The latest news from across the United Kingdom.
British fashion has always been shaped by creative exchange: forged inside melting pots, authored by radical style communities – and often fuelled by class and migration. Over the past decade, we’ve witnessed the distinct emergence of a new genre centred…
Stenko Vlad/Shutterstock A few years ago, the singer Billie Eilish opened up on the Howard Stern Show about how she began watching porn around age 11. “I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself…
SuxxesPhoto / shutterstock The UK government has announced that standing charges will be removed from gas bills and that it intends to also remove them from electricity bills. Standing charges are a fixed fee paid by every household, regardless of…
When people view sexualised images of women, they tend to remember them less well than sexualised images of men; a quirk of memory that psychologists link to objectification. But in our new study, my colleagues and I found an unlikely…
Sometimes our brain plays tricks on us. MAYA LAB/ Shutterstock It’s three in the morning. You’ve woken from a dead sleep because you’ve heard a thud in the darkness or a floorboard creaking downstairs. Or perhaps you’ve woken because you…
Long before modern medicine could name the invisible terrors ravaging Victorian Britain, the public found a face for contagion: the vampire. A new exhibition at the University of Leeds’s Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, Quite Shameless: Cultural Reflections on the…
What does a haunted castle look like? Perhaps you imagine a ramshackle or imposing structure with towers, pinnacles and undefined spaces hidden in the shadows; some of its “prickly” gothic details picked out by moonlight. Threateningly ill-defined buildings, enough for…
Like the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal is a vital waterway for global trade. Viktor Hladchenko/Shutterstock Months after the US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran, the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. The UK chose not…
When voters enter polling booths across the United States next week to cast their ballots in the midterm elections, very few will be thinking explicitly about foreign policy. In a recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, many…
The Israeli political system presently revolves around three blocs jockeying for position after the election failed to provide a decisive outcome. Based on the latest figures – which are likely to change as absentee ballots and army votes are counted…
An MRI scan can show changes in the brain's structure, but the findings don't always explain a person's symptoms. Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock In 2007, researchers in the Netherlands scanned the brains of 2,000 people aged 45 and over who were going about…
Storm Austen and Storm Boelo swept across the UK in quick succession. Rain lashed windows, river levels rose and the clocks went back. It feels like winter has arrived all at once. Yet most of England and Wales are still…
This autumn marks the 20th anniversary of Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s elaborate and deeply sorrowful film about a young girl caught between two dangerous worlds in rural Spain in 1944. The film tells the story of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero),…
Fantasy accounts for only about 28 minutes of Pan’s Labyrinth’s 119-minute running time, yet these supernatural scenes are what many viewers remember most about Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film. A rewatch 20 years on makes it easy to see why.…
Pixels Hunter / Shutterstock The UK government wants to grow the country’s native AI industry to reduce its dependence on systems made by foreign companies. In the Budget on October 28, Chancellor John Healey announced more money – £60 million…
KlingSup/Shutterstock Amid growing concerns about teenagers’ mental health and wellbeing, governments around the world are considering or enacting new restrictions on young people’s access to social media. Australia has already legislated a ban on social media for under-16s, and the…
These ghost-like glass frogs live in Central and South America. Lukas Gogh/Shutterstock Around this time of year, elaborate decorations featuring ghosts, vampires, zombies, witches and werewolves adorn front doors, gardens and shop windows across the country. But you may be…
When scientists study exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, they often lack three-dimensional information. For example, general mathematical relationships are used to estimate a planet’s radius, even though that distance may be different depending on where it is…
It was a “breathing space” budget from Chancellor John Healey. In the absence of big surprises or bold change, Healey’s trade-off appears to be small reliefs now in exchange for “fresh hope” in the future. Here’s what our experts made…
Irene Miller/Shutterstock Teenagers in England will be able to take GCSEs in vocational subjects – that could include digital tech and building and construction – from September 2029. These qualifications will be taken in schools by 14-16-year-olds, with the subjects…
Chay Tee/Shutterstock Fashion is currently trapped in a hyper-accelerated trend loop. Every week there’s a new “core” or “maxxing” style to contend with – such as balletcore or whimsymaxxing. They zoom in and out of our cultural consciousness with alarming…
Drones are starting to be used help experts predict winter storms more accurately. 1000 words/Shutterstock Weather drones are being tested to help update forecasts of extreme weather more quickly, and could help us prepare earlier for upcoming winter storms. With…
The system of currents that keeps north-western Europe relatively mild is already weakening. (Illustration shows Atlantic surface currents and eddies, with arrows showing the Amoc's warm northward surface flow and cold southward return flow at depth.) Brenden Jongman / NASA…
Kmpzzz/Shutterstock Research consistently shows that autistic people face higher risks of mental health difficulties and are more likely to think about or attempt suicide than the general population. For example, a 2014 study found that up to 66% of those…
Director Lance Oppenheim creates a grim and grubby world in Primetime, steeped in the sweat and compromised ambitions of its characters. But below the film’s grimy surface is a sharp examination of the personal and professional concessions people make in…
Security is the dominant feature of the EU's new Arctic strategy. dotshock / Shutterstock The EU recently presented its latest Arctic strategy. It is the bloc’s fifth such strategy since 2008 and the first to be published since 2021, a…
While Elon Musk was on stage in Texas advertising a flying Tesla on October 16, his other venture, SpaceX, was reshaping geopolitics in Ukraine. SpaceX operates Starlink, the satellite communication system that has played a crucial role in Ukraine’s resistance…
Daria 'Bastet' Felis/Shutterstock.com The shape of your bottom cannot tell you anything about your hormones, whatever recent social media posts claim. The only way to find out your levels of cortisol, oestrogen or anything else is a blood test. A…
buritora/ Shutterstock As a GP, I know that chest pain is one symptom that makes people worry. The immediate concern is that it’s a sign there’s something seriously wrong – such as a problem with their heart or lungs. But…
Stories of wandering spirits and the restless dead were common in the Middle Ages. These ghostly encounters were recorded in a wide variety of medieval literature. Medieval ghost stories combined folklore traditions with religious doctrine. The widespread belief in purgatory…
