areas for breeding sites, and they also control the predators so that the penguins do not get eaten. This human intervention is helping the Galapagos penguins’ survival as it helps raise their numbers by ensuring breeding grounds are sufficient, while also giving us information on what to do next. From my research, I think that with human intervention we can help Galapagos penguins from going extinct by constructing the artificial nests and helping their number stabilise. However, in order to really help them, we need to reverse the impacts of the increased sea temperatures so they can survive without human intervention.

CONCLUSION

Through writing this essay, I learnt a lot about Galapagos penguins and Emperor penguins, and the unique struggles each species faces. Through linking the species in my research, I also read about climate change and what people were doing to help the penguins. I also learnt about The Endangered Species Act. All this information helped me understand how climate change affects both the Galapagos and Emperor penguins. Both species are at risk due to the impacts of climate change, while the Galapagos penguins has strong human intervention mechanisms to help minimise the impacts where possible. One limitation of my project was the lack of information on the Internet about the Galapagos penguins as they are not a well-known species. Going forward, following my research, I think that more human intervention should implemented to help the survival of both Galapagos penguins and Emperor penguins in order to keep their numbers sustainable. That said, it is clear that in order to maintain a balance for the Earth’s wildlife, we need a collaborated global effort to stop climate change. We are at a tipping point, maybe we have gone past it already, and global efforts at a legislative level need to be more drastic.

Words / Raphael Velarde, 2PAR Photography / Martin Wettstein

humanity

Growing up

he transformation from blue shirt to white shirt is a well-made farce. The Whitgiftian blue shirt begins his journey with several imperial tonnes of energy. He is a walking dynamo, firing on all cylinders! In the classroom, he asks a thousand questions before the lesson even begins: “what’s the date?”; “what’s the English civil war, sir?” “Is the meaning of life really 42?” “what are you reading?” He is uninhibited by the foibles of experience, he throws himself into academic study, sport, music and theatre with, at my own ripening age, what I can only describe as a kind of enviable energy. He exits stage-left in the Third Form and returns in the Fourth Form: with his shiny white shirt, new hair-cut, designer rucksack, he is now more knowing, more ironical, more rebellious. It is the honour of our profession as teachers and school masters to be able to guide this journey.

It is axiomatic to say that we all grow up. What they don’t tell you is that we carry on growing up. In literature we call books about growing up “bildungsroman”. It is one of the most common genres of the novel, perhaps reaching its peak popularity in the 19th Century. Dickens’ David

TCopperfield and Great Expectations are high points of the bildungsroman, dramatizing the perilous journey from boy to man, from rags to riches. George Eliot does much the same in her books, from a female perspective. Her great novel Middlemarch is a bleaker kind of bildungsroman: it shows in forensic slowmotion how a life can develop, and even stagnate, if one follows the wrong path or ignores one’s convictions. Curiously, the theatrical canon, by dint of its “liveness”, is not replete with “growing up” plays; the word Bildungsdrama is not about to enter the vernacular any time soon – perhaps for the better. This posed an exciting challenge when the Headmaster asked me to put together a programme for this year’s festival. To showcase the kaleidoscopic nature of this common human experience, I had to become a literary truffle-hunter and rootle around the lanes and byways of dramatic literature and even adapt some nondramatic texts for stage.

All research projects begin with the Bard. In some ways all his plays are about growing up: Hamlet, Romeo and even Lear are all still growing up, despite their different ages. However, the stakes are never higher than in the Henriad where a young and rascally Prince Hal must mend his ways if he is to inherit, preserve and bring honour to the crown that his father so precariously took from King Richard II. A scene from the first part of Henry IV forms the centre of our exhibition this evening. Here, we can see the

“It cannot come again,” as Philip Larkin put it, “but is for others undiminished somewhere.” He is of course talking about youth, both the tragedy of it happening only once and the miracle of the fact that it happens at all. Growing up is a genre-bending idea. Not just in literature but in life as well. It is both comedy and tragedy, sometimes opera and often farce. As teachers it is a signal privilege that the latter genre is our daily bread.

“undiminished” joy of the hijinks and playfulness of youth followed by a sober rejection of the hedonistic life in order to take up the enormous duty of Kingship. The lesson is universal: negotiating purpose and responsibility is the great theme of adulthood.

Dorian Gray , however, gives us another salutary lesson: the consequences of not taking Hal’s decision to grow up. In a kind of warped version of Peter Pan, Dorian wishes to remain young for ever and, in Wilde’s novella, this means a life of sin: youthful play in burlesque. Adapting the opening of this book for theatre was a joy: so much of the text already contains the jagged edged dialogue that we know and love from his famous plays. “Fern Hill”, which we have dramatized, revels in a kind of faux-nostalgia whereas Stoppard’s The Invention of Love shows us a young Housman in the throes of love. Our excerpt from Chekhov’s The Seagull explores the infectious naivety and quixotic ambition of youth which contrasts with our most topical piece this evening from The Drunks This latter piece shows young heroism to be a political weapon for small-town factional politics in rural Russia. The writer of the play, seen as an enemy of the Putin regime, Mikhail Durnenkov, is currently in exile in Finland - perhaps teaching us how the rebelliousness of youth can be admirable but also dangerous when continued into adulthood. Perhaps all the writers here, perhaps all writers, contain this spirit.

However, drama is only half our evening. Our

musical director, Mr. Scott Morrison, has put together an eclectic mix of pieces from all areas of Whitgift’s offering. The talent on display is breathtaking and forms the backbone of the evening. Song, brass, orchestral, jazz: this arrangement is a vibrant celebration of individual and collaborative flair. My own favourite piece (we shouldn’t really have favourites!) is the Mozart, a composer who embodies the impishness that we see animating some of the dramatic pieces, here played with the vital energy that it deserves. Ellington, Purcell (old favourites), alongside some, for me, unfamiliar pieces make this a truly remarkable line-up. The final piece of music was new to me, a central piece in the musical Matilda which wonderfully captures the essence of Dahl’s original magical fable where a little girl navigates and overcomes the nightmarish grotesques of the adult world. Growing up is hard: but his final song is a triumphant clarion call.

Yes, youth cannot come again. But we can remember it, celebrate it, borrow from it, return to it (in spirit). Let it remain undiminished for us all.

Words / Mr A Alcock, Head of Higher Education & Teacher of English Photography / Sven Brandsma

How much will exploring space help to support sustainable development?

According to my research sustainable development is an organising principle that aims to meet human development goals while also enabling natural systems to provide necessary natural resources and ecosystem services to humans.

My question is important as commercial and noncommercial space travel is moving closer to becoming a reality. Moreover, sustainable development and sustainability are becoming more prominent issues in society, with more people realising how important it is. As such, my question seeks to find out whether space travel could help us fix the growing need for sustainable development.

In order to answer the question, I will first evaluate some sources, checking the reliability of their information and statistics, then I will compare them in order to understand their key similarities and differences. After this, I will discuss the most important facts from my sources, before finally writing a conclusion to summarise my findings and explain what the next steps in my research could be.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

My first source is from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and is a reliable source because NASA is essentially the world’s leading knowledge source for space travel and space research. Moreover, all of their facts are thoroughly researched

and checked by expert scientists. In the article I used (NASA, 2013), the organisation includes lots of information about benefits that have stemmed from space exploration. These benefits are consistent with my other sources, which demonstrates a dependability of the information. The tone with which NASA state their facts is very objective, and in an unbiased manner. For example, they say that “the direct benefits of exploration include the generation of scientific knowledge, the diffusion of innovation and creation of markets, the inspiration of people around the world, and agreements forged between the countries engaged in exploration” (Ibid.). The same source continues with, “indirect benefits that result over time include tangible enhancements to the quality of life such as improved economic prosperity, health, environmental quality, safety, and security. They also include intangible philosophical benefits such as a deepened understanding and new perspectives on humankind’s individual and collective place in the Universe” (Ibid.). While some of the information could be somewhat biased given the nature of the organisation, what they have stated is true, and expressed without emotional language. A limitation of the NASA source is that it was published in 2013, and therefore some of the facts, and statistics might be outdated.

My second source, from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is reliable because UKRI is a very reputable organisation as it is a government branch specifically dedicated to scientific research. As such, they would know lots about space travel, and would have researched their facts thoroughly,

similarly to NASA. They are also very unbiased in the way they state facts, for example they tell us that "Hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface, a vast network of satellites is collecting data on our planet’s climate system. These satellites provide accurate measurements of the temperature of our oceans, land and atmosphere." (UKRI, 2022) which is a true fact. In addition to information they provide about satellites, they also inform us factual information about climate change research, for example it tells us that “the first person to provide proof that the planet was heating up was actually a little-known amateur scientist called Guy Callendar,” (Ibid.) and that “in 1938, Callendar painstakingly collected records from 147 weather stations across the world. He discovered that global temperatures had risen 0.3°C over the previous 50 years” (Ibid.). In contrast with the NASA source, the UKRI source is more recent, therefore making any time-specific data more reliable.

My third source is from Oxford University and is an open source document about the benefits of space travel. I think it is reliable because Oxford is a top university, so they will have researched their facts very thoroughly before publishing. They also include information that has been stated by other sources, like the sources from NASA, and UKRI, which would add to the respectability of both of these sources. Similarly to the other two sources, the Oxford University source states information in a very factual manner, and does not appear to be biased, but it does speak in some hypotheticals (which makes sense given the nature of space travel). For example, it says, “by exploring space,

we can potentially discover new sources of energy that can be used to power our homes and businesses” (Lee, 2022), and that “another benefit of studying the stars is that it has of course enabled us to gain a greater understanding of the universe and our place in it” (Ibid.). These quotes clearly demonstrate the hypothetical nature of the source, but also the factual nature when referring to previous knowledge, which would indicate that its future hypotheses would likely be scientifically plausible.

Overall, I think all three sources are reliable, because they are all from trustworthy origins. Moreover, the fact that so many of them state many of the same points, using the same base knowledge, only acts to strengthen the reliability of the others. All three sources have a similar focus, with mentions of the satellites that surround our planet, in addition to talking about how there is medical research going on in space that could help life on Earth.

DISCUSSION

When I first started my research, my goal was to see what benefits space travel offered us, and I wanted to build an opinion on whether it is really worth investing in space travel at this stage in our development. Through my research I have found that exploring space can help us to research future technology, and use materials from space to help us advance technology on Earth. Furthermore, it became clear that space travel allows us to conduct research that is not feasible on Earth due to physical and chemical differences. An example of this is the possibility of

S pace travel allows us conduct research that is not feasible on Earth

researching cures to certain diseases. The NASA source was keen to demonstrate that one of the main benefits of space travel and exploration is the gaining of knowledge unimaginable to us, “the benefits from space exploration are rooted in the generation of new knowledge” (2013). The same source also stresses the importance of new technological knowledge that space exploration allows us to have given that in order to travel in space, we need to generate “high performance space systems […] to address the extreme challenges of space missions, [this in turn] yields many innovations that benefit the public,” (Ibid.). Both quotes show that according to NASA, space exploration’s most common benefit is new knowledge that can benefit the public. In terms of this new knowledge, through my research I also found out that space travel has a lot of benefits, both tangible, and intangible. Some of the tangible benefits include new technology and devices, and some of the intangible benefits include new knowledge and inspiration. The NASA source also tells us that “the benefits of space can be categorised as either direct or indirect. The direct benefits of exploration include the generation of scientific knowledge, the diffusion of innovation and creation of markets” (Ibid.), and that “Indirect benefits that result over time include tangible enhancements to the quality of life such as improved economic prosperity, health, environmental quality, safety, and security” (Ibid.). These quotes tell us that, as well as benefits directly stemming from space travel, there are some benefits that are indirectly affected by space travel, like economic prosperity, health, safety, and security which can be gained by space travel indirectly.

The source from UKRI tells us that one of the main benefits of space travel is having satellites that can help monitor temperatures on Earth and help us in our fight against climate change. The source also tells us that “today, hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface, a vast network of satellites is collecting data on our planet’s climate system. These satellites provide accurate measurements of the temperature of our oceans, land, and atmosphere” (UKRI, 2022). This informs us that there are millions of satellites that are helping provide data about the temperatures in different parts of Earth, so we can measure how much hotter, or colder the planet is becoming. This in turn which allows us to monitor climate change a lot better. The source also states that “today’s satellites are capable of much more sophisticated measurements. In Britain, huge advances in measuring global surface temperatures have been made by scientists at RAL space” (Ibid.). This statement about our improved satellites, demonstrates a direct consequence of space travel: our ability to monitor climate change and our ability to manufacture more advanced satellites.

The source from Oxford Open Learning tells us that “by exploring space, we can potentially discover new sources of energy that can be used to power our homes and businesses. For example, space exploration has enabled us to study the sun and other stars, which has helped us understand how to better capture and

use solar energy" (Lee, 2022) which tells us that space exploration can potentially help us combat climate change, and help us to use fewer fossil fuels as we find new and better sources of energy that we can use for longer and will, hopefully, be better for our planet/environment. It also informs us that through researching space and different elements in space, such as stars, we can better understand how to use our planet's resources as well as the resources in space. The source also tells us that "many of the technologies we rely on today, such as satellites, GPS, and communication networks, were developed as a result" (of space exploration) (Ibid.), which tells us that space exploration has already provided us with many technological advances and benefits, such as GPS and satellites, which could also show that as we advance more in space travel, and explore more of space it could potentially lead to more technological advances.

I think a limitation of my research is that most of my sources were science websites and they were all saying all of the positive aspects about space travel, and none of them mentioned any negative aspects or dangers, so further research is needed to try to find information on disadvantages of space travel to make the argument fair and balanced.

CONCLUSION

Through undertaking research, I was able to learn a lot about the benefits of space exploration and how it helps to support sustainable development. All the evidence I have previously discussed shows that exploring space has a lot of benefits, and definitely helps to support sustainable development. It also shows that space travel has a wide range of benefits, some tangible, like more advanced technology, and some intangible, like inspiration or knowledge. The research also shows that space exploration can be used to help preserve the human race, as it helps us know of any potential threats to our planets, like asteroids, and it could help us survive, and find somewhere else if something happened to Earth. A limitation of my research is that I was unable to find any disadvantages to space exploration, therefore we would need to do further research that so that we could have a fair and balanced argument. I also was not able to find out how sustainable space travel is, which could affect how much it is able to support sustainable development. My main future issue, or question following the success of this project would be, ‘how could we make space travel more sustainable?’, as right now space travel uses a lot of Earth’s resources, and eventually those will run out.

Words / Cameron Smith, 2WJD Photography / NASA

Ukraine

When she woke up, she heard it; It was 5:07am. The fog was immense like a black blind fold.

It blocked her vision so all she could see was the silhouette of an AK-47. As worried as she was, she packed her bag quickly, and saw that the mist turned into a depressed drizzling rain.

The flood poured like a shroud of misery bucketing down onto her as she walked like a chicken with frozen toes to the train station.

Now, she was soaked, and the station was crowded like the waves of the ocean. As the train approached, the rain stopped and the sun glimmered, cloaked by clouds which gave her some hope: And on her face, a smile like a sunflower blossomed.

Words / Maxim Das, 2WJD Photography / Norman Koroliuk

A poem written about his Grandmother's experience as a Ukrainian, inspired by the poem 'Storm on the Island' by Seamus Heaney.

Mis-Representations: a Century of Trans People in Literature

It’s appealing to believe that literary movements have become more inclusive over the course of the 20th century, in terms of representations of people of lower socio-economic groups or non-European ancestry, women, and LGBTQ people – as well as more texts actually written by people from such backgrounds. While this is broadly true, wild misunderstandings of trans people were rife well into the 21st century, even by authors celebrated for their insights into human nature. This write up from Dr Mellor’s Hip-Soc talk, “Mis-Representations: a Century of Trans People in Literature” explores how trans people have been depicted in literary works since the 1920s until the 2020s.

Looking back through time, trans and gendervariant people have existed everywhere, and been acknowledged, if not valued, in every culture. Through colonialism, European powers, often under the guise of religion, oppressed their subjects to conform to a gender-binary stricter than any that had previously existed, even in Europe. This movement erased many identities, but it is important to acknowledge it as it highlights that there is nothing “new” about trans people, just how they have been represented. Moving into the modern period, it was only in 1923, following advances in surgery during WWI, that the term “transsexual” was coined. At this time, it denoted someone seeking surgical transition, and this identity has since overshadowed most others “under the trans umbrella” in the popular imagination.

Between 1920 and 1950, as works of psychoanalysis and sexology were perused by the literati, trans people became a polyvalent symbol of: the fluidity of identity and the possibility of gender expression along a continuum; a means to explain homosexuality without shame and religious stigma; and the artificiality of identity, since “gender signifiers” may be purchased, and gender constructed, regardless of biology. Arguably, it was the long essay embedded in the second volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (1919), often regarded as one of the greatest of all time, that popularised the simplistic notion that homosexuals are “sexual inverts” or men in women’s bodies (and vice versa), collapsing trans & gay people together, and treating them as subjects for scientific inquiry, to refute religious authority, albeit through pseudo-science.

Another candidate for greatest novel of the century, Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce, is famed for encompassing a vast spectrum of human types, and yet the magical transformation of Bloom during a sequence in a brothel reveals him to be a masochistic fetishist, relishing degradation, telling us nothing meaningful about what it meant to be trans and largely serving to mock the principal Jewish character. From the same year, “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot, perhaps the most influential long poem in English, features Tiresias, best known from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex as the prophet who acquired his powers after spending a year as a woman, and presented by Eliot as an ‘old man with withered dugs’, whose dual gender grants him the ability to empathise with the woman sexually assaulted in the central episode of the poem, implying that a poet is a natural empath – attuned to the masculine and feminine elements of their psyche –but also powerless to influence events, and somewhat grotesque. The most famous female Modernist, Virginia Woolf, makes a gender-fluid timetraveller the hero/ine of Orlando (1928), and while she has been rightly celebrated for the lyricism of her prose, the novel conveys Woolf’s belief that bisexuality and gender-fluidity were expressions of intellectual refinement among the elite, having little concern for the lower social classes, just as her version of feminism largely ignores intersectional concerns.

Intersectionality, however, is epitomised by a young American novelist only a few years later. One of the first truly positive representations of trans, non-binary, or gender-nonconforming people appears in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers, wherein Mick Kelly is a teenage girl whose aspirations are very much male-coded until ultimately crushed by the expectation to support her family while working in a stereotypically female role, due to the tragic error of her younger brother. Biff Brannon, meanwhile, might have been the American Everyman at the centre of any other novel of the era, being a white, middle-class business owner, but his inner monologue reveals he would rather have been a mother, and he certainly treats the

marginalised people who come into his bar in a maternal way. McCullers would not be claimed as a gay writer until well after her death, and yet the sophistication of her depiction of gender-exploring makes her a crucial voice, even now, with the ability to make marginalised people, also including the disabled and ethnic minorities so sympathetically represented in her novels, feel understood, seen, and so much less alone.

Among the US Post-Modernists (post-1950), trans people came to symbolise modern science triumphing over “biological destiny”, as well as living embodiments of the problematic nature of representations in an age of ever-proliferating mass media (e.g. John Barth, and David Foster Wallace channelling the former). In spite of the coining of “transgender” in 1965 to combat misconceptions about sexual motives for transition, trans people were often sexualised, as they would be by influential psychologists well into the 1990s. As ever, these appropriations for the sake of symbolism did not originate among trans people, nor did they reflect actual experiences, aid social acceptance, and greatly improve opinions. Actual celebrity transsexuals in the post-war era include Christine Jorgensen whose

1967 autobiography sold almost 450,000 copies, and Jan Morris who published Conundrum in 1974, and a follow-up, Life from Both Sides in 2022. Then, as now, the public was fascinated by the question: if a former GI and one of the most adventurous travel-writers of the period (renowned for reporting the ascent of Everest) could “become” a woman, what did it say about identity? The crucial misconception here was that the need for transition says anything at all about cis people – trans people are those whose brains respond optimally to hormones their bodies do not produce in significant measure – but actual scientific understanding lagged well behind the armchair analysis of sensationalist journalists and writers.

Thomas Pynchon (possibly trans, although we only have anecdotal evidence of his transvestism) is one of the greatest of the postmodernists, and yet his Captain Blicero in V. (1963) & the National Book Awardwinning Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) is yet another paraphiliac, doubling down on the kinkiness of Bloom in Ulysses. There are various surgically enhanced figures in The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) by JG Ballard, one of Britain’s foremost postmodernists but, again, the

purpose is to show that once we can “play God” with cutting-edge science, we might as well reinvent our values, or dispense with them altogether.

The fate of Evelyn in The Passion of New Eve (1977) by the godmother of Feminist Magic Realism, Angela Carter, is more nuanced but easily misconstrued: a misogynistic young man obsessed with the most glamorous actress in the world is punished by a matriarchal cult, in a dystopian near-future, with forced Sex Reassignment Surgery. Bombarded with images of feminine stereotypes from Renaissance altarpieces to Hollywood films, rather like Alex in A Clockwork Orange , the post-op Eve comes to accept a version of femininity but it is easy to miss the irony of Carter’s critique of certain strands of 1970s feminism and the notion that womanhood is a social construct imposed externally by the patriarchy, ignoring the possibility of agency and complicity on the part of women, let alone any innate tendencies. No agency or prior desire is presumed on the part of Evelyn, who therefore stands for the newborn child as tabula rasa, implying that cis women are all hapless victims, an idea we should treat far more critically in a novel with so many mentally unstable characters.

At the end of the 1970s, tensions between different feminist factions and their guiding principles were especially pronounced, just as the “LGBTQ+” community (as we think of it now) was a very fragile alliance constantly splintering and reforming over different issues. In 1973, homosexuality ceased to be regarded as a psychiatric disorder. However, since transsexuality remained so until as late as 2013, it was easy for campaigners to drop demands for trans rights for the sake of gains for gay men & women who sometimes resented the association, according to Professor Susan Stryker, one of the leading trans historians. The “psychopathologisation” of trans identity had been a popular theme since Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), hence Iain Banks made a literary splash when The Wasp Factory (1984) culminated in the discovery that the psychopathic Frank was hopped up on testosterone administered by her father to a “son” whose genitals, he claimed, were mutilated by a dog. Similarly sensational, Ian McEwan’s debut The Cement Garden (1978) saw four children throw out all normative values after the deaths of both their parents, the older two indulging in incest, and the youngest brother cross-dressing as if to identify with his dead mother before regressing to babyhood (tacitly suggesting a connection between trans identity and infantilism). While there is a definite tenderness among the siblings, trans identity was implied to be the result of trauma rather than innate. Even more harmful to perceptions of trans people was global bestseller The Silence of the Lambs (1988). Yes, the serial killer is ‘… not a true transsexual’ according to Dr Lecter, but who pays attention to an incarcerated cannibal?

