Paying fishers to release sharks accidentally caught in their nets can incentivise conservation action – but there’s a catch

How one project in Indonesia introduced a pay-to-release scheme that encourages fishers to save shark and ray bycatch.

Hollie Booth, Research Associate, Conservation Science, University of Oxford • conversation
April 23, 2025 • ~7 min

Celebrity Traitors: my research shows voting behaviour could help identify faithfuls

And why people form alliances even with people they know are untrustworthy.

Robin Kramer, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of Lincoln • conversation
April 23, 2025 • ~6 min

Do cats make good therapy animals? The new trend showing felines may be more complicated than we realise

Therapy dogs aren’t for everyone.

Grace Carroll, Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast • conversation
April 22, 2025 • ~7 min

Three ways Pope Francis influenced the global climate movement

At the centre of the social and ecological polycrisis is a religious crisis of the human heart.

Celia Deane-Drummond, Professor of Theology, Director of Laudato Si' Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford • conversation
April 21, 2025 • ~7 min

‘Heavy metals’ contaminate 17% of the world’s croplands, say scientists

Heavy metals are a silent threat to our food – here’s what we can do about it.

Jagannath Biswakarma, Senior Research Associate, School of Earth Sciences and Cabot Institute for the Environment, University of Bristol • conversation
April 17, 2025 • ~6 min

Indicators of alien life may have been found – astrophysicist explains what the new research means

It’s the best result yet - but the evidence still isn’t strong enough to convince the scientific community.

Ian Whittaker, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University • conversation
April 17, 2025 • ~6 min

Why were people so drawn to phrenology?

Phrenologists provided middle-class people with an early kind of self-help guidance.

Fenneke Sysling, Assistant Professor in History of Science, Medicine and Colonialism, Leiden University • conversation
April 16, 2025 • ~7 min

New form of dark matter could solve decades-old Milky Way mystery

Sometimes, looking inward, to the dynamic, glowing centre of our own galaxy, reveals the most unexpected hints of what lies beyond.

Shyam Balaji, Postdoctoral Research Fellow of Physics, King's College London • conversation
April 16, 2025 • ~7 min

No kidding: goats prove brainier than sheep and alpacas

Goats have outperformed sheep and alpacas in a series of cognitive tests, suggesting they’re the sharpest minds in the barnyard.

Megan Quail, PhD Candidate at the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University • conversation
April 16, 2025 • ~5 min

How mine water could warm up the UK’s forgotten coal towns

Funding gaps, regulatory red tape and a shortage of skilled workers are stalling the UK’s mine-water heating projects.

Cathy Hollis, Chair of Carbonate Geoscience, University of Manchester • conversation
April 15, 2025 • ~8 min

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