Why Italy’s Giorgia Meloni broke with Donald Trump
The Italian prime minister and leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni, has made fostering ties with foreign leaders a central part of her political strategy. A few years before winning Italy’s 2022 general elections, she started cultivating ties with the US and European conservative world as part of a broader political […]
Could warming seas bring great white sharks back to the North Sea? A 5-million-year-old shark tooth may provide clues
As the Earth shifts to climates not seen for several hundred thousand years, we may need to look at ancient environments for clues about what could happen next. Our new study of two whale fossils, with preserved fragments of shark teeth, suggests the modern descendants of these animals could once again roam the southern region […]
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is an early exploration of ‘romance fraud’
Shrinking into her yellowing wedding gown with the decay of her wedding breakfast around her, Miss Havisham, from Charles Dickens’s 1861 novel, Great Expectations, is one of the best-known characters in English literature. Jilted on her wedding day by her unscrupulous fiancé, Havisham can be understood by modern readers as a victim of “romance fraud”, […]
The many literary lives of Mary Wollstonecraft – author of novels, travel writing and children’s books
In his biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, written after her death, her husband William Godwin remarked of her travel writing: “If ever there was a book calculated to make a man fall in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.” Today, however, Wollstonecraft is best known for a different work: A […]
Why delaying climate action now means higher seas by 2100 – new research
Imagine your favourite sunny beach. Anywhere will do. You look out and see the ocean stretching to the horizon. To a glaciologist, that view is not just water; it’s melted ice. Our new study shows that the best case sea-level rise scenarios may now be out of reach. Around 20,000 years ago, during the most […]
Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s ‘nuclear deterrent’
This is the text from The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up here to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox. Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have commented in connection with his invasion of Russia that “geography is destiny”. Take a look at a live maritime […]
How scientists changed their view of insomnia
Ground Picture/Shutterstock Insomnia may have been torturing humanity since ancient times, but over the last 20 years scientists have made progress in their understanding of chronic sleep deprivation. Today, sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread reported psychological problems in Britain, with about a third of the adult population in England reporting frequent insomnia […]
What a ‘post-antibiotic era’ could mean for modern medicine
nobeastsofierce/Shutterstock Antibiotics are one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical history. They turned once-deadly infections into treatable illnesses and made modern healthcare possible. But bacteria are changing, and some of the drugs we have depended on for decades are becoming less effective. Around the world, infections are becoming harder to treat. This problem is known […]
AI has crossed a threshold – what Claude Mythos means for the future of cybersecurity
The limit of what artificial intelligence can achieve, known as frontier AI, has crossed another threshold. AI can now plan and execute sophisticated cyber operations with minimal guidance at speeds far beyond human capability. That, at least, is the evidence from an independent test of Claude Mythos Preview, the latest and most advanced model in […]
Mandelson vetting: Starmer’s reluctance to engage with the details shows a lack of political leadership
For all of Keir Starmer’s undoubted abilities, steady nerve and top-level experience in the legal profession, his tenure as prime minister has been fraught with difficulty. This is no doubt partly due to his limited enthusiasm for the (at times banal) realities of political leadership. It is also due to his reluctance to engage sufficiently […]