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…
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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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
Malaria hits rural dwellers in poor countries the hardest. Those bitten by the wrong mosquito often do not know for many days that they have contracted malaria. Some have little or no access to doctors…
Breastfeeding children boosts their chances of climbing up the social ladder – and makes it less likely they’ll slip back down. The number of new mothers attempting to breastfeed has fallen in England…
The latest political crisis in Greece began with a spat over the future of public tv and radio. The fragile political consensus among the three-way government coalition was finally broken with one party…
The recent Supreme Court decision to allow families of British personnel killed in Iraq to sue the government for negligence set up a barrage of cries about the judgment making it impossible for our armed…
Foundation essay: This article on food waste by Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University London, is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the UK. Our foundation essays…
More and more women are requesting surgery to replace their hymens, in an effort to “fake” virginity. But virginity is a psychological state, and a hymen is no reliable indicator it exists. The idea of…
In our everyday lives we constantly compare things. We care about whether we are better or worse off than others around us, or than we were in the past. Why we do this has long puzzled scientists, because…
When police officers - Campus Officers - were first assigned to Scotland’s schools, many people were sceptical, even hostile, to the idea. But more than a decade later, a research project has found that…