David Hockney’s success is a testament to a Britain that supported working-class artists – the same cannot be said today
David Hockney, who died on June 11, was perhaps the most successful and well-known British artist of his lifetime. His exhibitions, from career-spanning shows like David Hockney 25 at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2025) to his groundbreaking touring immersive exhibition David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) (2025), drew thousands of […]
The overlooked Virginia Woolf novel about to hit cinemas – Night and Day
Virginia Woolf remains one of the most widely read and celebrated writers of the 20th century, with To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway regularly appearing near the top of lists of the greatest novels of all time. Yet not all of her books are so well remembered. Woolf’s second novel, Night and Day, published in […]
Three men’s health drugs that were originally designed for a different purpose
Sildenafil (better known as Viagra) is perhaps the most famous example of a drug that has been repurposed. Yuriy Maksymiv/ Shutterstock Many medicines begin life with one purpose and end up proving useful for a completely different reason. Few areas show this more clearly than men’s health. Three drugs in particular have become household names […]
What came before the Big Bang?
berni0004/Shutterstock It’s a question big enough to make your head spin! Eight-year-old Ellie from Atlanta, Georgia, wants to know what came before the Big Bang? Ellie joins our host Eloise to delve into the origins of our universe with astronomer Michael Lam on The Conversation’s Curious Kids podcast. In each episode of The Conversation’s Curious […]
Social media and teenagers: what the evidence says
Xavier Lorenzo/Shutterstock Is the time teenagers spend on social media really damaging their wellbeing and mental health? Around the globe, youth mental health problems are on the rise. This has coincided with an ever increasing amount of time teenagers spend on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X and Snapchat. In the public discourse at least, […]
How Iran gained the strategic upper hand in the war with the US and Israel
After three months of war with two of the world’s most technologically and militarily advanced countries, Iran has proved far more resilient than anticipated. Indeed, strategically at least, Tehran appears to now have the upper hand in the conflict. How has this situation come about? When the United States joined Israel to launch the latest […]
Love life: David Hockney, the artist who forced Britain to make room for colour, joy and queerness
Born in Bradford and shaped by northern art-school discipline, David Hockney brought a working-class, almost punk refusal to British art: do the work, trust the eye, do not ask for approval. Hockney made success look effortless: all colour, good humour, great glasses, cigarettes and smoky charm. But for a young gay artist from a northern […]
Women report poor sleep despite a good night’s rest — while men overestimate their own sleep quality
Men reported sleeping better than they objectively did, while the opposite was true for women. DimaBerlin/ Shutterstock Disturbed sleep is a common problem — and one that has many serious consequences beyond feeling tired the next day. Research has linked insomnia and poor sleep to early mortality and diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Women […]
AI robots can go rogue – a researcher on how easily it happens
Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock Earlier this year in Beijing, a humanoid robot crossed a half-marathon finish line in a blistering 50 minutes, 26 seconds. The feat immediately lit up global headlines for shattering the human world record by almost seven minutes. This performance came with many asterisks. The robot followed a pre-mapped track, stayed in its […]
The UK has the means to avoid climate policy being driven by culture wars
shutterstock Loredana Sangiuliano / shutterstock Climate policy has become one of the principle casualties of America’s political polarisation. The Trump administration, for instance, recently announced it is dismantling a key ocean monitoring system, despite growing scientific concerns about the rise of a “Super El Niño” and the prospect of disruption to key Atlantic Ocean currents. […]