Новости за 19.09.2017

As the Liberal Democrats met for their first conference since the 2017 general election, many were feeling disappointed at the state of things. The party came away with a mere 12 election victories after mistakenly believing the Brexit referendum had given it a branding which would help it capture more votes. Yet despite disappointment, party managers reported a higher than average conference attendance and membership numbers remain high.

Close-up of abnormal cells from Pap smear. Komsan Loonprom/Shutterstock

Doctors can find it hard to diagnose cervical cancer in young women because the same symptoms, such as bleeding between periods or after sex, are common in women with genital infections or taking contraceptives. For decades the Pap smear has been used as a screening test to prevent women from getting cervical cancer. It is not used as a screening test in women younger than 25 because it isn’t effective at preventing cancer in this age group. Читать дальше...

As the forced expulsion of the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar gathers pace and attracts increasing international condemnation, it’s clear that the world either ignores or misunderstands the truth behind Myanmar’s politics. The violent campaign against the Rohingyas is not the disease, but merely a symptom of a political system that has been failing for decades.

Bill Gates is a lot luckier than you might realise. He may be a very talented man who worked his way up from college dropout to the top spot on the list of the world’s richest people. But his extreme success perhaps tells us more about the importance of circumstances beyond his control than it does about how skill and perseverance are rewarded.

He is famous for his love of honey, and being a bear of “little brain”. So Winnie the Pooh might be a little surprised to find himself the subject of a major new museum exhibition.

William Potter/Shutterstock

The future of money looks very different in the world of cryptocurrencies. There is a growing consensus among businesses, investors and countries (Venezuela in particular) that these alternative forms of online money are going to dominate payments in the next decade. There may be agreement on the potential, but quite how regulators and central banks will respond is still up in the air.

shutterstock.com

The benefits of free trade have been familiar to economists since Adam Smith. Trade encourages specialisation and leads to lower costs, higher productivity and higher living standards.

Mariano Mantel, CC BY-NC

Theresa May has chosen an inspirational setting, Florence, for her Brexit speech on September 22. The British prime minister is not known for her flights of fancy, so what might link this storied Tuscan city, whose art and architecture draw millions of tourists annually, to the political project she seeks to promote?

Political parties in the UK are currently entirely absorbed in one topic alone: Brexit. But there is something else that should be up for discussion. Something arguably far more important, and which concerns sociopolitical change and the future of party politics. It’s the increasing evidence of a “two-tribes” phenomenon or a new axis in British politics. The parties must somehow get to grips with this change if they are to form a governing platform.

In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, it was reported that up to 80% of home damages were not insured. Insurance schemes are widely advocated as a means of facilitating recovery from – or resilience to – natural and human-made disasters. For those without insurance, or who are under-insured, recovery prospects are bleak. Many such people – who are often already living in precarious situations – will leave their homes, never to return, or will live in properties that are unfit for habitation. Читать дальше...

edella/Shutterstock

We often think about what young people can expect to gain from university, or what universities contribute to society. But it’s not often that we talk about how higher education can change society beyond the shaping of individuals.

Draw Me Close

I’ve just got back from the Venice Film Festival, which for the first time showcased an exciting programme of genre defining virtual reality (VR) film. I’m currently developing a VR project of my own and for the last two years have spent many an hour queuing up at film festivals and in art galleries to see how various directors from cinema, fine art and theatre have experimented with such a radical and shape shifting medium. I have seen many VR works, some good, some bad but enough... Читать дальше...

In a remote corner of far-western Brazil lies the Vale do Javari, home to one of the greatest concentrations of isolated or entirely “uncontacted” tribes in the Amazon. Unlike indigenous lands elsewhere in the country, which have been colonised and polluted, the Javari’s very inaccessibility has kept it largely untouched. But the people who live there remain extremely vulnerable. Recently, illegal gold miners in the region were accused of a brutal mass murder of ten members of an uncontacted tribe. Читать дальше...