This reflective essay responds to current redundancies in the sector of Classics teaching. tristia ex Dorcestria recounts the author’s near-miss experience of redundancy and considers the place of Classical subjects in the twenty-first-century curriculum. Written from the intersectional perspective of a Classics teacher, researcher and poet, the piece discusses the composition of the award-winning poem Manifesto, recipient of the Classical Association’s 2025 Write–Speak–Design Prize, and explores how creative practice became a means of transforming professional loss into pedagogical insight. Drawing on the metaphor of Ovidian exile, the essay situates one teacher’s story within a broader context of national uncertainty about the value and future of Classics. The essay demonstrates that creative practice can function both as personal catharsis and as a mode of critical reflection, enabling educators to reimagine their role and reconnect with the emotional and ethical dimensions of ancient study. The accompanying poem models how teachers might use creative responses to engage students with questions of power, justice, and identity, and to affirm the continuing relevance of the ancient world in addressing modern crises, not least those relating to war and violence, marginalisation, and democracy.

The bulk organic-matter content of near-surface sediment is widely used for radiocarbon (14C) dating, despite often containing organic carbon (OC) older than the depositional age. Low-temperature combustion can mitigate the influence of old OC, producing ages closer to the depositional age. We developed a simple method to determine the 14C age of the low-temperature (<250°C) component of bulk sediment. Sediment samples from five Arctic lakes were heated up to 400°C, revealing that at 250°C, about half of the OC combusts, leaving behind the more recalcitrant fraction. We applied this method to 64 samples from late glacial and Holocene sediment cores, analyzing 14C and % OC in two aliquots: one heated at 250°C and one unheated. The low-temperature 14C age was calculated by difference using a two-component mixing model. Accuracy was assessed by comparing ages with macrofossils from 48 samples, and reproducibility was tested using a standard reference material. Results show that low-temperature combustion yields 14C ages with an interquartile range of 115 years, and with reproducibility on par with that of macrofossil dating. On average, the ages differ by 932 years from macrofossils, compared to a 2425-year difference for conventional bulk-sediment ages analyzed in this study. Accuracy improves for samples where the proportion of residual OC after heating is low. This practical and efficient method complements macrofossil dating, supports analysis of a large number of samples, and provides insights into sedimentary carbon cycling.

In these replies, I respond to critical comments on my book (Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition, Oxford 2021) from Julia Smith, Louis Doulas, Bill Lycan, and Matthias Steup, who (along with me) contributed to a symposium on that book for this journal. I discuss the following topics (among others), all in the context of my commonsense response to radical skepticism: epistemic intuitions, evidence, disagreement, philosophical pessimism, epistemic modesty, inference to the best explanation, theoretical virtues, particularism, methodism, epistemic circularity, and higher-level requirements on epistemic justification.

Asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are important to chemical evolution at metallicity $Z \sim 0.0001$ ($\text{[Fe/H]} \approx -2.2$) as they contribute significantly to the production of nitrogen, lead, and dust in the early Universe. The contribution of AGB stars to the chemical evolution of the Universe is often quantified using the chemical yields from single AGB stars. Binary evolution challenges our understanding of chemical evolution as binary phenomena such as mergers and mass transfer episodes can significantly alter the stellar evolution pathways and yields. In this work, we use binary population synthesis code binary_c to model populations of low and intermediate-mass ($\sim 0.7$–$7\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$) stars at metallicity $Z = 0.0001$. Our binary star populations predict $\sim 37\%$ fewer thermally pulsing AGB stars than our single star populations, leading to a $\sim 40\%$ decrease in the amount of ejected C and a $\sim 35$–40% reduction in elements synthesised through the slow neutron capture process. The uncertainty introduced by the mass-loss from stellar winds on the AGB makes the impact of binary evolution on the total amount of ejected N uncertain. The total N yield ejected by our binary star populations ranges from a 17% to a 36% decrease compared to our single star populations. However, our binary populations overproduce N by over an order of magnitude during the period $300\text{--}700\, {\rm Myr}$ after formation.

This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on economic and health outcomes in China from January 20 to September 28, 2020. We first document China’s containment policies and present empirical evidence on the role of the online economy. We then use a SIR-macro model to study the macroeconomic and health outcomes of the epidemic. The model can generate infection and death dynamics broadly consistent with the data and the U-shaped recovery of the Chinese economy at the weekly frequency. The analysis reveals that, in addition to the containment policies, the development of the online economy (both online consumption and remote work) plays a critical role in fighting an epidemic.

Antiquities in the Middle East region face various threats, including illicit trade, theft, and forgery. This research examines a leather manuscript obtained by the Palestinian Tourist Police following the arrest of an antiquities smuggler. The manuscript contains Phoenician inscriptions along with symbols such as the Menorah, Shofar, and a plant branch. Radiocarbon dating using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) techniques determined the manuscript’s date to be post-1950 CE. Therefore, the results indicate that the manuscript is a modern forgery, likely created for commercial purposes. Additionally, the text contains several grammatical errors, further supporting the conclusion that it is not an authentic historical artifact.

This study explores the role of framing, time pressure (TP), and gender in modulating altruism in preschoolers (4- and 5-year-olds, N = 115), using a Dictator Game (DG) paradigm. Besides confirming a strong tendency toward altruistic sharing in this age cohort, results allow us to investigate the psychological factors behind such a tendency. Initial resource allocation is manipulated by presenting both a Give and a Take condition to participants, which reveals the combined influence of status quo bias (more resources are shared in the Take condition than in the Give condition) and the endowment effect (fewer resources are shared in the Give condition than in the Take condition). Introducing TP results in greater sharing across both conditions, which confirms previous results and improves on them, allowing us to clarify that the intuitive heuristic activated by TP favors sharing specifically, rather than mere preservation of the status quo (otherwise we would observe increased sharing with TP only in the Take condition). Finally, a significant interaction between framing and gender is observed, with girls sharing more than boys in the Give condition and less than boys in the Take condition. This suggests that the traditional view of girls as being more generous than boys in DGs may be an experimental artifact of overreliance on Give-only paradigms, and it reveals instead that girls are more sensitive to fairness, whereas boys are more influenced by respect for the initial resource allocation. Overall, these findings provide valuable insight into the psychological determinants of altruism in early childhood, with important implications for adult studies as well.

The assumption that state behaviour is primarily driven by a survival interest remains widespread within international relations (IR), even as many others attract critique. This article problematises that assumption, arguing that the meaning of survival itself, not just states’ means of pursuing it, varies significantly. Common conceptions of state survival reflect a legal definition of sovereign statehood encompassing a permanent population, defined territory, government institutions, and political autonomy. Yet leaders and publics do not uniformly conceive and value these aspects of statehood, which often generate contradictory policy incentives. Expanding on recent works in ontological security studies, this article argues that national narratives produce diverse interpretations of state survival that generate distinct meanings and prioritisations among the core aspects of statehood. Put another way, states’ physical bodies and physical survival – as IR scholars frequently discuss these concepts – are chiefly ideational. These theoretical arguments are illustrated through case studies of Georgia and Kazakhstan, which displayed radically different interpretations of survival and, hence, threat perceptions and security choices during the early 1990s. Accounting for variations within the concept of survival – both across states and within a state over time – can help future research explain a broader range of state behaviour.