“Humble” is not a word my colleagues would use to describe me, especially early in my career.

In fact, when word got around that I was researching humility, I suspect more than a few choked on their coffee.

And even though I have spent over a decade exploring the concept as an attribute and as a practice, it wasn’t until I recently reflected on my own professional challenges that I truly understood how to embrace humility.

I want to share my journey, but first it is important to understand what humility is – and isn’t. It’s been extolled as a virtue for centuries, but it’s often mischaracterized.

In today’s culture, it can be mistaken as a humblebrag, which disguises a boast as modesty – for example, “I really hate talking about myself, but people keep asking how I managed to run a marathon while working full time.” Or it can resemble impostor phenomenon, the persistent experience of feeling intellectually or professionally fraudulent despite clear evidence of competence or success.

But research shows that humble people hold accurate views of their own abilities and achievements. They openly acknowledge their mistakes and limitations and are receptive to new ideas. Overall, they recognize their places within a larger whole and genuinely appreciate the value of others.

Humility doesn’t always earn praise. Sometimes the humble may be seen as meek, subservient or self-abasing.

For instance, many people praised former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s empathetic, self-effacing leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an openness and deference to experts. But some critics dismissed it as weak or soft. These negative views show the various ways people “see” humility.

Generally, though, when humility is understood as grounded self-awareness rather than self-erasure, it’s viewed as something worth cultivating and practicing. We see openness, curiosity, acknowledgment of others and a lack of ego in fictional characters like Ted Lasso, hero of the same-titled Apple TV series; Samwise Gamgee in the “Lord of the Rings” books; and Jean-Luc Picard, commander of the USS Enterprise in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Humility is also evident in public figures, such as former President Jimmy Carter, children’s television host Fred Rogers, and Nelson Mandela, the Black nationalist who served as the first Black president of South Africa.

I’m a sociologist with a focus on medical education and health care providers. At Arizona State University’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, I explore issues including causes of burnout, elements of team-based care and opportunities for emphasizing the human side of health care. In recent years, my work has focused on humility.

From my research and my own experience, I’ve learned that true humility isn’t self-erasure. It’s a sense of security and confidence that your value doesn’t depend on recognition and that you are just one member of a larger system with a multitude of contributors. By removing the need to dominate, humility fosters openness to collaboration, innovation and an awareness of how the systems around us work.

Still, in a world of Instagram likes and LinkedIn accolades, humility can be the virtue everyone seems to admire but few practice It’s the one we say we want – until it requires us to confront the parts of ourselves that crave affirmation.

Climbing the professional ladder

I tend to stand out in a crowd. I’m 6-foot-4, with close-cropped hair, a heavy beard and tattoos. I also push myself to stand out professionally.

Starting in graduate school, I was determined to make my voice heard and sought after. I pursued nearly every opportunity, committee and position that came my way. No role was too small for me to accept.

I strived to present my work in top-tier journals and at conferences, and I cold-called prominent scholars to propose working together. And I constantly shared my findings and thoughts on social media.

Like many workplaces, the academic world has a set of defined success metrics, such as publications, citations of your work, grant funding and teaching evaluations from students. School culture and leadership influence what each college or university considers more or less valuable among those measures. To advance and get promoted, particularly to get tenure, it’s important to learn at an early stage what one’s department, college or university truly prioritizes.

I wanted to get tenure but also to be seen as an active citizen of academia – energetic, outspoken and unafraid to push boundaries. When my department chair described me as having my hair on fire, I took it as a compliment. I called it “making positive noise.”

Initially, the system rewarded that noise. I earned tenure at the University of Delaware and received departmental, college and national awards. I also was appointed to serve as associate dean and to direct a new research center. I felt validated, visible and valuable.

The sociology department at the University of Delaware had a typical academic culture that’s often summarized as “publish or perish.” The most important measures of scholars’ work were writing, publishing their work in respected journals and having other researchers cite those studies. Securing external funding from government, private companies or foundations was valued but was not as high a priority as publishing.

A new beginning that felt like an end

In 2020 I received a new opportunity at Arizona State University, a much larger school that branded itself as a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship. I was offered the chance to direct the Center for Advancing Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research and to step into the shoes of a leader I deeply admired. I arrived expecting to be a big fish in a bigger pond.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I showed up imagining there’d be a bit of buzz around my arrival given my time at the University of Delaware. But reality didn’t match the script: no greeting, office or nameplate marked my place when I arrived.

Early conversations with administrators weren’t about my research or teaching visions – the things that I thought set me apart. Instead, I felt they tended to focus on how much external funding I could raise from foundations and government agencies. My new colleagues often spoke in a shorthand of grant-based acronyms when referring to what projects they were working on, a “language” I was woefully unfamiliar with.

To make matters worse, I arrived during COVID-19, with classes either canceled or taught online and faculty members working mainly from home. The hallway chatter, open doors and spontaneous collaboration that I was accustomed to were absent. I began to feel alienated and disoriented as a scholar.

Even after ASU resumed in-person classes in the fall of 2021, I felt like the silence and distance lingered. No students waited for office hours. I struggled to make connections with my colleagues. I eagerly proposed collaborations when really everyone was just trying to find their footing in this new era of education.

My proposals for new classes and curricular programs hit up against institutional barriers I was unaware of. At one point, a college administrator asked, “How do we get you on other people’s grants?” – a question that I took to imply that they felt my research wasn’t strong enough.

It appeared that my colleagues in Edson College were accustomed to these values and spoke the language. I was a stranger in a strange land. Although I was producing some of my best work, measured in terms of publications and citations, I felt no one seemed interested. I had come from an environment where I felt known and valued to one where I seemed to be a nobody.

I felt as though I needed to staple my resume to my forehead and parade around the hallways asserting, like Ron Burgundy in the movie “Anchorman,” “I’m not quite sure how to put this, but … I’m kind of a big deal. People know me.”

The impact of feeling unseen

For people who have built careers by being highly engaged and visible, suddenly feeling unseen can be devastating. In any profession, a fear that you don’t belong at your workplace can be debilitating and make you question your own value.

I sought advice from peers and college leaders, and even hired a professional coach. Things only worsened. Curricular proposals were stalled or turned down. My center was shuttered in a restructuring, although it was meeting its goals and earning international recognition.

At first, I blamed ASU and Edson College for my feelings of disconnection. I thought the leadership structure and style was dysfunctional; that many colleagues were cold, unfriendly and conformist; and that the college’s stated values were inauthentic.

This series of what I came to call “unacknowledgments” sent me into a personal and professional tailspin. Negativity and self-doubt consumed me, and I truly worried that my career was over. Had I been blackballed? Why did it feel as though no one cared?

When the noise turns inward

I had spent years studying empathy – the ability to understand and feel what someone else is feeling – and how to cultivate it among health care professionals and students in order to support more patient-centered care. To that end, at the University of Delaware I had developed a program designed to foster empathy across health professions. It aimed to help students see one another as collaborators, build shared respect and recognize their collective role on the same health care delivery team.

But when I further analyzed the program’s outcomes from my office at ASU, I realized that empathy wasn’t enough. It could help students feel with others, but it didn’t necessarily help them see themselves, or others, differently.

I realized that what I really wanted the students to develop was humility. This step would require them to recognize their limits, accept that they were fallible, see themselves as part of a larger team and value others’ contributions.

That realization changed my research trajectory – and eventually, my professional life.

Research becomes a mirror

Initially, I approached humility solely as a scholar. I examined the history of the concept and gaps in existing research on it, and I analyzed how humility was connected to uncertainty and the impostor phenomenon. I explored how humility could enhance team-based care and developed a new way to define humility among health care professionals in order to promote more collaboration and patient-centeredness.

