Philippa Kaur

Star Trek, which began in 1966, is experiencing an extraordinary renaissance in the year 2020. Is this a golden age for the show, asks Emily Wilson

Humans 2 September 2020
By Emily Wilson
Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Spock (Ethan Peck) in Star Trek: Discovery
Jan Thijs/CBS

Star Trek
Various

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THE very first episode of Star Trek, entitled The Man Trap, aired on 8 September 1966. Right from the start, all the key ingredients of Star Trek were there: an alien planet with air that was perfectly OK to breathe and strange lumps of rock on its surface that are good to hide behind in a firefight; very closely fitted colour-blocked uniforms; a key gang of ship’s officers, including the captain, the Vulcan and the ship’s doctor; and, of course, a really big spaceship, with that lift leading down from the bridge to the other decks.
There are a few things in that first show that have since disappeared, such as female crew members wearing skirts so short they barely covered their bottoms. But all the elements of Star Trek‘s success were present in that story about an alien that killed people because it was badly short of salt.
What no one working on the show back then could possibly have imagined is that 54 years later, and in a very different world, Star Trek would not only still be in production, but that it would be thriving and, indeed, multiplying. Whether or not this is a new golden age of Star Trek is for each fan to decide for themselves, but it is certainly an exciting period of renaissance.
“Star Trek: Lower Decks, I’m informed by a US colleague, is ‘being watched by all the cool people’”
My personal favourite of the crop of new series is Star Trek: Discovery, which kicked off in 2017. Discovery was the first new Star Trek TV series since Star Trek: Enterprise ended in 2005. It centres around science specialist Michael Burnham, played brilliantly by Sonequa Martin-Green. Burnham is largely sombre and angst-ridden, and yet you end up not only rooting for her but caring about her.

The rest of the show is rammed full of great ideas as well as other strong characters, including the fabulous Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou in a role that warps in very interesting ways as the show goes on. The second season came out late last year, and the third is due to be released this October, and if that happens, hurray!
Elsewhere in this renaissance is Star Trek: Picard, which was released in January, with Patrick Stewart reprising the role he played in Star Trek: The Next Generation (a hugely popular iteration of the franchise that ended in 1994). Picard is a slower show than Discovery and, in my view, is less successful as a piece of storytelling, but it isn’t without its pleasures. A second and third season are on their way.
Then there is Star Trek: Lower Decks, an adult animated series that is only available to watch in North America right now. I am informed by a US colleague that it is “being watched by all the cool people”.
These three are only one part of the new wave of Star Trek, though. So much more is coming, including, apparently, a live-action show based around Yeoh’s rumbustious character in Discovery that is tentatively titled Section 31.
All these new shows harness the very best modern effects and all the narrative tricks learned from the masters of binge-watchable TV, and the Star Trek franchise has definitely come a long way since The Man Trap.
But the latest shows remain, indubitably, Star Trek. At their heart, there is still a bunch of people in tight uniforms, on a big spaceship, visiting alien worlds and taking with them Star Trek‘s particular brand of tolerance and hope. What’s not to like about that?

Emily also recommends…
TV
Stargate SG-1
Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner
The Stargate franchise has a central simplicity to it that is quite Star Trek: humans going forth to strange new worlds to find and help others. It was kicked off by the 1994 film Stargate and now has a number of massive spin-off shows. For me, the 10 seasons of SG-1 are the main event. Aliens, jokes, great characters, pyramid ships, intergalactic narrative arcs – the show has everything.

More on these topics: More

In Guynecology, Rene Almeling argues that moving away from gendered ideas about reproduction could improve our health and transform our societies

Health 26 August 2020
By Jessica Hamzelou
Men’s reproductive health is affected by their age and diet
Jaunty Junto/Getty Images

Guynecology: The missing science of men’s reproductive health
Rene Almeling
University of California Press

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MALE bodies have long been seen as the norm when it comes to science. It is men and male animals that have been studied to understand what good and poor health looks like, as well as how to treat disease – except, that is, when it comes to reproduction.
Historically, baby-making has been viewed as the defining function of women’s bodies, so much so that other aspects of their health have been neglected. For example, heart attacks are less readily identified in women, who are 59 per cent more likely to be misdiagnosed despite the fact that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women.
Meanwhile, research into men’s reproductive health has lagged behind. Attempts to understand their contribution to fertility, miscarriage risk and long-term risk of a child developing some mental health conditions, for example, have only recently gained ground.
In Guynecology, Rene Almeling, a sociologist at Yale University, explores how attempts to kick-start the study of men’s reproductive health failed. Even now, as the role of health in sperm function and in the well-being of future children becomes clear, information is still scarce and gendered notions about a woman’s role in making babies persist, she writes.
Take the age-old notion of the coming together of “aggressive” sperm and “passive” eggs. The idea that conception is largely the role of the sperm cell is still a very popular one, but it isn’t true. We now know eggs release chemicals to sperm when they are ready to be fertilised, and recent research suggests that these might help select some sperm over others.

