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Donor-advised funds, or DAFs, are financial accounts funded by donors to support future charitable work. This kind of giving differs greatly from charitable giving as a whole because it’s much more likely to involve donations of assets like stock, real estate or cryptocurrencies that have gained in value.

That’s what my co-author, Helen Flannery and I, found in our new study that will soon be published in “Nonprofit Operations and Supply Chain Management” as part of an academic book series.

We examined the IRS filings of all charities from 2020 to 2022, including organizations that administer DAFs. Such DAF sponsors include charities affiliated with large financial companies like Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity. By looking at the types of gifts received by these charities, we found that noncash giving represents more than 16% of the average DAF’s revenue versus only about 3% on average for overall charitable giving, which covers everything from animal shelters to orchestras.

This difference is even more pronounced for the largest national DAF operations, which on average had 46% of their incoming assets in noncash form.

These noncash gifts were primarily investment assets like stocks, bonds and real estate. We find that while the average conventional charity gets around 33% of its noncash contributions as investments, the average DAF sponsor gets more than 90% of its noncash donations that way.

This share is even higher, at over 97%, for the typical national DAF organization.

Why it matters

DAFs, first launched in the 1930s, have become much more widespread over the past three decades.

The total value of assets they hold is rising fast: It grew from US$70 billion in 2014 to more than $251 billion in 2023.

In some ways, DAFs operate like small foundations, since donors can get a tax break when they put money into a DAF, even if that money isn’t put into use by a charity for years. Donors also retain advisory control over the money they’ve reserved for future charitable giving.

But unlike foundations, there’s very little paperwork required, and there’s no requirement that a DAF disburse at least 5% of its assets annually – like foundations have to do.

Using investment assets as charitable donations is more advantageous to donors than just putting money in a DAF. One reason is that most large donors are eligible for a tax deduction equal to the full value of the asset that was donated at the time of the gift. That holds true, even if the value has risen significantly from what it initially was worth when the donor acquired it. The second reason is that donors don’t need to pay taxes on their capital gains as they would have had they sold it and obtained money in exchange.

Likewise, this boom in gifting investment assets can cut into government tax revenue more than typical cash gifts because it more effectively reduces an investor’s tax obligations.

Policymakers, lawmakers and regulators are currently considering whether to establish new rules for DAFs.

What’s next

We are now researching how the charities that administer DAFs differ from one another. We’re finding that some primarily market themselves as a way for donors to reduce their tax payments, while others put more emphasis on helping donors better manage their charitable giving.

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

Philadelphia’s K-8 public school students are being taught a new literacy curriculum starting in the 2024-2025 school year. It’s called Expeditionary Learning, and it conforms with what literacy experts call the science of reading, which are research-based skills needed to become a strong reader.

Mary Jean Tecce DeCarlo is a clinical professor of literacy studies at Drexel University and previously worked as an elementary school teacher for 18 years, teaching kids to read and write. She talked to The Conversation U.S. about the strengths and challenges of Philly’s new curriculum.

How is the new literacy curriculum different?

For the past few years, the Philadelphia School District has used a homegrown curriculum created by Philadelphia teachers. This curriculum, shared with teachers in Google Drive, focused on using state standards to organize and teach reading, writing and speaking.

The district believes the new and more structured curriculum is better aligned with the science of reading and will help standardize instruction across classrooms and schools.

The new curriculum combines what it calls “word knowledge” and “world knowledge.”

Word knowledge refers to structured, synthetic phonics. This is a way of teaching the letter-sound relationships used in spelling and decoding new words. Readers start by learning letter sounds and then put the sounds together to form a word. Structured phonics follows a specific sequence and is different from analytic phonics, in which the letter-sound relationships are taught by first looking at a word and then breaking down the word into its parts. For example, if you know how to read “bat” you can then read other words that end in “-at.”

World knowledge refers to building strong background knowledge using nonfiction texts that students might traditionally read in a science or social studies class. These texts also cover social justice and environmental themes.

The lessons in this program are organized in a specific sequence. This is different from the prior curriculum, which gave teachers specific standards to teach, along with texts and supporting materials, but did not have a specific sequence of lessons. The new curriculum also provides scripts for what to say to students, as well as supplemental activities for English Language Learners, students with learning disabilities and students who are above grade level in some skills.

The curriculum is organized into modules that generally last six weeks and have a theme such as What’s Up in the Sky: A Study of the Sun, Moon and Stars or Stories of Human Rights. Each module covers a specific set of literacy skills. These include, for example, reading comprehension of narrative poems or revision and editing of a nonfiction piece.

This theme-based instruction is designed to last one hour per school day.

In grades K-2, there is a second hour called Foundations dedicated to the phonics curriculum. In the upper grades there is a second hour called ALL that reviews basic reading and writing skills and includes practice with reading and writing fluency, grammar and vocabulary development.

Will it help students become better readers?

Parents and teachers won’t know whether it is helping students for several years. That’s how long researchers believe it takes for standardized tests and their assessments to show the impact of a curriculum on student achievement.

As do students throughout the United States, students in Philadelphia struggle to meet grade-level expectations on state literacy assessments. The district has made gains addressing some of the learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic, but many of its students still have a long way to go toward proficient reading and writing.

