Scientists have found wolf remains, thousands of years old, on a small, isolated island in the Baltic Sea – a place where the animals could only have been brought by humans.  

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of East Anglia, Francis Crick Institute, Stockholm University and the University of Aberdeen, suggests that grey wolves may have been managed or controlled by prehistoric societies.  

The discovery of the 3,000–5,000-year-old wolf remains was made in the Stora Förvar cave on the Swedish island of Stora Karlsö, a site known for its intensive use by seal hunters and fishers during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.  

mage: A fragment of some of the wolf remains discovered

The island, which covers only 2.5 square kilometres, has no native land mammals, meaning that any such animals must have been brought there by people.  

Bone analysis

Genomic analysis of two canid remains confirmed they were wolves, not dogs, with no evidence of dog ancestry. However, they exhibited several traits typically associated with life alongside humans.  

Isotope analysis of their bones revealed a diet rich in marine protein, such as seals and fish, aligning with the diet of the humans on the island and suggesting they were provisioned. Furthermore, the wolves were smaller than typical mainland wolves, and one individual showed signs of low genetic diversity, a common result of isolation or controlled breeding.  

Dr Anders Bergström of UEA’s School of Biological Sciences and co-lead author, said: “The genetic data is fascinating. We found that the wolf with the most complete genome had low genetic diversity, lower than any other ancient wolf we’ve seen.  

”This is similar to what you see in isolated or bottlenecked populations, or in domesticated organisms. While we can’t rule out that these wolves had low genetic diversity for natural reasons, it suggests that humans were interacting with and managing wolves in ways we hadn’t previously considered.”  

Living alongside humans

“The discovery of these wolves on a remote island is completely unexpected,” said Dr Linus Girdland-Flink of the University of Aberdeen, a lead author of the study. “Not only did they have ancestry indistinguishable from other Eurasian wolves, but they seemed to be living alongside humans, eating their food, and in a place they could have only have reached by boat. This paints a complex picture of the relationship between humans and wolves in the past.”  

The finding challenges the conventional understanding of wolf-human dynamics and the process of dog domestication. While it remains unclear if these wolves were tamed, kept in captivity, or managed in some other way, their presence in a human-occupied, isolated environment points to a deliberate and sustained interaction.  

“It was a complete surprise to see that it was a wolf and not a dog,” said Pontus Skoglund of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute and senior author. “This is a provocative case that raises the possibility that in certain environments, humans were able to keep wolves in their settlements, and found value in doing so.”  

One of the wolf specimens, dated to the Bronze Age, also showed evidence of injury in a limb bone, which would have limited its mobility. This suggests it may have been cared for or was able to survive in an environment where it did not need to hunt large prey.  

Unexpected perspectives

The combination of osteology and genetic analyses have provided unique information not available separately.  

“The combination of data has revealed new and very unexpected perspectives on Stone Age and Bronze Age human-animal interactions in general and specifically concerning wolves and also dogs,” added Jan Storå, Professor of Osteoarchaeology at Stockholm University.    

The study suggests that human-wolf interactions in prehistory were more diverse than previously thought, extending beyond simple hunting or avoidance to include complex relations and interactions that, in this case, mirrors new aspects of domestication without leading to the canines we know as dogs today.  

‘Gray wolves in an anthropogenic context on a small island in prehistoric Scandinavia’ is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 24. 

The University of East Anglia (UEA) will once again be hosting free Christmas lectures for children on campus, with this year’s theme inviting families to explore the magic and mystery of the brain.

On Saturday 13 December, Prof Louis Renoult and Dr Martin Doherty from UEA’s School of Psychology will lead “Jingle all the Brain: Seeing is Believing?” – an interactive lecture exploring how our brains interpret memories and illusions through a Christmas lens.

Families can choose from two sessions (10am or midday), both hosted in Lecture Theatre 1 on the UEA campus. While recommended for children aged seven to 11, these lectures are open to all and will include a pop-up shop by Norwich Children’s Book Centre, as well as the chance to meet Father Christmas himself.