As my own professional world began to unravel, and as I dived deeper into the concept of humility through my research, something unexpected happened. I realized that humility wasn’t just an idea to study – it was becoming a mirror that made me rethink my own perspective.

Slowly, I began to see how pride and insecurity were entwined in my reactions to my new setting at ASU. I realized that my need to be noticed, and my insistence that others validate my worth, represented my own kind of arrogance.

Perhaps my ambition had been less about contributing and more about gaining external validation. I had lost the selfless wonder and awe that drive scholarly inquiry and curiosity. And now I had to confront what remained when the spotlight dimmed.

Humility, I began to understand, wasn’t just an abstract concept to explore “out there” among others. I needed to hone it internally by thinking beyond myself. By decentering my ego, I realized that I could nurture and sustain curiosity in its own right.

In short, I needed to practice what I was preaching. It wasn’t an easy lesson. I assume that cultivating humility never is.

To that end, I felt that it was essential to develop a program to help build humility “muscles.” In 2024 I developed HIIT for Humility, an online training package for individuals or groups, modeled after the fitness concept of high-intensity interval training. This program provides evidence-based strategies to help users start building “habits of humility,” such as acknowledgment of others and self-awareness.

Just as physical exercise requires consistency to produce results, so does the cultivation of humility. Leaning into HIIT for Humility workouts gradually eased my sense of alienation and defensiveness. I became more appreciative of others, less quick to judge and better able to listen to others’ perspectives. In doing so, I started to feel more confident and secure.

While I still took pride in my work, I began to see that my contributions were not the only ones that mattered. I also found that I could stretch into unfamiliar but necessary tasks, such as working harder to win federal and foundation grants and seeing the value of my colleagues’ contributions to science.

Why am I here?

Only a few years into this process, I can see that ASU and Edson College have unintentionally taught me humility by signaling, often quietly, which contributions are deemed essential and which forms of success carry the most weight. Navigating stalled proposals, shifting priorities and structural reorganizations have required me to recalibrate my ego, expectations and identity.

Not being seen as a “big fish” and being expected to persist without consistent recognition have required me to understand my work as part of a larger system with differing values and, at times, challenging constraints. Shifting to ASU forced me to rethink my identity as a professor and to reevaluate my sense of purpose from the inside out.

A colleague of mine often asks students who he feels are coasting along, “Why are you here?” Lately, I’ve taken that question personally. What is the point of being a professor – writing papers, submitting grant proposals, teaching courses? Why did I choose this path in the first place?

When I feel unseen, unheard or unappreciated, pondering why I’m here helps ground me. For anyone who is struggling to feel visible or valued at work, I strongly recommend considering this simple question.

Over time, I’ve stopped needing to be the big fish in the pond and measuring my worth in titles and awards. I now see that my responsibility as a scholar, teacher and human being is to stay curious, listen more deeply and make space for others’ voices.

Embracing humility, and consistently using my humility muscles, have helped me realize that I’m here to be part of the creative energy of academia, do the work and cultivate curiosity in my students, my peers and myself.

Barret Michalec, Research Associate Professor of Nursing and Health Innovation, Arizona State University

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

A little-known American lawsuit could end up reshaping popular music. A US federal court is preparing to rule on a landmark copyright dispute. At its centre is an interesting question: can a short rhythmic pattern – one that appears in thousands of reggaeton tracks – be owned?

The case, known as the Fish Market dispute, asks whether a looping beat widely associated with reggaeton can be protected by copyright. More than 150 artists and producers have been named as defendants, and around 3,600 songs are implicated.

But the consequences stretch far beyond potential damages. If the claim succeeds, a rhythm that underpins an entire genre could become private property. The lawsuit exposes a long-standing weakness in copyright law, which is its inability to clearly define what makes a piece of music “original”.

Copyright is meant to be straightforward. Original musical works receive legal protection but copies do not. In practice though, music rarely fits this neat, binary logic.

Songs are built from shared elements like rhythms, chord progressions and harmonic patterns. Musicians can reuse, adapt and transform them. These building blocks are how music communicates. But copyright law offers little guidance on which musical elements can be protected, and which belong to everyone.

Unlike literature or visual art, music lacks clear legal definitions for its basic components. There is no settled guidance on whether courts should compare melody, rhythm, harmony, tempo, timbre or pitch, or indeed how much similarity is too much. As a result, judges and juries are left to decide these questions case by case, often without musical expertise.

That uncertainty has made music copyright litigation expensive and unpredictable. Jury trials are particularly risky, and damages can be eye-watering. Two recent American cases show just how inconsistent the system has become.

When courts can’t agree what counts as copying

In 2018, a US jury found that musicians Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had infringed Marvin Gaye’s work with their song Blurred Lines, not because of a shared melody or lyrics, but because of a similar “feel” or “vibe”. The decision marked a dramatic expansion of copyright protection, suggesting that a musical mood could be owned. Critics warned this risked allowing artists to monopolise styles rather than specific creative expressions.

By contrast, a 2024 US court ruling in a case involving singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran took the opposite view. The court held that copyright does not protect the basic building blocks of music. Shared rhythms, chord sequences or stylistic elements, it ruled, are part of musical language itself. Protection applies only to concrete expressions such as specific melodies or lyrics.

The Fish Market case magnifies this contradiction and raises the stakes considerably.

The plaintiffs – Steely & Clevie Productions, which represent the musical catalogue of the influential Jamaican dancehall duo Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson and Cleveland Browne – claim that their 1989 instrumental track, Fish Market, introduced the so-called “dem bow” rhythm. This is a distinctive beat, they argue, which forms the backbone of reggaeton. They are seeking copyright protection for that rhythmic pattern.

If successful, the ruling would grant two rightsholders control over a core musical feature used across a global genre. Unsurprisingly, many musicians and scholars see this as an attempt to claim ownership of reggaeton itself.

They argue that the rhythm predates Fish Market, drawing on long-established Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Cuban traditions such as the habanera beat. Reggaeton, they say, emerged through cultural exchange: from Jamaican dancehall, through Puerto Rico and out into the world. According to this perspective, the plaintiffs are not protecting originality but attempting to privatise a shared cultural inheritance.

Why rhythm is so hard to copyright

Rhythm sits at the heart of the legal problem. It is abstract yet fundamental, short in duration but repeated across a song and deeply tied to cultural identity. Copyright law, designed to compare fixed and discrete works, struggles to evaluate such elements. When courts attempt to isolate rhythm from its musical and cultural context, they risk mistaking convention for originality.

Copyright once played a limited role in musical life. Over time, as recorded music became a major commercial industry, songs increasingly came to be treated as economic assets. Ownership and control moved to the foreground, often at the expense of recognising music as an intellectual and cultural practice rooted in borrowing, influence and exchange.

The dispute around the “dem bow” rhythm lays bare the clash between subjective creativity, economic regulation and the law’s demand for objective rules. That clash is becoming harder to ignore as AI-generated music floods the market, trained on existing works and capable of producing endless stylistic variations. If copyright cannot clearly define originality now, its limits will soon be tested even further.

The reggaeton rhythm on trial is not just a fight over a beat. It reveals a fundamental mismatch between copyright law’s rigid standards and the reality of how music is made.

The Fish Market case offers judges an opportunity to clarify where protection should end, and to recognise the dangers of stretching originality so far that creativity itself becomes collateral damage.

