Search Results (1,467)

Background: Cultured meat (CM) has emerged as a promising, albeit controversial, alternative to conventional livestock production, offering potential benefits in terms of sustainability, animal welfare, and resource efficiency. Despite these potential advantages, consumer acceptance remains uncertain, particularly in countries where CM is not yet commercially available. Objectives: this study investigates the determinants of willingness to try (WTT) cultured meat among Italian university students (n = 335), with particular attention to the role of product-related perceptions and personal values and motivations. Methods: data were collected through an online survey and analyzed using binary logistic regression to identify the main drivers of respondents’ willingness to try CM. Results: the findings suggest that acceptance of CM among university students is driven primarily by familiarity, perceived safety, and ethical considerations, particularly those related to animal welfare, rather than by demographic characteristics or resistance to novel food technologies. Conclusions: these findings offer practical implications for policymakers and industry stakeholders, highlighting the importance of transparent communication strategies emphasizing product safety and animal welfare benefits as a means of increasing familiarity with and acceptance of CM among younger consumers. Full article

The search for sustainable and ethical alternatives to conventional protein production has become increasingly important due to climate change, population growth, and the need to reduce the environmental impact of food systems. This work explores the development of animal-free proteins produced in laboratory settings using innovative technologies such as precision fermentation, submerged fermentation, plant cell culture, and molecular engineering. These methods enable the production of high-quality proteins without relying on animal farming or large-scale traditional agriculture. In addition to reviewing traditional plant-based protein sources and their nutritional limitations, the study highlights novel protein sources derived from fungi, algae, and bacteria, focusing on their nutritional profiles, production methods, and challenges related to digestibility, safety, and consumer perception. Special attention is given to downstream processing techniques that preserve protein functionality and enhance key food attributes such as texture, flavor, and stability. The use of agro-industrial residues is also discussed as a strategy to improve sustainability and economic viability. Key barriers to large-scale implementation, including production costs, regulatory approval, and consumer acceptance, are addressed, alongside emerging applications beyond food, such as cosmetics, animal nutrition, and biodegradable materials. Overall, animal-free proteins represent a promising path toward a more sustainable, resilient, and ethical global food system. Full article

The rapid expansion of large language models (LLMs) has intensified ethical challenges related to bias, accountability, transparency, and consistency in AI-mediated decision-making. While existing AI ethics principles provide normative guidance, their application to non-deterministic, probabilistic reasoning systems remains problematic due to principle conflicts, ambiguous interpretations, and inconsistent judgments. This study proposes the Cognitive-Reflective Equilibration Model (CREM), a novel ethical decision-making framework that integrates Piaget’s equilibration of cognitive structures with Rawls’s reflective equilibrium methodology, reinterpreting these humanistic theories as a structured ethical reasoning procedure. The model is developed in two stages: a conceptually grounded framework and an operational 20-step procedure (OCREM) executable within contemporary LLM architectures. As a proof of concept, CREM was tested across five LLMs—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, LLaMA, and DeepSeek—using 20 ethical dilemma scenarios, generating 4000 request–response pairs. LLM-based evaluation confirmed the procedural validity of the model—its technical executability, internal consistency, and cross-platform compatibility—rather than the ethical validity of its outcomes. To address this limitation, a supplementary evaluation by a small interdisciplinary panel of five human experts provided preliminary external evidence consistent with the LLM-based procedural findings, with more conservative ratings: the validity of the ethical judgments was rated significantly above the scale midpoint and was associated with the procedural indicators. These results indicate that the procedural quality of CREM executions was associated with expert-rated ethical acceptability. However, the absence of a baseline condition and the single-source ratings preclude causal interpretation. Generalizability across diverse ethical domains and cultural contexts remains to be investigated. Full article

This article explores the ecological crisis as a multidimensional phenomenon that engages humanity at an existential and therefore philosophical level. Starting from the recognition of the authentic human condition, as that of a being deeply rooted in an ecosystem whose balance sustains its well-being, it argues for moving beyond the anthropocentric fallacy that has driven humankind to pursue its dream of Promethean domination. Rather, the complex nature of the human being, at once biological and cultural, carries a message of universal solidarity. In ignoring this message, humanity has betrayed its true identity: that of a steward of life understood in its universal dimension. As a conscious part of nature, humanity is entrusted with caring for it, adopting a more-than-human ethics grounded in respect and love for the relationships that connect all things within the web of life. This calls for revisiting the anthropological question through a systemic lens, opening onto an alternative epistemological and ontological perspective, one that allows us to rethink humanity’s relationship with the entire ecosphere and imagine a different way of co-dwelling on Earth. Full article

