Taung child: the controversial story of the fossil discovery that proved humanity’s common origins in Africa – podcast: The cast of the Taung child skull found in South Africa in 1924. Didier Descouens/Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA One hundred years ago, a paper was published in the journal Nature that would radically shift our understandings of …
Lobbying in ‘forever chemicals’ industry is rife across Europe – the inside story of our investigation: Forever chemical or PFAS contamination is widespread, but so too are lobbying efforts. Melnikov Dmitriy/Shutterstock A team of academic researchers, lawyers and journalists from 16 European countries has exposed a huge lobbying campaign aimed at gutting a proposed EU-wide …
Slavery, tax evasion, resistance: the story of 11 Africans in South America’s gold mines in the 1500s: The transatlantic slave trade was one of the most devastating and inhumane processes in human history. It is the subject of many studies, but the individual life histories of the arrival and survival of enslaved people in foreign …
A century ago, the women of Wales made an audacious appeal for world peace – this is their story: February 11 1924, on board the RMS Cedric: Saw Statue of Liberty glowing in the sunlight. Bitterly cold wind, bright sunshine. At lunch, a press man came to me and said: ‘Mrs Griffiths, I am from …
Why the New Yorker blocked UK website readers from its Lucy Letby story – an expert explains: olesea vetrila/Shutterstock A 13,000-word article in The New Yorker magazine about convicted murderer Lucy Letby is blocked to UK online readers. Conservative MP David Davis claimed preventing members of the UK public reading the essay seemed “in defiance …
South Africa’s first election was saved by a Kenyan: the fascinating story of Washington Okumu, the accidental mediator: What’s sometimes forgotten about the 26-29 April 1994 vote that installed the African National Congress (ANC) government in South Africa is that, until the last minute, it looked like violence would consume the voting process. An 11th-hour …
Rural schools in South Africa can produce good exam results too: study shows what’s behind one success story: A child walking to school in the rural village of Qunu in South Africa. Jennifer Bruce/AFP via Getty Images Each weekday, hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers in South Africa’s rural areas (which make up just …
This 18th-century shell collection, saved from a skip, tells a story of empire, explorers and women’s equality: In the 1980s, a shell collection that included specimens from Captain Cook’s final voyage was accidentally thrown into a skip and believed lost forever. But much to the joy of scientists, last week it was rediscovered safe and …
Insights 2023: from unheard voices and AI to the origin story of a very popular rabbit: An illustration by Beatrix Potter from The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-ND This year, the Insights series has covered a wide range of important topics but the themes of ‘unheard voices’, …
How to pitch story ideas to The Conversation: Let's be clear: what do you want to say? Why should I want to hear it? Pixelbliss/Shutterstock While much of The Conversation’s content comes from editors identifying stories to cover and finding relevant experts to write them, we also welcome pitches – ideas for stories as yet …
A Peruvian farmer is trying to hold energy giant RWE responsible for climate change – the inside story of his groundbreaking court case: On a crisp, sunny day high in the Peruvian Andes, two German judges gaze across a mountain lake to the towering white glaciers in the distance. Dark spots are visible on the …
Napoleon is a hilarious love story – what you should watch this week: This article was first published in our email newsletter Something Good, which every fortnight brings you a summary of the best things to watch, visit and read, as recommended and analysed by academic experts. Click here to receive the newsletter direct to your …
Napoleon: the film’s fashion tells a story of its own, from cropped hair to ribbon chokers: In his epic historical drama, Ridley Scott depicts Napoleon Bonaparte’s career not only through a military lens but a romantic one, suggesting that Napoleon’s global conquests were driven by a desire to conquer his wife Josephine’s heart. The film’s …
The Hesitant Fiancée: this painting is helping women to express their rage on TikTok – here’s the story behind it: You might have seen this painting making the rounds on TikTok. Maybe you’ve even made a video responding to it. A young woman in a Victorian wedding dress is staring down the viewer with disdain …
Turkana stone beads tell a story of herder life in a drying east Africa 5,000 years ago: On the shores of Lake Turkana in east Africa, about 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, pastoralists buried their dead in communal cemeteries that were marked by stone circles and pillars. The north-west Kenya “pillar sites” were built around …
Pumpkin waste: three ways to stop your leftover lantern becoming a Halloween horror story: Misuzu Henderson / shutterstock This Halloween, around 18,000 tonnes of pumpkins will go to waste in the UK alone. That’s because, of the 30 million purchased each year, about half go entirely uneaten. That’s £27 million worth of edible food. The …
Evolution revolution: how a Cape Town museum exhibit is rewriting the story of humankind: Picture your typical human evolution museum display. You walk into a dimly lit space with glass boxes on white plinths or roped off areas. There are lots and lots of bones. Maybe a bit of history on how those bones were …
Caine Prize 2023: Senegalese writers win for fantasy-horror story about dangers facing girls: markups/Getty Images, CC BY-SA The influential Caine Prize for African Writing for 2023 was won by a power couple from Senegal. Their short story A Soul of Small Places (which can be read over here) echoes deeper trends in the country’s literature …