Anna Monnereau, PhD Candidate in Music Copyright, Bangor University

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

The latest wellness trend and “sleep hack” involves switching off the bathroom light before stepping into the shower. In the dimness, the water feels louder, the day’s visual clutter fades and the hope is that sleep will come more easily. This practice, often called “dark showering”, has spread on social media, with people claiming that washing before bed in near darkness leads to deeper and faster sleep.

There is little research on dark showering as a standalone sleep technique. However, sleep science is clear about two key factors this ritual changes: light and heat. Both can nudge the body toward sleep or keep it alert.

Light is not only for seeing. Bright light in the evening signals to the brain’s internal body clock that it is still daytime. This delays the release of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep and is often described as the body’s “darkness signal”.

In a laboratory study of 116 adults, typical room lighting between dusk and bedtime reduced early night melatonin levels by about 70% compared with very dim light. Exposure to room light before bed also shortened the total duration of melatonin release by about 90 minutes. Participants reported feeling more alert.

Bathrooms are often the brightest rooms in a home. Overhead lighting and illuminated mirrors are designed for precision tasks that are useful in the morning but less helpful late at night. Turning these lights off, or dimming them, removes a strong signal that it is still daytime.

One experiment exposed volunteers to standard bathroom lighting for just 30 minutes at bedtime. Melatonin levels dropped and self reported alertness increased, even though participants remained in the bathroom.

More recent research supports this. A 2025 crossover trial compared exposure before bed to cool white LED lighting with softer fluorescent lighting at the same brightness. The LED lighting delayed the time it took participants to fall asleep by about ten minutes and left them feeling less sleepy.

Another study of adolescents found that a burst of bright light in the early evening reduced melatonin levels three hours later and delayed the normal rise in sleepiness.

The same pattern appears in studies of screens. A controlled experiment comparing reading on a light emitting e-reader with reading a printed book found that the glowing device delayed the body clock, reduced melatonin and made it take longer to fall asleep.

A 2023 laboratory study that adjusted the “blue weighted” impact of screens, meaning the part of light most likely to affect the body clock, found that reducing this blue component lessened melatonin suppression and shortened the time needed to fall asleep.

If dark showering replaces time spent under bright bathroom lights or scrolling on a phone, it may help simply by reducing evening light exposure. The benefit will be smaller if the shower is followed by time under full lighting to dry hair, choose clothes for the next day and tidy up.

Darkness also works gradually. Melatonin does not switch on instantly when the lights go out, and a brief shower will not reset a body clock that has been running late for weeks.

Shower water may provide a second benefit. Research on passive body heating, which means warming the body without exercise, has shown that a warm shower or bath taken at the right time can help people fall asleep more quickly.

A 2019 meta analysis of 13 trials concluded that about ten minutes in warm water one to two hours before bedtime shortened the time it took to fall asleep by roughly nine minutes and improved sleep efficiency, the proportion of time in bed actually spent asleep. Warm water widens blood vessels in the hands and feet, helping core body temperature drop afterwards, a key signal for drowsiness.

Dark showering may also help prepare the nervous system for sleep. Low light reduces the brain’s alerting signals and makes it easier to shift from a state of vigilance, often called the “fight or flight” response, into a calmer “rest and digest” state.

One lab study asked volunteers to lie in a bath while sensors monitored their heartbeat. When the water was close to normal body temperature, about 37 to 38 degrees Celsius, the parasympathetic nervous system became more active. This is the part of the nervous system that slows the heart and supports relaxation. Heart rate slowed slightly and heart rate variability increased, a sign the body is adapting and settling.

A simpler experiment found a similar effect using only warm foot baths. Young women who soaked their feet in warm water for ten minutes showed an increase in vagal tone within 15 minutes.

Vagal tone refers to signals carried by the vagus nerve, which helps regulate heart rate, breathing and relaxation. Higher vagal tone is linked to steadier breathing, lower stress hormone levels and an easier transition into sleep.

Darkness supports the same process from another angle. Bright, blue rich LED lighting can raise heart rate and reduce vagal tone within minutes. A 2025 systematic review found that dimmer, warmer lighting allows heart rate variability to increase, signalling a calmer nervous system.

Another factor is the sound of running water. A 2024 analysis found that natural sounds such as rainfall or flowing rivers can lower cortisol, a stress hormone, and stabilise heart rate more effectively than silence. Heat, darkness and soft background noise may therefore combine to signal that it is safe to relax.

There are important caveats. No large trial has directly compared dark showers with brightly lit showers while measuring objective sleep outcomes, so the idea is based on combining related findings rather than direct evidence.

People with mobility difficulties may need some light to reduce the risk of slips, and those who experience night-time anxiety may feel uneasy in complete darkness. As with most sleep advice, no single habit is a cure for chronic insomnia. Daytime light exposure, caffeine timing and stress management all play an important role.

Timothy Hearn, Lecturer, University of Cambridge; Anglia Ruskin University

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

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder than during a church service, when something faintly ridiculous caught my eye. My friend saw it too, and once she started laughing, it became impossible to stop. Years later I’ve tried to explain what was so hilarious, but it seems you had to be there. What was it about the combination of the situation – sometimes referred to as “church giggles” – and shared laughter that made it so funny?

Most people recognise the experience. A solemn setting. Absolute silence. A fleeting visual detail that is, in any other context, only mildly amusing at best. Yet the harder you try to suppress the laugh, the more uncontrollable it becomes. When someone else notices it too, restraint becomes next to impossible.

This kind of laughter that comes from trying not to laugh isn’t confined to religious spaces. It happens in any setting where silence, seriousness and self-control are tightly enforced and uncontrolled laughter is frowned upon.

Rather than being bad manners or a lack of emotional maturity, it tells us something about how the brain behaves under pressure. The science behind it is surprisingly complex.

In highly formal settings – churches, courtrooms, funerals – the brain operates in a state of active inhibition. This is the process by which your brain deliberately suppresses brain activity.

The region most involved is the prefrontal cortex, the thinking and decision-making part at the front of your brain, particularly its medial and lateral areas. These areas handle social judgment, behavioural restraint and emotional regulation.

This part of the brain doesn’t stop emotions from arising. Instead, it works by suppressing their outward expression.

Laughter comes from a distributed network in the brain rather than a single “laughter centre”. The impulse begins in the outer regions of the brain, but the emotional drive comes from deeper structures in the limbic system, the emotional processing centre of the brain.

The limbic system includes the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure that processes emotions and assigns emotional importance to things, and the hypothalamus, which controls automatic body functions like heart rate and breathing. Once laughter gets released, circuits in the brainstem – the base of the brain that connects to the spinal cord – take over and coordinate facial expression, breathing and vocalisation.

This makes laughter difficult to stop voluntarily. The prefrontal cortex normally keeps this response in check, suppressing laughter when it’s socially inappropriate.

When that control weakens – through heightened arousal or shared social cues – laughter emerges as an automatic, reflex-like behaviour. It’s no longer a deliberate act.

In other words, the impulse to laugh and the effort to stop yourself come from different parts of the brain. They’re competing with each other.

When something unexpected or odd catches your eye, your emotional response fires rapidly and automatically. The process to control it takes effort, burns energy, and is prone to failure, especially when you have to maintain it for long periods.

The more firmly you try to exert control, the more the trigger stays active in your attention. Suppression doesn’t erase the thought – it actually rehearses and sustains it.

Laughter isn’t just a response to humour. Neurologically, it also functions as a regulatory reflex – a way of releasing emotional and physical tension.

In constrained environments, your nervous system has few outlets. You can’t move, you can’t speak, you can’t shift position much or signal discomfort.

At the same time, your automatic nervous system becomes slightly activated. Your heart rate increases, your breathing becomes shallower and your muscle tone rises.

