In February, Leicester Cathedral hosted a British Sign Language (BSL) service celebrating a deaf marriage that took place in the church 450 years ago, in 1576.

The groom was a deaf blacksmith from Leicester named Thomas Tilsey, who made his wedding vows in sign. It was so unusual that the clerk who witnessed the marriage recorded it in full in the parish records. Although the BBC reported that this marriage was “one of the earliest recorded examples of inclusive worship”, by 1576 deaf people had been marrying using sign language for almost 400 years.

These signs were probably not the complex languages we know today as BSL or ASL, but rather what linguists describe as “homesign”: a semi-structured form of signing that develops in small groups of deaf people. However, it was still complicated enough for deaf men and women to rely on friends and family to act as interpreters and structured enough that the 17th century mathematician John Wallis described learning the “language” of deaf signers.

The medieval church’s acknowledgement that signs were equivalent to a spoken language was transformative for deaf people. Sign language recognition unlocked the world, letting deaf people inherit property, go to court and even challenge their hearing friends and family. It is not a straightforward story of inclusion, however, and it is a struggle for equality that continues today, with the British Deaf Association continuing to campaign for the equal access to BSL.

Sign and the law

In 1198, Pope Innocent III issued a decree that deaf people should be able to get married by making their vows in sign language. Since marriage has wide-reaching legal implications, this was a powerful recognition that deaf signers were as capable of consent as anyone else.

These decrees became part of the church law that stretched across Europe, and gradually the principle was applied in other areas too. After the papal ruling, deaf people used sign language to go to court. In England, a court case involving a deaf signer was recorded in 1344, and by the start of Henry VII’s reign it was being routinely taught to legal students that signs could replace vocal speech in property law.

In churches across Europe, including England, deaf people could attend Mass or make their confession using signs. These practices were carried into the new Protestant Church of England.

The significance of recognising sign languages as equivalent to a spoken language can not be overstated. It challenged a long legal tradition, first seen in ancient Rome, that decreed people who were deaf and did not speak were cognitively impaired and should be treated like infants in legal situations.

Since deaf people could neither hear to understand, nor express their consent, lawyers across Europe argued well into the early modern period that they could not make contracts or even be held responsible for crimes.

As late as the 17th century, the barrister Michael Dalton claimed in a legal handbook that “if a man born deaf and dumb killeth another that is no felony, for he cannot know whether he did evil or no”. This reflected a long tradition, often attributed to Aristotle, that speech was necessary for intelligent thought, and was evidence that humans were superior to animals.

Perhaps the greatest test of how far sign language was recognised came when deaf people challenged their hearing family. Another deaf marriage, this time in Jacobean Essex in 1618, involved just that. The groom was a young deaf man called Thomas Speller, who had moved to a nearby village to train as an apprentice, fallen in love with his master’s daughter – Sarah Earle – and wanted to marry her.

Thomas’ mother, Winifred, objected – perhaps because the marriage would mean an end to a significant annuity. She did everything she could to stop the marriage. She complained that Sarah was a fortune hunter, that Thomas was being forced into the marriage against his will and that he was not capable of making informed consent.

The local bishop launched an investigation, but it was only when Thomas and Sarah travelled to London to see a representative of the bishop that the case was concluded. A secretary recorded that Thomas told the bishop’s lawyer that he wanted to marry Sarah, and he did so in sign language. His mother’s concerns were put aside, and a marriage license was issued for the pair to get married. They did so a few weeks later in London, with Thomas using signs to marry Sarah. And while it was unusual – the parish clerk noted “we had never seen the like before” – without Thomas’ mother in the picture, it went off without a hitch.

A couple of decades later, in Bedfordshire, another deaf man – George Blount – married against his parents’ will. This time the problem seems to have been that he married a former family servant, someone they held in low esteem, describing her as “one of our menial servants of unclear parentage”. When George’s father, Giles, believed that he would have to support any children from the marriage he wrote to his local magistrate, claiming that the marriage was invalid since George was not capable of consenting.

Again, there was an investigation, and the witnesses from the wedding and the vicar were interviewed: they all reported that though George couldn’t say the words of the wedding ceremony, he showed his “willingness” to marry and was declared “full of understanding”. The case was rejected, and George and his wife moved away from his parents, going on to have a long and apparently happy marriage.

Despite these success stories, prejudices about deafness and intellectual ability continued even as sign language allowed some men and women to assert themselves. Returning to the marriage of 1576 celebrated in Leicester Cathedral, we can see something of that. Before Thomas Tilsey was allowed to marry, he had to prove to the Mayor of Leicester, to the town council and to the bishop that he was intellectually capable of understanding what marriage was.

In addition, Tilsey’s friends and family had to vouch for him. When it came to the wedding ceremony itself, he had to use pre-approved signs which closely mimicked the service in the prayer book and could be understood by anyone. This was much closer to miming than the signs used by most deaf people.

