By Mitu Sengupta, Professor, Politics and Public Administration, Toronto Metropolitan University
For more than two centuries, authorities in India have tried to remove free-ranging dogs from public life. Yet efforts to eliminate them have repeatedly encountered not only practical difficulties, but fierce resistance.
Why have dogs proven so difficult to dislodge from India’s streets?
Colonial culling drives provoked the Bombay dog riots of 1832, prompting authorities to experiment with relocating dogs rather than simply…
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By Ian Mudway, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, Imperial College London
James Scales, Senior Research Fellow, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London
Rosamund Dove, Research Associate, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London
When London introduced the ultra low emission zone (Ulez) in 2019, the idea was straightforward: cut the dirtiest vehicle emissions and improve the air people breathe. But the big question at the time was whether this measure would actually translate into measurable health benefits.
Our new study, published in The Lancet Public Health, suggests that it has had benefits for children’s…
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By Sally Christine Reynolds, Associate Professor in Hominin Palaeoecology, Bournemouth University
Two Denisovan leg bones from Taiwan came from tall individuals. But we can’t generalise to a whole species just yet.
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By Paul Ashton, Professor of Botany, Edge Hill University
While wildfires dominated the headlines this summer, the effects of extreme heat and drought are also visible on a much smaller scale: parched lawns, wilting and browning trees and dry ditches and bogs. These changes may look temporary, but for wildlife they can have consequences that last long after the rain returns.
In some parts of the world, species have evolved to adapt to extreme heat and drought. However in Britain, which has a history of cold winters, cool summers and abundant rain, there hasn’t…
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By Amnesty International
The expanded use of surveillance technologies in Argentina during the first two years of the Javier Milei’s administration has served to expand states surveillance capabilities, profiling and reprisals in the country, creating a chilling effect on rights to privacy and freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, Amnesty International said in a new report today. The report, Sensing the Surveillance State, documents how the government implemented sweeping institutional reforms to expand its intelligence capabilities and therefore surveillance mechanisms, through executive decrees and…
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By Jeff Punch, Professor, School of Engineering, University of Limerick
Water is an amazing substance. The human body is made up of more than 50% water. Approximately 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water. We drink it, bathe in it, cook with it, clean with it. It is also used to cool data centres, which is an increasing draw on what is a scarce resource in many parts of the world.
The boom in artificial intelligence (AI) has been fuelling the construction of new data centres worldwide. This is driven by the massive computing workloads required to train and run generative AI models. AI data…
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By Saman Sobhani, PhD Candidate in Environmental Economics, Aberystwyth University
On a warm evening in May, swifts scream over rooftops, chasing insects above the traffic. A fox slips along a garden wall while gulls squabble on a supermarket roof. We tend to treat these animals as visitors. But they’re residents too, living alongside us in places designed for people.
My recent research argues this needs to change. Instead of asking how nature can make cities better for humans, urban planners should consider what cities owe the many species that already live in them.
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By Danielle Schoenaker, Associate Professor of Preconception Health and Care, University of Southampton
Keith Godfrey, Professor of Epidemiology and Human Development, University of Southampton
Fewer than one in five women in England now take folic acid before pregnancy. This is down from one in four just five years ago.
The decline is worrying because it could undermine the progress that has been made in recent years to prevent serious birth defects linked to low folic acid intake.
Although the UK government has mandated that from December 2026 all non-wholemeal wheat flour must…
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By Catherine Clarke, Professor in the History of People, Place and Community, School of Advanced Study, University of London
In 1804, William Blake wrote in his poem Jerusalem of England’s “green and pleasant” land. This idealised vision of English pastoral has resonated through two centuries, fusing the character of the nation with its landscape – those “mountains green” and “pleasant pastures”.
Turned into a hymn by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916, Jerusalem is sung annually at the Last Night of the Proms. It has been adopted by various English…
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By Heather L. Robinson, Research Associate - Creative Industries, Flinders University
It’s a library’s duty to balance representing its community with providing a broad range of books – including those that may challenge or discomfort.
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