Are there any drawbacks?

In articles published by Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The Philadelphia Inquirer, several Philadelphia teachers expressed confidence in the intended Expeditionary Learning curriculum and believe it does follow the science of reading. However, they admit they are struggling with the steep learning curve and intense preparation required to put the curriculum into practice in their classrooms.

I heard similar experiences firsthand from Philadelphia teachers who attended Drexel University’s Science of Reading Day.

With any new curriculum, teachers need to learn how the lessons are organized. They also have to master new texts and other learning materials – like videos, games and handouts – that form the heart of instruction. And they must discover which of the suggested activities meet the needs of the actual learners in their class.

The only way to do this is to use as many activities as possible and over time figure out which are best for their students. This can cause issues with pacing when teachers do not move through the lessons as quickly as the intended curriculum would suggest.

Also, the world knowledge component of the new literacy curriculum includes – I believe appropriately – many hands-on activities. But teachers need time to gather, sort and distribute the required materials, and this can be a source of stress, particularly in the first year. Teachers often have to buy new materials or bring in items from home. Over time, many teachers will likely have plastic containers with all of the spatulas, eyedroppers, tweezers or other tools needed for each module, which will lower their workload.

The new curriculum also presents challenges for some students who will need to develop the attention and stamina to stay engaged during the one-hour to two-hour learning blocks.

How were teachers trained on the new curriculum?

Teachers were offered optional, paid professional development on Expeditionary Learning over the summer of 2024.

When implementing a new curriculum, however, teachers need ongoing support from peers and from experienced users of the curriculum. Experts suggest school-based collaborative learning led by teacher experts and focused on daily classroom instruction, as well as individual teacher coaching and feedback.

Using a more traditional model of professional development, the district is offering large-group training on in-service days throughout the academic year. The district also says there is some coaching available from the Expeditionary Learning company.

What else is there to consider?

New learning hooks into older learning. Students build from the known to the new. Education writer Natalie Wexler calls this background knowledge “the other half of the Velcro.”

Research shows that when learners have some background knowledge about a topic, the new knowledge they learn in class sticks much more easily.

Traditionally, a lot of background knowledge was taught in social studies and science classes, and Philadelphia public schools taught these subjects daily, even in the primary grades.

But after the No Child Left Behind law was passed in 2002, schools needed to meet high-stakes reading and math testing standards. Districts like Philadelphia tried to address this by replacing time spent on these subjects with more time on reading and math instruction.

This had the unintended consequence of limiting the world knowledge built from weekslong lessons on topics like dinosaurs or photosynthesis. Läs mer…

In 1975, only 1% of public schools had their own police officers. Today, 44% do. A large reason for the increase is the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which led to the creation of the federal Community Oriented Policing Services to oversee funds for the hiring of police in schools. Another reason is the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. From the federal government down to individual districts, the idea that schools need police officers to keep kids safe is prevalent.

However, research shows that police officers in schools don’t always prevent violence, including school shootings. In fact, their presence can harm students.

Here are five reasons police in schools, also known as school resource officers, actually make students less safe in school:

1. They don’t address the root problems

State legislators that advocate for police in schools believe that by hardening schools – increasing police presence, adding metal detectors, requiring clear backpacks and mandating active-shooter safety drills – students will be safer from school shootings.

Academic research supports a different strategy. Most school shooters are known to administrators prior to committing assault. Many of these students struggle to make friends, experience challenges in their home lives and have multiple behavioral and mental health needs that haven’t been addressed.

School police officers cannot fix societal problems. Instead, researchers and policy advocates recommend that districts invest in the people who are better equipped to address these issues, like social workers and therapists.

2. Their role is not well defined

The role of school police officers, as well as their training, varies from school to school. This means that some may have a more positive impact on students than others.

Research shows that school resource officers are effective at detecting drug-related activity on campus and addressing violent crime related to gang activity in schools. But officers do not lower instances of bullying and low-level crime like vandalism and schoolyard fights.

School police officers play various roles on campus, but research shows that they are most effective at helping students when they focus on specific types of crime occurring in the school or building relationships with the students who are known to commit them. When they focus on punishment and discipline, their effectiveness decreases.

Students kneel in front of a makeshift memorial at Apalachee High School on Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga., where two students and two teachers were shot and killed the day before.
Jessica McGowan via Getty Images

3. They do not increase students’ feelings of safety

Most students either do not realize that their school has a school resource officer or don’t mind that one is present. In fact, most students report liking the officer at their school.

However, students report that the presence of school resource officers does not make them feel more positive about school safety and climate. Students report feeling safe in the beginning of the year with officers in the building but feel less safe as the year goes on. The more contact students have with an officer, for any reason, the more disconnected they begin to feel. Researchers suggest a possible reason why is because they start to worry that their own behavior can result in harsh punishment.

This can lead to other negative consequences, like increased absenteeism, failure to graduate and delinquency outside of school.

Students who frequently encounter school police officers can begin to develop subconscious feelings that their school is unsafe, particularly if their encounters were related to discipline. Even students who don’t directly interact with the officers, but witness other students get arrested, can begin to feel afraid that they will be arrested for minor disturbances, too.

