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Editor's note
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For our UK-based readers it’s election day and voters will be heading to the polls, hopefully having been primed by our stellar mix of evidence-based analysis and opinion from some of the country’s top academics. We’ll be bringing you results and insights as they happen tomorrow morning. But today we are publishing the latest long read in our Insights series which examines the world of Victorian convict tattoos. Using data-mining techniques Bob Shoemaker and his team were able to dredge the judicial archive where they found 57,990 convicts with tattoo descriptions in their records.
At the time, some commentators believed that “persons of bad repute” used tattoos to mark themselves “like savages” as a sign they belonged to a criminal gang. But Shoemaker’s new database reveals that convict tattoos expressed a surprisingly wide range of positive and indeed fashionable sentiments and introduces us to a range of characters from the era. These records allow us to see – for the first time – that historical tattooing was not
restricted to sailors, soldiers and criminals but was a growing and accepted phenomenon in Victorian England.
Elsewhere researchers from the University of Cambridge asked 2,500 Jewish and Muslim people what they find offensive and found a complicated mix of answers, quite different from the simplistic narrative often portrayed by politicians and the media. And scientists are looking in surprising places for new drugs in the fight against antibiotic resistance … even the human nose.
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Paul Keaveny
Commissioning Editor
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Top stories
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Image from ‘Criminal man, according to the classification of Cesare Lombroso’ (1911).
Internetarchivebookimages/Flickr
Robert Shoemaker, University of Sheffield; Zoe Alker, University of Liverpool
We may think tattooing is a modern phenomenon, but the reasons for its popularity are not dissimilar to those seen in the prisons and convict ships of the Victorian era.
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Asking ‘everyday’ people.
MBI/Shutterstock
Julian Hargreaves, University of Cambridge
We hear much from politicians, community leaders and experts. But what do 'everyday' Jewish and Muslim people find offensive?
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Tetraponera leafcutter ant.
Phattipol/Shutterstock
Linamaria Pintor Escobar, Edge Hill University; Alba Iglesias Vilches, Newcastle University
Leafcutter ants, Komodo dragons and even your nose are potential sources of new antimicrobial compounds.
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Arts + Culture
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Margaret K. Hogg, Lancaster University; David Marshall, University of Edinburgh; Teresa Davis, University of Sydney
Ads depicting mothers in the UK and Australia between 1950 and 2010 continue to limit maternal knowledge to the domestic sphere and reinforce gender stereotypes of 'professional' expertise
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Mike Ryder, Lancaster University
At the heart of the debate is that most fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?
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Science + Technology
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Angus Davison, University of Nottingham
Scientists don't just want to unravel the mysteries of slug sex for voyeurism.
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Ruth Byrne, Trinity College Dublin; Kinga Morsanyi, Queen's University Belfast
Our new book explores the autistic mind -- and shows that we're not as different as we might think
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Environment + Energy
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Diana Vela Almeida, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Catherine Windey, University of Antwerp; Gert Van Hecken, University of Antwerp; Melissa Moreano, Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar; Nicolas Kosoy, McGill University; Vijay Kolinjivadi, University of Antwerp
Who wins, who loses and whose natures are being talked about when nature-based solutions are proposed?
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Health + Medicine
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Stephen Rocks, University of Oxford; Apostolos Tsiachristas, University of Oxford
There is probably not much appetite in the private sector for running vast swathes of the NHS.
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Paula Lorgelly, UCL
Labour politician Barry Gardiner claims that people's experience of the NHS has got remarkably worse.
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Politics + Society
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Kevern Verney, Edge Hill University
Donald Trump likes to poke fun too.
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Wayne Dooling, SOAS, University of London
The British Labour Party has pledged to conduct an audit of the impact of Britain's colonial legacy.
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Paula Keaveney, Edge Hill University
Citizens are voting in 650 constituencies – but technically not for who they want to be prime minister.
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Veronika Koller, Lancaster University
One side wants to 'get Brexit done' while the other shouts the 'NHS is not for sale!'. What does it all really mean?
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Oliver Patel, UCL
Boris Johnson wants to leave by the end of January 2020 and hopes to have a trade deal agreed within a year.
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Richard Thomas, Swansea University; Declan McDowell-Naylor, Cardiff University
The BBC is looking exposed after a campaign in which it has taken fire from all sides.
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Naomi Brookes, University of Warwick
Want a rule of thumb for how voters should view megaprojects in manifestos? Read on.
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Featured events
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Lecture Theatre One, UEA, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of East Anglia
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Portsmouth Guildhall, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO1 2AB, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Portsmouth
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Ron Cooke Hub, Campus East, , York, York, YO10 5GE, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of York
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