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China’s ability to weather Trump’s trade war was two decades in the making

As Xi Jinping prepares to host Donald Trump for a delayed summit in Beijing on May 14-15, a lot has changed since the US president’s last visit to China in November 2017. Trump’s first trade war with China began in earnest the following year, ushering in a new era of trade tensions between the world’s […]

Ultra-processed food: why the debate needs less fear and more clarity

Highly moralised food messaging may encourage disordered eating patterns. superbeststock/Shutterstock For many people interested in health and wellbeing, the idea of ultra-processed food, or UPF, has become more than a technical term in nutrition research. In public debate, it often serves as shorthand for wider concerns about modern, industrially produced food. Those concerns are not […]

Can houseplants really purify the air in your home? What the science actually says

GoodStudio/Shutterstock The question sounds simple. The answer, once you examine the actual measurement science behind it, is more interesting than either “yes” or “no”. The houseplant-as-air-purifier idea can be traced to a 1989 US study, conducted for Nasa as part of research into closed-loop life support systems for space stations. In sealed, controlled chambers, certain […]

AI in the emergency department: promising, powerful but still unproven

Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com Artificial intelligence can now outperform doctors at diagnosing patients in the emergency department, according to a new study in Science. The AI was given written notes from real emergency department records from a hospital in Boston, US, and asked to weigh in at different points during the patient’s care. At the earliest stage – […]

What Iran’s absence from the Venice Biennale reveals about art and politics

Just days before the opening of the 2026 Venice Biennale, organisers announced that Iran would no longer participate. A short statement posted to the Venice Biennale website on May 4 said: “With regard to the National Participations in the 61st International Art Exhibition…it has been announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not participate.” […]

‘A life-and-death matter’: understanding how Ofsted inspections risk suicidal thoughts in teachers

Zhuravlev Andrey/Shutterstock Ofsted, the schools inspectorate in England, was the subject of a UK parliamentary inquiry after the death by suicide of Ruth Perry, headteacher of Caversham Primary school in Berkshire, in 2023. The coroner’s report had concluded that Perry’s death was “suicide, contributed to by an Ofsted inspection”. The parliamentary inquiry called for submissions […]

The 2025 Sir Paul Curran award for academic journalism goes to Jeremy Howick

Jeremy Howick, Professor of Empathic Healthcare at the University of Leicester, receives the Sir Paul Curran award for 2025 from Lady Helen Curran, at the event at Bayes Business School. The Conversation Jeremy Howick, Professor of Empathic Healthcare and Director of the Stoneygate Centre at the University of Leicester, has been named this year’s winner […]

How The Devil Wears Prada 2 speaks the hidden language of fashion

Fashion has always done more than keep us warm. It’s also a social language, quietly organising ideas of status, taste and belonging. What made the first The Devil Wears Prada (2006) so satisfying was watching main character Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) learn, often the hard way, that clothes were never just clothes. At first she […]