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The holidays are full of delicious and indulgent food and drinks. It’s hard to resist dreaming about cookies, specialty cakes, rich meats and super saucy side dishes.

Lots of the healthy raw ingredients used in holiday foods can end up overshadowed by sugar and starch. While adding extra sugar may be tasty, it’s not necessarily good for metabolism. Understanding the food and culinary science behind what you’re cooking means you can make a few alterations to a recipe and still have a delicious dish that’s not overloaded with sugar.

Particularly, if you’re a person living with Type 1 diabetes, the holidays may come with an additional layer of stress and wild blood glucose levels. It’s no time for despair though – it is the holidays, after all.

Cranberries are one seasonal, tasty fruit that can be modified in recipes to be more Type 1 diabetic-friendly – or friendly to anyone looking for a sweet dish without the extra sugar.

I am a food scientist and a Type 1 diabetic. Understanding food composition, ingredient interactions and metabolism has been a literal lifesaver for me.

Type 1 diabetes defined

Type 1 diabetes is all day every day, with no breaks during sleep, no holidays or weekends off, no remission and no cure. Type 1 diabetics don’t make insulin, a hormone that is required to live that promotes the uptake of glucose, or sugar, into cells. The glucose in your cells then supplies your body with energy at the molecular level.

Consequently, Type 1 diabetics take insulin by injection, or via an insulin pump attached to their bodies, and hope that it works well enough to stabilize blood sugar and metabolism, minimize health complications over time and keep us alive.

Type 1 diabetics mainly consider the type and amount of carbohydrates in foods when figuring out how much insulin to take, but they also need to understand the protein and fat interactions in food to dose, or bolus, properly.

In addition to insulin, Type 1 diabetics don’t make another hormone, amylin, which slows gastric motility. This means food moves more quickly through our digestive tract, and we often feel very hungry. Foods that are high in fat, proteins and fiber can help to stave off hunger for a while.

Cranberries, a seasonal treat

Cranberries are native to North America and grow well in the Northeastern and Midwestern states, where they are in season between late September and December. They’re a staple on holiday tables all over the country.

Cranberries are a classic Thanksgiving side dish, but cranberry sauce tends to contain a lot of sugar.
bhofack2/iStock via Getty Images

One cup of whole, raw cranberries contains 190 calories. They are 87% water, with trace amounts of protein and fat, 12 grams of carbohydrates and just over 4 grams of soluble fiber. Soluble fiber combines well with water, which is good for digestive health and can slow the rise of blood glucose.

Cranberries are high in potassium, which helps with electrolyte balance and cell signaling, as well as other important nutrients such as antioxidants, beta-carotene and vitamin C. They also contain vitamin K, which helps with healthy blood clotting.

Cranberries’ flavor and aroma come from compounds in the fruit such as cinnamates that add cinnamon notes, vanillin for hints of vanilla, benzoates and benzaldehyde, which tastes like almonds.

Cranberries are high in pectin, a soluble starch that forms a gel and is used as a setting agent in making jams and jellies, which is why they thicken readily with minimal cooking. Their beautiful red jewel-tone color is from a class of compounds called anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, which are associated with treating some types of infection.

They also contain phenolics, which are protective compounds produced by the plant. These compounds, which look like rings at the molecular level, interact with proteins in your saliva to produce a dry, astringent sensation that makes your mouth pucker. Similarly, a compound called benzoic acid naturally found in cranberries adds to the fruit’s sourness.

These chemical ingredients make them extremely sour and bitter, and difficult to consume raw. To mitigate these flavors and effects, most cranberry recipes call for lots of sugar.

All that extra sugar can make cranberry dishes hard to consume for Type 1 diabetics, because the sugars cause a rapid rise in blood glucose.

Cranberries without sugar?

Type 1 diabetics – or anyone who wants to reduce the added sugars they’re consuming – can try a few culinary tactics to lower their sugar intake while still enjoying this holiday treat.

Don’t cook your cranberries much longer after they pop. You’ll still have a viscous cranberry liquid without the need for as much sugar, since cooking concentrates some of the bitter compounds, making them more pronounced in your dish.

Adding spices to your cranberries can enhance the dish’s flavor without extra sugar.
klenova/iStock via Getty Images

Adding cinnamon, clove, cardamom, nutmeg and other warming spices gives the dish a depth of flavor. Adding heat with a spicy chili pepper can make your cranberry dish more complex while reducing sourness and astringency. Adding salt can reduce the cranberries’ bitterness, so you won’t need lots of sugar.

For a richer flavor and a glossy quality, add butter. Butter also lubricates your mouth, which tends to compliment the dish’s natural astringency. Other fats such as heavy cream or coconut oil work, too.

Adding chopped walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts can slow glucose absorption, so your blood glucose may not spike as quickly. Some new types of sweeteners, such as allulose, taste sweet but don’t raise blood sugar, requiring minimal to no insulin. Allulose has GRAS – generally regarded as safe – status in the U.S., but it isn’t approved as an additive in Europe.

This holiday season you can easily cut the amount of sugar added to your cranberry dishes and get the health benefits without a blood glucose spike. Läs mer…

A brain region affected very early in Alzheimer’s disease may explain why some aging people are at greater risk of financial exploitation. That is the key finding of our new study, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

We are a clinical psychology doctoral student and a clinical neuropsychologist, and we are interested in understanding whether greater likelihood of being financially exploited – such as being the victim of a scam – may be a behavioral indicator of future cognitive decline.