4. They contribute to the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’

Research shows that the presence of school police officers increases the likelihood that a school will report common forms of student misbehavior, like cafeteria fights and vandalism, to law enforcement agencies – contributing to what is known as the “school-to-prison pipeline” by criminalizing such conduct.

For example, schools that use on-campus police for law enforcement and other duties, like mentoring, are 118% more likely to record property crimes than schools without police. Schools that use officers primarily for student discipline and crime response report 91% more nonserious crimes, property crimes and instances of disorderly conduct to police than similar schools that don’t use school police.

Supporters of school police officers may argue that reporting crimes keeps students safer. However, for some students, the consequences can be devastating and lifelong. For example, in one study, North Carolina middle schools with on-campus police officers recorded 38% fewer violent offenses than schools without police. But they were also more likely to respond to student misconduct with harsher disciplinary practices such as school suspension, transfers to alternative learning environments, expulsions and referrals to police. Studies often find that these exclusionary responses are mostly experienced by Black and Hispanic students.

5. They sometimes infringe on students’ rights

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

However, research is clear about the threats to students’ rights that school police officers can pose. These include invasion of privacy, unlawful searches and seizures and violations of rights of students with disabilities and special education students.

Schools that plan to keep their police officers can follow these guidelines to ensure they are more effective in actually helping students:

As the nation’s schools continue to grapple with how to keep students safe, a careful review of the research shows that school police officers may not be the answer. Läs mer…

Dorothy Allison, who died on Nov. 5, 2024, published her first novel, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” in 1992, when she was 42 years old.

She mined her own life to craft the semi-autobiographical work, which became a finalist for the National Book Award.

Growing up poor in Greenville, South Carolina, Allison endured abuse of all kinds before becoming the first in her family to finish high school and college. As a lesbian, she faced additional challenges and hurdles. Before she achieved literary fame with her first novel, Allison ran a feminist bookstore and a women’s center. She was broke when she finally sold “Bastard Out of Carolina.”

To me, Allison is a shining exception in a long line of authors who have attempted to write about poverty but fail to accurately capture it.

In my book “Poor Things: How Those with Money Depict Those without It,” I detail the genre of what I call “poornography” – stories written about poor people by people who don’t have firsthand experience being poor themselves.

Most readers are probably familiar with the standard tropes in these works: violence, sexual abuse, addiction, filth and degradation. Allison was decidedly not in that camp.

She broke that mold by finding beauty in her impoverished surroundings and focusing on love, humor and family bonds.

Beauty in a hopeless place

Even though “Bastard out of Carolina” ultimately deals with physical and sexual abuse – which, of course, is not confined to poor people – this merely constitutes one element of a broader emotional and physical landscape.

Allison’s hometown of Greenville is also the setting of the novel – and it’s a place that the novel’s young narrator, Bone, describes as “the most beautiful place in the world.” She adds:

“Black walnut trees dropped their green-black fuzzy bulbs on Aunt Ruth’s matted lawn, past where their knotty roots rose up out of the ground like the elbows and knees of dirty children suntanned dark and covered with scars. Weeping willows marched across the yard, following every wandering stream and ditch, their long whiplike fronds making rents that sheltered sweet-smelling beds of clover.”

Extreme hunger, however, is unique to poverty, and something that poor writers often recall with a kind of vividness that can escape middle-class or wealthy writers.

“Hunger makes you restless,” Allison writes. “You dream about food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother’s milk singing to your bloodstream.”

In “Bastard out of Carolina,” Allison doesn’t celebrate hunger. But she is able to find humor in it and show how laughter can be used as a coping mechanism.

In the novel, when Bone complains about being hungry, her mother recounts her own childhood: Back then, there was “real hunger, hunger of days with no expectation that there would ever be biscuits again.” And during those times she and her siblings would concoct fantastical stories of strange dishes: “Your aunt Ruth always talked about frogs’ tongues with dew berries. … But Raylene won the prize with her recipe for sugar-glazed turtle meat with poison greens and hot piss dressing.”

Humor isn’t used to gloss over the seriousness of poverty. Yet Allison is keen to point out that both can exist: They are all wrapped up in a life lived.

Greenville, S.C., where Dorothy Allison spent the first 11 years of her life, was the setting for ‘Bastard out of Carolina.’
Library of Congress

American delusion

I can’t help but compare Allison’s work with that of an author like JD Vance. In his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance revels in his grandmother’s anger and violence as a sign of her vibrant hillbilly-ness.

On the other hand, in “Bastard out of Carolina,” Bone recalls her mother saying flatly, “Nothing to be proud of in shooting at people for looking at you wrong.”

So many other writers about poverty have characters who pine for the material comforts promised by the American Dream, whether it’s Clyde Griffiths in Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” or George and Lennie in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.”

Dorothy Allison worked on ‘Bastard out of Carolina’ for nearly a decade before finding a publisher.
Amazon

Allison’s characters, on the other hand, learn to see through this false promise. In one scene, Bone and her cousin break into the local Woolworth’s.

