Much debate, and perhaps even more invective, has buffeted Scotland during the marathon referendum campaign. But Scotland’s 15 universities have been left surprisingly untouched by the tumult, at least…
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Alex Oates’ debut Fringe play traces the journey of 19-year-old Geordie lad Bruce, as he begins dealing cocaine via the illicit online marketplace Silk Road. Under the guise of a coming of age drama, the…
In 1999, US space agency NASA launched the Stardust spaceship with what seemed then to be extraordinary aims. The first task of the mission was to take pictures of a comet, before diving into its tail…
After decades of use in some of the most well-known hygiene and cleaning products in our bathrooms and kitchens, concerns about the safety of triclosan – an anti-germ chemical used in products including…
Researchers have developed a method to produce ammonia simply from air and water. Not only is it more energy efficient than the century-old Haber-Bosch process currently in use all over the world, but…
“Lying is a bad thing – this is what mentors, parents and teachers tell us. But there is no society without lies.” So says theoretical physicist Rafael Barrio, and when he and his colleague Kimmo Kaski…
The gender pay gap between women and men graduates has long been an indicator of pay disparities later along the career path. New data released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency has shown there…
When faced with choosing the shortest queue at a supermarket, what do you do? Nobody starts counting – what our brain does is “number sensing”. The ability to gauge numbers occurs without knowing how to…
A white, middle-aged, country man who nevertheless forgot to take his wellies to a flood zone a stone’s throw from one of his infamous badger cull areas, now finds himself culled. Is this how we should…
Some shares have new owners every second. Today much of the buying and selling is done by computers, but some still rely on human intuition – the gut feeling of the experienced trader. “Nobody can predict…
Students should be given a lifetime loan allocation that they can use for different undergraduate and postgraduate courses, according to new proposals put forward by a group of universities. The University…
The largest study of poverty ever conducted in the UK has laid out the dire state of British deprivation – and seriously undercut the government’s claim to be lifting people out of poverty through work…
It is getting harder and harder to prove that you’re “truly British”. With immigration rarely off the front pages and UKIP making waves in election year, a national survey has shown that opinions are hardening…
Once the most numerous bird species in North America, passenger pigeons went from numbering in the billions to being extinct in less than a century. Their decline has been mostly blamed on intensive hunting…
A new survey has found teachers remain divided over proposals to link their pay increases to the performance of pupils in their class. A small majority – 53% of 1,163 primary and secondary school teachers…
Many ailments, such as irregular heartbeats, can be treated by electrical stimulation within the body. But current technology makes in-body devices, such as pacemakers, very bulky because they need big…
A species of bee declared extinct in the UK almost 30 years ago is flying again – thanks in part to the efforts of farmers. Researchers have been restoring the short-haired bumblebee to Romney Marsh and…
In 1934, two physicists came up with a theory that described how to create matter from pure light. But they dismissed the idea of ever observing such a phenomenon in the laboratory because of the difficulties…
Even though a blue whale is much heavier than a tuna, the mammal consumes less energy per unit weight than the fish when they travel the same distance. For years, these sort of comparisons have dominated…
A recent study by the organisation Moms Across America claims to have found a pesticide at harmful levels in human breast milk and urine. Moms Across America is an organisation concerned with the use of…
Given that we are unlikely to be visiting an exoplanet any time soon, astronomers have been contemplating whether it might be possible to detect indications of simple life – a biosignature – from a distance…
Less than a month out from the EU parliamentary elections and polls are showing either disenchantment or downright disinterest in the European project among the British public. Following a YouGov poll…
A growing number of UK students are considering going abroad to study with a majority of them motivated in some part by the rise in university fees at home, according to new research on student mobility…
Bacterial diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Most of these bacteria were benign at some point in their evolutionary past, and we don’t always understand what turned them into disease-causing…
Earth was still a violent place shortly after life began, with regular impactors arriving from space. For the first time, scientists have modelled the effects of one such violent event – the strike of…