The early 1990s saw a brief burst optimism as two of the most celebrated lyricists of the time, Kurt Cobain (in the US) and Richey Manic (in the UK) presented as distinctly gender-queer, opening the door

for other acts, but the suicide of the former and the disappearance-presumed-suicide of the latter sent a frightening message that no amount of success could heal the inner wound, cementing the association once more between trans identity and psychiatric problems or, at least, childhood trauma. True literary milestones were Stone Butch Blues (1993) & Transgender Warriors (1996) by Leslie Feinberg (1949–2014) who had identified as a lesbian and later a trans man, hence the former confronts the long-standing notion that trans people are “traitors” to the cause of cis gay people of their AGAB (assigned gender at birth) whom they “abandon” on transition, rather than individuals pursuing their deepest needs. The idea persists to this day, but if we have to find a positive, it’s that an actual first-hand account of transition had appeared in print that did not conform to the cis-reassuring metanarrative that broken-person-gets-fixed-and-issafely-assimilated-into-the-binary. One of the most prolific and critically acclaimed of the second-wave postmodernists, William T Vollmann, has included numerous trans people in his novels and journalism, from the late-80s to the present, using actual oral testimony for the sake of unmatched verisimilitude, but there is a bleakness to their stories, especially given his focus on sex-workers.

In contrast to the 1980s, the 90s saw trans people being served with far more empowering representations in non-literary or literature-adjacent media, such as graphic novels. The Invisibles (1994–2000) by Grant Morrison MBE (b.1960) is one of the pinnacles of the genre with a prominent trans character who is a dimension-hopping, time-travelling, shaman-anarchistrevolutionary, hence an inspiration for what might be the most commercially successful and empowering trans allegory of the last century, The Matrix (1999), only recently surpassed in the empowerment stakes by Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). Old Whit, Neil Gaiman, also placed a trans character at the centre of his personal favourite volume of The Sandman series (1989–96), another masterpiece of the genre, and while the positivity of that representation is debatable, the 2022 TV series was conspicuous for its race- & genderblind casting, queering many characters in the process.

Skipping forward, it was not until the 2010s that a substantial number of trans people began publishing self-representations through small independent presses that directly reflect trans experience, and establish trans people's concerns about bodily autonomy, political rights, combating persecution, but also expressing gender euphoria and “trans joy”. Imogen Binnie’s Nevada (2013) is one of the earliest to be regarded as a modern classic, reflecting the historic moment in which the ubiquity of the Internet and smartphones meant that queer people worldwide could start to share information, build communities, and navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth that is trans healthcare. In 2014, Katy Steinmetz coined the term “The Transgender Tipping Point” in Time magazine, referring to the arrival of trans women in prominent, non-comic or non-derogatory roles, in popular culture,

especially TV drama. While Laverne Cox’s character in Orange Is the New Black is problematic (but not Cox herself), and Caitlyn Jenner has done much damage to the trans community by endorsing extreme politics, this cultural moment emboldened many trans people to contemplate transition who might not otherwise have done so.

Arguably, the “Transgender Tipping Point in Lierature” was slightly earlier. Dr Julia Serano, originally a community activist and slam poet, made a major contribution to discourse about trans identity and the need to challenge media myths with lived experience in Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007). In 2011, hipster-friendly webzine McSweeney’s ran a column in which Casey Plett (b. 1987) recounted her transition, while meditating on the nature of identity without the sense of tragedy or sensationalism of earlier popular tell-alls, and an explicit refusal to actually discuss surgery. Her award-winning novel, Little Fish (2018) does not shy away from the mental health problems of poorer people when transitioning and their frequent recourse to sex-work due to discrimination but there’s humour and a subtle spirituality too. Almost simultaneously with Plett, Juliet Jacques (b.1981) published her own account of surgical transition in The Guardian. A book based on her columns, interspersed with a brief history of trans people, Trans: A Memoir (2015), is essential reading, as is Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021 (2022), the title of which is far from metaphorical as she documents the experience of queer people in oppressive regimes and recent warzones.

Numerous works unimaginable in the 20th century followed this loosening-up of restrictions: Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (2017) by Andrea Lawlor (one of the few AFAB – assigned female at birth – authors here); Females (2019), a genre-hopping long essay by Andrea Long Chu; Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity (Columbia University Press, 2019); and Gender Euphoria: Stories of joy from trans, non-binary and intersex writers (2021), edited by Laura Kate Dale, emphasise what a century of misrepresentations omitted. Since 2020 mainstream publishers have also got in on the act: Detransition, Baby (2021) by Torrey Peters (b.1981) was the first novel by a trans woman (that we know of) to be shortlisted for the women’s prize, and anticipates new models of parenting only just emerging. In the same year, Penguin published The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye (b. 1988), and Dr Harry Josephine Giles won the Arthur C Clarke prize for science fiction with Deep Wheel Orcadia (2022). Philosophy Tube’s Abigail Thorn (b. 1993) publicly transitioned in 2021, making her one of the most visible public intellectuals who happens to be trans; she produced her first play in 2022, made into a film this year, and is the first trans person to be cast in a Star Wars film.

The last few years have been a whirlwind for trans people given the greater amount of attention on them from political spheres and science. Recently, large-

scale scientific studies, several published during the pandemic, strongly indicate that trans people have a brain-sex (rather than gender) closer to that of cis people of the sex with which they identify. These recent scientific studies are important as “cross-sex hormones” cause the vast majority of trans people to experience greatly improved moods and cognitive functioning; reduce dysphoria, depression, anxiety, and insomnia; and (perhaps most importantly) reduce suicidality. This last point is particularly poignant given that 40% of trans people make an attempt before the age of 30, and suicide rates are still five times higher than the general population after the start of transition given the increased visibility and hence exposure to transphobic violence.

In short: trans people exist, rather than being “failed” or “confused” men or women; trans people, like any human, also deserve equal rights and healthcare. Despite the on-going impacts of the longstanding suppression of trans people, the exploration of trans identities by a not-insignificant number of authors in the 20th and 21st centuries has paved a pathway for better representation and exploration of identity. Despite some of the misrepresentations, their literary presence has been an important step to humanise trans people for the wider population. This humanisation process is, not surprisingly, also linked to legislation, as the de-pathologisation of trans identity in 2013 emboldened more people to publish accounts of their experience and, which has led to a better understanding of trans people, which in-turn has led to more legal changes. A recent example of this was when in 2018 the clinical criterion for being trans changed from gender dysphoria (i.e. the acute distress that leads to much higher suicide rates among trans people) to persistent gender incongruence: a feeling shared with many non-binary people who may comprise as much as 15% of the population aged 18-24, although far fewer seek hormonal transition.

To close, if we recall eco-poet Gary Snyder’s principle that “improved cultural representation of marginalised people is a crucial step to their political representation, and participation”, it is undeniable that the recent representation is having an impact on trans people’s pathway to political equality. The past decade has seen more literary representation by trans people than the entire preceding century, and in-turn 2022 saw the most trans people elected as political representatives in the world than ever before. While the future is unknown, and somewhat daunting given some loud voices, literature has proved to be a vehicle in helping the misunderstood and unheard have a voice.

Words / Dr Mellor, Teacher of English and Assistant Head of EPQ at Whitgift Photography / Kyle

People's ability to differentiate AI-generated music from human-composed music

ne argument against Artificial Intelligence (henceforth AI) is that it is replacing jobs and ruining the livelihoods of many. However, creative fields like art and music are often considered never to be overtaken by AI, simply because AI is not human, and cannot put the same creativity into what it generates. As a musician, I am motivated to investigate how true this assumption really is, as AI is definitely something that will affect everybody in the future.

A range of methods were available for me to use to investigate this topic. For example, I could have used a variety of ages and people to take the test. However, this would have proved far more difficult to successfully achieve because of the large quantity of people needed to conduct the test. Instead, I chose to use my year group at school to send the survey to as this would allow me to sample a large number of students as well as the process being simplified. A limitation with this sample, however, is that being at an all-boys private school, the results may not be completely representative of how well the AI works on a mix of genders, ages and socio-economic backgrounds.

There are many examples of AI-generated music and many different methods available to use. One example of a method would be music generation by a statistical model. A statistical model assigns every single possible characteristic in a piece of music by a probability – for example pitch, rhythm, or structure. These probabilities are calculated by a huge corpus of music provided which the model can then use to generate the music. The paper ‘Music Generation from Statistical Models’ goes into great depth about the individual statistical models that can be used and describes how a piece of music can be ‘represented by a sequence of events, which are music objects together with a duration and an onset time after instantiation into a piece … A statistical model of music assigns to every possible piece of music a probability’. Another method is music generation through RNNs (recurrent

Oneural networks). These are powerful algorithms – ‘It is the first algorithm that remembers its input, due to an internal memory’ (Builtin, 2021). They are commonly used in voice recognition and search software such as in Apple and Google phones and, to generate music, they work by trying to predict the next note that should be generated. An example of this would be Magenta’s TensorFlow which can generate art and music.

My research will be investigating how well people will be able to differentiate classical music generated by Musenet – ‘a deep neural network’ as described by the company OpenAI who developed the network. It is a free-to-use and intuitive software for almost anybody to use. It uses the GPT-2 deep learning model trained by midi data, to predict the next element that it will generate in the music, and I will be generating 5 pieces each around 40 seconds long. I will use this music to then create a survey to distribute to people, and I will then craft a conclusion using the results. I will use this method because of the availability and ease of access of open-source software, as well as the high quality –being produced by Google’s OpenAI team.

METHOD

The following steps detail how I carried out the process of testing the AI-generated music.

1. First, I had to gather all the samples of music that I would use. I generated five 25-50 second extracts of AI generated music, based on the style of Bach, with no starting introduction, from the Musenet model by openAI. (https://openai.com/blog/musenet/). Using Musenet solved the problem that it would be difficult to compare between totally different styles of music, but, by imitating Bach, I was able to use real Bach compositions to compare it to. (I first attempted many other methods like using Magenta from the tutorial “Training a Neural Network on MIDI data with Magenta and Python” (and the Music21 library for Python)

2. The composed music samples were 5 Bach midi pieces taken from the site Kunstderfuge.com, taken to the music notation program, Presonus Notion® 6, to virtually record the music and cut up the files into similar 30-40-second-long extracts using the audio

editing software, Audacity® Version 2.0.5. (This was to ensure that all the extracts were undistinguishable from pure sound quality. I had originally debated with recording live performances of the pieces, however this would be too unreliable and not necessarily realistic)

3. I then brought these samples into Microsoft Forms, and created a test consisting of 5 questions, each asking the subjects to pick which of the samples was generated by AI after listening to them.

4. This test was distributed to 101 people in Third Form to obtain the results.

Time and Organisation

> Approximately the first 3 – 4 hours were spent coming up with and refining various ideas and themes into one cohesive project question.

> Time was also spent revising the best methods for background research and referencing.

> Coming up with a complete method took about 1-2 hours (this however changed as the project took shape)

> Approximately 10 - 12 hours were spent background researching – a large portion of this was spent learning about the Python library Music21 API and its documentation, which was one method I was considering for creating the AI. A large amount of time was spent beginning to make a procedural music system using Music21 however, this was obviously not used as part of the survey because it would be representative of modern AI research. Instead, it helped me to understand more about the process and what a beginner and individual could do with resources available.

> I then spent about 2 hours gathering music from Musenet which involved generating and downloading audio files, I then took them into Audacity® to be edited slightly (e.g. bring volume down etc). I also gathered MIDI files from Kunstderfuge.com and exported them into audio files using the sound pre-sets from Presonus’ Notion® 6, which were then spliced using Audacity® into small sections.

> This music was then used to create a Microsoft Forms quiz which needed to be sent out which took about 1-2 hours.

> After the survey had been sent out and I had gathered all the results I spent about 3-4 hours bringing the data into various different tables from the spreadsheet generated by Microsoft Forms in Excel. This included making tables that sorted people's overall scores by musical ability, scores for each individual question based on their musical ability, and how well people did if they played an instrument or not. I used Excel to easily generate graphs from these tables which are shown in the Data Analysis.

> Finally, the remaining time was spent writing up the results of the project into this report. (Around 5 hours)

DATA ANALYSIS

Exactly 101 people in Third Form took the Microsoft Forms survey in school, sent out and played by their form tutors.

I chose to add an extra question asking at which level people played any musical instrument, if they did. This was because I could then observe whether or not people’s experience in (playing) music made a substantial difference to their answers.

Out of the sum of those who took the test, 33 people claimed they played a musical instrument, and 68 people responded that they did not.

Generally, pupils scored best on question 1 and scored worst on question 5. The students who played instruments scored a little better than those who did not, on all questions except question 5, and an average of 61.4% was scored on the test.

The disparities between the two groups (instrument players and non-players) is likely because those who played a musical instrument will have had much more experience playing and listening to, in particular, classical music. This will have allowed them to better differentiate two types of music.

Overall, people who did not play an instrument scored 55.2% across all the tests. This suggests that they had little to no ability in differentiating the extracts being only 5.2% away from 50% - this is equal chance to guessing the answer every question.

By looking at the results for question 5 by the level of the instrument played, the results do not make much sense – with there being little correlation to one’s musical level and how well was done on the question. One could point out that, since the middle grades are much more successful, it may be that people who answered as beyond Grade 8 were answering falsely as a way to impact the experiment, however if that were the case people would have answered more consistently at Grade 8 standard. Also, by looking at the overall questions in the same format, there is a very minimal range between the values (6.8%), suggesting that the level of playing the instrument has little impact.

Despite the 101 results acquired from the survey, only 33 people played an instrument. Out of these, the most common level was grade 3, with 12 people, and the lowest was no grade with 1 answer. Grade 8 and beyond grade 8 only had two answers each, which is not reliable enough for to a conclusion about the results by level of instrument. Even when ignoring this, the range (6.8%) of the values is so small that the level of instrument appears not to make any difference.

This investigation only tested peoples’ recognition of the composition but not the performance. Since I did not have access to Musenet’s piano pre-set sounds, I instead used Presonus’ Notion® 6 as playback. These pre-sets are very similar to how Musenet’s compositions sounded except for being much louder, which was edited to a similar volume using the sound editing program Audacity® and having to fade out when cutting up the sections as to not create too much of an abrupt ending. Despite being very similar, the difference in sound quality between the tracks may have had some impact on the scores.

Another concern for reliability is the actual care or time people put into answering the form. Since this investigation was tested on a year of Year 9s during

form time, it was not unlikely that many would skip through, guessing the answers to finish as quickly as possible. Whether this was a substantial problem or not can be easily obtained by looking at the times it took people to complete the test. The median time it took people to complete was 7 minutes and 57 seconds and the mean was 7:17 minutes (excluding a time which took over 13 hours which can be regarded as an outlier). This implies that mostly, people spent the time to carefully complete the test instead of rushing through as I presumed some might.

One factor that may have affected my results was the actual genre of music that I picked to use in the test. I refrained from using popular music because of the chance that people may have already heard the song before – therefore ruining the point of the investigation. Using classical music meant that it was unlikely that the Year 9 group would have previously listened to extract of piece I was playing. Even for musicians, Bach’s output of music is so vast (over 1,000 pieces of music) that it is unlikely they would have heard it; especially performed on a virtual instrument. However, since people are not likely to have listened to much classical music, this made the test significantly harder for people to identify features like structure and harmony that they have only really heard in popular music.

By looking at the overall scores for each question across the whole year, none of the questions were scored with less than 50% correct (except for question 2 which scored 49.5% but rounds up to 50%). However, since the scores are so close to 50% this implies that people are generally not able to differentiate between AI generated and composed classical music by Bach as 50% is the chance of guessing each question – being only two possible answers for each question.

Question 1 was answered the best by everyone with 76% of musicians answering correctly and 62% of non-musicians. Question 2 was answered worse, with 55% of musicians answering questions and 47% of non-musicians answering correctly. Question 5 was answered worst for musicians with only 42% answering correctly.

Comparing the audio files between the first piece of Bach and the second, the second is much louder, flatting out audio very often. This is likely my own doing as I was responsible for setting the volumes of each track as the textures are very similar.

However, for the fifth Bach piece, it is much quieter – this is not my mistake as the track starts off with a single monophonic texture, making it naturally quieter. This is the only time a track starts like this in all of the examples.

The volume of the AI generated examples, however, are all very similar. There is no apparent cause for why pupils answered so badly on question 2 and so well on question 1. The difference at the beginning of question 5 may have affected musicians will have recognised a different change in dynamics.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, most people are unable to differentiate the AI generated Bach from the actual human-composed music. This is shown by the results of those who were not musicians with a mean score of 55.2% throughout the tests – implying that they were likely guessing the answers. This will have been partly due to peoples’ unfamiliarity with classical music, and also demonstrates the effectiveness of MuseNet’s AI. Musicians were, on average, 6.2% better than those who were not musicians, averaging 61.2%. However, the musicians performance did not increase with the level that they played, and largely stayed the same no matter what level they played at – with a range of only 6.8%. From this data I can conclude that overall, the state of AI is now at a position where it is skilled enough to imitate compositions by Bach, that most people cannot differentiate between. Whilst this investigation only experiments with classical music, the results of the AI suggest that the future of music may include or be majorly affected by the use of procedural music AI without people noticing a large difference.

EVALUATION AND REFLECTION

Overall, I found the investigation generally successful – gaining a good understanding of how successful Musenet’s AI is, and how well people are able to differentiate this from real compositions. I gained a clear answer to my tests – concluding that most people are not able to reliably differentiate a Musenet impression from a real Bach composition.

If I were to redo this project, I would definitely try and sample a greater number of people; whilst 101 people is a substantial number – far more than I was expecting – it does not provide a suitable number of people for judging their scores based on musical ability (only two people responded being above grade 8). It would also have been useful to test a wider range of ages and musical experience, as well as other genders, not just boys, as this would have been a fairer representation of how the AI will affect people in the real world. Instead of real performances, I used midi generated performances using the piano pre-set from Presonus’ Notion® 6 to keep an equal sound to the AI generated version, instead of performing it live. This may have also thrown people of, when listening for a robotic performance instead of a robotic composition.

If I were to continue this investigation, the next step would be to use try and investigate on a much larger group of experienced musicians, to see if musical experience would really make much of a difference. I would also use different Ais that have been developed such as Magenta and OpenAI’s JukeBox.

Words / Ethan Gilbert, 4RMS Photography / Possessed Photography

Ethan’s investigation was awarded the Gold Award for the CREST Awards (the British Science Association's scheme for STEM project work that inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers).

Could we colonise Mars?

ars colonisation has been a topic of fascination and exploration for scientists and space enthusiasts alike. As part of the IB Group 4 project, the theme for this year was colonising Mars, and one team took on the exciting task of investigating communication in the Martian environment. Led by Ting Wen, Group K, comprising Lucian Ng, Oliver Wong, and Ben Lewis, embarked on a quest to evaluate different methods of wireless communication for long-distance data transmission in complex environments, including sandstorms. To simulate a sandstorm, the team initially faced difficulties in rolling sand in a trough, but they discovered a solution using a magnetic mixer to stir insoluble particles in a beaker of water.

The team experimented with different communication methods, starting with microwaves and radio waves, both commonly used on Earth. However, they encountered challenges in focusing these waves in a straight line and found that they could not even effectively penetrate a clear glass of water. Realising the limitations, they turned their attention to lasers, which proved to be the most promising option. Initially, they considered Morse code for communication, but concerns arose due to the possibility of sand interference causing misinterpretation of the breaks between signals.

MDuring their equipment experiments, the team discovered the ability to modulate the laser for sound transmission. This breakthrough allowed them not only to play audio messages and music directly but also to encode text messages using frequency key shifting. Ting even developed a Python program for this purpose. The team proceeded to measure the decrease in amplitude caused by increasing the speed of stirring emulating different intensities of sandstorms for each type of particle. Fortunately, the interference caused by different levels of particle fineness only resulted in muffled sound or a decrease in amplitude, without affecting the pitch or frequency of the transmitted signal. This finding was significant as it resolved their previous concerns.

The team's successful demonstration amazed audiences as they transmitted the song "Rasputin" across a table using only a laser beam, which was then played through a speaker. This achievement was both exciting and instrumental in their project's victory.

Words / Ting Wen, L6 PWE

Experiment / Ting Ting Wen L6 PWE, Lucian Ng L6 AEW, Oliver Wong L6 KLR, Ben Lewis L6 LCG

Photography / Alex Hill

The winning project from this academic year’s International Baccalaureate ‘Group 4 Project’

“Who Am I”?

The Existential Question Which Dictates Our Politics

“Who Am I?” – the question which epitomises our entire identity. The perplexing question which dominates philosophical discourse is now the sole determinant of political affiliation.

Over the past two decades, developed democracies have seen a notable shift in the axis of polarisation from a predominantly economic axis to one based on identity. Traditionally, one’s class often determined their political affiliation: however, our identity is now much more significant in establishing political beliefs. The striking aspect about all of this is: what really is identity? If you ask 100 people how they would describe their identity, without saying their name, the answer would undoubtedly vary. Identity itself is a constantly developing concept, and rather astonishingly, it directly dictates how we are governed. Identity was also a relevant factor in the past, particularly due to its links with economic belief: those on the left were more likely to identify within a collective group, or a mutually supportive group, than an individual group. The right-wing identified (and still do identify) with those who believe in individualistic societies. The fundamental reason underlying this was class. This sense of collective identity and individual identity still exists in politics – but who they are represented by has switched. The right is now more likely to champion the collective identity of their country, in order to protect their national identity. Meanwhile, the left is more likely to create an environment where individual identities are important, such as people’s ethnicity or gender. This signifies a reversal in the identities that are represented by different sides of the political spectrum in the past dew decades.

The rise of national populism highlights the rightwing collective ideology. An example of prioritising national identity is the populist platform of Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. His beliefs of “illiberal democracy” revolve around the idea of protecting national identity and culture. Right-wing national populists reject the idea of liberal globalisation and the widespread consensus in modern-day politics. For example, the idea that a country is morally bound to give welfare benefits to immigrants is refuted by many populists, a notion known as

“welfare chauvinism”. By maintaining a Eurosceptic rhetoric, and placing stricter controls on immigration, Orbán’s highly controversial speeches highlight this political landscape. This belief is mostly held by more traditional people, who want a militaristic, closedborder approach to foreign policy – where a ‘global approach’ is non-existent. This is the primary reason for the appeal of ‘illiberal democracy’ – when one’s country is presented as superior to others, one feels pride to associate themselves with it.

