Ph. Ghana fans will be cheering their team alongside nine other African nations at the World Cup finals. Adera Abdoulaye Dolo/Pexels, CC BY Wycliffe W. Njororai Simiyu, Stephen F. Austin State University The 2026 men’s Fifa World Cup marks a seismic shift in the global football landscape. The decision to expand the final
Ph. Bangladesh’s many rivers. Best-Backgrounds / Shutterstock Mehebub Sahana, University of Manchester and Bayes Ahmed, UCL Bangladesh has just approved one of the largest river engineering projects its history: the Padma Barrage, a vast river-control project intended to restore water in the country’s drought-prone southwest. It comes at a dangerous moment for South
Ph. Shutterstock/3Dmaniac Adam James Fenton, Coventry University and Chris Shannahan, Coventry University I (Adam) am chatting with the “Apostle Stephen”, an online chatbot created by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a church founded in Nigeria in the 1950s with a growing global following. He is, to be honest, a bit pushy for
Ph. The Democratic Republic of Congo is scaling up health operations to contain the Ebola epidemic. Michel Lunanga/Getty Images Katrine L. Wallace, University of Illinois Chicago As public health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo work to rein in a growing outbreak of a rare Ebola virus, other countries are establishing protocols
Ph. AI Oluwafemi E. Adeyeri, Australian National University and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Australian National University India and Pakistan are no strangers to heat. This time of year is the worst, as heat peaks before the monsoon brings cooler conditions from June. But this year’s heat is something else. Intense, sustained heat began in mid-April.
Ph. A New Glenn rocket stands ready at the launchpad in April 2026, a month before disaster would strike. AP Photo/John Raoux Wendy Whitman Cobb, Air University During an evening test fire on May 28, 2026, a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded, engulfing the launchpad in a massive fireball. The spectacular fire,
Ph. A billboard in Valiasr Square depicting Iranian missiles with messages on March 17 2026. Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images Hamideh Khaleghi Mohammadi, University of Sydney and Ali Abbasi, University of Sydney Since the US–Israel war against Iran began in late February, images of giant billboards in Tehran have been ubiquitous across traditional and social
Soils feed us, filter our water and support most of the food chain on Earth. But they are also among Europe’s most neglected resources –quietly degrading beneath our feet while we look elsewhere. Andrés Rodríguez Seijo from the University of Vigo in Spain is one of the researchers working to change that. He
If you have ever seen the Milky Way in the night sky, you probably noticed that it looks cloudy. That is because towards the centre of our galaxy, and of most galaxies, there are vast amounts of dust that make it hard to see what is going on. That means a big swathe
Ph. ArieStudio/Shutterstock Ian Williams, University of Southampton Europe is wasting huge amounts of food while millions of people globally experience hunger. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have squeezed supply chains. The cost of living crisis has pushed many families to the edge. Without strengthening environmental sustainability, supply chain resilience and household