Foundation essay: This article on the debate over Scottish independence is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the UK. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and…
Austerity’s unlikely winner?
Drug image via www.shutterstock.com
Until the 1990s, Europeans viewed themselves to be generally unaffected by the activities of organised crime, with the notable exception of Italy and, to a minor extent, Germany. But now, Europol’s recently…
Gathering storm: today’s well-equipped rebel carries an iPad.
Mohamed Azazy/Flickr
These days all you need to be a revolutionary is a mobile phone and a grievance. Some see what is happening on the streets of Cairo as the ultimate expression of democracy - millions of people using social…
It’s a numbers game: warning of heart attack risk is reassuring but misleading.
Flickr/ansik
Patricia McGettigan, Queen Mary University of London
Millions of people use diclofenac, an over-the-counter painkiller, to relieve pain and inflammation caused by arthritis, backache and other conditions. But on Friday, the UK medicines regulator, the Medicines…
Fear of machines becoming smarter than humans is a standard part of popular culture. In films like iRobot and Terminator, humans are usurped. Throughout history we can trace stories about humankind overreaching…
Pollution face masks are not just for China.
Dave Thompson/PA
It may seem odd for the European Commission to declare 2013 the “Year of the Air” in order to focus on improving air quality standards. Most would feel air pollution is a problem that has been more or…
Up Front: Marine Le Pen has softened the image of the FN.
NdFrayssinet via Creative Commons
For followers of British politics the narrative is familiar: populist right-wing party champions withdrawal from the European Union and a harder line on immigration and suddenly start pulling out remarkable…
The offshore industry need not be so dangerous if safety is put first.
PA
The explosions and fire that completely destroyed the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha and cost 167 workers their lives remains the world’s worst offshore oil disaster. Saturday, July 6, marks 25 years since…
Big promises, but has Grayling silenced his critics?
Ian Scott
Faculty and students at the New College of the Humanities can breathe a sigh of relief – they have survived their first year. For some, AC Grayling’s private undergraduate college is a pioneering project…
Talk of a 100% renewables Scotland by 2020 is more than just hot air.
Kara Allyson/Flickr
When the Scottish Government set itself the target of generating 100% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2020 many people scoffed. Now that goal is only six years away. Is it reachable? Remember…
The Queen might be the last woman standing.
Lucidtech/Flickr
The Bank of England is backpedalling after outgoing governor Mervyn King caused a furore just before his departure with a decision to put wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the back of the £5…
Welcome to London. Now would you mind fixing the economy?
Alastair Grant/PA Wire
Like many Canadians to achieve high office in his country over the past half-century, Mark Carney came from an ordinary, middle-class background. And like his two immediate predecessors as governor of…
Lebanese army in Tripoli where violence is a way of life.
Wikimedia Commons
The fighting that has engulfed the Lebanese city of Sidon over the past week, leaving at least 15 soldiers dead and more than 70 injured, has raised tension across the country. The clashes come on the…
Actual botany is not like this.
Rank Organisation/Allied Artists
Ever since their discovery, carnivorous plants have fascinated scientists and spurred the imagination of artists, writers and filmmakers. While the Puya chilensis cactus at the Royal Horticultural Society…
“Reverse vaccines” could be used to help relieve sufferers of type 1 diabetes from the inconvenience of daily insulin injections. A vaccine usually works by boosting the body’s immune system to fight a…
Noise seems to be a bit of a problem in major sports tournaments. For many, vuvuzelas were the scourge of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. So much so that the BBC looked into ways of muting them on…
Arriving at a station near you (if you’re in Taiwan).
jiadoldol/Flickr
Transport megaprojects tend to make rather gloomy reading. The prevailing opinion, at least among social scientists, is that all big infrastructure projects share three characteristics: they take longer…
Let them come to Berlin: the crowds from 2009 stayed away in 2013.
Wikimedia Commons
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…