Previously, she had longingly eyed a brimming glass case of nuts. But once she shatters the display case, she realizes “that the case was a sham. There hadn’t been more than two inches of nuts pressed against the glass front, propped up with cardboard.” Her reaction: “Cheap sons of bitches.”

In a display of class consciousness, Bone eventually detects the false allure of cheap commodities. “I looked … at all the things on display. Junk everywhere: shoes that went to pieces in the rain, clothes that separated at the seams, stale candy, makeup that made your skin break out.”

In contrast, she thinks of the value of the home-canned goods made by her aunt. “That was worth something. All this stuff seemed tawdry and useless.”

‘Jealous of you for what you got’

At one point, Bone articulates the concept of poornography without using that term. She talks about “the mythology” that plagues poor people:

“People from families like mine – southern working poor with high rates of illegitimacy and all too many relatives who have spent time in jail – we are the people who are seen as the class that does not care for their children, for whom rape and abuse and violence are the norm. That such assumptions are false, that the rich are just as likely to abuse their children as the poor, and that southerners do not have a monopoly on either violence or illegitimacy are realities that are difficult to get people to recognize.”

In “Bastard out of Carolina,” Bone resents the rich rather than admiring them. In a conversation with one of her aunts, she says she “hates” them. Interestingly, her aunt provides the poor person’s counterpoint to hate.

“Could be they’re looking at you sitting up here eating blackberries … could be they’re jealous of you for what you got, afraid of what you would do if they stepped in the yard.”

Allison shows readers how class resentment can go both ways, and how for all of the contempt directed at poor people from the rich and powerful, there may also be an element of envy and fear at play. Läs mer…

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why do I feel better rested when I wake myself up than I do if my alarm or another person wakes me up? – Calleigh H., age 11, Oklahoma

We’ve all experienced this: You’re in the middle of a lovely dream. Perhaps you’re flying. As you’re soaring through the air, you meet an eagle. The eagle looks at you, opens its beak and – BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Your alarm goes off. Dream over, time to get up.

Many people – kids and adults alike – notice that when they wake up naturally from sleep, they feel more alert than if an alarm or another person, like a parent, wakes them up. Why is that?

I’m a neurologist who studies the brain, specifically what happens in the brain when you’re asleep. I also take care of children and adults who don’t sleep well and want to sleep better. My research involves working with parents to help them teach their children good sleep habits.

To understand how to sleep better, and why waking up naturally from sleep helps you feel more alert, you need to start by understanding sleep cycles.

The sleep cycle

The sleep cycle consists of four stages. One of these is REM, which stands for rapid eye movements. The other three are non-REM stages. When you fall asleep, you first go into a state of drowsiness called non-REM Stage 1.

This is followed by deeper stages of sleep, called non-REM stages 2 and 3. Each stage of non-REM is deeper than the one before. Then, about 90 minutes after you first fall asleep, you enter the fourth stage, which is REM sleep. This is a stage of lighter sleep where you do much of your dreaming. After a few minutes, you return to non-REM sleep again.

The four stages of the sleep cycle.
The Conversation, CC BY

These cycles repeat themselves throughout the night, with most people having four to six cycles of non-REM sleep alternating with REM sleep each night. As the night goes on, the cycles contain less non-REM sleep and more REM sleep. This is why it’s important to get enough sleep, so that the body can get enough of both REM sleep and non-REM sleep.

REM vs. non-REM sleep

How do researchers like me know that a person is in non-REM vs. REM sleep? In the sleep lab, we can tell from their brain waves, eye movements and the tension in their muscles, like in the chin. These are measured by putting sensors called electrodes on the scalp, around the eyes and on the chin.

These electrodes pick up brain activity, which varies from waves that are low in amplitude (the height of the wave) and relatively fast to waves that are high in amplitude (a taller wave) and relatively slow. When we are awake, the height of the waves is low and the waves are relatively fast. In contrast, during sleep, the waves get higher and slower.

Non-REM Stage 3 has the tallest and slowest waves of all the sleep stages. In REM sleep, brain waves are low in amplitude and relatively fast, and the eye movements are rapid, too. People need both non-REM and REM stages for a healthy brain, so they can learn and remember.

Waking up naturally

When you wake up in the morning on your own, it’s usually as you come to the end of whatever stage of sleep you were in. Think of it like getting off the train when it comes to a stop at the station. But when an alarm or someone else wakes you up, it’s like jumping off the train between stops, which can feel jolting. That’s why it’s good to wake up naturally whenever possible.

People can actually train their brains to wake up at a consistent time each day that is a natural stopping point. Brains have an internal 24-hour clock that dictates when you first start to feel sleepy and when you wake up. This is related to our circadian rhythms.

You can adjust your circadian rhythm so that you wake naturally each morning.

Training the brain to wake up at a consistent time

First, it’s important to go to bed at a consistent time that allows you to get enough sleep. If you stay up too late doing homework or looking at your phone, that can interfere with getting enough sleep and make you dependent on an alarm – or your parents – to wake you up.

Other things that can help you fall asleep at a healthy time include getting physical activity during the day and avoiding coffee, soda or other drinks or foods that contain caffeine. Physical activity increases brain chemicals that make it easier to fall asleep, while caffeine does the opposite and keeps you awake.

