| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Editor's note
|
|
Alexa, is it the weekend yet? Alexa, what’s in my diary for today? Alexa, what does it mean to be me? We spend a lot of time worrying these days that artificial intelligence could take over the world, but what if the danger is more that we ourselves are becoming more like artificial intelligence? Services such as Amazon’s Alexa make us more efficient by taking on our dull tasks but we humans are meant to be messy, spontaneous beasts. To ponder this existential issue, it’s worth considering what is lost when Alexa solves all our mundane problems for us.
Even with the best forecasting technology at our fingertips, the weather has been highly unpredictable of late. One moment the sun is shining, the next it’s bucketing snow. So maybe it’s time to get back in touch with more traditional techniques. Hannah Christensen recommends learning to identify six types of cloud in particular. If you don’t know your cirrus from your stratus or your lenticular from your Kelvin-Helmholtz, her guide will get you started.
Who knew snow crabs could predict the future too? Well, sort of. These massive crustaceans are an incredibly popular delicacy around the world and the international squabble over who owns them when they move into different parts of the seabed has provided an important test case for how we settle disputes over potentially more precious resources in the years ahead.
This week we’ve also been absorbing the shocking revelations about Cambridge Analytica, dealing with our explosive tempers and shuddering at the grizzly rituals of yakuza bosses.
|
Laura Hood
Politics Editor, Assistant Editor
|
|
|
Top stories
|
Cumulonimbus: heavy rain and thunder on the horizon.
Shutterstock
Hannah Christensen, University of Oxford
The skies can tell us when there might be trouble ahead.
|
Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr
Brendan Canavan, University of Huddersfield
It isn’t that we should worry about AI becoming more human. We should fear ourselves becoming more artificial.
|
Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix.
EPA/EFE
Annabel Latham, Manchester Metropolitan University
The privacy backlash over Cambridge Analytica and Facebook may lead to explosive consequences for academics.
|
Environment + Energy
|
-
Brooks Kaiser, University of Southern Denmark
The tale of the snow crab bears witness to the how the complexities of climate change and fights over fishing rights play out.
-
Joe Blakey, University of Manchester; Sherilyn MacGregor, University of Manchester
Greater Manchester wants to be "zero carbon". But this sort of target raises some important questions.
|
|
Arts + Culture
|
-
Andreas Johansson, Lund University
Swedish researcher Andreas Johansson interviewed 30 members of a Japanese Yakuza clan in 2015.
-
Simon Hayhoe, University of Bath
Turkish painter Esref Armagan uses colour and perspective that he has never seen.
-
Kerry Sands, University of Exeter
It's a breed of dog which deserves a better place in society.
|
|
Science + Technology
|
-
Jon Walbrin, Bangor University
Researchers have identified which part of the brain helps us understand and respond to social interactions.
-
Alexander Sumich, Nottingham Trent University
Jamie Carragher blamed a moment of madness for spitting at car passengers. But where do these moments come from?
|
|
Education
|
-
Joseph Michael Cook, UCL
Traditional picket lines feel outdated now that work is no longer a place that you go, but a thing that you do.
-
Samantha Twiselton, Sheffield Hallam University
Teachers make a significant difference to their students’ lives – sometimes against all odds – and they deserve to be celebrated.
|
|
Politics + Society
|
-
Alastair Hay, University of Leeds
A long read on how nerve agents were developed – and used in an attack on a former Russian spy on the streets of Salisbury.
-
Gabrielle Lynch, University of Warwick; Justin Willis, Durham University; Nic Cheeseman, University of Birmingham
Claims about Cambridge Analytica's role in elections in Nigeria and Kenya have been overstated.
-
Mai Sato, University of Reading
The 1995 Tokyo sarin attack helped make Japanese criminal justice dramatically more punitive.
-
Mark Thomas, Nottingham Trent University
The powers exist but must be used with caution, explains a legal expert. They don't form a vigilante's charter.
|
|
Health + Medicine
|
-
Cara Booker, University of Essex
Teenage girls using social media for more than an hour a day face risks to their well-being as they grow up.
-
Michaela James, Swansea University; Sinead Brophy, Swansea University
We asked teenagers what they need to get, and stay, active.
-
Ewa M Roos, University of Southern Denmark
Middle-aged and elderly people taking up exercise shouldn't be put off by joint pain. It will pass.
|
|
| |
Featured events
|
|
Stopford Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom — University of Manchester
|
|
Fylde Road, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2HE, United Kingdom — University of Central Lancashire
|
|
309 Regent Street, London, London, City of, W1B 2HW, United Kingdom — University of Westminster
|
|
|
Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom — University of Manchester
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
