Latest news with #LancasterUniversity
BBC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Best film' nomination for Sheffield teenager's filmmaking debut
An 18-year-old's filmmaking debut has been nominated for best film at a red-carpet ceremony in Holt, from Sheffield, wrote and directed her genre-subverting short film 'No Dice' for her A-Level Film Studies film, which is shortlisted in the 16-19 age category, will be shown at the Odeon Luxe in Leicester Square, as part of an awards ceremony organised by the film charity Into Film."Having my name out there already is a dream come true. It fills me with hope that if I keep making things I'm passionate about, those efforts will be noticed," said Grace. Grace, who is currently a student at Lancaster University, said being recognised, at such a young age, was a "really big surprise" given the film industry's reputation for being notoriously difficult to get ahead added: "If I were to continue doing this, which I really want to, I feel like [being nominated] is something you'd expect to come later in your career. "It's happening now, which is really weird."'No Dice' follows a Dungeons and Dragons-style fantasy role-play game, and shows a world within the game alongside the lives of the real-life players, who are residents in a care home. "In almost every fantasy thing you see, the older members of the cast are always like, a sage old wizard," Grace said."I thought it would be interesting and fun if the older characters were able to play reckless, stupid characters that make mistakes and get involved in brawls."The cast, whom she found on local acting websites, with the help of her teachers at Wales High School, were "amazing and so accommodating"."At the start I was a bit too nervous to say anything, but I think, as we went on, I got into it more and was able to say what my vision was," she London awards ceremony, on 24 June, will screen the nominated films in each will be hosted by actress and Strictly winner Rose Ayling-Ellis, who said she was "honoured" to host."The standard is extraordinarily high and just shows how important it is to give young people a voice through filmmaking," she annual ceremony has previously been attended by film actors including Daniel Craig, Lashana Lynch, Martin Freeman and Lily James. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Doctors shocked at extreme new aesthetics craze that sends cancer risk soaring
Experts have sounded the alarm over a dangerous new cosmetic trend that involves altering the skin and hair using a freezing cold iron. The bizarre craze, which permanently marks the body and hair colour using liquid nitrogen, can raise the risk of skin cancer, according to British experts. This is because the extreme cold kills cells in the skin that are vital for protecting against the deadliest form of the disease, melanoma. Other risks include infection, frostbite and the loss of fingers or limbs, warned Professor Adam Taylor, an expert in anatomy from Lancaster University. 'It can take as little as 20 seconds for liquid nitrogen to cause second, third and even fourth degree burns,' he wrote for The Conversation. This technique, which is also thought to turn the hair white due to the effect of freezing temperatures on pigmentation, was initially invented by farmers to mark animals for identification. However, horses and cattle have skin between two to four times thicker than humans making them less vulnerable to damage, according to Prof Taylor. 'There are strict safety protocols for branding animals. There are zero for humans. And in the UK, it's illegal to brand people—whether with heat or cold,' he added. Worryingly, comments shared on Reddit reveal that some are attracted to the technique in order to change their hair colour. 'Will freeze branding turn my hair white?' wrote one user. 'This is a technique used on farm mammals such as horses, cows, and goats. On pigmented areas the hair grows back white. 'I have found no research or examples of freeze branding on human scalp though I believe that it would have the same effect. 'Does anyone have more insight on this?' Prof Taylor explained exactly how so-called 'freeze branding' could increase the risk of cancer. The extreme cold causes ice crystals to form inside skin cells and as the water inside the cells freezes, it expands and breaks the cells' walls. This kills the melanocyte cells, stopping them from producing melanin that gives your skin hair and colour. These melanocyte cells play an integral role in protecting the body against skin cancer. When you are exposed to sunlight or UV rays, the cells produce more melanin to protect your skin. This helps form a protective shield around your DNA to help prevent damage from harmful rays. In the UK, there are around 2,300 melanoma skin cancer deaths and 17,500 new cases recorded every year. There could be other serious implications from losing melanocytes as we don't know all the long-term risks, the expert said. He also flagged the risk of dehydration, which happens because your body loses fluid while trying to heal from trauma. Skin branding is regularly featured in the hit Paramount western show, Yellowstone, which centres around a family-owned cattle ranch in Montana, and follows the dramas that ensue. In the show, characters can be seen being 'branded' by the ranch with a permanent burn—achieved by pressing a red-hot iron pressed into their flesh. This is a mark of their loyalty to the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. Body modification is an increasingly popular trend in the UK and US. The cosmetic craze involves changing the appearence of the face and body using extreme techniques such as multiple piercings and tattoos.
