Month: April 2021

Bucky in cryo from Captain America Civil War

Not so sci-fi: Could humans harness cryonics?

Written by Chloe Tenn on 30th April 2021. Posted in Science & Tech.

You bolt awake, shivering from the icy air that surrounded your sleeping pod. It’s disorienting, the unfamiliar sights and sounds that greet your senses. A white lab coat approaches you and says “You’ve been in cryo-sleep for 100 years. Welcome to the future.”

Cryo-technology is a common trope in science fiction. The freezing of a human and thus inducing deep hibernation is a concept, rooted in science, to extend and preserve the lives of mankind. This technology is commonly referred to as cryogenics, or the science of preserving materials at extremely low temperatures. Currently, a related branch called cryonics more accurately describes the sci-fi idea. Cryonics is a storage technique of freezing a body for later revival after a person’s death, and today it is becoming more science than fiction.

The science behind hibernation

The concept of cryonics is based off of hibernation. We first learn about hibernation through animals during the winter, a brown bear deeply slumbering in a cave till its spring reawakening. However, hibernation is more than sleeping. Hibernation is nature’s “energy saving device” that involves physiological changes to the animal like lowered body temperature, heart rate, and metabolism to conserve energy during periods of little to no food available. Mammals like bears and humans are considered “endothermic” which classifies warm blooded organisms that can self-regulate their body temperatures when given sufficient energy sources like food. Cryonics, specifically in sci-fi entertainment, attempts to suspend humans in a state of hibernation to conserve body resources and energy (very much like bears in the winter) for extended periods of travel through time and space, essentially creating time travelling, immortalized superheroes.

“Put him on ice!”: humans in hibernation

The most famous examples of humans undergoing cryonics throughout science fiction history are in fact heroes. Science fiction boomed in the 80s, the famous Star Wars franchise dominating the entertainment industry. In the second movie The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo undergoes forced hibernation in a carbonite coma that draws from the icy science of cryonics. Marvel’s Captain America, aka Steve Rogers, crashes his jet into the Artic ice in 1945 only to be discovered alive and preserved nearly 70 years later in 2011. Steve’s best friend Bucky Barnes also underwent cryonics several times in his life as a brainwashed assassin for the villainous group HYDRA. In the 2016 film Passengers, stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt wake up 90 years too early from their 120-year cryo-sleep journey to a distant colonized planet in the galaxy and must heroically save the remaining human population onboard.

Special effects and superhero propensity to survive almost any situation aside, how does hibernation work in humans? Low temperatures affect the physiology of humans in a similar way to animals that hibernate regularly, with lower metabolism and reduced bodily functioning. However, the extreme cold needed for cryonics to work like it does in the movies poses a few challenges to human biology, especially to the brain. The brain is sensitive to oxygen levels that are maintained when the body is healthy and the heart is pumping oxygen filled blood. If a human undergoes cryo-preservation technology, the brain must be protected during a period of reduced nutrient and blood supply. There is also potential for the neurological basis of memory to be affected during the time of cryostasis. Additionally, sub-freezing temperatures could cause lethal damage to cells and tissue of organs that can no longer function at the suboptimal range.

The not-so-fictional potential of cryo-technology

In basing this technology after scientific models in the natural world, sci-fi creators craft stories rooted in compelling realism that make room for imagination in technological advancement. The challenges of cryonics-inspired research and innovation are to make this less science fiction and more reality. The development of cryoprotectant, using compounds like glycerol to protect cells from freezing injury, lessened the threat of the extreme temperatures of cryonics on the human body. After the injection of cryoprotectant and other protective chemicals into a legally dead body, blood is drained, the body is cooled even further and placed into liquid nitrogen for cryo-storage.

Today, there have been a few hallmark cases in which this very real and very expensive process of cryopreservation has been performed. In 2016, a 14 year old girl dying from cancer convinced the UK courts to allow the frozen preservation of her body in the hopes that “in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up”. NASA has joined in on the frontiers of cryonics innovation, working to develop a cryonics habitat for astronaut transport to Mars by inducing hibernation through low temperatures and feeding the astronauts nutritional fluids through intravenous tubes. Also becoming more widespread, even to those who are not astronauts, is the concept of cryotherapy to freeze off warts, contribute to pain relief and reduced inflammation, and help treat cancerous cells in the body.

Cryotherapy is still an emerging practice and many benefits and risks have not been fully explored. While you may not yet be able to freeze yourself to sleep and reawaken a century in the future, sci-fi has inspired cryonics to be taken off the back burner of scientific innovation. Instead, we have put it on ice.

‘Not my body, not my own’: Little Scratch review

Written by Daniel Wood on 30th April 2021. Posted in Books.

CW: trauma, sexual assault, self harm

Rebecca Watson’s debut novel Little Scratch takes the reader through a single day in the mind of an unnamed young woman living in London.

She wakes up, she goes to work, examines her emails and decides which soup to get from the staff canteen. She has an awkward exchange with a colleague about books. A date with her boyfriend after work. In all, an uneventful, or at least unremarkable, day.

Except behind it all, slowly materialising, lurks something darker – the dawning acknowledgement of trauma.

There’s a certain hesitancy when approaching a novel, particularly a debut, newly released and already accruing plenty of plaudits and commendations. Is all this really justified? And what is there to add to what’s already been said.

The novel has been tagged as ‘experimental’, ‘daring’, ‘intense and visceral’. Yet with Little Scratch I quickly found myself, from the first page even, having to admit that, yes, I was reading something quite unique.

Little Scratch was first published in short story form for the White Review. The novel might seem daunting or even dizzying at first. The text is arranged in unconventional ways, sometimes sectioned and compartmentalised like the protagonist’s own emotions.

Occasionally a single word might carry across half the page to represent the monotony of a repetitive action, like filling a water bottle. Fragments of thought run next to Tannoy announcements.

Memories and observations stop and start and conflict with each other. But, this technique perfectly elicits the constant distraction of competing thoughts.

While the novel certainly requires a good deal of concentration, and deserves it, this is never a chore. It’s ‘experimentation’ doesn’t feel like a self-congratulatory exercise, winking and nudging you with its elbow to let you know how clever it’s being. Instead, the language, which is at times wry and knowing, then vividly encapsulating powerful feelings of confusion and desperation, makes this novel both deeply personal and involving.

We witness, for example, the narrator’s thoughts as she wakes, slightly hungover:

I am travelling through, passing my own capillaries, red lines rushing by, more red, caverns in my periphery like hulled strawberries …

Or the arguments and streams of thoughts passing through her head:

when that sort of man says nice shoes
he is not saying nice shoes
he is saying I am itemising you

Through these competing thoughts, sometimes truncated and sometimes bursting forth, it is revealed that the narrator has been sexually assaulted or ‘RAPED!’, as her monologue at one point repeatedly exclaims, while simultaneously trying to decide what to buy from the chippy with her boyfriend (always given as ‘my him’).

What is most striking is how real this all feels. Watson deftly captures momentarily drifting thoughts, such as the observations of the mundane whilst on the tube. She also demonstrates a keen insight into the internal struggle to somehow articulate, if only to yourself, the experience of the truly awful.

Little Scratch is a profound meditation on the processing of trauma. With its striking and sometimes jarring form, the novel juxtaposes inner turmoil and moments of self-harm against the hum-drum of the everyday. Watson’s debut stands as a powerful vocalisation of the overpowering feelings of alienation. Indeed, as the narrator thinks while she readies for her day: ‘not my body, not my own’.

In short, the novel is a deeply moving depiction of pain and the search for hope. Little Scratch is an excellent debut novel well worth the time and patience.

Nomadland: Escaping the system in search for freedom

Written by Michal Wasilewski on 30th April 2021. Posted in Film.

The aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 and the ever-rising costs of living in the relentless American economy have, for years, been leaving many behind. This year’s Best Picture winner, Nomadland, explores the lives of those who were pushed not to the margins of the system, but almost entirely out of it. These are the people who weren’t born lucky enough, and those who weren’t able to compete and survive in the capitalist environment.

With not enough resources to maintain even the ‘ordinary’ lifestyle they’ve had for years, many older Americans decided to hit the road and lead a transient lifestyle as modern-day nomads. Travelling across the country in a van, moving from one temporary job to another, they broke away from the expectations of the society.

This social phenomenon lies behind Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, as well as behind Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. But Chloe Zhao’s adaptation is a unique blend of fiction and documentary, reaching even deeper than Bruder’s work.

Featuring many nomads encountered by Bruder on her journey and described in the book, the film centres around a fictional character. Fern, played by Frances McDormand, is forced to leave the town of Empire, Nevada after the death of her husband and the closure of the gypsum plant where most of the town’s residents used to work. She has no prospects, yet still she doesn’t want to be a nuisance for her sister. Instead, she decides to hit the road.

Fern is simultaneously a symbol of all the Americans who embark on their van-dwelling journey without a plan, as well as a reflection of Jessica Bruder. She tries to learn as much about the nomadic lifestyle as she can through talking to every nomad she encounters on her journey, getting to know their life stories and the reasons why they ended up where they are now.

But behind jumping between jobs, working in an Amazon warehouse, and being a camp host, there is something more to Fern’s story. Her escape into a nomadic lifestyle is a search of freedom, and this might be the only way to achieve it in modern-day America.