In a time of increasing tolerance and support for marginalised groups of different identities, it would seem contradictory to have uprisings of groups who oppose multiculturalism and want to protect their national identity. However, there are more examples of notable insurgencies of national populism, outside of Hungary. Marine Le Pen came close to winning the 2022 French presidential election with 41% of the vote in the runoff round, and despite losing, gained significant traction in France – highlighting an appetite within the country for national populism. Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, attempted to soften its highly controversial status by relaxing its position on same-sex marriage, the death sentence and abortion. However, the party still strongly opposes multiculturalism and liberal globalisation. Le Pen has called for the reduction of benefits given to immigrants, and in the past called for France to remove itself from the Schengen Area. Additionally, Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brother of Italy Party, recently became Prime Minister of Italy. Her party, which had ties with the Italian Social Movement, pledge to uphold the collective identity of Christianity. The party unsurprisingly oppose euthanasia and abortion, while also being against same-sex marriage. They also wish to completely eradicate illegal migration, while also being Eurosceptic. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Meloni supported Vladimir Putin, arguing that he defends Christian identity in Europe. All of these right-wing populist movements call for collective identities: national identity and religious (predominantly Christian) identity. As opposed to the left, who more so than ever attempt to appeal to those of individual identities.

Identity itself is a constantly developing concept

Ever since World War II, European politics has leaned to the left, and certainly have increased tolerance for a greater presence of individual identities. This can be seen by the widespread endorsement for the European Union, and much more legislation across the continent to protect minorities and other individual identities. However, the recent counter-rise by the right which promotes collective identity, has led to increased culture wars and intense polarisation. This rise may be attributed to a widening dissatisfaction with politics currently, leading to people choosing more radical and different parties. While the right is able to bring forward their vision for national, collective identity, the left is continuing to succeed in creating a society where numerous identities are appeased. This creates a problem: both the left and right will be more willing to become more extreme in policy, to gain more votes. The issue is not about the policies, which can be morally justified by both sides, the issue is the increased polarisation between the sides. The purpose of a democratic system is to allow both sides to express their vision, and then implement policies based on the “will of the people”. However, the more extreme policy decisions become, the more impractical and counter-productive they are. Ideologically, one may be opposed to open borders, but it would be counter-productive to implement a total ban on even skilled migrants. The impacts on the labour market of many European countries of significantly reducing immigration would make it difficult to justify for ordinary people. Likewise, a society solely focused on representing minority identities would have a government with equal representation, but there becomes a point where the effectiveness of government could be reduced.

Words / Vatsa Dubey, 5NLA Photography / Smit Patel

The curse of natural resources?

For centuries, natural resources have been vital in sustaining the human race for myriad reasons. Without natural resources, we wouldn’t have anywhere near as much food or water; the means to provide shelter and infrastructure, or any means of transport. In a developed and stable country such as our own, we take natural resources for granted: we have the infrastructure and leadership to be able to take advantage of them. Yet I am fascinated by why some countries supposedly blessed with natural resources are some of the most povertystricken, corrupt places in the world. In this essay, I will be studying one of these countries in much closer detail: Angola.

The Republic of Angola is located on the western coast of Southern Africa. It is hugely rich in natural resources with vast petroleum and mineral reserves. For centuries, it was under the control of Portugal as a colony but gained its independence after 14 years of conflict against their colonisers. However, the country was stuck in civil war from the beginning of their independence in 1975 on and off until 2002. The war took place between the ruling MPLA and the FNLA and its offshoot – UNITA. The conflict caused the deaths of 500,000 to 800,000 people and displaced millions. While this may seem like an internal struggle in Angola itself, many have described the civil war as a proxy war fought out between the Americans and South Africans against the Russians and Cubans. This was effectively conflict between two sides of the Cold War which was at its height around the late 70s and early 80s: the period after Angolan Independence and the beginning of its war. The Americans backed UNITA, providing them with weaponry and training while the Russians supplied similar support to the MPLA. In 2002, the war finished with the MPLA victorious, yet the civil war certainly contributed to Angola’s inability to fully exploit their natural resources.

Nowadays, Angola’s economy is rapidly expanding. While this may seem like it is due to success in use of natural resources, economic growth is extremely uneven: there are great extremes in the wealth of the richest compared to most citizens. Furthermore, Angola has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world and the quality of living is terrible for many. The former president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos was seen to be extremely corrupt, leveraging the country’s oil wealth to gain a huge fortune for him and his family. Notably, his daughter Isabel Dos Santos was the richest person in Africa in 2013 with a net worth exceeding two billion dollars yet has since been banned from entering the US and has an international warrant for arrest due to corruption charges. These charges originate from when she was head of the state-owned Angolan oil company Sonangol while her father was still ruling. She has been accused of siphoning million of pounds into offshore bank accounts among many other embezzlement charges. While this is one of the most notable and ongoing issues, it is one small example of the scale of corruption Angola faces.

While much of Angola’s corruption and inability to create a stable economy is the former government’s own doing, it wouldn’t be fair to point the blame towards their leadership entirely. We must remember the fact that Angola was only liberated in 1975 and had been forbidden from forming any political groups. A lack of experience and knowledge on the best way to reap the rewards of their natural resources certainly set them behind from a very early stage. Furthermore, the fact that Angola was immediately engulfed in a brutal civil war the year they gained independence further ruined any chances of a peaceful beginning. The party was more focused at that time on staying in power and committing resources towards fighting rather than growing a stable economy. Finally, Angola gained their independence at one of the worst possible times. Their beginning turned them into a proxy fought over by far-away foreign countries who used their internal struggles to create two extremely divided sides. Foreign countries’ actions increased the severity of the civil war whether that be due to Angolans gaining weapons that caused destruction to their own economy and infrastructure or influxes of troops from far away escalating matters.

We can compare the struggles of Angola to a very different example: Norway. This Scandinavian country is deemed to be the gold standard of successful use of natural resources. Norway has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (1.19 trillion dollars in assets: enough to be worth 250,000 dollars for each Norwegian citizen). This has been achieved by investing the surpluses of the Norwegian petroleum sector. This will include oil taken from the North Sea for instance. As a result of this, Norway’s economy has seen continuous growth and was not hit so hard by the pandemic, due to the ability to fall back onto this fund. Norway’s success certainly indicates an importance in long-term planning and investment in a wide range of markets. While Norway is a very different example to Angola for reasons I have previously stated, their long-term approach is something for Angola to consider and build on.

While Angola has much work to do and perhaps the scars of their previous struggles will never fully heal, their new government has clamped down on corruption and seems to want to create a more balanced economy where less are so poverty-stricken. Their natural resources perhaps made them a target for other countries during colonial times and it was not helped by having a corrupt government. Yet we have seen many examples that prove that Angola still has some ability to use their natural resources towards the success of their nation and that in our modern world, natural resources are not a curse for them.

Words / Oliver Whitaker-Jones, 3ADS Photography / Yolande Conradie

How does Political Stability affect economic growth?

How does Political Stability affect economic growth?

How does Political Stability affect economic growth?

Gowrthan Pirahalathan

Gowrthan Pirahalathan

First published in the Journal Volume 05

First published in the Journal Volume 05

In the UK, we are going through a huge cost of living crisis, with bills and prices going up – we are experiencing the largest inflation since 1977. The pound has been decreasing in value over the last 40 years. However, it has been depreciating especially at the moment, what with the coming and going of Liz Truss. I will be discussing this problem, and how politics and its stability affected it.

In the UK, we are going through a huge cost of living crisis, with bills and products going up - we are going through the largest inflation since 1977. The pound sterling has been decreasing in value rapidly since the last 40 years. But has been going down especially now, with the coming and going of Liz Truss. I will be discussing this problem, and how Politics and its stability affected it.

In the UK, we are going through a huge cost of living crisis, with bills and products going up - we are going through the largest inflation since 1977. The pound sterling has been decreasing in value rapidly since the last 40 years. But has been going down especially now, with the coming and going of Liz Truss. I will be discussing this problem, and how Politics and its stability affected it.

Firstly, what is Political Stability? It is a wide and debatable topic, but I believe that it is how a country is able to manage its own affairs without causing any kind of collapse whether that be in the economy or environmentally. There is a way to measure it – using the political stability index. The way it is measured is 2.5 = strong, and -2.5 is weak. According to World Bank, as of 2021, the UK is 68th in the world, with 0.54 as its score. This shows that the UK is not very strong or weak, it is in the middle.

Firstly, what is Political Stability? It is a wide and debatable topic, but I believe that it is how a country is able to manage its own affairs without causing any kind of collapse whether that be in the economy or environmentally. There is a way to measure it – using the political stability index. The way it is measured is 2.5 = strong, and -2.5 is weak. According to World Bank, as of 2021, the UK is 68th in the world, with 0.54 as its score. This shows that the UK is not very strong or weak, it is in the middle.

Firstly, what is political stability? It is a wide and debatable topic, but I believe that it is how a country is able to manage its own affairs without causing any kind of collapse whether that be in the economy or environmentally. There is a way to measure it – using the political stability index. The way it is measured is 2.5 = strong, and -2.5 is weak. According to the World Bank, as of 2021, the UK is 68th in the world, with 0.54 as its score. This shows that the UK is not very strong or weak, it is in the middle.

Here I have two graphs: comparing the Political Stability Index with the GDP Growth in %.

There are other links as well. For example, there is a decrease in both political stability and economic growth in 2019-2021. This was caused by Brexit and COVID-19. The premiership of Theresa May in 2018 in the heat of Brexit created huge conflicts within Parliament, and this caused a decrease in political stability. When there is internal conflict in Parliament, it is hard to make crucial decisions as there is an opponent party trying to catch you out all the time. This led to the downfall and resignation of Theresa May.

Here I have two graphs: comparing the Political Stability Index with the GDP Growth in %.

Here I have two graphs: comparing the Political Stability Index with the GDP Growth in %.

In the first years of the 21st century, there is a big decrease in political stability, due to the foot and mouth crisis. This was where there was a disease called the foot-and-mouth disease which swept through the UK in 2001, causing a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This decreased political stability, as the country was having this problem with its livestock as well. However, it did not affect economic growth.

In the first years of the 21st century, there is a big decrease in political stability, due to the foot and mouth crisis. This was where there was a disease called the foot-and-mouth disease which swept through the UK in 2001, causing a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This decreased political stability, as the country was having this problem with its livestock as well. However, it did not affect economic growth.

In the first years of the 21st century, there was a big decrease in political stability, due to the foot-and-mouth crisis. This was where there was a disease called the foot-and-mouth disease which swept through the UK in 2001, causing a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This decreased political stability, as the country was having this problem with its livestock as well. However, it did not affect economic growth.

COVID-19 swept through the world in the last few years, which slowed and reduced economic growth, because governments had to make constant decisions, and people could not go out in the lockdown. This meant that small businesses could not cope, and the UK’s economic growth declined. However, the political stability went up during 20192020, and stayed the same throughout. This may be because Boris Johnson did quite a decent job at maintaining stability, and there was not too much internal conflict in Parliament.

However, there is one significant similarity in both graphs. We can see that the line goes down by a large amount from 2008-2009. This was the time when the Global Financial Crisis, or the Great Recession, happened. It started with the housing market bubble, which was caused by an overwhelming load of securities which were mortgage-backed which had high-risk loans. Reckless lending meant that there would eventually be an extremely high number of loans which were bundled together; These losses led many financial institutions to fail and ask for a governmental bailout. This impacted the housing market a lot, and the stock market began to go down rapidly and major businesses worldwide lost millions, which caused periods of extended unemployment globally. This all resulted with the international trade slowing to a crawl.

However, there is one significant similarity in both graphs. We can see that the line goes down by a large amount from 2008-2009. This was the time when the Global Financial Crisis, or the Great Recession, happened. It started with the housing market bubble, which was caused by an overwhelming load of securities which were mortgage-backed which had high-risk loans. Reckless lending meant that there would eventually be an extremely high number of loans which were bundled together; These losses led many financial institutions to fail and ask for a governmental bailout. This impacted the housing market a lot, and the stock market began to go down rapidly and major businesses worldwide lost millions, which caused periods of extended unemployment globally. This all resulted with the international trade slowing to a crawl.

We can see here that without political stability, even globally, the economic growth would go down by a lot, due to simple and careless mistakes. It was only after the US made an agreement to revive the global economy that we started to climb back up again, as showed in the graph until 2010. This is

We can see here that without political stability, even globally, the economic growth would go down by a lot, due to simple and careless mistakes. It was only after the US made an agreement to revive the global economy that we started to climb back up again, as showed in the graph until 2010. This is

However, there is one significant similarity in both graphs. We can see that the line goes down by a large amount from 2008-2009. This was the time when the Global Financial Crisis, or the Great Recession, happened. It started with the housing market bubble, which was caused by an overwhelming load of securities which were mortgage-backed which had high-risk loans. Reckless lending meant that there would eventually be an extremely high number of loans which were bundled together; These losses led many financial institutions to fail and ask for a governmental bailout. This impacted the housing market a lot, and the stock market began to go down rapidly and major businesses worldwide lost millions, which caused periods of extended unemployment globally. This all resulted in international trade slowing to a crawl.

We can see here that without political stability, even globally, economic growth would go down by a lot, due to simple and careless mistakes. It was only after the US made an agreement to revive the global economy that we started to climb back up again, as showed in the graph until 2010. This is one crucial example of how the political stability of not just one country, but the world can affect the economic growth of the world.

In conclusion, political stability has an impact on economic growth, as it is the government who controls what happens in the country. This means that they can control the economy of the country as well. However, that does not mean political stability completely impacts economic growth, as there could be other things that impact it such as diseases such as COVID-19, which made economic growth decline but political stability stayed pretty much the same.

Words / Gowrthan Pirahalathan, 3GLD Photography / Markus Winkler

An Interview with our archivist: Mr William Wood

We recently interviewed Mr. William Wood, the Archivist at Whitgift. We asked him about his career here, what he did before and what his job entails day-to-day.

The archives are a hidden gem, a bit like the Junior Library, apart from the fact that it is not hidden, it is actually located next to the Raeburn Library. They house so many interesting things, from stained glass from the old Schoolhouse in George Street (1600) to a watch that belonged to an Old Whitgiftian (OW) night-fighter pilot – answered in a later question.

What are the Archives?

In short, it is a depository for items relating to the history of the School and the John Whitgift Foundation. We collate anything and everything that relates to stories about the School, how it operates, former pupils and staff of the School and so forth, as well as the Foundation.

Do you collect anything outside of School but to do with Whitgift’s heritage?

I have done in the past, that is how my association started because I was a collector of all sorts of things to do with Croydon.

How did you become an Archivist?

It is one of those things I did not set out to do. It came about because I had a passion for the history of Croydon, its buildings, the people of Croydon, the area around Croydon and the schools of Croydon, particularly Whitgift. I took over from a gentleman called Freddie Percy who was a pupil at the school in 1922, and then came back as a teacher. When he officially retired as a teacher in 1976, he returned as an archivist and spent his time writing a book on the history of Whitgift (Updated in 1990, this book is available to read in the Junior Library). When Freddie Percy finally retired again, the headmaster at the time was looking for someone to take over the Archive. As I had a great interest in Croydon and its history, and was involved with various projects and societies in Croydon, he thought I was the right person for the job. Initially I worked part-time and then in 2004 I went full-time and have been an archivist ever since.

Why did Croydon interest you so much?

I grew up in Croydon, my relations on my father’s side were all in Croydon, and I had a fascination with

the town. One of my biggest interests was Croydon Airport and its history. Both my parents were in the RAF in the Second World War, so aviation was in my blood. I used to go to Croydon Library when I was younger to look at all the books and pictures on the history of Croydon, and that is what helped sparked my interest.

Do you have any interest in history?

Well, strangely enough, history was not one of my main interests, but collecting was. When I was a youngster, even younger than you, I started collecting toy catalogues; many of the companies you might not know about, such as Airfix. I was fascinated by collecting the catalogues as opposed to the toys, because of the artwork and pictures on the covers, I always thought, one day, they would be of interest, so it is strange how things turn out.

What things are kept in the Archives?

There is a whole range of items, everything from old board-mounted photographs of the First teams in cricket and rugby, panoramic photos through to postcards of Whitgift when it was in its original location in North End, as well as deeds, covenants and indentures. We have bound copies of editions over the years of the Whitgift/Whitgiftian Magazine from about 1882 through to 2007-08 and loose copies up to the most recent. We have School caps, some very old which a few are on display in the cases in the Raeburn Library, Colours blazers and cups, School medals and shields. We also have record books of the cricket results and Prefect books all of which were handwritten with the names of the prefects who were on duty.

What is the oldest item you have in the Archives?

And the most recent?

One of the oldest items we have in the Archives is a deed or an indenture, which is a document relating to the purchase of property; land that would have been purchased by John Whitgift or one of his associates, that goes back to the Middle Ages. This document is made from goatskin and handwritten by a secretary or possibly a solicitor. We do not take it out because, like many documents of the time, they often have wax seals to identify that it was owned by somebody of note and these wax seals are quite fragile. A more recent addition to the Archives are three board-mounted sports photographs which were presented to us by the daughter of an OW who died a few years ago.

We were also recently given some RAF items; RAF clothing that one of our OWs had worn when at Whitgift, I think back in the 50s. These are items we have never had before, so we are always pleasantly surprised at what we are given.

Are there any high security items?

Yes, we have things like deeds and indentures belonging to John Whitgift. These are documents you had when you bought a piece of land. These documents would be made of parchment or goatskin, and you would have two identical pieces, you would get a copy and maybe the solicitor would get one too. The thing that made these documents secure was a fixture with a wax seal on it, which was often the wax seal of the owner and in the case of John Whitgift he would have a brass stamp with his coat of arms and the hot wax would be melted into it, and when it solidified you would see his coat of arms. To make these documents even more secure they used to put a strange, often wavy cut through the document. It would have been very difficult to forge these documents because you would have to have a perfect match where the cut took place, and the only way you could see that they were identical and part of one secure document was if they matched perfectly where they had been cut.

Did you know that John Whitgift was Archbishop of Canterbury to Queen Elizabeth? Queen Elizabeth the First. He was her last Archbishop. She died before he did; and he was at her death bed.

How many items do you have in the Archives?

I do not think we could estimate it as we are adding to the Archive all the time. Let's just say thousands of items. We are itemising many of the items and cataloguing them, but it will take years to complete.

What is the most valuable object you have?

That again is very difficult to say because in our archives, every item is of value. But I would probably say a drinking bowl that belonged to John Whitgift which is irreplaceable. It’s amazing to think that John Whitgift touched it and even used it. There may be other items that people just might consider to be of greater value, but for me, that would be one of the best.

How are stored items protected from damage and deterioration?

We store a lot of the items in acid free storage boxes so they cannot be damaged by chemicals. We store some things in folders, which again are all acid free. Documents and paperwork go into folders first, then they go into the acid free storage boxes, and then onto the shelves of the archive store. The boxes are protected to an extent, so any water damage is unlikely as they are specially made so it would take a while for water to get through. We also have a fire safety system which releases a special gas to help put out fire at the first sign. We also have pest traps to stop moths because moths will eat through clothing and other pests have a lovely habit of eating through anything paper or cardboard and they can do a lot of damage. They especially like to eat through old books as some early papers have starch in them, which they love.

Do you have any security systems for the archives? We do, yes. Obviously, I cannot tell you too much, but it is about as secure as you can get it. We have alarm systems, CCTV, special locks, and the keys that we use for certain cabinets are securely locked away. We also have metal shutters on the outside of our Search Room. So, at night, the alarm is set before myself or my colleague leaves, the shutters go down and are securely locked. So, no chance of breaking in!

What is your favourite item?

It is a very simple looking watch. It was given by the people of Croydon and the Borough of Croydon to a gentleman by the name of ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cunningham who was at Whitgift pre-war. That is a favourite of mine because it is unique and engraved.

Why is he called ‘Cat’s Eyes’?

John Cunningham was around at the time when radar was first invented, and we did not want to let the enemy know that we had this device. John Cunningham was the first night fighter pilot to go up in an aircraft with this new radar system that nobody knew about and he shot down an enemy aircraft over the South Coast. In order to cover up the fact that it was the radar that helped him, the propaganda story went out that he used to eat lots of carrots and, supposedly, eating lots of carrots gave him wonderful eyesight with great night vision!

He hated the term Cat’s Eyes because it became a bit of a story. Publicity went out about it, there were posters all over the country telling you to eat carrots

and then suddenly there was a huge demand for carrots which did not help the farmers. I just find it really fascinating, even though it is just a very simple watch, the fact that the people of Croydon and the Borough of Croydon honoured John Cunningham in this way makes it very special.

What period of history interests you most and why?

My interest lies with the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, it is not about the aircraft or the Battle or the fighting as such, it is more about the people. What boosted the people on the ground? What boosted the public? What helped them survive the Blitz? The Blitz was a period during the Second World War when German bombers were coming over almost every night dropping bombs on London and other cities around Britain. I am interested in what made people survive that difficult period. What a fighter pilot went through, whether to train as a pilot or to fly during the Battle of Britain. Many of them only had a few days experience in the air before they were shot down and killed or badly injured. Many of them got longer training, but most of them, within six weeks at least, would be flying. Imagine somebody who is literally out of school at eighteen, becoming a pilot and being told to go up and fight the enemy; enemy aircraft which, in many cases, were vastly outnumbering ours.

What do you do if an item goes missing from the Archives?

We have a system in place where we sign a record sheet, what we have taken out, which box/cabinet/shelf it came from, so we should be able to trace back to where we last saw it or where we had it out. But we try our very best not to lose anything!

What are the fire procedures for the Archives?

If there were any chance of a fire within the Archive Store, and it is remotely possible, the gas control system will kick in within 40 seconds.

What does the gas do?

It takes the oxygen out. A fire can only burn if there is oxygen. What happens is the gas fills the room; we have five bottles of gas under pressure, and if there was a slight chance that there was a fire suddenly occurring in one of the two archive rooms, they would fill with gas and that will put out any fire. We have procedures in place if a fire occurred, the alarm system would go off and if the fire brigade were called out, they would be made aware that we have a valuable archive collection, and would not necessarily flood that area with water, but hopefully the gas would have kicked in first anyway.

What would happen if the gas were triggered by accident?

We have two control switches on the wall which are easily identifiable. If there was a chance that the gas was about to go off in error, and we are in the room, we have 40 seconds before it happens. You have to make sure you get to press the ‘hold off’ button. This stops the system long enough for you to go and switch off the control system. There is a control panel in each room which is set to ‘automatic’ all the time, so if a fire occurred whilst we were not in the room, the gas would go off as well as an alarm.

Words / Magnus Tibbalds, 2LMN and Felix Robinson, 2AMR Photography

Imagine somebody who is literally out of school at eighteen, becoming a pilot and being told to go up and fight the enemy; enemy aircraft which, in many cases, were vastly outnumbering ours.