This combination lowers the threshold for emotional release. Your body becomes primed to let something out.

Once laughter begins, it recruits automatic motor pathways in the brainstem that you can’t easily interrupt. This is why laughter, once triggered, often feels physically unstoppable.

You’re no longer “deciding” to laugh. The system has taken over and you’re helpless.

The contagion takes hold

For many people, the tipping point isn’t the original trigger. It’s the instant someone else notices it as well.

This is where social neurobiology comes into play. Humans are highly sensitive to subtle social cues: facial tension, changes in breathing, suppressed smiles.

We process these cues rapidly through networks involving the superior temporal sulcus, a groove along the side of the brain that plays a key role in reading other people. Mirror neurons – brain cells that fire both when we act and when we watch others act – also help us pick up on these signals.

Laughing together represents a shared emotional alignment. That shared recognition does two things at once.

It validates your own response (I’m not imagining this). And it removes the sense of solitary transgression (you’re no longer suppressing alone).

The prefrontal control system weakens further. Laughter spreads through emotional contagion.

By this point, the original trigger hardly matters. What you’re laughing at is each other, and the absurdity of trying to regain control.

These moments are often triggered by something visual, but they don’t have to be. A mispronounced word or an unexpected phrase can provoke the same response.

However, visual triggers are especially potent in silent settings. They can’t be interrupted or talked away, and your brain can replay them repeatedly while suppression is in place.

Spoken triggers, by contrast, tend to be shared instantly. Whether laughter erupts depends on how quickly social inhibition can be re-established.

“Inappropriate” laughter is often framed as rudeness or childishness. But from a neurological perspective, it’s a predictable consequence of prolonged emotional suppression in a social species.

The brain is not designed for sustained inhibition without release. When restraint is tight enough – and when someone else is there with you – laughter becomes the escape route. That is why it feels impossible to stop.

Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

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

When the topic of central banks and the outlook for interest rates comes up, economists often turn to the so-called “star” variables to help with their predictions.

What do we mean by star variables? Why they are important to central bankers, and how do they influence interest-rate decisions?

The star variables relate to key concepts in economic models used by central bankers to help them understand how the economy works.

Star variables are named so simply because they are usually labelled with an asterisk to distinguish them from other variables in economic modelling.

Central bankers don’t normally think about the star variables in isolation. Instead, these variables are better thought of as a “constellation” linking economic growth, the labour market and interest rates together with inflation outcomes.

The three north stars

1. Potential output or y*: This is the economy’s maximum sustainable output that can be produced when all resources are fully employed. It is sometimes referred to as the economy’s speed limit. If economic growth is faster than potential, it can put upward pressure on inflation because demand for goods and services is outstripping supply.

The reverse is also true: if the economy is growing below potential, demand is subdued and inflation will likely fall.

Potential output is closely linked to productivity. Boosting productivity lifts the economy’s speed limit – allowing faster economic growth without fuelling inflation. But falling productivity lowers the economy’s speed limit, meaning it can’t grow as fast as previously without causing inflation to rise. This is the problem currently facing Australia.

2. Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment or NAIRU or u*, a concept that became popular in the 1970s. The idea is there is a “natural” rate of unemployment that doesn’t put pressure on wages or inflation.

3. The neutral interest rate or r* is considered to be the level of the central bank’s key interest rate that is not too low (and stimulating demand) and not too high (and restraining demand). It is a useful guide to the stance of the central bank’s monetary policy, or stance on the policy interest rate.

Good in theory, hard to measure in practice

These three interlinked variables are fundamental to how central bankers think about the economy.

But they are also concepts that are not observable, unlike published statistics on inflation or economic growth. They need to be estimated, and that’s where the uncertainty comes in.

In fact, central bankers must use statistical methods originally developed to track spacecraft to estimate them. This is done by detecting the effects these variables have on other variables that are observable, such as inflation, wages growth and the unemployment rate.

In a recent speech, a US Federal Reserve official wondered whether the three variables are “too abstract and elusive to be of practical value”. He concluded:

The short answer is that they play a central role in macroeconomic theory and have important implications for the conduct of monetary policy.[…] When the stars perfectly align, it means the economy has reached an equilibrium where its resources are fully utilized.

How the variables help with setting interest rates

Most central banks focus on maintaining price stability (low and stable inflation). A few, such as the Reserve Bank of Australia and the US Federal Reserve, have dual mandates to maintain price stability and full employment.

The way central bankers put their objectives into practice is influenced by the star variables. Specifying a target for inflation is seen as the best way to achieve price stability. The Reserve Bank’s target is 2–3% over the economic cycle.

Over time, inflation tends to be steady when the unemployment rate is close to the NAIRU. Because of this, central bankers often use the NAIRU as a rough guide to full employment, which is also broadly consistent with the economy operating near potential.

Understanding the central bank’s objectives is important because they tell us where the economy should go. But they don’t tell us what the central bank will do to get there – that is, what policy interest rate setting is needed to achieve its objectives (what economists call the central bank’s “reaction function”).

This is a way of describing how the central bank adjusts its policy interest rate based on differences between current economic conditions and the star variables.

But this is easier said than done. The uncertainties with estimating the star variables, together with the uncertainties in how interest rate changes flow through the economy, makes it difficult for central bankers to know exactly what decision they should make to achieve their objectives.

All this uncertainty is one reason why central bankers are very cautious. Sometimes it is better to do nothing than make a wrong decision and risk losing credibility.

Luke Hartigan, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney

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

Water covers over 70% of our planet, so it’s no wonder that it flows through our storytelling. Biblical rain offered divine judgement either in the form of a blessing and rewards, or retribution and vengeance. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Feste the fool issued the melancholic refrain: “For the rain it raineth every day.” It reminded the audience of the persistence of suffering in life.

Filmmakers worldwide have revered the visual beauty and the metaphorical value of rain on screen, letting it augment many a classic scene, sequence or speech. Technically, rain intensifies mise-en-scène (the overall visual presentation on screen, combining set design, lighting, props and more): it catches backlight and renders air itself visible, creating depth and shimmer.

And as our global weather patterns undergo changes, media researchers have suggested that engagement with cinematic weather conditions like rain can allow for an “ecological meta-narrative” that connects humans (both on and offscreen) with their environment.

Whether depicting solitude, decay, adversity or romantic destined love, rain in movies emotes as much as a character would. Here are ten key moments where rain took a starring role in film – just perfect for watching on a wet day.

1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Few scenes invert bad weather more joyfully than Gene Kelly’s iconic number. After a night of salvaging their disastrous film project, The Duelling Cavalier, actor Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) realises that he has fallen for the bubbly singer Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). On his ebullient walk home, a legendary song and dance number turns the perceived bad weather on its head with the cheerful refrain: “Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my face.”

Kelly reportedly performed the sequence while running a fever, and the scene’s exuberance reframes rain not as obstacle but as liberation. The uplifting choreography sees Kelly splashing through puddles that reflect streetlights, making the urban space of the set design feel elastic and alive.

2. Seven Samurai (1954)

Rain heightens the brutal physical clashes in filmmaker Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai. As the Samurai face their final battle, the rain (which has been used throughout to add mood and tone) is as cruel and violent as any of the antagonists, amplifying the pressure with its muddy, disorientating and visceral presence in the conflict.

Kurosawa was meticulous about weather effects, using wind, dust and rain to choreograph movement within the frame. The downpour turns the battlefield into sludge, erasing clear footing and underscoring the film’s meditation on chaos, class struggle and the cost of collective defence.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The final reunion scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s raises the emotional stakes with its unrelenting rain. In a taxi to the airport, Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, tries to run away and abandon her emotional commitments to struggling writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) and the stray cat she’s adopted.

