By Faizan Ali, Established Professor of Marketing and Vice Dean (Startegic Projects), University of Galway
Laiba Ali, Lecturer, Hospitality and Tourism, University of Sunderland
Imagine telling your phone that you want a quiet boutique hotel near a city centre, below a certain price, with a decent breakfast and late checkout. A few seconds later, an AI assistant compares the options, explains why each one fits and helps complete the booking. This is no longer hypothetical.
In late August this year, Google began rolling out hotel booking through its AI Mode search feature in the US. Travellers can describe their preferences conversationally, compare hotels and guest reviews, select a room, check cancellation conditions and complete the booking using Google Pay.…
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By Robert Dempsey, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University
The summer before starting university can be a time of multiple worries for students. Worry about obtaining a place on your desired course. Worry about navigating clearing to confirm your place. Worries about securing accommodation, sorting student finance, preparation for academic studies and even finding the right stationery are also common.
Yet many students’ biggest concern is social in nature: “will I make friends?”. Surveys consistently suggest that loneliness…
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By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University
A bacterium that can live quietly in the stomach for decades may have an unexpected connection with bowel cancer.
A new study estimates that exposure to Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) could be associated with more than one in five cases of bowel cancer worldwide.
That…
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By Lakshminarasimhan Vedanthachari, Associate Professor of Operations Management, Royal Holloway, University of London
Jaguar Land Rover’s decision to cut thousands of jobs comes after years of dealing with some extremely tough terrain in the world of car sales. Tough obstacles have included weakening demand from China, a shortage of vital semiconductors and the US slapping new tariffs on imported vehicles.
Then in Aug 2025, a major cyber attack caused production at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) to grind to a halt for five weeks, losing the firm millions of pounds of revenue every day.
But these external…
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By Arash Beidollahkhani, Research Fellow at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester
Authoritarian governments have long drawn ordinary citizens into political surveillance. Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union encouraged denunciations. East Germany’s secret police service, the Stasi, embedded informants in workplaces and neighbourhoods.
From 1960, Cuba’s…
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By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The discussions between the two leaders reflect a desire by both sides to reduce the heat around the migration issue, which is being fuelled by One Nation.
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By Clara Juarez Miro, Investigadora Beatriz Galindo, Departament de Ciència Política, Dret Constitucional i Filosofia del Dret, Universitat de Barcelona
As support for populist movements surges around the world, the term has become something of a buzzword. It is used to describe very different movements and public figures in very different political contexts. These range from rightwing…
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By Emma Norris, Senior Lecturer, Health Sciences, Brunel University of London
Kristina Pfeffer, Researcher, Sport and Health Science, University of Southern Denmark
A typical weekday in Denmark and the UK looks similar on the surface, but hour by hour, the differences tell an interesting story.
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By Kate Devlin, Professor of Artificial Intelligence & Society, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
Artificial intelligence (AI) could wipe out humanity this decade, according to three researchers from the US company Anthropic. One of the employees, Jacob Coxon, has quit the AI firm.
His predictions were backed by two other current Anthropic researchers in posts on social media. On X, Coxon claimed: “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.”
It’s…
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By Stephen Garland, Senior Lecturer, Sports Physiology, Malmö University
Avid runners are often chasing speed. Whether that’s improving their 5K or shaving seconds off their marathon time to nail a personal best. The idea that exercise should involve pushing further, harder or faster has long been embedded in fitness culture.
But against this backdrop, some people have adopted the almost counter-cultural belief that the key to fitness is to take things slow.
The growing popularity of the “slow jogging” trend online counters a lot of what we’ve been taught about fitness. Rather than striving for speed, the slow jogging trend encourages people…
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