Other research supports this idea. However, research on associations between vulnerability to financial exploitation and structural brain regions is limited.

We examined the association between vulnerability to financial exploitation and thickness of a brain region called the entorhinal cortex – which is affected very early by Alzheimer’s disease – in a group of 97 adults age 52 to 83 with no signs of cognitive impairment.

The entorhinal cortex is critical for communication between the hippocampus, important for memory retrieval and forecasting oneself into the future, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is important for value judgments.

We therefore hypothesized that thinning of this region may impair the ability to draw on prior experiences and envision future consequences when assessing the value of certain decisions.

Our study found that lower thickness of the entorhinal cortex, as measured via brain scan, was associated with higher financial vulnerability, as measured by a self-report questionnaire. We did not observe associations between vulnerability to financial exploitation and thickness of two regions of the frontal cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These frontal cortex regions are more typically associated with decision-making, but less so with early Alzheimer’s disease.

Being the victim of a scam could be an early indicator of future cognitive decline.
jeffbergen/E+ via Getty Images

Why it matters

Our primary goal is to aid in early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Early detection is critically important because Alzheimer’s disease-related brain changes begin decades before significant clinical symptoms emerge. As a result, often by the time a person receives a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, irreparable brain damage has already occurred. This makes intervention and treatment efforts very challenging.

Our study adds to a growing body of work suggesting that impaired financial decision-making may serve as an early behavioral warning sign of future cognitive decline. This could help identify individuals in the early stages of disease when intervention and treatment efforts may be more effective.

Importantly, however, research does not suggest that all older adults who experience financial exploitation will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Indeed, there are many other reasons someone may be at increased risk for financial exploitation, including psychosocial, physical and environmental factors.

Rather, research by our group and others suggests that vulnerability to financial exploitation may serve as one important piece of a risk profile and could alert people to the possible need for further, more comprehensive testing. For example, blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology, brain scans and neuropsychological testing could provide people with a more thorough understanding of their risk for future cognitive decline.

What still isn’t known

There are important limitations to our study. We collected all of the data at one time point and did not have specific measurements of Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology. So it is unclear whether differences in thickness were truly the result of Alzheimer’s disease-related brain changes or merely due to preexisting differences or other reasons.

In addition, our participants were primarily white, female and highly educated. This limits our ability to generalize the findings, a gap that will be important to address in future research.

Our lab is following participants over time and adding measures of Alzheimer’s disease pathology to our study. This will help us understand whether changes in brain structure over time lead to increased vulnerability to financial exploitation and whether these changes are associated with early Alzheimer’s disease.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Läs mer…

Now that the elections are over, you might be left feeling exhausted, despondent and disillusioned – whether your preferred candidate won or not. You are not alone.

Survey after survey has found that Americans agree that the political system is not serving them.

Americans say they are angry at the political dysfunction, disgusted with the divisive rhetoric, weary from the lack of options, and feel unheard and unrepresented. I am a mathematician who studies quantitative aspects of democracy, and in my view, the reason for this widespread dissatisfaction is evident: The mechanisms of American democracy are broken at a fundamental level.

Research shows that there are clear mathematical fixes for these malfunctions that would implement sound democratic practices supported by evidence. They won’t solve every ailment of American democracy: For example, Altering Supreme Court rulings or expanding voting access are more political or administrative than they are based in math. Nevertheless, each of these changes – especially in combination with one another – could make American democracy more responsive to its citizens.

Problem: Plurality voting

Plurality voting, or the winner-take-all method, is how all but a handful of the nation’s 520,000 elected officials are chosen. It is also mathematically the worst, because it can give victory to a candidate who does not have majority support. This method is rife with mathematical problems, such as vote-splitting and the spoiler effect, which both deliver victory to less popular candidates.

Solution: Ranked-choice voting

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to put their preferences in order, rather than just registering their top selection.

This system, used in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere around the world, as well is in over 50 jurisdictions in the U.S., including Alaska, New York City and Minneapolis, elects a candidate that has broad support. Because voters are not worried about wasting their votes, this method allows people to show support for third-party candidates even if they don’t win. This method also punishes negative campaigning because candidates can win even if they are some voters’ second or third choices, not just their first choice.

Using mathematical principles and methods, it’s possible to rebalance democracy.
Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Problem: Electoral College

The Electoral College is a unique and uniquely archaic mechanism that no other country in the world wants anything to do with. Its legacy of slavery and the Constitution’s framers’ skepticism about the populace being smart enough to make good decisions for themselves is only exacerbated by its many mathematical problems, which give some states’ voters more power than others when electing a president.

Solution: Popular vote

The evidence shows that switching to a popular vote would eliminate those biases. But even if 63% of Americans support getting rid of the Electoral College, history shows that the constitutional amendment required is not likely to happen.

A way to avoid a need for a constitutional change could be the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, currently supported by 17 states, including California and Illinois, and Washington, D.C. It would require the electors from the states in the compact to vote for the winner of the national popular vote. But it does not take effect until enough states join that their combined electoral votes reach the winning threshold of 270. Right now, states with a total of 209 electoral votes back the measure.