Rosamund Oates, Professor in History, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Whether it’s enjoying a podcast, listening to music or chatting on the phone, many of us spend hours a day using our headphones. One 2017 study of 4,185 Australians showed they used headphones on average 47–88 hours a month.

Health advice about headphones tends to focus on how loud sounds might affect our hearing. For example, to avoid hearing loss, the World Health Organization advises people to keep the volume at below 60% their device’s maximum and to use devices that monitor sound exposure and limit volume.

But apart from sound, what else is going in our ears? Using headphones – particularly in-ear versions such as earbuds – blocks the ear canal and puts the skin in contact with any dirt or bacteria they may be carrying.

Here’s what you need to know about keeping your ears clean and safe.

First, let’s take a look at your ear

Over-ear headphones cover the entire external ear – the elastic cartilage covered by skin that’s shaped to trap soundwaves. In-ear headphones (as well as hearing aids) are shaped to fit and cover the entrance to the external ear canal, which is called the concha.

Sound vibrations travel through the ear canal – which is S-shaped and a few centimetres long – to reach your ear drum.

Deeper parts of the ear canal produce earwax and oils. These help keep your skin healthy, hydrated and less vulnerable to infection.

Tiny hairs in the ear canal also help regulate temperature and keep foreign debris out. These hairs and earwax help trap and move small particles, shed skin and bacteria out of the ear canal.

Earwax is the ear’s self-cleaning method and we only tend to notice it when there’s too much.

Excessive buildup can block your hearing or even clog the mesh of your earpods. But don’t try to dig earwax out of your ears yourself. If you’re concerned, speak to a pharmacist or GP for advice.

How headphones can affect the ear’s bacteria

Healthy ear canals host a range of non-harmful microbes – mainly bacteria, but fungi and viruses too. They compete for space and nutrients, and this diversity makes it trickier for any potential pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms) to take hold.

But wearing headphones (and other in-ear devices such as hearing aids or ear plugs) may upset the balance between “good” and “bad” bacteria.

One 2024 study compared bacteria in the external ear canals of 50 people who used hearing aids and 80 who didn’t. The researchers found hearing-aid users – whose external ear canals are blocked for extended periods – had fewer types of bacteria than those who didn’t.

Another 2025 study looked at how using headphones (including over-ear, in-ear and on-ear) affected fungi and bacteria in the ear canal. It found using headphones was linked to a greater risk of ear infections, especially if people shared them.

This may because wearing headphones – especially in-ear devices – makes the external ear canal hotter and more humid. Trapped moisture is especially likely if you exercise and sweat while wearing headphones.

Higher humidity increases your risk of ear infection and discharge, including pus.

Wearing in-ear devices such as hearing aids or headphones for extended periods can also interfere with the ear’s natural “self-cleaning” function, aided by earwax.

So, what should I do?

Most of us need – or like – to wear headphones in our day-to-day routines. But for good ear health, it’s important to give your ears a break.

Allow your ear canals to “breathe” at different points throughout the day so they’re not constantly blocked and growing humid and hot.

You could also try bone conduction headphones. These don’t block the ear canal, because they transmit sound through your skull directly into the inner ear, without needing to block the ear canal. These can be expensive though. And while they allow our ears to breathe, high-intensity vibrations (high volume) can still damage hearing, so as with all headphones caution is required.

Other tips

Clean your devices regularly

Recommendations range from once a week to daily to after a physical workout.

For example, you can wipe them with a cloth or use a soft-bristled children’s toothbrush dampened with mildly soapy water. Blot dry with a paper towel and allow a few hours of drying before recharging or reuse.

But it’s best to follow your manufacturer’s guidelines. And don’t forget to clean the case and the body of your earbuds too.

Don’t use headphones when sick

If you have an ear infection, avoid using earphones as they may increase the temperature and humidity in your ear and slow recovery.

Watch for symptoms

If your ears become itchy, red or have discharge, stop using in-ear devices and seek medical advice.

Rina Wong (Fu), Research Fellow, Health Sciences, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Irish politician Thomas Gould has become a bit of star in the Caribbean after a video of him speaking in the Irish parliament drew comments for the surprising similarity of his Cork accent to the Jamaican one.

His viral speech is a powerful reminder of the shared histories of Ireland and Jamaica, which date back to the mid-17th century and lasted for the next 200 years. During this period Jamaica became an important destination for Irish people.

In the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, was on a mission to expand the British empire. Having completed the conquest of Ireland in 1653, he captured Jamaica from Spain in 1655.

During the later 1650s, the Cromwellians transplanted hundreds of Irish Catholics to Jamaica where they worked as indentured servants. This form of labour involved an investor who covered the cost of the indentured servant’s passage, food, clothing and shelter on the plantations in return for up to seven years of contracted labour (ten years in the case of convicts).

