Welcome to Hard Evidence, a series of articles that looks at what the data say about some of the trickiest public policy questions we face. Academic experts will delve into the available research evidence…
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Anyone who looked at The Guardian’s website this week will have seen a picture of one of the newspaper’s own laptops smashed and in pieces. Why did this Mac have to die? The article accompanying the photo…
Playwright Mark Ravenhill’s provocative opening speech at this year’s Edinburgh Festival outlined a doomsday scenario where public funding for the arts disappeared and Britain descended into a cultural…
Parasites are fascinating. They are uniquely adapted to survive, in some cases through very complex life cycles. There’s also research to suggest that some may even change the behaviour of hosts to assist…
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in 2010, he argued that unless the device was better at doing everyday tasks than smartphones or netbooks, it wouldn’t deserve to exist. Consumers and corporates embraced…
Despite long standing associations with mysticism and stage hypnotism, hypnosis has also been used for medical and scientific purposes. For well over a century, hypnosis has been used to treat a wide range…
The release from prison today of Hosni Mubarak, the former strongman whose downfall in 2011 was hailed as the start of the Arab Spring in Egypt, could be the moment at which the counter-revolution has…
With independent journalism increasingly under threat, will academics be the next set of critical voices to be targeted? A report calling for research and evidence to have a reduced role in public policy…
Researchers in Aberdeen and the RSPB have set up a project that enables Scottish birds to write their own blogs. Readers will be able to track the daily lives of red kites as they travel around the Scottish…
In 2009 a team of academics from Eindhoven University of Technology dug up a perfectly normal street in the Netherlands. In its place they installed a chemistry experiment cunningly disguised as a concrete…
Restoring the tax break for married couples has long been a Conservative Party commitment, and one they now intend to pursue this autumn. The outgoing Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, has now – from a non-party…
The H7N9 virus is thought to have been transmitted between a 60-year-old man in China and his 32-year-old daughter, who cared for him. Experts said she had been previously healthy and, unlike her father…
Bradley Manning, the whistleblower behind the biggest leak of military secrets in history, has been sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. Convicted for six offences under the Espionage Act, he will have…
The drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of wells for oil or gas is a well-established technique and requires large quantities of water. During the initial drilling of the well, water is needed…
Tomorrow Kevin Spacey will bring a touch of Oscar-winning glamour to the Edinburgh International Television Festival by delivering this year’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture. He will speak about changes…
With an election looming next month, Tony Abbott, Australia’s opposition leader, has become the latest in a line of politicians playing the familiar law and order card. An incoming Coalition government…
Whether it’s arguments over delays at the border or concrete blocks dumped in the sea, Gibraltar has been causing the UK and Spain lots of grief recently. It has gathered an awful lot of attention for…
As long as there have been financial markets, there have been serious financial losses. But the traders of today have shown a talent for blowing billions. During the most recent round of financial misadventures…
Our individual, varied personalities are among the traits often cited as those that distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, as we, like the rest of life on Earth, are products of natural…
Contaminated during the surrounding area’s history of mining, the River Hayle in Cornwall contains metals including copper, zinc, nickel and cadmium at levels that can kill brown trout, a particularly…
The first minutes of a medical emergency can be crucial for a patient’s chances of recovery, but what if that emergency happens in a rural setting, far away from help? Scottish ambulance crews respond…
The ordeal of David Miranda at Heathrow Airport on Sunday is a critical moment in the conflict between press freedom and national security. Miranda, the partner of The Guardian’s investigative reporter…
The British have long been notorious for their lack of ability in foreign languages but there are signs that, far from becoming more cosmopolitan as paid-up members of the European Union, they are getting…
The Energy Technologies Institute recently reported that without carbon capture and storage (CCS), the cost of reaching the UK’s climate change targets will double from around £30 billion per year in 2050…
Robots represent the cutting edge in science. For decades we have been promised a bright future in which these human-like machines will become so advanced that we won’t be able to tell the difference between…