By Grace Marks, Graduate Teaching Assistant in History and English Literature, Edge Hill University
The vile Victorians were funnier than they looked, using brutal Valentine’s Day cards to mock people they didn’t fancy much.
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By Tim Penn, Lecturer in Roman and Late Antique Material Culture, University of Reading
Summer Courts, X in Roman archaeology, University of Reading
For ancient Romans, many of the gestures now associated with Valentine’s Day would be unfamiliar, if not completely puzzling. Love and desire were not confined to a single day, nor expressed through standardised tokens of romance. There were no cards written (or forgotten), flowers purchased (at inflated prices) or eateries teaming with lovers. Instead, intimacy was negotiated through daily social encounters, leisure activities and moments of shared experience.
Ancient evidence – texts, art, and material remains – show that games were everywhere in the Roman…
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By Judith Mary Hutchings, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Director Centre for Evidence Based Early Intervention, Bangor University
Since the pandemic, more children have been starting school without being “school-ready”.
In 2022-23, 33% of all children starting reception in England did not have the skills needed for success in school, rising to 45% of children receiving free school meals.
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By Chloe Griffin, Research Fellow, School of Ocean & Earth Science, University of Southampton, University of Southampton
Thomas Gernon, Professor in Earth & Climate Science, University of Southampton
To an astronaut today, the Earth looks like a vibrant blue marble from space. But 700 million years ago, it would have looked like a blinding white snowball. This seems an unlikely cradle for life, yet new evidence suggests the frozen ocean featured restricted ice-free oases that provided a lifeline for our earliest complex ancestors.
During the Cryogenian period, from 720 million to 635 million years ago, the Earth was buried by massive ice sheets that marched from the poles to the tropics. Surface…
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By Matt T. Clark, Visiting Research Fellow in Philosophy, University of Leeds
Senior politicians thought Peter Mandelson’s ability to deliver meant they could overlook his behaviour. They should have known the public wouldn’t agree.
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By Nicolas Forsans, Professor of Management and Co-director of the Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University of Essex
Cuba has reached a breaking point that even its crisis-hardened leadership cannot ignore. It is running out of fuel amid US pressure, having last received oil on January 9 from Mexico. This has prompted airlines such as Air Canada to cancel all flights to Cuba, hitting the tourism lifeline that accounts for most of the island’s foreign currency.
Massive power outages are now routine, and the UN has warned of a possible “humanitarian…
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By Ros Williams, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Society, University of Sheffield
For Reform parliamentary candidate and former academic Matt Goodwin: “Englishness is an ethnicity that is deeply rooted in a people that can trace their roots back over generations.” By contrast, he argues, liberal progressives believe “anybody can be English as long as they sign a piece of paper and identify with Englishness.”
This is not a novel definition, and for some, it may be completely uncontroversial. It’s not surprising that some people living in England can trace their ancestors back many generations.
But attempting to define a particular “ethnicity” is also an…
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By Harold Lovell, Senior Lecturer, Glaciology, University of Portsmouth
Chris Stokes, Professor in the Department of Geography, Durham University
It’s difficult to forget standing in front of a glacier that is advancing towards you, towering ice pillars constantly cracking as they inch forward. The motion is too slow to see in real time, but obvious from one day to the next.
One of us (Harold) experienced this during fieldwork in 2012 at Nathorstbreen on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, which was moving forwards more than 10 metres per day.
Encounters like this are rare. Most of the world’s glaciers are retreating…
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By Ian Williams, Professor of Applied Environmental Science, University of Southampton
I grew up on the beaches of Pembrokeshire in south-west Wales. Visits to Tenby were my family’s summer ritual: sand between our toes, paddling in rockpools, strawberry syrup on ice cream.
But 30 years ago, I vividly remember walking along Tenby’s North Beach with my mother and grandmother. No crowds. No laughter. Just the hush of waves sliding over dark, tar‑smudged sand. The holiday postcards had gone grey.
At about 8pm on February 15 1996, the Sea Empress oil tanker missed her tug escort into…
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By Benedict Carpenter van Barthold, Lecturer, School of Art & Design, Nottingham Trent University
This is the challenge of the Kahlo legacy: the more ubiquitous her image becomes, the more its original and liberating meaning risks being flattened.
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