The development of next-generation organotypic platforms and disease models has proven crucial for the progress toward personalized therapeutic solutions in cancer. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is a nutrient-rich cell culture supplement that contains essential factors for cell growth. However, in addition to ethical and environmental concerns, the manufacturing of tumor models requires a more standardized and controlled environment. This has led to the commercialization of several alternatives for the substitution of FBS, in the form of both animal-based and synthetic products. We here test the use of two alternatives for the culture of glioblastoma cells in the fabrication of organotypic tumor models, in combination with an insightful review of the existing literature, which allows for the elucidation of the most relevant challenges and potential solutions. We assess metabolic activity and cell proliferation in both 2D and 3D culture systems to determine the influence of serum on cell attachment and growth. The 3D culture systems are fabricated by photopolymerization of gelatin methacrylamide to achieve hydrogels that closely mimic the native tissue’s extracellular environment. We aim to advance our understanding of the role of culture media in these models and provide practical guidance to optimize experimental design and enhance reproducibility, thereby facilitating their broader adoption by the research community. These studies are key for the biofabrication of next-generation organoids and other advanced in vitro tumor models. Full article

Background/Objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in youth mental health services, including clinical decision support, risk prediction, and digital therapeutics. However, existing frameworks provide limited guidance for integrating ethical, cultural, and relational considerations into the design, governance, and implementation of AI-enabled mental health technologies. This scoping review examined how digital humanities-informed approaches have been incorporated into AI-supported mental health interventions for children and adolescents. Methods: A scoping review was conducted following the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. Peer-reviewed literature published between 2015 and 2025 was searched using PubMed and supplemented by semantic searches through Elicit. Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses examining AI-enabled digital mental health interventions and digital humanities perspectives were included. Data were synthesized using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Seventeen review-level studies met the inclusion criteria. Six recurring themes were identified: engagement, participatory co-design, human oversight, equity, ethical governance, and implementation. Across the included reviews, humanities-informed approaches were associated with greater attention to relational engagement, stakeholder participation, transparency, contextual adaptation, and culturally responsive implementation. Evidence supporting intervention effectiveness was strongest in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, whereas findings related to ethics, governance, equity, and implementation were derived primarily from scoping reviews and conceptual syntheses. Conclusions: This review suggests that digital humanities provides a valuable interdisciplinary perspective for informing the design, governance, and implementation of AI-enabled youth mental health interventions. Although the current evidence base remains heterogeneous, integrating humanities-informed approaches may support the development of AI systems that are more ethical, equitable, and developmentally responsive. Future research should evaluate these approaches through empirical implementation studies and emerging generative AI applications. Full article

The return of African cultural objects represents an opportunity to practice what Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy call “a new relational ethics.” Oftentimes, repatriation begins and ends with the literal return of physical objects. This does little to address legacies of colonial theft, value extraction, and epistemicide. It can also reinscribe the power of Western interpretive frameworks and reproduce Western patterns of state power by returning objects to Western-style institutions within postcolonial nation-states. This essay considers the return of the Benin bronzes as a case study for these missed opportunities and alternative paths forward. It follows the various and sometimes competing means by which Benin bronzes came “home:” whether to the postcolonial nation of Nigeria, to the Oba of Benin himself, or to the controversial public-private partnership known as the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA). This essay considers how these various means of return, and these various meanings of “home,” can work against one another and can be co-opted as neoliberal and neocolonial forms of control. The essay also explores alternative paths forward through the framework of relational ethics. Sarr and Savoy first applied the phrase to the return of African cultural objects in their 2018 report. This essay expands on Sarr and Savoy’s report and builds from Native American and Indigenous scholars like Margaret Kovach and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, who identify opportunities to remake relations as a means of restitution. This includes remaking relations between indigenous communities, Western institutions, and postcolonial nation-states. It also includes remaking relations between human beings and the more-than-human world, including spirits of the ancestors, outside the systems of Western knowledge and value production. Full article

Digital storytelling is widely used in education as a multimodal design practice that foregrounds creator agency and audience awareness. Generative AI (GenAI) expands the speed and range of story production but also raises questions about how educators retain pedagogical control over generated content. This exploratory qualitative study used cross-case workflow analysis to examine how 27 pre-service early childhood educators in Hong Kong designed GenAI-mediated mathematics storybooks. Data included video-recorded process presentations, records of interactions with ChatGPT (GPT-5) and Krea 2, and completed storybooks. Analysis traced participant decisions across planning, generation, curation, and integration, focusing on GenAI-related affordance uptake, recurring workflow patterns, and tensions among technical innovation, ethical accountability, and cultural impact. Findings show that participants commonly used GenAI to steer generation through pedagogical constraints; expand narrative and visual alternatives; and select, reject, or revise generated materials. Two recurring process patterns were identified: constraint-guided planning-to-generation, in which pedagogical requirements were established early and used to guide subsequent decisions, and exploration-to-selection, in which participants generated and compared alternatives before progressively stabilizing a preferred direction. Across both patterns, tensions were particularly evident during curation and integration, when participants balanced efficiency with sustained oversight, creative variation with pedagogical coherence, and generic outputs with local contextual fit. The findings show that GenAI-mediated storybook creation is not simply a process of generating text and images, but a pedagogical workflow in which pre-service teachers exercise agency through the critical selection, revision, and integration of AI-generated materials. Implications are discussed for teacher education, AI literacy, and the design of scalable support for teachers’ use of GenAI. Full article

