Shop smarter, not harder. How gentle messaging can help the planet more than tough talk: Heavy-handed messaging? Andy Soloman/Shutterstock Fast fashion is booming, but so is its environmental toll. With up to 10% of global carbon emissions linked to the industry, the over-consumption of cheap clothing has made sustainability campaigns more vital than ever. Yet, …
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says antidepressants are harder to quit than heroin – is he right?: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been sworn in as the US health and human services secretary, despite saying a few things that raised eyebrows during his confirmation hearing. One of those things was the claim that some people have …
Refugees in east Africa suffer from high levels of depression, making it harder to rebuild lives – new study: By the end of 2023, more than 100 million people globally had been forced to flee their homes due to war, violence, fear of persecution, and human rights violations. The majority are hosted in low- and …
Opt-out laws designed to make organ donation easier may have actually made it harder, says research: In 2020, England introduced an opt-out system for organ donation with the aim of making it easier for organs to be donated after a person’s death. The Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019 assumed that unless someone explicitly opted …
Kenya’s protests are different this time: 3 things that make it harder for government to crush them: On 25 June 2024, a youth-led protest primarily composed of Gen Zs, as they are popularly referred to, stormed Kenya’s parliament. Legislators voted to pass the Finance Bill 2024 in its third and last reading ahead of presidential …
Why climate change is making parasitic diseases harder to predict: mycteria/Shutterstock It’s a sunny day. Look out of your window. See anything unusual flying by? Look closely. There are midges, and they are not friendly. Some of them are carrying a virus of sheep and other animals called bluetongue. You are not personally at risk …
Gaza war: Hamas’s web of allies in the October 7 attacks makes ending the conflict much harder for Israel: There have been reports that Hamas cooperated with a number of other armed groups to stage the October 7 attacks. If correct, this indicates substantial challenges for Israel – especially when it comes to ending the …
UK’s new back to work plan will make life even harder for disabled people: The UK chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has unveiled new rules for welfare benefit claimants. Under the government’s back to work plan, £2.5 billion of funding is to be allocated to employment support schemes with the aim of getting over 1 million people …
Why heating your home this winter may be even harder than last year: Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock Domestic energy prices more than doubled during 2022 compared with the year before. This meant that the number of UK households in fuel poverty who could not afford to heat their homes to a safe level rose from 4.5 million …
Bangladesh is undertaking the world’s largest resettlement programme – and the climate is making it harder: Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate extremes. The nation’s topography lays its citizens bare to cyclones, flash floods, erosion and drought – not to mention the significant socio-economic impact these bring. Agricultural economist GM Monirul Alam showed, in a …
Foundation year courses are about to become cheaper – but this could make it harder for disadvantaged students to go to university: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock The UK government has announced that the maximum tuition fee for foundation years in English universities will be cut from £9,250 to £5,760. The reduction will apply to all classroom-based courses, such …
The UK’s water pipe upgrade has made it harder to detect leaks – now the race is on to discover new ways to find them: Enough water is lost in the UK each day to fill around 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools. AlanMorris/Shutterstock The UK is losing a staggering 3 billion litres of water each day …
US faces .4 trillion national debt crisis – and Republican divisions could make it harder to solve than ever: Shutterstock US federal debt currently stands at a staggering US$ 31.4 trillion (£25.2 trillion), the highest it’s ever been. That matters because it’s approaching the maximum limit that the government is legally allowed to borrow. This …
Rural poverty is getting worse – and welfare harder to access: mepstock/Shutterstock In Britain, people imagine poverty as mainly an urban phenomenon. We think of poverty as rundown housing estates or tower blocks, far from the idyllic countryside scenes of shows like Escape to the Country. But this is only part of the picture. Poverty …
Insects are vanishing worldwide – now it’s making it harder to grow food: Catherine_P/Shutterstock Over the past 20 years a steady trickle of scientific papers has reported that there are fewer insects than there used to be. Both the combined weight (what scientists call biomass) and diversity of insect species have declined. Some studies were …
Women work harder than men – our anthropological study reveals why: Women working in rural China close to the Tibetan border. Yuan Chen, Author provided For most people around the world, physical work takes up a great amount of time and energy every day. But what determines whether it is men or women who are working …
Why mourning a pet can be harder than grieving for a person: People are often taken aback by the intensity of pet grief Soloviova Liudmyla/Shutterstock Many pet owners know that our connections with animals can be on an emotional par with those we share with other humans – and scientific research backs this up. The …
Black Panther 2: why the death of someone young can be harder to handle: The Marvel Studios’ film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever addresses themes of grief and the injustice of dying young, connected to the death of the lead actor, Chadwick Boseman, in 2020. Boseman died from colorectal cancer at the age of 43, throwing …