Problem: Single-winner districts

Because of winner-take-all voting, congressional and state officeholders don’t necessarily reflect the district’s partisan makeup, giving disproportionate representation to one party.

Solution: Multi-winner districts

Most democracies around the world have geographically larger districts that elect multiple candidates at the same time. Multi-winner districts are designed to achieve proportional representation. Right now, all nine Massachusetts representatives in the U.S. House are Democrats, even though one-third of the state’s voters typically opt for Republican candidates. But if Massachusetts had three congressional districts instead of nine, and each elected three House members, one-third of the seats would go to Republicans, commensurate with the proportion of the state’s Republican voters. Multi-winner districts also effectively eliminate gerrymandering.

South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia, questions his Republican colleagues’ new map of congressional districts on Jan. 20, 2022.
Jeffrey Collins/AP

Problem: Party primaries

About 10% of eligible voters cast ballots in congressional primaries. Those voters often represent a fired-up base that can elevate fringe or extreme candidates who go on to run in general races that are often not competitive due to a confluence of factors such as plurality voting and single-winner districts.

The final figures are not yet available for 2024, but this one-tenth fraction of voters effectively decided 83% of congressional seats in 2020. Representatives mold their politics to pander to the demands of that base and can keep their jobs for decades with little effort.

Presidential primaries have their own mathematical flaws that distort the preferences of the voters and reward polarizing candidates who can turn out the base.

Solution: Open primaries, or none at all

A system of open, nonpartisan primaries is employed in California, Colorado and Nevada. Three or four top candidates advance to the general election, which is then conducted using ranked-choice voting. This structure increases voter participation and delivers more representative outcomes.

A simpler solution could be to eliminate primary elections and hold a single, open general election with ranked-choice voting.

A 1913 postcard shows the U.S. House of Representatives in the year its membership was fixed by law at 435.
vintagehalloweencollector via Flickr, CC BY-ND

Problem: Size of the House of Representatives

The very first amendment the framers of the Constitution proposed was one that would have required the size of the House of Representatives to grow as the nation’s population increased. For close contact between officeholders and constituents, they liked a ratio of 30,000 to 50,000 people per House member. Their amendment was never ratified.

The ratio today is 760,000 people per representative. The size of the House is set by law and has been fixed at 435 members since 1913. It is hard to imagine that a representative can speak knowledgeably about so many constituents or understand their collective needs and preferences.

Solution: Make it bigger

To reduce the ratio, the House would need to be bigger. With a national population over 337 million, James Madison’s preference would require more than 6,700 House members. That’s unwieldy. Most democracies either intentionally follow or seem to have naturally settled on a different formula, in which the size of the legislature is about equal to the cube root of the country’s population.

For the U.S., that number is currently nearly 700, which would put the population-to-representative ratio at 475,000-to-1. This would still upset Madison, but it’s considerably more representative than the current state of affairs.

Could the Capitol handle such an expansion? Architectural studies show that won’t be a problem. Läs mer…

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:

Crossing the Divide

What prompted the idea for the course?

I developed the idea for this course in 2016 during an Amtrak writing residency program. I spent over two weeks crisscrossing the United States via train while working on my 2021 book about the French National Railways and World War II. After binge-watching the country and gabbing with strangers, I knew the train would be the coolest classroom. I wrote some articles about its value for Smithsonian magazine.

The increasing polarization and the then-upcoming U.S. presidential election made May 2024 the perfect time to invite graduate students studying peace, conflict and justice to join me.

Students visited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
John Coletti

What does the course explore?

Students met two times at the Kroc School of Peace Studies within the University of San Diego to discuss our forthcoming two-week trip’s scheduled stops and assignments, which would include talking with strangers, different readings, keeping a journal and producing individual blogs.

We rode Amtrak trains between states and rented vans to move about within states. We departed from San Diego’s Old Town Transit Center, heading first to Los Angeles to visit Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation program. Then, over the course of two weeks, we stopped in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Washington D.C., visiting places that cut across various divides: red and blue, eco-friendly and pro-fossil fuel, as well as urban and rural populations. On the train, we got to know each other, made new friends, watched the passing landscape, read, and wrote in our journals.

We then visited Patagonia, Arizona, a 900-person town that has the gift of being one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the USA and the curse of resting atop critical minerals about to be extracted for national security. Ecologists say the mining extraction project, known as the Hermosa project, will likely have a significant negative impact on the area’s water supply and endangered species in the region, as well as residents living near the manganese processing plant.

After 26 hours on the train, we arrived in Houston. There we visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science to understand how the petroleum industry explains – or does not discuss – its role in climate change. In New Orleans, we visited the Whitney Plantation, a nonprofit museum on the site of a former slave plantation. This museum tries to educate visitors about the South’s history from the perspective of the enslaved. We also studied the prison conditions at Louisiana State Penitentiary, where incarcerated persons engage in physically harmful forced labor.

In Birmingham, Alabama, we attended a church service at the 16th Street Baptist Church, made famous by the 1963 bombing by white supremacists that killed four girls. In Montgomery, Alabama, we visited the Legacy of Slavery Museum and a lynching memorial.

