Farmers are key to restoring native woodlands – here’s what’s holding them back
Callananphoto/Shutterstock Ireland’s native woodland scheme, which was introduced by the government in 2001, is successfully bringing back biodiversity. But the country still struggles to meet its tree-planting targets. The reason? Policy doesn’t always match the economic realities farmers face. Ireland should be a forestry success story. The climate is mild, the soil is fertile and […]
Hardening the body: the science behind martial arts conditioning
Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock.com The White House is gearing up to host a UFC event as part of celebrations of 250 years of American independence. The fighters on the card are relying on body conditioning techniques that have been around for centuries to try to emerge victorious. Muay thai, karate and jiujitsu all use ancient practices that […]
Why some men with prostate cancer may soon need only five radiotherapy sessions
Video_Stock _Production/Shutterstock For many men with prostate cancer, the word “radiotherapy” still conjures up weeks of daily hospital trips: 20 or more sessions, Monday to Friday, for a month or longer. A new NHS England programme aims to shrink that burden dramatically by offering eligible men a highly focused form of radiotherapy that treats the […]
Supergirl: why DC comics is betting big on a hero long stuck in Superman’s shadow
Since her official debut in 1959, Supergirl has struggled to emerge from the shadow of her cousin, Superman. So it’s a bold move that the second cinematic release in the newly rebooted DC Universe will be Supergirl. Milly Alcock first appeared as Supergirl in the epilogue to Superman (2025). Her Supergirl is a brash “party […]
How the US finally fell in love with soccer
When Roberto Baggio missed a penalty in the 1994 Fifa World Cup final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, more than 94,000 people were there to watch Italian heartbreak and Brazilian ecstasy. To this day, no other World Cup has been as well attended as the 1994 tournament. Tickets were cheap and abundant, and […]
Earth’s energy imbalance has doubled – here’s why that matters
Our planet is absorbing more solar energy than it is reflecting. Triff / shutterstock Heatwaves across Europe and south Asia have dominated the news recently. But these events are really a surface expression of more fundamental changes that are affecting our planet: the Earth itself is accumulating heat faster than ever before. We lead a […]
Belfast violence: an uncomfortable reminder of the innocent people ‘burnt out’ during the Troubles
The images coming out of Belfast overnight on Tuesday were shocking. Violent unrest erupted in the north of the city after a man was seriously injured in a knife attack and a Sudanese migrant was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. British far-right agitators including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tommy Robinson) wasted no time […]
Belfast unrest shows the power of social media as far‑right views on immigration enter the mainstream
Footage of a horrific knife attack in Belfast began to circulate on social media on Monday evening. A Sudanese asylum-seeker in his 30s, who entered the UK in 2023, has been charged with attempted murder. Meanwhile, the far-right was quick to exploit the situation to further an anti-immigration agenda. Violent unrest followed on the streets […]
Farmers in a national park are turning down lights at night to help wildlife – it could be good for crops too
Some farms are looking at how best to use their lights at night. MillaF/Shutterstock Growing evidence suggests that excessive outdoor lighting at night may be harming wildlife. For generations, rural communities worked to the rhythms of daylight and darkness. Today, the amount of harsh light switched on at nightime is having profound consequences for many […]
The Milky Way was rewired by a cataclysmic collision billions of years ago. Now it is on course for another
Composite image of the centre of the Milky Way, created by the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Esa via Wikimedia Commons Vasily Belokurov is one of three winners of the 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. The award is for “uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky […]