Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock The UK government’s announcement that it had rejoined the European Union’s Horizon Europe science funding programme was cause for celebration among researchers in Britain and across Europe. But what will the terms of the deal – and the long time the UK was out of the programmeContinue Reading
Rhesus macaques are known for harassing people in cities. Wirestock Creators/Shutterstock The hosts of this year’s G20 summit in New Delhi, India, face a unique challenge: keeping monkeys from interfering with the event. The area’s rhesus macaques are bold and curious, but can be aggressive. The municipal council’s strategy isContinue Reading
If you’ve ever been scammed, perhaps you resolved to never allow someone to take you for a fool again. But research shows not everyone reacts this way and in fact some fraud victims go into denial. This might help explain why the founder of the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival (aContinue Reading
Frank Romeo/Shutterstock Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University in the US, has published a press release claiming that some of the 700 or so spherical metallic fragments (spherules) he recovered from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Papua New Guinea, are from beyond theContinue Reading
AngelaLouwe/Shutterstock Ever since their colonisation of British cities sometime during the last century, urban red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. Some people love them for their striking marmalade coats but others, including former prime minister Boris Johnson, think of them as a menace. In recentContinue Reading
Ratchat/Shutterstock Women often report that they are not listened to or given choices about what happens during their own labour. But studies have long shown that feeling heard and having choice during childbirth enhances women’s wellbeing. These findings led to changes in NHS policy and guidelines beginning with the landmarkContinue Reading
From the early days of human space activity in the 1960s, missions to the Moon have attracted significant global attention. India’s recent success in landing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the Moon was technically demanding and occurred in a previously unexplored part of the Moon. As well as the scientific benefits,Continue Reading
Gino Gallucci/Shutterstock When London faced the bubonic plague in 1665, many people desperately sought a way to protect themselves and their loved ones from getting sick. One widely adopted method consisted of mixing two small cloves of garlic in a pint of fresh milk. People believed that drinking this cocktailContinue Reading
Evolf / Shutterstock In a recent post, the owner of X, (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk, announced his plans for the social media platform to remove its blocking feature, except for in direct messages. Users are concerned that this change in the platform’s content moderation will lead to a rise inContinue Reading
shutterstock Bad data does not only produce bad outcomes. It can also help to suppress sections of society, for instance vulnerable women and minorities. This is the argument of my new book on the relationship between various forms of racism and sexism and artificial intelligence (AI). The problem is acute.Continue Reading