Founder's Day 2023

Whitgift School was founded in 1596 by John Whitgift, Queen Elizabeth I’s last Archbishop of Canterbury, whose imperative motive was to provide an education for the boys of Croydon. It opened in 1600 as part of the Whitgift Foundation, which had the aim of building a hospital and school in Croydon for the `poor, needy and impotent people’ from the parishes of Croydon and Lambeth. The school was originally located in George Street, until the new buildings opened in North End, which is now the Whitgift Shopping Centre. John Whitgift died in 1604 and is buried in Croydon Minster. In 1931, Whitgift School moved to the current site in Haling Park which was once the estate of Lord Howard of Effingham who was the Admiral of the Fleet and his ships were sent against the Spanish Armada.

For a long time, Whitgiftians have come together as a community to commemorate the founding of Whitgift School and to express gratitude for the Foundation he established. The first Founder’s Day service is recorded to have taken place in 1614 thanks to Dr William Barlow who was the Bishop of Lincoln and once Chaplain to the Archbishop of Whitgift. The tradition of Founder’s Day celebrates when the Tudor monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, gave official permission to her Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, to build a hospital and school. Since then, Whitgift School has been in constant existence. That is a mind-blowing 427 years of existence!

This year, for the first time since 2019, staff and pupils from all three Foundation Schools, OWs, as well as the care home residents and staff, participated in the Founders Day service held in Croydon Minster on Tuesday 22nd March 2023, where there was an excellent performance from the Corps of Drums and Choristers.

In the past, Whitgift students wore button-holes of white flowers or ‘white-gift’, which was Queen Elizabeth I’s pun on the Founder’s name. The Founder’s Day flowers were traditionally White Stars of Bethlehem, chosen for their religious significance or in later years, white stocks. Students had a procession through Croydon down to Croydon Minster, where they would lay their flowers on the tomb of John Whitgift. The tradition of placing flowers on the tomb has since stopped because of the increase in student numbers and the sheer number of flowers being placed at the tomb. Nowadays, each school lays a wreath instead. This year this tradition of wearing white button-holes was revived and worn by students and teachers.

School life in Whitgift has changed a lot in the past 427 years; School children from the time of John Whitgift would not recognise us today. In the past, only boys from affluent families could afford to go to school and boys from poor families could not. Students at school then would work and learn a trade and they would have learnt simple mathematics, Latin, reading and writing. In addition, there would have been much more of an emphasis on Christian teachings, and also corporal punishment would have been common.

Words / Nana Appiagyei 1MRR Photography / Whitgift

Why are octopodes and squid most likely to take over the world after we destroy it?

You may find this surprising, due to their lack of importance in modern life; however, this is far more possible than it seems, due to one simple fact - how they can change their RNA.

RNA is created when cells convert DNA. The RNA made then creates proteins which in turn hold the sequences of DNA. Your DNA is a bit like a huge library of cookbooks that you can’t take out, but you can copy; the only problem is that they need to be copied word for word. RNA is the scribe who does that copying, and the proteins are the copied recipes. Most animals try to get rid of any RNA they have that is not working perfectly; they send it into the ultimate deletion bin of your body and, therefore, cannot get it back if they need to adapt. The unique thing about what squids and octopodes do with their RNA is that instead of deleting it, they put it in a storage bin of sorts, so they do not use it normally but it is there if needed in emergency situations. During one of these emergency situations, they are able to retrieve the RNA and swap it with an alternative bit of RNA. Using that cookbook example from earlier, then the chef who sent the scribe there has replaced that scribe for a different one to suit his purpose, maybe he wants a sweeter recipe, so he changes the scribe to one that puts down a 10% increase of the sugar in the recipe, on the recreation of the paper. Going back to the octopodes and squid, this means that over a couple of generations, this new adaptation of the proteins might have saved the shoal of squid or the consortium of octopodes when they otherwise would have likely died out due to some icy waters.

Now you might be thinking – what does this have to do with them taking over the world? The fact that they can change their RNA means that over time a shoal of squid or consortium of octopodes could change much, much faster than other animals. This faster evolution enables them to get to some evolutionary opportunities faster. In the hypothetical scenario that humans go extinct, then that leaves a spot open for other animals to evolve and take up our mantle in being so able to adapt, change and develop to utilize the world around us. Due to this faster evolution, they might be able to then find a way to

possibly evolve lungs and then more ways to survive on the land, which in turn with their large brains would mean that they only need to survive on the land to thrive on the land; as they already use tools, can fit through small spaces, and may still have gills depending on what Mother Nature decides to do.

All of this is complete speculation of course. However, one thing that I find remarkably interesting is that there is a series of computer games about a post-apocalyptic world 12,000 years after the decline of humanity that shows what could happen if this was to become true, called Splatoon. As the website digitaltrends.com puts it “The Splatoon series takes place in the distant future of our own world, but as you probably noticed, there’s no sign of humans anywhere. 12,000 years before the Mullusk era (which is when the games take place), humanity was facing extinction from rising sea levels due to climate change. … After 10,000 years (still 2,000 years before the games), the flooding began to recede. This forced sea creatures that were living in the waters previously above dry land to evolve and become more intelligent. This lead to the evolution of both the first Inklings, Octarians, and Octolings. They slowly adapted to life on dry land, gaining the humanoid form we know them to have, as well as form societies.” I think that this is very cool as it puts something so theoretical and scientific into the setting of a turf war game for kids.

Words / Thomas Chapman, 1JWP Photography / Masaaki Komori

obscurity

In and Out of Obscurity

The emergence and disappearance of the Cryptoqueen

The case of Dr Ruja Ignatova is perhaps the most shocking disappearance of any high-profile person in decades: with her cryptocurrency Onecoin being tipped to be the “new bitcoin” at one point in 2015 – she was set for fame. Her company was well-regarded across the world, and she had even spoken at Wembley Arena promoting her cryptocurrency. By 2017, the cryptocurrency had raked in 4 billion pounds with 100 million coming from British investors. What happened next would shock the world and many would lose vast amounts of money: “Onecoin” was revealed to be a complete scam. Yet perhaps even more mysterious was Dr Ruja’s subsequent disappearance and the fact that despite being one of the most wanted people on the planet for countries like the U.S, investigators have simply been unable to find her. In this essay, I will explore how the Cryptoqueen was able to become such a phenomenon and why, despite being an extremely public figure, no one has ever been able to find her. I will be dissecting this essay into three key points – how the Cryptoqueen appeared in the limelight, her fall from grace and her disappearance and the efforts to find her.

Many would believe that Dr. Ruja would have had to be hidden from the public eye to be able to disappear so effectively. However, this is quite the opposite of the truth. I believe that it is imperative to understand how so many were lured into this scam, and we can do this by looking into Dr Ruja’s background. Since founding the currency in 2014, the Cryptoqueen was happy to be in the spotlight, regularly travelling for talks and events where she would appear in the flesh promoting her company and answering questions as well as appearing for regular seminars online which would be put up live for the

world to see. Perhaps the fact that she had graduated from Oxford, had a PhD and working experience at McKinsey – one of the most prestigious consultancy agencies in the world – were attractive assets to her credibility. Furthermore, her beautiful looks; lavish clothing choices and impressive eloquence were all other factors that lured huge amounts of money and people into the scam that was “Onecoin”. Moreover, the group was portrayed as a “family” – a phrase continually emphasised in all seminars and events. Her words were so captivating that many victims of the scam invested right away, unquestioning. I believe that the other key point is the nature of cryptocurrency and how its obscurity makes fraud much more possible. Onecoin was a “Ponzi scheme” – a method of fraud in which early investors in the cryptocurrency are not paid by the growth of the company itself (a Ponzi scheme can apply to any company, not just cryptocurrency) but by the money more recent investors put in. Cryptocurrency transactions can be made from anywhere and they are recorded in a massive data record called a blockchain. Since no one has complete control of the data and specifics are not always recorded, the early days of cryptocurrency were a paradise for fraudsters.

One of the key questions many ask about the scheme is when it started to become suspicious and whether more should have been done to stop the scam. The main answer to this was in late 2016 to 17 when the hype and excitement of Onecoin had begun to wear off and many recent investors were still waiting on money in exchange for investing in the company: there are only so many times someone even as persuasive as Dr. Ruja could tell that their money would be multiplied somewhere in the future. People

The early days of cryptocurrency were a paradise for fraudsters

began to become impatient, and questions started to be raised. It did not help that Onecoin was extremely secretive when it came to their technology. The City of London Police launched an investigation into Dr. Ruja and Onecoin in late 2016 yet dropped the case in 2019. Much criticism was heaped on to the police as victims of the cryptocurrency and crime lawyers accused them of “failing to investigate adequately or at all. Victims also attacked the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority – an independent regulation body in the U.K.). Although they had published a warning about Onecoin on their website at the end of 2016, they took it down in August 2017, despite the scam still being in full operation. This was because cryptocurrency was not technically in their regulation zone and having been challenged by a lawyer for Dr. Ruja about this, they begrudgingly took it down. While the early days of the City of London police investigation were happening and the warning about Onecoin still up on the FCA, Dr. Ruja herself was still travelling across the world to promote her company, unfazed by any allegations put her way. However, after taking a flight to Athens for work on the 25th October 2017, she completely vanished and has not been seen since. To conclude, the fact that authorities had not experienced such a developed cryptocurrency scam before and the cunningness of the people behind the scam meant that authorities struggled to stop the cryptocurrency until it was too late. Yet this does not divert some of the deserved blame from those supposed to stop these scams. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts warned of danger in the credibility of Onecoin long before 2016 and the City of London Police allowed a vast amount of stolen cash from Onecoin out of the country when they could have prevented it.

Vast efforts have been made to find her – due to the scale of the scam (thousands of pounds from every habitable continent were lost in the scam). Countries from Germany to the U.S have arrest warrants for Dr. Ruja. Her disappearance has become extremely well known due to the BBC podcast The Missing Cryptoqueen , (it has also helped me with my research). Huge amounts of speculation lie around where the cryptoqueen is now. Could she have had plastic surgery to become unrecognisable? Could friends be hiding her? Is she hidden in plain sight? The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast investigates all of these theories, and I would really recommend it to anyone interested. However, what we do know is that she still has billions from the scam and mysterious friends seem to have been key in her success in slipping back into obscurity. Her wits were vital in emerging out of obscurity and they have been in disappearing back in.

My final point is something I believe in deeply: as fascinating as Dr Ruja’s disappearance and scam are, it is important not to set her on such a high pedestal. She journeyed across the world lying to audiences everywhere with no remorse for the repercussions of those losing great amounts of money. have emerged of victims from extremely poor places such as rural Africa selling livestock and family possessions just to be able to buy Onecoin. While her grandeur and cleverness is unique, the cryptoqueen at heart isn’t so different from a typical scammer.

Words / Oliver Whitaker-Jones, 3ADS Photography / Kanchanara

How do tricksmagic affect your brain?

Have you ever seen a magician perform a magic trick? Have you gasped, gawked, been baffled by how incredulous the trick is? You wonder, how do they do it? What techniques and strategies do they use to fool an intelligent person such as you? The following analysis highlights the fundamental ways in which magicians manipulate a person, and how this explains the psychology of the human mind. Very few psychologists have considered how studying magic can help us with science (indeed, these are two seemingly opposite terms). Yet the select few psychologists which have done so have allowed me to produce this analysis and should be acknowledged.

COVERT MISDIRECTION

Covert misdirection is the primary strategy which many magicians use for their tricks. They create instances, or stimuli for the audience to look at, taking their attention away from where the actual trick is later revealed. This misdirection allows the magician to, for example, move an object from one end of the stage to the other. For example, a magician places a coin in their hand and allows the audience to observe and feel it as proof of its existence. They take the coin from their palm with their other hand and will close their fist around it. Muttering a few ‘magic words’ and shaking their hand a little, they open their hand to reveal that the coin had vanished. This is a classic demonstration of covert misdirection. In reality, the coin was never in his other hand. Rather, he pretended to pick up the coin, and directed the audience’s attention to his empty hand whilst quickly slipping the coin into his pocket with his other hand. This is the simplest form of this trick- other magicians perform much more glamourous variations, with stage effects and smoke cannons etc.

NEURAL ADAPTATION

The spotlight is on the magician’s assistant. The magician announces they will change the assistant’s dress from white to red. They snap his fingers, and the spotlight turns red. The audience, amused by this “joke,” chuckle. The magician then snaps their fingers again and the red lights dim. However, suddenly a white flash of light appears on the stage behind the assistant, and the assistant’s dress truly becomes red.

However, the assistant’s figure and their dress were visible the entire time. The explanation of this trick has helped many neuroscientists understand the intuitive and scientific workings of the spectator’s brain.

When the mind is presented with a constant stimulus (i.e. an unchanging image which they are focussed on), the brain’s responsiveness to that image gradually decreases. It realises that the image is unchanging, and starts to ignore it, saving energy for when it must signal that the image has changed. This decrease in responsiveness can be measured by the decreasing rate at which the brain fires relevant neurons to process and receive the image. However, once the image is changed, the brain will send a rebound response known as ‘after-discharge’. It will realise that the image has changed, and it has forgotten to receive the signal that the previous image was there. Therefore, it will suddenly remember to receive that signal and display the previous image to the mind a split second longer than the length of time in which the previous image was truly there. In this case, the assistant’s white dress stays in the audience’s minds a split second longer, enough time to cast a flash of light to mask the trapdoor which opens underneath the assistant to reveal a harness, which rapidly pulls off the red dress to uncover a white dress underneath. A split second later, the assistant’s dress has magically changed from white to red.

FREE WILL & PREDETERMINATION

Free will and predetermination may seem polar opposites, but during a magic trick they go hand-inhand. Predetermination is the most common aspect which a magician uses in their tricks. It is the idea of forcing a predetermined outcome of the trick no matter what the audience choose to do. This can be through sleight of hand or misdirection, but the result of the magic trick is always the same.

For example, in a classic magic trick involving a simple deck of cards, the magician asks the audience to choose a card- any card- in the deck. The magician could even hand the audience the deck to prove there is nothing odd or suspicious about it. They shuffle the deck, making sure it is completely mixed, but somehow, the magician still produces the same card that the audience chose. The magician may have shuffled the deck in a certain way or showed the audience the cards in a certain way to perform this trick, but what is more

interesting is how this explains how humans think. People are known to enjoy being in control of their own decisions, and this can prove very useful. Creating an illusion of free will in the audience’s mind although there is a predetermined solution, allows the outcome to be more effective. They become baffled by the fact that even though they have chosen a card of their own decision, the magician has still managed to find it. Letting the audience control the deck (or any other magic trick) creates a ‘tunnel vision’ in their mind, as they inertly believe they have control and begin to forget predetermination is a possibility. They marvel and wonder far more at the magician than if they had had less control over the trick and thus been more likely to realise that its outcome was predetermined.

REDUCING SCRUTINY

Reducing the scepticism in the audience’s mind is key to perform a convincing trick. In the example for neural adaptation (of the assistant’s dress turning white to red), the first part of the trick involving the change of the colour of the spotlight may seem trivial, but this causes the audience to assume that the trick is over, and they reduce their level of scrutiny towards the magician and stage. Suddenly, the real trick is performed, and the audience is caught off guard, the entire trick happens in a split second. In the card trick which illustrates predetermination, the ‘tunnel vision’ also provides a way for the audience to reduce their scrutiny on the magician, as they assume they are in control and do not need to focus on the magician. During a trick, a magician could give a backstory about the trick, or simply talk to the audience after every gesture they make. This causes the audience to listen to these words rather than analyse the gestures.

HYPNOSIS

Hypnosis is defined in the dictionary as ‘a state of consciousness in which a person apparently loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction.’ During our normal waking state, different areas of our brain collaborate and send each other signals and snippets of information. This allows our brain to create logical thoughts, feelings, and memories. However, during the state of hypnosis, the various parts of the brain operate more independently - not validating information by comparing it with other lobes and areas. This

can cause hallucinations and random, uncorrelated thoughts.

However, magicians use hypnosis as a form of ‘mind control’. As stated earlier, under hypnosis, a person is more responsive to suggestion or direction. Due to their brain not functioning as normal, they are less likely to think about their actions or even think rationally. For example, a magician beckons their assistant on to the stage. The magician then induces a state of concentration on the assistant, using an object (such as a pendulum, marble etc) or by creating a mental image in the participant’s mind. This leads the assistant into a trance, a ‘sleep-like’ state where they are fully aware of what is going on but will have no mental control over themselves. Using this knowledge, the magician may amuse the audience by asking the assistant to dance, keel over, slap themself or any other comic act. However, hypnosis will not work if the participant is not willing to be hypnotised, as human will power and their resistance to influence is very strong. Hypnosis was also practised thousands of years before the science behind it was discovered, used in therapy and healing, as hypnosis can achieve a feeling of tranquillity. Four thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, the priest called Imhotep used this method in his temple - known as a dream temple.

CONCLUSION

We have learnt about how magicians manipulate the audience’s mind in many different ways. Although they may not be familiar with the cognitive science of the brain, they still can understand behavioural patterns within a person and use it to craft tricks and illusions.

Words / Hrishi Tumuluri, 2SCR Photography / Klim Musalimov

The obscure history of the pre-modern world trade system

WHAT WAS THE PRE-MODERN SYSTEM?

The pre-modern trade system was a worldwide system of trade, encompassing smaller trades. Examples of the trades that made up the world trade system include, but are not limited to, the Indian Ocean trade, TransSaharan trade, The Silk Road trade, The trans-Atlantic trade, and the Colombian exchange. It is important to note that not all of these trades co-existed.

HOW DID THE PRE-MODERN TRADE SYSTEM WORK?

My theory about the pre-modern world trade is that it centered around specific geographical regions and was a collection of individual yet closely linked trade routes that connected these regions economically, militarily, culturally, and religiously. These geographical regions were the Middle East and North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, China, and later Europe and the Americas. It was not only the exchange of goods but is also accredited to many other things, such as the Islamic and Christian proselytisation of Western Africa and the intellectual property that was traded between the dynasties of China, the Arabicspeaking world, and the West. This essay is going to explain the culture of these geographical regions and how that affected other regions.

REGION 1: CHINA AND THE SILK ROAD TRADE

The Silk Road trade was a group of trade routes stretching from eastern Han-Chinese dominated lands down to the lands of the Indian subcontinent, to the various caliphates of the Middle East, and joining other trade routes that connected to the deciduous and rainforest areas of West and Central Africa and to the lands of Western Europe. Contrary to popular belief, it was not just one road or route, but several. The countries and nations that the Silk Road traversed did not have jurisdiction or dominion over the trade routes, and thus traders often had to form camel caravans. According to the American Museum of Natural History, camels, "adapted to the harsh desert conditions of Central Asia and the Middle East, made ideal pack animals for travel along the Silk Road. These hardy creatures thrived on tough desert plants. They could carry more weight than horses or donkeys – as much as 300 pounds (136 kilograms) – and needed less water. A loaded camel could sometimes go for 15 days without a drink of water." China exported silk cloth and intricate porcelain work. It also exported jade and other precious stones and exported many inventions and innovations.

REGION 2: THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

The Indian subcontinent was one of the major players in the pre-modern trade system yet is often underrepresented in popular culture. The main powers that existed in India at the time of the premodern world trade were the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and arguably the East India Company and British Raj. India was a large producer of cheaply manufactured cotton cloth before British colonialism. Sadly, this industry was decimated by the colonisation process, and during the East India and British Raj periods, India's main export was raw, unprocessed cotton. The demise of the cloth manufacturing industry led to millions of deaths and many more people going into poverty. Many scholars accredit India's prominence in the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade to the Islamic proselytisation of the subcontinent and thus maintaining important trade routes to the Arab areas, Southeast Asia, the Malacca Strait, and North and West Africa. You can see this through the Urdu language of India and Pakistan. It has many influences from Arabic and Persian and was the language of the aristocracy in the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire, East India Company, and the British Raj. According to the UNESCO website, India imported large amounts of "food grains, cotton, dyeing materials, utensils, dry

fruits, silk, saffron, shawls and works of arts from the Western Himalayas and precious and semi-precious stones, herbs, gold dust, musk, salt, borax and pack animals from Tibet”.

REGION 3: THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

The Arabian Peninsula was the centre of the premodern world trade system, contributing massively to the pre-modern world trade system in ways that cannot be fathomed. Every trade except for the transAtlantic and Colombian exchange crossed the Arabian Peninsula. The pre-modern world trade experienced its highest point under the Islamic Golden age. To highlight the extent to which the trade routes reached, the mithqal, an Arab measurement used for gold measurements was found in places as distant as Ghana and Russia.

The Arab Peninsula is also credited for the use of the camel, the Arabic Script and its many variations, and was one of the most developed places during this era. The Arabian Peninsula was also home to Mecca, where millions of people would visit every year as part of the Islamic Hajj. In the 13th century, the emperor of the Mali empire brought so much wealth with him on the Hajj that he caused rapid inflation all around the world. Additionally, the Arabian Peninsula and the neighbouring areas were the home of scholars, widespread literacy, centres of learning, and writings that fuelled the prominence of trade. This section is not only about the Arabian Peninsula but also the areas it had dominance over (from the libraries of Baghdad to the Central Asian plateau to the modern nation of Pakistan to the papyrus fields of Egypt to the ports of North Africa and just touching France). It is worth noting in this part that the various Islamic caliphates were extremely cosmopolitan and were in no way homogenous.

REGION 4: WEST AFRICA

In pre-modern times, Western Africa played a significant role in the world trade system as the largest bullion producer. The region sourced much of its gold from Southern Mali and Central Ghana, which were under the control of the Mali Empire, and later the Ashanti Empire. These empires experienced long periods of economic and educational advancement. For instance, a Dutch envoy in the Ashanti capital reported how the library was ‘longer and in no way inferior to Harlem street, containing books in all tongues known to man. Additionally, he reported how the farms were as fine as a country garden in Europe`, and how the roads were wide and straight, maintained in the face of rainforest humidity.

Interestingly, the cowrie shell was used as a standard currency in this region, at one point having an official exchange rate with the Franc and the Pound Sterling. Despite this monetary genius, the area was also tormented by slave trading. Contrary to popular belief, the slave trade was not only between West Africa and the New World, but also between West Africa and the Arab world. The same trade routes that were used to carry slaves from West Africa to the Arab world were also used to carry bullion, ivory, and timber. It was not a one-way trade either, as horses, camels, writing, and Islam were introduced to West Africa from the Arab world.