Zhao’s directorial vision is brilliant in serving the purpose of portraying the nomadic lifestyle as being free from capitalist expectations. Long, still shots from the cinematographer Joshua James Richards show the vast landscapes of central United States, far away from the rush permeating all American cities.

Without this rush, there’s time for genuine human connections to be made. All of the people starring in the film apart from McDormand and David Strathairn (playing a man whom Fern befriends along the way) are non-actors and real-life nomads, essentially playing lightly scripted versions of themselves. These are people for whom making Nomadland wasn’t simply making a movie; it was forming connections, an essential part of living on the road when you constantly encounter new people along the way. Just as Jessica Bruder gained friendships during her time on the road, gathering material for the book, so did McDormand and Zhao, who invited their nomad friends on their campaign this awards season.

Nomadland Poster. Source, Fair Use @WikimediaCommons

Nomadland is a film which shines with genuineness, warmth and humanity. Yes, the economic issues I’ve mentioned in the beginning are always out there in the background and as a catalyst of people’s life choices. However, the film doesn’t build the story around these issues in the way Nomadland the book does.

Zhao’s film builds authentic spiritual connections both between the real-life nomads and the character of Fern, as well as between the nomads and us, the audience, to poetically capture the essence of being human. The breath-taking wide shots, combined with music by the great Ludovico Einaudi, serve as moments for intimate meditation and an emotional encouragement to look deeper into the people on the screen, into the social effects of capitalism, and, probably most importantly, into ourselves.

“When I moved into the van, I realised that everything that society had told me was a lie – that I had to get married and live in a house with a white picket fence and go to work, and then be happy at the very end of my life, but be miserable until then. Living in my van, I was happy for the first time ever.” – Bob Welles

5/5.

Nomadland is being released on Disney Plus on the 30th of April.

93rd Academy Awards Reviewed

Written by Jonny Hosking on 30th April 2021. Posted in Film.

As cinemas remain shut and productions are starting to get off the ground, did Hollywood retain that sense of ‘movie-magic’ for the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony?

Immediately, it felt like a different show. With director Steven Soderbergh at the helm, we follow Regina King waltzing into the auditorium, emulating the suavity of Ocean’s Eleven. After a punchy soundtrack kicks in, the opening adopts a Tarantino-style credits montage and we’re in.

Yet, the ‘in’ is not the Dolby Cinema. To accommodate the show’s strict Covid-safety rules, the ceremony moved to Hollywood’s Union Station, an operational train station that has served as the set for films such as Blade Runner and The Dark Knight Rises. While it took some getting used to, the adjustment to a widescreen format got rid of the wide sweeping shots of the rows of filled seats, instead focusing on smaller tables and individual groups.

All the inevitable awkwardness and cringe (of which there is plenty to come, don’t worry) was put aside in Regina King’s opening monologue. She immediately gave recognition to the recent racial turmoil in Minneapolis, which felt incredibly apt. After the significant political reckoning in the U.S., which 2020 unearthed, the commentaries from the stars did not feel out of place, as they have done to eyerolling effect in previous years.

The first surprise of the night for me was Emerald Fennell winning Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman. Even though it was the bookies’ favourite to win, I fell for the Aaron Sorkin charm, believing the Academy would play it safe with the macho-Americana court drama, The Trial of the Chicago 7. Nevertheless, and better for it, Fennell won her first Oscar. While Sorkin arguably had neater dialogue in his film, Fennell’s wickedly smart neon whirlwind was a cinematic slap in the face and is destined to stand the test of time. The Father’s Florian Zeller and Chris Hampton were also awarded Best Adapted Screenplay.

The most tender moment of the night happened during Thomas Vinterberg’s speech as he picked up the award for Best International Feature for the Danish drama Another Round. He dedicated the award to his daughter Ida who was killed in a car accident two months before shooting began. He spoke of her as the “miracle… pulling some strings somewhere” to not a dry eye in the house.

The first Acting award went to Daniel Kaluuya, to no one’s surprise. However, his speech undoubtedly won the award for the Cringiest Moment (up there with Glenn Close twerking mind you) as he proceeded to thank his parents for having sex. Cut to his mum and sister back at the BFI in London collectively gobsmacked in response. In an interview after the show, Kaluuya said he will wait a couple days before giving his mum a call. Days? It would be years for me.

Moreover, Best Supporting Actress landed at the feet of Minari’s Youn Yuh-jung, providing the best speech of the night as she flirted with her presenter saying, “Mr Brad Pitt, finally, nice to meet you!”

The Directing category is always competitive, as well as telling for what will take home the big prize of the night. However, this year there was no doubt that Chloé Zhao would be crowned following her success at every major ceremony throughout the season. Not only was she the second woman to win the award but also the first woman of colour. Her speech reminding us to “see the good” in everyone was undoubtedly up there for Speech of the Night.

Soul winning Best Animated Feature and Best Score were yet again predictable but well-deserved. This was Pixar’s 23^rd Academy Award, placing it higher than any other studio in Hollywood.

In the most surprising turn of events in the show, Best Picture was awarded before the two main Acting awards. This has been widely viewed as a political move as it seemed the Academy were banking on the late Chadwick Boseman to win for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, ending the show with a heartfelt celebration of the actor’s life.

As expected, Best Picture went to Nomadland. Frances McDormand took to the stage offering a rally call for audiences to “see all the films represented here in the cinema.”

Conversely, one of my main issues of the night was the inconsistency of clips playing during the recaps of the nominees. I understand that it can get tiresome seeing the same five films being played over and over again for every category. But especially in a year like this when the films in question had not been widely distributed, the audience would have benefitted from seeing more from the features themselves.

Finally, onto the last categories of the night with the much-coveted Acting awards. Nomadland’s momentum did not stop as McDormand picked up her third Best Actress title. This again stunned the bookies, as Carey Mulligan seemed set to take home her first Oscar.

However, the revelations did not stop there, as the evening began to swell to its grand conclusion culminating with Best Actor. The outright favourite was undoubtedly Boseman, and the event itself seemed to favour him as seen in his prime spot in the surprisingly uplifting ‘In Memoriam’ section. Yet the award was handed to Sir Anthony Hopkins for his take on a dementia sufferer in The Father. The 83-year-old actor (the oldest Oscar recipient now) did not attend the event, and no one collected it on his behalf.

What could’ve been a touching send-off for an incredible talent, ended up being an awkward rush off the stage. I cannot say if Hopkins’ performance is stronger than Boseman’s, as I have not yet seen The Father but after the astronomical success of Black Panther and Boseman’s short but impactful career, a posthumous Oscar felt like a given.

Overall, it’s fair to say the Academy was not dealt an easy hand this year. While the smaller venue and more intimate presenting format were effective, the awkwardness of some of the speeches and comedic interludes somewhat undermined the prestige of the event.

Women’s Prize for Fiction Photo: Maisie Scott @The Mancunion

The Women’s Prize for Fiction: Debut novels, first-time nominees and online hate

Written by Aileen Loftus on 29th April 2021. Posted in Books.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist has been announced. The six titles include Cherie Jones’ debut How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House and Patricia Lockwood’s fiction debut No One Is Talking About This.

This is the first year since 2005 that the prize has exclusively shortlisted first-time nominees. The rest of the list is made up of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller, and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. The winner will be announced on the 7th July.

Previous winner Ali Smith’s novel Summer has not made the cut, and nor have our top picks Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi and Luster by Raven Leilani.

This year’s prize has already made history, as Torrey Peters became the first trans woman to be nominated for the prize after Detransition, Baby was longlisted in March.

Detransition Baby has faced online hate for making it to the longlist. It was the subject of an open letter to the Women’s Prize by the Wild Women Writing Club. The letter claims that the inclusion of trans novelist Torrey Peters in the longlist ‘communicates powerfully that women authors are unworthy of our own prize, and that it is fine to allow male people to appropriate our honours’.

The letter is openly transphobic. Furthermore, it also attacks the contents of the novel which it claims is ‘sissy porn suffused with hatred of women’. The signatories have used inflammatory language and regular rhetorical questions, making it difficult to read through.

The open letter is signed by several dead women writers including Emily Dickinson and Daphne du Maurier. The Wild Women Writing Club claims that some signatories were using pseudonyms ‘because of the threat of harassment by trans extremists and/or cancellation by the book industry’. In an attempt to defend this decision they cited the cancel culture surrounding JK Rowling last year.

Yet in reality, this reveals that even those who signed it are, rightly, embarrassed by their opinions. Author Joanne Harris tweeted, ‘If you’re expecting me to believe that you’re not secretly ashamed of your opinions […] then maybe don’t hide behind a dead person’s identity whilst simultaneously trying to strip someone living of theirs’.

The Women’s Prize condemned the letter, releasing a statement to say that they are ‘immensely proud of the exceptional and varied longlist’. They continue: ‘The prize deplores any attempts to malign or bully the judges or the authors.’

Sadly this open letter follows ‘a real outpouring of hate’ that Peters received after her longlist nomination in March. She wrote: ‘Historically, anytime someone from a marginalised group gets recognised by an award for the first time it’s not necessarily a bucket of fun. I hope, for the next trans girl to be on this list, it can be’.

