Science (Page 224)

Centenarian buddies in Sardinia. Sabino Parente/Shutterstock A 35-year-old man only has a 1.5% chance of dying in the next ten years. But the same man at 75 has a 45% chance of dying before he reaches 85. Clearly, ageing is bad for our health. On the bright side, we haveContinue Reading

Lachlan Ross / pexels , CC BY-SA Humans have amazing fingertips. They are sensitive and can be moved over objects to feel its softness, texture, size and shape. These movements are both complex, and “task-specific”. This means that you adopt different movements depending on what you want to feel aboutContinue Reading

Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock The grim prospect of COVID-19 stay-at-home orders is back in the news, with a number of European countries having either introduced new restrictions or reimposed full lockdowns amid rising cases. These developments inevitably raise questions around how we can best shape public health policy to reduce virus transmission.Continue Reading

panelsshutterstock Billions of solar panels globally will soon come to the end of their lives, but when they get thrown away, essential materials that are needed to make future panels are being wasted. It is estimated that there will be 78 million tonnes of total waste by 2050]. This isContinue Reading

Sq lim / Unsplash, CC BY-SA On the face of it, a recently launched TV channel dedicated to dogs seems, well, barking mad. But our pets often spend long periods of time home alone, and providing some form of enrichment and stimulation can be very beneficial to dogs and theirContinue Reading

Author provided We’ve been hearing a lot recently about the metaverse – a vision for the internet which uses technology like virtual and augmented reality to integrate real and digital worlds. With Facebook changing its name to Meta to focus on this space, and other big tech companies like MicrosoftContinue Reading

Prostock-studio/Shutterstock The NHS has been struggling for years with chronic underfunding and staff shortages. COVID has only made matters worse. Health Secretary Sajid Javid is now warning that NHS waiting lists for non-emergency operations and procedures could grow to 13 million up from 5.3 million in July 2021 while increasingContinue Reading

Pexels/victor freitas It’s human instinct to avoid suffering and try to make life as comfortable and easy as possible. But paradoxically, a great deal of research has shown that suffering and trauma can have positive long-term effects. Many people who go through intense trauma, for example, become deeper and strongerContinue Reading