Every cactus in Europe can ultimately trace its origins back to plants or seeds taken from the Americas. And some of these plants left their original homes in dubious circumstances, taken from the wild and smuggled across the Atlantic by adventurous “cactus hunters”.

UCL lecturer Jared Margulies has spent the past decade researching the illegal cactus trade, which is a bigger deal than you might expect. After four men were recently arrested in Brazil and accused of smuggling rare cacti – charges they deny – Margulies writes about the thorny ethics of cactus collecting and why some argue that collecting rare plants will help to conserve them.

Since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine hundreds of thousands of families have been separated, either within the country or across international borders. Irina Kuznetsova, a migration and displacement expert at the University of Birmingham, looks at why reunifying these families is so hard.

The UK government has introduced plans to ban conversion “therapy” aimed at people wanting to change their gender identity or sexual orientation. Human rights law professor Ilias Trispiotis of the University of Leeds assesses the draft bill.