The attack on Torrey Peters has led to an outpouring of support in the literary community. Peters’ publisher, Serpent’s Tail, put out a statement of thanks. In the statement they highlight the work of queer and feminist bookshops including QueerLit, the Second Shelf, and Lighthouse Books in promoting Detransition, Baby and donating money to trans-led organisations. Serpent’s Tail also offered a number of free copies of Detransition, Baby to readers. They have written: ‘As a result of all your kindness and enthusiasm, we are going into our third reprinting of the novel’.

The hate received by Torrey Peters reveals how far we still have to go to abandon white feminism and to make the book community more inclusive. Next week we will offer a full length review of Detransition, Baby.

Get thee to a gallery: Manchester’s top new exhibitions

Written by ab97 on 29th April 2021. Posted in Arts.

The UK is finally blossoming open again. Galleries are emerging from what feels like a year-long hibernation. Manchester’s art lovers are putting their best feet forward to usher in fresh air and promote talented individuals.

So, what’s on?

‘In Manchester’

In their first stand-alone exhibition, Cotton On MCR hosts over 40+ Greater Manchester artists. ‘In Manchester’ will be held at the Saul Hay Gallery from Saturday 24th of April to Monday 3rd of May. This exhibition embodies the idea that art can be for everyone. Featuring paintings, photography, sculptures, textiles, and drawings from a wide variety of both emerging and established artists.

Aid Workers: Ethics Under Fire

After a year of turmoil, the Imperial War Museum explores healing from the First World War to current times. The extended exhibition Aid Workers: Ethics Under Fire sheds light on humanitarians working in conflict zones. It offers visitors a chance to immerse themselves in the Big Picture Show, and see artists’ reinterpretations of conflict.

Book your tickets for the popular exhibition reopening from 19 May 2021 here.

‘BRITISH ART SHOW 9’

This exhibition will run in Manchester from the 13th of May until the 22nd of September. It will span across HOME, The Whitworth, Castlefield Galley, and Manchester Art Gallery. It includes emerging and established British artists and filmmakers.

Acclaimed as the most important recurring exhibition of British contemporary art, the British Art Show is in its ninth year. This year, it explores themes of difference, healing, and care. It is curated by Irene Aristizábal and Hammad Nasar. As it tours across the country, the exhibition adapts to each city. In Manchester, it will look at how industrial roots are continually transformed within an ever-changing society.

Book HOME here.

Manchester Art Gallery

Opening on the 17th of May until December 2021 is the exhibition ‘What is Manchester Art Gallery’. It will delve into the gallery’s long-held position at Manchester’s cultural centre. The works will span across time and media, emphasising that the collection is owned by and for the people of Manchester.

For the first time since 2002, the gallery space has been modernised. Visit the website to suggest a piece from the gallery collection that you would like to see included!

‘UNEASE’ by Grace Sharp

Grace Sharp is a glass artist and MMU Graduate Award Winner. Grace’s work, using pressure and glass blowing techniques to create abstract forms, explores anxiety and depression. A preview is available on Manchester Craft and Design Centre website before the exhibition opens on May 17th.

The online exhibition will be available to view until 31st August.

What to do?

Call up your friends and book all of the venues! Just do it, go on.

This has been an extraordinary year. So, make the most of the intellectual nourishment and social stimulation many may have missed out on. Book what you can – what you want – and embrace the idea that soon you’ll be vaccinated. Finally free to move as you please.

Rediscovering folk remedies before it’s too late

Written by Kerry Mack on 28th April 2021. Posted in Science & Tech.

Ethnopharmacology is the study of folk remedies – natural medicines made from plants or other substances that have traditionally been used to treat illnesses and relieve pain. The field seeks to study these plants and substances to discover the key biologically active agents and develop these into drugs.

Since it is estimated that antibiotic resistant superbugs could kill up to 1.3 million people in Europe by 2050, the hunt for new sources of replacement antibiotics has made ethnopharmacology an important focus of research.

Famous examples of drugs developed via ethnopharmacology include morphine, codeine, aspirin and digitalis. Morphine and codeine originate from the Sumerian ‘joy flower’ – opium poppy – which has been used to relieve pain for over 5000 years.

Aspirin is derived from willow bark which has been used to relieve pain and reduce fever for over 3500 years. Digitalis comes from the foxglove plant which was investigated by the Scottish doctor William Withering in 1775 when he delivered a terminal diagnosis to a patient with a severe heart condition.

The patient instead bought a cure from a gypsy healer – which actually worked – and the doctor convinced her to give him the recipe so he could run scientific trials. To this day digitalis is used to treat heart failure and heart rhythm problems.

Barking up the right tree

The leaves and bark of the Voacanga Africana tree have been prescribed for hundreds of years by healers on the African island of São Tomé e Príncipe to decrease inflammation and alleviate the symptoms of mental disorders.

Scientists discovered that a compound isolated from the tree matter protects cells from the altered molecular pathways which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and the degeneration of the brain after a stroke. They were surprised at the compound’s potency and noted that even in dilute form it performed exceptionally.

Grounded in fact

Soil from an area known as the Boho Highlands in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland was traditionally wrapped in cotton cloth and used to treat ailments such as toothache and throat infections.

Researchers performed an analysis of the soil and discovered a strain of bacteria that was new to science, and which proved to be effective in combating four out of six of the superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. The component of the strain which prevents the growth of these pathogens needs to be identified and purified before the new antibiotic can be developed.

Plants vs cancer

A study conducted in Singapore looked at the leaves of several local plants used since ancient times for various medical purposes to examine potential anti-cancer properties.

The most promising results when testing for anti-proliferation effects against breast, cervical, colon, leukaemia, liver, ovarian, and uterine cancers came from the leaves of the Bandicoot Berry, South African Leaf, and Simpleleaf Chastetree.

The findings show how vital it is to conserve such plant species so that they can be used for future drug discovery.

This final case highlights one of the issues facing the study of folk medicine – many of the sources of these cures are under threat due to climate change, urban expansion and habitat destruction. In addition, the knowledge of these cures is itself in danger of being lost, especially in ethnic groups where transmission of information is oral, not written.

Anything which disrupts traditional society enhances the threat to the knowledge held by these groups – including migration due to urban drift, war or famine as does the adoption of Western health products and structures. Therefore, the opportunity to exploit ethnopharmacology in the pursuit of new medicines may not last long.

Magnesium: A new frontier for industrial materials

Written by Blake Crompton on 28th April 2021. Posted in Science & Tech.

Magnesium is a light, strong, abundant and electrochemically efficient element, making it very usable in numerous industrial areas, often as a catalyst. It has been involved in producing many things, from batteries to aircraft components and more recently as an effective and ecological anti-corrosive coating.

In this modern application, magnesium is used as an alloy. Alloys can be costly and time consuming to produce due to the complexity of the reactions involved to form a desired composition of metal. However, the Helmholtz centre for Materials, has shown that by melting pure magnesium and pure calcium at high temperatures into a traditional crucible, the alloy retains a lot of the pure magnesium properties. Yet, the calcium present is the secret of what makes this alloy exceptional.

Including small amounts of calcium has a profound effect on the kinetics of the material and produces a thin surface layer of film. Therefore, the alloy can better resist corrosion. Also, calcium stabilises any impurities in the alloy from other metals involved in production. This is particularly effective for electrochemical applications where magnesium is used as an electrode, and stabilises cycling of a cell, with a longer lifetime.

Due to the natural abundance of both magnesium and calcium in humans, it has no negative health impacts if used to coat implants or scaffolding. It also is seen as a more ecological and economic alternative in transport due to the alloys lighter molecular weight compared to steel and other modern materials. Using this new alloy would make cars and planes lighter and therefore more fuel economical. With the material more widely abundant and recyclable in society it would be more environmentally friendly compared to the current alloys and impurities they possess.

But this new alloy is still in its infancy. The actual intricacies of it being implemented into society has yet to be uncovered, however the future is still looking bright. So keep an eye out for this alloy on the side of cars, battery packs and possibly spaceships in the near future. Magnesium is definitely ready for the spotlight.

Agüero’s legacy at Manchester City

Written by arshasthana on 28th April 2021. Posted in Sport.

Manchester City announced in a club statement that they will not be renewing Sergio Agüero’s contract when it expires in June. This means the Argentine striker will finally be leaving the Cityzens after 10 illustrious years.

Sergio Agüero signed with Manchester City from Atletico Madrid for a fee of around £35 million in 2011, signalling Manchester City and owner, Sheikh Mansour’s, intent to challenge for titles and build a new era for the blue side of Manchester.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s safe to say that Agüero not only lived up to his expectations, but he far exceeded them.

His career at Manchester City got off to a strong start, scoring 2 goals and registering an assist on his debut against Swansea and ending his first season with a tally of 23 goals. But none of those 23 goals were as important as the one that he scored on the final day of the 2011/12 season.

Agüero’s biggest moment with Manchester City

Heading into the last match of the season against relegation-threatened Queens Park Rangers, Manchester City led the league on goal difference. In order to win the title, City needed to better or match key rival Manchester United’s result against Sunderland.

Manchester City went into half time with a 1-0 lead thanks to fellow stalwart Argentine Pablo Zabaleta, but that lead was quickly erased when Djibril Cisse found the net three minutes after the restart. Joey Barton was then sent off in the 55^th minute for an elbow on Carlos Tevez, but despite going down to ten men, Queen Park Rangers took the lead after Armand Traore’s cross was headed into the top corner by Anthony Mackie.