On termination of the indenture, masters were legally bound to offer “freedom dues”, roughly £10 to £12, in the form of a small parcel of land and a sum of money or its commodity equivalent. Unlike enslaved people, indentured servants had some legal rights, even if it proved difficult to exercise them. However, during the period of indenture the person was, like an enslaved person, at the mercy of their master.

During the 1660s, Irish men and women relocated from elsewhere in the Caribbean to Jamaica on the promise of up to 20 acres of land on the condition that they re-indentured themselves for two or three years.

The Irish poet, Seán Ó Conaill, memorialised these transplantees in The Dirge of Ireland when he wrote in a poem “Transport, Transplant go to Jamaica”.

Relegated to marginal areas in the interior of the island, these poor Irish were vilified and perceived to be unruly, rebellious and loyal to the French because of their Catholicism. They worked as domestic servants or as labourers cultivating sugar, indigo, cotton, cocoa and other commodities. Living in a tropical climate, where hurricanes and other natural disasters occurred regularly, and where deadly diseases were rife shortened life expectancies. Only one in three children reached the age of five.

By 1690 Irish men and women, Catholic and Protestant alike, formed a significant part of the white population, which numbered between 10,000 and 12,000 with around 40,000 enslaved people. While Catholic indentured servants laboured, Protestants from Ireland owned plantations and governed.

When Governor William O’Brien, second earl of Inchiquin, died of “the flux” (dysentery) in 1692, Coleraine-born John Bourden, who owned a plantation in the parish of St. Catherine, filled his shoes. Others included Sir George Nugent (1801 to 1804), Eyre Coote (1806 to 1808); and the earl of Belmore (1828 to 1832).

Migration from Ireland to Jamaica continued well into the 18th century. In 1731, the governor of the island complained that “native Irish papists … [were] pouring in upon us in such sholes [shoals]”. Some Irish remained on the margins, but others prospered as modest planters or as artisans, coopers, carpenters and merchants in Port Royal, Jago de la Vega (Spanish town), Irish town and Kingston.

Jane Fitzgerald, a garment trader, was listed in an inventory, as were Irish men like Michael Farrell, a millwright, John Casey, a tavern keeper, Michael Hanigan, a tailor, and Conn Connelly, a bricklayer and builder. The survival of a census dating from 1679 for St. John’s parish, Jamaica, shows that men with Irish names headed three (of 49) households: “Teag Macmarrow” with two white servants and eight enslaved Africans (including three children); Thomas Kelly with two enslaved Africans; and Gilbert Kennedy with a wife and two children, four white servants, and ten slaves (including four children).

Some left wills when they died. These paint pictures of close-knit Irish communities comprised of extended family members and reinforced by intermarriage. Many were upwardly mobile and well connected.

One of the best examples of an Irish family succeeding in Jamaica is the Kelly family, whose grand estates and sugar mills were painted by Isaac Mendes Belisario in 1740. Edmund Kelly became attorney general of Jamaica in 1714. Elizabeth Kelly, his granddaughter and heir, owned plantations of 20,000 acres and 360 enslaved Africans when in 1752 she married Peter Browne of Westport.

The Brownes became Ireland’s premier absentee (run from abroad) plantation owners in the Caribbean. When slavery was finally abolished in 1830s, around 400 people from Jamaica had Irish connections, including many who owned enslaved Africans.

Today Irish surnames – Kelly, Lynch, Murphy, McCarthy, O’Brien, O’Connor, O’Reilly, and O’Hara – are common on the island. Placenames also testify to the presence of early Irish settlers: Irish town, Irish Pen, Irish Road, Sligoville, Bangor Ridge Square, Leinster Road, Leitrim Avenue, Antrim Crescent, Longford Road, Kinsale Avenue, Waterford, and Portmore. Shared speech patterns, especially accents from Munster, are also common.

So with Jamaicans being surprised to hear aspects of their own accents in Thomas Gould’s it’s an opportunity to think about the culture’s complicated shared history and the lasting legacy of the Irish in Jamaica,

Jane Ohlmeyer, Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History, Trinity College Dublin

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The complex relationship between mother and child is no easy thing to capture on canvas. For Mother’s Day, we asked five experts to share their favourite painting of a mother or maternal figure.

1. Hunting for Lice by Gerard ter Borch (1652)

This small painting, displayed in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, is of a scene that might be familiar to any carer for nursery- or school-aged children today. Gerard ter Borch captures the look of concentrated maternal resolve and patient resignation by the child, who is probably a boy, judging by his smock and the ball in his hand.