BusinessToday
6 days ago
- Business
- BusinessToday
ASEAN 25: Shaping The Future Of ASEAN Through Education, Innovation And Sustainability
Career-ready from Day One: Sunway students work on real-world industry projects, not just assignments. Education stands as one of the most powerful forces for transformation in the lives of people across ASEAN. Recognising this, the bloc has made inclusive and quality education a cornerstone of its vision for sustainable regional development. ASEAN acknowledges that quality education not only leads to improved health outcomes and greater social capital but also fosters peaceful, gender-equal societies and opens the door to decent employment opportunities. Importantly, it helps build a resilient, competitive, and future-ready workforce—one equipped to navigate the complexities of a rapidly evolving world. Beyond its role as a driver of social and economic advancement, education serves to heighten collective awareness and foster a shared ASEAN identity. To realise these goals, the region is focused on key priorities: advancing future-ready education across all levels—from basic to higher education and technical and vocational training; ensuring inclusivity; strengthening the capacity of educators; and mobilising resources through strategic partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders. As Malaysia takes on the role of ASEAN Chair in 2025, one institution that exemplifies this commitment to regional cooperation and forward-thinking education is Sunway University. With a strong foundation in sustainability, innovation, and global collaboration, Sunway University is not only transforming higher education in Malaysia—it is helping to shape the future of learning across the ASEAN region. The education hub situated in the dynamic enclave of Sunway stands at the forefront of ASEAN's goal to ensure lifelong learning, equity, inclusion, and quality education. In line with ASEAN's Education Agenda, the university offers a holistic model of learning that goes beyond academics. Students are empowered with subject expertise, digital fluency, strong values, and a deep sense of purpose that prepares them to contribute meaningfully to society and the planet. To ensure graduates are future-ready, Sunway University has implemented a pioneering Generative AI Guiding Framework and Institutional Policy—one of the first of its kind in Malaysia. Every student is required to complete a 'Fundamentals in AI' course, while AI literacy is seamlessly embedded across disciplines. Coupled with mandatory programmes on integrity, sustainability, and community service, this approach develops socially responsible, innovative, and globally competitive individuals. With increasing enrolments from ASEAN countries, Sunway's appeal lies in its dual-degree collaborations with world-renowned institutions like the UK's Lancaster University and the Arizona State University in the US. These partnerships enable students to access globally recognised qualifications at an affordable cost, right from Malaysia—making Sunway a magnet for international students across Southeast Asia. Most universities have a campus, only Sunway University has a city. Malaysia's chairmanship of ASEAN in 2025 arrives at a pivotal moment. In an increasingly complex and competitive global environment, Sunway University recognises the opportunity to shape regional direction and integration, particularly in science, technology, and sustainable development. The institution believes that a more harmonised and connected ASEAN offers immense opportunities. For Malaysian firms, this means building regional supply chains, entering new markets, and enhancing innovation capacities. Sunway University supports these ambitions by advocating for stronger industry-academia collaboration, particularly in shaping Malaysia's 13th Economic Plan and the New Industrial Master Plan 2030. At the regional level, the university urges more cross-border collaborations in strategic sectors like transport, energy, agriculture, and education—sectors that can drive shared prosperity and regional resilience. It also calls for deeper SME engagement and greater visibility into ASEAN's regulatory frameworks to empower Malaysian and ASEAN businesses alike. Sunway University also plays an active role in shaping ASEAN's future through partnerships with policymakers and institutions across the region. The university's researchers have co-led the 'ASEAN Science, Technology & Innovation (STI) Ecosystem Foresight 2035' with the Academy of Sciences Malaysia. This landmark study analyses the STI landscape in ASEAN, offers future-ready scenarios, and recommends strategies to build collective resilience and shared prosperity. Taking a step further, it