When it comes to men’s role in reproduction, the focus has been on sex rather than fatherhood, centring on sexually transmitted infections and conditions like erectile dysfunction. While women’s reproductive health has long been seen as key to their well-being, “men’s genitals were never seen as core to their health and psychology as women’s genitals were [to women]”, says Almeling.
“Shifts in how we understand gender might transform how reproduction and fertility are studied”
Her book tackles an important subject, but there are some dry sections. Best to skip to her coverage of recent research. One of the most important findings is how lifestyle choices significantly influence the health of sperm, and consequently of children. Men, too, have a “biological clock”, and their age, diet and smoking habits have been linked to issues such as miscarriage and risks of low birth weight.
These factors seem to have lasting “epigenetic” effects, conferring changes to the genome that mean new genetic risks of disease can be passed on to children. The field is still young, but there does appear to be a link between certain “paternal effects” and the risk of schizophrenia, for instance.
Yet while dietary advice abounds for women trying to conceive, men may be less aware of the dos and don’ts, warns Almeling. She points out that there is little to no information on paternal effects offered to these would-be parents by US federal bodies and health agencies.
Almeling rounds off her book with recommendations for scientists, healthcare providers and policy-makers. She thinks part of the problem is seeing gender as binary, with men and women as opposites, and that shifts in our understanding of gender might transform how reproduction and fertility are studied and treated.
A greater understanding of men’s reproductive health could also “reshape gender politics in surprising ways” and change gendered expectations of women about reproduction, she writes. Almeling suggests such changes may help reduce the gender pay gap and inequalities caused by the assumption that women (but not men) with children are less committed to their jobs.
Nice theory, but considering how long it has taken for women to get this far, I won’t hold my breath.

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Mary Cybulski/NETFLIX
Watch
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a time-looped psychological horror from cinema’s greatest living magician, Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It will be on Netflix from 4 September.

Read
Net Zero: How we stop causing climate change sees economist Dieter Helm arguing that a carbon pricing system – one that applies to everything from flights to farming to food – is the only fair and sustainable way out of the climate crisis.
Listen
Science for the People, a long-running interview radio show and podcast, devotes a recent instalment to Eva Holland discussing her book Nerve: Adventures in the science of fear, inspired by her own traumas and phobias.
More on these topics: More

John Was Trying to Contact Aliens is a 16-minute film that brilliantly captures the eccentric 1970s world of UFO hunter John Shepherd, who built kit to hunt aliens, playing jazz and reggae to lure them

Humans 26 August 2020
By Simon Ings
Beyond the UFO folk hero, Shepherd emerges as both sad and inspiring
Courtesy of Netflix

John Was Trying to Contact Aliens
Matthew Killip

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Netflix
YOU have to admire Netflix’s ambition. As well as producing Oscar-winning short documentaries of its own (The White Helmets won in 2017; Period. End of Sentence. won in 2019), the streaming giant makes a regular effort to bring festival-winning factual films to a global audience.
The latest is John Was Trying to Contact Aliens by New York-based UK director Matthew Killip, which won the Jury Award for a non-fiction short film at this year’s Sundance festival in Utah. In little over 15 minutes, it manages to turn the story of John Shepherd, an eccentric inventor who spent 30 years trying to contact extraterrestrials by broadcasting music millions of kilometres into space, into a tear-jerker of epic (indeed, cosmological) proportions.
Never much cared for by his parents, Shepherd was brought up by adoptive grandparents in rural Michigan. A fan of classic science-fiction shows like The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, Shepherd never could shake off the impression that a UFO sighting made on him as a child, and in 1972 the 21-year-old set about designing and constructing electronic equipment to launch a private search for extraterrestrial intelligence. His first set-up, built around an ultra-low frequency radio transmitter, soon expanded to fill over 100 square metres of his long-suffering grandparents’ home. It also acquired an acronym: Project STRAT – Special Telemetry Research And Tracking.
“In 1972, 21-year-old John Shepherd set about building equipment to hunt for extraterrestrials”