He has paused his play and leans into the stout frame of his seated and respectably dressed mother. Typical of Dutch genre painting, it carries a moral message and finds spirituality in the humblest acts. The fine-toothed comb was an artistic and poetic symbol for purging the soul as well as the body, so this mother is not only caring for the physical health of her son but also looking to his eventual salvation. But we can also just enjoy her slight smile of pleasure and gratification in this moment of purposeful closeness with her dear child.

Marius Kwint is a reader in visual culture

2. Madonna of the Pilgrims by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1603-5)

Caravaggio’s altarpiece, the Madonna of the Pilgrims, offers a beguiling mixture of the ordinary and the extraordinary. The setting is minimal, plain and achingly mundane: a doorframe with chipped masonry; some exposed bricks; a stone doorstep. A young mother – beautiful, but a little down-at-heel – supports a weighty infant on her hip.

The bond between mother and child is tangible, believable and thoroughly human. Their faint halos, though, confirm that these figures are far from ordinary. The gloomy doorway where they stand is, apparently, the entrance to the shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, the Virgin Mary’s home.

The humble, kneeling pilgrims at the Virgin’s door are not only shabbily dressed but actually grubby – the dirty feet of one made this painting notorious. Yet their piety is rewarded as the holy figures gaze on them sympathetically and Christ seems to extend his small hand in a gesture of blessing.

Alice E. Sanger is an honorary associate and associate lecturer in art history

3. Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist by Édouard Vuillard (1893)

Most western painting romanticises mothers, highlighting blissful, tender intimacy. In these paintings, mothers are usually young, with babies or small children. But where are the complex realities of mother-child difficulty, separation and resentment – and of motherhood as tribulation and endurance (think adolescent and boomerang kids)?

Édouard Vuillard’s Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist (1893) portrays a psychologically intense mother-daughter adult relationship. Vuillard painted his mother more than 500 times and lived with her till she died (when he was 60). He said: “Ma maman, c’est ma muse” – my mother is my muse.

In the crowded space of Interior, a mature Madame Vuillard dominates: legs akimbo, elbows jutting like a seated boxer’s, her solid black body a vortex pulling in the room, its furniture and her daughter. The daughter is consumed by the oppressive domesticity (as shown by the wallpaper) and simultaneously repelled by and drawn – bowing – towards her mother. The power is starkly asymmetrical, and intimacy disturbing. Mother-child relations are sometimes unsavoury. In Interior, Vuillard boldly acknowledges this truth.

Jen Harvie is a professor of contemporary theatre and performance

4. The Mothers by Käthe Kollwitz (1921-1922)

Mothers huddled together in unimaginable pain and grief. I just can’t get past this image right now. This woodcut by Käthe Kollwitz is the second last of her war portfolio. Her personal experience informed the print. Her son, Peter, was killed on the front in 1914.

The mothers in Kollwitz’s image form almost a sculptural mass, a community bound together by throbbing heartache. This highly emotive image shows the irretrievable consequences of war, the children that these mothers have lost, and are afraid of losing.

Wars might be won and lost in the air, or on the front, or in a control room somewhere far away, but I believe it is the women and children on the ground who suffer the most. And it is the mothers who have to carry the weight of the loss of a generation.

Pragya Agarwal is a visiting professor of social inequities and injustice

5. Mother and Child by William Rothenstein (1903)

In the 1900s William Rothenstein completed a series of paintings depicting his wife – the actor Alice Knewstub – posed in various interiors. The paintings chart the early years of their marriage and the growth of their family. Mother and Child, which falls somewhere in the middle of this series, represents Alice holding their oldest child John (who would go on to become director of the Tate).

Rothenstein’s representations of the mother and child relationship differ across the paintings. What I think he captures especially well in this one is the way in which parents support their children to stand up, knowing that one day those legs may take them far away. Alice’s attention is on John, but John’s attention is on whatever is going on outside the window. The positioning of the model ship just above his head extends the theme of wanting to hold onto something that cannot be held forever.

I’ve always wondered whether this painting was well known to one of Rothenstein’s later students, a young sculptor called Henry Moore, who was similarly (and more famously) drawn to the subject of the mother holding a child. It seems very likely.

Samuel Shaw is a senior lecturer in art history

What is your favourite painting of a mother or maternal figure? Let us know in the comments below.

Our senior arts and culture editor Anna Walker’s favourite is Breakfast in Bed by Mary Cassatt (1897). So much can be read in the mother’s face – exhaustion, love, fear, protectiveness. Through her painting, Cassatt immortalises an intimate moment from the fleeting period of a child’s infancy.

Marius Kwint, Reader in Visual Culture, University of Portsmouth; Alice Sanger, Honorary Associate and Associate Lecturer, The Open University; Jen Harvie, Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London; Pragya Agarwal, Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice, Loughborough University, and Samuel Shaw, Lecturer in History of Art, The Open University

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Once, the only nut butter on the supermarket shelf was peanut butter. Now you can also buy almond, cashew, hazelnut and macadamia nut butters, or blends.