also launched collaborative research programmes with leading ASEAN universities, offering seed grants, PhD scholarships, researcher mobility funds, and regional symposiums. These initiatives align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and aim to solve shared challenges from biodiversity to food security and climate adaptation. By hosting the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN-SDSN) Asia, the university is serious and committed to the sustainability agenda to the extent that students can obtain a Master's in Sustainable Development Management at Sunway University. Sunway University is a private, not-for-profit institution rooted in a deep commitment to planetary health and sustainable development. Anchored by flagship centres like the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development and the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, the university combines global thought leadership with local relevance. In just three years, the university has grown from 7,800 to 11,700 students, and is projected to reach 20,000 students by 2029, with up to 30% international enrolment. A series of new facilities—including a state-of-the-art Sunway Business School, a Net-Zero Engineering building, and the Sir Jeffrey Cheah Performing Arts Centre—will support this rapid expansion. Plans are also underway for a new building for the Sir Jeffrey Cheah Sunway Medical School, reinforcing Sunway's role in healthcare education. Sunway's research excellence is also gaining global recognition. The university will publish over 2,200 scientific articles in 2025 alone, with a marked rise in quality through the recruitment of top 2% global scientists (as ranked by Stanford/Elsevier). This focus has catapulted Sunway into the Top 400-500 bracket of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Rankings, making it the only private ASEAN university ranked across QS, THE, and ARWU/Shanghai. For two consecutive years, Sunway has also been ranked #1 in Asia by AppliedHE among ASEAN private universities. With its strong regional partnerships, future-focused curricula, and relentless pursuit of excellence, Sunway University isn't just preparing graduates for the future — it is helping shape the future of ASEAN itself. Related
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Cutting mental health waiting times ‘could save UK £1bn a year'
Ministers have been told cutting waiting times for thousands of people in Britain's mental health crisis could help employment and save the government £1bn a year. According to research by Lancaster University, providing access to faster treatment across England through the NHS would help to improve the health of hundreds of thousands of people while bringing economic benefits for the nation at large. In a new study to be published in the latest edition of the respected Review of Economics and Statistics academic journal, Prof Roger Prudon found that a one-month delay in the start of mental health treatment resulted in 2% of patients losing their jobs. Drawing on data for waiting times from the Netherlands between 2012 and 2019, Prudon said a one-month reduction could help as many as 80,000 people get access to treatment annually, which would save more than €300m (£253m) in unemployment-related costs every year. He said the same calculation could be applied to the UK, given a comparable prevalence in mental health problems, as well as similar treatment times and cost to the economy and public finances from unemployment. Britain's larger population would mean a one-month reduction in waiting times for mental health treatment could help as many as 300,000 people each year, and would save about £1bn each year in lost income taxes and payouts for unemployment benefits. 'Data on NHS mental health treatments linked to employment outcomes is scarce in the UK, so while the Netherlands' setup is different, the healthcare system is similar to that of the UK – and both countries are facing increasing demands for mental health treatments and a backlog of extended waiting lists,' he said. 