At the Stadium of Light, Manchester United had won with a single Wayne Rooney goal. Their game had ended early, with four minutes of stoppage time still left in the Manchester City match. All the Manchester United players, along with Sir Alex Ferguson, were anxiously waiting for the final whistle so celebrations could commence for their 20^th English League title.

In the 92^nd minute, Edin Dzeko headed in the equalizer from David Silva’s corner to give City a glimmer of hope that they could pull the comeback. And then in the 94^th minute, in the dying seconds of the game, Agüero exchanges passes with Mario Balotelli and then skips past Taye Taiwo.

This was the last chance of the game, if Agüero doesn’t score, Manchester City will forever be remembered as the team that gave away the title on the last day of the season. But Agüero smashed the ball into the back of the net, winning them the title on goal difference, on the last day of the season.

Martin Tyler famously screamed “AGUEROOOOOO! YOU WILL NEVER SEE ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN!” as the goal went in, with his commentary becoming synonymous with the moment. That strike will go down as one of the greatest moments in Premier League history. It was the perfect fairytale ending for Manchester City, who won their first title in 44 years.

Ranking amonst other Premier League legends

In terms of Agüero’s ranking amongst other Premier League greats, he can be compared to those of other legendary strikers like Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney and Thierry Henry.

In the 2014/15 season, Agüero won the golden boot award after scoring 26 goals in 33 league appearances. He is the all-time top goal scorer for Manchester City, with 257 goals in 385 appearances for the club.

He surpassed Eric Brook’s record of 177 goals on 1^st November 2016, when he scored against Napoli away from home in a 4-2 win in the Champions League group stage. The Argentinian striker is the highest scoring overseas player in Premier League history, 181 goals in total, which is six more than the next highest, fellow Premier League legend Thierry Henry.

He is fourth on the all-time top scorers list, only behind Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney and Andrew Cole. Agüero also has the most hattricks in Premier League history, with twelve.

His consistency is what separates him from other Premier League legends, he has scored in double digits every year he’s been Manchester City, with his lowest tally of goals being 17 in the 2012/13 season. The Argentine has also scored over 20 goals for five consecutive seasons, becoming only the second player after Thierry Henry to reach that record.

Etihad Stadium 2019, source: @ArshAsthana at the Mancunion

Aside from his incredible goal scoring record and other accomplishments, what really distinguishes Agüero’s career from some of the other all-time great Premier League strikers is the impact that he has had with Manchester City. Strikers like Wayne Rooney or Thierry Henry had played for clubs that already had a rich history like Manchester United and Arsenal.

But Sergio Agüero was signed by Manchester City, a club that hadn’t won the English title since 1976. The Argentine led Manchester City into a new era of multiple trophies and dominance in domestic competitions, which all began when he scored the winner against Queens Park Rangers to secure the title in the 2011/12 season.

After more than ten years at the club, Sergio Agüero leaves Manchester City having won the Premier league title four times (soon to be five possibly), the FA Cup once, the Carabao Cup five times and the FA Community Shield three times.

As an avid Premier League fan, I have seen Sergio Agüero rip apart not only my team but other teams defenses countless number of times. But when I look back at Sergio Agüero’s time at Manchester City, I can safely say that I have witnessed one of the best players ever to walk on the pitch of the Premier League.

Muon g-2 experiment: May the (new) force be with you

Written by Emma Hattersley on 28th April 2021. Posted in Science & Tech.

Some moments in science are so exciting it is a privilege for them to occur in our lifetimes. It is a gift to witness these moments – where our accepted knowledge changes fundamentally and the result revolutionises science as we know it. The discovery of a fifth force may well be one of these moments.

On the 7^th of April, an international team, including researchers from the University of Manchester, released the latest results of their muon-g experiment. This experiment, performed at Fermilab, Illinois, suggests that there may be a fifth force, hitherto undiscovered by science.

How was the new force discovered?

Up until this point, scientists have assumed that world is governed by four fundamental forces: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak. The first two are fairly familiar to us through apples falling from trees and fridge magnets, and the latter two determine how particles behave at a quantum level.

These forces, with the exception of gravity, form something called the Standard Model. This model predicts how basic particles behave, including a particle known as the muon.

The muon is similar to the electron, but is approximately 200 times as massive. They occur naturally when cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere, but can be produced in large numbers by particle accelerators at Fermilab.

Muons act like tiny magnets, and so ‘wobble’ when placed in the strong magnetic field of a particle accelerator. We can predict how fast they will wobble using the knowledge contained in the Standard Model.

In the muon-g experiment, muons were sent around the 14m ring of the particle accelerator. When subjected to the magnetic field, the muons ‘wobbled’ faster than is possible under the currently accepted four forces. This suggests that a new force may be present that alters the way these muons behave.

This force is not currently classified as a new discovery. A new discovery can only be declared when there is considered to be a 1 in 3.5 million chance that the result is a coincidence, and there is currently estimated to be a 1 in 40 000 chance.

Despite more research being needed, many particle physicists are confident that this new force will be confirmed relatively soon.

Why is it important?

This new force would alter the Standard Model, which has currently left some big questions about the universe unanswered. Mark Lancaster, UK lead for the experiment and a Manchester academic, stated that:

We know our current list of fundamental particles and forces is incomplete because they are not sufficient to explain the dark-matter content of the universe.
Professor Mark Lancaster

Dark matter is one of the biggest problems facing modern physicists. It refers to the difference between the mass that physical equations predict, and the mass that we can identify.

In addition, Chris Polly, co-spokesperson for the experiment, states that

“So far we have analysed less than 6% of the data that the experiment will eventually collect. Although these first results are telling us that there is an intriguing difference with the Standard Model, we will learn much more in the next couple of years.”
Chris Polly

The most exciting aspect of a new discovery like this one, is that we cannot know for sure which new areas of physics may be unravelled.

A confirmation of this new force would rewrite textbooks, tear up equations and reimagine the universe. The future of physics just got even more exciting.

Nancy Out: What’s happened since the vote?

Written by Lucy Nichols on 28th April 2021. Posted in News.

This week marks a month since University of Manchester students passed a Vote of No Confidence in Nancy Rothwell and her senior management team by an overwhelming 89%. The vote was the first of its kind at the University of Manchester, and one of the only such votes in the UK.

Despite this, it is the Board of Governors who ultimately decide whether Nancy and company stay or go – and they have made it clear that they support Nancy Rothwell and her team, after releasing a statement just after the results were announced on the 12^th of March. This statement was actually written before the Board knew the results, according to Student Union Executive officers, who have been meeting with the Nancy Out campaign to discuss the next steps for the campaign.

Nancy Rothwell has been a controversial figure for a number of years, and various strikes and protests have been aimed at her leadership since she first came to the position in 2010; on the 16^th of December 2020, the University of Manchester UCU branch passed their own Vote of No Confidence in Nancy Rothwell’s leadership by 93%.

The student-led Nancy Out campaign for her and the senior management team’s removal was launched in March, though campaigners had been planning to push for the Vote of No Confidence since November after a number of controversies and protests, such as the erection of fencing around the Fallowfield accommodation campus; the alleged assault of a Black student on campus by security; police presence on campus and the events of the occupation of Owen’s Park Tower.

Though the Nancy Out campaign has picked up some flak from students for seemingly targeting only Nancy Rothwell, the Vote of No Confidence passed also includes the rest of the University’s senior management team; April McMahon, Luke Georghiou, Simon Merrywest and Patrick Hackett. This team deals with all aspects of University life, from the halls of accommodation to financing, education and student welfare.

The campaign is led by a mixture of first, second and final year students, as well as post-grads. It plans to continue to fight for the University and the Student Union to respect the results of the referendum, through meetings with Student Union officers and more protests and direct actions.

The Mancunion spoke to Joel Wall of the Nancy Out! Campaign, here’s what they had to say:

While the SU have now met with us about the result of the referendum, it has now been a month since the vote, and very little has been done by the SU. Thus, we are continuing our own protest action, and will continue to escalate them until our demands are implemented, and the Board of Governors recognise the referendum.

Meanwhile, the Student Union has promised to continue talks with the campaign, and other campus campaign groups:

In March we facilitated a referendum of no confidence in the VC and senior team. The result was testament to wider anger as to how students have been treated by national and local decision makers. We have put the result of the referendum to the University as per our rules, and will be making a formal presentation to the Board of Governors in May. We have been continuing to advocate for students throughout on a range of matters, including getting more money into hardship funds, more investment into counselling and assessment policies. We will continue to work with campaigning groups on this and lots of other matters over the next term. We will be issuing further comments over the course of the next few weeks.

The University of Manchester was contacted for response, though will not be making any comments on the referendum further than the initial Board of Governors statement.

Vaccine politics is driving the world further apart

Written by Clementine Lawrence on 28th April 2021. Posted in Opinion.

Long gone are the days when the prospect of a vaccine seemed like the miracle antidote to solve the global crisis that has been, and still is, coronavirus. Instead, just when things seemed as though they couldn’t get any more complicated, a new kind of problem has presented itself: vaccine politics.

In January 2020, just as Coronavirus was beginning to wash up onto the shores of Europe, the race to create a brand-new vaccine was on after Chinese academics made the genetic sequence of the virus public.