Second, you need to be aware of light in your environment. Light too late in the evening, including from screens, can interfere with your brain’s production of a chemical called melatonin that promotes sleep. But in the morning when you wake up, you need to be exposed to light.

Morning light helps you synchronize, or align, your circadian rhythms with the outside world and makes it easier to fall asleep at night. The easiest way to do this is to open up your shades or curtains in your room. In the winter, some people use light boxes to simulate sunlight, which helps them align their rhythms.

Benefits of a good night’s sleep

A good sleep routine entails both a consistent bedtime and wake time and regularly getting enough sleep. That usually means 9-11 hours for school-age kids who are not yet teens, and 8-10 hours for teens.

This will help you be at your best to learn at school, boost your mood, help you maintain a healthy weight and promote many other aspects of health.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best. Läs mer…

Jargon is hard to decipher. And when it comes to climate science, it’s rife. So, we’ve teamed up with top climate experts to explain the meaning, and the context, of some of the most crucial terminology.

The Conversation’s new quick climate dictionary explains the meaning of everything from blue carbon to carbon footprint. It will help you understand the difference between net zero and carbon neutral, and make obscure concepts like “loss and damage” more relevant and digestible.

As new terms become more mainstream, we’ll endeavour to translate them for you in this ongoing series. More than a glossary, each video is a bitesize explainer, using simple language that’s accessible to all.

To begin with, Mark Maslin, professor of earth systems science at UCL, explains that net zero is the point at which “no extra greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere”. As he says: “That’s really important for limiting climate change.”

Mark Maslin explains the meaning of net zero.

Also, I put my wellies on and head to the very muddy foreshore to explain the meaning of blue carbon – the carbon that can be absorbed and stored by plants in the ocean. Spoiler alert: it’s in more than just pretty mangroves.

Anna Turns explains the term ‘blue carbon’.

Above all, this isn’t about the doom and gloom of an existential threat. An optimistic thread of solutions runs throughout this dictionary – improving climate literacy is the first step to amplifying innovations, making progress and scaling up serious climate action.

This dictionary will grow over the coming months, so check out our YouTube playlist. I hope you find it useful and uplifting.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Disclosure statement:

Mark Maslin is Pro-Vice Provost of the UCL Climate Crisis Grand Challenge. He is co-director of the London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. He is an advisor to Sheep Included Ltd, Lansons, NetZeroNow and the UK Parliament. He has received grant funding from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, DFG, Royal Society, DIFD, BEIS, DECC, FCDO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Research England, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, CIFF, Sprint2020, and British Council. He has received funding from the BBC, Laithwaites, Seventh Generation, Channel 4, JLT Re, WWF, Hermes, CAFOD, HP and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Läs mer…

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections has left many across the world unsure about what he might do in his next term, and whether some of the threats he made about international policy will be followed through.

There are several dramatic policy changes that the president-elect has threatened to make once he takes office.

For some, one of the most serious foreign policy concerns is the way the Trump administration might go about ending the war in Ukraine. Trump stated he could stop the war in a day. If the end result of any negotiation or peace deal is seen by Vladimir Putin as a victory, other countries on Russia’s borders are worried it could lead to plans for further military aggression.

Similarly, if Trump abandons the US’s historic support for the self-governing island of Taiwan, it could prompt China into an attack. Beijing sees the island as a breakaway province, and wants it to become part of China. But historically, US support of Taiwan has been a factor in China holding back.

Xi Jinping wants to cement his legacy as the leader who unified China, something which Mao Zedong failed to do after the civil war. The Chinese president has ratcheted up the pressure on Taiwan in recent years, and there are significant signs that he wants to go further.

But neither Xi or Putin can guarantee that Trump will do what he has previously suggested he might. Here’s why.

A lesson from game theory, the mathematical study of cooperation and competition, might be relevant here – in particular, the scenario referred to as the “chicken game” or the “hawk-dove” game, which provides a model of conflict between two actors.

It’s called the “chicken game” because it follows the same logic as contests between American adolescents in the 1950 and ’60s. They would drive their cars at each other at high speed, and the first one to swerve aside and avoid a potentially fatal crash would be described as “chicken” and so lose the game.

To describe the logic of this game, we can use a payoff matrix (see below). This is a table showing the hypothetical payoffs resulting from the different outcomes that are possible when player A is confronted by player B. In each pair of outcomes, player B’s payoff from their combined actions is given first, followed by player A’s.

Paul Whiteley, Author provided (no reuse)

The worst possible outcome for both players is a crash, so this gets a payoff of 0 for both. The best possible outcome for Player A is to carry on driving when player B swerves, with the payoffs seen in the top-right cell (1,3). The equivalent outcome for player B is in the bottom left cell. If both swerve, the payoff is 2 for each player.

Thus, swerving is better than crashing – but the top prize goes to the player who drives straight at his opponent, who backs down.

The chicken game has been used to model nuclear deterrence. In this case, a first strike which destroys the opponent is the equivalent of driving when the opponent swerves. Needless to say, when both players launch strikes simultaneously, the outcome is a lot worse than the zero depicted in the matrix.

