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Is a technological solution always the best? The politics of toilets
Health, Sports & Psychology

Is a technological solution always the best? The politics of toilets

...system called capitalism. Other systems have been unfair too (Feudal peasants had to poop in buckets while their lords relieved themselves on resplendent wood-carved thrones.) but that doesn’t make present inequalities any more excusable. What is more important than just blaming capitalism though, is looking at how inequalities persist even in the face of well-resourced...
Life in immigration limbo: Befriending the women of Yarl's Wood
Society, Politics & Law

Life in immigration limbo: Befriending the women of Yarl's Wood

...system. But those who are detained, or re-detained, experience the most damage to their mental health from the lack of knowledge and understanding of when and how they will leave the centre, either released in the community or removed from the UK. And although the government changed the name of “immigration detention centres” to “removal centres” in 2002 –...
How scientists found rare fireball meteorite pieces on a driveway – and what they could teach us
Science, Maths & Technology

How scientists found rare fireball meteorite pieces on a driveway – and what they could teach us

...System, preserving the composition of this original material. In contrast, processed samples have been altered by heat. They are from larger bodies and contain information about planetary surfaces and interiors. [Meteorite piece weighing about 4g] Meteorite piece weighing about 4g The stones that fell over Winchcombe are from the former group – and not only that, they...
How juror bias can be tackled to ensure fairer trials
Society, Politics & Law

How juror bias can be tackled to ensure fairer trials

...system fails to rehabilitate, deter or incarcerate guilty individuals). Part of the fascination of juror decision-making relates to human fallibility, and the prejudices and biases that can have an impact on a verdict. Films such as 1957’s Twelve Angry Men – where one man systematically dismantles the biases and assumptions of his fellow jurors – dramatically...
Planetary Protection of Icy Worlds
Science, Maths & Technology

Planetary Protection of Icy Worlds

...System. But how can we strike a balance between exploring these new worlds and ensuring they remain unspoilt?...In the late 1970s, NASA’s Voyager mission provided the first tantalising clues that Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, might have an ocean beneath its thick icy shell. Since then, missions such as NASA’s Galileo and Cassini-Huygens spacecraft have provided...
Herbal medicine
Health, Sports & Psychology

Herbal medicine

...thinking was along the lines of "why give a patient a herb tea with an indeterminate amount of active ingredients, when it is possible to administer a small white pill with precisely measured amounts?" And so drugs such as digoxin, derived originally from foxgloves, and aspirin, based on chemicals found in meadowsweet and willow bark, were isolated and then synthesised...
What do literary agents do?
History & The Arts

What do literary agents do?

...think all of us came into publishing because we love books – it’s like any other product – so I think there’s an emotional and a sentimental link between the people in the industry and the, for want of a better word, the product, but the only thing I have is my time, and if I’m going to invest months working on a script, asking them to rewrite it and rewrite it...
Can comedy change your life?
Health, Sports & Psychology

Can comedy change your life?

...think and even how we act...Find out more about The Open University's Psychology courses Maeve Higgins once set herself a task. The Irish-born comedian wanted to see what life would be like if she stopped laughing at things that weren’t funny. Turns out it wasn’t as easy as she thought. “It was so effing hard,” she says. “Laughter is a lubricant and is expected,...