Amazing new insight into dinosaur pathology

Editor's note

200 million years ago, a two-ton dinosaur in what is now China narrowly escaped being slaughtered by a predator – but later succumbed to a bacterial infection from the hunter’s bite known to produce fever, nausea and bone abscesses. This extraordinary story came to light simply by analysing its excavated bones. As Patrick Randolph-Quinney explains, a rapidly developing technique in digital imaging is offering new insights into the fossil record.

Recent reports claimed that the DNA of astronaut Scott Kelly changed by 7% as a result of spending a year in space. However, it turns out that this claim doesn’t really hold up. Nate Szewczyk and Amelia Pollard explain what actually happens to your genes when you leave the Earth.

The deadly 1995 sarin attacks on Tokyo’s subway kicked off a hunt for members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, of whom more than 190 were eventually arrested. Today, 13 are on death row – and it seems Japan is finally ready to execute them. Mai Sato remembers the attacks, and explains how they made Japanese justice harsher.

Most academics wake up not to go to work, but to find work already lying next to them on their phones or laptops. Joseph Michael Cook wonders what it means to go on “strike” in the era of digital work.

Josephine Lethbridge

Interdisciplinary Editor

Politics + Society

Aum Shinrikyo subway sarin attack: Japanese cult members await execution two decades on

Mai Sato, University of Reading

The 1995 Tokyo sarin attack helped make Japanese criminal justice dramatically more punitive.
Brexit transition: three misunderstandings about the deal explained

Simon Usherwood, University of Surrey

Transition isn't leaving, nor is it staying. And some key questions remain unanswered.
Five controversial interrogation techniques still not judged as torture in missed opportunity for human rights

Samantha Newbery, University of Salford

The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a call to reconsider whether interrogation techniques used in the 1970s against men interned in Northern Ireland amounted to torture.

Health + Medicine
Six ways to get teenagers more active – suggested by the teens themselves Michaela James, Swansea University; Sinead Brophy, Swansea University We asked teenagers what they need to get, and stay, active. How to help people with tuberculosis avoid the medical poverty trap Tom Wingfield, University of Liverpool We can't eradicate TB without also addressing poverty.

Arts + Culture
Wicked witches and evil queens: why children's books need more female villains Anna Cermakova, University of Birmingham; Michaela Mahlberg, University of Birmingham The history of children's books gives us very few really villainous female characters – and most of them are witches or evil queens.

Science + Technology
Cheap, available technologies could make monitoring bridges easier and prevent tragedies like the one in Florida Rolands Kromanis, Nottingham Trent University Bridges should have continuous health monitoring systems in place to detect damage that can lead to collapse.

Business + Economy

The bottled water industry's healthy origins

Alexandre Nobajas, Keele University

Some of the biggest names in the bottled water industry were originally spa towns that wealthy Europeans escaped to during the industrial revolution.
How employers can boost social mobility by changing the way they recruit

Matt Dickson, University of Bath

Education is not the only way to tackle social mobility, employers also have a key role to play.