By Joshua Brahinsky, Researcher, Department of Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University
Jonas Mago, PhD student, McGill University
Michael Lifshitz, Assistant Professor of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University
Do the world’s religions and contemplative traditions send people to the same place – compassion, bliss, awe, a sense of God, awareness, or the universe?
We conducted a study that asked a smaller version of this question.
As scientists with a research focus on brain science and spirituality, we ask whether people from very different spiritual traditions – Buddhism and Christian Pentecostalism…
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By Marloes Janson, Professor of West African Anthropology, SOAS, University of London
Nigeria’s economic hub, Lagos, ranks among the fastest-growing cities in the world. Its huge population – estimated at around 20 million – and its rapid urbanisation contribute to a sense of life where survival hinges…
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By Artur Nadiiev, Research Associate, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
There have long been tensions, political, economic and cultural, between Poland and Ukraine. But that hasn’t prevented Poland from being the biggest supporter of its neighbour, taking in millions of Ukrainians fleeing the war, about 1 million of whom have remained.
And in 2023, Poland conferred its highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, on Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. At the time, then-president Andrzej Duda told the Ukrainian president: “It is difficult to hide the tears of emotion…
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By Jacob Fairless Nicholson, Associate Lecturer (Teaching) in Human Geography, UCL
Shortly after I started my PhD at the end of 2016, a small, community-focused bouldering wall opened on the street I lived on. I was completely new to climbing at the time but thought: why not give it a go. Almost a decade later my love affair with bouldering is still going strong and I’ve found, as a researcher and a boulderer, there are many benefits to my hobby.
Bouldering is rock climbing without ropes, usually to a fixed height of up to 4.5m, with protection from falling provided by foam crash mats.…
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By Mark Williams, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester
Lorenzo Lustri, Postdoctoral Researcher, Arthropod Paleobiology, Yunnan University
Tom Harvey, Associate Professor in Geoscience, University of Leicester
Yu Liu, Professor of Palaeontology, University of Leicester
The publicity posters for the 1955 cult monster movie Tarantula! displayed a giant spider rampaging across the Arizona desert and clutching a poor human victim in its viciously long fangs. The film captured our fear of spiders, their creepy crawly motion and the hideous way they stab their prey to death, injecting a lethal venom.
Spiders, like their cousins the scorpions, are some of nature’s most accomplished hunters. Our new research looks at remarkable fossils excavated from Yunnan, southern China. We have…
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By Sarah Trott, Senior Lecturer in American Studies and History, York St John University
The story of the US is, in many ways, remarkable. It achieved independence against the odds, its constitution has lasted more than two centuries and its democracy has weathered war, economic depression, social upheaval and political change. But reflection on American history rarely settles into simple celebration.
From the beginning, the US was an experiment rather than an inheritance.…
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By Aleida Borges, Lecturer in Politics & Inequality, King's College London
For decades, the west African island nation of Cape Verde was perhaps best known for the music of late singer Cesária Évora. This summer, however, the Atlantic archipelago has gained fame for a different reason: football. As one of the surprise stories of the 2026 Fifa World Cup, Cape Verde has captured the imagination of fans worldwide.
The team has qualified for the knockout…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Microphones and receivers on a mixing desk. © 2018 Rich T Photo/Shutterstock Last week, Mali’s media regulator silenced one of the country’s few remaining public forums, the popular radio phone-in show, Allô Klédu.On June 25, the High Authority for Communication ordered the suspension of the show, broadcast on the private station Radio Klédu, for two months. The media regulator said the program had become “a platform for listeners to vent against the government,” and sought to justify the suspension by citing broadcasts in which callers accused the authorities…
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By Civic Media Observatory
In this edition, we explore a narrative shared by Grupo Xcaret and the Gran Consejo Maya de Quintana Roo that presents Mayan symbols and identities as a trademark.
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By Haojin Zhou, Doctoral Researcher in Sport Policy and Governance, Loughborough University
Mathew Dowling, Senior Lecturer in Sport Management, Loughborough University
FIFA can pause the match and sell the spectacle, but the 2026 World Cup shows the limits of its control over global football.
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