In the 19th century, the nomadic Fulani people, who were devout Sharia-following Sunni Muslims, organised a series of jihads that culminated in parts of Northern Nigeria and Southern Guinea, forming caliphates. From the Atlantic seaboard, guns, ammunition, processed cloth, and liquor were imported. The trade on the Atlantic coast was controlled by the Ashanti Empire, the Dahomey Kingdom, and the Oyo Empire. Despite these empires having direct trade routes with the Arab world and having large populations of Muslims, many of these empires had much more of a connection with Europe. West Africa mainly exported gold, salt, ivory, slaves, timber, and the Kola and Shea nuts. It imported cloth, cowrie shells, guns, manilla, and slaves (originally slaves were imported into the Gold Coast region before the trade roles reversed).

FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

It's fascinating to think about when the pre-modern world trade system came to a complete end. I think it is worth acknowledging that despite the advent of globalisation, it ended in different parts of the world and different times. In China, this system was nearly decimated during the expansion of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing emperor once informed the British ambassador that their empire lacked no resources, implying their almost imperialistic growth. It is interesting to note that while the Han Dynasty had a greater involvement in the Silk Road, it pales in comparison to the Qing Dynasty's scale.

In India, the decline of the pre-modern world trade system coincided with the British raj era. After 1857, Indian states no longer had the same level of authority over their territories. The focus of trade shifted from exporting manufactured goods to Southeast Asia and the Middle East to exclusively shipping raw materials to Britain and its colonies. This transition occurred alongside the British rule.

The pre-modern world trade system suffered a blow

following the Mongol sacking of Baghdad, which was then the largest trading hub. The Mamluk sultanate in modern-day Egypt partially replaced Baghdad in this regard. The Mamluk sultan was even considered one of the prominent "sultans of the world" by West African empires. Furthermore, the Oman Empire not only dominated trade in the southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula but also colonized the Eastern coast of Africa, greatly influencing Swahili language and culture.

West Africa remained the last stronghold of the pre-modern world trade. Although most of West Africa was colonised between 1850 and 1910, medical advancements had not sufficiently curbed the region's reputation as the "White man’s grave." The few colonisers who ventured into West Africa settled in temperate coastal cities such as Cape Coat and Accra in Ghana, and Lagos and Calabar in Nigeria. Moreover, European powers granted more authority to existing local leaders and laws in these colonies compared to others. Despite the shift in focus from local trade to European trade, the pre-modern trade continued to thrive.

Words / Nana Appiagyei, 1MRR

Photography / Gary Lee Todd

The Complement System

The immune system is one of the most complicated, fascinating, and mysterious aspects in the world. Evolving for hundreds of millions of years, there are still many aspects of it we have not discovered yet. While many look up and marvel at the universe around us, it is equally as wondrous to look down and explore the micro-universe hidden right beneath our noses. The immune system has many different facets which are each vital for a species’ survival, such as physical barriers, defence cells, and weapons factories. But one of the most important yet mostly unheralded aspects of this incredible 'organisation' is the complement system - a series of around thirty different proteins which work together to perform various tasks, from alerting passive immune cells during an infection, to ripping gaping holes in the invading pathogens themselves! The entire stability of our biological wellbeing rides on the complement system.

PROTEINS AND THE COMPLEMENT SYSTEM

Before we move further, we must touch on an especially important principle when contemplating the world of proteins. About 15 quintillion proteins arbitrarily drift around in your fluids. The shape of a protein determines its purpose. This means that, when two or more proteins collide, they break each other apart, changing their shape and underlying function. A previously passive protein may be altered to become a protein which is extremely useful for breaking apart other proteins, creating something of a domino effect. Think of these proteins as millions of unlit matches, each a millimetre apart. When one is ignited, it sets fire to the others, until all the matches are burning. Mechanisms like this take place rapidly to minimise the damage inflicted by pathogens.

HOW DOES IT ALL WORK?

But what ignites the first match? What is needed to activate the first protein? The first protein to react to a foreign invader is the C3 protein (or complement component 3). Pathogens trigger the C3 to split into two smaller pieces. This ‘split’ is known as cleavage. The chemical process of this trigger is highly complicated, involving other complement proteins binding to enemies, or through antibodies. C3 splits into C3a and C3b, which are now activated.

C3a is the equivalent of a modern-day distress

signal. Using bodily fluids, it will travel to the site of infection (usually the area where the bacteria enter the body). This concentration of fluids is experienced by us as swelling, or inflammation. During its journey to this area, C3a will alert any immune cells that an uninvited organism has breached the body. C3a is solely responsible for activating the entirety of the immune system and its ‘soldier’ cells- the macrophages, dendritic cells, phagocytes, T cells, B cells, and neutrophils just to name a few. The more of these C3a proteins they find, the more aggressive they will become. They will follow the C3a tracks to the areas they are needed the most and will play a large role in killing off the unwanted pathogens (most commonly target viruses, bacteria, protists, or fungi).

C3b proteins have a fraction of a second to find a target, otherwise they will be neutralised by water molecules. When, or if, they find a pathogen, the proteins will anchor themselves to the pathogen and try not to let go. During this time, C3b will change shape, meaning it is now able to bind to various proteins and receptors to alter its function. This process must be done very carefully, otherwise the complement system could target the body’s healthy cells as well as the unwanted pathogens. C3b will also label cells for phagocytosis, by binding to specific proteins to create a structure known as the C5 convertase, which will sit on the membrane of the pathogen. Phagocytosis is the process by which a phagocyte cell uses its plasma membrane to engulf an unwanted organism (in this case a harmful pathogen). The C5 convertase makes its target more susceptible to ingestion. Phagocytes must catch the target, but that is quite difficult if the target is slippery and prefers not to be grabbed. Instead, it will latch on to the convertase, which is already connected to the pathogen.

BUT THERE IS MORE…

So far, the proteins have helped other cells kill off the pathogens, but it can also do this itself. C5 convertases once again change their structure to a C3b recruitment platform. This is used to cause another domino effect, by recruiting proteins such as the C6, C7, C8 and C5b proteins to create an all-important membrane attack complex. Thousands of these structures are created all over the pathogen’s membrane. Membrane attack complexes are effectively land mines. They produce long, spear-like proteins which impale the cell membrane, ripping open a hole and allowing the insides of their target to gush out. They “bleed” to death.

IF THIS SYSTEM IS SO EFFECTIVE, WHY DO WE BECOME ILL?

There are two main reasons why we, although protected by such a powerful tool, still frequently become ill. In a war, both sides can adapt. This is the first reason. The pathogens may find ways around the complement system, usually with clever, cunning methods rather than the use of brute force. For example, the vaccinia virus will force the cell it has infected to produce a protein known as the VCP protein (vaccinia virus complement control protein). This protein will shut down any further complement protein production within a certain area around the cell it has infected. This way, the virus will create a “safe zone” around itself. Some bacteria, as another example, will use their pili to grab and cover themselves with certain molecules in the blood which keep the complement system calm, and will suddenly become undetectable in the eyes of the complement proteins.

The second (and more common) reason may be surprising. Have you ever wondered why COVID-19 was so dangerous to so many people? When the virus started infecting the cells of a person’s body, the complement system, scared of this new, undiscovered virus, decided to release an unnecessary number of C3a proteins. The complement system overreacted. As we have stated earlier, the more proteins the immune defence cells find, the more aggressive they will become. These cells were suddenly overcome with an unexplained ferocity and effectively went on a “rampage”, killing not just viruses but all passive cells and organisms they came across. Those who had a weaker body couldn’t handle this, and their organs started to fail. Those with an exceptionally weaker body eventually died. In a nutshell, many diseases are not as dangerous as they are portrayed to be. They are only half the story. The complement system still lacks the stability it should have during an attack.

WHAT IF THE SYSTEM BECOMES DEFICIENT?

The activation of the complement system can harm an organism as well as benefitting them, especially if there

are deficiencies in the system. Most cases of deficiency are caused by genetics (passed down by your parents), though it can also be acquired because of an infection. The most prevalent form of deficiency is the mannanbinding lectin (MBL) of the lectin-based pathway. The lectin-based pathway is one of three pathways that the complement system can be activated, the three ways being: the lectin-based pathway, the classical pathway, and the alternative pathway. The mannanbinding lectin is key to activating the lectin-based pathway, therefore the pathway will not activate if there is a deficiency. Diseases may become much more dangerous due to this. It could result in a person experiencing intense swelling in the intestine and under the skin (known as angioedema), or the development of recurring viral and bacterial infections, such as typhoid fever. Infants are more likely to be affected, though there are cases of adults also developing these recurring infections.

CONCLUSION

To summarise, the complement system is the basis of many biological processes within the immune system. Proteins, after all, are the most basic structure an organism requires to complete almost any action. Its influence is becoming increasingly appreciated as we discover more about it, though much of the complement system is still unknown. Although there may be deficiencies, this small group of proteins is and always will be responsible for maintaining the stability of our body. They are our body’s warriors, our first line of defence against deadly pathogens and are always at war.

Words / Hrishi Tumuluri, 2SCR and Priyian Ganeshalingam, 2JMN Photography / Public Domain Pictures

civilization

Democracy for sale?

The United States of America: the land of the free; the protector of democracy. In 1776, the Founding Fathers declared independence from the “tyrannous rule” of the United Kingdom and set up a Presidential Republic. 150 years later, the nation faces a democratic crisis.

On January 21st, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States of America reached a landmark decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , overturning two rulings in McConnell v. FEC (2003) and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990). The court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled five to four that the First Amendment protects expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, unions, and other organisations. The implications this ruling has had to the democratic institutions of the nation cannot be understated, both from a political and constitutional standpoint.

The decision gave a new definition for the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Not only does it apply to the individual, but also to groups of people: corporations, trade unions, and PACs are now entitled to the same protections of free speech as an ordinary citizen. More importantly, they were now free to make political donations, as it is seen as an exercise of freedom of speech. This meant that many regulations on lobbying imposed by bodies such as the Federal Election Commission or even Congress could now be challenged as a constitutional infringement on freedom of speech. This has led to record spending in elections, record sums of money paid to legislators by lobbyists, and an increase in corporate influence over US politics.

One positive outcome, one may argue, of the decision has been that now there is more incentive for

politicians to work with pressure groups and PACs. One example of this has been the NRA (National Rifle Association) which has lobbied politicians, mostly republicans, to block gun control legislation, something that millions of gun owners would support. Whether or not one agrees with gun possession in the US, it is irrefutable that the NRA has been able to work in the interest of a group which may not otherwise be able to have their views reflected in the legislature. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell claimed that "the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day. By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers. Our democracy depends upon free speech, not just for some but for all". In a liberal democracy, one has the freedom of association. Thus, the question is this: can this freedom coexist with free speech?

Many critics have cited the increasing influence of corporations within the US legislature as one of the key issues with the decision. Former President, Barack Obama, was an out spoken critic of the decision, arguing that it undermined the small donations made by individuals. This disproportionately hurts grassroots candidates reliant on individual donations, such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Oil lobbies have consistently lobbied politicians to block environmental legislation, the most famous being the Green New Deal, which was supported by 60% of the electorate. Infamously, Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia, a conservative Democrat, gained millions in donations from oil companies, due to him effectively having the "tie breaking" vote in a split Senate, thus often being

accused by those on the left of "holding bills hostage". With the emergence of "super PACs", campaign spending by corporations and other outsider groups has risen by over a staggering 900%, with the figure growing every election.

The Citizens United case beckons a bigger question: has judicial review in the US become overpowered? With the recent decision to repeal Roe v. Wade and the accession of judges such as Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson causing much controversy, there is a discussion to be had about the over-politicisation of the judiciary and human rights. Should the judiciary, a non-elected entity, be given the power to essentially block bills and have such a massive impact on legislation? Further, with talks in the UK of repealing the Human Rights Act which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights and rulings such as R (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union , this discussion may have to be held in the close future in our own country.

The decision, whether you agree with it or not, has had a massive effect on US politics, both in terms of legislation and electoral politics. One is inclined to believe that the Citizens United case has had a net negative effect on US politics; the influx of money poured in by mass corporations and super PACs have effectively amplified the voices of the common people; the individual donors who contributed small amounts of money, are at a significant risk of being neglected by their representative. So, is democracy in the US "for sale"? Perhaps it is.

Words / Go Kitajima, L6SBB Illustration / Koshu Kunii

Has judicial review in the US become overpowered?

What can historians learn from the study of past empires and imperialism?

“he best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour” is a saying that has been attributed to many people and is apt for describing the human condition and how we, as a species, operate. Over the course of history humans went from being hunter-gatherers, to living in farms and small villages, eventually reaching to what we know as nation states today. This evolution in how humans run society is deeply connected to how humans operate and so it should be no surprise that, like humans, the best predicator for the behaviour of nation states is said states’ behaviour in the past. The main lesson that historians can learn from the study of past empires and imperialism is that the legacy and actions of past empires remain to this day and affect the foreign and domestic policy of the countries that used to dominate the world.

History does not repeat itself, but events often echo down; an example being WW2, just decades after The Great War had started. This is the case with imperialism. There have been numerous empires in the past, from the Spanish Empire to the British, the French to the Russian and the Portuguese to the Dutch. Whilst much of the physical territory of these past empires has been lost to various independence movements, the echoes of imperialism still rattle through the world and to prove this it is best to look at the actions of these states today and their relationship to the imperialism of yesterday.

With recent current events, Russia is a perfect example to demonstrate this idea. Much of what was part of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and even Russia today was conquered from the 1700s to the early 1900s. The Russian Empire spanned from Warsaw to Juneau and, as is the case with most empires, contained countless citizens who were not of Russian descent and who were unhappy being governed by a country which was not representative of their people. The Russian Empire chugged along as the rest of Europe industrialised, and this saw Russia implode into chaos and civil war after its capitulation to Germany in the First World War. During this chaos,

Tmany of the states once governed by Russia broke free. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland all enjoyed new independence whilst Russia burnt. In this chaos, Ukraine temporarily split too with the help of German and Austro-Hungarian troops, but this was short-lived as the country was retaken by the Soviets in the Ukrainian-Soviet War. Some time passed and with the reintegration of the Caucus States, the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin was poised on the brink of war with Germany. The Soviet Union was meant to be a place of equality and was meant to represent the opinions of the people, it was meant to be a Bolshevik state (an oxymoron, I know) that opposed western imperialism, but this did not stop them annexing the Baltic states, invading Finland, and securing half of Poland in a deal with the Germans. The question is why would they do this? The answer to that question is that the imperialistic mindset and legacy of the Russian Empire remained. Like people, countries often look to the past and want to return to a period where they were at the peak of their power and at their most well-off. Despite the Soviet Union meaning to stand against imperialism, they instead partook in it. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this has been demonstrated again with Russia supporting various insurrections in their former territories such as in Georgia and in Ukraine. Like the Soviet Union, modern Russia can just not let go of their past which has led to the current war in Ukraine, with Russia attempting to regain control and influence over not just Ukraine. This is a perfect example of how historians should learn that the legacy of past empires and imperialism lives on due to its nature of uplifting the ones driving it. More examples of this are the French neo-colonial stranglehold of Africa with their economic control over their former territories (Françafrique) solidifying this or the intervention by France, the UK and the USA into the affairs of various Middle Eastern and North African countries to enhance their control and influence in those areas and to benefit from the masses of natural resources and oil in the areas, with the NATO intervention in Libya being a prime illustration of this.

Now that it has been established that the best predicator for how nations who had empires act on

the international stage is how they have acted in the past, another lesson which historians can learn from the study of past empires and imperialism is that it will eventually all come crashing down. It has been said before that the average age of an empire is a mere 250 years. This has been demonstrated time and time again with the collapse of the Spanish Empire in the Americas from their wars with the Libertadores (the liberators of Spanish and Portuguese territories in the Americas), the collapse of the British Empire in the 1950s and similarly the French Empire at the same time. The very idea of an empire is built on one group having control over many others. Whilst this can bring great fortune in the short term, in the long term this is highly unsustainable because, at some point, at least one of the many oppressed ‘lesser’ groups of the empires will get tired of being the ‘lesser’ group and will rise up. Often at the beginning of an empire’s rule these can be put down as they are generally smaller and less coordinated such as the various revolts put down by the British in India but as seen by the 1950s, at some point there is a simultaneous effort to remove the oppressive class. This is best summed up by Stephen Vizinczey; “All a great power has to do to destroy itself is persist in trying to do the impossible.”

Empires do not always have to be one nation controlling the physical territory of another, however. It can be argued that the USA is itself an empire, with its economic control over the global economy and its massive military and influence which it exerts on smaller nations. But, with the recent rise of China, this has been greatly challenged and the power of the US machine has somewhat taken a backseat with China picking up the pieces left by them. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this year will mark 247 years since the founding of the United States of America; a nation built on the genocide and oppression of native Americans (continuing to this day), slavery, the invasion of Mexico (1846-1848) and their economic might which pushed them to being the global superpower (or global empire) which it is today. I would also argue that this is what we are seeing in Spain now. Before the unification of Castille and Aragon, there was no such thing as a single Spanish state. But since then, with the power based in Madrid, the Castilian dominated government has systematically attempted to homogenise the country

as the leaders of France had done by almost wiping out all the regional dialects in their state. In recent history, this is best seen with the fascist dictator, Francisco Franco banning regional languages such as Basque and Catalan being spoken as it threatened his vision of a united Spanish identity and, in a way, his own domestic empire. Today we are seeing the result of this, with Catalonia repeatedly vying for independence, with the only logical conclusion that this comes to is that Catalonia will gain independence, whether it be in 10 years or 100 years, and this can be assumed by what happened with Ireland and their treatment by the UK, which eventually led to their own independence. The breakup of imperialist states is inevitable and will happen sooner or later, only depending on how determined they are to keep hold of their power.

Maybe it isn’t just death and taxes that are guaranteed in life, but also the repetition of past imperialism and the actions of modern empires through the use of neo-colonialism and the eventual collapse of those empires. All throughout history and still to this day, numerous examples of these two lessons have occurred and have been repeated, so there is no reason for historians to suspect they won’t repeat again in 5, 10, 100 or 1000 years; that is if we don’t destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons by then.

Words / Freddie Fulham, L6DAB Illustration / Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona

To what extent did Finland contribute to the events of World War 2?

INTRODUCTION

The Second World War – a global conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945 and involved almost every single country on the planet. It is estimated that 100 million military personnel took part in the war from more than 30 different countries. Furthermore, World War 2 was by far the deadliest conflict ever, with an estimated 70 to 85 million casualties, unfortunately most of whom were civilians.

But where does Finland fit into all of this? The Nordic (not Scandinavian) country of around 5.5 million inhabitants is a leader in many global metrics, some of which include the World Happiness Index, HDI and general freedom of speech and transparency between the government and the public, but how did such a developed nation come to be? How much of an impact did Finland have on the outcome of WWII? How much did it contribute to the instability that this global conflict caused?

This essay will be looking at and discussing the three conflicts that Finland was involved with in World War 2, in chronological order: the Winter War, the Continuation War and the Lapland War, with context given before each of the main discussions for each section.

A SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF FINLAND UP TO 1940

The coastal areas of Finland were conquered by Sweden during the Northern Crusades in the 12th century. However, most of Finland at that point only consisted of small towns and chiefdoms so, the three Swedish crusades that happened throughout that period had little resistance, albeit with some notable defeats at the hands of Finnish tribes. Slowly but surely, the area known as Finland soon became an integral part of the Kingdom of Sweden and remained so until 1809, at which point it was ceded

to the Russian Empire as a result of the Finnish War. Finland then became known as The Grand Duchy of Finland and enjoyed much more independence under Russian rule. Shortly before the collapse of the Russian Empire, however, Nicholas II attempted to “russify” Finland and eliminate its political autonomy, but thanks to the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland was able to declare independence completely. After a brutal civil war between the Soviet-backed Reds and the German-backed Whites, which resulted in a Whites victory, a short-lived monarchy was established with Frederick Charles, the brother-inlaw of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, elected to be King. However, following the German Empire’s defeat in World War 1, Charles renounced the thrown and plans were then made to establish Finland as a republic. It was officially confirmed to be one in the Finnish Constitution of 1919. Following Finland’s independence, things remained relatively calm with Finland able to maintain strong relations with the United States and Sweden but tensions with the Soviet Union were ongoing.

THE WINTER WAR Context

The Soviet Union, aware of Germany’s growing power at the time, sought to push its border with Finland on the Karelian Isthmus in order to help increase the security of Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg), in case of a potential German attack. In addition to wanting to change the border on the Isthmus, the Soviets also demanded a naval base at the area of Hanko as well as several islands in the Gulf of Finland in exchange for some Soviet land further north. The 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact also solidified the Soviet Union’s interest in not only the smaller Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, but also Finland. Unfortunately for the Baltic states, they gave in to the Soviets’ demands and were shortly thereafter annexed. However, Finland continued to reject their offer. Upon rejection, the Soviet Union launched an invasion of Finland on November 30th, 1939, thus beginning the Winter War.

MAIN DISCUSSION

The first of the three wars that Finland would fight during the course of World War 2 was one that was not expected to last exceedingly long at all. Looking at infantry numbers alone, there were approximately 1 million Soviet troops that crossed the border that day, with only around 346,000 Finnish troops at their strongest point in March 1940 able to match that number. However, despite the odds the Finns were able to defend their sovereignty with minimal territorial losses and negotiate for peace on 13th March 1940.

One could argue that Finland had quite a significant impact on the events of WW2 because, indirectly of course, the Soviets’ failure to annex Finland showed Nazi Germany that the Soviet Union was not really that big of a threat at all. Most

countries at the time thought that Finland would be overrun in mere days. It could then be said that because of this embarrassment, Nazi Germany assumed that they would be able to take the Soviet Union with relative ease.

Although, it must be stated that Finland’s valiant and successful defence against the Soviet Union was not the sole reason for Germany’s increased willingness to invade. Hitler was very openly anticommunist, and it is believed that Hitler had always had plans to invade the Soviets at some point in order to fulfil his goal of Lebensraum which involved expanding eastwards from Germany to accommodate for the growing German population. This embarrassment just strengthened Hitler’s belief that communists were inferior and so it is clear that “he [was always] intended[ing] to destroy what he saw as Stalin’s ‘Jewish Bolshevist’ regime and establish Nazi hegemony” (Source: iwm.org.uk). Additionally, the aforementioned territorial losses were most definitely a key part of Finland’s desire to participate in Operation Barbarossa (this will be covered in much more detail in the next section) which, one could argue, could have influenced the events of the Operation and the War as a whole.

THE CONTINUATION WAR Context

The period of time in which there were no hostilities between the Soviet Union and Finland, rightly dubbed “The Interim Peace,” was one of great political significance. This was firstly due to the several attempts by Finland to form defensive alliances/ general alliances with various countries. Some examples include: an attempted Nordic Defence Alliance (which failed due to threats by the Soviet Union against the formation of such an alliance) and strengthened relationships with the UK and the Nazi Germany. Whilst trying to strengthen their relationship with the Third Reich, unbeknownst to Finland, Adolf Hitler had already begun planning out Operation Barbarossa, something that Finland would soon become a significant part of.