A two-storey high, 1000-watt, 60,000-volt, deep-space radio transmitter required a house extension – and all so Shepherd could beam jazz, reggae, Afro-pop and German electronica into the sky for hours every day, in the hope any passing aliens would be intrigued enough to come calling. He could also monitor any returning signals and UFOs.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Killip to play up Shepherd’s eccentricity. Until now, Shepherd has been a folk hero in UFO-hunting circles. His photo portrait, surrounded by bizarre broadcasting kit of his own design, appears in Douglas Curren’s In Advance of the Landing: Folk concepts of outer space – the book TV producer Chris Carter says he raided for the first six episodes of his series The X-Files.
Instead, Killip listens closely to Shepherd, discovers the romance, courage and loneliness of his life, and shapes it into a paean to our ability to out-imagine our circumstances and overreach our abilities. There is something heartbreakingly sad, as well as inspiring, about the way Killip pairs Shepherd’s lonely travails in snow-bound Michigan with footage, assembled by teams of who knows how many hundreds, from the archives of NASA.
Shepherd ran out of money for his project in 1998, and having failed to make a connection with ET, quickly found a life-changing connection much closer to home.
I won’t spoil the moment, but I can’t help but notice that, as a film-maker, Killip likes these sorts of structures. In one of his earlier works, The Lichenologist, about Kerry Knudsen, curator of lichens at the University of California, Riverside, Knudsen spends most of the movie staring at very small things before we are treated to the money shot: Knudsen perched on top of a mountain, whipped by the wind and explaining how his youthful psychedelic experiences inspired a lifetime of intense visual study. It is a shot that changes the meaning of the whole film.

Simon also recommends…
Films
The Diatomist (2014)
Matthew Killip
An introduction to Klaus Kemp, whose fascination with German microscopist J. D. Möller inspired him to recreate the Victorian art of arranging diatoms in extraordinary patterns.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Steven Spielberg
Ufology was a global phenomenon by the time this blockbuster arrived. Countless imitations followed, but none with the charm and sincerity of the original.

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All of us harbour biases resulting from the associations we learn implicitly from the societies we live in and how our brains work, but there are ways to overcome them

Humans | Leader 26 August 2020
Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

FEW ideas from social psychology have captured public attention in recent years as much as unconscious bias, the catch-all term for the assumptions we make about other people without being consciously aware of the process.
That reach is partly down to the Implicit Association Test (IAT) created by researchers at Harvard University in the 1990s. Available online, it is widely seen as a quick and easy way to see how implicitly biased you are. The results can be unsettling: you may not think you are racist or sexist or ageist, but, in many cases, your unconscious preferences, … More

Confronting our unconscious biases requires concerted effort. Fortunately, there are simple things everyone can do to avoid the cognitive shortcuts that underpin them

Humans 26 August 2020
By Pragya Agarwal

People Images/Getty Images

We are still getting to grips with the most effective ways to identify and address bias. What is clear is that it is a difficult task that requires concerted, consistent effort. But there are strategies that make a difference.
A first step is to make biases visible. This can include taking the Implicit Association Test to raise awareness, but this needs to be complemented by active reflection – including recognising triggers for bias and examining how our life experiences have shaped our biases.
Research has shown that using blind or anonymised hiring practices may help weaken biases that can limit opportunities for women and minority groups. One study found that using blind auditions increased the likelihood that women musicians were hired by an orchestra by up to 46 per cent. Research in France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands has showed that removing names from applications increases the likelihood that candidates from minority groups will be invited to interview.
We can tackle generalised assumptions by being clear that a particular attribute is associated with an individual rather than their whole group, for example “This boy is good at maths”. This approach can help to diminish stereotypes and the pressure to conform to them.
Taking our time with important decisions can also help us avoid cognitive shortcuts that perpetuate bias. When this isn’t possible, rehearsing reactions to high stress situations can help prevent biased snap decisions, research with police has shown.
Finding ways to identify with members of different groups by forging links with your own sense of self can diminish bias. In one study, nurses from diverse … More

Psychologists have shown that reflexive biases influence our perceptions of others, potentially explaining the persistence of various forms of prejudice. But reliably measuring our implicit biases is trickier than it first appeared

Humans 26 August 2020
By Pragya Agarwal

Timo Kuilder

YOU are biased. So am I. We all discriminate. It is both a source of concern and comfort that we don’t necessarily do so deliberately and that our prejudices aren’t always wilful.
If societies are to truly confront the pernicious effects of racism and prejudice, the importance of examining these biases and how they become etched into the brain is becoming increasingly clear. The death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer in Minneapolis on 25 May shook the world to attention, but it was no isolated incident. Every day there are stories of people being treated with suspicion – or far worse – based on their skin colour while going about their daily lives.
This is in spite of the fact that, for the past 40 years, opinion polls show a steady decline in racist views in the US, UK and other countries. That has led some researchers to suspect that, as explicit racism has been driven underground, unconscious bias is playing a critical role. This suspicion inspired the creation of the Implicit Association Test, a tool that aims to reveal unconscious biases with a few clicks of the mouse.
Unfortunately, the accuracy and reliability of this widely celebrated test isn’t what it once seemed. Pinning down the nature and extent of hidden bias is proving to be extraordinarily complicated. Eradicating it is far from straightforward, too – and it turns out that some efforts to do so may further entrench the very prejudices they are meant to uproot. But we are making progress, not least in understanding the processes in our brains that perpetuate … More