Новости за 18.05.2017

As Washington becomes increasingly engulfed by the spiralling crises in Donald Trump’s presidency, and even prominent Republicans compare it to the dark days of Watergate, even Republican voices have been asking how Donald Trump might be replaced.

Out-of-body experiences are also more common among those with autism. Leszek Bogdewicz/Shutterstock

Do you ever hear a sound when there is nothing around to explain it? Or perhaps you have the feeling that someone is nearby when they’re not? Some people have a lot of these experiences. Others, hardly any. Certain mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia, can cause them, but unusual perceptions also happen in people who don’t have mental health problems. A new finding from my research group... Читать дальше...

Theresa May’s (not the Conservative Party’s – more on that later) 2017 general election manifesto is based on dealing with “Five Great Challenges”. The plan is to ensure a strong economy, manage Brexit, tackle enduring social divisions, support an ageing society and confront technological change. However, underneath those five issues, there are other clear themes emerging.

Back in 2003, a colleague who worked in opinion polling was briefing a team of field researchers in south Wales who were about to collect responses to an election survey.

Rhodri Morgan, the first First Minister of Wales, who passed away on May 17, will be sorely missed not only by his family and friends but also, if the truth be told, by the whole Welsh nation.

Rhodri Morgan, the first First Minister of Wales, who passed away on May 17, will be sorely missed not only by his family and friends but also, if the truth be told, by the whole Welsh nation.

Headlines claiming that the Labour manifesto means a re-nationalisation of the energy sector are wrong. So what does it really say, and what would it change?

A competition among political parties to promise a more attractive minimum or “living” wage is new to British elections. The National Minimum Wage (NMW) is now nearly 20 years old, but Labour in power was always cautious about its level. The Conservatives, meanwhile, initially opposed it.

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Earlier this month, Selfridges, one of London’s oldest and best-loved department stores, found itself embroiled in a political tangle over accusations of cultural appropriation.

It took 24 hours before the video of a man murdering his baby daughter was removed from Facebook. On April 24, 2017, the father from Thailand had streamed the killing of his 11-month-old baby girl using the social network’s Live video service before killing himself. The two resulting video clips were streamed hundreds of thousands of times before they were finally removed.

With Theresa May’s campaign visits being described by one journalist this week as “familiar neuron crushing dullness”, we shouldn’t have been expecting too much excitement from the Conservative Party manifesto.

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Culture has rarely tired of speaking about the weather. Pastoral poems detail the seasonal variations in weather ad nauseam, while the term “pathetic fallacy” is often taken to refer to a Romantic poet’s wilful translation of external phenomena – sun, rain, snow – into aspects of his own mind. Victorian novels, too, use weather as a device to convey a sense of time, place and mood: the fog in Dickens’s Bleak House (1853), for example, or the wind that sweeps through Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847). Читать дальше...

After decades of peace, East Asia is racked with tension – and its two dominant military powers are jostling for supremacy in an extremely alarming way.

If we have learned one thing about Emmanuel Macron in the first few days of his presidency, it is that he will not be rushed. After naming France’s new prime minister, Edouard Philippe, on May 16, Macron delayed the announcement of his new cabinet by 24 hours. The explanation offered was that Macron wanted the recently created Higher Authority for Transparency in Public Life to carry out thorough background checks on all the ministerial team. “Monsieur Propre” – Mr Clean – is taking no chances.

The British prime minister Theresa May called a snap general election in the expectation that it will deliver her a substantially increased parliamentary majority. This in turn would give her the “strong and stable government” she hopes for as she enters the crucial Brexit negotiations.

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A new BMJ guideline makes “strong recommendations” against the use of arthroscopic surgery for degenerative knee disease, such as osteoarthritis. This key-hole surgery is performed more than 2m times a year, globally. Despite this, the evidence shows that less than 15% of patients have improved pain and mobility three months after the procedure, and none have improved pain and mobility a year after the procedure.

According to a report published in early May, Mexico has become the second-deadliest conflict zone in the world in 2016. The claim came from a press release for the 2017 edition of the Armed Conflict Survey (ACS) by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank. And a media frenzy followed.

An article on The Independent is being widely shared on social media suggesting that a 30% increase in turnout among 18 to 24-year-olds would make the election of a majority Conservative government on June 8 rather unlikely. It followed a tweet by Alan Firth, a linguist at Newcastle University, commenting on an article by the vice president of the National Union of Students, Shelly Asquith. When contacted by The Conversation, Firth said that the calculations made in The Independent article reflected his own. Читать дальше...

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Britain is engaged in a General Election contest and once again political parties are investing money, time and energy in their online presence. The Tories are ploughing cash into Instagram adverts and Labour is doing its best to keep up. But is all this effort worth it and does the internet make our democracy healthier or simply add to the confusion and cynicism that surrounds party politics?

Automat (1927). Irina/Flickr

When Edward Hopper’s retrospective at Tate Modern in London closed in September 2004, more than 420,000 tickets had been sold. Up to that point, only the acclaimed duo of Matisse and Picasso had beat this record. It is now 50 years since Hopper died and his popularity hasn’t waned. What is it about Hopper’s brand of melancholy that has struck a chord with so many?

Automat (1927). Irina/Flickr

When Edward Hopper’s retrospective at Tate Modern in London closed in September 2004, more than 420,000 tickets had been sold. Up to that point, only the acclaimed duo of Matisse and Picasso had beat this record. It is now 50 years since Hopper died and his popularity hasn’t waned. What is it about Hopper’s brand of melancholy that has struck a chord with so many?

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The recent WannaCry cyber-attack led to panic across the globe, showing just how important it is for organisations to have secure operating systems. This was not even the most sophisticated malware around. Numerous networks could easily cope with it and it largely hit legacy operating systems such as Windows XP.

Human rights watchdogs repeatedly shame Iran as one of the world’s worst offenders against freedom of expression, a harsh censor with little compunction about cracking down on critics with direct methods such as prior restraint and violent means of repression. But Iran, like other states around the world, is increasingly using other, more unorthodox ways of controlling speech – what might be called “indirect censorship”.