Domestic violence: Virtual reality enables batterers feel what it’s like to be attacked, learn some empathy
“I have to come home every day and look at your shitty face,” the man barks to his partner. “When we married, you were hot. Look at you now. You look like shit.” The man advances, knocking the phone to the ground, until his face looms menacingly close. This harrowing...
Aid agencies won’t listen, they’ve adopted racism – now coded as ‘capacity building’ and ‘competence’
Allegations of discrimination and inequality based on race, gender or regions are consistent with the findings of a recent survey of 15 prominent international NGOs by the Centre for Global Development, which found that fewer than two per cent of board members had been impacted by a humanitarian crisis, and...
Covid super-immunity mysteries: Patients who recover develop antibodies capable of ‘defanging’ variants
Around a year ago – before Delta and other variants entered the Covid-19 lexicon – virologists Theodora Hatziioannou and Paul Bieniasz, both at the Rockefeller University in New York City, set out to make a version of a key SARS-CoV-2 protein with the ability to dodge all the infection-blocking antibodies...
First mission to Jupiter lifts off from Florida, to spend next 12 years studying outer Solar System
A NASA spacecraft began its journey to a realm of the outer Solar System that has never before been visited: a set of asteroids orbiting the Sun near Jupiter. The rocks are “the last unexplored but relatively accessible population of small bodies” circling the Sun, says Vishnu Reddy, a planetary...
Aided racism: Workers say equality in humanitarian agencies doesn’t go beyond colourful rhetoric
Several aid agencies have reported taking action to improve diversity, equity and inclusion since last year’s renewed push for racial justice, but aid workers say they haven’t felt the effects, according to two questionnaires circulated by The New Humanitarian. The questionnaires assessed changes made within aid agencies since the Black...
British government, scientists made ‘fatalistic’ decisions that led to many Covid deaths – parliament
The British government and scientists made a fatalistic decision by backing a strategy that amounted to “herd immunity” in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, costing many thousands of lives in “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”, a parliamentary inquiry has...
Electric cars: Consumers main worry about losing power or being unable to recharge on a long trip
Driving range is important for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Most consumers buy cars on the basis of reach because they worry about losing power or being unable to recharge on a long trip. Yet, most car journeys are short – to the shops or school. In the United...
Challenge Third World countries face as developed nations prepare to phase out fossil-fuelled cars by 2030
Electric vehicles are here, and they are essential for decarbonising transport. The United Kingdom, California, the European Union, Canada and others plan to phase out the sale of fossil-fuelled vehicles as early as 2030 – Norway plans to do it sooner. Consumers are interested. In May, the Ford Motor Company...
Nobel-winning ‘natural’ tests: People who study for longer periods might have underlying drives
The ‘natural experiments’ approach to economics that won three researchers the 2021 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences has helped to make the field more robust, say economists. Joshua Angrist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Guido Imbens at Stanford University in California and David Card at...
Somalia maritime dispute: Kenya reduced to a sitting duck as all five neighbours claim its territory
Kenya is paying a heavy price for its weak, ambiguous and even non-existent foreign policy, that has seen chunks of its territory “annexed” or claimed by all its neighbours, experts say. Tuesday ruling by the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) that could alter the maritime border between Kenya...
