The future of equality: A moral case for the long term

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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At a time when public policy is overwhelmingly shaped by short-term pressures, Prof. Shlomi Segall, from the Department of Political Science and the Philosophy, Economics and Political Science program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, challenges readers in his new book, The Future of Equality, to confront a fundamental moral question: what do principles of distributive justice say about people who do not yet exist?

Focusing on the future of humanity through the lens of political philosophy and equality, the book challenges familiar assumptions about demography, justice, and moral responsibility. Contrary to the prevailing narrative among many demographers, Segall argues that relatively high birth rates can carry significant moral and economic advantages rather than representing an inherent burden. From this perspective, demographic vitality is not only compatible with egalitarian thinking, but may in fact support it.

Central to the book is the claim that democratic systems must develop tools for representing the interests of future people. Segall points to past institutional innovations, such as Israel’s former Commissioner for Future Generations, as examples of how political systems can acknowledge that decisions made today shape lives decades ahead. A functioning parliament, he argues, should not only represent existing citizens, but also take into account those who will inherit the long-term consequences of current policies.

Although the book adopts a global rather than a state-centric perspective, its insights carry clear implications for national policymaking. Decisions in areas such as housing, education, infrastructure, environmental protection, and natural resource management directly affect the quality of life of future populations. Political philosophy, Segall suggests, can help decision-makers move beyond crisis-driven governance and adopt a more forward-looking ethical framework. One practical implication is the importance of maintaining demographic sustainability, including ensuring that population replacement rates do not fall below critical thresholds.

A key concept developed in the book is that of “standing” — the question of who has the right to complain about injustice. While this idea is most often applied to future people, it also sheds light on the experiences of disadvantaged groups in the present, particularly those who feel that social structures have already determined their life chances. By examining who can legitimately claim injustice, the book offers a nuanced way of thinking about inequality without collapsing all moral claims into a single category.

The book also addresses one of the most acute dilemmas facing societies like Israel: the tension between immediate security needs and long-term social investment. Segall’s work seeks to balance the urgent claims of people living here and now with the moral importance of safeguarding the interests of those who will come after them. This framework is especially relevant to debates over natural resources such as gas reserves or the Dead Sea, where today’s economic gains must be weighed against the interests of future generations.

Finally, the book engages with the idea of “possible people” — individuals who may or may not be born depending on policy choices. By exploring moral dilemmas surrounding unequal life chances, Segall highlights how vastly different starting points, whether between regions or social groups, raise profound ethical questions. These issues resonate strongly in societies marked by sharp disparities between center and periphery, where a child’s circumstances are often shaped from the moment of birth.

By bringing abstract philosophical debates into conversation with real-world policy challenges, Shlomi Segall’s book offers a timely and rigorous contribution to discussions about equality, responsibility, and the moral horizon of democratic decision-making.

Link to the book: https://academic.oup.com/book/60072/chapter-abstract/518871948?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.amazon.com/Future-Equality-Shlomi-Segall/dp/0198928939

 

Marine pollutants disrupt cellular energy production in seabirds

First study of wild animals shows mercury and certain PFAS compounds alter how birds convert food into cellular energy, creating hidden costs that could affect fitness

Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence

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Researchers found that common pollutants like mercury and certain PFAS compounds (forever chemicals) affect the function of mitochondria in wild Scopoli`s shearwaters.

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Credit: © MPI for Biological Intelligence / Guadalupe Lopez-Nava

Common pollutants are disrupting energy production at the cellular level in wild seabirds, potentially affecting fitness, new research reveals. The study, published in Environment & Health, focused on Scopoli's shearwaters breeding on Linosa, a small and remote volcanic island in the Sicilian Channel. Scientists found that widespread contaminants such as mercury and certain PFAS compounds affect the function of mitochondria, tiny cellular powerhouses that generate energy for activities from flight to reproduction.

In the oceans, mercury is often converted to highly dangerous methylmercury by bacteria, which accumulates in tissues and concentrates up the food chain, meaning top predators carry the highest levels. PFAS – synthetic "forever chemicals" found in products including non-stick cookware and stain-resistant fabrics – accumulate in greater numbers despite international efforts to control their use. These pollutants are highly toxic even at low concentrations and reach the ocean through the atmosphere and surface runoff. Laboratory studies showed they could impact energy generation in mitochondria, but these studies may not reflect pollution levels found currently in ecosystems, and the effects in wildlife remained unknown until now.

