ANSELM ELDERGILL draws attention to a legal case on Tuesday in which a human rights group is challenging the government’s decision to allow the sale of weapons used against Palestinians
Latest editorial
Heads in the clouds
Why do the Met Office care what you see out of your window? SCIENCE AND SOCIETY charts the history of amateur weather observations
The obfuscation of Nazism’s capitalist roots has seen imperialism redeploy fascism again and again — from the killing fields of Guatemala to the war in Ukraine, writes PAWEL WARGAN
From Workers’ Memorial Day to May Day rallies, TOM MORRISON examines the real challenges facing the labour movement as Reform UK’s glossy literature exploits legitimate grievances in traditional left strongholds
Calls have been made for the return to Venezuela of a two-year-old girl currently being held in the US, after being separated from her family by immigration officials, reports SUSAN GREY
In the first of two articles, DANIEL POWELL investigates the causal aspects of the Russo-Ukrainian war as Britain commemorates 80 years since VE Day
WHAT do you see out of your window? Many people have reported during lockdown that they are noticing nature and the weather more. Lockdown has undoubtedly led to cleaner air due to reduced pollution, and more wildlife due to fewer people outside, but it seems likely that many people simply have more of an opportunity to notice things. The weather is one of them: not for nothing did the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson call the sky “the daily bread of the eyes.”
Of course, some will have been keen observers of the weather pre-lockdown. One of the Science and Society team’s grandmothers has been keeping a weather diary every day for several decades, inspiring in her grandchildren an interest in the observation of nature.
Such practices date back a long way. The earliest known weather diary in Europe was made by William Merle, a 12th-century parish priest in Driby, Lincolnshire, who recorded the weather between 1337-1344. No previous document exists with comparable detail.
More from this author
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
