By Gregory F. Treverton, Professor of Practice in International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A covert US campaign in the mid-20th century helped steer Iran toward the intense anti-American sentiment that has distinguished its government policy for decades.
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By Michael J. Armstrong, Associate Professor, Operations Research, Brock University
Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran have triggered a widening regional conflict, drawing in Tehran’s allies and several Arab states while testing missile defences across the Middle East.
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By Julia J Rucklidge, Professor of Psychology, University of Canterbury
Angela Sherwin, PhD Candidate in Nutrition, University of Canterbury
Joseph Boden, Professor of Psychology, Director of the Christchurch Health and Development Study, University of Otago
Roger Mulder, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Otago
Irritability is one of the most common and distressing problems teenagers and their families face.
Its main symptom is an excessive reaction to negative emotional stimuli, resulting in temper outbursts and severe irritable mood.
While current treatment options such as psychotherapy and medications are helpful for some, they can be inaccessible or poorly…
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By Hugues Plisson, archéologue spécialisé en tracéologie (reconstitution de la fonction des outils préhistoriques par l'analyse de leurs usures), Université de Bordeaux
Andrey I. Krivoshapkin, Permanent researcher at Institute of Archaeology & Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences
Tiny triangular-shaped points from arrowheads found in Uzbekistan shed light on how the first settlement of ‘Homo sapiens’ – our modern human ancestors – came to Europe.
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By Emmanuelle Vaast, Professor of Information Systems, McGill University
Anthropic, a leading AI company, recently refused to sign a Pentagon contract that would allow the United States military “unrestricted access” to its technology for “all lawful purposes.” To sign, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei required two clear exceptions: no mass surveillance of Americans and no fully autonomous weapons without human oversight.
The very next day, the U.S. and Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Iran.
This leaves many wondering: how different would a war with fully autonomous…
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By Tom Harper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of East London
The war in Iran is likely to lead to several issues for China, but it also presents Beijing with opportunities.
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By Michael Stephens, Development and Security Consultant, RAND Europe
John Kennedy, Research leader, RAND Europe
Leadership transitions in dictatorships can signal upheaval – for better or worse – and in Iran that moment has now arrived. The death of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a US airstrike on Tehran on February 28 marks the most consequential rupture in the Islamic Republic’s political system since 1989.
Unlike the managed transition that followed the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (who led the country from the 1979 revolution for ten years, after which Khamenei took over) things are different. This succession…
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By Joshua Weston, PhD Candidate, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has started releasing its first discoveries: including supernovae, variable stars and asteroids, which will from now on be discovered at an astonishing rate as it begins its Legacy Survey of Space and Time, a ten-year survey probing the deepest reaches of the universe.
During the course of this survey, astronomers around the globe will seek to answer some of the most pressing questions about the nature of our world.
To the naked eye, the night sky seems like a static…
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By Chloe Brimicombe, Postdoctoral Researcher, Climate Science, University of Oxford
After a dry 2025 with the UK’s warmest summer on record, winter 2026 delivered something very different: rain for 50 days in a row in parts of Devon and Cornwall, one of the rainiest seasons on record and only 80% of average sunshine.
Scientists have given this a name: climate whiplash.
Climate whiplash describes rapid swings from one type of weather extreme to another, most commonly from really persistent drought to really persistent wet weather. Globally, such swings have increased in recent…
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By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University
Three US F-15E fighter jets were shot down over Kuwait in the early hours of Monday (March 2) in an apparent friendly fire incident during Operation Epic Fury, the joint US-Israel campaign against Iran.
All six crew members ejected safely and are in a stable condition – but “safely” is a relative term when you’re being blasted out of a stricken aircraft travelling at combat speed.
Decisions to eject are not taken lightly, but often only a few seconds are available to make that call – one that…
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