After an incensed Paul watches her throw the cat out into the rain, he exits, determined to rescue the soggy feline. As she tearfully joins him, her character arc is complete. The storm forces Holly quite literally to stop running, confronting the emotional commitments she has tried to evade.

4. Network (1976)

In Network, a New York rainstorm provides the ultimate backdrop for anchorman Howard Beal’s (Peter Finch) unhinged and rain-drenched live rant. The drumming of rain against studio windows suggests a world outside the sealed, commodified space of television as, in a renowned monologue, he berates the news channel’s manipulation and society’s disintegration with the famous line: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more.”

5. Point Break (1991)

In Point Blank, rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) confronts Bodhi, a bank-robbing surfer played by Patrick Swayze, in the rain. The weather ultimately enables him to evade capture by allowing him to ride one last big wave; something both know he will never survive.

Here, rain acts as a redemptive force. Bodhi seeks exoneration through the only thing he respects – nature.

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

In prison drama The Shawshank Redemption, Andy’s (Tim Robbins) Raquel-Welch cell poster hides a hidden escape shaft, years in the making while he endured time for a crime he didn’t commit.

Wading through a sewer tunnel he finally emerges to a torrential downpour, holding out his arms and facing the heavens in a symbolic act of cleansing, salvation and freedom. Rain here washes away not guilt, but injustice.

7. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Rain doesn’t always have to represent high drama. In the Richard Curtis-penned film Four Weddings and a Funeral, American Carrie’s (Andie MacDowall) famously cheesy line, “Is it still raining, I hadn’t noticed?” puts the seal on her romance with bumbling but charming British Charles (Hugh Grant) and secures the star-crossed lovers a future.

The actors were reportedly freezing during the rain rigged shoot. Rigs often rely on using cold water and multiple takes.

8. Magnolia (2000)

Magnolia’s frenzied collective experience of a thunderstorm of frogs will forever capture the imagination of the more surreally minded. In this scene, rain symbolises the universal chaos of life and binds disparate characters into a shared reckoning.

9. The Notebook (2004)

The physical brutality of heavy rain underscores heartbreak, loss and forgiveness in decades-spanning The Notebook as Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams’ separated lovers Noah and Allie reunite after family has dictated their separation.

A sweepingly romantic scene in a sleeper hit turned cult favourite, the downpour legitimises emotional excess – tears indistinguishable from rain.

10. Blade Runner (1982)

The demand of three of the most challenging filming elements – smoke, night shoots and rain – had the crew of Ridley Scott’s futuristic dystopian Blade Runner christen the film “Blood Runner” as 50 nights of filming in constant artificial rain took a physical, mental and logistical toll.

Whether depicting disorder or harmony, life-enhancing joy or unprecedented destruction, rain remains a valuable visual medium and narrative tool for filmmakers.

What’s your favourite rain scene in cinematic history? Let us know in the comments below.

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Jane Steventon, Course Leader, BA (Hons) Screenwriting; Deputy Course Leader & Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Film Production, University of Portsmouth

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

First conceived as a mail-order-only company in 1963, known as Biba’s Postal Boutique, the brand captured the revolutionary 1960s and 1970s attitude and style, offering trend-seekers affordable, high-fashion aesthetics and glamour akin to Paris catwalks.

Influenced by art deco, Biba’s covetable mini dresses, luxurious fabrics, rich prints and colour palettes quickly achieved a cult following, embodying the “swinging London” look. Worn by celebrities like Twiggy and Mick Jagger, and film stars like Brigitte Bardot and Raquel Welch, Biba embraced a glamorous and rebellious style that had enormous global influence.

Now, The Biba Story: 1964–1975, a new exhibition at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, is showcasing the iconic fashion brand founded by designer Barbara Hulanicki and her partner Stephen Fitz-Simon.

Expanding from a small chemist shop on Church Street, Kensington, to a seven-storey department store on Kensington High Street, Biba sold a range of goods, from fashion to home products. The brand revolutionised retail with its lifestyle-focused department store and immersive interior opulence, setting a precedent for experiential luxury shopping that continues today.

Sadly, despite its significant impact on fashion and culture, Biba struggled financially and closed in 1975, leaving a lasting legacy as a symbol of the 1960s style revolution.

Historic moments

First seen at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, The Biba Story communicates an engaging narrative covering the swift rise of Hulanicki’s design brand. It starts by setting the scene with a visual timeline, cleverly plotting the Biba story alongside pivotal historical movements and events, demonstrating the broader societal and cultural context that provided the backdrop to Biba’s fashion reign.

This includes reference to the not-guilty verdict for the legal action brought against Penguin Books, which in 1960 published the unexpurgated version of D.H. Lawrence’s 1932 book Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It caused a huge furore at the time and heralded the more liberal age of the swinging 60s that Biba embraced.

The exhibit also introduces Biba’s first major commercial success – a simple pink and white gingham shift dress paired with a Bardot-style headscarf. This dress, first featured in the Daily Mirror in May 1964, sold a record 17,000 dresses at 25 shillings (£1.25) each, marking the commercial success that swiftly elevated Biba to the iconic status it still retains today.

This evocative exhibition includes a wonderful sequence of drawings, illuminating how Hulanicki started out as a talented fashion illustrator, providing artwork for major magazines like Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily. Offset by the warm decor of plum walls, The Biba Story creates a sublime, high-end feel, further complemented by vintage retro-style lighting.

Here, you really get a nostalgic sense of the 1960s and 1970s, when art nouveau, art deco and modernism combined to create the style for the time.

The exhibition’s collective energy conveys the essence of the Biba aesthetic – it wasn’t just about the clothes, it was a whole lifestyle. Beautifully curated cases of Biba products, from cosmetics to tinned food to matches and branded wine, reveal how Biba was one of the first high street brands to offer more than clothes. Here was an accessible, glamorous and perhaps more indulgent lifestyle to the masses, especially uplifting in a drab post-war Britain.

A section dedicated to Biba textiles highlights the boldness of its patterns and prints offset by the contrasting simplicity of the garments’ designs. Biba was all about functionality over fussiness.

The outfits on display embody a somewhat stringent uniformity infused with a rebellious attitude, transitioning into a slick showcase of classic black dresses that remain timeless and enduring. Here, the exhibition also highlights the desirable body standards of the era, with the Biba look demanding wearers have “long thin arms, flat chests, low waists and straight hips”.

This segment subtly hints at the more problematic influence of fashion in defining body image (and perhaps it’s important to note that most of the clothes on display reflect a very small body shape), offering valuable reflections on the historical evolution of beauty standards and fashion’s continuing role in shaping them.

Bring Oot Your Biba

Especially illuminating, too, are the stories of Biba customers reminiscing about the brand, describing how “there was nothing like Biba in Edinburgh. The colours, the cut, the design, the materials, all fabulous.” Personal stories are melded with the exhibition narrative throughout, and there is a wonderfully touching conclusion titled Bring Oot Your Biba. This showcases the results of an invitation to the people of Scotland to share their Biba memories and purchases, all adding warming generational insights into the treasures of Biba fashions.

Notably, the exhibition ends with a small, beautiful tapestry of the Biba Logo, woven by talented Dovecot Studios apprentice Sophie McCaffrey – a perfect, and fitting wrap to a beautifully curated exhibition.

