On the tube. Flickr/ Adrian Brady. Some rights reserved.The recent vote in the House of Commons not to guarantee the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK refreshed concerns among many European citizens who had, perhaps not felt compelled to worry much about their position in UK society before last year’s BREXIT referendum. Yet in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, we have seen xenophobic verbal and physical attacks against those thought to be European citizens, as well as Black and Ethnic Minority British citizens. This is of course deeply worrying, as any rise in xenophobia and racism undermines democratic forms of sociality. One aspect which has perhaps not…

Trying to keep up with a conversation — or simply make out any important noises — in a crowd can be an annoying experience. It may even feel like you’ve got cobwebs in your ears. And for people with decreased hearing, it’s even more frustrating. Thanks to new research, though, real cobwebs could one day help people hear more clearly than ever before. Spiders generally have pretty bad eyesight, but they do have a unique way to hear the world. Like many creepy-crawlies, they’re covered in tiny super-thin hairs. Especially on their legs. These hairs aren’t just for style though: They can detect changes in the air, along with sound waves. “We…

Teachers take part in the first national pay strike in 21 years, as they march through central London. Lewis Whyld/Press Association. All rights reserved.In an excellent reflection on the University and College Union (UCU) strike over changes to their USS pension scheme last week, Brendan McGeever illuminates the thread that connects some of the current strikers to the Millbank demonstrators of 2010: it’s basically the same people, and one could quite easily tell that this is the case by looking at the faces of many of those marching at the UCU demo in central London last week.  As we enter the second week of our strike, I think it is…

With a blond ponytail whipping out of her helmet, standing at five feet tall, weighing just 95 pounds, Shayna Texter is the all-American, fresh-faced female rider leading the pack in American Flat Track, a highly competitive, male-dominated motorcycle racing sport. She’s one of just two professional female riders currently competing in the sport — and she’s thriving. Texter posted five wins in 2017 and finished the American Flat Track Singles championship series in third place. In 2011, she became the first female to win a main event in AFT history with her singles win at Knoxville Raceway and followed up that landmark win with another seven during the next three years. Recently, she…

The anti-rumour strategy. History has shown that processes of social polarisation and the increase of populism and xenophobic discourses, even if they do not amount to hate speech, can have very negative and even catastrophic consequences. Unfortunately, these processes are on the rise around the globe. Such narratives often hark back to an idealised past, and create barriers between “us” and “them”, defined in ethnic, national, cultural, economic, or religious terms. The Antirumours Strategy is a long-term process of social change that seeks to prevent discrimination, improve coexistence, and harness the potential for diversity by triggering a change in perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours among the general population and specific target…

THE GOOD NEWS: Small farms can compete with multinational agribusiness with a lot of ingenuity — and a little bit of metal.     In 2016, for several weeks in Auckland, New Zealand, a strange, round-the-clock heavy metal concert was played for an audience of soft cheeses. It was a science experiment engineered to flout the dairy elite’s stuffy conventions, a wild-eyed scheme with a seemingly unwholesome goal: The shrieking guitar riffs and ferocious drumming of bands like Slayer, Obituary, and Cannibal Corpse were meant to imbue the food with the music’s dark spirit, thereby creating the world’s very first heavy metal cheese. It all started when fromager Calum Hodgson read…

Raqqa, Syria: A soldier of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) looking through a hole in a wall while battles against the Islamic State (IS) terror militia continue, 11 August 2017. Morukc Umnaber/PA Images. All rights reserved.Raqqa, 25 August 2017 Thank you for your letter. It has only just arrived as the internet connection has been sporadic, and I hope this reply reaches you soon. Thank you also for asking after my brother. Again, connections are difficult but when our associates in the Philippines asked for advice on their unexpected gains in Marawi he was immediately sent to help out. That was always expected to be a brief operation and I…

After the divisive 2016 presidential election, Nicole Newman-Darbois looked for ways to help her high schoolers address the angst and fear many of them admitted to feeling about the future. Dismayed with the seeming resurgence of hate speech and exclusion in the public domain, Newman-Darbois’ students were angry and confused, and she believed it was her duty to help them understand the world around them and their place in it. “It’s my job as an educator and a teacher to provide my students the time and space to talk about the issues they are interested in,” says Newman-Darbois, a Florida English and literature teacher who is also passionate about social justice. Because of…

Americans love their chicken, and last year, they each ate a record-breaking 91 pounds of it, whether in the form of Chicken McNuggets, chicken salad, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or chicken soup (for the soul, anybody?). But as Maryn McKenna lays out in her new book “Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats,” the secret story of chicken’s success may have more to do with antibiotics than white meat. These days, as McKenna points out, birds are produced much like factory cars — and in low doses, added to feed or water, antibiotics fatten up chickens and protect them from…

Federal chairman of The Greens, Cem Oezdemir in conversation with chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) during failing exploratory talks between the CDU, CSU, FDP and Green Party in Berlin, Germany, 10 November 2017. Gregor Fischer/Press Association. All rights reserved.After the September 2017 federal elections in Germany, the conservative Union parties, CDU/CSU, the liberal FDP party and the Green party set out to form the so-called Jamaica coalition government, which have failed after the liberal party withdrawal in mid-November and may lead to a minority coalition government (CDU/CSU and Green party). Ever since the 2002 federal election campaign, when the then German chancellor Gerhard Schröder was reelected, mainly because of his game-changing…