By Helen McDonald, Senior Lecturer, Life Sciences, University of Bath
Two countries, two different approaches to protecting children from chickenpox. While the UK prepares to introduce a combined vaccine covering measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox (MMRV) in a single jab, the US is moving in the opposite direction – restricting parents’ ability to choose that same combination for their youngest children.
Just as the US has just celebrated 30 years of chickenpox vaccination, advisers to its health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, voted against the use of the MMRV…
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By Lindsay O'Dell, Professor of critical developmental psychology, The Open University
Charlotte Brownlow, Professor of Psychology, School of Psychology and Wellbeing, University of Southern Queensland
Sandra Thom-Jones, Honorary Professor, University of Wollongong
The science is clear: no link exists between paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism. What lingers is the harm caused when powerful voices spread misinformation.
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By Tiffany Dionne Prete, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, University of Lethbridge
We must hope Pope Francis’s apology was merely the beginning toward toward Catholic Church accountability and repair around residential schools.
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By Misheck Mutize, Post Doctoral Researcher, Graduate School of Business (GSB), University of Cape Town
South Africa needs to use its G20 presidency to press for reforms that could reduce Africa’s borrowing costs and strengthen its financial sovereignty.
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By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Assistant Professor, Harvard University
Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo has been honoured as Africa’s best short story writer after winning the Best of Caine Award. The special recognition marks 25 years of the annual Caine Prize for African Writing.
An esteemed panel of judges unanimously selected Bulawayo as…
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By Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand
Love her or loathe her, it is hard to deny that Helen Zille is one of the most remarkable politicians South Africa’s democracy has yet seen. Remarkable because she has served in so many high-profile public roles – as mayor of Cape Town, premier of the Western Cape province, leader of the opposition, and leader of the Democratic Alliance before later becoming the party’s federal chair, and wielding power behind the scenes.
She has never steered clear of controversy, and indeed, revels in it in a way which discomforts…
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By Moyosoluwa Dele-Dada, Assistant Lecturer, Covenant University
Poverty in Nigeria has reached critical levels, recent data shows. About 31% of Nigerians lived in poverty prior to the COVID-19 epidemic. Since then, an additional 42 million have become poor, increasing the poverty rate to about 46% in 2024.
Over 133…
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By David Rios Insua, Member of the ICMAT, AXA-ICMAT Chair in Adversarial Risk Analysis and Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (ICMAT-CSIC)
Artificial intelligence has started to appear almost everywhere in our lives. We enjoy its benefits, such as the speedier discovery of new drugs, or the more personalised medicine that results from its amalgamation of data and expert judgement, often without realizing it. Generative AI, which enables the fast creation of content and automates summarization and translation via tools such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek and Claude, is its most popular form, but AI is much more: its techniques, mainly from machine learning, statistics and logic, help generate decisions and predictions while being guided by goals…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Rohingya refugees walk through rice fields after crossing the border from Myanmar into Palang Khali, Bangladesh, October 19, 2017. © 2017 Jorge Silva/Reuters (New York) – United Nations member states meeting on September 30, 2025, on the plight of Rohingya Muslims should commit to urgent action to protect them from persecution and violence, Human Rights Watch said today. Rohingya in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and across Asia continue to face grave threats to their safety, freedom, and lives.The UN General Assembly is convening a High-Level Conference on the…
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By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney
The winners of this year’s awards include celebrated novelist Michelle de Kretser, journalist Rick Morton on Robodebt and poet David Brooks.
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