Editor's note

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.

Paul Keaveny

Commissioning Editor

Top stories

Image from ‘Criminal man, according to the classification of Cesare Lombroso’ (1911). Internetarchivebookimages/Flickr

How tattoos became fashionable in Victorian England

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.

Asking ‘everyday’ people. MBI/Shutterstock

Researchers asked 2,500 Jewish and Muslim people what they find offensive – here’s what they said

Julian Hargreaves, University of Cambridge

We hear much from politicians, community leaders and experts. But what do 'everyday' Jewish and Muslim people find offensive?

Tetraponera leafcutter ant. Phattipol/Shutterstock

Antibiotic resistance and cancer: six surprising places scientists are looking for new drugs

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.

Arts + Culture

Science + Technology

Environment + Energy

  • COP25 climate summit: Action must include divestment, decolonization and resistance

    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?

Health + Medicine

Politics + Society

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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