America at 250: the Britons who supported the War of Independence
Boston Tea Party: a rebellion against British tax policy sparked an uprising which was to reject British rule in the Americas and establish the US republic in 1776. W.D Cooper, TYhe Boston Tea Party The American revolution was not a straightforward contest between colonists and mother country, despite what the Declaration of Independence said about […]
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy – an uncompromising memoir told through a difficult parent-child relationship
In Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy marks the passing of her late mother by fathoming her on the page for the first time. “I wrote versions of her in my books”, Roy explains, “but I never wrote her.” Doing so is difficult, even painful for Roy because of who her mother was and […]
Do you want to be an astronaut? Career routes that can take you to space
Astronauts train at the LUNA facility, which recreates the Moon’s surface on Earth. ©ESA/ESA-L. Breggion, CC BY-NC In 2024, I flew on a microgravity, or zero G, parabolic flight with the European Space Agency (ESA). The aeroplane flew big arcs up and down in the sky. At the top of the arc I experienced 22 […]
‘This was something new’: what people in Greenland told us about learning to live with wildfires
After several quieter years, wildfires have returned to western Greenland. Two recent fires have brought renewed attention to a landscape more typically associated with glaciers and melting ice sheets than flames. But when we visited the region in 2023 to investigate a series of unusual large wildfires that burned a few years earlier, local residents […]
The condition that causes people to get lost in their own home
DTD can make navigating even familiar settings difficult. Vectorium/ Shutterstock Think about the last time you used your phone to find your way somewhere. What would happen if, halfway through the journey, the route instructions vanished or your phone battery died? You might find yourself starting to panic. But once you notice something familiar or […]
How Andy Burnham may try to give the UK economy a boost in his ‘10-year plan’
Andy Burnham’s long held ambition to be the UK’s prime minister will come with some daunting economic challenges. Productivity growth is at a virtual standstill, real incomes have stagnated and the cost-of-living crisis has become a permanent fixture for many households. Meanwhile, the government spends around £110 billion a year paying the interest on nearly […]
Germany’s proposal to ease trade tensions with China has not gone down well in Beijing
Trade tensions between the EU and China are deepening. On June 16, the EU’s trade chief, Maroš Šefčovič, said the bloc’s unbalanced trade relationship with China “had reached a point that requires a reset”. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, then criticised Beijing days later for what he claimed were its unfair trade practices. In comments […]
Video games are helping players imagine the realities of climate migration
Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock While many people migrate because of social and economic inequalities, forced migration is caused by political conflicts, lack of access to food, and – increasingly – a lack of access to water. Research shows that climate change is making many of these issues worse. Recent research suggests that, for 30 million people who experience […]
Expert Q&A: why did so many buildings collapse in Venezuela’s double earthquake?
More than 500 people have been killed in Venezuela following powerful back-to-back earthquakes, with many more injured. Rescue teams have also been trying to locate people trapped in collapsed buildings. Here, Raffaele De Risi, associate professor in civil engineering at the University of Bristol, answered our questions about the role building design may have played […]
How padel disrupted the genteel world of lawn tennis
Damiano Buffo/Shutterstock Padel has captured the British sporting imagination. Combining aspects of tennis and squash, and played across a net but within a walled court, padel was invented in Mexico in 1969. In the intervening half century, it cultivated a significant following in Latin America and Spain. Padel is the second most popular participation sport […]