Over 170 teams of researchers took up the challenge to develop a vaccine in record time, and by 2^nd December, the UK approved its first vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech, closely followed by Oxford-AstraZeneca. These two dose vaccinations began being rolled out in the UK at the start of the year, and the Moderna vaccine is being added to the arsenal this month. But now, under-30s being offered an alternative to AstraZeneca vaccines is a stark reminder that we’re not out of the woods yet.

In saying this, things in the UK are looking a lot less bleak than they have for a long time. In the last week of March, outdoor sports facilities opened, and up to 6 people are now allowed to meet outside. The 12th of April brought about the end of shielding, the reopening of non-essential shops, and pubs serving alcohol without a curfew.

But the situation in other parts of Europe isn’t looking quite so sunny. With cases rising across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Turkey, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, has warned that the UK will feel the effects of the third wave sweeping across the European continent.

Whilst our vaccination programme is going well so far, a danger lies in the likelihood of new variants cropping up from these locations where the virus is still tearing through the population. We have the technology to adapt a vaccine against one variant to maintain its effectiveness against similar emerging variants, but not always against highly divergent variants.

This means that as long as the virus continues to circulate through the population, there will be risks of such variants, and, even if the entire UK is vaccinated, a variant that evades the vaccine could render this irrelevant. It’s a frightening thought, and one that will hopefully never come to fruition. But if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.

While the creation of a vaccine was portrayed as a global effort, this camaraderie has since disintegrated into a nationalist agenda, with governments placing their own countries above all else. I understand the reasoning behind the want (and the need) to get your own country back on its feet, but I don’t agree with the way it’s been done.

Coronavirus has made the borders between one country and the next apparent in a manner unlike before. Different countries have responded in incredibly different ways, with lockdowns varying in length and severity; governments forming their own tactics and advice; and different citizens following or flouting the rules.

Different countries will always need to operate in various ways, but when faced with an identical threat, the way in which to respond has proved incredibly divisive.

We’ve even seen this within the UK itself, with England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all taking distinct routes in and out of lockdowns. The tier system, which was first implemented by England in October, also added fuel to the fire of the North-South divide, with people living in the North facing much tougher restriction than those in the South. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham accused the Government of treating the North with “contempt”, with businesses suffering after new restrictions forced them to close, while London remained open in tier 2.

And now, these global divisions are becoming even more apparent through the hugely unequal distribution of vaccines. It’s been predicted that it will take until 2024 for most poorer nations to achieve mass immunisation due to the hugely unequal distribution of vaccines.

It’s creating what UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima is calling a ‘vaccine apartheid’, as pharmaceutical corporations’ unjustifiably high prices block access to doses for many low and middle-income countries.

AstraZeneca has pledged to supply the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis, charging $4.30 to $10 for two doses, until the pandemic draws to a close. But if annual vaccinations are going to be required for the rest of the foreseeable future, how does this help the countries who are struggling to even get hold of them now?

South Africa had to pay more than double what the EU paid for AstraZeneca for a number of doses way off what they actually require, while countries like the UK and the US who had the money to invest into the vaccine development were pushed to the front of the queue. Boris Johnson has even boasted that the success of the UK’s vaccine programme has been down to “capitalism” and “greed”.

Money seems to be the determining factor in deciding what countries get first dibs.

In a world where wealth guarantees your health, this foreshadows a troubling future for our NHS as it becomes increasingly privatised. It has placed a price onto the lives of the global population, deeming who is and who isn’t worthy simply by how much money they have.

This is by no means a new phenomenon. It further echoes the elitism that we see within our own societies, which enables the rich and oppresses the poor, and the long history of exploitation that countries like the UK built itself on in the first place.

But the unequal distributions of vaccines have now become an extension of this. Nations who have yet to vaccinate a single person are faced with no choice but to continue curbing the spread through lockdowns and curfews, further damaging their economies, whilst already wealthy nations who are well into their vaccination programme are starting to get back on their feet.

My point is that the current tactics of self-preservation that have been used in response to coronavirus across the globe has driven countries apart. In a situation where the world should’ve been banding together, the pandemic has further exposed the cracks within our individual societies as well as our international relations.

This has nourished a new sense of nationalism: justifying the tightening of borders, fuelling racial discrimination, with anti-Asian hate crimes on the increase, and encouraging an ever-increasing individualism that will keep us in this pandemic for a whole lot longer.

Photo: Hannah Brierley. Reclaim the Night march

Opinion: Police in nightclubs won’t solve the issue of sexual harassment

Written by Laura Thompson on 28th April 2021. Posted in Opinion.

There are many things we as a society hate talking about. Yet these always seem to be the topics that need to be addressed the most. Sexual harassment is perhaps one of the most avoided topics, or at least it has been in my experience.

We’ve been trapped inside for over a year now, and finally social areas are beginning to re-open. With this comes the emergence of a threat to our lives that is far from new. However, it is only now beginning to gain attention from the media.

Every day in Facebook groups, like Mancfessions and UoMLove, I see people pouring their hearts out. A lot happen to be about their horrific experiences with strangers. They think it is perfectly fine to intimidate and violate young people, who are just going about their ordinary lives.

I have had my fair share of these experiences. Strangers approaching me in the street, offering me drugs, inappropriately propositioning me, or even catcalling me. And I am certainly not alone in this.

Yet, when we do come forward and speak about these experiences, we get asked: “What were you wearing? What were you doing or how were you behaving?”

Like we were asking for it. Since when did it become the victim’s fault? What would it matter if I was wearing long sleeves and trousers, or a crop top and a skirt? Clothing is not an invitation. Just because you can see my shoulders doesn’t mean I deserve any less respect than anyone else in the street.

Clothing is not an invitation. Just because you can see my shoulders doesn’t mean I deserve any less respect than anyone else in the street.

After an evening class, I remember seeing a sign at the bus stop saying “Don’t walk alone”. It made me think of the buddy system primary school children are made to use on a field trip. Except this was for adults as a public safety announcement. To add to the severity, it was seemingly targeted at women, judging by the image alongside the message. When you have to tell grown adults not to walk alone in case they get approached by strangers, you must realise something is wrong.

What if I have to walk alone? Not everyone has someone to walk home with every night. A lot of people live alone. And especially in the last year when many don’t have anyone to call when they’re out at night.

I used to call my mum back home every time I had a late class. Mainly so I’d look busy, and no one would approach me. It is insane people have to resort to these measures just to feel safe in the dark.

An announcement made by the government sparked my recent outrage regarding the ignorance people show to harassment. They are planning to station plainclothes police officers in and around nightclubs when they can re-open.

After the tragic events that unfolded after the Sarah Everard case, the government came up with Project Vigilant to improve security at night in social spaces. As pointed out by Tobi Thomas in a Guardian article, Sarah was not on a night out. So why this is an appropriate response is beyond comprehension.

From the perspective of someone who has never been inside a nightclub, plainclothes police officers in clubs offer no extra incentive to try Manchester nightlife. I have never been a clubber. The idea of needing extra police presence in these areas does not instil me with the confidence to try again.

I’m curious why the government feels we need plainclothes police in our social spaces. As if bouncers don’t already exist at nightclubs and bars. I have seen the aftermath of unfortunate visitors having run ins with the bouncers employed to police these establishments. Surely the idea of needing police inside the clubs is just insulting to bouncers? They’re essentially being told they are obsolete, or simply incapable.

Perhaps the theory behind it is safety in numbers, for the police that is. The more police they have in clubs, the more likely they are going to be there when help is needed.

The most confusing part of this whole Project Vigilant is why the officers are to be plainclothes. Surely a visible police presence would be more of deterrent than officers attempting to blend into the clubbing crowd catching people in the act.

I personally think the problem lies in our attitude to public harassment and how we deal with it. Not that long ago I was walking home from the shops and a person began to follow me down the road. My immediate response was to speed up and hope they’d just get bored. They didn’t. Instead, they started shouting and cursing at me, calling me all manner of nasty things simply because I wouldn’t stop and listen to them degrade me to my face. I walked past numerous people and even a security guard who did and said nothing to me or the person following me. Eventually they gave up and left me alone so I just walked home to pack my shopping away as if nothing had happened.

So many people have stories just like me, yet we ignore them. We ignore them when it’s happening and we ignore or even mock them when they come forward and tell us. There are some disgusting replies to the messages on the Facebook groups I mentioned earlier making jokes like, “Oh I told you not to do that again mate” or sometimes even worse. People can’t find that funny surely, and all that does is make people not want to tell their story anymore. Victims end up suffering in silence because they’re afraid they’ll be made into a joke. These problems are very real and we overlook them on a daily basis.

There are roads I won’t walk down anymore because of bad experiences I’ve had there and so many people will be able to relate to this. Why should we have to go out of our way to add an extra 10 minutes to our walk to the shops just so we don’t have to deal with strangers harassing us.

The problem with issues like this is suddenly everyone will talk about it, and there will be campaigns everywhere to try and help make the streets safe – but after a while it all dies down and people move onto their next big social crusade.

I know we can’t change our society overnight, but we need to acknowledge that this is an issue and try to come up with realistic solutions at a national level to help make people feel more safe in public.

Annie Dabb: Stop giving dead slave traders more attention than living rapists

Written by Annie Dabb on 28th April 2021. Posted in Opinion.

On Saturday 20th of March, Spring officially arrived. But, while the first auspices of new life have been coming into view, sadly, a new government is not one of them.