So which is the healthiest nut butter to spread on your toast?

As we’ll see, the healthiest is not just about the actual nut. It’s also about what else goes in the jar.

What do they all have in common?

All nut butters are made from ground nuts that provide healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, plant-based protein, fibre. They also provide essential minerals, such as magnesium, potassium, zinc and iron.

Across decades of research, regularly eating nuts is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and premature death. That benefit appears whether the nut is peanut, almond or cashew or any other type of nut.

But many commercial products contain vegetable oils, palm oil, salt, sugar, or stabilisers to improve texture and shelf life. These added ingredients dilute the nutritional quality and increase salt or kilojoules without providing any health benefits.

Choosing a nut butter made only from nuts (or nuts with minimal salt) means you get the full nutritional value.

How do I choose a nut butter?

Check the ingredients list. The healthiest options contain just one ingredient – nuts. Some added salt is fine, if minimal. But avoid products with seed oils (such as canola oil), palm oil, fillers or added sugars.

Looking at the nutrients in each nut butter per serve (a tablespoon, about 16 grams) can highlight how they differ. The numbers vary slightly by brand. But when the product contains 100% nuts, the numbers don’t generally change dramatically between nuts.

To keep things simple, we’ve focused on peanut, almond and cashew butters:

• protein: peanut butter wins slightly for protein content, at 3.84g per tablespoon, making it a solid choice for post-workout snacks or adding extra protein to your day. However, almond (3.36g) and cashew butters (2.82g) aren’t far behind. So they still contribute meaningful protein to your diet

• fat: almond butter takes the top spot for healthy fats (8.88g per tablespoon), followed closely by peanut (7.98g) and cashew butter (7.9g). The fats in nuts are mainly heart-healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which have been associated with improved cholesterol levels and reduced inflammation

• carbohydrates: cashew butter contains the most carbohydrates (4.42g per tablespoon), which might be important if you’re looking for quick energy before a workout or if you have type 1 diabetes and are adjusting your medication based on your carbohydrate intake. Then comes peanut butter (3.49g), followed by almond butter (3.01g)

• fibre: almond butter takes the lead for fibre (1.65g per tablespoon) followed by peanut butter (1.06g). Cashew butter lags significantly behind (0.32g), about one-fifth of the almond butter’s content. This makes cashew butter the weakest option if you’re relying on nut butter to contribute to your daily fibre intake

• calcium: almond butter dramatically outperforms the others for calcium, with 55.5 milligrams per tablespoon. This offers about eight times more than peanut butter (6.56mg) and cashew butter (6.88mg). This makes almond butter an excellent choice for bone health, especially if you avoid dairy

• potassium: both peanut and almond butter tie for potassium content (120mg per tablespoon). This makes them useful for supporting healthy blood pressure and muscle function. Cashew butter contains 87.4mg

• iron: cashew butter leads the pack for iron (0.805mg for tablespoon), followed by almond butter (0.558mg) and peanut butter (0.304mg). This is particularly relevant for people with higher iron needs, such as those menstruating, pregnant or breastfeeding, or people following plant-based diets. But overall, nut butters are not a meaningful source of iron

• zinc: cashew butter (0.826mg per tablespoon) offers nearly twice the zinc of peanut butter (0.445mg). Almond butter’s zinc content is in the middle (0.526mg). This makes cashew butter valuable for immune function and wound healing

• selenium: cashew butter provides the most selenium (1.84 micrograms per tablespoon), an important antioxidant mineral that supports thyroid function. Peanut butter comes in second (1.2µg), while almond butter contains notably less (0.384µg)

• magnesium: almond butter leads for magnesium (44.6mg per tablespoon). Close behind is cashew butter (41.3mg), then peanut butter (25.4mg). This mineral is crucial for muscle relaxation, sleep quality and energy production.

In a nutshell

Each nut butter has distinct nutritional advantages:

• peanut butter leads in protein and ties with almond butter for potassium, making it ideal for muscle support and feeling full

• almond butter is the standout for calcium, and is also higher in fibre, magnesium and heart-healthy fats. This makes it an excellent choice for bone health, digestion and cardiovascular support

• cashew butter is naturally sweet and is the strongest source of minerals such as iron, zinc and selenium. These are essential for immune function, energy production and thyroid health. However, it is the lowest in both protein and fibre. So while it contributes valuable micronutrients, it’s better suited as an occasional option rather than a primary protein source.

Any concerns?

Often, almond and cashew butters are processed on equipment that’s been used to process peanuts or other nuts. So traces of one nut may appear in another nut butter, which is stated on the label. So if you have a specific nut allergy, check labels carefully.

The cost also varies. Almond and cashew butters are usually slightly more expensive (at around A$2.40 per 100g) compared with about $1.82 per 100g for peanut butter.

