Eleven must-see comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe
It’s febrile Fringe season again: a time of frantic lists and spreadsheets, and that panicked sense you might not be able to catch all the essential shows. To make life easier, I have compiled a list of the 11 shows that I – an academic specialising in humour and comedy – am most excited about […]
Should Andy Burnham be ‘relentless’ on small boat crossings? Experts react
Following a sudden? influx of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, the discussion on unauthorised migration to Europe is again heightened. In the UK this means a focus on small boat crossings and the policy surrounding them, particularly following 752 arrivals on July 29 – the highest number for one day so far this […]
Europe’s wildfires have raised the danger posed by unexploded WWII bombs
When a wildfire broke out in the Müritz National Park of north-eastern Germany in July, it was no routine firefighting job. Bomb disposal teams had to work alongside firefighters because the forest floor is contaminated with cold war-era munitions. Crews could not approach parts of the blaze directly for fear of detonations. Soon after, a […]
A SpaceX rocket section crashed into the Moon – we can’t let the Moon get polluted by space debris
Image of the Moon taken during Nasa’s Artemis II mission in April 2026. Nasa In the early hours of Wednesday morning August 5 the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the Moon in an uncontrolled collision. No damage was caused, other than the creation of a new crater several metres in diameter, […]
Can leaders ever reform prisons without playing politics? Four things Andy Burnham could do
Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND The UK’s prime minister, Andy Burnham, is facing his first major test with the public over the upcoming early release of thousands of prisoners. These plans are part of the Sentencing Act 2026, passed by Keir Starmer’s government in response to an independent review of sentencing. […]
India’s cockroach movement: how satire became political power as youth protest forced change
As I strolled around the Jantar Mantar astronomical observatory in Delhi on July 28, the atmosphere was finally calm. Jantar Mantar had been the focus of the recent “cockroach” protests, in which tens of thousands took to the streets to push for education reforms in India. While police and riot control vans remained, life was […]
AI is flooding the online book market with poor translations – here’s how to spot them
Anton Dzhumelia/Shutterstock If you’re buying literature in translation online, buyer beware. You may unknowingly be buying low-quality AI-assisted translations presented as the work of a professional. Certain online retailers are being used to flood the book market with AI-assisted “translations”. Amazon is one such example, though the company seems to be aware of the problem […]
AI is making disinformation harder to spot – but we’ve found a new way to catch it
Do you ever see comments on social media that seem way off topic, but still manage to wrench the discussion around to divisive political debate? A discussion about the cost of living suddenly becomes an argument about immigration. A conversation about the war in Ukraine turns into claims about government corruption. It can feel jarring […]
The Shards transforms Bret Easton Ellis’s 1980s LA nightmare into a warning for the present
Ryan Murphy, director of the controversial Netflix true-crime Monster Anthology (2022-), and Bret Easton Ellis, literary provocateur and author of American Psycho (1991), seem the perfect match. Sure enough, Murphy’s new TV adaptation of Ellis’s 2023 novel, The Shards, for Disney+ is an exhilarating mix of teen drama, serial killer nail-biter and homoerotic cat-and-mouse thriller. […]
ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions have increased globally across all age groups, our review shows
The greatest jump in ADHD diagnoses was seen in children. Studio Romantic/ Shutterstock Diagnoses for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have increased in many countries across all age groups, our latest review has found. We have also shown that prescriptions for ADHD treatments have seen similar increases across all age groups. Our latest review, published […]