The emergence of algorithmic authority has profoundly reshaped contemporary understandings of truth, knowledge, and human flourishing. As computational systems increasingly assume epistemic authority once entrusted to philosophical, religious, and civic institutions, the church faces a renewed challenge of bearing faithful witness within a culture governed by competing accounts of wisdom and power. This article argues that the apostle Paul’s logos tou staurou constitutes a rival account of reality that reconfigures knowledge, the identity of God, human flourishing, apostolic mission, and ultimately Christian public witness through a distinctively cruciform rationality, thereby challenging both ancient philosophical rationalism and contemporary algorithmic authority. By focusing on 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:16 and 9:19–23, this study demonstrates that the logos tou staurou (“word of the cross”) reconfigures wisdom, power, human identity, and mission through God’s self-revelation in the crucified Christ. Rather than presenting cruciformity as a secondary ethical consequence of salvation, Paul presents the cross as the self-revelation of God from which cruciform discipleship, apostolic mission, and faithful public witness necessarily flow. Bringing Paul’s theology of the cross into conversation with both the Stoic Logos of the first century and contemporary algorithmic authority, this article argues that the logos tou staurou offers a comprehensive theological alternative to rival cultural logoi by relocating wisdom from autonomous rationality to God’s cruciform self-revelation. While Stoicism and algorithmic systems promise human flourishing through rational autonomy and computational certainty, Paul locates divine wisdom in weakness, vulnerability, and self-giving love. The cross, therefore, provides the church with a distinctively cruciform rationality for faithful witness within an age increasingly shaped by algorithmic authority. Full article

Background: Adolescent substance abuse is a growing public health concern associated with poor mental health, unsafe sexual behaviour, violence, school dropout, and psychosocial dysfunction. In rural South Africa, peer influence, cultural practices, poverty, and inadequate psychosocial support may increase learners’ vulnerability to substance use. However, limited qualitative evidence exists on how these factors influence substance abuse among school learners in rural communities. Aim: This study explored peer-group and cultural influences on substance abuse among school learners in a rural community in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and contextual design was adopted. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 30 learners from selected secondary schools in the DIMAMO area of the Capricorn District, Limpopo Province. Data were collected through semi-structured one-on-one interviews until data saturation was reached. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using thematic analysis guided by Social Learning Theory. Trustworthiness was ensured through credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability. Ethical approval and informed consent were obtained prior to data collection. Results: Two major themes emerged: causes of substance abuse and factors maintaining substance use. Peer pressure and social influence contributed to the initiation of alcohol, cannabis, cigarette, and snuff use. Cultural practices and ancestral beliefs further normalised substance use behaviours. Psychological distress associated with poverty, family conflict, and inadequate parental support increased learners’ vulnerability. Continued substance use was reinforced by addiction, perceived emotional relief, social tolerance, and easy access to substances. Conclusions: Adolescent substance abuse in rural communities is influenced by interconnected social, cultural, psychological, and environmental factors. Integrated school- and community-based psychosocial interventions are needed to strengthen adolescent mental health and substance abuse prevention strategies. Full article

Cultured meat aims to manufacture genuine animal tissue from cells in vitro, displacing the environmental and ethical liabilities of livestock slaughter. Because the final product must reproduce the fibre architecture, fat marbling, and nutrition of conventional meat, the cell—its identity, proliferative ceiling, and differentiation fidelity—is the central determinant of feasibility. This review consolidates the stem cell biology of cultured meat from a tissue engineering perspective. We first compare the principal cell sources: muscle satellite cells, which offer authentic myogenicity but limited expansion; pluripotent stem cells, which are effectively immortal but require directed differentiation; and mesenchymal, adipogenic, and fibro-adipogenic progenitors that supply fat and connective tissue. We then examine how myogenic and adipogenic commitment is controlled through growth-factor and small-molecule signalling, serum-free medium design, and co-culture strategies that recreate the multicellular composition of meat. We next survey biomaterial scaffolds—edible microcarriers, hydrogels, and decellularized plant matrices—that organize stem cells into anisotropic, perfusable, macroscale constructs, drawing on scaffold-design principles from regenerative medicine. Finally, we address bioreactor scale-up, medium cost, cell-line stability, and regulatory translation. We argue that cultured meat will advance fastest when cell source, differentiation protocol, and scaffold architecture are co-designed rather than optimized in isolation. Full article

