An illustrious predecessor of Barack Obama once wrote: “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” But Thomas Jefferson didn’t have to live with today’s 24-hour…
Don’t mess with my hospital: merging hospitals and departments may not be such a winning formula.
PA/Lewis Whyld
Over the past decade there have been more than 100 hospital mergers in the UK. The reasons usually given when hospitals merge is that it saves money and leads to better quality of care. However, there…
Massive budget cuts leave Liverpool in a precarious position.
nataliejohnson
The coalition came to power in 2010 full of talk about ending the era of top down government and shifting power away from Westminster. The intervening years have given us one broken promise after another…
It’s time to mix up drug licensing.
Drug image via www.shutterstock.com
For the first time, preventive drugs are to be offered to women at risk of breast cancer under the NHS. The drugs, tamoxifen and raloxifene, were recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care…
What will future cities look like, how will they be built?
chiaralily/Flickr
The relationship between cities and sustainability has been rising up the international agenda over the past few decades. But the role of cities as centres of global economic development and their part…
Happy with out-of-date outfits, not so happy about out-of-date salaries.
Julien Behal/PA
George Osborne’s populist attack on public sector salaries made for just the headlines he wanted. He promised to end “automatic progression pay” in the civil service by 2015-16, and to work towards ending…
Marriage equality is one step closer in the US.
vpickering
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. The ruling allows the federal government to recognise same-sex marriage, granting gay couples…
Slave farm: Green Acres caravan park where people were forced to work for no pay.
Steve Parsons/PA Wire
When the recent textile factory disasters in Bangladesh revealed the conditions in which thousands of workers toil to bring the world cheap clothing, many of us decided we could do without some of the…
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) meets this week to begin hearing its most prominent case in years. It pits two heavyweights, Australia and Japan, against each other in a legal and political dispute…
We still don’t know what works when it comes to opening up universities.
In his spending review, Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts to the universities budget, targeted mainly at funding used to encourage students from under-represented groups to apply for university…
Vast areas were flattened by a meteorite in Tunguska in 1908.
Leonid Kulik
On the morning of June 30 in 1908, a gigantic fireball devastated hundreds of square kilometres of uninhabited Siberian forest around the Tunguska river. The first scientists to investigate the impact…
Osborne: coming after an extra £11.5bn from departmental expenditure.
PA
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science
The spending review is a strange beast. Invented by Gordon Brown, it would normally cover 3 to 4 years instead of a single year – but this one is aimed at 2015-16. Chancellor George Osborne’s 2010 Review…
Brace yourself, a new infection is on the prowl.
Ian Nicholson/PA
A new fungal infection may spell doom for LOLcats and cute puppies. Researchers have found a fungus that affects cats, dogs and humans with nasty consequences. Vanessa Barrs at the University of Sydney…
Just eat them, they’re good for you.
PA/Ben Birchall
Without vitamins in our diet we wouldn’t survive but taking too many can be harmful. There’s a limit to how much we actually need. However, since the discovery of vitamins - or “vital amines” as they were…
Everyone seems to prefer a big punch up.
Flickr/Peacay
It’s a traditional part of the theatre of health policy for trade unionists to give secretaries of state for health a hard time. The latest example of this was the vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt…
Perhaps it is a matter of culture, possibly it is something to do with indifference, but sporting mega-events appear to be considerably less popular in Brazil than in the UK. Whereas a majority of the…
Coral are among the sea organisms susceptible to small changes in acidity.
NOAA/David Burdick
As a scientist working on the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems, one of my duties is to communicate my work. My main goal is to convince students, citizens, economists and politicians that…
Round of golf after lunch, chaps? The 9th Aircraft Engineering Research Conference, 1934.
NASA
Even today there are few women graduate students and even fewer women academics, especially in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and maths). Why is this the case, even in 2013, and what…
Alcatraz has shut, but many more prisons have opened since in the US.
Shobe834/Flickr
It appears that Britain is following the United States in its addiction to the use of prison terms. The USA has led the way in the penal arms race with the introduction of such measures as “three strikes…
Kate Garraway: a successful older mum.
PA/Cathal McNaughton
The Get Britain Fertile “campaign”, funded by a pregnancy testing company and fronted by television presenter Kate Garraway, aims to get women to think about having children when they’re younger. But later…
Made in Brazil, used in Turkey: a teargas canister.
Özlem Gürses
A protest against the destruction of green space in central Istanbul escalates to national protests against a remote, desecularising political leader; public transport fares in Brazil lead to a national…
The molecule that causes the eel to glow when blue light is shone on it is unlike any found in other living organisms.
Akiko Kumagai & Atsushi Miyawaki
Luc Henry, EPFL – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Researchers have discovered a fluorescent protein in a Japanese eel consumed as a popular sushi snack. The discovery could help develop simpler and more sensitive tests to detect jaundice and other diseases…
The Baltic Sea is choked by algal blooms.
Jeff Schmaltz/NASA
Sea-life needs oxygen to breathe just as animals on land do, and when oxygen levels in ocean water begin to fall sea creatures can suffocate just as we would. The result is often large expanses of ocean…
Single parents are being left to their own devices.
Flickr/stephanski
In most countries children in lone parent families are at increased risk of experiencing poverty. In 2011, the proportion of lone parents below the poverty line in EU countries reached 33.5%, compared…
The former Italian PM is also fighting a tax conviction.
Christophe Simon/AFP
The sentencing of Silvio Berlusconi to seven years in prison and a life-time ban from public office for sex with an under-age prostitute and abuse of office is a major setback for the former prime minister…