In this 20-year anniversary editorial of ephemera, we discuss independent publishing by situating it in a changing academic landscape – one scarred by despair but also leavened by hope. Twenty years ago, the goal of publishing an open access peer-reviewed journal was a radical political gesture in itself. Today, the model of open access publishing has been appropriated, hollowed out, and commodifi

This issue celebrates 20 years of ephemera. We, the editorial collective, feel this anniversary provides the opportunity to debate the pasts, presents and futures of critical publishing. Today, most academic journals are owned by commercial publishing houses and organized according to journal rankings and impact factors. Yet ephemera remains stubbornly independent of these global capitalist forces

The plastic industry is dependent on fossil fuels in various ways that result in strong “carbon lock-in” throughout the value chain and large and growing CO2 emissions. The industry must decarbonize to reach global net-zero pledges. Although a few initiatives have been launched, they primarily focus on plastic waste. Current research has investigated mitigation potential on different parts of the

To the best of our knowledge, "sweet mini bell" peppers have not been extensively investigated. In this study, we evaluated the bioaccessible phenolic compounds released during intestinal digestion and identified and quantified the microbial metabolites derived from phenolic compounds bioconversion during the in vitro colonic fermentation. A total of 66 phenolic compounds were determined. The resu

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this ser

An ambient pressure cell is described for conducting synchrotron-based x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements during atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes. The instrument is capable of true in situ and operando experiments in which it is possible to directly obtain elemental and chemical information from the sample surface using XPS as the deposition process is ongoing. The setup is

Borders have gone far beyond their traditional static function of merely demarcating nation-states. Alongside physical border barriers, such as walls and barbwire fences, new technologies driven by sophisticated legal innovations have contributed to the multiplicity of border controls. These legal techniques have turned the border into an individualised moving barrier, conceptualized as a “shiftin

Recent attempts to conceptualize the multi-level governance of transformative innovation policy make strong arguments in favour of pursuing societal challenges at the subnational scale. This article suggests, that these recent efforts risk falling into a scalar trap, because they rely on a theoretical assumption about the policy effectiveness of the subnational scale. In response, the paper propos

Gender-fair language planning aims to increase linguistic inclusion of underrepresented groups, for example by using paired pronouns (he/she) instead of generic masculine forms (he). However, using paired binary forms might evoke a normative gender bias where words lead to stronger associations to individuals with normative gender expressions than to individuals with non-normative gender expressio