By Tom Bassindale, Head of School, Biosciences and Chemistry, Sheffield Hallam University
A drug designed to help cancer patients rebuild wasting muscles has become one of the most contentious substances in elite sport – and the scientist who discovered it now spends more time trying to stop people using it than encouraging its medical use.
James Dalton, who developed ostarine in the early 2000s, recently told the New York Times: “I spend more time now trying to stop people from using it than trying to get people to use it.” His frustration highlights a growing crisis in anti-doping,…
(Full Story)
|
By Mark Grabowski, Senior Lecturer of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University
Why don’t humans have tails anymore?
Olivia, 12 , the Netherlands.
Great question, and it gets to the heart of what we are as humans.
Think about your own family – do you have cousins? If so, you and your cousins share grandparents and these are your common ancestors.
Now imagine going back further in time. You and your more distantly related relatives also share common ancestors from longer ago, which you can see on your family tree. And when you look around the world, all living things also share a single…
(Full Story)
|
By Matt Jacobsen, Senior Lecturer in Film History in the School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London
A group of American high school friends discover an Aztec death whistle and, for reasons best known to them, give it a blow at a party.
(Full Story)
|
By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University
Despite his name – honouring Keir Hardie, the first leader of the Labour party – Keir Starmer is not known to be a student of political history. This apparent incuriosity helps define an indistinct political identity.
Asked which premier inspires him, Starmer cites Harold Wilson, an unusual choice – Attlee is much more revered in Labour – and superficially surprising. No politician was more political than Wilson: the moment a camera appeared his usual cigar and brandy was replaced with a pipe and a…
(Full Story)
|
By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University
The Dink lifestyle is attractive: more money and time for yourselves. But on the salary of an average UK household, you won’t be able to buy an average house.
(Full Story)
|
By Matthew Holland, Postdoctoral Researcher, Medicinal Chemistry, University of Oxford
Five-thousand-year-old microbes reveal nature’s antibiotic arms race, and hold clues to both the threat of drug resistance and the cure.
(Full Story)
|
By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A woman walks with a child in Roj camp, which holds foreign wives and children of Islamic State (ISIS) members, in northeast Syria, September 2018. © 2018 Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images (Beirut) – The United States transferred 5,700 detainees held for alleged ISIS affiliation from Northeast Syria to Iraq, where they are at risk of enforced disappearance, unfair trials, torture, ill-treatment, and violations of the right to life, Human Rights Watch said today. The United States began transferring the detainees, including Syrians, Iraqis, and third…
(Full Story)
|
By Se Youn Park, Sessional academic, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government will not help repatriate the 34 Australian women and children with links to Islamic State fighters who were released from a detention camp in Syria and are reportedly trying to return to Australia.
The women and children were among more than 2,000 people from 50 different countries detained at al-Roj camp in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria. The Australians were turned back by Syrian officials…
(Full Story)
|
By Fethi Mansouri, Deakin Distinguished Professor/UNESCO Chair-holder; Founding Director, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University
Racism is a “widespread” and “systemic” problem in Australian universities, a major new report has found. According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, about 80% of surveyed Indigenous, Chinese, African, Jewish and Middle Eastern students and staff say they have experienced racism at university.
Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman described the findings in the Racism@Uni report as sometimes “harrowing reading”.…
(Full Story)
|
Monday, February 16, 2026
As Ukraine prepares to enter the fifth year of the full-scale Russian invasion on 24 February, UN monitors say harm to civilians has “demonstrably worsened”, while energy attacks and freezing temperatures are making it harder for displaced families to return.
(Full Story)
|