As the skies get busier, will AI help air traffic controllers keep planes flying safely?
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Global air travel is predicted to more than double by 2050, threatening to exceed the capacity of air traffic control officers (atcos) to oversee our skies safely. One solution would be to recruit more controllers – but that’s not as easy as it sounds. Airspace in the UK and elsewhere is broken up into […]
Count Binface: why Britain’s ‘joke’ election candidates deserve to be taken seriously
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s decision to resign his Clacton seat and force a by-election, amid scrutiny over his personal finances, has produced one of the odder spectacles in recent British politics. With every other major party declining to stand and despite a record 34 candidates running, his most prominent challenger is Count Binface, the […]
Feeling unwell after taking medicine? Here’s how to report it
VH-studio/Shutterstock.com Take a medicine and start feeling a bit off, and it’s easy to assume you’re imagining it. Sometimes you’re not. It could be a known side-effect – the sort of thing listed on the leaflet in the packaging. Or it could be something known as an adverse drug reaction, or ADR. The terms get […]
Ted Lasso returns: why its story of kindness owes so much to ‘orphan girl’ fiction
Ted Lasso – an Apple TV comedy-drama about an American football coach hired to lead a struggling Premier League team – has returned for a fourth season, this time with a women’s team at the heart of both the comedy and the drama. I can’t wait. As a researcher of children’s literature – including comics, […]
How wildfires and heatwaves affect your travel insurance
As wildfires blazed on the Cap Ferret peninsula in south-west France in July, some people left by boat. The roads out run through dense pine plantation, the fire had reached them, and the gendarmerie put those without cars onto ferries. Around 44,000 people fled Cap Ferret, a stretch of oyster villages and holiday homes an […]
Are summer holidays good for children? It’s time researchers asked them
SeventyFour/Shutterstock When academic research has explored the impact of school summer holidays, it has often focused on the costs to parents and to children’s learning and health. The childcare juggle, the costs of summer holiday activities and the potential impact of losses in learning or more sedentary behaviour by children in the holidays do have […]
AI-generated fashion models: innovation, illusion or a step too far?
StreetOnCamara_Comeback/Shutterstock Fashion has always sold aspiration. Long before artificial intelligence (AI), it relied on carefully constructed images of beauty through styling, lighting, makeup and, more recently, digital retouching. While consumers may have understood that these images do not reflect everyday reality, they continued to engage with them. They followed fashion trends and they bought the […]
Britain’s quarter century: shrinking families, ethnic tensions and queer winners and losers
In this third part in our series on how the UK has changed in the past 25 years, we turn to demographics, immigration, social attitudes and LGBTQ+ lives. Demographics Athina Vlachantoni, professor of gerontology and social policy, University of Southampton Jane Falkingham, professor of demography and international social policy, University of Southampton Maria Evandrou, professor […]
Hot weather can make pain worse – here’s why
Hot weather can affect how we experience pain. DexonDee/ Shutterstock This summer’s amber heat warnings have brought with them many risks to health. Many people have experienced these health effects first-hand: brain fog, physical fatigue, restless nights and reduced productivity. If that sounds familiar, you’re not imagining it. Science shows that high temperatures can affect […]
Why the UK still can’t fix social care – and what four other countries got right
Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com On an average day, around one in ten hospital beds in England are occupied by someone medically fit to leave, but unable to do so because the care they need at home is not available. At an estimated cost of £562 per hospital bed per day, this costs £2.7 billion a year. Pressure is […]