By Jeffrey Grube, Senior Lecturer in Physics Education, King's College London
On Sunday November 23 1924, 100 years ago this month, readers perusing page six of the New York Times would have found an intriguing article, amid several large adverts for fur coats. The headline read: Finds Spiral Nebulae are Stellar Systems: “Dr Hubbell Confirms View That They Are ‘Island Universes’; Similar to Our Own”.
The American astronomer at the centre of the article, Dr…
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By Samuel J. White, Associate Professor & Head of Projects, York St John University
Philippe B. Wilson, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor: Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, York St John University
If you live in a city or near a busy road, it might not just be your lungs bearing the brunt of air pollution – your skin could be suffering too. A recent study has found a significant link between high levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and incidence of eczema – a chronic inflammatory skin condition marked by itching, redness and discomfort.
The research, conducted on more than 280,000 people across the US, revealed that people exposed to higher concentrations of PM2.5 were more than twice as likely…
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By Marcel Lukas, Senior Lecturer in Banking and Finance and Director of Executive Education, University of St Andrews
Ray Charles "Chuck" Howard, Associate Professor of Business Administration, University of Virginia
“One in three people would rather deep clean their bathroom – deep clean with rubber gloves and everything – rather than check their savings,” according to AJ Coyne, chief marketing officer at online bank Monzo. While this might sound like marketing hyperbole, it reflects a profound truth about our relationship with financial information: many of us actively avoid looking at our bank balances when we fear bad news.
This trait is so common…
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By John Pearce, Reader in Archaeology, King's College London
In the amphitheatre of Gladiator II, Ridley Scott trains his lens on fighters and emperors – but no account of ancient gladiators is complete without its devotees.
Eclipsing the modern superfan in adulation for their heroes, fans massed in the amphitheatre to see their favourites fight, taking on a mania with potential for disaster. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, in AD27 a…
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By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The Albanese government has rewritten the mandate of the Future Fund – the nation’s sovereign wealth fund – to urge it to direct investment into the “national priorities”
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By Dorje C. Brody, Professor of Mathematics, University of Surrey
The spectacular comeback of US president-elect Donald Trump has taken the world by surprise. No doubt people can point to various explanations for his election victory, but in my view, the science of information will pave the way towards deeper insights. Unless the Democrats – and their counterparts around the world – can develop a better understanding of how people receive and reject information, they will never fully understand what happened or successfully fight elections in the future.…
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By Julie Posetti, Global Director of Research, International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Professor of Journalism, City St George's, University of London
Kaylee Williams, PhD Candidate, Journalism and Online Harm, Columbia University
Mel Bunce, Professor of International Journalism, City St George's, University of London
Donald Trump’s second term promises to deliver historic threats to US press freedom – directly from the Oval Office.
The president-elect made it clear during the campaign that he had the press in his sights. He told a rally on the eve of the election that he “wouldn’t mind” if an assassin shot the journalists standing in front of him.
Ahead of the election, he also signalled his desire to jail…
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By Maria Nieto-Rosado, PhD student, University of Oxford
Katy Thomson, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Oxford
Kirsty Sands, Scientific Lead, Global Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance Research, University of Oxford
Timothy R Walsh, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of Oxford
Antimicrobial resistance happens when bacteria and other microbes that can cause infections gain the ability to resist treatment by antibiotics or other antimicrobial medicines.
Pneumonia, urinary tract infections and sepsis are some of the infections that are usually treated with antibiotics.
Newborn babies are particularly at risk from infections by antimicrobial resistant bacteria. This is because of their immature immune systems.
The risk to babies is greatest in low- and middle-income countries, where infections among newborns are 3…
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By Jill Horwitz, Professor of Law and Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles
Ellen P. Aprill, Professor of Tax Law Emerita, Loyola Law School Los Angeles
Rose Chan Loui, Founding Executive Director for the Lowell Milken Center on Philanthropy and Nonprofits, University of California, Los Angeles
OpenAI, the tech company that created the popular ChatGPT chatbot, is at a crossroads.
It began as a nonprofit dedicated to developing artificial intelligence systems smarter than humans. Since its founding, OpenAI has boasted that it was upholding its nonprofit goal – “to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity.”
Now, its…
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By Shannon Toll, Associate Professor of Indigenous Literatures, University of Dayton
Despite assumptions to the contrary, Tallchief showed that Indigenous people could not just exceed the standards of Western arts but also set new ones, writes a scholar of Indigenous cultures.
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