What now?

No single nut butter reigns supreme as each brings different nutritional strengths.

The smartest approach would be to keep more than one on hand, choose versions made from 100% nuts, and let your taste preferences and nutritional goals guide you.

Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland and Emily Burch, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer, Southern Cross University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The long arm of the library has made a writer of me. This long arm, a composite of many libraries, created the conditions through which a shy reader could continue to live in her head.

I was born and raised in India. It is a country of daily wage earners in makeshift dwellings trying to survive alongside the world’s richest individuals ensconced in immovable towers. It is also a country where the practice of circulating knowledge through libraries has a long history.

It ranges from the library at Nalanda University founded in 427CE, over a thousand years before the Bodleian at Oxford, to Radhamani, the “walking library”, who takes books to villagers in rural Kerala. And from nine-year-old Muskan, who started her own library for kids in the slums of Bhopal, to Kavita Saini from Rajasthan, who opened a library for girls not allowed to leave their village.

This tradition of sharing knowledge held in written texts is bound up with aspiration, pleasure and survival.

Borrowed words as toys

For many years, my mother worked at Glaxo Laboratories in Mumbai. Along with tins of the nutrition drink Complan, she also brought home a variety of borrowed books and magazines from what we think was called the “Glaxo Workers Sports Library”.

The privilege of access to such a workplace lending library ensured that, in the safety and comfort of my home, I could read with great pleasure: Enid Blyton, The Adventures of Tintin, Woman’s Era and Savvy magazines, The Illustrated Weekly of India.

Along with mum’s “office” books with their flap on the first page marking the names of borrowers and the dates of their borrowing, we had access to books from Kitab Khana, a circulating library in the tallest apartment complex in our area. It was a storehouse of Archie comics and the Amar Chitra Katha series, Indian mythology told through comics.

Our apartment block had its own circulating library, where I sometimes volunteered so that I could read Inside Outside magazine, a luscious interior design publication edited by Naomi Menezes and Mallika Sarabhai, two women ahead of their time.

The words in these books and magazines turned into imaginative wanderings on the page in my school assignments, where I played with these words as if with new toys: amateur, legionnaire, blistering barnacles.

Later, as an undergraduate at St Xavier’s, Mumbai, among the rows of books and journals stacked on metal racks and wooden shelves in the Lending Library, a space anchored by Dewey Decimals, soaring with Shakespeare, Austen, Tagore and Rushdie, I began my internship, although I didn’t know it then.

Up a few flights of wood and stone steps, in the Reference Library, amid card catalogues in ornate wooden cabinets, I read, I reflected, I wrote notes on lined paper, surrounded by the stability of oak, the hardiness of teak, and the words of the outside world waiting to be incorporated.

From the British Council Library and the US Information Services Library, there were books borrowed and carted home on crowded Mumbai trains, some read, some unread, most returned on time: Charles Dickens, Joan Didion, Langston Hughes.

The work of writing begins with attention to acts of generosity and care: the writer gifting their imaginative labour to the writer-in-waiting, who is always a reader, often with the library enabling this exchange. It continues as one is startled by another writer’s fresh use of language, as one yields to the surprise of fictive worlds. Amid this slow but sure transmission of knowledge, through the pleasure of reading, a writer is undone and made anew.

In Sydney, burdened with an empty wallet, surrounded by plane trees and citizenship ceremonies, I settled into the arms of the free council-run libraries, in Chatswood, Ashfield, Campsie, Earlwood and Marrickville, then in Springwood and Katoomba, and the library at the University of New South Wales, my natural homes.

In these places I encountered clarity and conviction in the words of others, clichés stopped in their tracks, expectations subverted and made beautiful on the page: Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Gwen Harwood, Michelle de Kretser, Robin Walsh, Marjorie Barnard, Pierre Bourdieu, Henry Reynolds and Hannah Arendt.

Reading rare materials ‘because I asked’

Eventually I came to the Mitchell Library Reading Room at the State Library of NSW, where I could knock, seek, ask for Alexander Lesueur’s 1802 map of Sydney or a 1792 edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman or the journals of Governor Lachlan Macquarie and they would be given unto me.

In Edinburgh, in the Special Collections Reading Room of the National Library of Scotland, overlooking a city of stone and sagacious light, I asked for and received a 200-year-old diary, its paper like linen, the handwriting within it like trees of rowan and beech bending to the wind.

This and other rare materials were lent to me, a woman from the other side of the world, simply because I asked. Weights of different shapes and sizes were provided to protect the material, guidance offered, all my questions answered. Yet again, I was a beneficiary of the long arm of the library reaching out with a commitment to the sharing of knowledge through responsible custodianship.

