Christmas wine shortfall explained: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has held up supply of wine-bottle tops
A cork shipment delay may not sound like a big deal in the wine industry, but it’s critical for smaller wineries that don’t do their own bottling. They must hire a mobile bottler who shows up with a big truck, into which they pump the wine so it can get...
How ‘a perfect storm’ triggered by climate change and Covid rocked world wine supply
A fine wine can be a lot of things: oaky, fruit-forward, maybe even chewy. But wines of recent vintage also have the bouquet of a logistical nightmare, due to a brutal convergence of natural and human-made crises: drought and extreme heat, plus lingering supply chain hang-ups that have made it...
The Internet is like an ancient city, its latest incarnation resting atop ruins of so many civilisations
We all do it. Make little snap judgments about everyday strangers as we go about our lives. Without giving it a second’s thought, we sketch minibiographies of the people we pass on the sidewalk, the guy seated across from us on the train, or the woman in line in front...
Twitter struggles to cope with moderation of rapid shifts in online conversation, it’s likely to worsen with Musk
Twitter’s discovery algorithm (which surfaces heavily discussed or shared messages on people’s timelines) “prioritises a very particular type of content”, says Renée DiResta, who studies social networks and misinformation at the Stanford Internet Observatory in California. “People who maybe don’t necessarily have an institutional credential, but are adept at commenting...
How Twitter new owner’s tyranny touched off migration from the platform, in turn hit science hard
In November, Vince Knight decided he’d had enough of Twitter. After more than a decade on the social-media platform, Knight – a mathematician at Cardiff University, UK – was concerned about the site’s direction under its new owner, entrepreneur Elon Musk, who began laying off vast numbers of staff shortly...
How influx of Ukrainian refugees in Georgia set off exodus of locals to US in hunt for better lives
Even before the war in Ukraine, some 40 per cent of the population in Georgia faced difficulties accessing enough safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life, according to the UN. The number was around 32 per cent in 2014-2016. More than one in five adults were obese...
Hit hard by Russia-Ukraine war, neighbouring Georgia can’t grow or import food, faces hunger
For years, Georgia, the tiny former Soviet republic of 3.7 million people, relied on neighbouring agricultural powerhouses – Russia next door and Ukraine across the Black Sea – to feed its citizens. But the former’s invasion of the latter has changed all that. The rising costs of food, rent and...
Has medically assisted death become ‘a way to kill the vulnerable’ with suicide ‘inducing hopelessness’?
A year ago, Switzerland legalised a fancy new way for people to kill themselves that is likely to appeal to young people – a space-age “coffin-like capsule with windows” designed so that the decedent-to-be can push a button, flood the interior with nitrogen and die within 10 minutes. In 2017,...
Concern over steep rise in ‘mercy killing’ or ‘doctor-assisted suicide’ in Canada, Europe
The growing worldwide trend of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, especially among children and young people, has critics asking troubling questions about the real motivation behind a spate of new laws. In a recent CHD.TV talk-show Good Morning CHD, three Canadian doctors – Dr Charles Hoffe and Dr Stephen Malthouse and...
How UK science fails Black scholars: Number of minority ethnicities dwindles at every stage of academia
In 2018, Robert Mokaya – from Kenya – discovered that he was the only Black chemistry professor in the United Kingdom. For a decade, he’d assumed there were others who he hadn’t met until investigations by the UK Royal Society of Chemistry revealed his lonely status. “Somebody said to me,...