The key to winning the game is to convince your opponent that you are willing to keep on driving at all costs. Some American teenagers would, for example, ostentatiously throw the steering wheel out of the vehicle, signalling to their opponent that they could not swerve at the last minute even if they wanted to. This amounts to saying that to win, you need to convince your opponent you will take that risk.

Trump was the first sitting president to visit North Korea.

This is similar to what Trump does in some circumstances. He makes big statements about what he is going do – in part, this may be to see what his opponents do next, and whether they will back down.

Trump also has the advantage of unpredictability. The gap between what he says and does is significant, as Michael Wolff, the biographer of his first term in office, has detailed. Woolf said in an interview: “Donald Trump is deeply unpredictable, irrational, at times bordering on incoherent, self-obsessed in a disconcerting way, and displays all those kinds of traits that anyone would reasonably say: ‘What’s going on here, is something wrong?’”

A couple of examples from Trump’s first term make the point that the president-elect often chooses moves that, historically, other US leaders have ruled out. Sometimes these moves are successful; in other cases, they aren’t.

In 2019, Trump made a historic visit to North Korea, the first US leader to do so. At this meeting, Trump suggested it was the beginning of a new era of friendship between the nations, and suggested he was the only person who could do this. But his attempt to forge an alliance with North Korea and halt its nuclear programme failed. In this case, Trump’s unpredictability did not work.

But there is another example when his unpredictablity succeeded in achieving an outcome the US had been wanting for decades. In his first term, Trump sought to weaken the Nato alliance by “insulting and alienating US allies”. And his threats to cut US support helped achieve his objective of persuading Nato member countries to increase their defence spending. This is exactly what he hoped.

So, Trump’s unpredictability could be a deterrent to opponents such as Putin and Xi, as they don’t know how he is likely to react, or when he might take offence. If Putin refuses a Ukraine peace deal proffered by Trump, or accepts it and then resumes the war during his presidency, the US president could take this personally and could even turn against Putin.

The lesson from game theory is that unpredictability and recklessness can pay off in conflict and negotiation situations. And this means no one knows what Trump will do next. Läs mer…

The phenomenon of younger men turning to testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) to boost their “T levels” has been in the spotlight recently thanks to media reports and social media influencers.

Testosterone is a hormone critical to male health, influencing muscle mass, mood, cognition, libido and energy levels. Artificially raising testosterone levels through supplementation when levels dip seems logical. But is it?

Clearly, a large amount of research points towards beneficial effects of TRT for men with deficiency, including increased muscle mass and reduced fat mass, improved sexual desire and performance and better overall quality of life. But these findings come mostly from research in older men, leaving important questions unanswered about the effects of TRT in younger men. (It should be noted that TRT is not the same as anabolic steroids, which are drugs used purely to increase muscle mass.)

As men age – typically from age 30 – testosterone levels decline. Some estimate levels to drop by 1%-2% per year, although the specifics have not been resolved. This decline happens much faster if the person has certain diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and inflammatory diseases – the kinds of diseases that tend to accumulate as we age.

In healthy men, the age-related decline probably doesn’t have a negative effect until men are in their 70s and 80s. So low testosterone is not a natural consequence of ageing that all men will face. And it really is the occurrence of certain diseases that has a big impact on T levels.

Testosterone deficiency in younger men that requires medical intervention is relatively uncommon. But it can occur with specific genetic conditions such as Klinefelter syndrome, where males have an extra X chromosome, which can interfere with testosterone production and development.

Despite this, recent studies suggest a generational decline in testosterone levels, with young men today having lower testosterone than those in past generations. These reductions might be due to changes in environmental and lifestyle factors: higher stress levels, poor diet, lack of exercise and increasing obesity rates can contribute to hormonal imbalances.

Adding to this, chemicals in plastics, certain pesticides and processed foods contain hormone disruptors, which may also play a role. These changes appear to have contributed to lower testosterone even in otherwise healthy young men.

Plastics contain chemicals that can disrupt hormone levels.
David Prahl / Alamy Stock Photo

Whether this generational decline affects overall health has yet to be proved. And even with these declines, levels are often still within the so-called normal range.

While TRT might seem like a solution to fatigue, low mood, anxiety and decreased muscle mass, it’s essential to consider the underlying reasons for low testosterone and whether lifestyle changes might be more effective and sustainable than hormone replacement. For many, changes such as improving diet, reducing stress, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep can have a big effect on testosterone levels and overall wellbeing.

Hidden dangers

Historically, testosterone therapy was thought to increase the risk of prostate cancer and heart attack. Recent clinical trials have provided strong evidence against this. Yet most of the safety studies on TRT have been conducted on older men whose testosterone levels have declined. Younger men, particularly those under 30, have not been widely included.

The side-effects and potential long-term health risks for older men can be quite different from those faced by younger men. This means that the effects of TRT use in young men are still uncertain and until longer-term safety studies are performed, many dangers may not yet be known.

Despite how easy it is to get testosterone levels assessed these days, with many online clinics offering home-test kits, defining what is a normal testosterone level is a bit more complicated.

