Soon, there will be so much electricity you might be paid to use it
Simon Collins / shutterstock Imagine a perfect summer weekend day: a cloudless blue sky with a gentle breeze. Solar panels are at full capacity, wind turbines are turning offshore – and many people are out and about, in gardens or parks. Electricity supply is high, but demand is low. Electricity systems must balance supply and […]
‘I can’t work in the farce of climate change cruise tourism anymore’: why Antarctic guides quit their dream jobs
Zdenka Sokolickova “You’d see massive glacier calvings, and you’d just want to cry. But all the guests would be cheering. And you’d be like … ‘can you not put two and two together?’” Those are the words of a former Antarctic tour guide we interviewed. For anyone interested in nature, few jobs sound more enviable. […]
Does dark energy really exist? Our work identifies cracks in the foundations of today’s cosmological model
According to our best understanding, the universe is expanding – and is doing so at an accelerating rate. This is believed to be caused by something called the “cosmological constant”, which was first proposed by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity. In recent decades, it has become better known as dark energy, which […]
Supreme Court ruling hands Trump sweeping new powers and limits Congressional oversight
Donald Trump recently took to his Truth Social platform to celebrate a Supreme Court judgment. In response to the court’s decision in Trump v Slaughter on June 29, he posted: “90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED, greatly increasing Presidential Power at a time when it is most needed!” The US president […]
Why an all-female Glengarry Glen Ross changes less about the play than you might expect
A recent all-female production of Glengarry Glen Ross at London’s Old Vic gave audiences the chance to revisit one of the defining plays of modern American theatre. It also raised the question of whether a work so deeply associated with male aggression and competition looks different when performed by women. Written by David Mamet and […]
John Healey is the UK’s chancellor: what Burnham’s surprise pick says about his style of government
The UK’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has appointed John Healey as chancellor of the exchequer. His pick to fill the UK’s top economic post was something of a surprise: if we were to believe the speculation, the choice was between a minister with strong views on the economy – Ed Miliband – and a […]
What Ed Miliband’s appointment does and doesn’t mean for the UK’s foreign policy
The route to 10 Downing Street is often fairly parochial, requiring knowledge and experience of local or national issues, rather than international ones. Andy Burnham has been involved in politics for a quarter of a century. But his variety of posts gives us little indication of how he is likely to manage relations with key […]
New Trump book will have readers playing the parlour game: who blabbed?
With their latest book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Australian-American Jonathan Swan have written an “inside-the-beltway” account, as they say in Washington, for political nerds and Trump obsessives. It covers in intricate detail the first year of Trump’s second term in office. And, as […]
When a teenager makes the ‘stupid choice’, their brain is working exactly as designed
pikselstock/Shutterstock When an adult refuses to let an injustice pass – stands up to a bully, or asserts their rights – we call it principle. When a fifteen-year-old retaliates to an insult thrown in a school corridor, risking detention, we call it a failure to think ahead. It’s easy to ascribe this to a not-yet-developed […]
Smouldering myeloma: Lauren Laverne’s diagnosis explained
When the BBC presenter Lauren Laverne revealed she has smouldering myeloma, the diagnosis sounded more alarming than it is. Her situation is more subtle and nuanced than the word “myeloma” suggests. Smouldering myeloma is better thought of as an early warning stage – a sign that some of the cells in her bone marrow are […]