|
Metropolitan people are often assumed to be quite literally street smart, able to navigate a fast-paced environment with complex transport links, numerous road networks and hidden rat runs. But are people from cities really better at navigating?
New research suggests not. Testing the navigation skills of over four million people via an app-based video game, the scientists behind the study discovered that people who grew up in the country or in suburbs have better spatial skills and can more easily navigate in unknown environments. And people from certain cities, such as Buenos Aires, New York or Toronto, were particularly bad. Here they explain why that might be.
Meanwhile, as the debate continues about the future of public service broadcasting, we look back at the mavericks and rebels who helped shape the BBC. And there’s good news for those looking to reduce their risk of heart disease: eating
two or more servings of avocado a week may cut your risk by 16%.
|
|
Miriam Frankel
Science Editor
|
|
Manhattan is griddy.
Shutterstock
Hugo Spiers, UCL
Grid-like cities such as Buenos Aries can have a detrimental effect on navigation ability.
|
Man sips a cup of tea while sitting on a pole on the roof of the under-construction BBC Broadcasting House in the late 1920s.
Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo
Simon Potter, University of Bristol
Meet the mavericks who helped create the BBC – and refused to toe the line.
|
Krasula/Shutterstock
Taibat (Tai) Ibitoye, University of Reading
Eating half an avocado twice a week could slash your risk of getting heart disease.
|
Ukraine Invasion
|
-
Tomas Sniegon, Lund University
Soviet Russia had a policy of denying its responsibility for war crimes. It looks as if Putin’s Russia may be following suit.
|
|
Business + Economy
|
-
Wendy Moncur, University of Strathclyde
Growing up on the internet can bring consequences into adulthood.
-
Richard McManus, Canterbury Christ Church University; Dawid Trzeciakiewicz, Loughborough University; Gulcin Ozkan, King's College London
While the media mainly worries about the cost of employee NI hikes and household energy bills, they’re missing an important part of the story.
-
Hamza Mudassir, Cambridge Judge Business School
Investors are happy, pushing the share price up since the announcement. What about users?
|
|
Science + Technology
|
-
Brianna Smart, University of Hertfordshire
Scientists have come up with a number of theories about the multiverse.
-
Chris Cooney, University of Sheffield; Gavin Thomas, University of Sheffield
We compared 4,500 species of songbird to finally confirm what Darwin suspected.
|
|
Health
|
-
Richard Bethlehem, University of Cambridge; Jakob Seidlitz, University of Pennsylvania
The growth and decline of the human brain mapped in an ambitious global project.
|
|
Environment
|
-
Mike Makin-Waite, Independent Social Research Foundation
Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have vowed to strike at the fossil fuel industry.
|
|
Arts + Culture
|
-
Michal Chmiel, Royal Holloway University of London
Women in films are often damsels in distress. Psychology shows such representations can impact how people feel about violence and gender roles in real life.
|
|
|
|
| |
Featured events
|
|
— Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester, Manchester, M139PL, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Manchester
|
|
|
— The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, Manchester, M139PL, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Manchester
|
|
— Claverton Down, Bath, North Somerset, BA26DN, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Bath
|
|
— Brookfield House, 223 London Road, Leicester, LE2 1ZE, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE2 1ZE, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Leicester
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
