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Editor's note
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Sitting out in the garden is a pleasure during a warm spell, but while you’re soaking up those rays, spare a thought for the plants. Like us, plants love a bit of shade and a refreshing drink – but when’s the best time to do the watering? Alastair Culham gives his top tips for protecting your garden during a heatwave. And, if you are lucky enough to have a garden, you might like to put in a pond. As Becky Thomas writes, the UK’s amphibian population is in decline and even a small pool of water makes a welcome habitat for frogs and toads.
Editor-turned-television presenter Piers Morgan engaged with scientist (and radio presenter) Brian Cox in a Twitter debate about the existence of God, the universe and everything. Morgan believes there must be some cause for the universe while Cox questions his logic. Philosopher Nikk Effingham runs an eye over both men’s arguments and finds that, while only one of them can be right, both of them are justified in believing what they do.
Department stores are in jeopardy, from House of Fraser in the UK to Myer in Australia. Where once they held high streets together, now they are exacerbating their decline. But retail expert Ruth Marciniak believes we’re simply seeing a classic shakeout. Here are her five tips for making department stores fit for purpose, with a whistlestop tour of the best the world has to offer. Nelson Blackley and Anthony Kent also give their take on why UK high streets need help – with fears that the number of empty shops could rise to 100,000 in the next decade.
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Holly Squire
Commissioning Editor
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Top stories
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shutterstock.
Alastair Culham, University of Reading
A gardening expert reveals the simple things you can do to protect your garden during a heatwave.
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Shutterstock
Becky Thomas, Royal Holloway
As ponds dry up, so too does our connection to nature.
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Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel
Nikk Effingham, University of Birmingham
The television presenter and the scientist are having an argument about God on Twitter, and Morgan is getting a lot of stick. That's not fair.
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As seen on a high street near you.
Shutterstock
Nelson Blackley, Nottingham Trent University; Anthony Kent, Nottingham Trent University
The challenges facing town centres and high streets are intensifying.
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Famous dome in Galeries Lafayette, Paris.
A. Wee
Ruth Marciniak, Glasgow Caledonian University
Glance at House of Fraser, John Lewis et al and you might think it's time to give up the ghost.
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Environment + Energy
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Kimberley Simpson, University of Sheffield
How will important habitats recover from the wildfires which been blazing through moorland in northern England?
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Health + Medicine
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Cam Donaldson, Glasgow Caledonian University
Britain's health service will soon cost £200 billion. Don't mope, it's cause for celebration.
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Michael J Porter, University of Central Lancashire
Sepsis can maim or kill within hours. Here's how to identify the condition.
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Stella Coyle, Keele University
Theresa May has pledged to ban gay conversion therapy as part the government's new LGBT Action Plan.
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Science + Technology
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Jason Gilchrist, Edinburgh Napier University
Scientists have created embryos from the eggs of southern white rhino and sperm from their northern counterparts.
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James Geach, University of Hertfordshire
An extreme laboratory in space involving three dead stars has shown that all objects really do accelerate identically, proving Einstein right.
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Birgit Schippers, Queen's University Belfast
Computational technologies impact on every human right.
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Politics + Society
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Feargal Cochrane, University of Kent; Edward Morgan-Jones, University of Kent; Laura Sudulich, University of Kent; Neophytos Loizides, University of Kent
When Northern Irish people were asked to choose between two scenarios for the post-Brexit border, they opted for one in the Irish Sea – with conditions.
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William David Watkin, Brunel University London
Something good could come from the Cambridge Analytica scandal if we used the same data to fix society, rather than profit from it.
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Vicki Squire, University of Warwick
The Sea-Watch 3 vessel has been prevented from leaving Malta to continue its search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
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Saba Sharma, University of Cambridge
At the point of independence, Indian citizenship law was a matter of residency, not religion or ethnicity. That could be about to change.
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Stephen Chan, SOAS, University of London
As Emmerson Mnangagwa blames Grace Mugabe for a failed bombing at a rally, his rivals try to find a way to close the gap.
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