On 22nd June 1941, Germany commenced the start of Operation Barbarossa by invading the Soviet Union. Finland was then able to begin its part in the operation three days later when the Soviet Union conducted an air raid on Finnish cities, which allowed Finland to promptly declare war, thus marking the start of the Continuation War.

MAIN DISCUSSION

One could argue that this war was Finland’s most significant contribution to the events of World War 2 simply because of the sheer magnitude of the operation and the amount of damage caused to the Soviet Union as a result. The Soviets had a large border that they needed to defend from the onslaught of joint German and Finnish offensives. A very convincing example of the damage caused by the war is in the Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the largest battle

in history in the Nordic region which subsequently caused upwards of 27,500 total casualties for the Soviet Union, compared to approximately 8,750 total casualties for Finland. Furthermore, in addition to regaining all of its lost territories as a result of the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940, Finland, together with some smaller German divisions, were able to push into Soviet land, proving further to Stalin that Finland may have been more trouble than it was worth.

However, one could counter this argument by saying that although Finland had proved to initially be an annoyance for the Soviet Union, it didn’t necessarily affect the outcome of the Operation as a whole as the Soviets would later turn the tide of the war after their victory at the Battle of Stalingrad (disputedly the bloodiest conflict in human historyclaiming approximately 747,300 – 868,374 Nazi lives and 1,129,619 Soviet lives). Additionally, one could add that although the advances that the much smaller Finnish forces made were impressive, Stalin wished to punish Finland for their actions, more severely than in the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940, which led to Finland losing not only more than what they had lost at the conclusion of the Winter War, but also approximately 10% of its land mass.

Therefore, one could argue that the Continuation War did not actually end up having such a substantial impact on the events of World War 2 as a whole as despite the obstacles that the Finnish involvement in Operation Barbarossa caused the Soviet Union, the Russians still managed to defeat the German forces at Stalingrad and turn the tide of the war.

THE LAPLAND WAR Context and Discussion

The last of Finland’s wars was quite an uneventful and short one, hence why the context and relatively brief discussion for this war have been merged in with one another.

The Moscow Armistice of 1944 had demanded that Finnish forces expel German troops that had been stationed in Finnish Lapland. The terms of the Treaty included the use of force to remove the Nazi forces. Both Finland and Germany knew that the 2-week period that the Soviet Union gave for German troops to leave without having to be removed by force was unrealistic due to the harsh weather conditions and sheer size of the army itself. Despite Finland’s best efforts to delay the deadline as much as possible, fighting between Finnish and the fleeing German forces began on 19th September 1944. However, aside from a few smaller conflicts in the 7-month period that the war lasted, only minor casualties were suffered by both sides (~4,300 for Germany and ~3,940 for Finland).

Although, one could still argue that this war, although small, still had some significance, at least politically. This is because one could argue that it signified a harsh truth to Germany: that now essentially every country in the world was either for or against them. However, quite clearly, it is easy to

see the insignificance of this war due to the dwindling number of casualties as well as the fact that not much fighting had actually occurred between the two sides.

In the end, after 7 months, 1 week and 1 day of fighting between Nazi Germany and Finland, the last German troops left Lapland on the 27th of April 1945, thus ending World War 2 in Finland.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I believe that given all the conflicts that Finland was involved in over the course of World War 2, Finland did not contribute very much to the events of World War 2. This is because although Finland did successfully humiliate the Soviet Union in the Winter War, Germany was still defeated at the historic Battle of Stalingrad and what should have been a clear victory for the Nazis turned into a harsh drawn-out battle that ultimately resulted in a Soviet victory.

However, this is not to say that Finnish involvement in World War 2 was not completely pointless if you were to look at them just as a country, by themselves. For instance, what may have looked like a “loss” for Finland in the Winter War (having to cede around 9% of its territory) is actually celebrated as an overwhelming victory for Finns even to this day. Despite being heavily outnumbered and completely and utterly in the face of adversity, the Finnish forces were able to defend Finland’s sovereignty. Additionally, the “counter-invasion” of the Soviet Union by Finland in the Continuation War also showed a profound sense of national pride in their efforts to restore their original borders before they were taken by the Soviet Union. Finland had long suffered under, firstly, Swedish rule, and then Russian rule, in which, towards the end, the whole Finnish national identity was planned on being wiped out completely by the last Tsar. Therefore, you could argue, that this invasion by Finland was their “chance” to show the Soviet Union how strong they could really be and how, again, the Soviet interest in Finland may have been more trouble than it was worth.

Overall, Finnish involvement in World War 2 was one not of conquest or greed, like many others, but one of resilience, determination, and courage.

Words / Sebastian Pabst, 4PET Photography / Kolmen Valtakunnan

London

Strangers see London, they see elegance, A sleek red bus rolling past a palace. But beneath the surface lies more elements, Problems that are getting hard to manage.

Knives and Nike tracksuits, blades hidden in parks, Youngsters are maneuvered into violence. The waters of London are filled with sharks Yet all these battles are sparred in silence.

Streets crowded with huge populations, Housing hassles are battled far and wide. Communities verge on deprivation, Parents working, struggling to provide.

Quiet discrimination still occurs, Minorities still fighting for respect. Ignorance, foolishness and strange slurs, Beneath the surface, London isn’t perfect.

Words / Kian Mahmood, 2PAR Pjhotography / Lachlan Gowen

A poem written in an English lesson about London, aspiring to use the same rhyme and meter as the eponymous poem by William Blake.

What is the best way to measure the success of an Empire?

Officially, there are no empires in the modern day – the United Nations recognises 195 nations and states –yet the ghosts of empires continue to influence the Earth. These groups of nations ruled over by a single monarch, oligarchy or sovereign state were tremendous powers, and played immense roles in our global history and culture. Because that is what they were: worldwide.

In this essay, I will explore the best way to determine the success of an empire, from population, to size, and even to their longevity. What was the most successful empire? Was it the British Empire, the largest empire in history, covering 35.5 million square kilometres (nearly a quarter of the world) at its peak in 1922. Or perhaps the longest reigning empire, the Roman Empire, which can be separated into three sections: The Period of Kings, Republican Rome and Imperial Rome in total lasting over 1000 years. There is no correct answer, but in this essay, I will attempt to work out the best method, or factor, to measure the success of an empire and then use this knowledge to help me answer this question.

AREA

Let us start with possibly the most obvious: area. The number of square miles or kilometres an empire ruled over. This method makes sense, as in order for an empire to gain land it must either be militarily superior to the previous owners of the land; culturally or economically superior enough that the previous inhabitants choose to be taken over by the empire; or able to discover and take control of previously uninhabited or unruled areas. Therefore, the area of an empire’s domain is a good indicator of their success, but it also has its downsides, the size of empires fluctuates wildly over time. Size may play a role in my method, but it certainly cannot stand alone, it must be tempered and improved by other considerations.

TIME

I’ve already mentioned that empires do not remain the same size for long. It can be tempting to just average out the empire’s size, but then where does that start? The first expansion from city to neighbouring city, or once it reaches some specific area? And similarly, where does it end, at the very end of the state’s existence, or at the point when decline becomes permanent and unreversed? Some empires expand and shrink quickly and abruptly, whereas others retract methodically and maintain their new size for even longer. With so many ways to average an empire’s size, each one would have a different winner,

resulting in this method’s ability to be manipulated to put any empire you want at the top.

STABILITY

Another alternative for modifying the use of size in the method is stability. Stability is a vague term, it could simply be a measure of how slowly an empire lost its territory, or even how peaceful or unchallenged their rule was. The most basic problem with this factor is the lack of sources we have on this topic for most empires, leading to it being impossible to reliably measure. Furthermore, empires are naturally unstable due to their accompanying hierarchies of power, meaning this would be more a measure of ‘least bad’ than ‘most good’. Therefore, this could even neutralise size, as the larger an empire becomes the more unstable it can (and is most likely to) be.

POPULATION

Size and all of its variants have been a frustrating tangle so far, so what about some alternatives to the area governed by an empire. For example: population, the amount of people ruled over by an empire. This does retain most of the problems encountered with size, however it also could be more effective, since it is much easier to conquer uninhabited land than actual people. Therefore, it is more effective at showing how powerful the empire is than whether they originated in a more remote area. On the other hand, population also has another issue which size does not have: later empires have a large advantage over older empires due to global population growth, a factor which has little to do with the empire’s success, thus being an unfair advantage.

The range of ways to measure the success of empires are evidently unfruitful. So, what if instead of measuring how much land or how many people they conquered, instead we take a step back and look at the empires’ legacies: the extent to which an empire has cast its influence down through history. These legacies are shadows of real power, so therefore the greater the power of the empire the more influence they would have and consequently the greater legacy they would leave. Unfortunately, as with all of the other factors in this essay, it is not without fault. It does not deliver a clear winner. However, it is the most fruitful if we are concerned with history’s relevance to the present, which is ultimately, why I wrote this essay

Words / Sam Moorhouse, 1MHT

Photography / Ilona Frey

miscellaneous

Stumped?

The question I will be answering is, "To what extent will shortformat franchise cricket leagues affect the future of international cricket?".

First of all, it is important to establish that a "franchise league", by definition, is a league with privately owned teams, but I will be taking The Hundred and BBL under this term as they don't fit the definition but are similar to other leagues. These franchise leagues have been popping up around the world since 2008, and haven't threatened international cricket until very recently, when owners of franchises in the IPL, the biggest league in the world, funded 3 new franchise leagues this year (the South African SA20, the UAE's ILT20 and the USA's MLC), prompting concerns that these leagues, of which there are now over 10, will squeeze other forms of cricket out. Therefore, as an avid cricket fan, I would like to find out what the future could look like. This question is important because cricket is the second most popular sport in the world, and is currently at a "tipping point" between international and franchise cricket. If the sport has a shift towards private investment, it will change the way cricket is played, watched, and followed by millions. I will answer this question by evaluating four sources, comparing them to see their similarities or differences, coming to an informed opinion and making a conclusion about this pressing question.

EVALUATION OF MY SOURCES

My first source argues that cricket might employ a football-style system to determine the sport's schedule. A football-style system means that franchise leagues will dominate the calendar, with a smaller window for international sport. This source argues that franchise leagues are rivalling international cricket in terms of standard and beating it in terms

of economics, and states that "bilateral cricket has been bleeding [...] in most nations outside the big three" (Sivasubramaniam, 2022). In terms of facts and statistics, the source has a section which mentions some statistics that demonstrate that franchise cricket is better economically for cricket boards than bilateral series, and also has statistics to show the rise of the franchise leagues. It also emphasises that these leagues rival or better IT20 cricket. However, this is generally an opinion article, with Sivasubramaniam's main opinion being that cricket could turn into football in terms of its calendar. The purpose of the tone of this article is formal but slightly anecdotal with some informal phrases to relate to the reader. Overall, the article is quite reliable as it provides plausible stats to back up its message, and echoes similar sentiments to other articles.

My second source (Samiuddin, 2023) argues that IPL franchise league owners, with their investment in numerous other franchise leagues across the world, have the potential to "swallow" international cricket whole. IPL franchise owners have purchased franchises in three new leagues in South Africa, the UAE and the USA, and could pursue investment in the already existing BBL and The Hundred. The source argues that if the IPL continues to expand, international cricket could potentially die away if the fans let it. To support this argument, Samiuddin uses lots of statistics and facts (such as the fact that only India will have played more T20s than Kolkata's, Mumbai's and Chennai's franchises between the start of last IPL and the end of this year's). Samiuddin's opinions about this possibility are shown in the article as well. The article has quite an informal but not unprofessional tone, with rhetorical questions and some witty comments. Overall, the article is very reliable as ESPNcricinfo is a trusted source and embedded links to prove its reliability whenever a statistic or fact is mentioned.

My third source addresses a slightly different topic to the last two: the impact of The Hundred and whether it did what it was made to do: increase cricket's popularity and diversity (Nicholson, Parry

To what extent will short-format franchise cricket leagues affect the future of international cricket?

and Reghunathan, 2022). The Hundred is a fanchise cricket tournament with an equal number of male and female teams. The article contains surveys that asked people questions like "Did The Hundred change your perception of cricket?" It emphasises that The Hundred attracted a younger, more diverse audience, but it wanted to focus on the fan experience, and overall found that it was positive - for example, "The Hundred changed perceptions of cricket for 43% of women" (Ibid.). The topics of fan experience and diversity are extensively looked into, with lots of surveys and quotations from fans on different aspects of The Hundred that make the project very reliable. The article is aimed at people who want a deeper look into the real success of The Hundred, as there is a fierce division between "purists" who oppose The Hundred and younger cricket fans who support it. The source is very reliable as every statement made is backed by research, and is a collaboration between three academics at a good university in England.

My final source argues, similarly to my second source, that the "franchise oligarchy" (Grunshaw, 2022) is on course to take over cricket, which will reduce the status of international cricket if "radical action" is not taken ((Ibid.)). It also emphasises the risk to associate nations and the growth of cricket outside the bigger nations. Grunshaw predicts the future of cricket with some facts (e.g. " all 6 franchises in CSA’s T20 League were sold to owners of existing IPL franchises") However, some predictions are slightly anecdotal and purely based off logic. The article uses formal language and very specific terminology, making it specifically for cricket fans who know much about the game and its structure. The article is relatively reliable - even though some predictions are not backed up, it makes valid points and echoes similar sentiments to other articles.

COMPARISON

Three of these sources address similar subjectsthe balance of international and domestic/franchise cricket, while the source about The Hundred is an outlier but still applies to the future of cricket in terms of its engagement and popularity. The three sources agree on one thing: T20 franchise leagues have the potential to overpower international cricket and become the main professional format. ESPNcricinfo's article and Emerging Cricket's article agree that this will happen because of the power of the IPL franchise owners and the "franchise oligarchy". All three sources agree that the three-format system is in jeopardy, but they state different reasons; Samiuddin states that the fans will decide which formats die away, while Grunshaw believes that ODIs, the "unloved middle child" (Ibid.), are most likely to be cut from the schedule. Again, all three sources agree that in the future, there is a possibility of bilaterals being scrapped and the only international cricket being league cricket. An interesting distinction to make is that Samiuddin believes that the power shift might not all be bad - he argues that the international calendar is an "abstract" (Samiuddin 2023) and cricket could

benefit from organised, consistent leagues. Grunshaw, in constrast, seems to fear the demise of international cricket, and believes that radical action needs to be taken to preserve its relevance. The Hundred source seems to think that the competition was successful in its mission to increase popularity, which shows that the general public enjoy shorter formats and could enjoy a system with more T20 franchise cricket and less international cricket.

DISCUSSION

When combining the messages of the sources, the overall meaning is clear: the cricket calendar will continue to be saturated with short-format franchise leagues and we will have to accept less or no bilateral ODI and Test cricket. With the advent of the SA20, ILT20 and MLC, there will be over 10 major franchise cricket leagues all running annually, which will prompt clashes with international series. We are already seeing the effects of this - at the time of writing, New Zealand have just played a T20 series with their "B" team because their main players were choosing the money of the IPL. As Samiuddin’s article notes, many bilateral T20 and ODI series have seemed to be played as secondary events to the big franchise leagues. However, there are many possible future scenarios expressed in these articles, but all of them predict less international cricket and more franchise cricket. All articles and statistics show that the franchise oligarchy will continue to expand, which could lead to the sacrifice of a format in the near future - most likely the ODI format, which has been played with less and less meaning recently, and lacks the "financial clout of its younger sibling, nor does it have the prestige and gravitas of its elder sibling" (Ibid.). As Sivasubramaniam's article argues, cricket could lose all of its formats except T20s and turn into a footballstyle structure, where franchise leagues dominate the calendar and there is a smaller window for international cricket. A more extreme scenario, stated in Grunshaw's article, sees "the international game die out and the professional game shrink into South Asia alone" (Grunshaw 2022), which is unwelcome but definitely possible given the rise in the BCCI's power

The obvious choice for a player trying to provide themselvesforand their family is to choose a month or two's work in the IPL

and the decrease in the ICC's.

In my opinion, franchise cricket will definitely dominate the calendar in the future due to two reasons: fan experience and player experience. In terms of fan interaction, an issue addressed in The Hundred article is the rise in popularity in cricket gained by short-format leagues, and the significance of the shortness of T20 given people's shortening attention spans. Test and ODI crowds outside the "Big Three" have noticeably become smaller while T20 international and franchise crowds have risen which reinforces the fact that T20 is a more consumerfriendly format. In terms of the player experience, the obvious choice for a player trying to provide for themselves and their family is to choose a month or two's work in the IPL, which can earn them over a million pounds, than to choose Test cricket which might pay them half a million pounds for a full year in arguably the toughest, most gruelling format. As the IPL's wingspan increases, so will the wealth of the franchises and therefore the salaries of the players in different franchise leagues, which makes franchise cricket the more viable option for almost any cricket player.

However, I do not believe Test and ODI cricket will be completely extinguished from the calendar. Samiuddin's article argues that "it is only natural that fans will choose and keep alive only what they want" (Samiuddin 2023), and Test cricket, especially in the big three, has its own large fanbase. This fanbase was prevalent in England, for example, when The Hundred was being launched, six in ten fans felt negatively towards its possible existence (Cricket Supporter's Association 2021). These fans are largely purists that would riot if Test cricket was scrapped, and are the reason why test cricket will continue to be played, albeit in fewer countries. Test cricket will, in my opinion, be played in a World Test Championship with 6 countries, with the hosts being countries such as England and Australia where there are large Test fanbases. Historic series such as the Ashes and the Border-Gavaskar trophy will also have to be played to maintain the relevance of the format. Purely because of the fans and the history, Test cricket cannot be scrapped.

In terms of ODIs, I do agree with the articles that the seemingly meaningless bilateral series will have to be scrapped. However, the ODI World Cup is by far still the biggest event in cricket, with the 2019 edition amassing a "global cumulative average audience of 1.6 billion for live coverage" (ICC 2019), the highest for an ICC event ever. So, the ODI World Cup and its qualifying stages will still have to be played every 4 years as it amasses so many fans and, like Test cricket, is steeped in history.

In terms of T20 internationals, it is a similar situation to ODIs - albeit in different circumstances. A T20 World Cup will have to be played every 2 or 4 years as it brings in big audiences, however I struggle to see the point of T20I bilaterals when the IPL franchise oligarchy takes over and players are

travelling all over the world for different leagues. Tournaments will still be played between the 90 other ICC T20 associate members in order to keep growing the game in these smaller markets. However, Grunshaw brings up a great point in his articlethe Olympics. T20Is will also have to played in the Olympics to bring more fans in and "make the game visible in more markets" (Grunshaw 2022), maybe adding more countries and preserving the relevance of the game across the entire world.

Taking all of this into account, bilateral whiteball series will probably have to be scrapped, and franchise leagues will dominate the calendar in place of these. Test cricket will preserve its relevance through some historic series and a smaller World Test Championship, although these will need their own window so they do not clash with franchise cricket. Finally, the ODI World Cup and T20 World Cup and their qualifiers will be the only international whiteball cricket other than matches between associate members.

CONCLUSION

Through answering this question, I have found out many scenarios and hypotheses on the delicate future of my favourite sport. I discussed how cricket is at a tipping point, and how player and fan popularity will lead franchise leagues into becoming the dominant professional format of cricket. I also discussed how these franchise leagues might change how international cricket is played in the future. This enabled me to find out how franchise and international cricket might be balanced in the future in a busy annual schedule. The limitations, however, of this research are that there are many different scenarios regarding the future of cricket, so the one I expressed in the Discussion might be completely right or completely wrong. So, as the new IPLfunded franchise leagues gradually integrate into the calendar, more research will need to be taken in a few years to really have a better prediction of the future. As stated before, the franchise oligarchy is taking over cricket, and international cricket could be in jeopardy. There is only so much time in a year to fit in cricket, so my question for the future is: how will the greedy franchises strike a balance between expanding and getting money or leaving space for international cricket?

Words / Kian Mahmood, 2PAR Photography / Rawpixel.com

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has made a lot of progress since 2008 when the current phase of movies began to be released. Initially, the roles of female characters were as wives, girlfriends, or mothers of the male protagonists. Now, the situation is very different with many main characters being women and women taking the roles of superheroes.

In this essay, I seek to understand how the roles of women have evolved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Primarily, I will look at acting roles and how the parts available to women have changed over the last decade. Inevitably, my research has led me to touch on other roles that women might take in the overall production of these movies but my focus remains on the acting roles.

Society in general has seen a huge shift in attitudes to female roles over the last century and this change and evolution was brought into stark light in the film industry following the controversy involving the film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017. Although gender equality was moving in a positive direction, this controversy and the associated movements of MeToo and Times Up supercharged this. Looking at the evolution of roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a vital part of understanding the overall evolution of roles for women in the industry.

As well as reviewing the literature on the subject, particularly concerning the role and influence of fans on evolution, in completing this project, I undertook direct and original research by watching a large number of the films involved. This project then concludes by not only analysing this evolution but also posing some questions for future research, particularly concerning roles for black actors and members of the LGBTQ community.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

This essay will first analyse a college essay written by Kirsten Ray from Brigham Young University titled “Gender Portrayal in Marvel Cinematic Universe Films: Gender Representation, Moral Alignment, and Rewards for Violence” (Ray, 2022). This first source is, in summary, about how the Marvel Ccinematic Universe is one of the most popular film franchises and can influence public opinion to a large extent. It goes on to provide research on how men are portrayed more as villains and women are seen as being good. Female characters are also shown to be victims of circumstances beyond their control or to do bad things because they are under duress or forced to do something. This was useful from the point

of view of general information about women in the movies, but it also spent a lot of time looking at the role of violence in the movies and how women characters were perceived. This is not an aspect of the review that relates to the overall subject of the essay. This source had been peer-checked by the faculty of Brigham Young University which, in this essay, includes the chair of the university-Mark Callister- which further enhances the reliability of this essay because of the seniority of their position. However, since this essay was written there have been two female-dominated releases including: “Black Widow” and “Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever”, thus rendering the study somewhat out-of-date. Both of these films promoted the female warrior status as they both -first or secondhand- killed someone. However, the film still clings to the bad situation of female fighters as the black widow was sent to a military camp at a young age and Shuri was dealing with the death of her mother and brother while the whole nation of Wakanda looked to her for protection.

