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Invasion of the killer pumpkins
Money & Business

Invasion of the killer pumpkins

...children, and increasingly ourselves, dress up as the dead and the damned to consume this tacky stuff once a year, often at the hands of complete strangers against a faint but persistent aura of menace? Some thank American television for this cultural import alongside baseball hats and junior proms. Others might go further, explaining it as the eruption of some deep...
Valuing death
Health, Sports & Psychology

Valuing death

...children would rather I didn’t talk about what I might want to happen. So why have things changed so much? There is no doubt the advances of medicine have improved our lives. Better sanitation, vaccinations and antibiotics have meant fewer children’s deaths and a longer life expectancy for most of us. Thankfully this has made death less common, but it has also...
The search for water on Mars
Science, Maths & Technology

The search for water on Mars

...centre of the image from right to left, which looks like a branch. This is the valley network called Nirgal Vallis. Circular features are evident in several places on the image, which are impact craters.] Figure 14 Nirgal Vallis as seen by Mariner 9. The image (94 km across) shows a valley network, interpreted to be river channels with tributaries. The circular features...
Level 1: Introductory 5 hrs
Richard Brock - Earth in Vision
Nature & Environment

Richard Brock - Earth in Vision

...researched and there was 12 in a row and I think they’re now doing something with the same slot which is about nature and people and conservation. So they keep going at that, which is really important. Is there more freedom in radio than television? I’m not sure in terms of the politics whether that’s true. I think the BBC has to be careful, so whether it’s on...
How many different types of smile are there?
Health, Sports & Psychology

How many different types of smile are there?

...researcher into smiles over the past 30 years has been Paul Ekman at the University of California. His 1978 Facial Action Coding System, written with Wallace V Friesen, seeks to create an atlas of nearly all possible human expressions. Ekman says, in his book Telling Lies, that their technique for measuring the face can distinguish over 50 different smiles. Confused?...
Statistics: What is it or what are they?
Science, Maths & Technology

Statistics: What is it or what are they?

...research organisation MORI interviewed 1,955 adults across the UK. Of the 949 of these who said they would be certain to vote if there were an election the next day, 39% said they would vote Conservative, 35% Labour, 19% Liberal Democrat, and the rest for other parties or candidates. These numbers are statistics in the plural sense; they are facts about what the...
The lifelong political engagement of the Silent Generation
Health, Sports & Psychology

The lifelong political engagement of the Silent Generation

...glorious past, ‘they didn’t live through it’. As the research progresses, it is clear that citizenship and political engagement is lifelong. Just because official information gatherers do not recognise the value of the opinions of our oldest citizens does not mean their voices should be silenced. They have important things to say, and we should be listening....
OpenMinds: Open and Shut Cases – Professor Simon Lee’s Inaugural lecture
Miscellaneous

OpenMinds: Open and Shut Cases – Professor Simon Lee’s Inaugural lecture

...research from the USA on whether judges, lawyers, law students and the general public think differently and he will question how we can encourage students and the wider public to be open-minded. Finally, he will reflect on Allan Bloom’s challenging book, The Closing of the American Mind from 1987 and the battle-cries of ‘post-truth’ and ‘fake news’ in 2017. He...