The EU Referendum of 2016 was never a political football match. In spite of the tone that runs through the debate, there are no clear-cut winners or losers in this battle. If Britain ends up better off after Brexit, then everyone wins – Remainers and Leave supporters alike. But nobody wins if the UK ends up in […] … learn more→

Block subjects is a model of teaching students one subject at a time over two to four weeks, rather than several subjects at a time over ten to 13 weeks in a semester. For some, like Victoria University, the model is a stunning success. There are already tangible improvements in pass rates in the first year of implementation. What’s […] … learn more→

“Antonio Vivaldi did not write 600 concerti, but the same concerto 600 times.” This witticism, which has been ascribed – possibly apocryphally – to the 20th-century Italian composer Luigi Dallapicolla, could also be applied, with a few factual tweaks, to Vivaldi’s contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach not only reused his own material through the process […] … learn more→

The stars are beautiful to look at and even more beautiful to photograph. We take an in-depth look at how to do so with this complete guide to astrophotography. We humans have been looking at the sky in wonder since the dawn of time. And if you’ve seen these amazing astronomy photos, you may even […] … learn more→

Systematically practiced in the scientific world, communication is a central, complex exercise that responds to codes specific to the academic world, with specificities from one discipline to another. True “caudine forks” of research, symposia, conferences, congresses, national, European or international level require to transmit complex knowledge, sometimes the fruit of long years of research, in just […] … learn more→

After several months of tensions between the government and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungarian academics are once again up in arms, after the academy banned two conference presentations on what many are claiming to be purely political grounds. According to the Hungarian Free Press, one of the talks, which looked at the under-representation of women in the computer […] … learn more→

Are academics obliged to write letters of recommendation for students even if they abhor what the student in question is applying to do? That question is raised by the recent case of John Cheney-Lippold, a University of Michigan academic who refused to support a student’s application to a study abroad programme in Israel because of […] … learn more→

From my first day as a sociology professor at a university with a Division I football and men’s basketball team, education and athletics struck me as being inherently at odds. Student-athletes filled my courses to take advantage of the fact that the classes met early in the morning. The football and men’s basketball players – most of […] … learn more→

In our “criminal justice” system, being convicted of a sex crime is a permanent mark of shame. Lay hands on a girl one day shy of her 18th birthday, or equally molest an infant, and forever more you’re branded a “sexual predator,” and your neighbors are notified as such whenever you move. That label is […] … learn more→

You can often find me on the edge of things. For the most part it’s where I choose to be. When you do find me in the thick of it, it’s invariably when thinking and speaking collide fuelled by feeling and I really ought to remain silent. But my current state of in-betweenness feeds on […] … learn more→