Testosterone concentrations in the blood fluctuate throughout the day, year and temporarily with different cues. For example, an infection, stress and poor sleep can all temporarily lower T levels. If the decision to use TRT is based on that one measure – particularly if that measure was done incorrectly – there is a risk of unnecessary treatment.

There is also the danger that if testosterone levels are boosted too high, it can be harmful to health.

Testosterone therapy can increase red blood cell count, which may thicken the blood, making it harder for the heart to circulate blood throughout the body. This can lead to complications such as high blood pressure and elevate the risk of blood clots. Blood clots can lead to life-threatening conditions like deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, heart attack or stroke.

Very high levels of testosterone (particularly those above the normal range) through supplementation can cause the heart muscle to grow, a condition called cardiac hypertrophy. Over time, this can increase the risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular issues. Since young men are less likely to be screened for heart conditions, TRT use without careful monitoring may elevate the risk of sudden cardiac events.

For young men who may want to have children in the future, TRT can be an issue. TRT suppresses the body’s natural testosterone production and disrupts the hormone signals necessary for sperm production, leading to infertility. In many men, this is reversible once treatment has stopped, but in some, the infertility is permanent.

There are also some cosmetic side-effects. Increased testosterone can stimulate oil production in the skin, potentially leading to severe acne, which may cause both physical discomfort and psychological distress. And higher levels of testosterone, particularly in young men genetically predisposed to male pattern baldness, can accelerate hair loss, which may affect their self-esteem.

Before jumping into testosterone replacement therapy, young men should confirm they’re truly testosterone deficient with a healthcare provider and understand all the personal risks alongside the potential benefits. Since lifestyle factors often play a big role, making small changes may be a smart first step before medication. And if they do start TRT, regular monitoring by medical professionals is key to catching any side-effects early and keeping health on track. Läs mer…

In the tension between ecology and economics lies an uncomfortable truth: while both words share a root in “eco” (from the Greek oikos, meaning home), our modern economies often seem to overlook the home we all share – the natural world.

In her new book The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance (published by Allen Lane), Indigenous scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, renowned for her previous bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), invites readers to rethink this link by looking to an unlikely teacher – the serviceberry tree.

So, what exactly is a serviceberry? More than just a flowering tree native to North America, the serviceberry is deeply rooted in Indigenous calendars and knowledge systems. Its blossoming signals the arrival of spring, and its berries have sustained human and non-human (or as Kimmerer more aptly refers to them, “more-than-human”) communities alike for generations. For Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a scientist, the serviceberry becomes a lens for understanding what it means to live abundantly on this planet.

Her book is as slender as a serviceberry twig, only 105 pages in a small, beautifully bound format. But it bears a weight of wisdom, unfolding like a series of ripple-effects that spread from the berry itself to the entire web of life.

John Burgoyne’s black-and-white illustrations bring a rustic, timeless quality to the text, evoking homely woodcuts. This aesthetic choice mirrors Kimmerer’s approach: while modern economics treats nature as a resource to be exploited, The Serviceberry offers a different vision – one where nature is a gift to be shared. Through a blend of storytelling and careful scientific observation, Kimmerer makes a powerful case for gift economies as an alternative to our market-driven society.

Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Matt Roth

Kimmerer argues that Indigenous knowledge systems, including the Potawatomi’s, have long promoted a culture of reciprocity – giving back to the land that sustains us. This notion is rooted in a simple but profound question: what can we give back to nature, especially when we have already taken so much?

The book addresses this question through Kimmerer’s perspective as both an ecologist and an Indigenous scholar, grounded in traditions that emphasise balance and gratitude.

Central to her argument is the idea that abundance is not linked to the mindset that resources are limited, as capitalist economies would have us believe. Instead, Indigenous knowledges show that abundance can come from cooperative relationships with nature, where humans are just one part of a larger system.

Kimmerer writes that “all that we need to live flows through the land”. This is a reminder that seems both honest and humbling in a world that prioritises economic growth over ecological balance. To embrace a “culture of gratitude”, as she suggests, is not merely to say thanks but to actively reciprocate, ensuring that the gift continues.

The Serviceberry is a hopeful book.
Allen Lane/Penguin Books

This approach challenges two central assumptions in economic theory: that humans are “rational economic actors”, and that scarcity is the only driver of value. By exploring alternative systems like gift economies, Kimmerer invites us to rethink what wealth means and what we are truly taking when we consume.

Gift economies exist outside of traditional market structures, grounded in practical examples such as potlatch feasts and public libraries. These are cultural systems where resources are shared, and value is measured in relationships rather than transactions.

This way of thinking aligns with the so-called “cuddly capitalism” seen in some Nordic countries, where policies prioritise wellbeing and foster high levels of happiness.

From tragedy to hope

Kimmerer’s discussion challenges the famously cynical “tragedy of the commons” theory, proposed by ecologist Garrett Hardin, which suggests that common resources inevitably lead to depletion because of self-interest. Kimmerer argues that humans are not inherently driven by selfishness, as biologist Richard Dawkins’s selfish gene theory suggests.

Recent studies indicate that mutualism and cooperation are foundational in evolution, hinting at the idea that ecosystems, and perhaps economies, thrive on cooperation, not just competition.

