Heatwaves are now everyday disasters – governments need to do more to protect people

Heatwaves are a growing global threat to human health, wellbeing and livelihoods. Across 12 major European cities during the summer of 2025, a ten-day period of extreme heat led to 2,300 deaths – 1,500 of them were attributed to climate change amplifying temperatures by 1-4°C. Heatwaves were responsible for nearly half a million global deaths […]

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Eurovision Song Contest: what the science of statistics reveals about an infamous voting scandal

Georgia's entry Circus Mircus during the controversial second semi-final of the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest. Michael Doherty/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA The Eurovision Song Contest was founded 70 years ago as a way for Europe, divided after war, to come together by celebrating its music. Every year, several dozen countries across the continent – and, more recently, […]

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In Sudan, a migrant community reveals a resistance to malaria: the genetic study helping shape medicine

Sudan lies at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East. It has played a key role in human demographic movements, reflected in the diversity of its cultures and languages. Although much of the country is arid, the Nile River has long acted as a corridor for trade, facilitating human migration through the region for […]

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Help EFF Solve an Issue That's Bigger than Creepy Ads

Millions of people around the world use EFF’s Privacy Badger. This browser extension blocks the hidden trackers that twist your web browsing into a commodity for Big Tech, advertisers, scammers, and data brokers. But did you know that we’re trying to solve an issue that’s even bigger than creepy ads and user profiling? You can help. JOIN […]

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Nasa bets big on nuclear engines to cut journey times to Mars

Illustration of a Mars mission that utilises nuclear propulsion. Nasa Nasa is developing ways to use nuclear power to send spacecraft to their destinations. Nuclear propulsion could greatly reduce the journey time to Mars, perhaps cutting a voyage of more than six months to three or four months. The idea of nuclear propulsion in space […]

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Agriculture in Africa: science and research can’t make an impact without investment and good policies

Agriculture is the lifeblood of Africa. More than 60% of African households depend directly or indirectly on the land for their livelihoods. And the continent has nearly 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Farming is a fragile sector, however. It has to deal with climate change, market volatility, weak infrastructure and demographic pressure. Addressing […]

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Broken Promises: RIP Instagram’s End-to-End Encrypted DMs

Last week, Instagram ended its opt-in, and therefore rarely used, end-to-end encryption feature. Years after publicly promising to provide the privacy protections of end-to-end encryption across its platforms by default, it instead gave up on that technical challenge. Now, we’ve all lost an option for safer conversations on one of the biggest social media platforms […]

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Victory! End-to-End Encrypted RCS Comes to Apple and Android Chats

This week, Apple released iOS 26.5, an update that supports end-to-end encryption for Rich Communication Services (RCS), meaning conversations between Android and iPhone will soon be encrypted in the default chat apps. This has been a long time coming, and is a welcome delivery on a promise both Google and Apple made. With this update, […]

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AI doesn’t create bias, it inherits it – how do we ensure fairness when it comes to automated decisions?

Hiring algorithms are one of the systems that could be affected by discrimination. PeopleImages If artificial intelligence (AI) systems shape decisions that affect people’s lives, they should do so fairly. This should be a given considering that potential applications for AI include automated hiring systems, as well as tools used in education, finance and criminal […]

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AI doesn’t create bias, it inherits it – how do we ensure fairness when it comes to automated decisions?

Hiring algorithms are one of the systems that could be affected by discrimination. PeopleImages If artificial intelligence (AI) systems shape decisions that affect people’s lives, they should do so fairly. This should be a given considering that potential applications for AI include automated hiring systems, as well as tools used in education, finance and criminal […]

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