We ended in Washington, D.C., where we visited the National Archives, which houses the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

In between our stops, we spent time on the train talking to strangers and getting a sense of the country’s vast landscape – both politically and geographically. We also made a short video about the trip.

The class stops in Houston along its two-week, cross-country tour.
Tony Campos, CC BY

Why is this course relevant now?

According to the Pew Research Center, the American public remains more deeply and bitterly politically polarized than at any time in the past two decades. There has been an increase in both “ideological polarization,” meaning political disagreement, as well as “affective polarization,” an increased antipathy and animosity toward others with whom we disagree. Some people fear that these divides can lead the country into civil war and eventually cause democracy to fail.

I wanted to explore with students just how polarized the country felt. I also wanted us to react to this polarization by reaching out to others, rather than recoiling.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

When we rely on our smartphones and televisions to tell us about our country, it’s easy to become afraid and withdraw from public life and to avoid strangers. We did the opposite and found many wonderful people as well as many challenges, such as torturous, forced prison labor, resistance within the fossil fuel industry to acknowledge or respond to its role in climate change, the difficultly of safely extracting critical minerals from fragile ecosystems, and tensions over what U.S. children will learn about the country’s historical practice of slavery.

What materials does the course feature?

Site visits, local newspapers and strangers. Prior to departure they read parts of Monica Guzman’s “I Never Thought of it That Way” to prepare them to be open to new ideas and people. They also read academic articles about polarization and watched a PBS clip about national divides. Students found the 2024 documentary “God and Country,” about Christian nationalism, especially powerful.

Along the way, they read websites of the sites we planned to visit, as well as local newspapers, including the Patagonia Regional Times, Houston Chronicle and The Birmingham Times. Supplementary articles included readings about book bans in Texas.

What will the course prepare students to do?

I want the course to help students feel more confident engaging with strangers and exploring connection, instead of assuming difference. They also become better versed in some of the challenges of our time – including climate change, mining impacts, racial divides, legacies of slavery – as well as approaches to addressing these conflicts. They learned how to seek out different perspectives and embrace complexity without becoming immobilized. Several students dedicated their final capstone project to exploring more deeply the mining impacts in Patagonia, Arizona, and meeting with stakeholders to find ways to lessen the environmental impact of this mining work. Läs mer…

More than a decade ago, I spent a week working in Gatineau, a city on the southern edge of Québec, with the Cree Board of Health and Social Services. I was helping train researchers to interview Iiyiyiu elders about traditional birthing knowledge, so they could develop resources for soon-to-be parents and health care workers.

Throughout our workshop, my colleagues in the Cree Nation of Iiyiyiu Aschii shared their excitement about a “great journey” their youth were undertaking: the Journey of Nishiyuu. A group was traveling 1,000 miles on foot in the dead of winter – all the way from their homes in Whapmagoostui First Nation, on the shores of Hudson Bay, to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the capital of Canada.

Nishiyuu walkers arrive on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, in March 2013.
Meaghan Weatherdon, Author provided (no reuse)

For Indigenous activists, walking the land can take on powerful spiritual and political significance. It has been, and continues to be, an important way Indigenous nations pursue healing, environmental stewardship and diplomacy across Turtle Island, the name many Indigenous groups use to refer to North America.

I am a Canadian scholar whose ancestry stems from Western Europe. I now teach in San Diego, on Kumeyaay territory. My scholarship focuses on Indigenous spiritualities and social movements. Over the past several years, I have worked with Whapmagoostui First Nation – a remote, fly-in community in northern Québec – on research about the Journey of Nishiyuu.

Healing journey

The Journey of Nishiyuu – which translates to”human beings” or “new people” – took place from January-March 2013. More broadly, that season was known as the winter of Idle No More, a movement in support of First Nations’ rights in Canada.

Led by Indigenous women, Idle No More arose when the Canadian government passed C-45, legislation that they feared would reduce environmental protections and weaken consultation with Indigenous communities. The winter of 2012-13 was also when Theresa Spence, the chief of Attawapiskat First Nation, held a hunger strike near Parliament Hill – an effort to hold the government accountable for its treaty obligations and to address the inadequate living conditions in northern reservations.

Activists in the Idle no More movement stage a flash protest inside the Eaton Centre in Toronto on Dec. 30, 2012.
Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

The Nishiyuu walkers announced that they were walking the land to demonstrate that the Iiyiyiuch are still “keepers” of their “language, culture, and tradition,” and honoring their ancestors. Many individual walkers also spoke about the experience as a healing journey.

“For the youth here there is no better place to be than out on the land,” said David Kawapit, the young walker who initiated the journey, when I interviewed him in Whapmagoostui.

The walkers started off their journey in snowshoes, traveling along traditional trap lines and trading routes. As they moved farther south, the trail turned to highways, and walkers exchanged moccasins and snowshoes for boots and running shoes. Throughout the journey, walkers were hosted by other Iiyiyiu, as well as other Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, where they shared stories, food and prophecies with one another.

When the group set off in January, it consisted of only six young walkers from Whapmagoostui and their elder guide, the late Isaac Kawapit. By the time they reached Parliament Hill, however, the movement had grown to approximately 270 people of many ages and cultural backgrounds.