Tanner Barnes, UEA’s Public Events and Engagement Manager, said: “This annual event is a hallmark of the holiday season at UEA, a special opportunity to welcome families from the community to campus to experience a university lecture… with a festive twist.”

Learn more about the lecture from Prof Renoult and Dr Doherty, or book your tickets.

Professor Gemma Stacey, Associate Dean of Practice in the School of Social Sciences, explores whether current approaches to resilience in healthcare are addressing the wrong problem.

By Professor Gemma Stacey

Picture this: a newly qualified nurse sits in yet another mandatory resilience training session. The message is clear: develop better coping strategies, build resilience. At the same time, this nurse is working 12-hour shifts on an understaffed ward, navigating complex hierarchies where speaking up feels risky, and constantly managing the gap between the compassionate care they want to deliver and what the system actually allows. But apparently, the problem is a lack of resilience.

This scenario plays out across healthcare systems worldwide. The prevailing narrative is remarkably consistent: students and early career nurses lack the resilience needed for the demands of modern healthcare. Younger generations cannot cope with the pressures. Current training is too academic and doesn’t equip professionals for the “real world”. Poor resilience, we’re told, drives the international nursing workforce crisis.

But what if we’ve been asking entirely the wrong questions?

The rules of a game nobody explains

Research I conducted between 2010 and 2016 revealed a completely different scenario. Early career professionals weren’t lacking resilience; they were navigating extraordinarily sophisticated identity work within complex organisational contexts. They had to appear confident enough to seem competent, but not so confident as to appear arrogant. They needed to publicly engage in fundamental care whilst privately strategising about accessing the learning opportunities required to demonstrate competence. They had to be critical thinkers, but not so critical that they appeared challenging.

These weren’t deficit behaviours. They were survival strategies for an elaborate game with unwritten rules.

This led to my first “what if” question: What if we designed an educational forum that explicitly acknowledged this complexity and gave early career professionals permission to reflect on and gain support for navigating it?

From evidence to action

The answer became Resilience-Based Clinical Supervision, co-produced with students, early career healthcare professionals, clinical supervision experts and compassion-focused therapists. Our case study research demonstrated how this structured, group-based reflective discussion influenced care towards both self and others among student nurses.

Between January 2020 and August 2025, over 1,700 people completed champion programmes through partnerships with the Foundation of Nursing Studies, spreading across the UK and internationally to Australia, Canada, and parts of Africa. What changed when organisations implemented it? Workplace rituals shifted. Teams incorporated mindfulness. Professionals felt able to share challenges with managers rather than hiding struggles.

The evaluation revealed something important: there was never a deficit of resilience in individuals. There was a deficit of enabling organisational cultures. Moreover, individual interventions, however effective, cannot transform entire systems without addressing organisational and cultural factors.

The leadership paradox

This prompted another question: If leadership is the dominant influence on organisational culture, what if we deliberately designed leadership programmes to develop the capabilities needed to create compassionate and safe cultures of care?

As Deputy Chief Executive of the Florence Nightingale Foundation, I had the opportunity to test this theory. We transformed the organisation from supporting 337 professionals in 2019/20 to creating a networked community of 250,000 nurses and midwives worldwide by 2022/23. Through rigorous realist evaluation, we identified core confidence as the central mechanism driving transformational leadership development. Developing this required significant personal reflection to understand and unpick the professional armour leaders had developed to survive the demands of the system.

We’d come full circle. The “lack of resilience” was actually a rational response to systems that undermined confidence rather than building it.

When the solution becomes the problem

We frequently heard that leaders were navigating structures designed to ensure safety, but which actually constrained the very things (trust, autonomous practice, genuine improvement) that create resilient organisations.

My recent integrative review supports this regulatory paradox. The more organisations try to control through preventative measures and oversight, the less they enable the trust and autonomous practice that resilient systems require. Staff become focused on compliance rather than care, on protecting themselves from blame rather than innovating solutions.

