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The Conversation UK
Regular exercise could reduce the severity of hangovers – here’s how
Most of us have been there: a night of fun turns into a morning of regret – complete with a pounding headache, nausea and fatigue. While there are plenty of supposed hangover “cures” out there – from eating a greasy breakfast to the ill-advised “hair-of-the-dog” – a recent paper suggests that regular exercise may be the key to alleviating these dreadful mornings.
Dietary restriction or good genes: new study tries to unpick which has a greater impact on lifespan
As people who research ageing like to quip: the best thing you can do to increase how long you live is to pick good parents. After all, it has long been recognised that longer-lived people tend to have longer-lived parents and grandparents, suggesting that genetics influence longevity. Complicating the picture,...
Why America is buying up the Premier League – and what it means for the future of football
When the Premier League broke away from the rest of English football in 1992, its 22 clubs generated £205 million in its debut season, and the average player earned £2,050 a week. Thirty years later, despite having two fewer clubs, the league’s revenue had increased by 2,850% to £6.1 billion and the average player earned £93,000 a week.
The Apprentice: released so close to the polls, this Trump biopic is inevitably political
The Apprentice – a new film dramatising Donald Trump’s business career during the 1970s and 80s – is the latest in a presidential election full of controversy. The movie charts Trump’s (Sebastian Stan) professional rise from an awkward nobody to hotshot real-estate tycoon. Trump’s Pygmalion-like transformation is credited to his friendship with Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Cohn was an infamous prosecutor who worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Communist and Lavender (homosexual) scares, and as a political fixer for Richard Nixon.
A new generation of telescopes will probe the ‘unknown unknowns’ that could transform our knowledge of the universe
In recent decades, we’ve learnt huge amounts about the universe and its history. The rapidly developing technology of telescopes – both on Earth and in space – has been a key part of this process, and those that are due to start operating over the next two decades should push the boundaries of our understanding of cosmology much further.
How images of knives intended to stop youth knife crime may actually be making things worse
You’d be forgiven for thinking that young people are behind most knife crime in the UK. Media coverage often focuses on youth involvement, and the government’s plan to halve knife crime focuses specifically on young people and vulnerable teenagers. Evidence shows that most knife-involved crime is committed in...
Victor Ambros on the team effort behind his Nobel-prize winning discovery of microRNA – podcast
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of microRNA, tiny biological molecules that tell the cells in our body what kind of cell to be by turning on and off certain genes. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly...
Meet the winners of this year’s Three Minute Thesis competition
The winners of a competition which challenges academics to explain their research in just three minutes have been announced. A total of 850 researchers from across the UK entered the tenth annual Vitae Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition, which was sponsored by The Conversation through its Universal Impact training and mentoring subsidiary.
The UK’s new industrial strategy is welcome, but here’s what is missing
The UK government’s plan to create a new industrial strategy is a welcome attempt to steer Britain’s economy through the challenges of the 21st century. Amid a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, a clear focus on achieving growth is essential. The plan is at an early stage. The...
Wildlife, climate and plastic: how three summits aim to repair a growing rift with nature
By the end of 2024, nearly 200 nations will have met at three conferences to address three problems: biodiversity loss, climate change and plastic pollution. Colombia will host talks next week to assess global progress in protecting 30% of all land and water by 2030. Hot on its heels is COP29 in Azerbaijan. Here, countries will revisit the pledge they made last year in Dubai to “transition away” from the fossil fuels driving climate breakdown. And in December, South Korea could see the first global agreement to tackle plastic waste.
This year’s Nobel prize exposes economics’ problem with colonialism
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson have been awarded the 2024 Nobel memorial prize in economics for their influential work on how institutions shape economic development. Some would say the decision to award these scholars the Nobel was long overdue. The paper that formed the basis of their work...
Haegue Yang’s Leap Year is a bold and diverse show mixing cultural references and folk traditions
Leap Year, a new exhibition of work by South Korean artist Haegue Yang at the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery, is a bold and diverse display of contemporary art, mixing materials and ideas in unexpected ways. Those with a knowledge of art history over the last 70 years will appreciate...
Behavioural science: could supermarket loyalty cards nudge us to make healthier choices?
Ken Murphy, CEO of the British multinational supermarket chain Tesco, recently said at a conference that Tesco “could use Clubcard data to nudge customers towards healthier choices”. So how would this work, and do we want it? Our recent study, published in the Scientific Journal of Research and...
Three ways the upcoming UN biodiversity summit could make a difference
When negotiations at Cop15 – the UN’s biodiversity conference – ended in December 2022, many delegates breathed a sigh of relief. Threatening snowstorms outside the convention centre in Montreal, Canada seemed to lift just as the political weather changed and the long-awaited Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework was agreed. It’s mission: to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 in order to achieve the ultimate goal of a society living in harmony with nature by 2050.
Award-winning bullfighting documentary likely to anger aficionados and abolitionists alike
Every year the Spanish ministry of culture awards prizes for different artistic disciplines. From next year onwards, the country’s national bullfighting award will be withdrawn. The current Spanish minister of culture, the Barcelona-born Green politician Ernest Urtasun, supports the prohibition of what has long been known as Spain’s “national fiesta”.
Assisted dying bill enters parliament – how likely is it to become law?
Labour backbench MP Kim Leadbeater has introduced a bill in the House of Commons that aims to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. Leadbeater is not a member of the government, but has been able to introduce the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill after topping this session’s private members’ bill ballot in September.
Why breakdancing can give you a cone-shaped head
For those of a certain age, Coneheads is an iconic 90s film. But for breakdancers, it seems, developing a cone-shaped head can be an occupational hazard. According to a 2024 medical case report, a breakdancer who’d been performing for 19 years was treated for “headspin hole”, a condition also known as “breakdancer bulge” that’s unique to breakdancers. It entails a cone shaped mass developing on top of the scalp after repetitive head-spinning. Additional symptoms can include hair loss and sometimes pain around the lump.
In despair about Earth’s future? Look for green shoots
As species go extinct and a habitable climate teeters, it’s understandable to feel despair. Some of the world’s top climate scientists have expressed their mounting hopelessness at the prospect of reaching 3°C by 2100. This hellish scenario, well in excess of the 1.5°C countries agreed to aim for when they signed the 2015 Paris agreement, would indeed spell disaster for much of life on Earth.
Threads: the harrowing 1984 BBC docudrama is back on our screens – scary but appropriate viewing for our uncertain times
Threads – the horrific film made by the BBC in 1984 depicting the impact of a nuclear war on a city in the north of England – was recently made available to stream. It’s a brutal and grim tour of the aftermath of nuclear war, which anyone who viewed it when originally aired may struggle to watch again. But, 40 years on, the film is probably regarded more as an unpleasant artefact from a more dangerous time.
Autocratic nations are reaching across borders to silence critics – and so far nothing seems to stop them
Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati survived an assassination attempt outside his home in Wimbledon, south London, in late March 2024. Eighteen months earlier, the London-based independent television channel Iran International, for which Zeraati worked, had temporarily relocated to Washington DC over threats that they believe come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
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