This was not just a walk for the Cree Nation. The journey was also intended to strengthen inter-Indigenous relations across Canada during Idle No More. The Nishiyuu walkers embarked on their journey to emphasize the important role land plays in shaping their sense of well-being, their culture and their communities’ political autonomy.

The Journey of Nishiyuu.

Walking land and lakes

The Journey of Nishiyuu is one of many Indigenous-led social justice movements that engage in walking the land. In 1978, for example, the American Indian Movement led a 3,000-mile walk from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco all the way to Washington, D.C.

Activists who participated in this “Longest Walk” did so to hold the U.S. government accountable to its treaty obligations. The United States signed approximately 374 treaties with Indigenous nations from 1778 until 1871, but Native American groups argue the government has often eroded rights these treaties were meant to protect.

The Longest Walk helped prevent the passage of 11 bills in Congress that would have restricted Native communities’ jurisdiction and social services and diminished their land and water rights, among other consequences.

In 2008, Indigenous activists embarked on a second Longest Walk and once more made the long journey from Alcatraz to Washington. This time, the walkers called attention to the need to respect sacred sites, protect the environment and create better futures for young people.

Nathan LeRoy, who was part of the original Longest Walk, takes part in the 2008 recreation of the walk from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Other walks have brought together Indigenous activists from Canada and the U.S., such as the Mother Earth Water Walkers. The late Josephine Mandamin, an Anishinaabe Grandmother and member of Wikwemikong First Nation, initiated the first Water Walk on Easter morning in 2003. She walked the entire perimeter of Lake Superior, on the U.S.-Canada border – an act of prayer and an effort to live out her obligations to care for and heal the waters.

Mandamin was joined by other “water walkers” who have kept her traditions and teachings alive. They have continued to walk around numerous bodies of water, including Lake Ontario in 2006, Lake Erie in 2007 and the Menominee River in 2016. Their walks embody an Anishinaabe perspective that water is a sacred medicine, and also aim to educate the public on the importance of Indigenous peoples’ access to water and jurisdiction over their ancestral waterways.

Affirming freedom

When Indigenous activists walk the land, they are restoring their firsthand knowledge of place and reknitting their relationships with plants, animals and other human beings. They are also revitalizing traditional forms of governance and diplomacy through visits with other Indigenous nations along the way – and sometimes inviting non-Indigenous people to walk with them. These invitations offer non-Indigenous walkers opportunities for reconciling their own relationships to land and to the Indigenous peoples whose territories they inhabit.

American Indian Movement members involved in The Longest Walk trek along the Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1978.
Wally McNamee/Corbis via Getty Images

Part of such walks’ significance stems from history. For centuries, the United States and Canada attempted to control Indigenous peoples’ freedom of movement – often with support from religious institutions. In the U.S., the reservation system segregated Indigenous nations and allocated them to small portions of land. In Canada, the pass system mandated that Indigenous people present a travel document to an appointed Indian agent in order to leave and return from their reservations.

Boarding schools in the United States and residential schooling in Canada separated children from their lands, families and communities. Federal relocation programs encouraged or forced Indigenous people to move to cities and urban centers in an attempt to assimilate them.

While these social movements commemorate history, and try to heal from it, they are also a reminder that the past is present.

By walking the land, Indigenous people assert their sovereignty and carry out their sacred obligations to care for their lands and waters – which I believe can inspire a more just and beautiful future. Läs mer…

Neither “Gladiator” nor its cinematic sequel is particularly concerned with historical fact. For one thing, the emperor Marcus Aurelius had no intention of restoring the republic. Gladiatorial contests were abhorrent displays of cruelty, but they didn’t always end in death. And the Romans didn’t sculpt bone-white statues; they painted them using an array of colors.

But I’m most interested in how the two films misrepresent the way Roman gladiators and their bodies were viewed by their republic-minded contemporaries.

In the films, the brawny biceps of gladiators Maximus and Lucius reflect “strength and honor” – to reprise the motto of the franchise – as each of these heroes fights to overthrow self-indulgent emperors and to restore the Roman republic with its traditional political values of liberty and self-restraint.

However, as I discuss in my book, “Vitruvian Man: Rome Under Construction,” the gladiator represented something else altogether. The most famous martyr of the Roman republic – Marcus Tullius Cicero – used gladiators’ physiques not to celebrate the republic’s valiant heroes, but to deride their bloated muscles as the embodiment of amoral tyranny.

Enemies of the Republic?

Cicero’s career was both marked and made by the constitutional crises that characterized the last decades of the Roman republic. In several of his speeches from the period, he characterized the enemies of the republic as gladiators.

In the so-called second Catilinarian conspiracy of 62 B.C.E., Lucius Sergius Catilina, also known as Catiline, attempted a coup after losing his campaign to become a consul. Rome’s highest office, a consul was the rough equivalent to a U.S. president, except he served for one year alongside another consul, with each wielding equal political power.

Cicero saw little to admire in a brawny body.
Stock Montage/Getty Images

Cicero, who was consul himself that year, pulled no punches in his speeches, which were all premised upon the notion that the would-be usurper Catiline – though of noble birth – was an enemy because he associated with “the criminals of the gladiatorial schools.”

The real defenders of Roman values – according to Cicero, anyway – exchanged sharp words in the Roman senate. Catiline, on the other hand, “trained” his superhuman physical hardiness to inflict “insult” and “wickedness” on the republic, its institutions and its freedoms, all while wielding a dagger, the weapon of thugs and cutthroats.