The continued reign of the Conservatives is made worse by the recent debate about making the ‘Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill’ official law. If passed, police would be able to set a start and finish time on protests, subject those caught vandalising memorials or statues to up to 10 years in prison, and even fine individuals holding placards up to £2,500.

Unsurprisingly, and rather amusingly, the proposed government bill has incited numerous protests of retaliation throughout the UK.

So, while my morning was indeed spent wandering lonely as a cloud through hosts of golden daffodils, to quote Wordsworth, my afternoon saw not blossoms, but rather protesters who seemed to stretch in a never-ending line through the streets of Manchester. Certainly the company was less jocund and more pissed off, but nevertheless, my heart did with pleasure fill, as we screamed in unison: “kill the bill”.

Apparently unrelatedly, the bill was initially conceived following the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests in 2020 and the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston. But yeah, sure, the UK government isn’t racist.

Where to begin with the number of things wrong with the fact that a dead slave trader’s statue seemingly evokes more emotion in the police force than living rapists, with only the 1.7% of the latter being prosecuted? Although I possess the lowly opinion of Colston to assume that he was probably guilty of that too.

This hypocrisy says nothing more to me than a pathetic attempt by Priti Patel and the Home Office to try and sweep the problems women and other disadvantaged groups face under the rug. Let’s face it, given Patel’s history of alleged bullying, it’s hardly surprising that she would support a police force which persists despite 57% of its members having experienced bullying amongst themselves at some point. It is a statistic which gives new depth to the crowd’s shouts of “join us you cowards”.

Since when did our right to protest become something which was up for debate? We seem to have regressed as a society in which our very desire to protect ourselves, be it against strangers on the street or from our very legal systems which fail to service justice, can be policed and reduced. With this blatant breaching of our human rights, every day seems more like ‘1984’, Orwell’s misogyny included.

It’s all very well saying “educate your sons”, but it’s the fully grown adults who reside over jurisprudence and the law courts who are the real problem. Who failed to teach them that it’s not ok to allow the frequent non-convicted perpetration of sexual assault and misogyny to continue? It doesn’t matter that these violated and oppressed women may be the mothers, sisters, partners, or daughters of whoever, because we as a society ought to embrace our responsibility of protecting ourselves and each other, regardless of who we are to each other. As far as anyone can stand and point the finger at others for allowing this to happen, are we ourselves not somewhat guilty if we don’t stand up and say “no”? Say actually, “we’ve had enough”?

Because it’s not fair. And how much are Wordsworth’s words really worth if we don’t take a minute to actually reflect on the horrendous injustice of modern day society? It’s unfair that we have to send a text when we get home because assault or harassment proves to be a very legitimate concern. It’s unfair that we have to limit where we can go, or when, the darkness posing a multitude of potential threats. It’s unfair that rarely are we given the voice to express this injustice, and that even when we do, it feels like screaming into an empty abyss. No one listens until a woman like Sarah Everard shows up dead, and even then only because Wayne Couzens, the man who killed her, is supposed to be a symbolic upholder of the law.

The protest was organised by ‘Sisters Uncut’, a feminist direct action group combatting domestic violence. Many individuals were invited up to speak and each painful and downright outrageous experience shared was met with support and solidarity.

To study and discuss feminism is one thing, but I remember few times when, as a woman, I have felt as empowered as I did on Saturday. The feeling of witnessing woman after woman revel in the spotlight of using their voice, a right disguised as a privilege for too long, and which the new proposed bill is now trying to take away from us, genuinely evoked in me a sort of catharsis. It was a relief to finally scream in solidarity against all the frustration we feel on a daily basis because of how we’re gendered and confined by a patriarchal society. It’s true you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone, but it’s even harder to realise what you should have, when nobody tells you in the first place that your voice deserves to be heard.

Protestors gather in St Peter’s Square, Manchester City Centre (Photo @ Annie Dabb)

So we made ourselves heard. One woman directed her angry tirade towards the policeman, demanding to know why “it took you three hours to get to my house when I was in danger, yet it took you six minutes to get here today.” Another woman stood up to talk about her sexual assault that had happened literally the night before.

I can’t believe this is still happening.

A woman told us how she’d brought up the topic of austerity to the middle class white professors of her social work university degree, and had received virtually no support or information to help her try and combat it. She’d then been forced to drop out due to financial reasons. Austerity does work in not-so-mysterious ways, doesn’t it? I know nothing about that woman, but the passion with which she spoke of the social work care system suggests that she was probably right when she said she “would have been a fucking good social worker”, and the crowd agreed.

Another woman from Syria asked why she’d come to the UK for a better life and more opportunities “only to be faced with this shit”. Her joke about being deported just for using her voice at the protest was met with laughter, but it was bittersweet. With a compassion they didn’t deserve, she also rightly expressed that the problem wasn’t the individual policemen (well, not all of them, but SCAB doesn’t have quite the same ring to it), but rather the system in place, which is the real enforcer of oppression.

Behind me in the crowd were women bashing pots and pans together in a cacophony of support for the oppressed. It was a semiotic repurposing of the very tools of oppression (sorry Nigella) of which I’m sure even Martha Rosler would have approved.

The protest itself was held in Stephen’s Square, across the tram tracks from Manchester’s Emmeline Pankhurst statue. I won’t lie, she’s not my go-to feminist icon. I tend to feel a bit of hostility towards feminists who think only upper-class women should have rights (call me ungrateful, I dare you). But, on Saturday, she was surrounded by bouquets of flowers as a gesture of alliance with, and support for, victims of gender-based violence. Thus it seemed only fitting to “make more noise than anybody else…to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else… to fill all the papers more than anybody else”. Following her advice, we did what we could. She did give 40% of women the vote, I suppose.

Those who say it’s not all men are right, but 97% is damn sure close enough to all women. And it’s 97% more than it should be. Saturday’s protest reinstalled my confidence in women of this generation, that perhaps we will be the makers of our own emancipation after all.

Art Comes HOME: Joy Yamusangie’s ‘Blue Glass Fortunes’

Written by Sam Burt on 26th April 2021. Posted in Arts.

Throughout the UK’s third lockdown, Mancunion Arts have paid as much attention to online exhibitions as we would to their offline equivalents. With museums and galleries due to reopen in May, we turned our gaze on one of several exhibition that fell through the cracks – ‘Art Comes HOME’ at HOME Manchester.

Although three artists’ work is featured in the show, this review focuses on the artist Joy Yamusangie.

Dreaming in blue

Joy is a London-based visual artist, whose work explores memory and political themes from a personal perspective. Their show’s title, Blue Glass Fortunes, comes from a painting that, in turn, was inspired by a dream. The painting shows blue goblets and bodies outlined in electric white against a black background, in what seem like celebratory postures, and which at the very least feel intimate and communal.

The bodies of Joy’s figures are reminiscent of Keith Haring’s dancing people, with their thickly outlined fluid curves. The resemblance is most striking with pieces painted on large sheets of rubbery fabric, which Haring often used. But unlike Haring, Joy gives her figures detailed facial features, suggesting a greater attention to individual identities; the absence of other bodily surface detail draws our eye to the faces. Interviewed by HOME, they noted that “the pressure to have work that speaks for a whole community is often one that is only applied to Black artists.” These, then, are determinedly individual experiences of Blackness.

I also had the feeling, looking at these pieces, of the fluidity as representing potential energy that is somehow trapped or restricted by the environment. This is most clearly seen in Underneath the Black Sky. The painting depicts a Tube carriage seen from above, with people in their seats looking trapped in their boxes. On closer inspection, one notices the seats either side of Joy are empty while the other passengers are shown consuming the products of black culture, highlighting how cultural appropriation sits comfortably alongside micro-aggressions.

The vanishing hours

Joy has cited Matisse’s cut-outs as an influence and it’s easy to see: their paintings are mainly composed of planes of bold, smooth, undisturbed colour. Ironically, then, a technique Matisse developed while recuperating from surgery – allowing him to move forms freely about with ease – can just as easily evoke the inhibition of movement and freedom.

Coming back to these faces, it struck me how many of the figures don’t quite meet one another’s gaze but seem to be staring at one another just off-centre. For instance, one of the biggest pieces features two diners facing each other across a table, with one looking at the other, who is staring off to the side. I’m not sure if this was the artist’s intention, but it brought to my mind the quiet despair of the near-but-far inhabitants of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks – that sense of human connection being just out of reach. (Interestingly, the curator had a different response, seeing them as intimate scenes interrupted by the viewer’s gaze.)

Another noteworthy feature of these bodies is their transparency. In many of the works, they take on the colour of their background, which relates to the invisibility of non-white bodies within dominant social narratives (e.g. An English Breakfast, with its mantra-like ‘BREXIT’ headlines). Elsewhere, Joy has said their work recognises a distinction between night, which is “linked to nightlife and community and safety”, and daytime, which is “linked to invisibility in working and public spaces in terms of Blackness and gender.”

‘Blue Glass Fortunes’ is part of the ‘Art Comes HOME’ exhibition, which formally closed in January 2021. However, most of the works are still available to view on the exhibition site, as well as a virtual curator’s tour.

COVID-19: The pandemic of panic buying

Written by Amelia Cummins on 26th April 2021. Posted in Science & Tech.