A lot of the literature reviewed so far analyses the development of female roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and examines the reactions of fans to this growth. Some literature looks at the roles they play and whether they play villains or portray “the good guys”. One master’s thesis from Malmo University by Kosradinova examines how fans react to the characters using analysis of comments and content on Reddit (Kosradinova, 2022). In this essay, two films are specifically analysed including: “Black Widow” and “Avengers: Endgame”. They then observe the general opinions on Reddit

The rise of women in Marvel: How do they compare to the men?

and use the affective disposition theory and feminist media theory to make sense of them. The first technique used is a way to monitor the fan’s affection for the characters based, not on the movie, but on the characters alone. The latter is about the stereotyping of female characters in media, specifically in movies. While this is useful and draws some conclusions about the support female characters receive from their fans, the shortcomings of using this social media platform are not fully explored. This means that any inadvertent or subconscious bias on the platform may be missed. For example, are fans on Reddit more likely to be male? Would including an analysis of other sources such as Instagram introduce more balance to the study?

In Choudhry’s study, ‘Evolution of the Female Characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Representation, Writing and Criticism’ there is a detailed look at both the number of female roles and, more interestingly, an analysis of the depth and complexity of the roles, when compared to those of men (Ibid.). Here, she puts forward the idea that although the numbers may have increased, the roles for women are less valuable or interesting and hints at the idea that this diversity may just be tokenism. The female roles are still seen as being love interests

to the main, male, characters. This harks back to the old days of comics when women were the wives, girlfriends, or mothers of superheroes. Choudhry also looks at the amount of screen time each character has. Using the example of Okoye in Avengers: Endgame, she says that she is a formidable fighter but has nowhere near the amount of screen time as any of the male characters (Choudhry, 2023). Although all these articles focused on different aspects of equality in the Marvel Cinematic universe. They all agree on the fact that all female antagonists are forced to do what they do by circumstances, rather than their own will. In my opinion, two women who took horrible actions like Black Widow and Wanda started as good people. The Black Widow was taken to a military camp at a young age, separated from her father, and was sterilised. This made her grow up to be a cold-blooded killer before she found hope in Tony Stark and later became part of the Avengers. Wanda also had a tragic backstory. The only person she cared about, her brother, was killed and when she found her love interest, who had to sacrifice himself for the greater good. This then led Wanda to enslave a town with mind control because of her circumstances. Overall, there has been an improvement in pay, screen time, and plot relevance for female characters, but they are still not shown as

true evil killers in any film. These characters and roles have all evolved tremendously since 2008, but there is still work to be done in representation and screen time for the black and LGBTQ communities.

DISCUSSION

One of the main movie franchises over the last decade has been the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It evolved from the comic industry of the 1930s, it is now one of the most successful franchises ever and my research looks at this in much more detail.

In the franchise, the first major female character to appear in 2010 was Black Widow. Similarly to other representations of women in the franchise, she was introduced as a supporting role when she appeared as the love interest in Iron Man 2. However, by 2015, she had a much fuller part in the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. The same evolution happened for the character Pepper Potts, who moved from simply a love interest in her first movie to heading up Stark Industries by the time she appeared in Avengers: Endgame in 2019. The MCU’s first female lead followed shortly after this with the character of Captain Marvel in 2019. This film also had several strong female characters. Subsequent movies such as Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarök, and Guardians of the Galaxy all had really strong supporting actor roles for women.

The wider environment in the industry has had an impact as the dates of Weinstein’s downfall -2017and the release of the first movie where female characters make the move from background love interests in Marvel movies (Captain Marvel, 2018) would appear to confirm this.

Movements such as Times Up also called for more female representation in the leadership of the film industry and achieving this is about showing that women have strong role models in the industry, leading to further representation on screen too. For example, the Executive Producer for every Marvel movie since 2008 has been Victoria Alonso and many more women are taking leading roles in directing, casting, and cinematography. Despite these positive steps into senior positions, the question of a gender pay gap in the industry is prominent. Unfortunately, establishing any true figures on a pay gap is exceptionally difficult as pay forms part of a confidential contract. However, although it is difficult, recent cases involving Scarlett Johansson possibly being paid more than her male co-star suggest that progress is being made at the very top of the industry. Even if this is true, it is worth noting that this is not always the case, and the Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego University carries out regular research into the roles played by women in movies and in 2022, showed that only 33% of top roles went to women as opposed to 52% to men (Child, 2015).

Whilst the research and the data suggest that progress is being made in female roles and work for actors, there is more work needed to examine issues such as age and ethnicity. Although female roles

may be evolving in terms of numbers and depth of characters, there is still a bias towards younger and white actors. For example, in It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: Portrayals of Female Characters in Top Grossing Films of 2022, Centre for Study of Women in Television and Film, 21.6% of female roles were taken by black actors and there was bias towards younger women with 36% in their 30s, dropping to 14% in their 40s.

CONCLUSION

In beginning this work, it could have been assumed that the evolution of the role of women in Marvel films was happening because of the Harvey Weinstein controversy, but it is clear from the dates above that the evolution was happening in advance of the scandal. As noted, Black Widow was a full character some two years before this scandal fully emerged. What was interesting in conducting this research was that there were several key findings from my question. Firstly, roles for women have evolved and influenced the academic interest in “the fandom”, the numerous fans of the film franchise who comment on the films, the storylines, and the characters. This is all done through social media and we must be conscious of the potential biases of various forms of social media with different channels attracting different groups, genders, etc (Kostandiva, 2022). Another surprise in the completion of this work was how difficult it was to research salary levels. Salaries are part of an actor’s contract and, as such, are confidential. However, there was one story reported in the press that did suggest that the gender pay gap may be narrowing (Child, 2015). Finally, although this work specifically looked at the evolution of female roles in the mainstream of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it did expose the fact that there are fewer mainstream black or gay characters. The Black Panther movies are an attempt to be more ethnically and racially diverse, as such, going forward, I would like to research this area and what progress has been made and could made in their representation.

Words / Patrick Carswell, 2LJA

Illustrations / Natasha Romanoff

This essay was originally written as part of the Ignite course in Second Form.

I don’t know how far away the moon lies, but here is how I proved the Doppler Effect!

Christian Doppler, born in 1803, was an Austrian mathematician and physicist, famously celebrated for being the first to propose the principle, now called the “Doppler effect”, which he described as the apparent change in the frequency or wavelength of a wave when there is relative motion between the source of the wave and the observer.

John Scott Russell, a Scottish engineer, was the first to experimentally prove the Doppler effect in 1948: he found that the sound of the whistle of an engine stationary on the trainline was heard by a passenger to sound a different note in a moving train – in a different key from that in which it was heard by the person standing beside it. Since then, this phenomenon has become a crucial part of life, allowing us to calculate the expansion of the universe, calculate the rotational speeds of stars and galaxies, detect the speed of vehicles with radar, and much more. The Doppler effect can help us calculate anything emitting waves with a velocity, and and this attracted me to the idea of trying to prove its fundamental existence. It has become a crucial instrument in many of modern astronomy’s discoveries and its significance drew me towards it.

RESEARCH QUESTION AND METHOD

I am looking to find a relationship between speed and change in observed frequency. I will achieve this by moving the RC car (attached is a speaker playing a known frequency) at various speeds past a microphone. Therefore, the equipment I need is as follows:

> Tape measure

> Stopwatch

> RC Car

> Speaker

> Microphone connected to an audio spectrometer

> Camera on a tripod

• Calculate the speed as the time taken to cross the

The method is as follows:

> Let the car accelerate to varying speeds before it crosses the tape measure;

Therefore, I was able to calculate the speed of the RC car by dividing three (meters) by the time taken for each run. I was able to calculate all frequency differences by simply subtracting the emitted frequency (that I knew to be 10,000 Hz due the result when it was stationary as shown below)

Therefore, I was able to calculate the speed of the RC car by dividing three (meters) by the time taken for each run. I was able to calculate all frequency differences by simply subtracting the emitted frequency (that I knew to be 10,000 Hz due the result when it was stationary as shown below)

Therefore, I was able to calculate the speed of the RC car by dividing three (meters) by the time taken for each run. I was able to calculate all frequency differences by simply subtracting the emitted frequency (that I knew to be 10,000 Hz due the result when it was stationary as shown below)

• Compare the observed frequency (which should be the mic) with the known frequency and relate the difference

> Record the time at which the RC car crosses the tape measure and leaves the tape measure, ensuring acceleration is zero throughout this period (by not pressing any harder on the accelerator);

Stationary Peak Frequency result

Therefore, the independent variable in this experiment is the RC car’s speed, dependent variable is the observed frequency, and the control variable is the frequency output by the source- which I will keep at 10,000Hz.

> Have the microphone held along the tape measure portion of the runway;

Setup

> Calculate the speed as the time taken to cross the tape measure length;

> Compare the observed frequency (which should be measured before the car passes the mic) with the known frequency and relate the difference to the speed of travel.Therefore, the independent variable in this experiment is the RC car’s speed, while the dependent variable is the observed frequency, and the control variable is the frequency output by the source- which I will keep at 10,000Hz.

to the speed of travel.

SETUP

Therefore, the independent variable in this experiment is the RC car’s speed, while the dependent variable is the observed frequency, and the control variable is the frequency output by the source- which I will keep at 10,000Hz. Setup

Example Set-up

Results

Results

RESULTS

Stationary Peak Frequency result

As such, using the power of mental arithmetic, I was able to achieve these final results:

As such, using the power of mental arithmetic, I was able to achieve these final results:

As such, using the power of mental arithmetic, I was able to achieve these final results:

Results

Results

GRAPH OF RELATIONSHIP

Graph of relationship

Graph of relationship

RC Car with speaker (blurry black box on its boot)

Using this data (as well as the data of a ‘control’ run where the RC car is not moving, so frequency difference is 0 because the peak frequency is 10,000 Hz, as pictured above) I was able to plot a relationship between the speed and the frequency difference:

Using this data (as well as the data of a ‘control’ run where the RC car is not moving, so frequency difference is 0 because the peak frequency is 10,000 Hz, as pictured above) I was able to plot a relationship between the speed and the frequency difference:

Using this data (as well as the data of a ‘control’ run where the RC car is not moving, so frequency difference is 0 because the peak frequency is 10,000 Hz, as pictured above) I was able to plot a relationship between the speed and the frequency difference:

Digital stopwatch

Audio Spectrum

Using such a setup, I was able to achieve these results:

Using such a setup, I was able to achieve these results:

Graph showing linear relationship

Here it is evident that the difference in frequency is proportional to the speed of the source, and as the source’s speed increased, the observed frequency would too. Error bars indicate an error of 0.1 in the x-direction due to human (my) reaction speed, however errors in the observed frequency are insignificant , since the inaccuracy of the microphone-Spectrometer combination was 50*1/17 Hz (which is just under 3Hz). This is also why the Spectrometer UI as pictured above contains 17 bars per 50 Hz!

Improvements that I would make

• I was interested in trying to re-do this experiment, but swapping the observer and the source, such that the speaker was a fixed point and instead the microphone travelled on the RC car, but having attempted this for a while I did not get a single reliable data point! The RC car was far too noisy, and drowned out any other noise for the microphone to pick up.

• In general, the RC car was very difficult to manage, and despite me not touching the steerer would refuse to travel in a straight line:

Here it is evident that the difference in frequency is proportional to the speed of the source, and as the source’s speed increased, the observed frequency would too. Error bars indicate an error of 0.1 in the x-direction due to human (my) reaction speed, however errors in the observed frequency are insignificant , since the inaccuracy of the microphoneSpectrometer combination was 50*1/17 Hz (which is just under 3Hz). This is also why the Spectrometer UI as pictured above contains 17 bars per 50 Hz!

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d4FFjVWLOCcbz7P_OWm1pAhw

This was an infuriating problem that cost hours of researching to find no correct fix! It appeared that the RC car was faulty out of the factory and had misaligned wheels- after each run, I had to bend their orientation into a vaguely straight fashion. The sloped road which was of poor quality certainly didn’t help me here, but it was all that I could find tucked away from traffic.

• Doing this outdoors was incredibly difficult! I attempted this practical outside, right next to a train track, which meant that many runs were invalidated by the noisy trains, but also rain and wind led to desperate measures when I had to tape down the tape measure! (What a toungetwister!)

IMPROVEMENTS THAT I WOULD MAKE

> I was interested in trying to re-do this experiment, but swapping the observer and the source, such that the speaker was a fixed point and instead the microphone travelled on the RC car, but having attempted this for a while I did not get a single reliable data point! The RC car was far too noisy, and drowned out any other noise for the microphone to pick up.

> In general, the RC car was very difficult to manage, and despite me not touching the steerer would refuse to travel in a straight line.This was an infuriating problem that cost hours of researching to find no correct fix! It appeared that the RC car was faulty out of the factory and had misaligned wheels after each run, I had to bend their orientation into a vaguely straight fashion. The sloped road which was of poor quality certainly didn’t help me here, but it was all that I could find tucked away from traffic.

> Doing this outdoors was incredibly difficult! I attempted this practical outside, right next to a train track, which meant that many runs were invalidated by the noisy trains, but also rain and wind led to desperate measures when I had to tape down the tape measure! (What a tongue twister!)

CONCLUSION

Despite the challenges, I was effectively able to prove a relationship between the speed and change in frequency of a source, thereby proving the Doppler effect. The gradient I achieved for the relationship was approximately 11.1. However, using the Doppler equation for a moving source, with the points (0,0) and (5,153.37)- where f is 10,000Hz, v is the speed of sound in air (331ms-1) and us is the speed of the car in ms-1, I achieve a gradient of about 30.5 (with the equation y = 10000 * [331/(331+x)] – 10000 , with values of us between 0 and 5. The difference may have come from a different value for the speed of sound through the air, since the weather conditions and harsh wind may have altered the flow and speed of sound through the air between the speaker and the microphone. If I had the opportunity to try this experiment again, I would replace the vehicle from an RC car to something much quieter, easier to control, and indoor-friendly: possibly an electric train set? Regardless, I had great fun doing this experiment, was really happy to get a clean linear relationship, and thank you for this wonderful opportunity.

Words / Daniel Shnaydman, L6SBB

• Finally, it was important to ensure that the source was moving towards the microphone, not away when I took the reading- since then the doppler effect would work in direction to decrease the frequency of the observed wave. This proved tasking the narrow window in which I could measure the observed frequency.

> Finally, it was important to ensure that the source was moving towards the microphone, and not away when I took the reading- since then the doppler effect would work in the opposite direction to decrease the frequency of the observed wave. This proved taxing because of the narrow window in which I could measure the observed frequency.

> However, things I expected to be issues (such as maintaining a constant speed once I had accelerated to the desired speed) were non-issues. The accelerator trigger was stiff and more than happy to stay stuck in one spot.

• However, things I expected to be issues (such as maintaining a constant speed accelerated to the desired speed) were none-issues. The accelerator trigger was more than happy to stay stuck in one spot.

First submitted for the University of Cambridge Peterhouse Kelvin Science Essay Competition – Winner

Photography / Alexander Andrews

How does music affect the brain?

Playing music is an entertaining activity for many people of all ages, and some people question why they are told to learn an instrument and there are many reasons, excluding just making a beautiful sound.

Research has found that there are a large number of positive impacts including the increase of certain parts of the brain; mainly the enlargement of the corpus collosum which is the bridge between the left and the right side of the brain. It is also responsible for the improvement in cognitive skills which help in many things and tasks throughout life. In this essay I will delve into detail and write about how much of an impact music has on the human brain.

SOURCE 1

My first source (Collins, 2017), a Ted Talk video by Anita Collins based on how neuroscientists have found ways to see how the brain works with machines like FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and PET (Position Emission Tomography); these instruments show activity in the brain from performing different tasks.

When neuroscientists used them on people listening to music, they saw that multiple areas of the brain lit up as the brain decoded the music to understand the different musical elements. This showed their brains were simultaneously processing information in very fast sequences. The video also talks about how playing a musical instrument engages the motor, visual and auditory cortices of the brain.

The repeated practice of playing music makes the brain functions stronger; this allows it to deploy the strengthened parts of the brain into different activities. Furthermore, playing instruments requires good motor skills which is controlled by both hemispheres of the brain and combines the mathematical skill of the left side of the brain and the creativity of the right side of the brain. As a result

of this, it is shown to increase activity in the corpus callosum the bridge between the two sides which makes the passing of signals faster. This could allow musicians the solve problems in a faster than people who do not play instruments, and potentially in a more effective way.

The video also talks about how when playing music, you have to understand the emotions of the piece in order to play it well. As a result of this, musicians often have higher levels of executive function (a category of interlinked tasks that requires analysis of emotional and cognitive aspects). This impacts how the memory works, as such musicians show better memory functions; from storing and retrieving memories more efficiency, studies show that musicians give their memories tags such as an emotional tag or a conceptual tag.

This video assists to answer how music affects the brain, and the source was quite accessible given its form as a video. Moreover, it provided a large amount of information about the inner workings of the brain and explained the science behind it really well. The source is reliable as it comes from TED, which is a respected source. However, it was last updated in 2018, which leads to open to potentially being outdated.

SOURCE 2

My second source is an article by Curtis Dean about how playing a musical instrument can benefit your mental health (Dean, 2021). In the article, Dean explores how playing music can release bottled up emotions and that one does not need to be good at an instrument for the mental release to happen. Dean also explores the positive impacts of how playing an instrument is an outlet for self-expression and nourishes creativity.

One of the article’s main focuses is how psychological treatments of Alzheimer's Disease became more frequent in the 1960s, and that the most popular one is “Musical Therapy”. This focus highlights the importance of music to memory, while the article also stresses that many therapists strongly advise the use of it as soon as possible with the on-set of Alzheimer’s.

The article refers to the playing of music like our brain doing many exercises and that music uses both sides of the brain to perform, the creative right side and the logistical left side. It discusses the effect of aging: that as people age the volume of their brain shrinks and they can become slow in recalling memories, reacting to situations, and processing information. However, it also stresses that playing an instrument can majorly decrease the degeneration process. Moreover, it can lower the likelihood of

depression as playing music produces dopamine and lowers blood pressure (Dean, 2021).

Studies that compare brain scans of people who play instruments and people who do not. The scans show that they have a difference in the size of their corpus callosum as a musician’s corpus callosum is larger than a non-musician and the parts of the brain that control hearing, movement, and visuospatial abilities are bigger in musicians. This information provides direct evidence to answer how music affects the brain, as it illustrates the mental and physical impacts of playing an instrument. The source is reliable as it was published by ‘Painted Brain’ is a mental health organisation, and it is recent.

There are similarities between my first two sources as both talk about the corpus callosum and the positive aspects of music on the brain. The main difference between them is that the second source also focuses on the mental health impacts of playing an instrument, while the first source focuses more on the neurological science of music.

term benefits to the brain, learning in one’s sixties can boost the brain’s health and decrease the loss of memory and cognitive function (Sapega, 2017). The article focuses a lot on a study that was performed on 60-85-year-olds and gave some of them musical lessons and the others none. After 6 months, the people who had received musical lessons had shown more gain in memory, verbal fluency, planning ability, rate of processed information and cognitive functions (Sapega, 2017).

This source’s information helps to answer how music affects the brain as it gives a lot of detail about the inner workings of the brain. Moreover, it explains the science in great depth and talks about tests that neuroscientists have made to prove the theory. This source is similar to Collins’ source as both texts illustrate how fine motor skills are needed contribute to the improved memory and cognitive function. All sources agree that playing an instrument is a great exercise for the brain and that it helps with cognitive function.

DISCUSSION

From analysing my sources, it is clear that they all agree that music can improve the brain’s cognitive abilities. This is because it enables instrumentalists to have heightened memory, attention span, reasoning, thinking, learning, and reading. Playing an instrument helps by processing information quickly by sending it to the correct areas of the brain. It also helps when one needs to retrieve the processed information. As such, I have divided my Discussion into three areas that were present in my three sources: memory; attention span; reasoning and learning.

Memory

SOURCE 3

My third source explores the question: “is playing a musical instrument better for your brain than just listening?” (Sapega, 2017). The article conveys that playing an instrument engages every major part of the central nervous system, using the left and right side of the brain, and explores how playing most instruments requires fine motor skills as each finger on each hand has to do something different. As musicians need to plan for what is coming next in a piece, the brain’s executive functions come in to play too. In the article, Sapega really stresses that by playing an instrument, the visual, auditory, and emotional sensory inputs turn into an extremely good exercise for the brain.

The article also touches on how even though learning an instrument as a child provides long-

Improved cognitive abilities enhance one’s memory and a key part of this is that it advances one’s longterm memory. This is really useful as having long term memory allows one to recall past information. Without a good long-term memory, we would not be able to learn from previous situations and act with the appropriate knowledge of the past to help us. Another way that playing music helps the memory is the shortterm memory, which helps retain information while working on a task. It does this by training the brain to multitask while playing a piece.

Attention Span

Enhanced cognitive abilities improve your attention span. Sustained attention helps you focus your attention on a singular task without deviating and doing something else. Many activities and tasks require sustained attention and focus, and having better cognitive skills helps you resist changing what you are doing and helps you stay on the most important task. Another part of one’s attention span cognitive abilities cover is selective attention, this allows one to focus their attention on a single task even if there are lots of distractions. Selective attention is a cognitive skill that helps you stay focused on a task. Cognitive

Playing an instrument has been shown to have a large number of positive effects on the brain.

skill also affects divided attention, which is when you are focusing on different tasks at the same time. It’s a cognitive skill that allows one to multitask, allowing one to retain information while completing two or more objectives at the same time.

Reasoning and Learning

Reasoning is another cognitive skill which helps to solve problems effectively and find new solutions to a problem. For example, you use reasoning as well as logic in order to solve a puzzle in a way most effective to you. In the example of a puzzle, this could be starting with the edges, or tirelessly analysing each individual groove and indent in order to solve the puzzle. Following my research, music could have an impact on reasoning, as reasoning is used when trying to interpret a song that has no sheet music. When this happens, the player has to guess each note based on information they have deduced from other senses. This process is commonly known as “playing by ear”. Cognitive skills also cover auditory processing, which is the process in the brain where the brain analyses the information that it has heard and tries to process said information. A reason music could have an impact on this is that auditory processing helps internalise sounds, interpret and effectively use information that has been heard which musicians actively practise as they break down the emotion of the piece to play it effectively.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, playing an instrument has been shown to have a large number of positive effects on the brain. It has been found to improve cognitive abilities such as memory, attention span, reasoning, thinking, learning, and reading. It also enhances emotional regulation and can help to alleviate feeling of anxiety and depression. These benefits are not limited to professional musicians and even people who play music as a hobby can appreciate the rewards. Beyond the immediate effects, playing music sees the growth of the corpus callosum the bridge between the left and right side of the brain, as well as increasing connectivity between different areas of the brain.

Words / Max Chin-You, 2WJD

Illustrations / Oleg Ivanov

This essay was originally written as part of the Ignite course in Second Form.

How sustainable is rugby given the recent research into head injuries?

This essay is answering a question regarding the sustainability of rugby given the recent research into head injuries and their short-term and long-term effects.