The Dovecot not only pays a sincere and authentic homage to Biba’s lasting legacy, it immerses the viewer in a real sense of the palpable excitement of the era: change, youth, liberation and opportunity. Many visitors will no doubt feel connected to the nostalgia of Biba’s style, while being reminded of the importance of fashion visionaries like Barbara Hulanicki to our design cultures, identities, and economies. `

Mal James, Personal Chair of Fashion Design, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

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

Setting sail from the busy port of Plymouth in Devon, the tall ship Pelican of London takes young people to sea, often for the first time.

During each nine-day voyage, the UK-based sailing trainees, who often come from socio-economically challenging backgrounds, become crew members. They not only learn the ropes (literally) but also engage in ocean science and stewardship activities.

As marine and outdoor education researchers, we wanted to find out whether mixing sail training and Steams (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics and sustainability) activities can inspire young people to pursue a more ocean-focused career, and a long-term commitment to ocean care.

Research shows that a strong connection with the ocean can drive people to be active marine citizens. This means they take responsibility for ocean health not only in their own lives but as advocates for more sustainable interactions with the ocean.

Over the past year, we have worked with Charly Braungardt, head scientist with the charity Pelican of London, to create a new theory of how sail training with Steams activities can change the paths that trainees pursue.

Based on scientific evidence, our theory of change models how Steams activities can cause positive changes in personal development and knowledge and understanding of the ocean (known as ocean literacy). It shows how the voyages can develop trainees’ strong connections with the ocean and encourage them to act responsibly towards it.

Tracking change

Surveys with the participants before and after the voyage, and six months later, measure any changes that occur – and how these persist. Through our evaluation, we’re exploring how combining voyages with Steams activities can go beyond personal development to produce deep, long-lasting effects.

Our pilot study has already shown how the sail training and Steams combination helps to develop confidence, ocean literacy and ocean connections.

For example, the boost to self-esteem and feelings of capability that occur on board help young people develop their marine identity – the ocean becomes an important part of a person’s sense of who they are. As one trainee put it: “I think the ocean is me and the ocean will and forever be part of me.”

Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle - the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health.

This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it.

As crew members, trainees access a world and traditional culture largely unknown to them before the voyage. They learn to live with others in a confined space, working together in small teams to keep watch on 24-hour rotas.

Trainees are encouraged to step out of their comfort zone through activities such as climbing the rigging and swimming off the vessel. Our pilot evaluation found the voyages built the trainees’ confidence and social skills, boosting self-esteem and feelings of capability.

One trainee said: “I’ve felt pretty disappointed in myself not committing to my education or only doing something with minimal effort. But after this voyage, I want to give it my all.”

The Steams voyages encourage the development of scientific skills and ocean literacy through the lens of creative tasks at sea. These activities are led by a scientist-in-residence who provides mentoring and introduces research techniques.

The voyage gives trainees the opportunity to use scientific equipment, ranging from plankton nets and microscopes to cutting-edge technology such as remotely operated vehicles. The Steams activities introduce marine research as a potential career to these young people. One said they wanted to train as a marine engineer at nautical college following the voyage.

Ocean experiences provide a foundation for ocean connection. Trainees experience the ocean in sunshine and in gales, day and night, rolling with the waves and observing marine life in its natural environment.

Citizen science projects such as wildlife surveys and recorded beach cleans also develop their ocean stewardship knowledge and skills. One trainee explained how they have “become more interested [in] our marine life and creative ways to help protect it”.

Over the next 12 months, the information we collect from the voyages will help us to better understand the benefits and contribute to an important marine social science data gap in young people. It is important to understand how to develop young people’s relationships with the ocean, and the knowledge and skills that will empower the next generation of marine citizens.

As one trainee put it: “Being out on the Pelican showed me how vast and powerful the sea is – and how important it is to respect and care for it.”

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Pamela Buchan, Research Fellow, Geography, University of Exeter and Alun Morgan, Lecturer in Education, School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Plymouth

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A recent study showed that Mars was warm and wet billions of years ago. The finding contrasts with another theory that this era was mainly cold and icy. The result has implications for the idea that life could have developed on the planet at this time.

Whether Mars was once habitable is a fascinating and intensely researched topic of interest over many decades. Mars, like the Earth, is about 4.5 billion years old and its geological history is divided into different epochs of time.

The latest paper relates to Mars during a time called the Noachian epoch, which extended from about 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago. This was during a stage in solar system history called the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). Evidence for truly cataclysmic meteorite impacts during the LHB are found on many bodies throughout the solar system.

Two obvious scars from this era on Mars are the enormous Hellas and Argyre impact basins; both are well over a thousand miles across and each possesses enough volume to hold all the water in the Mediterranean with room to spare.

One might not imagine such a time being conducive to the existence of fragile lifeforms, yet it is likely to be the era in which Mars was most habitable. Evidence of landforms sculpted by water from this time is plentiful and include dried-up river valleys, lake beds, ancient coastlines and river deltas.

The prevailing climatic conditions of the Noachian are still a matter of intense debate. Two alternative scenarios are typically posited: that this time was cold and icy, with occasional melting of large volumes of frozen water by meteorite impact and volcanic eruptions, or that it was warm, wet and largely ice-free.

Brightening Sun

All stars, including the Sun, brighten with age. In the early solar system, during the Noachian, the Sun was about 30% dimmer than it is today, so less heat was reaching Mars (and all the planets). To sustain a warm, wet climate at this time, the Martian atmosphere would have needed to be very substantial – much thicker than it is today – and abundant in greenhouse gases like CO2.

But when reaching high enough atmospheric pressure, CO2 tends to condense out of the air to form clouds and reduce the greenhouse effect. Given these issues, the cold, icy scenario is perhaps more believable.

One of the main science goals of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover, which landed spectacularly in February 2021, is to seek evidence to support either of these two scenarios, and the new paper using data from Perseverance may have done just that.

Perseverance landed at the Martian location of Jezero crater, which was selected as the landing site because it once contained a lake. Views of the crater from orbit show several distinct fan-shaped deposits emanating from channels carved through the crater walls by flowing water. Within these channels are abundant deposits of clay minerals.

The new paper details recent analysis of aluminium-rich clay pebbles, called kaolinite, located within one of the ancient flow channels. The pebbles appear to have been subjected to intense weathering and chemical alteration by water during the Noachian.

While this is perhaps not surprising for a known ancient watery environment, what is interesting is that these clays are strongly depleted in iron and magnesium, and enriched in titanium and aluminium.

This is important because it means these rocks were less likely to have been altered in a hydrothermal environment, where scalding hot water was temporarily released by melting ice caused by volcanism or a meteorite impact.

Instead, they appear to have been altered under modest temperatures and persistent heavy rainfall. The authors found distinct similarities between the chemical composition of these clay pebbles with similar clays found on Earth dating from periods in our planet’s history when the climate was much warmer and wetter.

The paper concludes that these kaolinite pebbles were altered under high rainfall conditions comparable to “past greenhouse climates on Earth” and that they “likely represent some of the wettest intervals and possibly most habitable portions of Mars’ history”.

Furthermore, the paper concludes that these conditions may have persisted over time periods ranging from thousands to millions of years. Perseverance recently made headlines also for the discovery of possible biosignatures in samples it collected last year, also from within Jezero crater.

These precious samples have now been cached in special sealed containers on the rover for collection by a future Mars sample return mission. Unfortunately, the mission has recently been cancelled by Nasa and so what vital evidence they may or may not contain will probably not be examined in an Earth-based laboratory for many years.

Crucial to this future analysis is the so-called “Knoll criterion” – a concept formulated by astrobiologist Andrew Knoll, which states that for something to be evidence of life, an observation has to not just be explicable by biology; it has to be inexplicable without it. Whether these samples ever satisfy the Knoll criterion will only be known if they can be brought to Earth.