Food safety culture (FSC) is a structured, measurable and enforceable element of the food industry, which is essential for building consumer trust and safeguarding consumer wellness. Regardless of the size of the organisation, FSC plays a pivotal role in safety and quality assurance and should be embedded in the company’s values and beliefs, ultimately manifesting in employee behaviours. FSC’s principal denominators encompass the fundamental principles of leadership, knowledge, engagement, environment, performance, and outcome. These principles collectively form a holistic framework that is pivotal for enhancing the efficacy and efficiency of safety initiatives in the food supply chain. FSC should be integrated into existing food safety standards, aligning with management systems and enjoying support and ownership at all levels and portfolios. Attaining a strong FSC requires commitment and active participation, not only from departments and sections directly involved with food handling, but also from administrative departments and branches. A non-conducive or weak culture, on the other hand, creates barriers to the achievement of safety goals and creates environments that may lead to product safety failures and non-conformances, with potential detrimental impacts on both consumer and business well-being. The absence of a specific culture constitutes a culture in itself, and, therefore, regular, valid, and reliable assessment is crucial for understanding the current state of FSC, without drawing generalised, superficial, or biased conclusions. In this study, the history and context of FSC are discussed, as well as narratives on assessment protocols and improvement initiatives. A trustworthy and ethical assessment is the first step in a three-phase process, involving assessment, alignment, and intervention to improve FSC, constituting various subcategories. The ultimate intent of this study is to provide turn-key solutions through presenting ideas, debating concepts and proposing interventions to guide and inform FSC improvement, culminating in safe and wholesome products. Full article

The reunification of scientific, artistic, and philosophical knowledge empowers us to rethink our relationship with nature in light of a biocultural ethic grounded in co-inhabitation among humans and other-than-human beings in shared habitats. To this end, the biocultural ethic is built upon the 3H model, which values the vital links among co-inhabitants and their life habits in shared habitats. The model integrates the biophysical, cultural, and sociopolitical dimensions characteristic of environmental complexity. In this essay, the 3H model is applied to rivers, examined from biological, philosophical, poetic, and legal perspectives. The result is not only to highlight that rivers are more than merely exploitable resources, but also to show that their “voice” raises a normative (ethical and legal) appeal that, among other aspects, has inspired the new Latin American constitutionalism. This ontological, epistemological, and ethical turn seeks to foster a transition from destruction and homogenization toward a bioculture that values biological and cultural diversity through renewed forms of co-inhabitation with rivers and the biosphere. Full article

The growing global demand for ethical, resource-efficient protein sources has renewed serious interest in cultured meat as a viable alternative to conventional livestock production. Two revolutionary biotechnological systems, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) reprogramming and CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome editing, when combined, offer unparalleled accuracy and scalability for the biofabrication of avian flesh. In this review, we present a comprehensive pipeline that involves the ectopic expression of Yamanaka factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc) to reprogram primary somatic cells derived from Gallus gallus into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This process is subsequently followed by targeted genome editing to enhance myogenic potential, growth efficiency, nutritional composition, and disease resistance. iPSCs are cultivated in a xeno-free bioreactor following genome editing, and subsequently directed to develop into myoblasts and mature myotubes. Three-dimensional tissue biofabrication is realized by combining biomaterial scaffolds and perfusion bioreactor systems, structuring an authentic muscle tissue matrix. These engineering platforms enable precise control over microenvironmental parameters, including oxygenation and nutrient perfusion. The resulting biofabricated poultry product is compositionally optimized, free of antibiotic residues, and exhibits a significantly reduced environmental footprint than poultry that is grown in the traditional way. This all-in-one solution solves important problems in food security, animal welfare, land use efficiency, and greenhouse gas emissions while also setting up a scalable biomanufacturing framework for making proteins for the next generation. Full article

This study examines staff and student experiences of an online sustainability induction module at an Australian university, exploring how such a module can contribute to whole-institution sustainability culture within a higher education institution (HEI). Using Sterling’s transformational framework, we analyse participant perceptions and reflections across module content spanning diverse SDGs, including Indigenous land management (SDG 15), ethical consumption (SDG 12), modern slavery (SDG 8), governance (SDG 16) and community engagement (SDG 17). Findings suggest how staff and students may experience the parallels between working across SDGs and learning about sustainable actions within personal, organisational, and community contexts of HEIs. While some participants appreciated the interconnectedness of sustainability challenges, they also highlighted difficulties associated with the breadth and complexity of addressing multiple SDGs within a single induction experience. This research advances understanding of how transition-oriented learning spaces that are situated between individual and institutional development and those involving affective, cognitive, and intentional dimensions of change can support HEIs in considering how to progress the 2030 Agenda. At the same time, it highlights pedagogical challenges in designing induction modules that integrate multiple SDGs in practice. Full article