In March 2024, in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India, approximately 427 kilometres from Nalanda University, a viral video showed an eight-year-old girl running away as a politician’s bulldozers were demolishing her makeshift dwelling. Unlike me, she was growing up without a safe and comfortable home.

As she ran for her life, she carried in her arms only the essentials for survival: not money nor food nor clothing but the things that mattered most, her books, her own little library – its long arms protecting her and being protected by her; hopefully, inevitably making her anew.

This is an extract from The Library That Made Me, edited by Richard Neville and Phillipa McGuinness, published by NewSouth Publishing in partnership with the State Library of NSW.

Roanna Gonsalves, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, UNSW Sydney

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When English author J.R.R. Tolkien crafted his fantasy world Middle-earth, he argued storytellers are essentially “sub-creators” – they build fictional realms with internally consistent laws.

For a world to be truly immersive and believable, readers apply what is known as the “principle of minimal departure”. This assumes anything not explicitly magical, such as a planet’s weather or gravity, must adhere to the laws of the real world.

In this spirit of rigorous worldbuilding, we just published a new study where we merged the disparate disciplines of literary worldbuilding and climate modelling.

We used complex computer programs – the same ones used to forecast Earth’s future warming scenarios – to simulate the climates of famous fantasy settings such as Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the continents of Westeros in the Game of Thrones, and the far-future Earth in The Wheel of Time series. We also built a model for a fictional world developed by one of us.

It’s a seemingly whimsical exercise, but it serves serious purposes.

For starters, it provides new details on fictional worlds beyond what the author shared, “filling the gaps” with science.

More importantly, it offers a new way for us to communicate the fundamental physics of climate science to a broad, general audience. And exploring climate model behaviour under fantastical settings helps our understanding of model physics.

Why the Misty Mountains are so misty

Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, was known for his extraordinary attention to detail. He meticulously calculated distances, times, and even phenomena such as the direction of the wind at every step along the characters’ journey.

Working from Tolkien’s own detailed maps, we fed Middle-earth’s topography (land height) and bathymetry (ocean depth) into an advanced climate model.

Since Tolkien intended Middle-earth to be our own Earth at a distant point in the past, we assumed its physical parameters – such as the planetary radius, rotation rate, and distance from the Sun – were identical to ours. We then simulated the world’s climate.

The results were a remarkable confirmation of Tolkien’s intuitive worldbuilding.

The model predicted a climate similar to Western Europe and North Africa – unsurprising, given Tolkien’s geographical inspiration.

The highest precipitation fell on and to the west of the Misty Mountains, with a drier “rain-shadow” effect to the east. This effect is caused by prevailing westerly winds forcing moist air to rise and cool over the mountains, condensing water vapour into rain or snow before it reaches the eastern side.

The model’s prediction of extensive forest cover across much of Middle-earth was consistent with Elrond’s claim that in the past, squirrels could travel from the Shire to Dunland without touching the ground.

Climate scientist Dan Lunt first released this climate simulation in a fictional paper in 2013, and it became an unexpected success in the classroom. Educators used the exotic setting of Middle-earth to explain complex concepts underpinning weather and climate. They were able to relate this to the physical laws that govern why climate changes in the real world.

The unstable seasons of Westeros

One of the defining features of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is the unpredictable and prolonged seasons of Westeros. This unique climatic feature is not just backstory. It’s a crucial plot device, allowing the White Walkers to move southward across an ice-covered world.

Astrophysicists and climatologists have long nerded out over the possible cause. Theories have ranged from binary star systems to volcanic activity, but all have struggled to create a viable, habitable world.

We focused on the idea of a chaotically-varying axial tilt. On Earth, the stable tilt of our axis is what gives us regular seasons. We used a real-world climate model where the planet’s axis “tumbled” throughout the year, like a wobbly spinning top.

The result was striking: if the planet tumbled exactly once per orbit, one hemisphere would constantly face the sun in a fixed season, creating a permanent summer or winter.

But what causes the season to suddenly flip from a long summer to a long winter? The tilt of our planet’s axis is stabilised by the gravitational influence of its moon.

Martin’s world has only one moon, but legend says it once had two, until the second moon “wandered too close to the sun and it cracked from the heat”. The loss of a second moon may have caused the planet’s axis to become unstable, providing a plausible, physics-based explanation for the world’s greatest mysteries.

Building new worlds with climate science

The benefits of climate modelling are not limited to just filling gaps in classic stories.

Our models can also inform the worldbuilding of new fantasy realms. The work now published in our new paper started when climate communicator John Cook was developing an allegorical, speculative story exploring the denialist response to environmental damage.

He worked with climate scientists to simulate the climate of his fantasy world, Terrios. The subsequent model output provided concrete details such as temperature, precipitation, and wind conditions at every step along the characters’ journey through a variety of biomes.

This ensured the world was internally consistent and richly detailed, enhancing verisimilitude and creating a more immersive experience for the reader.

