This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
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Forensic Architecture: using 3D modelling for the people
A group constructing an accurate model of violent events using 3D imaging based on multiple kinds of input can help us discover the truth of situations the powerful want to keep hidden, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
Forensic Architecture has used its groundbreaking methods to map incidents ranging from illegal forest burning by palm oil conglomerate Korindo to the origin of the Beirut Port explosion.
A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The FBU is demanding 52 weeks of full pay for women firefighters, highlighting the unique health risks they face — and the continuing need to recruit and retain more women if policies like this are still not in place, writes SEONA HART
Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world looks on, says RAMZY BAROUD
A new report by Amnesty International pulls no punches in highlighting the Labour government’s human rights violations of those on benefits, says Dr DYLAN MURPHY
With Reform UK surging and Labour determined not to offer anything different from the status quo, a clear opportunity opens for the left, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
A recent Immigration Summit heard from Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child. JAYDEE SEAFORTH reports on his message that we need to increase public empathy with desperate people seeking asylum
ALL models are wrong, but some are useful. This aphorism is generally attributed to a statistician in the 1970s, but its message is much older, and its truth is much more widely applicable than just to statistical models.
All representations of the world are “models,” that is, depictions of reality, or some aspect of it. They are “wrong” because they purposefully simplify reality — to make it comprehensible, or to extract a perspective through one particular lens.
When violence is inflicted on people by the powerful, they work very hard to control the story of what has happened. They offer an account of the world, a model, to describe what has happened on their terms.
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A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Science has always been mixed up with money and power, but as a decorative facade for megayachts, it risks leaving reality behind altogether, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
A small Japanese trial has reported some positive results for stem cell therapy to treat spinal-cord injuries
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