To be clear, this is not answering the questions surrounding the monetary issues revolving around the sport, and whether that affects the sustainability of the game. It is also not looking into how these head injuries occur, nor how that can affect a player, outside of their cognitive state. Also, it is not looking into any other injuries other than head injuries. In my opinion this essay is important and interesting because it is looking deeper at an issue that has come to light quite recently, and questioning whether that affects the future of the game, and whether it is sustainable in the long-term. It is also interesting as it takes into account personal stories, such as that of Doddie Weir, in an attempt to come up with a conclusion on how sustainable it makes rugby. The structure of this essay will be laid out in this order, it will begin by looking into four different sources and discussing how they can be helpful whilst outlining the information they give. It will then look into the reliability of the sources and whether they can be trusted. Next, it will bring all of these facts together in a discussion, where it will search for answers and conclusions. Finally, this essay will finish with a conclusion, offering a final answer to the research question.

EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SOURCES

The article ‘concerning links between former international rugby players and neurodegeneration revealed’ (Alzheimer’s Research UK, 2022) gives the statistics and numbers behind the links between former international rugby players and neurodegeneration, which involves illnesses such as dementia. This article summarises a research project launched into looking at links between rugby and neurodegeneration. It states that ‘Prof Willie Stewart, a leading research figure in this field, led the team, who compared health outcomes among 412 male, Scottish, former international rugby players and over 1,200 matched individuals from the general population’ (Ibid.). The research showed concerning results in this area. Some statistics include ‘former

international rugby players are at around two and a half times higher risk of dementia’ (Ibid.) and that they are ‘over 15 times greater risk of motor neurone disease (MND), compared to the general population’ (Ibid.). Moreover, ‘they are over 2.67 times more likely to develop dementia, over 3 times to develop Parkinson’s’ (Ibid.). These statistics show a clear correlation between former professional rugby players and neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia. Not only is it a clear correlation, it is also an extremely concerning correlation. These particular diseases can be life-changing and have great effects on people and those around them. The fact that some people that play a sport they love at the highest level are over 15 times more likely to develop motor neurone disease is simply incomprehensible. Overall this short but factual article outlines all the statistics to show why rugby at the professional and international level may not be as sustainable as the many years of the game suggest.

Secondly, the start of the article ‘Brain injuries in rugby: a special report’ (Mockford, 2022) focuses on what the world of rugby has done to combat brain injuries, what they are doing, and what needs to be done. It begins by outlining how many of the major stories in rugby recently have been regarding head injuries, and potential controversies around such injuries. They mention the tales of former rugby players developing early-onset dementia, and the rise in red cards as authorities try to limit contact to the head. The article contains a tweet from Progressive Rugby, which states ‘it’s our major concern the public has observed in Rugby Union individuals that have incurred brain injury and been permitted to continue to play’ (Ibid.). This strong message was written in an open letter to multiple authorities, including World Rugby itself, and emphasises that incidents involving brain

injuries are sometimes looked past in the interest of the entertainment of the game, however, this is not okay and is concerning for the public watching on as clearly injured players resume playing. The article continues, stating that ‘a survey last year found that nearly two thirds of adults who play the game and/ or have children who do are concerned about the sport’s long-term effects on brain health’ (Ibid.). Finally, ‘the BRAIN study found that there was no difference in cognitive function before the age of 75 between players in the pre-professional era with three or more concussions, and those with fewer’ (Ibid.). It also states the simple phrase, ‘We don’t know the reason’ (Ibid.). These quotes show that the number of concussions that a player has experienced has little effect on their cognitive condition, which could suggest that the problem is simply playing the game itself. The second quote tells us that we do not have enough answers, so therefore research projects are extremely important in the search for the answers. Overall, this larger article covers a variety of topics within brain injuries. Firstly, the fact that answers are still elusive, meaning research projects are vitally important, which I think is both positive and negative, because the fact that we have not found many answers is a clear indicator that there is not a simple solution. However, I also think that we have come on leaps and bounds during these research projects, which shows answers may be attainable in the near future. Secondly, the research mentioned above shows that the quantity of concussions has no effect on the cognitive state of former players. This is extremely concerning as it suggests that the problem might be rugby as a whole. Finally, it outlines the fact that the

public are concerned about such brain injuries, which could ultimately be rugby’s downfall (in its current state). To conclude, this is important within my research because it means that while research projects could make rugby more sustainable, the fact that people are concerned and rugby is the problem limits the sustainability of the game greatly.

Next, the article ‘what is rugby doing to prevent brain injury?’ (SportsPro Media, 2016) outlines multiple problems with the sport, and how they could potentially be solved, as well as whether the problems may not lie within the professional game. It outlines that unlike normal injuries, the several hundred cranial impacts sustained can lead to delayed-onset dementia, which is similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Firstly it talks about the protective measures, and how the most effective form of defence is prevention. It first outlines how these measures have been improved, through the use of iPads and improved concussion tests. It states in the text that ‘Rugby Union has extended the Head Injury Assessment from 10 to 13 minutes to administer the King-Devick Test’ (Ibid.). This shows that the sport is trying to implement new tests so that concussion can be identified as early as possible, before all cognitive effects take place. Secondly, it outlines how contact rugby for children might be a problem, despite playing a huge role in school life in the UK. The text says that ‘over 70 medical professionals signed a petition to ban tackling in schools’ (Ibid.), and that ‘there is substantial evidence that repeated impacts from a contact sport can cause life-altering traumatic brain injuries.’ This shows that experts believe schoollevel rugby involving contact has negative effects on

their cognitive health, and this is backed up by lots of evidence, proving that cognitive problems may not stem from the professional game. Finally, the text states ‘The RFU’s Injured Players Foundation (IPF) offers a great deal of support for those who sustain life-altering injuries, including long-term financial assistance for rehabilitation and costs of care’ (Ibid.). This extract clearly indicates the fact that there is help for players who suffer long term head injuries, however in the next sentence it outlines how often it is not enough, and sometimes players need to seek compensation to pay for therapy and other treatments. To conclude, this article discusses what the rugby community has done in terms of trying to prevent long term head injuries, however it also discusses what further steps could be taken. I believe this is important in my essay because it shows that while the rugby community is implementing measures, there is always more that could be done, and it could potentially change decades of tradition, especially in the case of school-level rugby.

Finally, the article ‘Doddie Weir 1970 – 2022; a powerful story of rugby and resilience’ (Last Word on Rugby Staff, 2022) revolves around the story of former Scottish, and British and Irish Lion rugby player Doddie Weir, who recently passed away aged 52 due to motor neurone disease. The article begins by outlining the importance of respecting his family and friends, or anyone that may be affected for that matter. It also states that ‘one who played with energy and pride, and as his health issues limited his physical ability, the charisma and honesty of the father showed his humanity and resilience’ (Ibid.). This mini extract shows that his characteristics changed due to his health issues. Next, the article outlines what he did during his time with the illness, mentioning that he was an inspiration on and off the pitch. Finally, it goes onto mention that ‘in 2017, Doddie Weir was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and became one of the most vocal and prominent campaigners in the world – setting up his charity My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, which has raised more than £5 million since being launched’ (Ibid.). This quote shows that no matter what, the rugby community understands the issue and is trying to help, no matter the impact on the sport. Overall, I think this article is important in this research because it shows us the effects of these illnesses, and it also shows us that, in spite of this, there are still positive impacts to come out of the situation.

All four articles may not be widely known, but they all are all from very well respected sources. We know this through the first article, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, as it is a very well-respected source that gives information in relation to neurodegeneration. Moreover, the second source by Sarah Mockford, comes from the editor for World Rugby Magazine, this means that she is among the most prominent and respectful voices to represent the sport, and is well-placed to discuss this topic. The third article by Sports Pro Media is an anomaly within this essay

as the other three articles were written in 2022, this particular article was written in 2016, seven years ago. This does not diminish its reliability per se, but when seen in contrast with the more recent sources, it does highlight the progress in research, and that some of the data is out-of-date. This contrast in date is also very important within the topic this essay as with its inclusion I was able to see how the situation has changed recently. Finally, all four articles are from UK-based sources, which demonstrates a consistency in the data, and also is worth noting that as a major sport in the country, it is likely to have the relevant data compared to some other countries.

While all four of my sources discuss the matter involving long term head injuries and rugby, the diseases they can cause, and their link towards rugby players, they all discuss this in slightly different ways, and cover slightly different areas of the same topic. The first article is from Alzheimer’s Research UK and looks at how Alzheimer’s could be linked to rugby. It is effectively a write up of an investigation they undertook, and wrote up the statistics that they found out, so it was basically a factual article outlining the clear links found between former professional rugby players and these neurodegenerative illnesses. The second article outlines what rugby has done to combat the issue of long-term head injuries, but also involves statistics about how a player’s cognitive state might not be about the number of concussions a player sustains. It also outlines how the public is becoming worried about head injuries, and finally how we are still searching for answers regarding this topic. The third source by SportsPro Media is not as recent as the others, but it is still helpful as it gives context to a lot of solutions that rugby has already put in place, such as the King-Devick test, which is trying to improve the HIA test. As well as this, it outlines a potential solution, in the abolition of contact in school-level rugby, as well as then describing what happens after players get these illnesses, and what support they get. Finally, the fourth article is very different to the first three, it is not factual with lots of statistics, but instead it is the story of Doddie Weir, a former professional player for his nation, Scotland, who fell ill with motor neurone disease and died recently. This was important as it follows a story of someone high-profile who has experienced the issues this project was researching.

DISCUSSION

This essay did not just look into the problems surrounding long-term head injuries and the illnesses that may follow, but rather it also looked into whether these injuries affect the sustainability of the sport itself. All four sources showed a clear correlation in the fact that these injuries, and the cognitive effects that may come with it, are clearly a problem. However, as stated, this project was looking into whether this affects the sustainability of rugby or not. What I can infer from my sources is that it is not a coincidence that former rugby players have a much

higher chance of falling ill to neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia and motor neurone disease. Also, the world of rugby is evidently attempting to solve, or at least improve, rugby’s stance on this issue, through innovations such as the introduction of the King-Devick Test into head injury assessments, in an attempt to make concussions more identifiable in quick time. However, as stated in ‘brain injuries in rugby: a special report’ (Sarah Mockford, 2022), we simply do not know exactly what is causing the correlations, and therefore we do not know what effective solutions to put in place.

It almost goes without saying that rugby is an extremely physical sport, therefore injuries are expected. However, unlike a broken collar bone or a ruptured Achilles tendon, a concussion can have much greater long-term effects. Due to the battering of one’s head, one’s cognitive system can take a big hit. This leads to illnesses, as well as cognitive deterioration, which can be life-changing. And while they often receive support and money from various places within the rugby setup, this is sometimes not enough to pay for the treatment and therapy they may need. So to summarise, my key findings can be summarised into a few main points outlined in the paragraphs below.

Firstly, there is a clear and definitive link between playing rugby, and neurodegenerative illnesses. In the first article, from Alzheimer’s UK, it looks into an investigation regarding former professional rugby players from Scotland, and whether they are more or less likely to develop a neurodegenerative disease. The results from this investigation show a definitive correlation. Rugby players are ‘over 15 times greater risk of motor neurone disease (MND), compared to the general population.’ (Alzheimer’s Research UK, 2022), as well as this, ‘they are over 2.67 times more likely to develop dementia, and over 3 times to develop Parkinson’s’ (Ibid.). This shows that not only is there a clear correlation between rugby and these diseases, but there is also an extremely concerning one. In my opinion, this downgrades the sustainability of the sport itself, as the concerning link can stop people being drawn into the game, and potentially playing it altogether.

Secondly, there is no clear, definitive answer to the problem, and despite lots of research, nothing really has changed. In the second article, by Sarah Mockford, it gives a general report on brain injuries, and their relation to rugby. In addition to this, it also states the simple phrase, ‘we don’t know the reason’ (Mockford, 2022). This extract from the article shows us that as stated, we frankly do not have a clear reason for, nor a solution to the issue of brain injuries. In my opinion, this is really important to this essay because having no answers to an issue is a great hinderance in the sustainability of the sport. Every sport has its issues, but very few are of this magnitude and have such gaps in the solution.

Thirdly, one of the most important factors in this issue revolving round the link between rugby

and head injuries is that of research projects and investigations. While we may not yet have an answer, and we may seemingly not be very close to it, we are certainly better off than we were 5 years ago. In the second article once again, by Mockford, there is another important quote. ‘the BRAIN study found that there was no difference in cognitive function before the age of 75 between players in the preprofessional era with three or more concussions, and those with fewer.’ (Sarah Mockford, 2022). This backs up my point in which research projects are very important, as they can progressively get us closer to the answer which we need. In this case, while no answer has been found, we now know that the number of concussions does not make a significant difference. However, the fact that the number of concussions is irrelevant, shows that the issue may just be playing the sport itself, which in turn devalues the sustainability of rugby. Finally, while authorities are already making changes to try and improve the situation, there is still a long way to go. While new ideas, such as the King – Devick test, have come into fruition, there is still lots more to be done. My overall conclusion for my discussion is that while improvements, have been made, there is still a long way to go, therefore in the situation that rugby is in currently, the sustainability of it in the long term is quite low.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, in my project I found out that there is a clear correlation between head injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. Rugby players are ‘over 15 times greater risk of motor neurone disease (MND), compared to the general population’ (Alzheimer’s Research UK, 2022). Also, ‘they are over 2.67 times more likely to develop dementia, over 3 times to develop Parkinson’s’ (Alzheimer’s Research UK, 2022). Secondly, while we have come a long way in understanding rugby’s link to neurodegenerative diseases, there is no definitive answer as to what aspects are causing the correlation. Mockford’s research linking concussions to neurodegenerative diseases shows that research projects are going to be a big part of our future understanding of the sport, as they can give lots of new information, that could get us closer to a solution to what is causing the correlation. Unfortunately, this essay was limited because I could not gain access to a first-hand source, or a player that has undergone a head injury that has downgraded their cognitive state. I also could not do any research into whether the situation has been improved as it is a fairly new concept and has only recently come to light. Finally, going forward, I would like to found out how it was found out that head injuries were the problem, and also whether the situation improves over the coming years.

Words / Jack Reid, 2WJD Illustrations / cfphotosin

To what extent did the Industrial Revolution influence life in the UK from then to now?

This essay will answer the question

‘To what extent did the Industrial Revolution influence life in the UK from then to now?’ The Industrial Revolution was a drastic societal change, progressing from subsistence farming to mass machine production in factories. This question addresses a very current issue as the world we have today was influenced by the Industrial Revolution and the advancements caused by it. I will answer whether it did influence life through examining relevant parts of human existence such as food, human rights, standards of living and many other aspects which are now part of our everyday life. The nuance of this question is that I am comparing the Industrial Revolution to the current day and if there were any advantages back then which could have been held for the future which could have benefited modern society. I have not been able to research the effect of the Industrial Revolution on other countries as my question limits the scope of my research to Britain only. I will come to a conclusion when the answer becomes clear and there is hard evidence to support the fact that it has changed from during the Industrial Revolution and now.

COMPARISON AND EVALUATION OF SOURCES

My first source, Industrial Revolution , explains the cause and effect of the Industrial Revolution and defines this as the process of change in modern history from a predominantly agriculturebased economy to one dominated by heavy industry and machine manufacturing. It explains the rapid transition from handcraft to machine. This source evaluates the evolution of free speech, a topic that is at the forefront of political conversation today, in light of the Gary Lineker tweets . The source presents the fact that trade unions were created by workers in search of better treatment in factories and for improved labour rights.

Human rights also improved with the Industrial Revolution as evident in, Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living. This article explains and maps the evolution of the standard of living, initially through a reduction in quality of life due to rapid urbanisation as farm workers and their families moved into cities as jobs in factories became available, often living in cramped and squalid conditions, followed by a slow but steady improvement in standard of living as education and the provision of healthcare became more widely available under the governance of One-Nation and liberal governments.

With improvements in rights also came improved standards of living as shown in Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution. This article informs us that the standard of living improved as people became wealthier and as a middle-class developed. This is evident as we can see the result of this in everyday life, from the (comparatively) spacious Victorian houses we live in and the grand buildings we work in. This is also the result of the government trying to reform cities so as to gain political popularity and support so as to ensure that the people will accept their decisions and beliefs. This became especially evident as suffrage was expanded to lower class men in the latter part of the 19th century.

Working conditions and workers’ welfare also improved, with the introduction of ever-tighter safety standards, free healthcare, health insurance, worker treatment laws, conditions and acceptance of all races and not tolerating abusive or derogative behaviour, the latter two points are a more recent change beginning really from the 1950s. This is evident as shown in Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living. This source explains the gradual

easily avoidable, as we are now connected to the world around us and live in a globalised economy.

Lifespan was drastically shorter in the 19th century compared to the modern day. This can be seen in The Industrial Revolution. This source explains how low the lifespan of 19th century people in Britain, was at around 30-40 years. This is very low by modern standards as it had remained unchanged since the times of the Crusades. This explains that people lived, worked and died, this being a cycle of an average working-class person. Retirement, or a childhood free from work was the privilege of the well off. To make these statistics worse, working-class women would be unlikely to be able to afford to give birth in the presence of medical staff, so there was a high chance that the child or mother would die during childbirth. This explains also how limited medical help of any type was, unlike the modern tax-funded NHS British people enjoy today.

Free speech was a very controversial topic at the time. This is evident in Industrial Revolution Causes and Effect. This source explains the controversial topic of freedom and speech. As the Industrial

change of working conditions from the workhouses of the 19th century to the regulated high standards that modern factories have today. This shows the rapid improvement in societal tolerance to creed, religion, race and ethnicity amongst other factors.

Food, or the short supply of it, was one of the most serious problems that faced British people during the start of the Industrial Revolution. This is evident in Industrial Revolution Definition: History, Pros, and Cons. This source explains the reasons for which and how a famine started, explaining that this commenced when farmers, who had worked for centuries on rented land, moved to the city in search of better employment opportunities and pay, resulting in a shortage of agricultural workers. In turn, this meant that there were too few workers to maintain agricultural output, which therefore meant that the farms could not support the growing urban population as well as themselves. Thus, a lack of food in the city affected the poor most significantly, increasing food prices, often making it unaffordable, and thus many could not afford food and so died. This was a pressing problem at the time but is now

Revolution occurred, in time trade unions were created to fights for workers’ rights. This was in the form of either charters being signed or protests by workers. However, some parliamentarians opposed this, delaying worker’s rights laws for several decades from their first having been proposed. This explains that free speech was allowed, but it was rarely heard and considered by the ruling classes, who benefitted from a lack of worker representation and rights.

My final source, Industrial Revolution, explains the evolution and expansion of suffrage during the Industrial Revolution. Voting was actually highly restricted, compared to the modern-day doctrine of mass politics, as you had to be male, own enough property to qualify to participate, and get paid enough to be over the minimum level of wealth required. In 1832 this was expanded to small time landowners and shopkeepers as well as anyone who paid in excess of £10 a year in rent. Moreover, in 1867 this was expanded from 1 million voters to 2 million and in 1884, this was expanded to almost all men. This shows the high level of inequality in Britain at the time. This is also backed up by the fact that

Trade unions were created by workers in search of better treatment in factories and for improved labour rights

women were not allowed to vote until 1918 in limited numbers and 1928 universally.

DISCUSSION

My question aims to answer whether some ideas and ideals have really changed to this day and following my research, I was shocked to find how different life was during the Industrial Revolution compared to modern day. The three themes that I will be comparing are work, quality of life and human rights. I selected these themes because they are highly relevant to the modern day and are at the forefront of political discussion, from the TFL strikes to the Black Lives Matter protests, these are events that have affected us all.

Working in modern day England has changed massively from the perspective of workers’ rights, working times, age and conditions. My sources explain that people during the Industrial Revolution had few rights when working as even children were employed in the labour force as evident in the line, “children were employed favourably over adults as they were deemed more compliant and therefore easier to deal with.” This explains that children were preferred to have in factories by factory owners and management, which is completely different to today, as children (under 16s) are banned from working at all and instead are in mandatory education. This is also reinforced in Human Rights Act 1998 which specifies that children must not be allowed to work before age 16, hence British nationals are only issued with National Insurance numbers on their 16th birthday.

Food in modern day England has changed hugely from the Industrial Revolution, as we now need to feed our growing working population, from good quality food like organic foods to luxury foods like caviar and foie gras. My source from Investopedia explains how different our food culture and exports. During the Industrial Revolution, there was a food shortage as farmers left the county to work in factories. This led to a shortage in food, which is no problem in modern day England, where we now export most of our food to feed our huge population. This would not be possible during the industrial revolution as exporting was very unknown and most countries only used their products from their country instead of going and giving their products for money.

Human rights in the modern day have also changed since the Industrial Revolution, nowadays, most people have the financial ability to buy and consume all kinds of foods (excluding in economic downturns), from fast food to luxury food, and having the right to luxury objects, security, homes and education. For example, now everyone is respected as human beings, due to increasingly strong equalitarian protection through equality acts culminating with the Human Rights Act 1998 , these legal reforms aimed to limit and reduce discrimination in the workplace and public life. This has given security to people who did not have it during the Industrial Revolution, when

they were treated like lesser beings.

To conclude the discussion, it is clear that ultimately, there have been significant changes to society in the UK, such as the implementation of antidiscrimination legislation, compared to the Industrial Revolution period.

CONCLUSION

Through undertaking this interesting and informing project, I have concluded that the Industrial Revolution has had a significant influence on life in the UK. This can be seen from the roads we drive on, to the people we meet, the food we eat and the industries we work in. All of these consequences of the rapid economic expansion of the 19th century would not be here without the innovations and ideals of the Industrial Revolution as many of the luxuries that we so often take for granted and benefit from today were built on the ideas of the people who lived and worked during such an important period of Western civilisation. Human rights, a substantial and varied offering of food, working hour limitations and conditions requirements, free speech, voting for most adults , long lifespan, working conditions and many other things have changed.

Unfortunately, from my research, I was unable to gather a greater depth of understanding as to why human rights improvements took so long to come about. In addition, I would have liked to have found out the practical effects of limited free speech, whether this was ever actually effectively limited, and what practical implications this had for the British people. That being said, I am confident that the research I did was substantial and in depth enough for me to provide a detailed and informative explanation of how life in the UK today has been ultimately changed by the Industrial Revolution.

Future issues I have uncovered through my research and analysis of my sources include the regression towards more limited free speech, for example, the UK was given a press freedom index score of 83.11 in 2013, yet this has decreased to just 76.75 in 2018 , placing the UK 33rd, just 3 places off Burkina Faso and 10 places behind Namibia. Clearly, it is important that free speech should be protected in the UK, and that the recent negative trajectory of press freedoms is reversed.

Words / Hugo Labeyrie, 2PAR Illustrations / Darkmoon Art

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