A couple of decades later, when the Roman republic had placed unprecedented political power in the hands of three men, Cicero again deployed the figure of the gladiator as a troubling symbol.

This time, he used it to call out one of these three “triumvirs,” Mark Antony, whose later alliance and dalliance with Cleopatra made him an enemy not only of the Roman republic, but also of Roman identity itself.

In his red-hot second Philippic – one of 14 invectives directed against Antony – Cicero put the spotlight on Antony’s rugged, gladiatorial body and its monstrous capacity for self-indulgence. This was a disgrace unfit for the Roman populace, and it was at odds with the traditional value of self-restraint in Roman political life:

“You! With your neck, your sides, your hard, gladiator’s body: you drained down enough wine at Hippia’s wedding that you had to throw it all up in plain sight of the Roman people the next day.”

But apart from the simple fact that most gladiators were enslaved – and, for that reason, were scorned by elites as social outcasts – there is another reason for the prevalence of this image in Roman political language.

Caricature as character

To participate in Roman political culture required training in rhetoric and oratory.

Although a good deal of oratorical training was done by modeling oneself after one’s teachers, the first century B.C.E. saw an influx of influential rhetorical teachers from Greece, and a boom in what might loosely be called textbooks of rhetoric. These manuals not only offer theoretical discussions of what makes a good speech, but they also reveal a great deal about Roman values.

Books like the anonymous “Rhetoric for Herennius,” which circulated in the earlier years of Cicero’s political career, teemed with examples for how to characterize the opposition in a court of law.

The author – as Cicero wrote in his own work, “On Rhetorical Brianstorming” – emphasized that discussions of physical attributes were not just fair game; they were all but expected as a way to highlight a plaintiff’s or defendant’s virtuous – or vicious – character.

Good looks, for instance, could be used favorably to show how nature’s blessings added to a client’s virtue without leading to pride. When characterized unfavorably, those same good looks might be spun as a product of the opponent’s vanity and self-indulgence.

More to the sword-point: According to the author of “Rhetoric for Herennius,” qualities of speed and strength might be highlighted to show “respectable training and effort” when done in moderation. But if you’re looking to tear down an opponent, the orator may “mention his use of [speed and strength], which any given gladiator may have thanks to dumb luck.”

Strength? Definitely.

Honor? Depends who you ask. Läs mer…

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point welcomes viewers into the Balsano family’s annual festive gathering. Four generations of the Italian-American family descend on the home of the elderly matriarch Antonia (Mary Reistetter) in Long Island, in New York state, where eating, drinking and general merriment ensues.

As the night goes on it becomes apparent that this may be their last Christmas together in the family home. As the adults immerse themselves in festivities, teenagers Emily (Matilda Fleming) and Michelle (Francesca Scorsese) secretly break out of the house to hang out with their friends.

Writer-director Tyler Taormina captures the cacophony of family gatherings in some beautifully observed and poignant moments. The ensemble cast (Michael Cera, Elsie Fisher, Maria Dizzia, Ben Shenkman, Gregg Turkington and Sawyer Spielberg) create a layered and tender family drama.

The meandering narrative drifts around universal family issues, from elderly relatives to teenage angst, but the majority of the film takes place in the home.

The trailer for Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.

Festive classics including A Christmas Carol, Home Alone, It’s A Wonderful Life, Die Hard, Miracle on 34th Street and Elf, all consider the home to be pivotal. Christmas films often feature a return home as an essential part of narrative closure.

The quest for home is a popular cinematic theme all year round. But it’s particularly poignant at Christmas when there is a universal, relatable pull to return.

In many Christmas films the stakes (and drama) are raised by making the return home a difficult enterprise. But in Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, the stakes are not raised in this fashion, in spite of the the film beginning with the dedication: “For the lost. May they find their way home on Christmas Eve.”

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The houses of our childhood resonate through our lives. In 1957, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote that our house is “our corner of the world … our first universe”.

The desire to return home can represent many things in film, from belonging to identity and a yearning for community. The home can be seen to embody family values – a fantasy of stability in a transient world. But the home can also be a prison, catalyst or gateway.

In Home Alone (1990) the home becomes a weapon to deter burglars. The house swap in The Holiday (2006) enables both characters to move past life obstacles. And the “drafty old house” in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) is a prize to be cherished.

The ‘drafty old house’ of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Christmas movies often connect with the viewer’s nostalgic wish to return to a Christmas past that creates an imagined community. We are drawn to these films as they contain enduring truths that resonate with our lives and offer a metaphorical return home.

This can be seen in Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point. The nostalgia of the family’s past is revelled in with stories, songs and old home movie footage. This is further supported by the soundtrack, which features a haunting Amtrak horn and classic tunes that underscore the sense of a universally shared pop cultural past.

As law professor Margaret Davies once put it: “It is impossible to leave home because the home is not only our physical location … but also our interior architecture, our own psychology, home is in this sense who we are”.

This atmospheric film captures a slice of suburban America which feels eerily transient. It is a nostalgic Christmas movie, but it is also an impressionistic portrait of a universal home. Läs mer…

The warm tributes paid to John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister who has died aged 86, reflect a memorable politician of a seemingly bygone era. While his achievements over a long career were vast, the enduring image for most people is of Prescott punching a voter during the 2001 general election campaign.