The international team of researchers lead by Stefania Casagrande, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, measured both pollutant levels and mitochondrial function in Scopoli's shearwaters. Mitochondria build up an electrical charge that drives production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell's energy currency. In birds with higher mercury levels, mitochondrial membranes become more porous through a process known as "proton leak": letting more energy dissipate without producing ATP, like water bypassing a hydroelectric dam's turbines. High levels of certain PFAS compounds have the opposite effect, stiffening membranes and reducing energy leak, but blocking a safety valve that prevents harmful molecule buildup, potentially causing a different type of oxidative cellular damage.

"Pollutants of global concern, such as PFAS and mercury, are well known to be toxic. However, it is only now that advancements in fine-scale technology and minimally invasive field methods have allowed us to understand their effects on wildlife at the ecosystem scale, with important implications for developing conservation approaches," says Guadalupe Lopez-Nava, co-first author and graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence. "We found mercury and certain PFAS compounds disrupt cellular energy production in wild shearwaters, affecting cellular energy efficiency. While cells may compensate by increasing energy production, this itself is costly, and even small shifts in cellular efficiency could silently undermine fitness."

Connecting diet to exposure and cellular damage

As top predators with decades-long lifespans, shearwaters accumulate contaminants over time, making them indicators of ocean health. The team sampled 52 breeding adults over two seasons, measuring mercury and mitochondrial function in all birds, with PFAS analyzed in 20 birds from one season. Stable isotopes – chemical fingerprints revealing diet and foraging location – connected what birds ate to their exposure levels and cellular impacts. Mercury was higher in older birds and males (females expel mercury through egg-laying) and increased with trophic position, matching expected food chain patterns. PFAS showed no such links to age, sex, or diet, suggesting fundamentally different contamination routes than mercury. The scientists say understanding these different exposure pathways is critical for protecting seabird populations and developing targeted pollution reduction strategies.

"Chemical pollution is one of the more complex threats to marine ecosystems at all levels, due to its inconspicuous nature and diverse impacts," says Lucie Michel, co-first author and graduate student at the University of Giessen. "During the demanding breeding season, when adults alternate long self-provisioning and short foraging trips while caring for chicks, energy costs from pollutant exposure could be especially significant. Future work must examine impacts on survival, breeding success, and overall fitness. It is also critical to understand these impacts in the context of other threats to wildlife such as including overfishing, plastic pollution, and global heating. Long-term monitoring will be essential to answer these questions, with implications also for understanding their impacts on human health, since we face similar exposures."

 

The team sampled breeding adults over two seasons on Linosa measuring mercury, PFAS and mitochondrial function. 

Credit

© MPI for Biological Intelligence / Guadalupe Lopez-Nava

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Journal

Environment & Health

DOI

10.1021/envhealth.5c00297 

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Pollutant Exposure Shapes Mitochondrial Bioenergetics in a Wild Seabird

 

Dynamic digital product passports for short-shelf-life food and drink could cut waste and improve safety 

University of Surrey

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Architecture for a digitalized short-shelf-life product supply chain.

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Credit: University of Surrey

Dynamic digital product passports – real-time, intelligent digital records that capture the true condition of perishable goods such as food and drink throughout their lifecycle – could dramatically cut waste and improve safety, thanks to a new framework jointly developed by researchers at the University of Surrey and King’s College London. 

Digital Product Passports (DPPs) will become mandatory in the EU from 2027, but current approaches are static and designed for long-shelf-life products like electronics. While they record fixed information such as design, materials and recycling instructions, they cannot reflect rapid changes in freshness, safety or quality. 

In a perspective article published in Nature Reviews Clean Technology, researchers have introduced the world’s first comprehensive framework for dynamic digital product passports (D-DPPs), showing how real-time sensing, supply-chain digital twins, physics-informed machine learning and secure data infrastructures can work together to track lifecycle changes in short-shelf-life items. 

D-DPPs work by continually updating as products move through farms, factories, transport, storage and retail environments. They could also support earlier interventions to prevent spoilage, reduce unnecessary waste and strengthen transparency across food and drink supply chains. 

Dr Lei Xing, Lecturer in Digital Chemical Engineering at the University of Surrey and lead author, said: 

“Perishable products don’t behave in fixed ways – they change hour by hour as they move through real supply chains. Static digital passports simply cannot keep up. We’ve demonstrated how integrating digital twins, real-time sensing and AI can evolve digital product passports from static compliance records into intelligent decision-support tools that enhance safety, cut waste and enable more circular supply chains. 