Either way, it is quite striking to imagine a time on Mars, billions of years before the first humans walked the Earth, that a tropical climate with – possibly – a living ecosystem once existed in the now desolate and wind-swept landscape of Jezero crater.

Gareth Dorrian, Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Space Science, University of Birmingham

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

Even before the film’s release, the costumes for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights caused controversy.

Wuthering Heights was first published in 1847 and the story switches back and forth in time between 1801 and the 1770s. But Cathy’s wedding dress references an entirely different era, inspired by a 1951 Charles James haute couture gown. Cathy also appears to be wrapped in cellophane – a material first invented in 1908 – on her wedding night.

These costumes were designed by Jacqueline Durran, who previously won Oscars and BAFTAs for costume design for Anna Karenina (2012) and Little Women (2019), and a third BAFTA for Vera Drake (2005).

Some costume experts have panned Durran’s costumes as anachronistic and visually incoherent. But Vogue described them as “wild and wonderful”. So who’s right?

Designing for film

Costume design is a collaboration; the designer works closely with the director and other production creatives to make a world and bring a story to life.

Costumes must make narrative sense within the world a director is building and communicate the character’s personality and story in each scene.

Often, costumes can seem so natural to a character and their world that you don’t even notice them, like Kathleen Detoro’s designs on Breaking Bad (2008–13).

Costumes can also be scene-stealers because displays of fashion and dress are part of the plot, like Durran’s costumes for Barbie (2023), or Patricia Field’s costumes for Sex and the City (1998–2004).

In Wuthering Heights, Cathy (Margot Robbie) has 50 different costumes, many featuring vintage Chanel jewellery. Other times, she is in ultra shiny, synthetic, plasticised contemporary fabric – such as a black gown that resembles an oil slick.

Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) has fewer changes, more in keeping with Georgian dress, with his costuming riffing on the cinematic trope of the bad-boy Byronic hero.

With every character, the costumes have a life of their own.

This is not unusual for cinematic adaptations of classic literature, which have featured glamorous, luxurious costumes to attract audiences since the beginning of film history, like Georges Méliès’s Cinderella (1899) and Cecil B. DeMille’s Male or Female (1919).

Designing Wuthering Heights

Fennell’s world of Wuthering Heights is built on a collection of images and cinematic references that span time and space to show the love story is universal.

Fennell also wanted to “make something really disturbing and sexy and nightmarish” rather than faithfully recreating the book.

To do this, she accumulated a huge number of visual references and collaborated with Durran to see how and where these could fit into the film.

Instead of historically accurate costuming, Durran and Fennell created a world of stylised costumes inspired by 500 years of historical dress, contemporary fashions, images from fairy tales and popular culture, and old Hollywood technicolor films from the 1930s to the 1960s, particularly Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939).

This is part of a broader costuming trend rejecting complete historical accuracy when re-imagining historical eras on screen, such as the alternative Regency world of Bridgerton (2020–) and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025).

‘A collection of memoranda’

After Cathy dies in the book Heathcliff says, “The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her”.

Motifs of hair, skin, bone and teeth are found throughout the film and speak to the physical, visceral nature of Heathcliff and Cathy’s passion. This echoes historical trends for mourning jewellery that featured hair, bones and teeth of deceased loved ones, and foreshadows the film’s ending.

Cathy’s jewellery is her armour. After she marries Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), her jewellery signals her newfound wealth and security. The majority of Cathy’s costumes are black, white and red, echoing the interiors of her old and new homes, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

Cathy demands Nelly (Hong Chau) tighten her bridal corset, echoing the scars on Heathcliff’s back from a beating he sustained as a child when defending her. But this tightening also signals she is trapped in a loveless cage.

Edgar, the nouveau-riche textile merchant, wears suits with a period silhouette but made in contemporary, shiny fabrics; his spoilt, unhinged sister Isabella (Alison Oliver) wears tacky, frilly beribboned gowns and accessories; Heathcliff transforms from rough brute in farming clothes to rakish, Regency-style dandy with a gold tooth.

Not all of the costuming choices work. Cathy’s dirndl-style gowns are more Oktoberfest than “moorcore”. Unlike Cathy’s other costumes which aren’t historically accurate, but are still based on a bygone time, I found the dirndl gowns too similar to a style of traditional dress still worn in Bavaria, Austria and Switzerland, taking us away from the historical fantasy world of Wuthering Heights.

Let it sweep you away

While some will criticise the bold costuming choices, the beauty and skill of Durran’s work on Wuthering Heights are undeniable.

We should embrace Durran’s costumes and their blend of romantic, historical silhouettes and imagery with glossy, gauzy fabrics and sexy, contemporary, high fashion looks.

Don’t look for historical accuracy in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. That will lead to disappointment. Instead, let the sensual, opulent costumes, the brash, bold scenography and the chemistry between Robbie and Elordi sweep you away to a sumptuous, imaginary world.

Emily Brayshaw, Honorary Research Fellow, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

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With a stroke of a presidential pen, the lives of Izumi Taniguchi, Minoru Tajii, Homei Iseyama and Peggy Yorita irreparably changed on Feb. 19, 1942. On that day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which set in motion their wartime incarceration along with other people of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed from their homes in parts of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.

To cope with their fear, anger and loss in the turbulent times, they would have to dig deep into their emotional reservoirs of resolve and ingenuity.

Without bringing charges against them or providing any evidence of disloyalty, the U.S. government detained legal Japanese immigrants and their American-born descendants in desolate inland locations during and after World War II, simply because of their ethnicity. Nearly 127,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated between 1942 and 1947, according to Duncan Ryȗken Williams, director of The Irei Project, which is compiling a comprehensive list of those detained. My grandparents, parents and their families were among them.

As I describe in my book “When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II,” they boarded livestock trucks and World War I-era trains guarded by armed U.S. soldiers for destinations that were not disclosed to them. They could only take what they could carry and what they had within themselves.

When the Japanese Americans arrived at temporary detention facilities, euphemistically called “assembly centers,” hastily constructed on fairgrounds, racetracks and other government property, they were shocked to be body-searched, fingerprinted and interrogated. Thousands discovered their living quarters were animal pens or horse stalls. The ones considered lucky were assigned to poorly built barracks. The barracks had only cots, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceilings, and pot belly stoves in the corners; the interiors lacked any partitions.

Immediately they scavenged wood from vegetable crates and construction debris they found nearby to create privacy within the barracks units and to make furniture and other household furnishings. Displaced from their livelihoods, education and social structure, with nothing to do, they also quickly organized a wide range of activities, including sports, as well as arts and crafts of all kinds. Their resourcefulness born out of necessity converged with the Japanese aesthetic to make functional items beautiful as they sought to make their temporary quarters more livable.

When the prisoners were transferred to long-term detention facilities run by the War Relocation Authority later in 1942, they brought with them what Delphine Hirasuna, an author and descendant of people who had been incarcerated during the war, calls the “art of gaman.” “Gaman” is a Japanese word meaning the dignity and grace to bear the seemingly unbearable. With this philosophy, they created objects of both utility and beauty.

Finding beauty in branches, rocks and shells

At the Gila River and Poston camps located on tribal land in the Mojave Desert, incarcerees found that desert wood could be carved, filed and polished to make partitions, household objects and works of art.

Armed soldiers guarded the barbed-wire perimeters from lookout towers, but as the war wore on, the incarcerees were allowed to venture beyond the camp fences. Izumi Taniguchi, then 16 years old from Contra Costa County, California, recalled getting permission to walk outside the Gila River camp boundaries to while away the time.