On a visit to Rhyl in north Wales, Prescott was hit by an egg thrown by a local man and responded with a left hook. The altercation descended in to a full-blown brawl in the street, all caught on camera. Prescott later joked that he told Tony Blair he had been “connecting with the public” that day.

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New Labour election campaigns were tightly choreographed affairs. The media was managed assiduously and politicians were ruthlessly kept on-message. You’d have thought that thumping a voter in the face on live television might have derailed the campaign, but Blair was able to brush it off the next day with a simple, “Well, John is John”. Prescott faced no criminal or political repercussions. He didn’t even come close to losing his job.

The infamous Prescott punch.

Funny as it seems now, the levity with which the incident was treated at the time is incredible. The idea that say, former deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden could have knocked a member of the public to the floor during July’s election campaign is unimaginable. And even if you can imagine it, the idea that it could have happened without political or legal consequence is incredulous.

Politics has of course changed in the past two decades. Blair promoted a “big tent” approach after the division of the 1980s. Where Margaret Thatcher’s attitude was to categorise those even in her own party as “one of us” (or not)– Blair’s pitch was more “if you’re not against us, you’re for us”. This approach delivered an unbeatable voter coalition in 1997 and 2001 (and into 2005).

Today, politics is much more polarised, especially given the electoral cleavage formed in the wake of Brexit, which pitted remainers against leavers and spawned a period of populist politics in which easy answers are offered to address complex problems. That means a divisiveness quite different from the ideological nature of the 1980s. It’s much nastier and can be dangerous for politicians that step out of line. Just consider the column inches and Westminster discourse devoted to prime minister Keir Starmer’s spectacles, given to him by a party donor.

So this teaches us that politics is a different place and that today Prescott wouldn’t get away with that left hook, right?

Well, no. The fact is that there has never been a time when a national politician could expect to smack a voter during an election campaign without consequence. Prescott got away with it in 2001 partly because of his authenticity – he was the “Heineken” figure who could reach parts of the electorate Blair could not. He was a working-class traditionalist whose background and attitudes reflected the lives of voters much more resonantly than his polished boss.

But there was another reason. Most people watching the incident thought, well, the guy deserved it. After all, he assaulted Prescott, unprovoked, as he went about his day. Ordinary people reflected that their own reaction would be much the same.

Plenty of people thought Prescott had a point.
Alamy/David Kendall

Ronald Reagan once remarked of politics: “if you’re explaining, you’re losing”. Starmer found himself explaining far too much about just where he acquired his new glasses, but not only because of the changing political climate. Perhaps Prescott didn’t need to explain because, like him or not, there was a very relatable, unreconstructed human on show. And that is why he is being remembered fondly on his death.

So, far from a bygone age when candidates could act with impunity, perhaps there are opportunities today for politicians to more cynically take advantage.

As prime minister, Boris Johnson’s behaviour was in a different league to Prescott’s. He got away (for a time) with breaking his own laws, repeatedly lying to Parliament, treating the constitution and public life as his plaything and dishing out dozens of lucrative public contracts to supporters – among many other sins. He was able to do this because he constructed a distinctive “authentic” image that marked him out as different from his contemporaries. But he also exploited the populism and divisiveness of today’s politics, using it as a shield against criticism.

Prescott, like Johnson, represented a kind of authenticity that meant his actions could be brushed aside – they each got away with things other politicians never could. But while Prescott will always be associated with that punch, Johnson left a legacy that history won’t treat kindly. And so, it remains to be seen, when Boris Johnson eventually dies, whether his behaviour and persona is remembered quite so fondly. Läs mer…

As climate and Earth scientists, we are acutely aware that action on climate change is desperately needed. It is now almost certain that 2024 will not only be the warmest year ever recorded, but also the first year that will be 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels.

The Paris climate agreement pledged to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”, but that now looks to be a forlorn hope. The effects of climate change increase with the level of global warming, such that every 0.1°C adds to the suffering of those most vulnerable. As recent devastating storms in Spain have shown, those people may be much closer to home than many had assumed.

The sooner we reach net zero emissions, the sooner the global temperature will stop increasing and the effects of climate change will stop worsening. Unfortunately, we are nowhere near net zero. Last year, emissions from the burning of fossil fuels were at an all-time high.

Some would say carbon offsetting offers us a way out. At the University of Exeter we have explored the role of carbon offsets in the university’s very ambitious target of net zero by 2030.

Exeter has made great progress in reducing emissions by switching to suppliers that generate electricity from wind and solar, as well as installing lots of solar panels on campus. However, because we include “scope 3 emissions”, which includes things like travel and embedded carbon in products, the assumption was that carbon offsetting was going to be required.

Carbon offsetting typically involves buying carbon credits. These credits are created when carbon is removed from the atmosphere (such as by planting trees) or more usually when emissions are avoided somewhere else. For example, cutting down and burning a large forest would emit a large amount of carbon dioxide.

If instead this forest is protected, then the managers of the forest can generate carbon credits which can be sold to organisations or individuals to offset the carbon pollution they are creating.

