Dementia care: how praise can help – and when it can miss the mark
Halfpoint/Shutterstock On a busy hospital ward, a nurse says “wonderful, wonderful” as a patient with dementia completes a task. It sounds simple, but moments like this can play an important role in how care gets done. Building on my doctoral research, a recent study I co-authored with colleagues examines how praise is used in the […]
Education is important when it comes to tackling domestic abuse
Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock Harmful narratives about domestic abuse persist in our society. They can include questioning “why doesn’t the victim just leave?”. They might mean believing in a hierarchy of abuse, where physical abuse is taken more seriously than other forms. Stereotypical characterisations of how a victim should behave and what a perpetrator looks like […]
Businesses often row back on ethics when times get tough. Here’s how technology can keep them on track
Five carmakers are involved in a case at the High Court in London over claims that they cheated on emissions tests. A decade ago, the “dieselgate” scandal broke, eventually forcing Volkswagen to pay billions of euros in fines and settlements. These carmakers (Mercedes, Ford, Peugeot/Citroën, Renault and Nissan) have all faced accusations that selling cars […]
The revamped hiking trail regenerating an Italian region blighted by mafia stereotypes
Il Sentiero dell’Inglese – the Trail of the Englishman – is bringing new hope to Calabria’s Aspromonte mountains in southern Italy, one of the EU’s most marginal and economically depressed areas. The six-day trail is named after the English poet Edward Lear who walked these mountains in the 19th century. The route encourages hikers to […]
Lowering tackle height in rugby led to sharp decline in concussion rates – new study
Mai Groves/Shutterstock.com Rugby is a physical sport, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the tackle. In amateur and school rugby union, tackles are responsible for well over half of all match injuries, making them the single biggest source of injury risk in the game. That reality has prompted growing efforts to make tackling […]
Russia’s push to control Arctic waterway presents Europe with a daunting challenge
A Russian nuclear submarine surfaces near the city of Kronstadt in the Gulf of Finland in 2021. zayatsphoto / Shutterstock Norway’s defence minister, Tore Sandvik, recently warned that Russia must not be allowed to control the Bear Gap. This is a stretch of water that runs roughly 400 miles between Bear Island in the southernmost […]
Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern: how a radical artist became a global icon
Frida: The Making of an Icon at Tate Modern is the first major interrogation of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo’s legacy in London for 25 years. It already has more advance sales than any exhibition in Tate history. The title puts the visitor on first name terms with someone who died in 1954. Yet despite […]
A new quantum computer sets a high watermark for accuracy – are we on the verge of a big breakthrough?
In a laboratory in Broomfield, Colorado, 98 atoms are suspended in mid-air, held in place by electric fields and cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero. Each atom is far smaller than anything the naked eye could ever see, yet each carries information in a form that has no counterpart in classical physics. Together, they […]
The cost of living is soaring – why not try moving in together?
Dean Drobot/Shutterstock Across Europe, people in their 20s and 30s are running into the same wall. Rents are rising faster than wages, energy and food are more expensive, and buying a home without family wealth feels like a fairytale. Many young adults are moving back in with parents, or paying a huge share of their […]
Can wiggling your pinky really stop cognitive decline?
Pramata/Shutterstock.com What if protecting your brain from dementia was as simple as wiggling your little fingers a few seconds each day? That’s the promise behind “pinky time”, a viral TikTok trend that claims a simple finger exercise can lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Videos promoting this supposed brain-health hack have attracted millions of views, […]