The Prime Minister replied that he did, adding: “Yesterday, Sir Olly Robbins was asked if he shared that decision with me, No 10 or any other ministers. He gave a clear answer: no. That puts to bed all the allegations levelled at me by those opposite in relation to dishonesty. Source link
A stone tomb near Paris held generations of dead, but the people buried there did not all belong to the same world. That is the striking picture emerging from new genetic work on 132 individuals buried at Bury, a large Neolithic megalithic site about 50 kilometers north of Paris. The tomb was used in two separate phases, first around 3200 to 3100 BC. Then it was used again across much of the third millennium BC until about 2450 BC. Between those periods, something appears to have gone badly wrong. The break is not subtle. The people buried in the earlier phase were not closely related to the later group. Instead, the DNA points to a major population turnover. This fits into a broader pattern of demographic upheaval that seems to have affected much of northwestern Europe at the end of the fourth millennium BC. “We see a clear genetic break between the two periods,” said Frederik Valeur Seersholm, an assistant professor at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen and one of the study’s …
This is particularly wounding for Starmer because Doyle, like Mandelson, has since been embroiled in a scandal over his past association with a pedophile. (Mandelson resigned over the depth of his friendship with the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in September, while Doyle campaigned in 2017 for a friend who had been charged with child sex offenses, and was later convicted.) It was in March 2025, when Robbins was making large numbers of career civil servants redundant in a restructure. He told MPs he was “under strict instruction” from No. 10’s private office not to discuss the offer with then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy. “I felt quite uncomfortable about it and I kept giving advice that I thought this would be very hard for the office, and was hard for me personally to defend,” he added. “I don’t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don’t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was,” he went on. David Lammy speaks to reporters before a “Meeting in Defence of Democracy,” a …
Neuroscientists know that there is a link between loneliness and cognitive decline in older adults, although it is still difficult to understand the exact magnitude of the link. A new longitudinal study provides evidence that a proportion of people who feel lonely end up having more memory impairment, though this doesn’t necessarily mean that their brains age faster. The report, published in Aging & Mental Health, shows that older adults with higher levels of loneliness scored lower on tests of immediate and delayed recall. Even so, the rate at which their memory declined over six years was virtually identical to those who were not lonely. “It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” said Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Universidad del Rosario, who led the research. “The study underscores the importance of addressing loneliness as a significant factor in the context of cognitive performance in older adults.” Six-Year Study of Thousands of Single People The …
“Choking” is a term commonly used to describe applying pressure to a partner’s neck during intimacy. In medical contexts, however, choking refers to an internal blockage of the airway, like swallowing a foreign object. The clinical term for applying external force to the neck is strangulation. Strangulation restricts the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain. Over the past decade, this practice has transitioned from niche circles into mainstream sexual encounters. Medical professionals are beginning to investigate the potential neurological consequences of this behavior. A growing body of scientific literature suggests that these encounters provide evidence of hidden physiological strain. Scientists are now asking if consensual neck compression could lead to lasting brain damage. To answer this, researchers are looking at everything from basic anatomy to advanced brain imaging. The Biology of Neck Compression To understand the risks, it helps to examine the anatomy of the neck. The neck contains the jugular veins, which carry oxygen-depleted blood away from the brain, and the carotid arteries, which supply the brain with fresh oxygen. It also …
A recent study has found that the physical movement difficulties often associated with Alzheimer’s disease can originate outside the brain. By creating a microscopic model of human nerves and muscles, researchers demonstrated that these motor problems occur independently of cognitive decline, which suggests new targets for medical treatments. The research was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Alzheimer’s disease is usually associated with memory loss and severe cognitive decline. Doctors routinely observe that patients also experience movement issues like a slower walking pace, diminished grip strength, and poor balance well before any mental symptoms appear. Historically, medical research has treated these physical symptoms as secondary effects stemming directly from brain degeneration. It remained unproven if the illness was also independently attacking the body’s peripheral nerves, which make up the vast network connecting the spinal cord to the rest of the body. To investigate the root of these movement problems, researchers looked closely at the neuromuscular junction. This is the exact biological point where a nerve cell sends a chemical signal to a muscle cell, …
Police received a report a woman in her 20s had been followed and assaulted in Epsom, Surrey, the early hours of Saturday. Source link
A faint glow of helium, hanging near one of the earliest known galaxies, may be the clearest sign yet that astronomers have finally caught the universe’s first stars in action. The signal comes from a tiny object nicknamed Hebe, sitting about 3 kiloparsecs from GN-z11, a galaxy seen as it existed roughly 400 million years after the Big Bang. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers say they have now confirmed a strange helium emission first noticed earlier, and the case has only grown stronger. No metal lines turned up in the data. That absence matters. The earliest stars, often called Population III stars, are thought to have formed from almost pure hydrogen and helium, before the universe had been enriched with heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, and iron. For years, they have remained a missing piece in astronomy, predicted by theory but frustratingly hard to pin down with observations. That is why this small patch of light has drawn so much attention. Continuum-subtracted map of the HeII emission at the redshift of Hebe …
Mariah Kornbluh This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Politics of neutrality: intermediaries and research use in civics programming‘, part of the Evidence & Policy Special Issue: Research (Mis)use and Mis/Disinformation in and around Education. Public education has become a political environment fraught with misinformation in the United States. Book bans, educational gag orders and outright educator censorship influence (sometimes heavily) local school district policy. International efforts have highlighted that civics education offers a unique avenue in educating for a ‘just’ democracy. However, global trends and mounting national pressure highlights the curriculum’s vulnerability to being censored, constricted and outright distorted. The problem: ‘neutrality’ perpetuating research misuse within civics education Engaging in discourse on social issues and events that are relevant to students’ lives is an incredibly valuable method for them to gain needed civics skills. Yet, educators operate in an oppressive policy context that dissuades such practices and politicises historic events. Civics education has historically promoted neutrality as a pedagogical good which often manifests in a ‘both-sideism’ framework. This framework prioritises …
EastEnders spoilers follow. EastEnders star Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness has confirmed that there will be a late twist in the trial of Jasmine Fisher, with one beloved character potentially altering the course of events. Jasmine is currently behind bars following the murder of Anthony Trueman, which she has subsequently claimed was committed in self-defence. With the Slaters also having a keen interest in proceedings, Jasmine’s arc has divided opinion. BBC Related: Best streaming services UK 2026 — including Disney Plus, Netflix, iPlayer and Apple TV With the trial set to take place in next week’s scenes, it remains to be seen if Jasmine will be found guilty of the highest charge of murder, and Donaldson-Holness – who portrays the character – has shared that her character will be fearing the worst. “She’s terrified because she’s facing the possibility of either spending a long time in prison or being found innocent and released; both outcomes feel scary to her in their own right,” said the actor. “She knows the truth about what happened and hopes others will believe …
