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…
(Full Story)
|
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…
(Full Story)
|
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…
(Full Story)
|
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…
(Full Story)
|
By David Schwartzman, Research Fellow (Informatics), School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex
Flashing light can do more than illuminate a room. Delivered at specific rhythms and viewed through closed eyelids, it can produce vivid visual hallucinations, geometric patterns, bursts of colour and sometimes even full scenes in people with no underlying illness and no use of drugs.
These experiences are known as stroboscopic hallucinations. They offer a window into how the brain constructs perception and how conscious experience shifts when the signals reaching the visual system are altered.
(Full Story)
|
By Hannah Bunting, Senior Lecturer in Quantitative British Politics and Co-director of The Elections Centre, University of Exeter
Jessica C. Smith, Associate Professor, University of Southampton
Lotte Hargrave, Lecturer in Quantitative Political Science, University of Manchester
Hannah Spencer’s win in the Gorton and Denton parliamentary byelection was a momentous victory for the Green party. The party’s first-ever byelection win overturned a large Labour majority and put the general election winners into third place, behind Reform UK.
The Greens are eager to position it as a sign of things to come, particularly in the May elections. Here’s what voter trends in Gorton and Denton can tell us…
(Full Story)
|
By Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
With dog attacks back in the headlines, the cycle of outrage has returned. But the evidence suggests deeper reform may be needed.
(Full Story)
|
By Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City St George's, University of London
The UK chancellor of the exchequer would not have wanted to deliver her spring statement against the background of a fresh threat to the world economy.
For while Rachel Reeves announced that she has the “right economic plan for the country” in a “yet more uncertain world”, the conflict in the Middle East will undoubtedly complicate the UK’s economic prospects. And the latest economic forecast by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), to which she was responding, may already be out…
(Full Story)
|
By Conor O'Kane, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Bournemouth University
In the annual State of the Union address in late February, the US president, Donald Trump, declared: “This is the golden age of America.” In a lengthy and wide-ranging address, the president told his fellow Americans that the nation was “bigger, better, richer and stronger” than ever before.
The US economy, and specifically the cost of living, was the key issue with voters in the 2024 presidential election. Exit…
(Full Story)
|
Tuesday, March 3rd 2026
On the fourth day of Israeli and United States airstrikes against Iran and amid growing violence and instability in the Middle East, the UN urgently called for protection of civilians and warned of growing displacement and humanitarian needs.
(Full Story)
|