By Paulo Sérgio Bernarde, Professor titular, Campus Floresta, Universidade Federal do Acre (UFAC)
A snake bite in a remote area of the Amazon can literally be a matter of life and death. Amazon+10 Initiative study collects snakes to improve the serums available in the region
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By Alper Kara, Professor of Banking and Finance, Brunel University London
The UK banking regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), finds itself in a public row with the government and many City grandees over its proposals to name and shame firms that are being investigated for breaking financial rules. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called on the FCA to scrap its plans, putting the regulator in the uncomfortable position of having to either climb down or double down.
We asked Professor Alper Kara, a banking specialist at Brunel University, to explain…
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By Or Graur, Associate Professor of Astrophysics, University of Portsmouth
What did our ancestors think when they looked up at the night sky? All cultures ascribed special meaning to the Sun and the Moon, but what about the pearly band of light and shadow we call the Milky Way?
My recent study showed an intriguing link between an Egyptian goddess and the Milky Way.
Slowly, scholars are putting together a picture of Egyptian astronomy. The god Sah has been linked to stars in the Orion constellation, while the goddess Sopdet has been linked to the star Sirius.…
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By Richard Machin, Senior Lecturer, Social Work and Health, Nottingham Trent University
The UK government is proposing major changes to the benefits system, in response to the increase in people claiming benefits for disability and ill health. The proposals, which will be consulted on in the coming months, focus mainly on replacing the personal independence payment (Pip).
Pip is a working-age benefit to help disabled people with the additional…
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By Costas Velis, Lecturer in Resource Efficiency Systems, University of Leeds
An international agreement to end plastic pollution is due to be sealed this year in Busan, South Korea. At the penultimate round of negotiations, held in Ottawa, Canada, Rwanda and Peru proposed a target to cut the weight of primary plastics produced worldwide by 40% by 2040, compared with 2025.
This is the first time that a limit on the production of plastic has been considered at the UN talks aiming to develop an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution.…
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By Adam Taylor, Professor and Director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Centre, Lancaster University
Changes in personality following a heart transplant have been noted pretty much ever since transplants began. In one case, a person who hated classical music developed a passion for the genre after receiving a musician’s heart. The recipient later died holding a violin case.
In another case, a 45-year-old man remarked how, since…
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By Richard Thompson, Professor of Marine Biology, University of Plymouth
Since coining the term microplastics 20 years ago on May 7 2004, Richard Thompson reflects on the progress being made to halt plastic pollution.
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By Colin Diamond, Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Birmingham
In April 2024 the Department for Education announced that there were “no plans” to change single-word Ofsted judgments. These give schools inspected by the education standards regulator an overall rating of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
In doing so, the government has decided to ignore a consensus of heavyweight opinion in favour of abolishing single-word judgments. These include the House of Commons Education Committee,…
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By Bert van den Berg, Lecturer in Classical Languages and Culture, Leiden University
Plato of Athens (429-347BC) may be one of the most famous philosophers of all times. He was the thinker who came up with the “theory of forms” and founded the first academic institution. Yet we know little about his life, such as how he died, or where he might be buried, even.
But spectacular new recent research on papyri from Herculaneum by The Greek Philosophical Schools-project in Italy has provided new answers to those questions.
Carbonised papyrus…
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By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University
The last time Labour won Blackpool South, the party won 270 other constituencies. It was 1997 and Labour took 179 more than all other parties combined. Tony Blair walked down a flag-festooned Downing Street later that sunny May day.
The debate about whether Britain is approaching a 1992 knife-edge election, where a surprisingly resilient Conservative government retains office, or a 1997-style landslide in which it is humiliated, increasingly seems like being resolved.
Like Blackpool Tower, the constituency of Blackpool South stayed red for a long time after 1997. That was…
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