Radioactivity is dramatic. You can’t smell it, taste it, or see it. You may be powerless to avoid it. Nuclear history is a story of dramatic contrasts, of hope and tragedy. Worldwide excitement over Marie…
Adam Kucharski, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
During the autumn of 1944, the US Air Corps forecasting team made a series of perfect predictions about weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean. Or so it seemed according to reports from aircrafts flying…
Police activity close to the scene where a man was murdered in John Wilson Street, Woolwich.
PA/Nick Ansell
While the full details of the awful events in Woolwich remain unclear, the attack has already revived heated debates about the risk of terror at home. When building a profile of someone who allegedly commits…
Time to start building, George.
Lefteris Pitarakis/PA
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science
The International Monetary Fund’s annual investigation into the health of the UK economy makes ugly reading. The IMF points out that “per capita income remains 6% below its pre-crisis peak, making this…
Speed is not enough, we need growth.
Gareth Fuller/PA
The International Monetary Fund’s annual report on the UK economy calls for the Chancellor to boost economic growth through investing in infrastructure. While the IMF is right to make this point, we must…
Long-term let: David Cameron has led his party for a year longer than the average Tory leader.
Crown Copyright
David Cameron has so far managed seven and a half years as leader of the Conservative Party. The average tenure for a modern British party leader is six and a half. If you look beyond Margaret Thatcher…
After many months of rumours, speculation and discussion on the next offering of Microsoft’s gaming console, details of the new Xbox have finally been revealed. Christened Xbox One, it is to be their third…
The real problem in care for the elderly is not so much about protection from costs as eligibility for council help.
PA/John Stillwell
Despite a big overhaul in the way care for the elderly will be funded, there are still fears that it isn’t enough and we’re surely “heading towards disaster”. The government is keen to emphasise the importance…
Sunrise at Sellafield: could thorium-powered reactors be a new dawn for nuclear energy?
Phil Noble/PA Archive/Press Association Images
The only source of energy that can meet global demand while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions is nuclear power. But our perception of nuclear power is coloured by issues of safety, radiotoxic waste, and…
Prescriptions for pain relief are easy to get in the UK but not if you live in certain countries.
PA/Julien Behal
Ten percent of the world consumes 90% of the morphine. At first glance that’s just another statistic about haves and have nots. But it’s more stark than that - particularly if you have cancer in a country…
The roots of Germany’s anti-nuclear stance go back many decades, and are stronger than ever today.
Memkaos/Flickr
Erik Gawel, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and Sebastian Strunz, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was hit by a tsunami in March 2011, the disaster had a profound effect on German energy policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel reasoned that “Fukushima…
Speedy and decisive action is needed from the government to ensure our future energy security.
Flickr/Cayusa
Our nuclear reactors have reached the end of their lives, North Sea oil is running out, coal is dirty: Britain faces an energy crisis of rising demand and falling supply. In our Nuclear Futures series…
You and whose army: the West is concerned that any military aid goes to the right rebel factions.
FreedomHouse2 via Creative Commons
This week we learnt Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon are no longer under cover in Syria, they are actively fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad. They are perhaps emboldened by Israel’s attacks…
Japanese women: needed in the workforce.
Byron Villegas
Janet Hunter, London School of Economics and Political Science
Amid the doom and gloom of recent world economic reports, Japan has provided a rare source of good news. In the first quarter of the year, its economy grew by 0.9%, indicating an annual growth rate of…
UKIP’s policies on climate change have played fast and loose with the facts.
Nick Ansell/PA Wire
The surge of support for UKIP at the local council elections this month suggests Britain, or at least some of it, is experiencing a lurch to the right. The party’s rag-bag of populist policies, described…
GPs and hospitals aren’t incentivised to properly manage demand, which has contributed to the crisis in Accident & Emergency.
PA/Stephen Kelly
Our increasing use of hospital services is out of control and unsustainable and is contributing to the current crisis in accident and emergency (A&E). But the problem isn’t new and 30 years of NHS…
Holy writ: the Scottish church is moving faster on gay issues than the established Church of England.
Glasgow Amateur via Creative Commons
Sexuality and faith has been deeply divisive in both England and Scotland exposing deep rifts in David Cameron’s Conservatives in the House of Commons and among Scottish clergy in the General Assembly…
The bedroom tax will make life more difficult for home-based workers in social housing.
Frances Holliss
The government intends the much-debated bedroom tax to encourage social tenants to leave properties that are too large for them. Opponents say it intrudes into the personal lives of some of Britain’s most…
Hopefully this will remain a rare sight.
Edgaras Zvirblys
There was chaos on the streets of Halajba in March 1988. In this corner of Iraq, at the time Iraqi Kurdistan, people had suddenly started experiencing cold-like symptoms – tight chest and nasal congestion…
Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy has sparked a series of reports about preventative surgery.
PA/Alastair Grant
Following Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie’s revelation last week that she’d undergone a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer, it has emerged that a 53-year-old man had his prostate removed after…
In, out, in, out, shake it all about: debate over EU membership is coming to a head within the Conservative Party.
Rock Cohen via Creative Commons
Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech in 1990, in which he cited differences with his prime minister over Europe, is generally credited with precipitating the fall of Margaret Thatcher. Now the Tory grandee…
Shell and BP in less competitive times.
flikr/recursion_see_recursion
When most of us think of cartels, we think of Colombian drug gangs rather than multi-national businesses. But not any more; if European regulators are to be believed, a cartel has been operating much closer…
Sufferers of internet disorder might find it starts to impose on real life, such as causing difficulties in socialising.
Flickr/Fle
Since it was first published in 1952, the DSM has been the has been the diagnostic bible for many psychiatrists. Each time the manual is updated, new conditions are introduced, often amid much controversy…
Leading biologists argue the world must embrace GM plants.
Will de Freitas
Today’s wars are not about food, but not too far in the future they could be. The number of people dying of starvation has been falling for decades, but the decline in the numbers of hungry people is slowing…
Sometimes even the clearest signs of change are ignored.
Flickr/baldeaglebluff
When President Obama last week tweeted that “97% of scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made, and dangerous” it drew the attention of his 31 million followers to the most recent study pointing…