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Your support will help us continue relaying to you the sharpest academic insights and fascinating new research. Today, researchers discuss their discovery of the genetic basis of trust, and why that has important implications for our health, longevity, and the quality of our lives.
We also look to neuroscience to explain how the way we vote is powerfully affected by emotion, rather than the rational decision making we may believe it to be.
And finally, why the venerable monk recording the story felt it important to note that the Danish King Cnut was interrupted while taking a bath in London exactly 1001 years ago – and what this tells us about the politico-religious manoeuvring needed to govern his newly conquered English realm.
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Jo Adetunji
Editor
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U__Photo/Shutterstock
Giuseppe 'Nick' Giordano, Lund University
A gene can help explain why people who easily trust others have better health.
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Shutterstock/Lightspring
Matt Qvortrup, Coventry University
People are generally more prone to activating the parts of their brain associated with fear than those linked to rational decision making.
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Bathing in the Middle Ages.
Codex Manesse, UBH Cod. Pal. germ. 848.
Simon Trafford, School of Advanced Study, University of London
King Cnut has the dubious honour of being the first person recorded in English history to have been disturbed by something frustratingly urgent just as he was about to enjoy a bath.
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World
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Colleen Murrell, Dublin City University
China’s attitudes to journalists who expose stories that criticise the government are reflected in a recent case.
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Sahar Maranlou, Royal Holloway University of London
Iran’s government have declared their former president is a martyr, and this is forming part of the political campaign ahead of the election.
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Politics + Society
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Anna Barford, University of Cambridge; Mia Gray, University of Cambridge
Ever since the welfare state was established in 1948, Britain’s elected leaders have grappled with how to pay for and deliver social care.
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Stephen Cushion, Cardiff University
Broadcasters can struggle to report impartially when they have to single out one party for making dubious claims.
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Matthew Flinders, University of Sheffield
The prime minister attempted to play the populist and ended up playing into the hands of Nigel Farage.
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Paul Whiteley, University of Essex
The rule that people vote with the economy in mind stretches back across a government’s lifespan, not just the few weeks before the election.
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Arts + Culture
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Joel Gray, Sheffield Hallam University
Within a few years of his debut appearance in 1934, Donald Duck had already achieved a celebrity status comparable to Shirley Temple or Greta Garbo.
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Christine Morris, Trinity College Dublin
The marbles are a physical manifestation of what it meant to be Athenian during the 5th century BC.
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Business + Economy
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Christina Philippou, University of Portsmouth
England’s top-20 clubs have agreed to try out some new financial rules.
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Jas Kalra, Manchester Metropolitan University
Brazil’s orange harvest has been badly damaged by a disease infecting trees and spoiling the fruit.
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Environment
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Miren Gutiérrez, ODI
A new report estimates the impacts of big fishing businesses with a previous track record of unsustainability on the local economy, jobs and people’s welfare in five developing countries.
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Jamie C. Weir, The University of Edinburgh
In variable environments, like temperate woodlands, species are not equally at risk.
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Health
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Adam Taylor, Lancaster University
Fetch the popcorn – Love Island is back on our screens again and that can only mean one thing: a summer of fake tans, “Turkey teeth” and underboob-baring bikinis. Love Island may be one of the most popular…
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Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol
Urine doesn’t always appear yellow - it can be technicolour, and point towards many different medical conditions.
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Mark Horowitz, UCL; Joanna Moncrieff, UCL
Long-term antidepressant users are at greater risk of withdrawal.
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Podcasts
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Eloise Stevens, The Conversation
Phenomena like the Northern Lights and rainbows can seem magical – even to physicists like Partha Chowdhury who study them.
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19 April - 21 June 2024
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