By Shelley Mitchell, Senior Extension Specialist, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Oklahoma State University
October in much of the U.S. brings cooler weather, vibrant fall colors and, of course, pumpkin-spiced everything. This is peak pumpkin season, with most of the American pumpkin crop harvested in October.
With the pumpkin spice craze fully underway, I find myself thinking more about pumpkins. As an extension specialist working at Oklahoma State University’s botanic garden, I educate the people pouring…
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By Kate Spencer, Professor of Environmental Geochemistry, Queen Mary University of London
Nan Wu, Ecological modeller, Postdoctoral Researcher, British Antarctic Survey; Queen Mary University of London
Think of ocean plastic and you may picture bottles and bags bobbing on the waves, slowly drifting out to sea. Yet the reality is more complex and far more persistent.
Even if we stopped all plastic pollution today, our new research shows that fragments of buoyant plastic would continue to pollute the ocean’s surface for more than a century. These fragments break down slowly, releasing microplastics that sink through the water column at a glacial pace. The result is a “natural conveyor belt” of pollution…
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By Matt Wall, Associate Professor, Political and Cultural Studies, Swansea University
Louis Bromfield, Postdoctoral Researcher in Politics, Swansea University
If any seat has a claim to be part of Labour’s electoral heartland, it is Caerphilly. Labour’s electoral dominance there reaches all the way back to the creation of the constituency in the 1918 UK general election, when Alfred Onions became the the first of many Caerphilly Labour MPs. This pattern has heretofore been replicated in Wales’s devolved elections, where the seat has always returned a Labour member.
This gives a sense of the blow dealt to Welsh Labour in the Senned byelection held there on October 23. Plaid…
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By Kevin Collins, Senior Lecturer, Environment & Systems, The Open University
A woman was recently fined £150 by a council for pouring coffee down a drain before getting on a bus. The fine has now been rescinded by Richmond council in London, but the incident has prompted many discussions about whether coffee discarded like this could cause environmental damage.
About 98 million cups of coffee are consumed every day in the UK and 2 billion per day worldwide.…
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By Andrew Stevens, Visiting Fellow, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University
Tokyo’s Shibuya district, which has long been known as the centre of youth culture in Japan, has once again moved to restrict its Halloween street celebrations. A mayoral edict against so-called “Nuisance Halloween” has led to a series of strict measures in recent years, including a public drinking ban, to curb rowdy behaviour.
This draconian edge echoes Japan’s wider turn under its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. She placed…
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By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol
Trick or treat? Something I won’t be hearing at my own door this Halloween. Myself and the other misers of our village will once again be shunning anyone ringing the bell in search of sugar. Apparently, placing a pumpkin outside your house is the standard invitation to call — as much effort as buying the wretched sweets in the first place. Bah humbug (and, since you ask, there won’t be any of those in the house, either).
And just as well, really. Not just because of my general curmudgeonliness, but have you seen what all that sugar…
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By Michael Rowe, Reader in European History, King's College London
The National Army Museum in London has recently identified the likely subject of a portrait of a black soldier in its collection as Private Thomas James.
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By Jessica Mary Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Literacies and Language, University of Sheffield
Louise Atkinson, Artist Researcher, University of Leeds
Throughout October, the Barbican in London is hosting Voiced: The Festival for Endangered Languages. It’s the first UK festival for artists who create in indigenous languages and dialects. And it explores themes of art, language, the idea of home and belonging – including how all four intersect.
Festival events include The Creative Voice, a free exhibition with newly commissioned poems in endangered languages…
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By Sarah-Jane Coyle, PhD Candidate, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast
Is there such a thing as the “perfect victim”? Is it an old lady who is suddenly mugged on the street? And where does a greedy lawyer, eager to profit from an elderly widow’s demise, fit in? Would we have sympathy if he was manipulated and wrongly accused of her murder?
Such questions of victimhood lie at the heart of John Grisham’s new novel, The Widow. The book is marketed as a classic Grisham courtroom drama with the addition of a whodunnit-style mystery – the writer’s first foray into this genre.
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By Gerda Wielander, Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Westminster
Chinese authorities detained Ezra Jin, the leader of the Zion Church, on October 10 alongside more than 30 church staff and pastors. The arrests come amid the largest crackdown on Christian churches in China in recent years, and have put renewed light on Beijing’s attempts to curb religious activities in China.
The Zion Church, a large unregistered church with congregations across China, has been on the authorities’ radar for many years. So the question is not why the crackdown…
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