By Nedine Moonsamy, Associate professor, University of Johannesburg
Tlotlo Tsamaase has already proved her talent for African science fiction. Her masterly short stories, one previously shortlisted for the Caine Prize, are helping put Botswana on the literary map.
Her debut novel, Womb City, interweaves the mythological and digital expanses of Batswana culture in dystopian fashion. We encounter a distant future world in which women remain charged with ensuring…
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By Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Ateqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
This episode explores how colonial history has affected what we plant and who gets to garden. We also discuss practical gardening tips with an eye to Indigenous knowledge.
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By Madhumita Pandey, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Sheffield Hallam University
Croatia has become the latest in a string of nations to make killing women because of their gender a specific offence.
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By Robert James Nicholls, Professor of Climate Adaptation, University of East Anglia
Across the world, many cities are slowly sinking. Most are on the coast, including tropical megacities like Jakarta in Indonesia or Manila in the Philippines, or places like New Orleans, Vancouver or much of the Netherlands. Other sinking cities, like Mexico City and many of those in China, can be well inland. Yet this still remains a widely overlooked hazard.
In my three decades assessing this topic, I have reviewed evidence of subsidence in cities around the world. The problem is especially significant in Asia, where about 60% of the world’s population lives and the cities are growing…
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By Alexander C. Lees, Reader, Manchester Metropolitan University
The weather is warmer and the nights are lighter. What are those black, curved silhouettes looping in the sky?
Assuming you are looking at birds and not attending the World Boomerang Championships, those shapes will likely be the UK’s only breeding member of the Apodiformes (a grouping that includes the hummingbirds): the common swift (Apus apus), harbinger of summer.
People in the UK tend to think of these birds as theirs, but really, they are tropical African species that…
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By Johan Flygare, Associate Senior Lecturer, Division of Molecular Medicine and Gene Therapy, Lund University
A drug that can treat severe sickle cell disease has recently been given approval by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). Up to 4,000 patients in England living with sickle cell disease will now be offered voxelotor (also known under the brand name Oxbryta) to alleviate their symptoms.
Sickle cell disease is a genetic condition that affects red blood cells, causing them to deform into a sickle shape. This can block blood…
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By Matthew Wills, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath
Tim Rock, PhD Candidate in Biology, University of Bath
Small really does seem to be beautiful in evolutionary terms. The largest dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals may look impressive but these giants are vastly outnumbered by microscopic bacteria and single-celled…
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By Seb Rumsby, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Birmingham
Vietnamese migrants are protesting against what is happening in their home country, after years of not knowing what was happening.
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By Rebecca Palmer, Associate Lecturer in Illustration, Anglia Ruskin University
This beautifully realised exhibition reveals the wit, warmth and artistic skill that made Raymond Briggs so beloved by children and adults alike.
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By Indranil Banik, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Astrophysics, University of St Andrews
Harry Desmond, Senior Research Fellow of Cosmology, University of Portsmouth
One of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics today is that the forces in galaxies do not seem to add up. Galaxies rotate much faster than predicted by applying Newton’s law of gravity to their visible matter, despite those laws working well everywhere in the Solar System.
To prevent galaxies from flying apart, some additional gravity is needed. This is why the idea of an invisible substance called dark matter was first proposed. But nobody has ever seen…
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