How biometrics is evolving from fingerprints to the way you walk, patterns of veins in your wrist and replace passwords
For more than 100 years, recording people’s fingerprints has involved them pressing their fingertips against a surface. Originally this involved ink but has since moved to sensors embedded in scanners at airports and phone screens. The next stage of fingerprinting doesn’t involve touching anything at all. So-called contactless fingerprinting technology...
Mental healthcare consumes significant portion of health budgets in Syria and Jordan, experts say
With over a decade of conflict in Syria, and the Ukrainian war overshadowing crises in the Middle East, international assistance is being cut and humanitarian programmes are shutting down. Mental healthcare in Jordan is already underfunded in the public sector, too. Experts say less than two per cent of the...
‘Amman is a prison’: How and why many young Syrian and Jordanian refugees are committing suicide
Adam Jawad escaped Iraq with his family following the US-led invasion in 2003, living in Syria until war forced him to flee again a decade later, this time to Jordan, where he eked out a living doing odd jobs and working at a cultural centre in the capital, Amman. Jawad...
Social vulnerability: Don’t try to be everything to everyone or to catch every ball that is thrown at you
It’s not healthy or productive, for instance, to try to be everything to everyone – letting in every piece of input or criticism you receive, and believing it – and allowing it to pierce your heart. In other words, “You don’t have to catch every ball that is thrown at...
Scientists say they are making headway in getting to know how Covid supresses sense of smell
Researchers are finally making headway in understanding how the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causes loss of smell. And a multitude of potential treatments to tackle the condition are undergoing clinical trials, including steroids and blood plasma. Once a tell-tale sign of Covid-19, smell disruption is becoming less common as the virus evolves....
Disasters: Most times when aid response fails to mitigate losses victims opt to put their lives on the line
Four months on from the landslide, the devastation was still clear to see: long and wide fissures crisscrossed San Isidro’s few main roads, running both down and across the hillside, while the collapsed and dangerously cracked buildings remained eerily empty. “I worked hard to have this and to raise my...
Volunteers step in to shield LGBTQI+ and other marginalised people from rights abuses in Ukraine
SAFEBOW, a grassroots organisation set up by Rain Dove and other activists, has helped more than 4,000 refugees from marginalised groups – including LGBTQI+, disabled, and elderly people, as well as Indian, African and other international students who were studying in Ukraine – leave Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began. The...
Ukraine war: Barriers trans-women, trans-men and non-binary people face when trying to escape Russian invasion
In just over three months since Russia began its full-scale invasion, nearly seven million people have fled Ukraine as refugees. The vast majority are Ukrainian women and children who have been received in neighbouring countries, mainly with open arms. However, an untold number of LGBTQI+ Ukrainians, especially trans-women, trans-men and...
Heads up! Blood pressure of 110/70 is normal for large mammals, but giraffes are okay with 220/180 pressures
Because of their height, giraffes require scarily high blood pressures – yet they escape the massive health problems that plague people with hypertension. Can clinicians learn from these animals? To most people, giraffes are merely adorable, long-necked animals that rank near the top of a zoo visit or a photo-safari...
Abandoned by own government, stigmatised by their communities: the horror tale of India’s Kashmiri counterinsurgents
Faisal Fayaz was just 10 months old when his father was killed by a landmine in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district in the winter of 2000. Like several thousand other Kashmiri men, Fayaz Ahmad Mir had spent years as a counterinsurgent – working alongside Indian authorities to fight Kashmiri militants battling...