Ultimately, applying physics to fictional lands provides an engaging way to connect general audiences with complex environmental science.

By using climate models, scientists honour Tolkien’s demand that even the most fantastical worlds must maintain a credible, finely-tuned balance between the familiar laws of realism and the fantastic.

The enduring legacy of these simulated worlds proves that when science and art collide, the resulting discoveries can be just as compelling as the stories themselves.

John Cook, Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne; Alex Farnsworth, Senior Research Associate in Meteorology, University of Bristol; Dan Lunt, Professor of Climate Science, University of Bristol, and Dann Mitchell, Professor of Climate Science, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Having your period can be a painful experience.

Period pain, also known as dysmenorrhea, is a very common condition with around nine in ten young women aged 13 to 25 in Australia having regular period pain.

For many women, period pain can make exercise seem like an impossible task.

So should you avoid exercise if you have period pain? Or could exercising actually help?

What causes period pain?

There are two main types of period pain.

The most common is primary dysmenorrhea. This usually means painful cramps in the lower abdomen.

Research suggests this kind of period pain is caused by an increased number of prostaglandins. The body releases these hormone-like molecules when the lining of the uterus breaks down during the period. Prostaglandins can cause many different symptoms including period cramps, back or leg pain and loose bowels, also known as period poops.

The other type of period pain is secondary dysmenorrhea, which refers to pain caused by physical changes in the pelvis. One of the most common causes is endometriosis, a condition where tissue resembling uterine tissue grows in other parts of the body, leading to severe pain and fertility problems.

Can exercise reduce period pain?

Unfortunately, period pain is often difficult to treat. Many women don’t respond well to standard period pain treatments. These include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen or mefenamic acid, also known as Ponstan.

This has led researchers to examine exercise as a way to reduce period pain symptoms. And there is some evidence suggesting that regular physical activity can reduce how severe period pain is, and how long it lasts.

Imagine you have a period pain scale from zero to ten, where zero means no pain and ten indicates the worst pain. Research from 2019 suggests exercise can reduce the severity of period pain by an average of 2.5 points. This makes exercise more effective than other self-treatment methods, such as using a heat pack.

However, we have only one 2017 study which directly compares the effects of exercise and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications on period pain. This means it’s hard to make any clear recommendations. But this study suggests regular exercise is at least as helpful as taking mefenamic acid.

Exercise may also reduce how long period pain lasts. One study from 2025 found aerobic exercise, which aims to increase your breathing and heart rate, can shorten the duration of period pain by more than 12 hours.

Many women experience the worst pain in the first 48 hours of their period, so a potential 25% cut in the duration of period pain is significant.

What kinds of exercise are best?

Most of the evidence examining exercise and period pain focuses on aerobic exercise. This includes cycling, swimming and jogging. A handful of studies look at strength training, yoga and relaxation exercises such as gentle stretching.

There is some evidence to suggest strength training relieves period pain more than other kinds of exercise. However, researchers generally study a specific kind of strength training known as isometric exercises. These involve holding muscles in a static position, such as doing a plank.

Other studies show exercises such as progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tensing and then relaxing particular muscles, can also be very effective. A 2024 study found women who did relaxation-based exercises, combined with self-massage, experienced the greatest reduction in pain. And because they’re simple to do, participants were more likely to stick with relaxation-based exercises compared to other kinds of physical activity.

But most of this research focuses on primary dysmenorrhea. So for those whose period pain may be caused by an underlying condition, it may be best to start with gentler forms of exercise such as yoga. You can also speak to an exercise physiologist to get personalised advice. This is because we don’t fully understand if more intense exercise has the same effect on period pain caused by other conditions, such as endometriosis.

When and how often should I exercise?

There isn’t much research looking at the effects of exercising specifically during the period. But a 2025 review of existing studies suggests exercising two to three times a week can reduce period pain.

This review found participants who did strength training for at least 30 minutes at a time, over a minimum of eight weeks, experienced the greatest reduction in pain. However, existing research suggests you may start seeing some improvements in both pain intensity and duration in as few as four weeks.

The research is less clear when it comes to aerobic exercise. A 2025 review suggests shorter and less intense sessions of aerobic exercise may be most effective for managing period pain.

So doing at least 90 minutes of exercise a week, for at least eight weeks, may be the best exercise-based way to reduce period pain. This seems to be the case whether you exercise during your period or not. But if you experience any negative symptoms after exercising, such as pain below your belly button when you’re not menstruating, it’s best to speak to a doctor.

The bottom line

Overall, exercise is one way women can manage period pain. Current research suggests any kind of exercise, ranging from yoga to more intense aerobic workouts, can reduce the severity and duration of period pain. So everyone can benefit from exercise, regardless what time of the month it is.

Mike Armour, Associate Professor at NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.