Today, you will find commitments to offset emissions in the climate strategies of governments, small businesses, multinational corporations, international football teams and even famous music bands. It’s an approach to the climate crisis that is supported by many universities, which fully understand the science of climate change.

Protecting this forest could – in theory – be used to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels.
PARALAXIS / shutterstock

Unfortunately, carbon offsetting is beset with problems. In too many cases, it’s hard to verify if these credits have actually prevented emissions. And it’s especially hard to verify if they will continue to prevent emissions permanently.

We currently sit on an official University of Exeter panel advising our own university on offsetting, and we have concluded that carbon offsetting should be removed from plans to reach net zero.

This panel was initiated by the university executive board, and comprises internationally recognised environmental and sustainability scientists, physicists, engineers, social scientists and writers, along with students. It includes an IPCC author, IPCC reviewer and those who specialise in clinical advice, the circular economy and industry liaison.

We reviewed the evidence for all types of offsetting. We discussed offsetting with industry professionals and academics from other universities. We also performed some simple thought experiments, based on our knowledge of the Earth system, to consider how fast carbon emissions could be removed from approaches such as tree planting.

We found no evidence that offsetting could make a meaningful contribution to our efforts to get to net zero. Instead, we concluded that offsetting is probably ineffective – and possibly a dangerous distraction as it can lead to inaction on actual emissions reduction. We concluded that efforts should focus on working out how to leave more fossil fuels safely in the ground.

A different route to net zero

We accept that ditching offsets will blow a large hole in our university’s plan to reach net zero. Given how widespread offsetting has become, we imagine that if other organisations were to do likewise, then their net zero strategies would also be seriously affected. But universities worldwide have a social responsibility to lead by example and to act on the knowledge that their communities have produced.

To that end, we recommend the following courses of action that other universities and potentially all other organisations should now urgently consider.

Exclude carbon offsetting from any plans to reach net zero
Use nature-based solutions such as habitat creation and rewilding to help restore ecosystems and biodiversity rather than absorbing our carbon emissions
Redeploy funds that have been put aside for offsetting for activities that result in emissions reductions, and so leave more fossil fuels in the ground
Work with suppliers and local communities to help them decarbonise more quickly (so-called “insetting”)
Apply a laser-like focus on the acceleration of decarbonisation.

Following our advice is likely to be uncomfortable for our university, but we hope it will translate into a more thoughtful and honest approach to addressing the climate emergency. If other universities do likewise, it will send a strong signal to business leaders and politicians that meaningful action is not only needed, but possible.

Continuing to stand behind the fallacy that carbon offsetting approaches will get us out of the climate crisis is now untenable. Läs mer…

The second series of Bad Sisters starts in the dark of the night. Four women sit in a car at the edge of some cliffs, panicking, arguing, shouting at each other. We are back with the Garvey sisters, two years on from where the first season had ended.

Set in and around Dublin, the “bad sisters” of the title are the Garveys: Eva (Sharon Horgan), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), Becka (Eve Hewon) and Grace (Anne-Marie Duff). The first series followed the tight-knit sisters, kitted out in glorious knitwear, and ended with the death of Grace’s coercive husband John Paul (Claes Bang).

The sisters are still very close, cloyingly so at times, always in each other’s houses, lives and pockets. And we find that there is a new man, Ian (Owen McDonnell), in Grace’s life now.

Even though John Paul isn’t in the second series, we feel his presence throughout. The aftereffects of his death seep into everyone’s lives and when a suitcase containing a dead body is discovered in his childhood home, the sisters fall under suspicion once again.

Men commit more violent crimes than women, especially murders. More than 90% of killers are men. Women, meanwhile, are both expected and perceived to be passive and forgiving. Anger in women is particularly demonised and seen as a flaw. When women do kill, they are either seen as mad, bad or a victim. Apple TV+’s dark comedy flips many of these stereotypes on their head.

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The second season of Bad Sisters is darker, and somewhat more serious than the first. Each of the sisters is facing their own private battle, from menopause to divorce, sexuality and unwanted pregnancy. Through digging deeper into each of their lives, the show covers a range of taboo subjects.

The trailer for the second season of Bad Sisters.

The show continues to expose the ways society is stacked against women, whether it be the garda (the national police and security service of Ireland), the healthcare system, or just the culture around them. The young police officer Una Hoolihan (Thaddea Graham), for example, is shown dealing with casual misogyny in the police force.

First and foremost, though, this is a show about sisterhood. It’s not borne of the kind of tokenistic, “lean-in” feminism that tells women to improve themselves, try harder and things will eventually work out. Instead, it’s a story about flawed women, with desires and urges, being messy and complicated. And that’s much more refreshing to see.

The series is also a serious commentary cloaked in humour on what happens when women feel trapped and helpless, when their agency over their own bodies, desires and lives is taken away from them. They are compelled to take back control. Yes, there are male characters too, but they’re very much in the background, watching the women run the show and shape the story. The men bully them, admire and desire them – but never quite manage to control them.

Fiona Shaw and Eva Birthistle in Bad Sisters.
Apple TV+

It is satisfying to see the angry women of Bad Sisters refusing to contort themselves into archaic notions of femininity for the sake of the others around them. When a show like this comes around and allows women to be portrayed as their whole authentic selves, it feels like a revolution. Even though it shouldn’t be. Läs mer…