The Open University is a world leader in modern distance learning, the pioneer of teaching and learning methods which enable people to achieve their career and life goals studying at times and in places to suit them.
A bizarre one-off exhibition in Moscow was recently announced to celebrate Vladimir Putin’s birthday. An anonymous group of artists contributed paintings depicting the president as the Greek hero Heracles…
The Trojan Horse extremism affair that hit a group of Birmingham schools this summer and the ongoing inquiries into it, have raised suspicions among Muslim parents, teachers, and pupils in the UK. News…
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has renewed debate about the effectiveness of health systems and how best to support collective regional action. Having comprehensive, accessible and sustainable systems…
To understand where we are, we must remember where we’ve been. This is one central theme that emerges from the work of new Nobel laureates John O’Keefe and May-Britt and Edvard Moser, whose neuroscientific…
Police play a proverbial cat-and-mouse game with those they pursue, but also with the technology of the day they use. This game of one-upmanship, of measure and countermeasure, sees one or the other side…
The debate about how to build a sound, sustainable system of governance for English schools out of the disarray that the coalition government will bequeath to its successor is gaining momentum. The present…
In recent weeks, the Kurdish town of Kobanê on the Turkey-Syria border has become centre stage in the struggle against IS (Islamic State). The latest round of attacks on the town and its surrounding areas…
World Space Week is one of a series of events co-ordinated by the UN to celebrate the global nature of space exploration. It was established in 1999. Why is it organised this particular week? Because October…
Have you ever ordered too many items online – say, buying 20 courgettes when you meant two? Then you might feel a little sorry for the anonymous broker in Japan who lost US$617 billion to a trading typo…
The news that the British housing market may have reached a turning point, with one forecast showing a price fall in 2015 and a drop in London prices for the first time in three years, will have been welcome…
This year’s Nobel Prize in medicine recognises work on “cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.” Those cells are found in the hippocampus. It is just one tiny part of the brain, but this…
In many ways it’s incredible that in 2014 there is still a debate about whether teachers should be qualified or not. Imagine deliberating similar issues about your lawyer, your doctor or your surgeon…
Hippocrates is considered the father of medicine, enemy of superstition, pioneer of rationality and fount of eternal wisdom. Statues and drawings show him with a furrowed brow, thinking hard about how…
It’s interesting to see the storm of pique and indignation Apple’s watch has generated. Some critics have dismissed it as nothing more than a fashion accessory. Even the BBC, that staid bastion of technical…
With a joint population of 1.6 billion, the South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are home to nearly one quarter of the world’s population. It is the most…
Think of a university, any university. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Yale may spring to mind. Or your local university, or the one you or someone you know attended. I’m fairly sure that the University…
Two initiatives aimed at getting children to learn and read more have just launched with a flourish. The $15m Global Learning Xprize pits teams of innovators across the world in a competition aiming to…
A first and quite reasonable thought readers may have will be to wonder: what is bash? When you use a computer you probably interact with it through a point-and-click, visual interface such as Windows…
“Are we there yet?” is a plaintive query that most parents learn to dread, especially if uttered while halted in a traffic jam in the baking hot sun. At least the Rosetta spacecraft has not had to deal…
With instability plaguing the Middle East since the emergence of Islamic State (IS), Iran is once again faced with spiralling instability and Western military interventions just across its border. It also…