'Applying this calculation to the UK – based solely on population size – it could generate approximate savings of £1bn per year.' Ministers are pushing to dramatically reduce lengthy waiting times for patients in England with a plan to cut backlogs for elective hospital treatment and by providing more appointments through seven-day health hubs. However, charities warn the plan does not currently include any commitment to tackling waits for mental health services. According to research by the charity Rethink Mental Illness, people are eight times more likely to wait more than 18 months for mental health treatment than for physical conditions. The government is also prioritising NHS reforms and cutting waiting lists to boost employment, aiming to boost economic growth and cut the benefits bill, amid record numbers of working-age adults leaving the workforce due to health issues. Official figures show there were about 3.8 million people in England in contact with NHS mental health, learning disability and autism services in 2023-24, up almost two-fifths compared with before the pandemic. Prudon said that in the Netherlands about 1 million people are in contact with the health service with a mental health issue. To reduce waiting times by one month, he said about 100 additional psychiatrists or psychologists would be required at an approximate annual cost of €10m (£8.4m). Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Due to the larger population, in the UK four times as many extra mental health professionals would be required. However, Prudon said the savings for Rachel Reeves's stretched budget and the economy would considerably outweigh the costs. He added: 'The issue of waiting times is not new, both in the UK and the Netherlands. This has been an issue for at least a decade. But what's lacking in the debate so far, is that people are saying: 'OK, it's the treatment that's important. But the government has limited funds, we can't keep on spending money.' However, there is also an economic case to be made. 'It is not a case that we're just losing money if we invest more in mental health. In the long run this would save the country quite a lot of money by retaining more people in the workforce.' A government spokesperson said: 'This government inherited a broken mental health system, with too many people on waiting lists being held back from employment. Our shift towards prevention, together with our welfare reforms, will help more people return to work and boost economic growth. 'We are transforming mental health services through our Plan for Change, by investing an extra £680m this year, hiring more staff, delivering more talking therapies and cutting mental health waiting lists.'
The Age
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Maverick explorer and cheese buff James May's curiosity remains in top gear
James May is in his London attic. 'Hence the pointy roof,' he says, jerking a thumb at the long white space, exactly as his laconic TV persona might. Books, hi-fi equipment, lamps, a cluttered desk and work table line what you could also call a den, a studio, even a garret – but please, not a man cave. 'I find that term slightly dismissive,' he says. 'It's not like a padded place where I'm put where I can't do any harm. I come up here to try and do interesting and creative and satisfying things. And I think it's very right that people do that.' His current project is Explorers: The Age of Discovery, a theatre show he'll unveil in Australia this winter. 'It's terrifying,' he says, 'because it's a huge subject' – spanning as it does the earliest human migrations through to the great navigators of the age of sail, and the cosmic ambitions of the present day. 'It's a series of stories about the philosophy of exploration, and it is intended as a piece of entertainment,' he says. 'It will be correct, I hope, but it's not going to be a lecture. It's supposed to feel like an evening at the theatre, with lights and sounds and some dry ice effects and, you know, me strutting about.' The combination of deep research, intense inquiry and offhand delivery will be familiar to fans of May's broad range of small-screen adventures, from his two decades as 'Captain Slow' on the Top Gear/ Grand Tour team to his many escapades in travel, toy construction, machine disassembly, kitchen craft and modern man skills. Whether he's dissecting pasta dishes on YouTube, exploding old record players or hurtling through Mongolia in a battered SUV, May's appeal lies in the enthusiastic pursuit of understanding, sans performative airs and, for the most part, scripts. So why the treacherous leap to solo theatre act? 'To be honest, because I thought it was about time I tried something serious and a bit more challenging. You do get a very enjoyable frisson that comes from live performance because it's in the moment. You can't stop and start again, there's no editing, so it is a bit scary. 'It's not in my comfort zone. But for that reason, maybe it'll inspire me to do something good. Or I might finally fall flat on my face and be found out.' May's path to showbiz was meandering. Born in Bristol, he studied music at Lancaster University and did time in the civil service, car dealerships and hospital administration before finding a home in automotive journalism. He was fired from Autocar in 1992 for an imaginative sub-editing prank, an early sign of his maverick style as a media player. 