By Catherine Wheatley, Lecturer in Film Studies, King's College London
Mona Fastvold’s film about Ann Lee – the founder of the Shaker religious movement – is raw, intense and deeply physical. If you were to consult the leading critics of Christianity in film they would probably tell you that the best films in this genre are not like The Testament of Ann Lee at all.
These thinkers save their…
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By Lionel Smith, Horticulture lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University
Amid the wet and grey gloom of February, gardeners across the UK are reporting that crocuses are pushing through their lawns and borders weeks ahead of schedule. This phenomenon is no quirk of nature. Crocuses flowering early in 2026 is a sign of shifting seasons, driven by a unique combination of biological triggers and record-breaking UK weather patterns.
Crocuses are thermoperiodic plants, which means they rely on temperature cues rather than day length to dictate their lifecycle. Their corms…
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By Anna Drury, PhD Candidate in History, Lancaster University
Much has been done, by way of interviews and Instagram reels, to market Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights as a tale of ferocious passion and untameable desire. The question of precisely whose passion we see play out onscreen is a crucial one.
Fennel says the film reflects her personal reading of Emily Brontë’s arresting tale of generational trauma, possession and violence. I had a different experience when I first read Wuthering Heights. I became immersed in a decidedly unsexy story of abuse, and had “bad…
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By Matt Jacobsen, Senior Lecturer in Film History in the School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London
Rose Byrne won a Golden Globe and is nominated for an Oscar for her performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. It’s a film about frayed mother Linda (Byrne) coping with her daughter’s strange, unspecified feeding disorder.
In director Mary Bronstein’s words, the film is “a surreal, horrifying, blackly funny portrait of a mother simultaneously kicking against and coming to terms with her maternal instincts”. Bronstein has drawn from her…
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By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex
The fight is on for the Gorton and Denton byelection on February 26. It is a three-way contest between Labour, Reform and the Greens. According to Electoral Calculus, a site which runs regular MRP (multi-level regression post stratification) surveys, Reform will win with 32% of the vote, the Greens will come second on 23.3% and Labour third with 22.6%.
There is however a problem with MRP polls. They produce…
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By Nando Sigona, Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham
From February 2026, most dual British citizens will need to use a British passport to travel to the UK. Presenting only a non-British passport will no longer be sufficient for boarding flights or ferries, unless it carries a certificate (costing £589) that confirms right of abode.
The rule was introduced to align dual nationals with the UK’s new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) system and to prevent confusion in border checks.
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By Jess Neumann, Associate Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading
As the UK experiences high levels of rain, Somerset Levels in the south-west of England is trying to cope with extreme flooding and its consequences.
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By Georgia Chronaki, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Neuroscience, University of Lancashire
People who have rejection sensitivity may experience anger, shame or shut down emotionally when they’re criticised or feel like they’ve been criticised.
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By Jabulani Sikhakhane, Editor, The Conversation
There’s a lot of dodgy and divisive content online. But now there’s a way to choose something better. Google recently launched a new feature that allows you to nominate which sources you trust the most so they appear near the top of your search results.
There are many reasons to nominate The Conversation. We are a not-for-profit digital publisher and our work is overseen by an independent editorial board. We only publish information from academic experts edited by professional journalists.…
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By Zachary del Rosario, Assistant Professor of Engineering, Olin College of Engineering
Probability underpins AI, cryptography and statistics. However, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell said, “Probability is the most important concept in modern science, especially as nobody has the slightest notion what it means.”
I teach statistics to engineers, so I know that while probability is important, it is counterintuitive.
Probability is a branch of mathematics that describes…
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