A young Conversation reader in Fiji has been thinking about lions. Emilia, six, wrote in to ask why “man lions have manes and lady lions don’t”. It’s a very good question that was duly answered by a researcher at the University of New England. Britain’s last lion tamer, Thomas Chipperfield, was recently refused a licence to continue performing. While lion taming is a tradition that goes back centuries, our ancestors weren’t all cheering from the sidelines. As far back as the 1830s, spectators were complaining about this “gratuitous impertinence” towards the king of the jungle. We trace the origins of this curious cultural phenomenon.

Scientists remain puzzled about another animal curiosity. We hear from a team trying to work out why some lizards have green blood. Meanwhile, lots of us spent the week arguing on the internet, would you ever believe it. British Twitter has been boiling over with rage about ham, after it was declared racist to compare middle-aged, right-wing white men to gammon.

The rest of the world looked on in bemusement for a while but soon threw itself enthusiastically into another dispute. If you’ve not caught up, you need to listen to a short piece of audio and tell everyone you know whether you hear the word ‘Yanny’ or ‘Laurel’. It’s essentially an aural rerun of that bitter feud we had about the colour of a dress a few years ago. You know, the one that nearly led to World War III. So how is it possible for two people to hear something completely different when they listen to exactly the same sound?

Also this weekend, the Cannes film festival comes to an end, two humans are getting married or something, and a team of scientists are preparing to drill into Everest using an old car wash.

We hope you enjoy this round up of the best of the week’s Conversation content from across the global network. Some of you may have received an email from us this week with the subject line: “Confirm your subscription – or miss out on The Conversation”. If you have not confirmed your subscription yet, and wish to continue receiving out emails, then click here.

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