By Stacy Olive Jarvis, PhD Candidate in in Musicology, University of Birmingham
Why have public displays of piano playing become so compelling? At railway stations, shopping centres and airports, an instrument usually associated with concert halls bursts into everyday life. In the space of a few moments, shoppers and passengers become an audience – and once a recording of the performance is posted online, this encounter can reach thousands or even millions of people.
TikTok pianists such as @umutpiano (Umut Cetin) skilfully exploit the tension between…
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By Alexandros Psychogios, Professor of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Loughborough University
Dritjon Gruda, Associate Professor in Organizational Behavior, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Some people love to swear. In the workplace, some of those people might be in charge.
You may have worked with one (or be one) yourself. The team leader who likes to pepper a pep talk with spicy language, or the manager who uses swear words to express themselves in the clearest possible terms.
How colleagues respond to colourful language varies. Some might enjoy it, while others are unbothered. It can also be considered a sign of poor leadership, unprofessional – and simply unnecessary.
Our…
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By Jim McQuaid, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds
Hannah Cloke, Regius Professor of Meteorology and Climate Science, University of Reading
Hayley J. Fowler, Professor of Climate Change Impacts, Newcastle University
A chimpanzee digging for water in a dried-up Senegalese riverbed. A colony of 40,000 flamingos scattered by a hurricane. A polar bear hunting on ice that is disappearing beneath its feet. These are not scenes from some distant climate-altered future. They are happening right now. And this year they are coming to Sunday night television.
Extreme weather is often told as a human story. A new ITV documentary series, Force of Nature reminds us that it is an ecological…
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By Eef Hogervorst, Professor of Biological Psychology, Loughborough University
Research links repeated head impacts with poorer brain health in some former players, although the evidence cannot yet prove cause and effect.
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By Marco Chan, Senior Lecturer in Aviation Operations, Department of Aircraft and Aerospace Engineering, School of Engineering, Kingston University
Remarkably, all 69 people on board survived when the plane ditched in the sea. What killed 52 of them happened afterwards.
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By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University
The changing of prime ministers, rather than marking epochs, has become rather commonplace. For the politically minded, that doesn’t mean that each is without the hovering of Tony Blair’s “hand of history”. A new premiership may last 49 days, or ten years. But a truly remarkable set of circumstances would be needed for Andy Burnham’s term to be fewer than three years. Labour is not a party to defenestrate its leaders. Keir Starmer achieved an unwanted first.
In Downing Street on Monday, a day of uncompromising…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Nepali lawyers stage a protest against the Supreme Court administration's refusal to register writ petitions and applications in Kathmandu, Nepal, on May 19, 2026. © 2026 Subaas Shrestha/NurPhoto via AP Photo (Geneva) – Recent actions by the government of Nepal that threaten the independence of the country’s judiciary are a source of serious concern, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said today. In particular, political pressure has reportedly been applied to alter the composition of the Supreme Court…
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By Lucy Bennett, Lecturer in Popular Music, Digital Culture and Fandom, Cardiff University
Pop has always thrived on reinvention, with artists moving through distinct phases that reconfigure both their sound and sense of self.
David Bowie moved through personas such as Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke, each marking a distinct shift in sound and identity. Madonna similarly built her career through…
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By Philip Broadbent, Wellcome Multimorbidity PhD Fellow & Public Health Registrar, University of Glasgow
After years of grim records, the NHS in England finally has some good news to report. The waiting list for planned hospital care has begun to edge down, and the share of patients treated within the 18-week target has climbed, from 59.8% in March 2025 to around 63% a year later. Ministers, who have promised to restore the 92% standard by 2029, are keen to claim momentum.
Until recently, it was difficult to say whether that recovery was reaching everyone equally. That changed in July last year when NHS England…
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By Charles Lees, Executive Dean, City St George's, University of London
If he were alive today, Machiavelli would have enjoyed watching the first days of Andy Burnham’s premiership. An enemy of the Medicis, the Florentine diplomat (full name Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli) was a student of power. He would have appreciated the clarity, focus and – yes – the brutality of Burnham’s move against loyalists of former prime minister Keir Starmer.
This was not a purge comparable to Harold Macmillan’s “night of the long knives” in the 1950s. Back then, Macmillan sacked one third of…
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