By Laura Yares, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University
Sharon Avni, Professor of Academic Literacy and Linguistics, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY
“Emma,” a young Jewish woman who we met in 2019, didn’t belong to a synagogue. She didn’t have a Jewish partner. She didn’t observe Jewish rituals regularly. On most surveys about religion, she would not seem very engaged with Judaism.
But as Emma talked about what she did in her free time, a very different picture began to emerge. She visited Jewish websites and enjoyed listening to Jewish music. She read books about Jewish topics and had recently attended a retreat for young Jewish adults to learn Torah while also doing yoga.
She was highly invested in learning about Judaism,…
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By Catherine Steel, Professor of Classics, University of Glasgow
Robert Harris has returned to Rome with his new novel, Agrippa. It’s a fictional autobiography of M. Vipsanius Agrippa, right-hand man of the Emperor Augustus, purportedly written in the days before Agrippa’s death at the age of 50 in 12BC.
In Harris’s Cicero trilogy (2021), narrator Tiro allowed readers to see an intimate side of the Roman statesman Cicero. In a similar way, Agrippa…
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By Simon Thorne, Senior Lecturer in Computing and Information Systems, Cardiff Metropolitan University
AI could speed up some police work, but trusting it with evidence raises difficult questions about accuracy, accountability and justice.
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By Eef Hogervorst, Professor of Biological Psychology, Loughborough University
A major new study of 4.2 million people found leisure exercise cuts dementia risk – but manual labour and active commuting may raise it.
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By Stuart Jones, Professor of Sedimentology & Geoenergy, Durham University
Andrew Crossland, Professor in Practice, Department of Engineering, Durham University
Chris Groves, Professor, Director of Education in the Department of Engineering, Durham University
Every time Britain has a still, grey week in winter, something invisible happens behind our plug sockets: gas power stations fire up to keep the lights on. That gas is often imported, with prices set by volatile global markets. This is one reason why energy bills surged during the cost-of-living crisis, despite the low cost of available renewable energy.
On very windy days, we have a different problem. The grid can’t always use all the electricity our wind farms generate, so we pay them to switch off. In…
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By Luicer Anne Ingasia Olubayo, Visiting Researcher at Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of the Witwatersrand
Francesc Xavier Gomez-Olive Casas, Research Manager at MRC/Wits Agincourt Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
The Lancet HIV Commission on Ageing’s 2026 report highlights how profoundly the global HIV epidemic is changing.
In 2025, an estimated 11.5 million (29%) people living with HIV were aged 50 years and older. This is projected to increase…
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By Oludayo Tade, Professor of Sociology (Criminology, Victimology and Security Studies), University of Ibadan
The prevalence of fraud in both the public and private sectors in Nigeria has been widely acknowledged. Fraud includes obtaining money by false pretence, and diversion of money into unauthorised private use. But things are changing too. For instance, digital-payment fraud losses fell by 51%, from N52.26 billion (about US$38 million) in 2024 to N25.85 billion (US$19 million) in 2025.
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration established the
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By Brendon J. Cannon, Associate Professor, Khalifa University
East Africa, a region that has been working to deepen economic integration for more than 25 years, has a history of disagreements about the location of energy infrastructure. Uganda discovered oil in 2006 with the potential to pump an estimated 210,000 to 230,000 barrels of oil per day at peak production. Back in 2014, Kenya and Uganda agreed…
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By Ikechukwu Opara, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Stellenbosch University
Frederic Isingizwe, Research Scientist - eResearch Office, University of the Western Cape
South Africa must focus not just on food production but on preserving what is produced through improved cold chain infrastructure.
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By Richard Lowrie, Reader in Homelessness and Inclusion Health, School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to bring people who are sleeping rough in England into temporary accommodation for Christmas. While this is a good move, and should be happening across the rest of the UK, more needs to be done quickly to help people who are homeless.
Winter is a dangerous time for people to be living on the streets. So while it’s not perfect, Burnham’s…
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