Editor's note

The national parliamentary election in India is about half over – but how do the ballots cast by 600 million people or more get counted? Election integrity scholar Poorvi Vora sets out the processes and technologies involved in keeping the world’s largest democracy answerable to its people.

Today is International Workers’ Day, also known as Labour Day. Celebrated in about 80 countries, the point is to celebrate gains made by workers and the labour movement, and to put the spotlight on shortcomings. For example, in Tanzania many workers don’t use protective gear to guard against potential hearing loss. Israel Paul Nyarubeli explains.

Jeff Inglis

Science + Technology Editor

Top Stories

A line outside a polling place in Guwahati, India, April 23, 2019. Reuters/Anuwar Hazarika

How the world’s largest democracy casts its ballots

Poorvi Vora, George Washington University

Explaining the equipment and the process by which hundreds of millions of ballots are collected and counted in India.

Manufacturing sites are high noise working areas. Israel Paul Nyarubeli

Workers in Tanzania’s noisy factories are at risk of hearing damage

Israel Paul Nyarubeli, University of Bergen

Measures to control or reduce workplace noise exposure are critical to reducing hearing loss in workers.

Health + medicine

Malawi is testing a new malaria vaccine. But it’s still early days

Faith Osier, Wellcome Trust

Given the high burden of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, a partially effective vaccine is considered better than none.

When is dead really dead? Study on pig brains reinforces that death is a vast gray area

Katharina Busl, University of Florida

A recent study on the brains of pigs suggested that some activity could be restored even after the porkers had been dead for four hours. A neuroscientist who specializes in brain death explains.

Energy + Environment

We asked people in Vietnam why they use rhino horn. Here’s what they said

Vu Hoai Nam Dang, University of Copenhagen; Martin Reinhardt Nielsen, University of Copenhagen

Our findings suggest that the demand for rhino horn is unlikely to fall because people's beliefs are firmly entrenched.

‘Russian spy whale’: the disturbing history of military marine mammals

Gervase Phillips, Manchester Metropolitan University

Russia isn't the only nation suspected of training marine mammals for military use – the US, UK, and Ukraine have all done so in the past.

En français

Ce n’est pas Fox News le problème, c’est l’obsession des médias pour Fox News

Michael J. Socolow, University of Maine

Malgré l’obsession de la presse américaine pour l’« empire » Fox News, l’idée que la chaîne d’information exerce un pouvoir politique sans précédent aux États-Unis est excessive.

Une Europe sous l’influence de forces populistes encore désunies

Marc Lazar, Sciences Po – USPC

La puissance des populistes provient de leur capacité à imposer leurs thématiques, leur temporalité de l’urgence, la simplification de leurs argumentaires et leur mode d’agir.