“Dynamic digital product passports could also help identify where quality begins to decline and why. That knowledge is invaluable for improving stock management and reducing the significant amount of food lost before it ever reaches consumers.” 

Dr Miao Guo, Senior Lecturer in Engineering at King’s College London and co-creator of the D-DPP concept, said: 

“To make our vision work at scale, digital product passports need data infrastructures that can cope with intermittent connectivity and rapidly changing conditions. By combining interdisciplinary expertise, our perspective article shows how next-generation networks and secure data architectures can keep product information trustworthy and up to date as short-shelf-life products move through complex, real-world supply chains.” 

The research also highlights the role of secure, decentralised data systems – such as blockchain-supported networks and smart-contract routines – in keeping passport information trustworthy across fragmented supply chains. The team suggests supermarkets could act as living labs to test D-DPPs under real conditions, providing a practical way to evaluate how the technology supports freshness monitoring, stock rotation and day-to-day decision-making. 

The framework set out a new pathway for digital sustainability and more circular use of resources across the food and drink sector. It also shows how collaboration across engineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is essential for building the safer, smarter and more sustainable supply chains of the future. 

[ENDS] 

Notes to editors 

• Dr Lei Xing is available for interview; please contact mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk to arrange. 

• The full paper can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-026-00144-7 

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Journal

Nature Reviews Clean Technology

DOI

10.1038/s44359-026-00144-7 

Article Title

Dynamic digital product passports for short-shelf-life products

 

Security analysis of blockchain-based cryptocurrency

ELSP

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Security analysis of blockchain-based cryptocurrency

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Credit: Zekai Liu, Hainan University

The rapid expansion of the cryptocurrency market has intensified security threats due to inherent technical complexities. While existing literature explores consensus mechanisms and specific defense strategies, a systematic synthesis of evolving attack patterns remains essential. This paper investigates real-world security incidents to extract 15 representative attack patterns, categorizing them into six classes based on standard blockchain architecture layers. We provide a detailed analysis of their execution mechanisms and reproduction methods. Furthermore, the study systematically evaluates current detection and defense strategies, highlighting their respective strengths and limitations. Finally, we discuss future research directions to counter evolving threats, providing a theoretical foundation for enhancing the security and resilience of the blockchain ecosystem.

Research Background and Empirical Foundation As the cryptocurrency market expands, its decentralized nature has attracted sophisticated security threats, necessitating robust defense frameworks. Addressing this, a research team led by Professor Xiaoqi Li from Hainan University (with lead contributor Zekai Liu) conducted an in-depth security analysis based on 165 real-world incidents, ranging from the 2016 "The DAO" exploit ($50 million loss) to the 2021 Poly Network attack ($610 million involved). By synthesizing data from these major breaches, the study identifies 15 representative attack patterns, establishing a comprehensive empirical foundation for future vulnerability mitigation.

A Six-Layer Hierarchical Threat Taxonomy The study proposes a classification scheme that maps security risks across six logical layers of blockchain architecture. At the infrastructure level, the analysis covers Data and Network Layer threats like Transaction Malleability, Collision Attacks, and Eclipse Attacks, alongside Consensus Layer risks such as 51% Attacks and Sybil Attacks. Moving to economic and logic-based vulnerabilities, the research examines Incentive Layer manipulations—including Selfish Mining, Bribery Attacks, and Block Withholding—where economic loopholes incentivize dishonest behavior. Finally, it addresses the Contract and Application Layers, providing detailed execution logic for smart contract flaws like Reentrancy and Integer Overflows, as well as complex DeFi threats such as Flash Loan and Sandwich Attacks that exploit Maximum Extractable Value (MEV).

Defense Evaluation and Future Directions To enhance system resilience, the research evaluates detection technologies ranging from static analysis (e.g., AST matching) to machine learning models (e.g., Graph Attention Networks), alongside defense mechanisms like Segregated Witness (SegWit) and the BribeGuard protocol. Concluding that static, single-node defenses are insufficient against evolving threats, the team advocates for a shift toward Composite Attack Modeling to understand chain reactions, Automated Response Systems for real-time Mempool intervention, and Dynamic Game Theory models to monitor deviations from the Nash equilibrium. This "full-stack" perspective offers a vital theoretical framework for strengthening the blockchain ecosystem against emerging security incidents.

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Journal

Blockchain

DOI

10.55092/blockchain20260001 

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Security analysis of blockchain-based cryptocurrency