COVID-19 not only hailed in the days of social distancing, mandatory masks, and closed borders, but also a wave of mass hysteria manifested as panic buying. Shelves were left empty, toilets went paperless and hand sanitisers became the hottest commodity.

A year on from the start of lockdown restrictions, the reality of panic buying is just a hazy nightmare. It’s easy to look back on those dark days with rolled eyes and sly smirks. But, as we sit here, well-fed by supermarkets brimming with food, we’re left with one key question: why was panic buying even a thing?

The 3 Ps: Panic, preparation and peer pressure

Panic

When news broke of a devastating, deadly disease sweeping across the planet, the first response of any sane person was to panic. Panic about your health, the government’s response, and how you’d survive the zombie apocalypse. But most importantly, panic about what you could do to help.

However, in the case of COVID-19, your average Brit couldn’t just head down to the lab to help find a vaccine. Or walk into A&E and start chest compressions. No, instead, all we had to do was stay home and wash our hands. Our safety was almost entirely out of our control. And yet, one thing was left in our control: what was in our cupboards.

According to behavioural economist David Savage, people panic buy as a way to feel in control during an out-of-control situation. Having a well-stocked pantry and the knowledge that your family can be fed for at least the next month helps keep people’s minds at ease. It is a normal, predictable human response, especially at the start of a disaster, when little is known about the situation.

Panic-buying was at its peak at the beginning of the pandemic when knowledge of COVID-19 was sparse. On the 14th of March 2020, a week before lockdown began, non-perishable food purchases shot up by 80% compared to January and February’s daily averages. The sale of household items, such as toilet paper and soap, also rose by 70%. But, as people learnt more about the virus, and zombies were yet to appear, panic died down and our shopping habits eventually settled.

Preparation

Panic-buying, whilst not special to the COVID-19 crisis, lent itself well to the unique self-isolation requirements. If a person found themselves potentially infected by COVID-19, they needed to stay at home for 14 days. Trips to the supermarket became illegal, and food delivery slots were scarce. In order to be prepared for this people bought enough supplies to last for two weeks (or, let’s be real, often longer) because when you self isolate, you’ll be bored and lonely, but there’s no reason to be hungry too.

Peer pressure

When pictures of empty shelves and trolleys full of pasta are splashed across the front page, it’s hard to stay calm and reasonable. If everyone is stockpiling supplies, shouldn’t I be too?

Panic-buying wasn’t isolated to just a few extreme individuals. According to a November 2020 study, supply shortages were caused by many different households buying more items than they usually would. So clearly, even the calmest and most collected in society were swayed by rumours of soap shortages and food rationing.

But ultimately, what else was there to do?

Need somewhere to take restless children? A special location for a date night surprise? The perfect venue for Mum’s 50th birthday? Why, the supermarket, of course!

With restaurants and non-essential shops closed, schools left empty and workplaces abandoned, there was one haven left open: the supermarket. Essential workers aside, many people were left with little to do and no place to go. A shopping trip to the supermarket was the highlight of most people’s weeks. And a shopping trip where you had to fend off adversaries and fight for the last toilet roll? Even better!

Picture of a brain/neurological - Graphene

Could Graphene Revolutionise Neurological Treatment?

Written by Zahra Salimi on 26th April 2021. Posted in Science & Tech.

A collaboration has ensued between the Nanomedicine lab at the University of Manchester and two Barcelonian institutions. It was aimed at treating neurological disorders, and has successfully secured a £12M (€14.35M) investment. This is one of the largest sums obtained to date in the European medical Nanotechnology industry. INBRAIN Neuroelectronics is a spin-out company from the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). It is in partnership with the European Commission’s Graphene Flagship program.

INBRAIN’s work is an innovative overlap of MedTech, DeepTech, and Digital Health. It intends to decode brain signals in an attempt to treat neurological disorders such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. This is conducted by implanting intelligent systems of flexible nanoscale graphene electrodes. It was developed in conjunction with researchers at Manchester’s Nanomedicine Lab and the National Graphene Institute (NGI). It allows miniaturisation to nanoscale fabrication, and has the potential to reach single-neuron resolutions. Furthermore, it has the ability to detect therapy-specific biomarkers and trigger highly focal adaptive neuromodulation. This can be ultimately utilised in personalised and patient-targeted neurological therapies.

This considerable investment establishes a potential bridge between the company and the public, with INBRAIN bringing its nanoscale-graphene-electrode-based technology to people for the first time. The process will further consolidate its safety and efficacy as a novel standard of care in nanotechnology.

Commenting on this valuable collaboration, Prof Kostas Kostarelos, Professor of Nanomedicine at The University of Manchester, and co-founder of INBRAIN Neuroelectronics said: ‘’This investment for INBRAIN is a testament that graphene-based technologies and the properties of 2D materials have a unique set of propositions to offer for clinical medicine and the management of neurological disorders.

“This did not happen suddenly, though, or by a stroke of good luck in the lab,” he added. “It is the culmination of many years of persistent and consistent work. Between at least three research institutions, one of which is the Nanomedicine Lab in Manchester, the other two in Barcelona. All working closely and cooperatively under the critically important funding of the Graphene Flagship project.”

The significance of this novel technology was highlighted by a 2010 study commissioned by the European Brain Council. According to this study, with their high incidence rate and more than 35% of the population afflicted, the cost associated with brain disorders can be approximated to £700bn (€800bn) in Europe alone.

Even more considerably, around 30% of patients were indicated to be resistant to pharmacological treatment. Thus, they never received the required treatment and effective therapy. This highlights the importance of seeking investments for research in this field. With the main aim of developing more efficient therapeutic and diagnostics tools. One such tool may be these novel bioelectrical implants. They seem to be faster and safer, with fewer side-effects than conventional medical treatments.

Existing brain interfaces are composed of metals like platinum and iridium. These metals can result in significant side effects, mainly due to their inhibitory nature in miniaturization, and their manipulation of signal resolution. Consequently, this can result in a 50% rejection rate in candidate patients.

The extraordinary properties of Graphene – a light, biocompatible, flexible, and extremely conductive material – can be harnessed in much smaller devices and safely implemented. Later on it could be programmed, upgraded, and even wirelessly recharged.

Therefore, the novel graphene-based technology developed by INBRAIN provides a potential solution to the current limitations of metal-based neural interfaces.

Carolina Aguilar, the founder and CEO of INBRAIN, noted “Patients with chronic conditions are alone with their diseases. At most they see their physician 1-4 times per year for a follow-up. With less invasive and more intelligent neuroelectronic therapies, we aim to provide safer and real-time adaptive therapies. To empower them and improve the outcomes that matter to them.

“This way, patients can better deal with their condition between follow-up visits. They would get the right therapy and support when they need it.”

Furthermore, Kari Hjelt, Graphene Flagship Head of Innovation, added: “This substantial investment exemplifies the growing interest and ever-expanding opportunities to exploit graphene and layered materials in the biomedical domain. Due to its unique properties, graphene has the potential to transform this application area. The Graphene Flagship has chosen biomedical applications as a focus area for commercialization. It continues to support efforts to foster new innovations – from research to the factory floor, now and into future.”

The Father: Exploring the horrors of dementia

Written by Dominic Hayes on 26th April 2021. Posted in Film.

The Father is Florian Zeller’s film adaptation of his own play, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. It has been a tank this awards season, garnering numerous nominations, mainly for its performances and screenplay.

The film centres around Anthony (Anthony Hopkins), an old man suffering from dementia, and his daughter’s (Olivia Colman) efforts to help him. Anthony’s frequent memory loss and temperamental nature put a significant strain on their relationship, also angering Anne’s husband, Paul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60wDuQMJl2Q

Where this film truly excels is in how much discomfort it is able to create, combining Anthony’s confusion with repeated shots and even entire sequences, to give the viewer a distorted sense of time. Zeller also uses two different actors playing Paul and Anne at certain points in the film, and then has those same actors reappear as different characters later on, adding to the disorientating feeling the film had been building up for so long.

While I would not call this a horror film by any means, the horror elements employed by Zeller help to create more tension and discomfort than any film released in well over a year. Despite Zeller playing with time, it is still easy to put a timeline of the film together. It is an achievement, as jumping around in time normally leads to some confusion, whereas here it was no more than was intended.

Another exceptional aspect of The Father is obviously the performances. I’m not sure if I need to tell you that Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman are both amazing here, but I will anyways.

Hopkins, despite his character being standoffish and even aggressive at times, manages to get you on his side through the feeling of helplessness that permeates from him every second he’s on screen; whether it’s the main focus of a scene or not, you can’t help but feel bad for him because of what he is going through.

Olivia Colman too is able to convey her character’s conflict in a nuanced and very effective way. Although her character doesn’t like her father’s short temper and tendency to drive away carers, she still won’t abandon him, and wants to continue helping him despite the fact that he upsets her numerous times across the film.

The visuals here stand out as well, the cinematography looks great, and while production design is not something that usually catches my eye, it’s fantastic here. The openness of the flat is an excellent contrast to how trapped the viewer can feel looking through the eyes of Anthony, and it makes the horror elements even more unexpected at the beginning, and therefore all the more frightening.

There are a few twists here that could have felt somewhat emotionally exploitative, but they’re hinted at in such a way that they aren’t a complete shock. I think overall the film is very sensitive towards its subject matter, which is great because dementia is an issue that could easily have felt heavy-handed.

