Parthbhatt/shutterstock.com Water scarcity is among the top five global risks affecting people’s wellbeing. In water-scarce areas, the situation is grim. Conventional sources like snowfall, rainfall, river runoff and easily accessible groundwater are being affected by climate change, and supplies are shrinking as demand grows. In these countries, water is aContinue Reading
Is it true that the British variant is 30% more deadly? Halfpoint/Shutterstock One certainty during a pandemic is that the virus will mutate. SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is no different. But how concerned should we be about the new variants of the virus that are arising in places such asContinue Reading
Tom Tom/Shutterstock It’s a blustery October night in 1841, and though Liverpool is sleeping, Mrs Bates is very much awake. Before her, shining brightly at the foot of her bed, is an “open vision” of her friend Elizabeth Morgan, “standing in full view before her, clothed in robes beautiful andContinue Reading
Pipebots will inspect the walls for cracks. Human Studio, Author provided Hidden from sight, under the UK’s roads, buildings and parks, lies about one million kilometres of pipes. Maintaining and repairing these pipes require about 1.5 million road excavations a year, which causes either full or partial road closures. TheseContinue Reading
As Vice President Kamala Harris settles into her first full week in the White House, thousands are heading online to celebrate her groundbreaking achievement. Unfortunately, thousands more are flooding social media with sexualised, transphobic, and racist posts which continue to highlight the particular abuse faced by female politicians online. MyContinue Reading
Various types of astronaut assistant are in development. Michal Bednarek/shutterstock.com Artificial intelligence has been making waves in recent years, enabling us to solve problems faster than traditional computing could ever allow. Recently, for example, Google’s artificial intelligence subsidiary DeepMind developed AlphaFold2, a program which solved the protein-folding problem. This isContinue Reading
Whale sharks are the ocean's biggest fish. jjsupasit srisawthsak/shutterstock.com The biggest fish in the ocean, whale sharks, are incredible animals. They can reach lengths of over 18 metres and weigh more than 19,000kg. Each shark has a unique pattern of spots on its body, like a fingerprint. The number ofContinue Reading
Dinosaur fossils have always amazed with their horns and spikes, enchanting us with elongated necks and foot-long teeth. But less attention has been paid to the dinosaur derriere – for reasons of taste, maybe, but also because it’s difficult to find a well-preserved bottom in the fossil record of ourContinue Reading
Spitting cobras use their venom for defence. Stu Porter/shutterstock.com Cobras are fascinating and frightening creatures. These snakes are most well known for their characteristic defence mechanism called hooding, when the sides of their neck flare out in a dramatic display. However, hooding isn’t the only defensive behaviour in a cobra’sContinue Reading
Memory declines with age. Robert Kneschke/Shutterstock The ageing global population is the greatest challenge faced by 21st-century healthcare systems. Even COVID-19 is, in a sense, a disease of ageing. The risk of death from the virus roughly doubles for every nine years of life, a pattern that is almost identicalContinue Reading
