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Lighting the Industrial Revolution
History & The Arts

Lighting the Industrial Revolution

...businesses. Why did it take so long to develop the humble light bulb (1879), if electricity had been discovered and studied for more than a century before that date? It was the invention of the battery by Count Alessandro Volta in 1800 which marked a turning point in understanding and controlling the strange "fluid". For the first time, electricity could be produced by...
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Article 5 mins
Messaging apps – paying attention and timing it right
Languages

Messaging apps – paying attention and timing it right

...businesses and advertisers compete to gain people’s attention in order to boost sales. They do this because otherwise their message or product gets lost in the overwhelming amount of information that circulates on the internet. [Three young women sitting down, all looking at one smart phone] Attention is important to our personal online interactions, too. In a world of...
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Article 5 mins
The realities of rural life in the 1950s-1980s
OpenLearn Ireland

The realities of rural life in the 1950s-1980s

...busy on was to rectify that and there was no pipework up to any house, and by means of what they call the group water scheme we got practically all the houses here supplied, and also I kept up a drum fire of agitation about the roads. There was only one tarmacadamed road here. So we got all the spur roads tarmacadamed and that gave the people a certain amount of...
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Video 5 mins
Climate of fear: culture of hope
Languages

Climate of fear: culture of hope

...businesses who are contributing to the problem deny responsibility or push back against plans for addressing it. But if public opinion creates enough pressure, the government is forced to act, creating regulations and standards which force change on the corporations, who then adapt their practices and technology. So public opinion is vital, both in demanding action over...
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Video 5 mins
The Great Resignation: temporary blip or more enduring labour market trend?
Money & Business

The Great Resignation: temporary blip or more enduring labour market trend?

...Business and Management courses and qualifications. We heard a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic about people in the UK being temporarily furloughed or, in many other cases, losing their jobs entirely. However, one of the other effects was the so-called Great Resignation, also known as the Great Work Reshuffle, or the Big Quit. As academics who research issues to do with...
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Article 5 mins
Why are the bullied reluctant to seek help?
Education & Development

Why are the bullied reluctant to seek help?

...business.” “They are here to teach us.” Bullying is a personal matter. “I don’t feel comfortable telling someone I don’t really know.” “There is no-one in the school I can trust.” Lack of belief that they would take the bullying seriously. “They might laugh. I have seen them brush off students’ problems.” Fear of repercussions. “I don’t want to...
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Article 5 mins
Why Study Philosophers?
History & The Arts

Why Study Philosophers?

...business of refining your thoughts, the universities provide a space in which one can debate the kinds of concerns that interested our six philosophers. It might be that you would not end up studying exactly our six (at The Open University you would read Wittgenstein, Marx and Rousseau, but not Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Arendt). However, the concerns are recognisably the...
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Article 5 mins
Why is snow so hard to predict?
Nature & Environment

Why is snow so hard to predict?

...busy. We don’t know everything It is important to realise that there is still lots about how weather works that we just don’t understand. Even where we do have a good understanding, we need to simplify things so that our computers are capable of processing all the information we have in time to make a useful forecast. Some computer programs are so complex they take...
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Article 5 mins