In Kimmerer’s hands, these concepts feel intuitive, almost obvious: why wouldn’t we look to natural systems that have survived for millions of years to guide our future? Her answer lies in having the humility to accept that we are just a part of this vast web of life.

Ultimately, The Serviceberry is a hopeful book. It offers a way out of what Kimmerer calls a “cannibal economy”, where endless consumption depletes the world around us. Instead, she imagines a system where resources circulate through communities, creating webs of independence that nourish both humans and nature.

This vision – one that replaces the tragedy of the commons with an abundance of community – invites us to rediscover the serviceberry tree’s simple wisdom: when we take, we must also give back. Through Kimmerer’s words, the serviceberry is not just a fruit but a guide, helping us reimagine our relationship with the Earth, grounded in reciprocity, gratitude, and the possibility of abundance.

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Climate change and biodiversity policies have largely evolved in isolation, even though the two crises are deeply intertwined. They have their own UN summits, with the same name and numbering system: the UN biodiversity summit Cop16 just concluded in Colombia, while the climate summit Cop29 is happening right now in Azerbaijan. Confusingly, there’s also a summit on desertification in Saudi Arabia in December, also called Cop16.

The three summits in quick succession make this is an important opportunity to align these agendas. Healthy ecosystems are crucial for climate resilience, while a stable climate is essential to protecting biodiversity.

Take Brazil, which could fulfil nearly 80% of its net zero pledge by halting deforestation and restoring native vegetation. Not only would this preserve vast amounts of carbon, it would also safeguard a significant portion of the planet’s biodiversity.

Political support for a more integrated approach is gathering momentum. At the recent biodiversity summit, leaders stressed the need to align national climate targets with biodiversity goals. This builds on recent initiatives such as the Rio Trio initiative, where the heads of the UN’s conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification committed to unified action.

Latin America appears to be stepping up its leadership on biodiversity-climate synergies, which is crucial given the region holds much of the world’s biodiversity and land-based carbon. More than 70 global leaders called on presidents Petro of Colombia and Lula of Brazil to lead efforts on climate, nature and food security. Brazil also renewed its pledge to restore 12 million hectares of native ecosystems by 2030, which is extremely encouraging.

Missed opportunities

But despite these promising developments, the biodiversity summit exposed troubling gaps between climate and biodiversity policy. For instance, key language addressing the need to transition away from fossil fuels and warning about the dangers of bioenergy was deleted from the summit’s final text.

Sugarcane is a popular crop for biofuels.
kckate16 / shutterstock

Bioenergy involves cultivating plants chosen or engineered for high biomass yield, which can be burned directly to produce energy or processed into biofuels for use in vehicles. A paragraph in earlier drafts had warned of the risks this poses to biodiversity:

Noting that the large-scale deployment of intensive bioenergy plantations, including monocultures, replacing natural forests and subsistence farmland, will likely have negative impacts on biodiversity and can threaten food and water security, as well as local livelihoods, including by intensifying social conflicts.

Those risks are all very real. Yet this paragraph was removed due to opposition from several large bioenergy-producing countries.

Bioenergy is a biodiversity risk

The omission is particularly troubling given how many net zero strategies rely on turning over huge amounts of land for carbon dioxide removal. This often means either creating monoculture plantations of non-native trees on a massive scale, or growing bioenergy crops and then capturing and storing the carbon they emit when burned – a still speculative technology known as BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage).

One recent study revealed that global net zero commitments may demand around 990 million hectares of land for carbon removal by 2060. That’s an area nearly the size of the US and equivalent to two-thirds of the world’s cropland. This poses serious risks to biodiversity and food security, especially in regions where land is scarce and competition is fierce.

The projected impacts are troubling: lower-income nations, particularly in Africa, have pledged disproportionately large land areas for carbon removal, often benefiting high-emitting industrialised nations or oil-producing states. This raises concerns about land appropriation and food insecurity. In some cases, pledged areas even exceed a country’s total land area, underscoring unrealistic and overestimated goals.

This and other recent high-profile studies contribute to a growing body of evidence cautioning against the global scaling-up of bioenergy crops, which often struggle to meet essential social and ecological sustainability criteria.

Moreover, when assessed across their full lifecycle, from seed to electricity, the presumed advantage of bioenergy over fossil energy is often very unclear. Growing huge fields of a single crop (a monoculture) is also highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as droughts.

Don’t trade off carbon for biodiversity

The scientific consensus is clear: we cannot address climate change by industrialising the biosphere. Effective climate solutions must protect ecosystem integrity and support biodiversity, not compromise them for carbon gains.

This requires not only stronger coordination between the UN’s climate, biodiversity and desertification conventions, but more inclusive governance structures that amplify the leadership of Indigenous peoples, whose lands are home to large swathes of the world’s biodiversity and carbon. This is why it was so significant that the recent biodiversity summit established a new permanent subsidiary body, enabling the “full and effective participation” of Indigenous people in protecting biodiversity.

At Cop29 in Azerbaijan and at next year’s Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, there is hope that Latin American countries will continue to lead the way in promoting integrated climate-biodiversity action. In our race to cool the planet, we must ensure we don’t compromise the health of the biosphere on which we depend.

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