Before we rush to add more rules, more training requirements, more mandatory interventions, we should pause to ask: whose needs are really being met? Are we creating systems that enable the kind of healthcare we want, or systems that meet our own need to feel we’re doing something?

Thinking again about what we think we know

Twenty-first century healthcare operates in what business scholars call a VUCA world: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Yet our response often reaches for simple solutions: more resilience training, stricter oversight, clearer protocols.

My research points toward the same conclusion: lasting change requires addressing structural barriers rather than individual deficits.

The nursing workforce crisis is real. The pressures are immense. But the solution isn’t making individuals more resilient to broken systems. It’s creating systems capable of sustaining the humans within them.

Professor Gemma Stacey is the Associate Dean of Practice in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University.

*This blog is based on Professor Stacey’s Inaugural Lecture “Reframing and reclaiming resilience for a sustainable healthcare system”, delivered at NTU in Nottingham in November 2025.

Dr Emma Ross, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at The Well HQ, has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Cardiff Metropolitan University today (Friday 21 November 2025).

A science communicator at heart, Emma has been a driving force in advancing female health in women’s sport for over 20 years, and founded The Well HQ in 2021 – an organisation on a mission to empower women in sport and help improve understanding around how female specific factors affect performance.

Emma spent the first ten years of her career teaching physiology to sports science, physiotherapy and medical students at Brunel and Brighton universities and went on to become Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport – leading sports scientists and supporting Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

A Cardiff Met alumna, Emma holds a first-class degree in sports science, a master’s in sport and exercise physiology and a PhD in exercise neurophysiology. She has published over 30 scientific publications in sport and exercise science and was awarded The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Changemaker Award in 2021.

On receiving the Honorary Doctorate from Cardiff Metropolitan University, Emma said: “It is a real privilege to receive this honorary award from Cardiff Met, a university that holds a special place in my heart, not just for the part it played in nurturing my interest in sports science, but also because whilst here, I was part of the rugby team who played at Twickenham to win the, then named, BUSA championship – very special, and indelible memories.

“It has been brilliant to reconnect with the sports science and coaching staff here in more recent years, as Cardiff became an early adopter of driving real change in optimising support of female athletes.”

Since 2023, Emma, alongside the team at The Well HQ, has worked in partnership with Cardiff Met supporting the University’s ArcHER programme – which is improving women’s experience in sport by equipping its students and workforce with a better understanding of the female body. Emma and her team have delivered workshops and sessions to elite student athletes.

Ben O’Connell, Director of Sport at Cardiff Metropolitan University said: “Emma has been an integral part of our ArcHER programme and its journey. Inspired by the work of The Well HQ, she has played a pivotal role in guiding and shaping our practice, while championing our commitment to creating lasting change for female student-athletes. Through her inspirational talks and workshops at ArcHER events, Emma has empowered our community and strengthened our mission – and it remains a real highlight for us to have her as such a passionate advocate for ArcHER.

“It is a great honour to present Emma with an Honorary Doctorate, and we look forward to continuing our work together in the future.”

During the graduation ceremony at Wales Millennium Centre, Emma gave advice to students from the School of Sport and Health Sciences: “Be brave, whether it is in the conversations you have, or the decisions you make. But remember, you can’t be comfortable and courageous at the same time – so choose to be bold, to challenge the status quo and pursue a life that brings you joy – that’s not always easy, but it is so worth it.”

This week, hundreds of students from Cardiff Metropolitan University’s five academic schools will graduate at the Wales Millennium Centre, receiving awards for a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

Over 700 students will attend the November Graduation Ceremonies, held over two days from Thursday 20 – Friday 21 November 2025.

President and Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff Metropolitan University, Professor Rachael Langford said: “Graduation is one of the highlights of the academic year and an opportunity for staff to celebrate our graduands’ success together with families and friends of all those graduating. We send our warmest wishes to this year’s students as they move forward into the next stage of their journeys.”

For further information on Graduation Week, please visit the Cardiff Metropolitan website.