By Sian Waters, Research fellow at the Department of Anthropology, Durham University
Tracie McKinney, Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, University of South Wales
We’ve seen it happen. For example, a visit to the Ouzoud waterfalls in Morocco’s High Atlas led to an encounter with a group of nearby tourists feeding chips – supplied by the tour guide – to some waiting Barbary macaques. Pointing to a nearby sign that read “do not feed the monkeys” was met with complaints about spoiling their fun.
Scenes like this play out across the globe. Feeding wild primates is common in many countries. Scientists have spent years studying its effects on primate behaviour. But much less attention has been paid to the other side of the interaction – the people…
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By David Scott, Head of Division, School of Business and Creative Industries, University of the West of Scotland
I gave him Scottish smoked salmon as a gift. He ripped the packet open and devoured it on the spot.
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By Donald McLean, Honorary Lecturer in Early Television, University of Glasgow
Number 1519 Connecticut Avenue lies just north of Dupont Circle, just over a 20-minute walk from the White House in Washington DC. In 1921, the inventor Charles Francis Jenkins set up his laboratory and offices there, upstairs from a car dealership.
Today there are no obvious external indications of this famous resident, nor of his exceptional achievements, awards and numerous patents. A hundred years ago at his laboratory, on June 13 1925, Jenkins gave a demonstration of a televised film sent by radio waves from a building 10km away at what is now the US Naval Research Laboratory in…
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By Ali Elham, Professor of Design Optimisation, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Southampton
An Air India plane bound for London Gatwick airport crashed shortly after take-off on 12 January in Ahmedabad, western India. Flight AI171 was carrying 242 people, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.
Here, Professor Ali Elham, from the University of Southampton’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, speaks to The Conversation’s Paul Rincon about the plane involved in the crash, Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.
How does Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner…
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By Marika Rostvall, PhD Candidate, Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet
Women who had been exposed to violence in their childhood had a twofold greater likelihood of being diagnosed with endometriosis.
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By Paul Lashmar, Reader in Journalism, City St George's, University of London
A fellow journalist and academic researcher in the UK’s cold-war propaganda efforts describes his experience meeting the late bestselling author.
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By Oleksandra Osypenko, PhD researcher in linguistics, Lancaster University
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a lot of Ukrainians who would normally have used Russian as their first language started instead to speak only in Ukrainian. It was part of a cultural shift, particularly in areas close to Russia. Streets were renamed, statues of Russians taken down and Russian literature taken off the shelves of bookshops.
But language does more than merely signal a person’s identity. We wanted to find…
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By Stephen Clear, Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, Bangor University
Next May’s Senedd (Welsh parliament) election won’t just be another trip to the polls. It will mark a major change in how Welsh democracy works. The number of elected members is increasing from 60 to 96, and the voting system is being overhauled. These changes have now passed into law.
But what exactly is changing – and why?
When the then assembly was first established in 1999, it had limited powers and just 60 members. Much…
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By Chi-Yun Shin, Senior Lecturer, Film Studies, Sheffield Hallam University
Tornado is many things: a British period drama, a western, a samurai film, a coming-of-age story and an origin story. Set in the windswept moorland of Britain in 1790, the film offers a lawless backdrop fit for a western, with no visible sign of the industrial revolution that began some three decades prior.
Its Wuthering Heights-esque wilderness, serenely captured by the cinematographer Robbie Ryan conjures up an almost otherworldly look.
…
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By Roxanne Panchasi, Associate Professor, Department of History, Simon Fraser University
Three decades after France’s last nuclear tests, those living near the test sites still await compensation for the harms caused.
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