'I can be quite nerdy, and I'm also quite faddy, so I become intensely interested in one thing for three months and then … I put it slightly to one side while I become [fixated] on that other thing,' he says of his seemingly scattershot trajectory from spy planes to pool tables. The only thread, he says, is 'the stuff that interests me and that people will let me do. The great thing about sandwiches of the ′70s and all that stuff I've done on YouTube is they're just daft ideas that didn't really fit in with any so-called proper TV. 'YouTube is a great gift in that respect … and I can see why conventional TV production is quite worried because we can occasionally get remarkable results with a few hundred pounds worth of handheld kit and a slightly offbeat but engaging idea about noodles.' That cuts both ways, of course. Try and measure the months of hard graft that went into his Cars of the People BBC series, for instance, against the thing for which tens of millions of casual web-surfers will remember him: tersely saying the word 'cheese' while placing a block of it on a workbench. 'Yes, it's absurd, isn't it? I don't think anybody's going to look back on a meme in the way they look back on Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. What will we send on the capsule into space for other forms of life to know about us? I suspect probably .0001 to the minus 10 per cent of it because it's all bollocks, really.' TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO JAMES MAY Worst habit? Either leaving pants on the floor, or cowardice. Greatest fear? That I will lose my body and not my mind. I believe that I'd rather lose my mind but have my body working so that I could skip through fields going, 'Tra-la, hello clouds'. But people tell me it's not quite that simple. The line that has stayed with you? At 17 or 18, I applied for a technical role at the BBC. They sent me quite a curt letter which included the line, 'We suggest that you pursue a career in another direction'. I've used that line myself on people when they're being difficult. Biggest regret? Not bucking up earlier. I did waste quite a bit of my twenties achieving nothing. Favourite book? My five-volume Poets of the English Language [Heron Books, early '70s]. My dad bought it and I stole it, frankly, years ago and took it away with me to college. The artwork/ song you wish was yours? I'd feel pretty chuffed if I'd written the Beach Boys' God Only Knows. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? Back to the late '80s to see if they were as horrible as I remember. For all his throwaway lines, there's perfectly serious intent behind May's big ideas. His Man Lab series of the early 2010s was 'ahead of the curve' of gender role interrogation, he says, in that 'we were addressing something which annoyed me at the time and is still a bit of a problem: men feigning uselessness in the belief that it's somehow cute or sophisticated or appealing, because I don't think it is.' Whatever your gender, once you've done the hard work to disarm a World War II bomb, make a lemon squeezer in a home-made smelting furnace or launch your pet's ashes into space, 'that opens the floodgates on being able to have a go at anything for the sheer fun of it', he says. 'We're still doing some stuff for Discovery [channel] about trying to invent and make things in sheds, which is really an elaborate excuse for mucking about and getting some tools out.' This, he concedes, describes the place where he'd generally rather be. 'I was never hell-bent on the idea of making money. I mean, you can see that from all the money I've lost on stupid ventures like the DriveTribe social media platform [wound up in 2022] and owning a pub [the still-functioning Royal Oak in Oxfordshire], which is pointless, really.' Which returns us to the potential returns versus clear perils of an internationally touring live theatre show that will occupy the best part of this year in development at home, and then in performance from Australasia to the UK, and possibly into next year in the Americas and Europe. Loading 'I think it's partly down to a slight insecurity that means it's very difficult to say no,' he muses. 'They say, 'Do you want to do an Explorers live show?' And I did think, 'Oooh, that sounds like it could be quite hard work', but before I knew it, I just said, 'Yes, OK, send me the contract'. And now here we are.' That's the natural explorer's spirit for you. 'I'm not sure I would have ever been an explorer in the sense of Captain Cook or Pythias the Greek. I would probably have been too timid, to be honest, or I would have probably believed that I wasn't supposed to do that,' he says. 'I have massive imposter syndrome.'