He remembered, that some people used the ironwood for sculpting. Minoru Tajii, then 18 years old from El Centro, California, held at the Poston camp, described ironwood as “an oil-rich wood, so when you polish it up it comes out very nice, so we go out and find that and bring it back.”

The Poston “sculptoring department” advertised in the camp newsletter “Poston Chronicle” on Jan. 20, 1943, that “anyone with ironwood wishing to learn how to make figures and notions may bring their materials to the department, 44-13-D, and work under the guidance of sculptoring teachers.”

Homei Iseyama, from Oakland, California, became known for the exquisite teapots, teacups, candy dishes and calligraphy inkwells he carved out of slate stones he found around the Topaz, Utah, camp. Born in 1890, he attended Waseda University in Tokyo before immigrating to the United States in 1914 with dreams of attending art school.

At the Tule Lake camp, located on an ancient lake bed, the incarcerees discovered thick veins of shells that provided material for making art and jewelry. Fusako “Peggy” Nishimura Yorita got very involved in making shell jewelry. As digging for shells became a popular and competitive pastime for the Tule Lake incarcerees, Yorita enlisted her two teenagers and friends to help dig waist-deep holes at sunrise and sift the sand with homemade wire sieves.

A 33-year-old single mother, Yorita sold her shell jewelry to make a little money. She also enjoyed the creative endeavor. She recalled: “I was just making new things all the time. And to me, it … was … a wonderful outlet.”

As the incarcerees were allowed to leave the camps, they were given $25 and a one-way bus or train ticket to wherever they were going to rebuild their lives. Many took with them their handcrafted objects, reminders of how they overcame the physical and mental harshness of their detention years.

When my mother entrusted to me the fragile small tansu chest that her father made for her in camp out of crate wood, she told me that her father had felt sorry for her that she didn’t have anyplace to store her belongings. To improve the appearance of the wood, my grandfather placed a hotplate on the pieces to deepen the grain. My mother appreciated the care he took to carve traditional Japanese scenes onto the panels with a pen knife. She said the chest represented to her the depth of her father’s love.

Eight decades after Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, researchers are delving into the traumatic intergenerational impact that the incarceration has had on the camp survivors and their descendants. Memorials such as The Irei Project seek to restore dignity to those who suffered unconstitutional injustices. On Feb. 19, known annually as the Day of Remembrance, Americans can honor them by appreciating their “art of gaman,” testaments to their resilient spirit as they found and created beauty in their wartime environments.

Susan H. Kamei, Adjunct Professor of History and Affiliated Faculty, USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Cultures, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

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Henry VIII is not remembered as a loving husband. Any English schoolchild can recount the unpleasant fates of most of his six wives with the rhyme: “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” But though the end of his relationships are famous, less is known about Henry in love.

Now, a rare jewel discovered by an amateur detectorist and bought by the British Museum for the national collection may force us to reconsider the king’s brutal reputation.

The jewel is a heart-shaped locket, crafted in gold with red enamel decoration, and attached to a solid gold chain. On the face are the letters H and K linked together by the stems of a Tudor rose and a pomegranate, which was the symbol of Katharine’s Spanish royal family. It is a reasonable deduction that this remarkable jewel was connected directly to Henry and the first of his wives, Katherine of Aragon.

Katherine was the subject of Henry’s first and most shocking divorce, which precipitated England’s breach with the Roman papacy and the transformation of religion which we now know as the Reformation. In many ways Katherine also suffered the worst of the king’s personal cruelty. Although not executed, she was consigned to virtual house-arrest, much of the time separated from her only living child, Mary.

If this was indeed Henry and Katherine’s jewel it could be a vital clue to quite different moment in their relationship, and to a dimension of the king’s character that his otherwise notorious conduct has completely obscured.

In late medieval and Renaissance society, monograms – the linking of people’s initials – were often created to represent a personal connection, a marriage, a betrothal or even a secret love-match. Beneath the linked letters on the locket is the French word “Toujo(u)rs”, meaning “always” – a natural choice for a pledge between lovers. Here, the letters surely stand for Henry and Katherine.

The locket’s flower and fruit decoration seal the royal connection. The pomegranate symbol swept into English public life after the two families were joined through Henry’s marriage. Decorations for the coronation of the king and queen, just two weeks after the wedding, paired the Tudor rose with golden pomegranates. A woodblock print published to mark the occasion under the title A Joyful Meditation to All England, showed Henry and Katherine receiving their crowns under a twin canopy of the flower and the fruit.

Accounts of textiles commissioned for the royal household show dozens of different pieces – upholstery, wall-hangings, and livery to be worn by servants – all featuring the rose and the pomegranate prominently in their design.

Devoted designs

The decoration of the heart pendant is matched in a wide variety of treasures described in Henry’s household inventories. These contain descriptions of a bag of crimson satin, a silver comb case and standing cup all marked in the same way for the king and his queen. These lists also identify several collars or necklaces – described by the archaic term carkeynes – with heart-shaped pendants. One of these, coloured blue, is also inscribed, “H K”.

Henry spent prodigiously on beautiful, bespoke furnishings, but jewellery was his greatest passion. The inventories of his jewels and plate (gold, gilt and silver objets d’art) compiled shortly after his death in January 1547 record almost 4,000 individual pieces.

This Tudor heart pendant is a prime example of this level of investment. The locket itself is formed from 24-carat gold; the wide chain found with it is weighty and long – more than 40cm. Together they amount to 317 grams of precious metal. It is no wonder that the British Museum’s purchase price was £3.5 million.

It is clear from his wardrobe accounts – which record the purchase of decorative pieces for his household – that Henry took a personal interest in the material and design of many of these pieces. Surviving examples of designs for jewellery drawn by Hans Holbein, the German artist active at Henry’s court in the 1530s and early 1540s, may have come from a pattern book made to influence, or illustrate, the king’s developing tastes. He bought, or commissioned pieces, not only for his own household but also as gifts – often marking the new year – to family members and court favourites.

This may well be the origin of the heart pendant. Since it came to light, it has been spoken of as associated with Henry’s great pageant in the Pas-de-Calais in 1520, the so-called Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here he, Katherine and his court staged a ceremonial meeting with the French King, François I. A great many furnishings from the royal residences and chapels did cross the Channel to decorate the pop-up canvas palace and tents.

But I am convinced the message conveyed by this jewel is not political but profoundly personal. Toujours is an expression of deep, heartfelt attachment. An alternative theory, advanced by the British Museum itself, is that the pendant was made to mark the betrothal in October 1518 of Katherine’s only living child, Princess Mary, aged two, to the eight-month-old heir to the French throne.

But given the presence of pieces of very similar design in the royal household soon after the marriage and coronation, it must be possible that the pendant belongs to the early years of Henry and Katherine’s relationship. At first, she and the king were inseparable. Five months from the wedding she was pregnant. She conceived again each year from 1510 to 1513. One of these pregnancies resulted in a son, named Henry, born in January 1511. He lived for a little under two months.

In the late summer of that year, the king and queen embarked on a progress through the Thames Valley and on into the West Midlands, culminating at Warwick. It was in a Warwickshire field that the detectorist, Charlie Clarke, uncovered the heart pendant in 2019.

Could it be that a jewel gifted to Katherine at the time of the birth of Henry’s longed-for male heir was carried with the royal party – as so many of their personal jewels were – as they made their way into Warwickshire? It gives the locket an edge not just of romance, but of tragedy. Here, perhaps, Katherine was parted from a present that was, already, a memento mori of her lost son.

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James Clark, Professor of Medieval History, University of Exeter

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