Overall, Florian Zeller’s The Father manages to create what is essentially, but not quite, a horror film, using a real-life illness and handling it in a sensitive manner. The performances, visuals, and screenplay are all brilliant, which is why it’s my favourite of this year’s eight Best Picture nominees, and will be hard to top as my favourite film of 2021 so far.

4.5/5.

Words by Dominic Hayes.

Power to the podcast

Written by connieeyles on 26th April 2021. Posted in Lifestyle.

Painting, learning a new language, reading or banana bread baking; many of us have turned to new hobbies to keep us entertained over lockdown. It should come as no surprise that Spotify has recently reported a continued spike in engagement with podcasts on their platform over the past year.

In a similar vein, BBC Sounds have reported record listening figures for the past year with podcasts such as Grounded with Louis Theroux receiving scores of hits.

But what is it about podcasts that make their popularity so far-reaching and why exactly are we discovering, or even re-discovering, our love for podcasts over lockdown?

Accessibility

I assume, if you’re reading this article, you’ve almost certainly listened to a podcast, or two, and may even consider yourself a podcast enthusiast. Research by Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) has shown that young people are turning increasingly to smartphones as a medium for listening to radio.

Compared with other entertainment platforms, which can be costly and simply incompatible with many devices, podcasts can be praised for their accessibility. Some of the most popular and well-known apps are Spotify, BBC Sounds and Apple Podcasts, however, there are several other noteworthy names.

Many students don’t see the value in forking out hundreds of pounds for a TV license – and rightly so. Free platforms for entertainment, such as podcasts, reflect our changing and evolving tastes for entertainment, and with many young adults eschewing traditional modes of evening television watching, morning radio listening and even reading, podcasts appear as an accessible and free alternative.

Diversity

As with all forms of media, representation matters. One quick search on Spotify tells you that’s there tens, if not hundreds, of podcast shows for students. This suggests that picking out a podcast that represents your own identity and talks about topics that are important to you is more straightforward, than say, picking from a range of radio or TV shows.

Lockdown has given us plenty of time to develop and enjoy our own hobbies, and podcasts reflect an even broader horizon of interests. Got a niche passion for beekeeping? There’s podcasts for that. Want a straightforward introduction to Marx to keep up in lectures? Shocker, there’s even a podcast for that.

I’m sure we all know or have heard of someone setting up their own podcast in the comfort of their own bedroom, and, hopefully, more and more people will be inspired to do the same.

Multi-tasking

A nine o’clock seminar, then two hours of lectures, a quick walk to Sainsbury’s with your flatmate, a call with your family at home then a society meeting. Not to mention making tea, getting in your daily walk, and just about trying to stay on top of keeping the flat clean. And that’s during lockdown!

As we move out of tighter restrictions, our lives will inevitably become more hectic and busy. And yet, a podcast perfectly compliments most activities described above.

Some are even designed to boost productivity, which is great news for those late-night sessions in the library. Others simply provide some soothing background noise to brighten up mundane tasks.

An integral part of my daily routine is listening to a new and engaging podcast on my daily lockdown walk, which, over the past year, has provided much needed mental stimulation and a feeling of being part of a conversation when I’m missing my friends.

Spoiled for choice? Here are some of my personal favourites:

The Girls Bathroom

Great for: during the height of the pandemic when you’ve been missing out on some girly chat. No topics are off-limits for presenters Sophia and Cinzia: from cheating boyfriends to toxic friends, this podcast is one of my guilty pleasures.

Grab a coffee, go for a walk and put this on, it’s almost as if you were catching up with two of your closest pals.

The Teacher’s Pet

Great for: murder mystery binges. Don’t be fooled by the presenter’s dulcet Australian tones, this is one of the creepiest detective series I’ve come across. The investigation centres around the disappearance of Lynette Dawson, a young mother who is suspected to have been murdered by her then-husband, former rugby star Chris Dawson.

New evidence is constantly being uncovered by this podcast so the drama is always fresh. Be warned: the series is long, with many twists and turns, best saved for a rainy day (or two).

Beyond the Self with Africa Brooke

Great for: inspiration, for days when you feel unmotivated or burnt out. I listen to a lot of motivational or psychology-inspired podcasts, but this series is by far the best. I appreciate Africa’s cut-to-the-chase approach to self-help.

Over the winter, listening and re-listening to this podcast during a walk became one of my daily lockdown staples, and never failed to improve my mood.

The Economist Morning Briefing

Great for: staying up to date on the latest world news (and inevitably sounding clever in front of all of your mates). Like many, paying for newspapers lies outside of my budget, despite wanting access to quality journalism. The Economist offers many free, thought-provoking podcasts which explore recent news stories.

What I like about their morning briefings is its simplicity: each episode is released every morning and lasts for roughly four minutes, making it one of the quickest podcasts you’ll listen to. Perfect for those speedy walks between lectures.

Words by Connie Eyles

Oscars 2021 predictions

Written by Michal Wasilewski on 25th April 2021. Posted in Film.

The prolonged 2021 Oscar season is finally coming to the end, and despite months of awards conversations there are still uncertainties. Will the BAFTA’s Best Picture pick agree with the Oscars for the first time since 2014? Will The Trial of the Chicago 7, the initial favourite, end up with zero wins? And finally, how will the unbelievably crazy best actress race end?

Best Picture & Best Director

This is Nomadland’s year. After scoring numerous critics’ awards in December, winning Best Drama at the Golden Globes, Best Picture at the BAFTAs, and receiving main awards from both the Producers’ and Directors’ Guild, there is not much that could suggest an upset.

There are two films which could be seen as runner ups. The Trial of the Chicago 7 won the main award from the Actors’ Guild (the award for the best ensemble in a motion picture). However, there doesn’t seem to be much love behind Sorkin’s film, which isn’t even a favourite to win Best Original Screenplay anymore. Minari, on the other hand, is the film which seems to be universally loved, at least in the film Twitter / Letterboxd community – but it didn’t manage to win any major award.

All in all, Nomadland seems to be a lock for a triumph on the Oscar night. Nomadland’s director, Chloe Zhao, will take home the prize for Best Director as well, after winning at the Globes, the BAFTAs, and the Directors’ Guild Awards.

Best Actress

This might be the craziest best actress race ever. Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman), who seemed to be the frontrunner coming into the season, has lost two major awards she was nominated for (the Golden Globe and Actors’ Guild), winning only Critics’ Choice. Andra Day (The US vs. Billie Holiday) won the Golden Globe, Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) won the SAG, and Frances McDormand (Nomadland) won the BAFTA.

There are arguments against all four of the aforementioned actresses. Without any wins, Carey Mulligan might not be as strong as the film community predicts. Andra Day’s filmhasn’t been seen by many people and wasn’t received particularly well. Viola Davis is outshined by Chadwick Boseman, and Frances McDormand’s subtle performance is an opposite of what the Oscars usually go for.

Although I wouldn’t be surprised if the award goes to either Mulligan or Davis, I will predict Frances McDormand to win her third Oscar. I believe that love behind Nomadland is strong enough, and I can see most of the people voting for Nomadland in the Best Picture category going for McDormand here.

Best Actor

Believe it or not, Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) isn’t a shoe-in to win. Anthony Hopkins won the BAFTA for his performance in The Father, and he is much closer to winning the Oscar that many people imagine.

Even though Boseman remains the absolute favourite according to bookies, I think that the momentum behind Hopkins is perfect. Oscar voting opened shortly after Hopkins’ BAFTA win, and The Father has just been widely released. This performance is on everyone’s lips at the moment and I’m not sure enough people will choose to go for a performance in a film released a few months ago – and a film they don’t even really like – despite the narrative to award Boseman.

Supporting Actress & Supporting Actor

Supporting actress category was a complete mess throughout this season. Amanda Seyfriend (Mank), the early favourite, didn’t manage to win any award. The Golden Globes surprised with Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian), and the other favourite, Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), lost in the Best Comedy / Musical Actress category. However, everything seems to be clear now. Minari’s Youn Juh-jung won both SAG and BAFTA and is now the clear frontrunner coming to the Oscars ceremony.

Best supporting actor, on the other hand, has been clear all season. Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) all the way.

Screenplay categories

For Best Original Screenplay, The Trial of the Chicago 7 would seem like a conventional choice, but I believe the Oscar is Emerald Fennell’s (Promising Young Woman) to lose. Just like 2018’s Get Out, Promising Young Woman is a solid genre film which despite not being mainstream seems to appeal to wide audiences.

Adapted screenplay is between Nomadland and The Father, and I predict the latter to win (although I believe this race is head-to-head). Nomadland doesn’t seem like your traditional screenplay winner, andas I mentioned before, the release of The Father was timed perfectly to get awards.

Other categories

Below are my predictions in all other categories at the 2021 Oscars.

Animated Feature: Soul

Documentary Feature: My Octopus Teacher

International Film: Another Round (Denmark)

Film Editing: Sound of Metal

Cinematography: Nomadland

Visual Effects: Tenet

Production Design: Mank

Costume Design: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Makeup and Hairstyling: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Sound: Sound of Metal

Score: Soul

Song: Husavik (Eurovision Song Contest)

Animated Short: If Anything Happens I Love You

Documentary Short: A Concerto Is a Conversation

Live Action Short: Two Distant Strangers

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